The worldâs fair in New York City at the end of the depression decade was a big deal. Planning began in 1935. The fairgrounds covered 1,216.5 acres in what had been a garbage dump in Queens. By opening day, April 30, 1939, the moonscape that had been Flushing Meadows was transformed, in the perhaps pardonable hyperbole of the guidebook, into a âstupendous, gigantic, super-magnificentâŚgreatest show on earth.â Time magazine called it âthe biggest, costliest, most ambitious undertaking ever attempted in the history of international exhibitions.â
Over sixty nations had pavilions and exhibits clustered around the âCourt of Peaceâ on the fairgrounds. Every major country was represented save Germany. New Yorkâs mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia, had suggested in 1937 that a âChamber of Horrorsâ be dedicated to Nazi Germany. The Nazis did not see the humor in the idea of the man they labeled âa dirty Talmud Jew,â lodged a protest with the State Department, and refused to participate in the festivities.
Dozens of corporations saw the fair, with its theme of âBuilding the World of Tomorrow,â as an ideal venue for institutional advertising and image making. This fair was to be more than merely a âshowroom for the display of goodsâ; it was to be, according to historian Roland Marchand, a âWorld Stage upon which to dramatize the advantages of the American system of free enterprise.â
Foremost among the more than forty company exhibitors was the nationâs largest industrial corporation, General Motors. Still smarting from the disastrous sit-down strike in Flint in the winter of 1936â37, the result of which was the unionization of its plants and the creation of the United Automobile Workers, General Motors was anxious to turn the nationâs attention to its ambitions for the future. This it attempted to do through âFuturama,â a remarkable invitation to âshare our world.â It was the hit of the fair, with more attendees and rave reviews than any other exhibit. Other companies spending large amounts of money to educate the public about their greatness included Ford, Chrysler, AT&T, General Electric, and Westinghouse.
Also making their presence known at the fair were the International Business Machines Corporation and its indomitable leader, Thomas J. Watson Sr.
Watson was sixty-five years old when the fair opened, an age when many businessmen think about retirement. But Watson had the energy of a man in his thirties, and we can confidently assert that thoughts of retirement never entered his mind. For years he had been telling his troops, âThe IBM is not merely an organization of men; it is an institution that will go on forever.â He planned to accompany IBM on its journeyâif not forever, then at least for a good many more years. And he had every intention of using the fair to tell the world that he and IBMâthe two were inseparable in his mindâmattered.
On May 2, IBM held a huge meeting at the fair, with 2,200 employees in attendance. Watson told the listening throng that he wanted to keep the business session brief because the fairâs educational opportunities âare so much broader than anything we could hope to give you that we are going to give you as much time as possible to visit these things.â Nevertheless, there were eighteen speakers at the event.
May 2 was as nothing compared to Thursday, May 4âIBM Day at the worldâs fair. May 4 was a busy day for Watson, but not a uniquely busy day. Indeed, one of the remarkable aspects of his long life was the number of days such as this which he arranged (and which those around him endured). Things were kicked off as Watson opened the fair for the day. He was accompanied by a mounted escort from Perylon Hall on the fairgrounds to the IBM exhibit at the Business Systems Building, where a precursor of a form of E-mail was displayed:
Not only technology but art had a place in IBM Day. The company had commissioned the IBM Symphony by Vittorio Giannini, and the work was performed at this event and was broadcast. In a burst of understatement, Fortune magazine described the symphony as âsomewhat programmatic in nature.â The second movement contained a melodic reference to the most often sung of IBMâs many songs, âEver Onward.â
Painting as well as music was part of IBMâs artistic contribution to the fair. Watson was described in the New York Times as taking âa bold and potentially constructive stepâ by displaying works from seventy-nine countries in his Gallery of Science and Art in a large hall in the Business Systems Building at the fair. âFar-flungâ would be the best way to describe the countries represented. They included French Indochina, Libya, Luxembourg, and the USSR. âOur endeavor,â explained Watson,
Whatever that might mean.
This collection traveled from one country to another after the fair. âTo be sure,â sniffed the Times reporter, ârepresentation by one painter alone [from each country] is inclined to provoke a smile and must have caused prodigious head-scratching.â Nevertheless, the plan was pronounced to â[work] well enoughâŚupon the whole.â This project generated a good deal of publicity for Watson and for IBM.
Watson made speeches during IBM Day (âAs a businessman, I think of world peace as a sales problemââwhat intelligent response, one wonders, could be made to such an assertion?), received compliments, and unveiled a statue of Peter Stuyvesant, the last colonial Dutch governor of what was New Amsterdam and became New York, at the Dutch pavilion.
But the day was still young. The IBM contingent headed back to Manhattan for more festivities at the Waldorf-Astoria. Over two thousand guests saw Watson inducted into the Quarter Century Club (he had joined IBM in 1914). He was presented with the Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil by a representative of its government and with innumerable other gifts from IBMâs eleven thousand employees, among which was an oil portrait of himself. The evening concluded with a series of speeches, including one by Watson.
The worldâs fair ran from April 30 to October 31 in 1939 and again the following year from May 11 to October 27. The fairâs second year took place in a context far different from its first. War was looming in the summer of 1939. It was reality in 1940. Some of the nations represented in the first year were gone by the second. The staff of the Polish pavilion did not go home after the fair closed in 1939. âHome was no longer on the map. They opened a Polish restaurant on Fifty-seventh StreetâŚ. Hitler destroyed Czechoslovakia even before its pavilion was complete.â The fairâs official theme was changed from âBuilding the World of Tomorrowâ to âFor Peace and Freedom.â
Even though the war clouds of 1939 were generating torrential rain by 1940, the fair was still a splendid stage to tell the world about the glories of the International Business Machines Corporation and its peerless, fearless leader. But how was Watson to top the previous yearâs performance? That is the kind of question that never seemed to bother him.
For starters, this year IBM Day would be on the fairâs opening day. And Watson would not be lonely in Flushing Meadows. He decided to bring ten thousand guests to New York, including all of the companyâs factory employees and sales and field-service men plus their wives, and put them up in Manhattan hotels for three days. He took out advertisements in the New York papers announcing âTHEY ARE ALL COMING.â âNobody,â observed Watsonâs eldest son, âhad seen anything like it since the troop movements of World War I.â Ten chartered trains would come from the factory and offices at Endicott, New York, in the âValley of Opportunityâ just north of the Pennsylvania border; one each would arrive from Rochester and from Washington, D.C.; and there would be âadditional chartered Pullmans from all over.â The cost for this extravaganza was $1 million, more than 10 percent of profits that year.
Everything was set. All the arrangements had been made. And then something went seriously wrong. The headline in the New York Times was:
250 HURT IN CRASH OF TRAINS, JAMMED FOR OUTING AT FAIR
Two Specials Carrying I.B.M. Staff Collide at Port JervisâExcessive Speed Blamed
35 Remain in Hospitals
The trains involved were two of the ten specially chartered from the Erie Railroad to transport employees from the factories and administrative offices at Endicott. When one of these stopped at Port Jervis, another, which had been traveling too fast, ran into it. Said one passenger, âIt felt likeâyou know how they do when they start off. You got a jolt like when they start a freight train. A suitcase fell on my head.â Said another, âIt felt as if we got an awfully hard bump. There was splitting and cracking and glass breaking. People were sitting on the floor. I donât know how I ever got out of my seat.â She wound up sitting on the tracks waiting for first aid.
Word of the accident reached Watson in Manhattan at two oâclock on the morning of May 13. He hopped in a car with his oldest daughter, Jane, and headed for Port Jervis, about sixty-five miles northwest of New York City. Watson and Jane personally visited the injured in the hospitals. He mobilized IBMâs executives in the city. He arranged for more doctors and nurses to be dispatched to Port Jervis. He hustled up another train to take those able to travel the rest of the way to Manhattan. A fully staffed hospital was set up at one of the hotels at which the IBM contingent was staying. Watson got back to New York City and immediately ordered flowers for all of the families who had been involved in the accident. His executives woke florists up to be sure that these bouquets were delivered to the hotel rooms before breakfast.
This sixty-six-year-old man then betook himself to the fair, where he delivered a speech alongside Mayor La Guardia and other personages. Lily Pons and Lawrence Tibbett of the Metropolitan Opera sang accessible opera as well as more modern pieces to âthrillâ a crowd of twenty thousand. IBM Day was declared by one and all to be a success.
What did it all mean?
Compared to some of the other companies which chose the fair as a platform, IBM was tiny. Sales of General Motors in 1940 were $1.8 billion, profits $196 million, and assets $1.5 billion. The corresponding numbers for IBM were $46 million, $9.4 million, and $83 million. AT&Tâs assets were sixty-six times IBMâs. Peter Drucker, at the time a correspondent for some British newspapers, suggested a story on IBM because of the size of its pavilion. He âthought a story on so small a frog behaving like a big shot might be amusing. âForget it,â my editor wrote back. âWe are not interested in a story on an unsuccessful company which as far as anyone can tell is never going to amount to much.ââ
The editor was wrong, and the numbers did not matter. What mattered was the future. What mattered was the incident at Port Jervis. âNobody ever forgot the way my father handled the Port Jervis wreck,â recalled his eldest son. It was yet more proof of Watsonâs bulletproof leadership. What would have been a disaster for ninety-nine CEOs out of a hundred, he turned to advantage.
Doubtless âEver Onwardâ was rendered with even greater gusto after Port Jervis:
Or, as the âIBM School Songâ put it: