What was it like to attend the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago? A first-hand account from Martha Washington’s great-grandchild is the basis of “Britannia Visits the White City,” a lecture sponsored by the DAR Museum in Washington on August 11, 2020.

Washington descendant Britannia W. Kennon, a seventy-eight-year-old owner of the Georgetown estate of Tudor Place, spent a week with her family at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Her surviving letters and postcards in the archives of Tudor Place Historic House & Garden will be the basis of this talk by curator Grant Quertermous.

“Britannia Visits the White City” runs from 12 to 1 pm at the DAR Museum at 1776 D Street NW in Washington, D.C. Free tickets are available here.

The DAR Museum is also sponsoring an online event “World’s Fair at the DAR Museum” from July 29 to July 31, 2020.

The Virginia State Building at the 1893 World’s Fair was “Washington’s Residence Reproduced.” [Image from Bancroft, Hubert Howe The Book of the Fair. The Bancroft Company, 1893.]