The Hall of Presidents at the 1964 World’s Fair displayed artifacts associated with American presidents, including George Washington’s sword, Abraham Lincoln’s stovepipe hat and Franklin Roosevelt’s radio microphone. The exhibition presented a celebratory history of American leadership and progress, while objects associated with presidents including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson also carried histories of slavery, Native American removal and segregation. The exhibition disappeared with the closing of the fair and the abandonment of the Federal Pavilion.

I first knew the World’s Fair as a child, when its version of American history and progress seemed almost magical. Returning to the abandoned fairgrounds in 1975, I photographed what was left behind. Years later, researching the Hall of Presidents made me look again at the history I had been taught and at the parts of the American story the exhibition left out.