One of the main highlights of the St. Louis World’s Fair was the so-called Philippine Exposition. Pictured on one side of the burnt orange brochure is a Filipino soldier in uniform, next to the Philippine coat of arms during the American period. It consists of an eagle as the crest and a shield bearing the castle of Spain on top and a sea lion beneath it, surmounted on a background of alternating red-and-white stripes representing the original 13 colonies of the US. The other side of the event brochure depicts a man from the northern Philippines wearing a feathered headpiece called dalisdis. The brochure advertises that attendees can see “40 different tribes, 6 Philippine villages, 70,000 exhibits, 130 buildings, 725 native soldiers.” Various people from the Philippines were flown in for the exposition; together with native peoples from other parts of Asia and America, they formed “the largest human zoo in world history”.
