The Great Fair of 1876, or the Centennial International Exhibition, was a celebration of 100 years of American achievement. Nearly 10 million visitors traveled to Philadelphia to view intricate exhibits related to agriculture, art, machinery, mining and metallurgy, and more. America’s past, present, and future were all celebrated and on display for the entire world to see.“The Centennial Exhibition …was the most ambitious public event in the nation’s history up to then,” historian Fergus M. Bordewich writes in Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future. “It marked the country’s first century with an epic celebration of its past and the promise of its future.” There were many fascinating inventions and exhibits at the centennial, including locomotives, works of art, horticulture, the Corliss Engine that was surely “the most powerful piece of machinery in the world,” and several inventions by Thomas Edison, including the “electric pen” and “quadruplex telegraph.” Curious visitors could also pay 50 cents to climb a massive arm holding a torch. It would later become a defining piece of what we now know as the Statue of Liberty, designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.