Make Believe America

One of the goals of U.S. cultural diplomacy during the Cold War (1947-1991) was to win hearts and minds overseas in hopes of reducing the influence of communist ideology, and one of the most important strategies for achieving this goal was through U.S. participation in worldwide cultural exhibitions. Each exhibition offered an opportunity for U.S. government agencies to collaborate with private organizations to tell America’s story through events informed by narratives about national identity, globalization, technology, and consumerism.

An exhibition about these exhibitions, Make Believe America focused on American participation in selected cultural exhibitions held in Afghanistan, India, France, Russia, Belgium, Canada, and Japan between 1955 and 1975. Make Believe America demonstrated to viewers how American self-representation at cultural exhibitions evolved from an official system of exhibiting American commercial wares and political ideas at trade fairs to official exchanges with the U.S.S.R., then to World’s Fair Pavilions, and finally to museum exhibitions that signaled a return to the display of founding American values.

Within this cultural and historical framework, Make Believe America also examined the crucial role played by designers in giving form and substance to political and cultural ideas prioritized by U.S. policymakers and in communicating America’s story to audiences in foreign countries when the international cultural landscape was the main battleground between the Cold War superpowers.

Make-Believe America was an original exhibition curated by Andrew J. Wulf, Ph.D., Executive Director of the New Mexico History Museum and the Palace of the Governors. Artifacts, photographs, and film footage for this exhibition are on loan from curator Andrew Wulf and from Jack Masey and Beverly Payeff-Masey of New York.