March is Women’s History Month and a fitting time to reflect on women’s valuable contributions to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

Reprinted here is Part 1 of “Woman’s Part at the World’s Fair” from the May 1893 issue of The Review of Reviews. “The Work of the Board of Lady Managers” was written by one of its Vice Presidents, Virginia C. Meredith of Indiana. Parts 2 and 3 will follow later this month. Section headers and additional images have been added to the original article.

---

WOMAN’S PART AT THE·WORLD’S FAIR.

I. THE WORK OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS

By Virginia C. Meredith

In the Columbian Exposition, which celebrates a fifteenth century fact, the Board of Lady Managers stands for a nineteenth century idea. The Act of Congress authorizing the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, declares that the great event shall be celebrated by “an exhibition of the progress of civilization in the New World.” Now, the creation of the Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Commission may surely be considered a signal illustration of progress in the New World.

Appropriations made by Congress

While the several appropriations made by Congress for the Columbian Exposition have been inadequate when viewed from the standpoint of the greatness of the event and the possibilities of the occasion, yet relatively the appropriations made by Congress for the use of the Board of Lady Managers have been extremely liberal. This liberality has dignified the Board in public estimation, and directed toward its aims and efforts an unusual degree of interest.

At this particular time the trend of thought seems toward plans and ideas which have to do with elevating the worth of the individual, and closely related to this is the subject of the industrial freedom of women. Traditional beliefs in regard to what constitutes a fit vocation or avocation for women are disappearing. Until the hand is free to do the mind cannot be free to think rationally, nor the creature free to live nobly. This is the philosophy that underlies an international industrial exposition. Something of this nature was implied when Congress, in creating the Board of Lady Managers, indicated but one duty, leaving others to be prescribed by the World’s Columbian Commission. The duty imposed by Congress is, “to appoint one or more members of all committees authorized to award prizes for exhibits which may be produced in whole or in part by female labor.” This recognizes both the right of the producer to representation in the important function of making awards for excellence, and also the fact that women have acquired a considerable place in industrial production and need to be sustained and protected in their industrial rights and privileges.[1]

Congress also empowered the Board of Lady Managers, through its Committee on Awards, to present to expert workers who have assisted in the production of an exhibit to which a medal has been awarded a lithographic fac-simile of the medal and diploma, with the name of the artisan inscribed upon it.

A restful and refreshing point for the eye

The Woman’s Building in Jackson Park provided the opportunity for a woman to demonstrate her ability to grasp and execute a fine architectural idea. The building is of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The roof gardens and groups of figures standing on the roof line accent the points of beauty in the building itself. The whole effect is so chaste and delicate that among the colossal structures of the Exposition the Woman’s Building proves a restful and refreshing point for the eye. The architect is Miss Sophia G. Hayden of Boston. The interior has been decorated under the supervision of Mrs. Candace Wheeler and is in the same style as the building. The main decorations are in the rotunda or gallery and the two vestibules. In the gallery are six important decorative paintings.[2] The gallery is in ivory white with ornamental plaster work picked out with gold. A decorative band in an Italian design upon a gold background connects the two great pictures in either end of the gallery; under this band runs a series of panels, each bearing in gold letters the name of some woman distinguished in history, beginning on one side with the heroines of Bible history and on the other with queens famous for a career beneficial to mankind.[3] The panel under the great picture in the south end of the gallery carries the name of Sophia G. Hayden, architect, while the corresponding panel on the north bears the name of Bertha Honoré Palmer, President of the Board of Lady Managers.

The most elaborate apartment in the building is the library, a spacious room devoted to the literary work of women of all ages and countries. The decoration of this room is of the style of the period of the great painters of Venice. The bookcases and all the furnishings have antique carvings of the same period. The Venetian ceiling is, perhaps, as important a piece of decorative painting as has been executed by a woman in this generation. It is divided into five parts by bands of gilded plaster and carries in these divisions groups typical of literature, science, romance, history and the arts of painting, sculpture, music and the drama.

The large parlors on the east side of the gallery are decorated in copper reds, beautiful in design and finely executed; a painted frieze of looped roses and vines surmounts the wall; the draperies and accessories are an elaboration of the same idea. The color scheme of the whole building is light and carries out the suggestion of an apparent radiation from a central point, the main gallery.

Distinguished women of all nations

The assembly hall on the north of the gallery will be used during the Exposition for instructive talks about exhibits and subjects of interest to women. These talks will be by distinguished women of all nations, and will occur at stated hours. A most interesting room on the south of the gallery is one devoted to headquarters for organizations of women; these represent the most advanced thought in education, the noblest endeavor in philanthropy and the loveliest work in charity. Many of these associations are international in scope.

The exhibits arranged in this handsome building, so beautifully decorated, comprise productions from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the islands of the sea. These exhibits have been forwarded by domestic and foreign committees co-operating with the Board of Lady Managers.

At an early period of its history the president of the Board of Lady Managers, Mrs. Potter Palmer, directed her efforts toward securing committees of representative women in all those nations which had accepted the invitation to paticipate [sic] in the Exposition. Almost all of these governments appointed committees of women, thus giving them official recognition. “The powerful organization thus secured extends around the world, and stands with perfect solidarity for the purpose of serving the interests of woman, and making industrial conditions easier for her.” Nothing in connection with the management of the Columbian Exposition parallels this brilliant effort at organization and co-operation among the nations. Tradition and conservatism in Europe and in the Orient have graciously united with the imperious New World, upon what would have been thought the most unlikely cause to enlist co-operation¾the industrial status of woman.

A ship of destiny

It is earnestly hoped, and, indeed, fervently believed, that this organization will outlive the Columbian Exposition, and thereby the Board of Lady Managers will have proved a forceful influence in leading women everywhere to appreciate responsibility and inciting them to a proper share of thinking and doing. It is not possible to eliminate the element of error from an undertaking confronted with untried problems, as has been the work of the Board of Lady Managers; but if steadfastness of purpose, mental energy and alert projection into the future could guide, or rather could build, a ship of destiny, then this service has been performed for the Board by its president, Mrs. Bertha Honoré Palmer. To her must be ascribed the praise for projecting and directing the work upon lines that now seem destined to compel success and to form an interesting part of the history of the Columbian Exposition.

---

NOTES

[1] For more about women inventors exhibiting at the Fair, see Pilato, Denise E. “Illumination or Illusion: Women Inventors at the 1893 World’s Columbian Fair” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 109, 4 (Winter), 2016, 374-99.

[2] The “six important decorative paintings” of the Gallery were: Mary Fairchild MacMonnies’ Primitive Woman (on north tympanum), Amanda Brewster Sewell’s Arcadia, and Lucia Fairchild’s The Women of Plymouth (on east wall), which depicted women in the past; and Mary Cassatt’s Modern Woman (on south wall), Lydia Emmet and Rosina Emmett Sherwood’s Art, Science, and Literature and The Republic’s Welcome to Her Daughters (on west wall), which depicted women of the present era.

[3] The names of some women “distinguished in history” included: George Sand, De Stael, Le Brun, Sevigne, Recamier, C. [Charlotte] Corday, Joan of Arc, Godiva, Boadicea, Hypatia, Rebecca, Ruth, Isabella, Elizabeth, and Victoria, among others.

[4] For more about the Woman’s Building library, see Wadsworth, Sarah; Wiegand, Wayne A. Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman’s Building Library at the World’s Columbian Exposition. University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.