At a banquet held in Chicago on January 10, 1891, Chief of Construction Daniel Burnham made this patriotic appeal to the architects of the World’s Columbian Exposition:
“Gentlemen, 1893 will be the third great date in our country’s history. On the two others, 1776 and 1861, all true Americans served, and so now I ask you to serve again!” [from Martin, Justin Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted. Hachette Books, 2011.]
On August 14, 1891, Prof. David Swing, who had been a charismatic though controversial Chicago preacher, penned this letter which seems to respond to Burnham’s bold speech:
“The World’s Fair might, indeed, by some accident or error be only a failure, but the probabilities are in favor of its being a great event. It will not, indeed, make such a page in history as that made by the American revolt of 1776, nor that written when our slaves were emancipated, but the assemblage of works and persons in Chicago in 1893 possesses a greatness for which our hearts may well be thankful. Many of those ideas which have always been thought great, will be present on the shore of the inland sea. Education will show her methods, her progress; Liberty will exhibit her reality and value; Invention will set forth her wonders; Morals and Religion will be in the group with their truths and impressive probabilities; Art will be present in all her loftiness, and there, too, will be Humanity in all her friendship and mystery. Indeed, the sanguine soul might overpaint the coming event, but it now seems that we may as well all bow down before the vision and get ready for the World’s Fair.” [from “Inspiration in Events” Illustrated World’s Fair Sept. 1891, p. 14.]
Meeting of the Board of Architects and the Grounds and Building Committee of the Columbian Exposition, February 24, 1891. From a water-color by W. T. Smedley. Standing (Left to Right): William Le Baron Jenney, George R. Davis, Dankmar Adler, Solon S. Beman, Charles Schwab, Dewitt Cregier, Daniel Burnham, Henry Van Brunt, Henry Codman, Francis M. Whitehouse, Charles McKim (at the board), and Abraham Gottlieb. Sitting (Left to Right): Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Robert A. Waller, Frederick Law Olmsted, Edward T. Jeffery, Eugene S. Pike, Lyman Gage, Louis Sullivan, Richard Hunt, George Post, Owen F. Aldis, Henry Ives Cobb, and Robert S. Peabody. [Image from Burnham, Daniel Hudson. The Book of the Builders. Columbian Memorial Publication Society, Chicago, 1894.]