1887 London Exhibition Leather Season Ticket

Leather bi-fold complimentary season ticket issued to J.R.Grundy. The Exhibition was a World's Fair held in West Brompton, London, in 1887 in the year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Support for an exhibition had been sought in 1886, but with a loss of support and the British Government insisting that an American Exhibition not compete with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, the American Exhibition was deferred to 1887. The American aim of participating was to display the latest agricultural, mechanical and textile products and inventions from the United States, however the main attraction was the Wild West show featuring Buffalo bill Cody. Cody invited the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, to a private preview of the Wild West performance on May 5, and the Prince of Wales was impressed enough to arrange a command performance for Queen Victoria on May 11. The Queen enjoyed the show and recorded in her journal meeting Cody, Annie Oakley, Lillian Smith, Chief Red Shirt, and a number of indigenous American women and children. Black Elk recalled Queen Victoria speaking respectfully to the indigenous performers and their families later in his Black Elk Speaks, but Victoria describes them in their roles in 'The Drama of Civilization' as 'rather alarming looking, [with] cruel faces.'