Liberal Arts sat on the south front of the walled city immediately west of the Tower of Jewels, which divided it from Manufactures. Condensed Facts placed it "directly opposite the main entrance to the Exposition grounds from the city side." On its west was the Court of Palms, and its northeast corner formed part of the Court of the Universe.
Its classification was the widest-ranging of the palaces: typography and printing, books and maps, papermaking, photography, musical instruments, instruments of precision, medicine and surgery, theatrical equipment, electrical communication, civil and military engineering, and architecture. The Guide estimated about half the space went to American exhibitors and half to foreign ones. The United States government's section alone took 55,000 sq ft, nearly a quarter of the building (Todd). China's exhibit, with its astronomical instruments, covered thousands of square feet.
This was also where visitors met long-distance telephony as a spectacle: Todd's history pictures a "Transcontinental Telephone Theater" among the Liberal Arts exhibits, and the department had its own special day, recounted in his third volume. A modest detail recorded by John Barry: three "bear fountains" were set in each of the outer walls of Liberal Arts and Manufactures just north of the Tower of Jewels, colored pink, dark blue and light green.
