Following our symposium’s urban history orientation, this paper examines the Third Republic’s attempt to make Paris a world capital of hygienic theory and practice, a leader in hygienic science, reform, and design. Recent research in urban exposition studies (Miriam Levin, Julie Brown, and Alexander Geppert) has theorized the reciprocal influence of international events like world's fairs and the urban cultures and urban planning of the cities that host them. This paper continues this discussion by investigating how Paris was groomed as the leading host-city for international hygienic events. It posits three principal strategies for “grooming” the city: first, capitalizing on Paris’s existing cultural capital; second, taking on and sharing international responsibility for hygienic science and policy; and finally, competing in tropical/imperial medicine and the global “chasse aux microbes”. It examines more than fifteen hygiene-related international events hosted by Paris between 1851 and 1938, including: seven International Sanitary Conferences (1851, 1859, 1894, 1903, 1911–1912, 1926, and 1938); five congresses held during Universal Expositions—three International Congresses of Hygiene and Demography (1878, 1889, 1900), and two International Medical Congresses (1867, 1900); and finally, smaller, specialized events like the International Congresses on Tuberculosis (1893, 1905), and the International Congress of Sanitation and Housing Health (1904).

According to the Third Republic’s “civilizing mission,” hygiene was a cornerstone of civilization both in France and in the colonies. Thus, while Paris hosted these events, France was casting a global net of hygienic influence through branches of the Pasteur Institute established in foreign countries in conjunction with the Corps de Santé des Colonies and the so-called “Pastorian missions.” French labs opened around the world, from Saigon (1891) to São Paolo (1903) and Saint Petersburg (1923). Thus, by both centralizing hygienic activity in Paris and globally distributing expertise, the Third Republic tried to position Paris as the hub of a global network. Finally, by examining international sources as well as French sources, this paper will analyze reactions to Paris as a host city. How did foreigners visiting Paris regard it as a host city? To what extent did Paris succeed in becoming a capital of hygiene? How did this impact the city’s broader reputation as “capital of the nineteenth century,” “capital of modernity,” or “Queen City of expositions”?