A Brief History of the Philippine Village

The Philippine Village at the 1904 World’s Fair spanned over 40 acres in the present-day Wydown-Skinker and Demun neighborhoods adjacent to Forest Park. It was one of the largest and most controversial exhibits at the fair. The exhibit was largely designed as propaganda to gain American support for the colonization of the Philippines, which had become a US territory in 1898 following the Spanish-American War. By portraying native customs as primitive or backwards, the US government and fair organizers sought to demonstrate that the Philippine people were unfit for self-rule. Meanwhile, those who lived in the Philippine Village for eight months did their best to make the most of their situation and bring money home. They lived their lives—fell in love, got married, gave birth, and died—on display for the American public.

Nipa huts in the Igorot Village. Missouri Historical Society collections.

Over 1,200 individuals from different ethnic groups and tribes in the Philippines went on the long voyage to St. Louis. 300 of those individuals represented Igorots (Bontoc, Kankanaey, and Tingguian), Moros (Meranao and Samal), Bagobos, Aetas, Mangyans, Visayans, and Tagalogs, who performed daily routines for fairgoers. 700 were soldiers who were enlisted with Philippine branches of the US Army, the Philippine Scouts and Constabulary. There were also 100 Filipino carpenters who built the exhibits from 1903-1904 and a delegation of pensionados (scholarship students) who visited for one month. 17 people died during the fair, mainly from pneumonia, as well as malnutrition and suicide. Several babies were also born.

Bihinang and Sayas, an Aeta couple and the parents of Louisa Francis Bihinang, who was born and died at the fair. Louisa is still buried in St. Louis. St. Louis Public Library collections.

Shown alongside the six anthropological villages were tens of thousands of Philippine products advertised to American investors, including lumber, plants, animals, and precious metals. They also included native items including cloth, baskets, and weaponry. After the fair, many of these items were sold or given to museum collections across the United States.

Blouse from Bukidnon, Mindanao shown in the 1904 World’s Fair exhibits. Penn Museum collections.

After the exhibits were dismantled and the performers returned home, the former site of the Philippine Village and its remnants were abandoned. Construction of residences began in the 1920s, and many of the homes and buildings that occupy the neighborhood today date back to that era. The American landscape architect John Noyes designed the present-day Wydown Terrace neighborhood and preserved part of Arrowhead Lake as a park. Many of the local institutions in the Zoo-Museum District we know today like Missouri History Museum were built from the profits of exploited labor.

The 1904 World’s Fair grounds after its demolition. Missouri Historical Society collections.

On the centennial anniversary of the 1904 World’s Fair in 2004, the IGO (Igorot Global Organization) returned to St. Louis to recognize their ancestors who participated in the fair. They gave a presentation at Wydown Middle School, whose mascot was once called the Igorrote and has since been changed.

Pages from the Wydown Middle School yearbook, 1938. City of Clayton Archives. Photos by Lizz Gunn.

In 2021, I established the Philippine Village Historical Site on the death anniversary of Maura, a young Igorot woman who died from pneumonia prior to the opening of the fair. Her corpse was displayed as an attraction for the duration of the fair, and her brain was stolen and later incinerated by the Smithsonian. My efforts to find her gravesite and pay respects to her led me to find the 16 others that had died, as well as the names of 1,204 individuals who participated in the fair. Many of those people are still buried in St. Louis. My role as the caretaker of the historical site is to honor their memories and to make sure they are never forgotten.

Janna Añonuevo Langholz