Plate (New York World's Fair)

This plate is a souvenir from the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair. Unlike the Seminole doll and Vili tusk, which members of those communities made, a New Yorker did not make this plate. Designed by Charles Murphy, the mass-produced plate features his Art Deco-style painting of the fairgrounds. At the center is his depiction of the futuristic Trylon and Perisphere structures; fair pavilions ring the perimeter. Just as the ivory tusk reflects a transitional period in Vili culture, Murphy’s plate represents America’s focus on the future late in the Great Depression. Plates such as this were meant to be displayed in cabinets or on walls.