Eiffel's Tower for Young People

Eiffel's Tower for Young People is a vivid, lively pageant of people and cultures meeting—and competing—on the world stage at the dawn of the modern era.

The 1889 World's Fair was a worldwide event showcasing the cutting-edge cultural and technological accomplishments of the world's most powerful nations on the verge of a new century. France, with its long history of sophistication and cultivation and a new republican government, presented the Eiffel Tower, the world's tallest structure, crafted from eighteen thousand pieces of wrought iron and 2.5 million rivets, as a symbol of national pride and engineering superiority. The United States, with its brash, can-do spirit, full of pride in its frontier and its ingenuity, presented the rollicking Wild West show of Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley, and the marvelous new phonograph of Thomas Edison.

With historical photos throughout, outsized personalities, squabbling artists, and a sprinkling of royalty, this dramatic history opens a window to a piece of the past that, in its passions and politics, is an unforgettable portrait of a unique moment in history.

JILL JONNES, who holds a Ph.D. in American history from Johns Hopkins University, is the author of Eiffel's Tower, Conquering Gotham, Empires of Light, and South Bronx Rising. Founder of the nonprofit Baltimore Tree Trust, she is leading the Baltimore City Forestry Board's new initiative, Baltimore's Flowering Tree Trails. As a staff member of the 2010 Presidential National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, she wrote the first chapter of the report Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling. In the fall of 2011, she was a scholar studying Trees as Green Infrastructure at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Jonnes was also named a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar and has received several grants from the Ford Foundation.

REBECCA STEFOFF has devoted her career to writing nonfiction books for young readers. Her publications include histories, literary biographies, an encyclopedia of maps, and numerous books on science and environmental issues. She has also adapted a number of landmark works in history and science, including Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, and Charles C. Mann's bestselling 1493.

List of Characters
Chapter 1: Showdown in Paris
Chapter 2: Eiffel Under Attack
Chapter 3: Troubles on the Tower
Chapter 4: Going Up!
Chapter 5: A Grand Opening
Chapter 6: Two Triumphs
Chapter 7: Americans Meet the World
Chapter 8: Art Wars
Chapter 9: The Fourth of July
Chapter 10: Monarchs of the World
Chapter 11: Edison’s Adventure
Chapter 12: Last Days
Chapter 13: After the Fair
Image Credits
Index