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Title: Roubaix
Description: The city of Roubaix, in northeastern France, was no stranger to technology. As early as 1469, when Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, had granted Pierre de Roubaix, lord of Roubaix, the right to manufacture textiles, Roubaix welcomed the growth and eventual industrialization of its textile industry. |
By April 1911, when the city hosted the international exhibition advertised in the poster, Roubaix was a center of technical training and production for France’s textile industry. Among many attractions which were displayed on 34 hectares, the textile plants—seen at the top of the parkland in the poster—were open to the public as well as exhibitions to explain textile production from collecting raw materials to processing them. Simulated colonial villages and carnival rides attracted visitors from all over the world. Roubaix city fathers commissioned famous Parisian architect Victor Laloux—who designed Paris’s Gare d’Orsay, a railroad station and hotel that opened in 1900—to build a new town hall to celebrate Roubaix’s industrial prowess in the year of the exposition. At the time of the exposition, Roubaix was described as “the most important textile center in France,” especially for wool. The factories of manufacturers such as Roubaix’s Motte-Bossut et Fils—which produced both cotton and wool—lining the northern edge of the exposition’s parkland, impressed visitors. In addition to local producers, major wool-producing countries such as Argentina and especially Australia presenting significant exhibits. Those countries built temporary “palaces,” seen in the parkland illustrated in the poster, to illustrate their wares. Although not an air show per se, Roubaix certainly figured in aviation events of 1911. The European Circuit race (994 miles), with newspaper sponsorship and a first prize of 200,000 francs was won by Frenchman André Beaumont, who flew his monoplane from Paris to Belgium, then the Netherlands, then England, before landing again in Paris. Roubaix was a stop along the race (the entire route being marked by 36’ “great white arrows” on the ground), and Beaumont won with a time of 58 hours and 38 minutes. As evidence of the popularity of aerial racing at this time, some 700,000 people turned out to see the race’s beginning on June 18 in Paris. The city of Roubaix even built an aerodrome just for the occasion of the race, as well as voted to add to the total cash prize, which could only serve to draw additional publicity to the exposition and the modern technology on display. Such an exhibition was a perfect showcase for aviation’s early racers, with crowds attending to view the latest in textile technology, great attention could be had for the exciting new technology of the skies. To the splendid exhibition grounds would be added the thrill of the new breed, the aviators, pushing themselves to the limits of their stamina and craft for prizes and fame. The woman observer seems taken with the plane overhead, her gaze riveted to it, ignoring the panoply below. The intense midnight blue sky contrasts strikingly with the lit grounds, the intense orange font proclaiming the event to the viewer, inviting us to attend and be astounded by the progress of modern man. |
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