urces of our possessions,
and, on the other hand, affording opportunity to those people to
become acquainted with this great country."

At the meeting of the board on March 2, 1904, after the board of
lady managers had obtained the appropriation from Congress that
placed it within its power to meet the requirements of its
position, President Francis was asked what he thought would be
the pleasure of the executive committee that the board do with
the funds so obtained, as no expression had been received from
the company as to what special duty it was anxious, or would
like, to have the board perform, to which President Francis
replied, that he "had not given the matter thought, but that the
board would want to do some entertaining; that the ladies were
well adapted to that; they were experienced in that sort of
thing and knew how to go about it. That he did not see much they
could do with the money aside from entertaining."

And thus the board of lady managers authoritatively took its
place in the great exposition, in the complex mechanism of which
it was but a single factor, and assumed the responsibility of
doing its share of the entertaining on behalf of women at the
exposition.

What form of government is there at the present time that is not
dependent upon the household of the executive and the homes of
the officials for the social success of an administration? An
exposition on the enormous scale of that which existed in St.
Louis partook in its management for the time being of the nature
of a government; an executive and official household was an
essential and important factor because the representatives of
all nations were to be entertained. As in this World's Fair, the
highest recognition was given to women, it was but reasonable
that women should be appointed to take the place set apart for
them, and to perform such duties as would be assigned to them in
any well-regulated government, and upon the broadest scale,
their province being that of national hostesses, their privilege
to extend a generous and far-reaching hospitality to all
official dignitaries from home and abroad who visited the
exposition.

Among the social events occurring at the building of the board
of lady managers, the following is a list of the more prominent
ones held during the expos