Overview

In 1959, George Nelson designed an incredible trade fair to be sent to Russia, a kind of yard sale of things American. Everything from automatic vacuum cleaners and refrigerators, to Polaroid cameras and newly pioneered videotape, as well as books not available under Stalinist rule were represented as the fruits of the capitalist American consumer market. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev held the famous “Kitchen Debates” in a kitchen at the fair.  With dancers and music from Oklahoma, films by Charles Eames and a huge dome by Buckminster Fuller, the Russians got their first glimpse of what was happening on the other side of the Curtain.