[1] The event is best remembered for the "Atlanta Compromise" speech given by Booker T. Washington on September 18, promoting racial cooperation.

[10][1] Walter McElreath described the fair in his memoirs: The railroad yards were jammed every morning with trains that brought enormous crowds.

I spent a great deal of time on the streets looking at the strange crowds — American Indians, Circassians, Hindus, Japanese, and people from every corner of the globe — who had come as professional midway entertainers or fakirs.

[12] In late September Charles Francis Jenkins demonstrated an early movie projector called the "Phantoscope."

[13] John Philip Sousa composed his famous march, "King Cotton", for the exposition and dedicated it to the people of Georgia.

[14] Famed African American quilter Harriet Powers attended this day and met with Irvine Garland Penn, the chief of the Negro Building.

[15] The National League of Mineral Painters, with Adelaïde Alsop Robineau and Mary Chase Perry, contributed decorative objects and artwork to the New York City exhibit.

[18] The Legion of Loyal Women display presented an arrangement of 45 dolls, each one adorned with a small shield showing the name of a state, to illustrate the American Patriotic salute.

The Colonial Room presented utensils and furnishings, as well as Dolly Madison's spectacles, a gun carried in the Battle of Concord, and brass medallions belonging to George Washington; the display was said to represent "the growing bond of cooperation between the North and South."

[21] A photography exhibition featured portraits of women in every branch of literature, appended with a verse, letter, or section of a manuscript by the authors.

[22][23] The Cotton States Exposition successfully showcased Atlanta as a business center and attracted investment to the city.