The history of the New York State Fair, summarized, and also told by memories of the people who love the Fair. With photos and illustrations, too.

A pictorial and written history of one of the country's best agricultural fairs, the Iowa State Fair. Started in 1854, the Iowa State Fair continues to showcase Iowa agriculture and draw crowds from across the country. This book shows the old and new, competitions of yesterday and today, exhibits, entertainment and the buildings of the Iowa State Fair. To order a book, please call 1-800-750-6997 (in Iowa) or 1-800-453-3960 (Outside Iowa) and ask for McMillen Publishing. To fax an order, dial 1-515-232-8820, To mail order, send to: McMillen Publishing, 413 Northwestern, Ames, IA, 50010, to order online: [email protected]. or [email protected].

Who doesn't love the bustle and jangle, the smells, the sounds, the energy, and the tastes of a lively state fair? In this fast-changing world, keeping any endeavor alive and thriving for 150 years is an accomplishment, but the South Carolina State Fair has met any challenges with doggedness, determination, and flair. In the early 1700s South Carolinians were gathering to exchange information about crops and livestock, and small rural fairs were held, enhanced by horse racing, raffles, and other diversions to draw in the populace. The State Agricultural Society of South Carolina was founded in 1839 and held its first annual fair and stock show in November of the following year. In 1869 the State Agricultural and Mechanical Society of South Carolina was founded to revive the fair and has presented a fair in every year except 1918. The South Carolina State Fair has a long and storied history from those early days to its current "meet me at the rocket" days. Those initial fair goers would have been astonished to see the rocket, a Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile, greeting them as they arrived on the grounds. The long story of the fair is inextricably bound to the history of South Carolina, of course, and indeed the history of the United States. Stroup ably weaves many strands together through archival records, newspaper reports, anecdotes (have you heard about the "Schara-mouche-Dance by a person from London?") and vintage artifacts, illustrations, paintings, and photographs from the fair's inception to the present. The fair has been an admixture of serious agricultural and animal husbandry and pure entertainment—the scandalous as well as the wholesome, and Stroup investigates them all, from the "Colored State Fair" to the infamous "girlie shows" to the prizes won for livestock—and touches on characters as diverse as Preston Brooks and Seabiscuit. As lively and entertaining as a state fair itself, Meet Me at the Rocket is as thorough a history of an important state institution as can be found. Buy a cotton candy, visit the exhibits, ride the merry-go-round, and enjoy this singular exploration of South Carolina's agriculture and industry, its science and art and history. A foreword is provided by Walter Edgar, the Neuffer Professor of Southern Studies Emeritus and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina. He is the author of South Carolina: A History, editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia, and host of the radio program Walter Edgar's Journal.

State Fairs, an annual American ritual, are a willingly accepted assault on the senses - visual, acoustic, gastric (fried beer the latest delicacy) and a voluntary yielding of personal space to strangers. Chadbourne believes they are one of America's most demographically diverse and democratic institutions and a stage upon which human idiosyncrasies play out against a background of contextual complexity and human diversity. This book brings back amazing images in Chadbourne's signature, close up style. He brings to life the crash and chaos of a fair at full frenzy.