Recruit eight-hundred young college men to the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and assign them to work as escorts for young, attractive women. The situation is fraught with danger, advised the Chicago Record in an article appearing in May of 1893.

The annotated news story reprinted below aimed to expose the “rolling romances” formed at the World’s Fair between the wheel-chair pushers—young men with a “very attentive attitude”—and their pert payload. Victorian-era readers (even those in gritty Chicago) may have blushed when learning about the boys’ “way of leaning over the back of a chair in a persuasive manner to point out objects of interest.” Oh, my! One wonders how many Gold Coast girls feigned a twisted ankle as soon as they passed through the ticket booth.

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CHANCE FOR ROMANCES.

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GUIDES AND ROLLING CHAIRS

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College Students Make Friends with the
Public on the Exposition Grounds—
Some of the Incidents the
Pedestrians Witness.

Any one who has been regularly at the Exposition is ready to hear of a rolling-chair romance. The conditions are favorable. Take 800 college students and turn them out on the grounds to act as guides and escorts for women, many of whom will necessarily be young and attractive, and the situation becomes fraught with danger. The fact that each college student wears a braided uniform and cap and pushes a chair at 75 cents an hour does not help matters. The uniform gives him a military appearance and forms a picturesque combination with the eye-glasses. The chances are that he has a classical roach to his hair and says “hither” for neither and “root” for route.

Young women of wealth have been known to elope with coachmen [1]. The college boys have an advantage over coachmen. They are not menials. They are pushing the chairs at Jackson park so that they may make expenses while at the Fair. Some of them know French, Greek and Sanskrit, and have a way of leaning over the back of a chair in a persuasive manner to point out objects of interest. Under all circumstances they are polite and attentive, even when the passenger is a fat man who wants to cross over bridges and make long jumps from one building to another.

Know Greek and Can Lecture

The plan of putting college boys behind the chairs was something of an inspiration. It wouldn’t have done for the company to pick up 1,000 or more men in Chicago and send them around the buildings with invalids and timid women. The chair-pushers are expected to be in a measure guides, companions and lecturers. One day last week the superintendent heard a substitute who had been pressed into service giving information to an old lady in the chair.

“Say, leddy, there’s the manufactures building. Ain’t it out o’ sight?” Wait till ye get inside. I’m telling you it’s a bute” [2]. The substitute gave up his uniform that evening and was replaced by a young man from Oberlin.

At present there are 825 chair-pushers on the grounds and they represent over 100 colleges situated in all parts of the country. Each comes with a testimonial from the faculty. Letters were sent broadcast to the institutions of learning and responses came thick and fast. The company has a reserve list of 600 young men who will probably be called into service after June commencements. Some of the students who did not wish to report on the grounds until the end of the college year had their places filled temporarily by substitutes.

All kinds of colleges are represented. Yale, Lehigh, Cornell and Princeton have each sent a few young men, but the western states make the largest showing. The pay is $1 a day lodging and 25 per cent of the money taken in each day. So far the pay has not been high, averaging no more than $1.30 a day, but when the rush comes the pushers are expected to make as much as $2.25 and $2.50 a day. On this pay they will not only make a living, but some of them will save money, for a majority are working their way through college and know how to be economical.

Take Kindly to the Chairs

It is already settled that the public will take kindly to the chairs. At the Centennial about three hundred were in use, but at Jackson park the distances are greater and the crowds are larger. Considering the inclemency of the weather and the small attendance the chairs have been well patronized. On Wednesday when the heat began to reach a summer point the receipts increased 50 percent over any previous day and at one time about five hundred of the chairs were in use. The total number of chairs on the grounds is 2,500, and there are twenty-two stations where they are for hire. The charge for a chair without a guide is 40 cents an hour, or $3.50 for the entire day. In each case a deposit of the latter amount must be made. Then the chair may be returned at any station and the deposit, less the charges, will be returned. People are slow to understand this system and sometimes object to putting up $3.50 until it is explained that a dishonest person might engage the chair for an hour, then keep it all day and finally leave it in some out-of-the-way place.

For the first week the women were about the only patrons. Now the men are beginning to ride. They found that from one end of the grounds to the other and around the principal buildings it is a walk of about three miles. One of the collegiate pushers who kept count of his busiest day found that he had walked fourteen miles [3]. He said it was not as hard to push a chair as some people would think. The handle made a support upon which to lean and it didn’t take much muscle to keep the wheels going after they were started.

“Sometimes it is easy work,” said he. “Women come out here by themselves and want somebody to go around with them. They take their time to it and stop a half hour at a place. When they get over on the plaisance and want to visit a panorama or the Turkish theater they insist in us going in with them, so that they will have an escort. Then when it comes lunch time we are asked to eat with them. In that way it’s just as pleasant as though we were here as regular visitors.”

The Romance Begins

In the administration building yesterday the people on the benches saw a pert young lady wheeled in by one of the boys in gray. She turned to him and said: “Tip me so I can see the dome.” Then she leaned back in the chair and he lifted the front wheels off the ground so that she could look straight up at the high frescoes. The chair balanced uneasily and she threw out one hand to steady herself. In the performance of his regular duties as guide and protector the young man in glasses took hold of the hand. This seemed to reassure the young lady. She continued to gaze dreamily upward.

“Is it not wonderful?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the young man, still holding her by the hand. In order to keep the chair balanced he was compelled to lean over the handle. Without meaning it, perhaps, he assumed a very attentive attitude toward the young lady. This was part of his work. The young lady asked him questions about the pictures in the dome [4]. As he was quite near her, and there was no need of shouting, he answered softly. By that time the fringe of people in the rotunda became interested. A Columbian guard looked on with some indication of envy. One of the women on the benches said she began to understand why the rolling chairs were popular.

The boys who make favorable impressions on their passengers are sure of steady employment. Mrs. John Wanamaker of Philadelphia and a party of ladies came to the grounds on Tuesday and chartered six of the chairs. That evening they ordered the six young men to have the chairs in readiness for them Wednesday morning. Ever since then they have kept the same guides. Each pusher is on the lookout for people who expect to remain several days at the Fair.

At the 60th Street gate last evening a young lady who had been taken around the grounds by sophomore power alighted from the chair and paid the young man his fee. She fingered her purse for a moment and then drew out a quarter and handed it to him. He accepted it blushingly. She started away when he spoke.

“Are you coming out to-morrow?” said he.

“Oh, yes,” said she. “That is, if the weather’s nice.”

“Wouldn’t you like to have me wheel you around again?”

“Certainly, but where can I meet you?”

“If you just write on this card that you want me to be here to-morrow morning the superintendent will send me down here, but if you don’t do that I can’t tell at which station I’ll be.”

The young lady very obligingly filled out the card and he lifted his cap after her as she dodged through the turnstile exit.

No Serious Flirtations Reported

Mr. Adams, who is general manager of the rolling chair industry, said last evening that a great many of his young men were coming in each day with these orders.

“They are bright fellows who know how to make a favorable impression,” he explained. “I don’t think any of the boys are too attentive to their passengers, at least I haven’t heard of any serious flirtations. It’s only natural that after a woman has been wheeled by one of the young men for a day and knows that he is reliable she will prefer to employ him the next day and perhaps every day for a week.

The very fact that young men are employed right along day after day by the same people shows that they are polite and well-behaved. If the passenger wishes to become well acquainted with the pusher, the company can do nothing to prevent it. We simply insist that he shall conduct himself as a gentleman.”

At any one of the stands where the chairs are waiting to be hired, the guides may be seen reclining in their own vehicles. Some of them are reading text-books, for they have to keep up with their classes even while they are away from school. The manager was asked how it was so many of them had obtained leaves of absence.

“Nearly every place we wrote,” he replied, “the professor told the boys to come along as they could get more education here in a month than they could at college.”

NOTES[1] The author’s description of “young women of wealth” eloping with coachmen brings to mind Downton Abbey’s dear Lady Sybil Branson (may she rest in peace), who fell in love with the chauffeur. Doesn’t the setting of 1893 World’s Fair seems ripe for a writer such as Julian Fellowes?

[2] The substitute chair pusher’s unsuitable expression “Ain’t it out o’ sight?” may sound anachronistic, but there is no need to invoke time travel to explain it. Although this phrase meaning “excellent” is most commonly associated with the 1960s, it was used in a similar way in literature from the period of the 1893 World’s Fair.

[3] To begin at the west end of the Midway Plaisance and walk its length, then circumnavigate the main fairgrounds and return back through the Midway was more than a five-mile round trip.

[4] What was the young lady in the Administration Building resting her gaze upon as her attendant tilted her so far back in her chair? The Glorification of the Arts and Sciences, a mural by William de Leftwich Dodge. A sketch of one section of the mural is shown below.