A reflection of American life and its diverse people and interests, state fairs featuring exhibits, rides, shows, and food have been popular since the mid-nineteenth century and became an American tradition in the twentieth. The pride, nostalgia, and entertainment that make up a state fair experience have transcended political, social, and economic changes that America has faced during the twentieth century. By the 1990s state fairs have come to represent a nostalgic, "old-fashioned" form of family entertainment that emphasizes state and national pride, agricultural roots, and good times.

Fairs have existed for centuries and can even be dated back to ancient Mesopotamia in 3000 B.C. Modern American fairs grew out of an 1807 idea by Elkanah Watson, a banker and farmer in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He decided that the best way to convince other farmers to raise sheep was to show them his own animals. The townspeople were...