For entrepreneurs, engineers and academics, the economic rise of the USA had been an incontrovertible fact since the last quarter of the 19th century when, for example, the world exhibitions in Philadelphia (1876), Chicago (1893) and above all Paris (1900) had provided Europeans with an impression of the rapid technological development beyond the Atlantic.
Paris Exposition: United States Pavilion, colour photograph, 1900, unknown photographer; source: Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection, Creative Commons License USA.