Look Who's Talking

Do you like the Talking Heads? Are you a big fan of David Byrne and “Stop Making Sense”? If so, you can thank World Expos.

The founding members of the art-rock group — Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth — met as freshmen at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). But the school never would have existed without the 1876 Centennial Exposition.

Back in that year, Helen Metcalf chaired a committee of 35 women who had raised money for Rhode Island’s exhibit at the Expo in Philadelphia. While they were at the fair, Metcalf and the committee visited the Women’s Pavilion, which showcased the work of female entrepreneurs, artists, and designers, including almost 80 inventions — e.g., a dishwasher, a self-heating iron, a stove — meant to reduce the seemingly inescapable drudgery of women’s lives.

The pavilion (which had been spearheaded by Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, the great-granddaughter of Ben Franklin) made an indelible impression on Metcalf. When the committee realized they had $1,675 left over, they debated the best way to allocate the surplus. Metcalf — thinking further ahead in the future than the others — pushed the group to use the money to found a coeducational design school that would be based in Providence, Rhode Island.

In January 1877, a majority of women who served on the committee voted in favor of Metcalf's proposal, establishing the school and creating the conditions that, many decades later, would result in “Burning Down the House.”