This study examines the impacts of modernization in Seattle, Washington during the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century. Using Seattle as a case study, this thesis looks at how modernization was presented at the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition (AYPE) in 1909. During Seattle’s modernization phase, public health, sanitation, and racial fears associated with disease were of utmost importance. By looking at Seattle and its relationship with the AYPE, it becomes clear that the exposition forced Seattle to modernize to become the premier city in the West
