A Nation of Folk

Miss Liberty Reaches Out to Welcome the Persecuted by Reverend Benjamin Franklin Perkins (1904–1993), Bankston, Alabama, March 17, 1990. Oil on canvas, 31 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. American Folk Art Museum, New York, Gift of Audrey B. Heckler.When the 1876 Centennial Exposition was built on the fairgrounds of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, what emerged from this first official world’s fair in the United States were new ideas in culture and innovation. Among the concepts and products we