Raising the Ante for Midway Playing Cards

The 1893 World’s Fair brought tremendous growth and prestige to the Chicago publishing industry. One company that played a prominent role in the bustling printing scene was the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler (BB&S) type foundry, which the Inland Printer described as having “the largest and finest typecasting room in the world.”

During the World’s Columbian Exposition, BB&S designed a set of 35 lead ornaments that the firm called “Midway Midgets.” (Note: “Midget” referred to the small, one-inch-high size of the design; today the term is considered pejorative if referring to people.) The images were whimsical line-drawings adapted from photographs of various “international types” who populated the Midway Plaisance, along with one image of the iconic Ferris Wheel.

The foundry sold the ornaments to printers for decorating newspaper stories and advertisements relating to the Fair. Many examples can be seen in the series of advertisements in various Chicago newspapers for the November 1894 “Echoes of the White City,” which we reprinted in a series are articles on the fundraising bazaar

BB&S continued to sell the Midway ornaments as late as 1907, listing them in their catalog at the original price of 25 cents each. Unless a sharp-eyed Columbiana collector rummaging through bins of old type blocks happened upon a Ferris Wheel or “Little Egypt” dancer, these World’s Fair curiosities may have been forgotten about … until printer Stuart Bradley recreated them a few years ago.

Bradley scanned pictures of the ornaments from the 1907 BB&S catalog and had a new set of copper dies cast, with the characters enlarged to two-inches high. He then designed a set of 21 history cards, 3.5-by-5 inches, featuring all 35 of the Midway images along with short text descriptions of the subjects. Another 5 cards explain the original type, reproductions, and how the cards were printed by hand on a Chandler & Price Pilot press. Accompanying the two-color letterpress cards are 14 prints of photographs of the corresponding Midway subjects. In 2012, Bradley sold a limited edition of 120 boxed sets of these letterpress history card decks for $30 through his Railway Station Press.

Bradley also printed companion playing card decks, featuring thirteen of the characters each printed in red, orange, green, and blue, along with two jokers. A limited edition of 100 boxed sets of the hand-printed playing cards sold for $30 each.

On February 15, 2020, Bradley launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a second edition of the Midway playing cards. The new 54-card deck will be “poker size” (2.5-by-3.5 inches) with rounded corners and a more durable paper stock and packed in a custom-printed tuck box. A 40-page companion book will contain scans of the letterpress printed playing cards and history cards, historical photographs, maps, and background information about the historical significance of the 1893 World’s Fair, the Midway Plaisance, and the BB&S printer ornaments.

The Kickstarter campaign needs to reach its goal of raising $2000 by April 15, 2020. Many backers have already snapped up the campaign “rewards” of discounted card sets and books, but more Columbian Exposition, letterpress, and play card enthusiasts are still needed to support this unique project at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1214471054/1893-chicago-midway-playing-cards-and-companion-book