Everyone can do with a little luck now and then. Even an adorable baby.

This particular adorable baby made an appearance at the World’s Fair in 1904, in St. Louis. The reference said she was Cheyenne, one of the native tribes of the Great Plains. The little disc or coin woven into her hair is the good luck charm.

Cheyenne baby with lucky charm. Department of Anthropology, 1904 World’s Fair.
Missouri Historical Society: IDENTIFIER: N28377

Native Americans featured heavily into the 1904 World’s Fair and their influence is apparent in the official poster, designed by none other than Alphonse Mucha. Apart from the symbols, the poster features a Native American chief in full headdress, alongside Mucha’s trademark art nouveau style woman.

The poster struck me as curious. It was a World’s Fair so it made sense to me that it would include French words. Some of the native imagery looks a little off though, and he used hectares, a unit of area measurement equal to 2.47 acres, to contrast the size of several great U.S. cities.

I was curious if Mucha had ever been to the United States, and it looks like when Mucha designed the poster in 1903, he hadn’t yet visited America. His first trip here would come the following year. Once he did come, Mucha loved the United States, and returned seven times between 1904 and 1919.

Alphonse Mucha’s design for the poster advertising the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis