Eiffel's Tower: The Thrilling Story Behind Paris's Beloved Monument and the Extraordinary World's Fair That Introduced It

by Jill Jonnes

Overview

The story of the world-famous monument and the extraordinary world’s fair that introduced it, by the author of Conquering Gotham and Urban Forests

In this first general history of the Eiffel Tower in English, Jill Jonnes-acclaimed author of Conquering Gotham-offers an eye- opening look not only at the construction of one of the modern world's most iconic structures, but also the epochal event that surrounded its arrival as a wonder of the world. In this marvelously entertaining portrait of Belle Époque France, fear and loathing over Eiffel's brash design share the spotlight with the celebrities that made the 1889 Exposition Universelle an event to remember-including Buffalo Bill and his sharpshooter Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, and artists Whistler, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Eiffel's Tower is a richly textured portrait of an era at the dawn of modernity, reveling in the limitless promise of the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143117292
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/27/2010
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	535,672
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jill Jonnes is the author of Eiffel's Tower, Urban Forests, Conquering Gotham, Empires of Light, and South Bronx Rising. She was named a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar and has received several grants from the Ford Foundation. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 We Meet Our Characters, Who Intend to Dazzle the World at the Paris Exposition 1

Chapter 2 Gustave Eiffel and "the Odious Column of Bolted Metal" 15

Chapter 3 Troubles on the Tower 41

Chapter 4 "The First Elevator of Its Kind" 65

Chapter 5 In Which the Artists Quarrel and the Tower Opens 85

Chapter 6 Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley Triumphant 121

Chapter 7 Gustave Eiffel Holds Court amid the Art Wars 151

Chapter 8 The Monarchs of the World Ascend the Republican Tower 183

Chapter 9 In Which Thomas Edison Hails the Eiffel Tower and Becomes an Italian Count 205

Chapter 10 Rosa Bonheur Meets Buffalo Bill 243

Chapter 11 Afterword 271

Acknowledgments 313

Notes 317

Index 341

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Eiffel’s Tower

“Ms. Jonnes does a fine job of walking us through the fair, where visitors were immersed in a typical late-nineteenth-century stew of high-minded educational exhibits and cheap thrills.”
—Richard B. Woodward, The New York Times

“In splendid detail, Jonnes examines the importance of the tower in its own historical moment.”
—Caroline Weber, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

“This panorama of life near the end of the nineteenth century is vivid, detailed and engrossing. . . . A well-researched read that will transport them back to a time as complex and crazy as our own.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Exploiting the almost magnetic attraction of the great tower, Jonnes cleverly pulls into her narrative a wide range of characters, from ‘Little Sure Shot’ Annie Oakley to ‘art warrior’ Paul Gauguin. . . . She does [a] . . . fine job of demonstrating what M. Eiffel insisted all along: that his tower was much more than just an ‘object of barren wonder.’”
—Robert Cremins, Houston Chronicle

“Jonnes’ rollicking account of the Eiffel Tower’s rowdy debut is an occasion for celebration itself. . . . With flair and marvelously descriptive, ‘you-are-there’ prose, Jonnes gives Eiffel’s Tower the immediacy that only a talented writer can bestow on history. Adding to the book's impact are the numerous photos of the tower, the fair and the people who came to see them. . . . Jonnes weaves these crazy fragments into a beautiful quilt. . . . As elegant and eccentric as its subject, Eiffel’s Tower sparkles with the power of conviction and the passion of creation.”
—Jay Strafford, Richmond Times-Dispatch

“A colorful cast of characters descended on Paris for the 1889 World’s Fair, and Jonnes (Conquering Gotham) offers an atmospheric overview of the celebrities who made Belle Epoque Paris their stage during the memorable event.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Jonnes’ book is more than just a recap of perhaps the most interesting international exposition ever staged. With the gift of hindsight, Jonnes illuminates the roots of Belle Epoque Paris and Belle Epoque Europe, a period of peace and progress marked by technological progress and cultural advances that lasted from the 1880s to the 1914 start of World War I. . . . Big dreams and world’s fairs benefit mankind and make history, and Jonnes’ book proves.”
—David Hendricks, San Antonio Express-News

“This entertaining new work chronicles the tower’s storied beginnings. . . . This carefully researched book, which combines technological and social history (and offers a lively account of the World’s Fair), paints a compelling portrait of Belle Epoque France.”
—France Magazine

“In Eiffel’s Tower, Jill Jonnes (Empires of Light, Conquering Gotham) presents an engaging story of a great engineer, one with an ‘attractive boldness, impetuosity, and natural courage.’”
—James, Summerville, BookPage

“In Eiffel’s Tower, historian Jill Jonnes helps us travel back in time to the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris . . . and tells the story of Gustave Eiffel’s Tour en Fer de Trois Cents Mètres. Jonnes immerses us so thoroughly in the Exposition that when we get to her description of the Fair’s final day, we’re almost sad to leave.”
—Book-of-the-Month Club

“This is a thoroughly delightful book, built around Gustave Eiffel’s Tour en Fer (iron tower), but really describing in rich detail Paris and its Exposition Universelle in 1889, coincidentally the centennial of the French Revolution. Author Jill Jonnes re-creates deliciously the Belle Epoque.”
—Jules Wagman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

From the Publisher

A colorful cast of characters descended on Paris for the 1889 World's Fair, and Jonnes (Conquering Gotham) offers an atmospheric overview of the celebrities who made belle époque Paris their stage during the memorable event. Annie Oakley amazed crowds with her precisely executed shots. Thomas Edison, a master at promoting both himself and modern technology, chafed at the leisurely French way of life, delighted the masses with his phonograph and chatted with Louis Pasteur at his institute. Paul Gauguin was enthralled by a troupe of Javanese temple dancers and miffed that the Americans only intended to exhibit 17 of his 27 etchings, while James McNeill Whistler, who delighted in provocations and feuds, decamped to the British, who displayed even fewer of his works. The fair's undisputed main attraction both at the fair and in Jonnes's account, was the controversial wrought-iron tower of unprecedented height that, Jonnes says, appeals for both its technological genius and its "aerial playfulness and charm." It perfectly embodies "the triumph of the modern" that Jonnes so well captures in her sprightly account. Photos. (May 4)

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Publishers Weekly

With the 1889 World's Fair fast approaching, the French wanted a grand monument built to represent the greatness of their republic. The fair's commissioner chose Gustave Eiffel's design for a 1000' tower, but opposition and monetary considerations threatened to prevent the tower's completion in time for the opening day. In addition to a detailed account of the building of the tower, Jonnes (Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels) provides mini-biographies of several notable people of the time, including Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, and Vincent van Gogh, while vividly detailing the visits of renowned personages to the fairgrounds, dissatisfaction among the exhibiting artists, the attractions and people involved in the 228-acre fair, and sites in other parts of Paris. Much of the book takes readers away from the World's Fair and thus the main focus, but these diversions help clarify the historical context. Recommended for students and informed lay readers.
—Donna Shuman

Library Journal

Popular historian Jonnes (Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and Its Tunnels, 2007, etc.) explores the 1889 Paris World's Fair and its participants. Her central focus is the remarkable story of the Eiffel Tower, designed by engineer Gustave Eiffel. Made of iron and looming nearly 1,000 feet above the Champ de Mars, the tower was the tallest man-made structure of its time. Eiffel faced many challenges during its construction, including harsh public criticism of the tower's "soulless vulgarity," a strike by embittered workers and intense disputes with the Otis Company over delays and cost overruns involving the American-made elevators. The author's thorough yet pleasantly readable account contains a particularly thrilling description of one journalist's exhilarating early ascent with the tower's creator. Surrounding this story is a large cast of notable characters who were involved with the fair to varying degrees, including Buffalo Bill Cody, Paul Gauguin, William Bennett, Vincent Van Gogh, James Whistler, Annie Oakley and Thomas Edison. The interactions among them make for some of the most memorable passages, from Gauguin's attendance at Buffalo Bill's Wild West spectacle to the mutual admiration between Edison and Eiffel. The inclusions of Van Gogh and Whistler, while intriguing, are somewhat puzzling as their involvement in the fair was peripheral. Jonnes unearthed many firsthand accounts of these luminaries, and her portraits attach vivid human traits to figures often known mostly from textbooks. The author balances these interactions among individuals with consideration of the connections between the fair's principal participants, France and the United States. The allied nationswere embroiled in a tumultuous love affair, each enamored with the other's culture but wishing to prove its dominance. The Americans, including Edison, boasted that they would build an even higher structure for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It never happened, and the Eiffel Tower remained the world's tallest edifice for the next 40 years. Enjoyable history of one of the world's greatest monuments and some significant surrounding figures.

Kirkus Reviews