Hi all-

It's a stunning image, no? It's a photo of the Pan-American Exposition, which was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York in 1901. The tower on the left side of the photo is the Electric Tower, which was the focal point of the Exposition, which highlighted electricity--a new technology at the time. Many of the buildings were covered with electric lights lit up and made possible by hydroelectric power from nearby Niagara Falls.

The Smithsonian and the United States National Museum presented exhibitions in 7,500 square feet of space, and spent much of 1900 preparing for the exhibit.

Also, as my colleague Dan Chase just pointed out to me, the image is actually a cyanotype (click on the image or http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_sic_9765) to see the full image record. You can read more about the cyanotype process here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotype. I'm assuming our image here looks B&W (instead of the typical blue of cyanotypes) because the scan was B&W, but I'd have to check with our archivists.