While scholars have done extensive research on the universal and colonial French exhibitions in Paris in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, very little has been written on the first Colonial Exhibition in Marseille in 1906. My research examines the appeal to authenticity at the 1906 Exhibition, arguing that the local officials and Marseille businessmen who organized the exhibition projected a particular definition of authenticity through the promotional images, colonial pavilions, and educational displays of the exhibition. Rather than a neutral designation of accuracy, “authenticity” was a constructed category which relied upon both “objective” knowledge produced by ethnographers and colonial officials, as well as popular Orientalist imaginings of the non-Western world. Further, I argue that the idea of Marseille being a “colonial city” was central to this discourse. As France’s main Mediterranean port connecting the mainland to the colonies, Marseille was perceived by both residents and outsiders as simultaneously metropolitan and colonial. The organizers drew upon this reputation to claim that Marseille was uniquely positioned to host an exhibition: while Parisian exhibitions would draw crowds, only an exhibition in Marseille could achieve genuine authenticity. This conclusion challenges the frequent assumption by historians that turn-of-the-century France was characterized by increasing cultural and political centralization. By focusing on Marseille, this research demonstrates the ongoing heterogeneity of mass culture in France.