The Windy Cities Historians Podcast has been working its way chronologically through Chicago history and has now reached the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Episodes 19-21, “The Third Star,” are a three-part look at the event now represented in Chicago’s municipal flag. Co-hosts Chris Lynch and Patrick McBriarty interview Paul Durica, the Director of Exhibitions at the Newberry Library and co-editor of the annotated Chicago by Day and Night, and historian and writer Jeff Nichols. The show’s deep dive into the Exposition, clocking in at 3:15 hours, is enriched by the hosts’ infectious enthusiasm for the topic.

Part I (released January 27, 2021) explores topics that include Frederick Law Olmsted’s planning for the fairgrounds, advice for tourists, Opening Day, the fate of the Delaware State Building, and imagining what to see if traveling back in time.

Part II (released on February 22, 2021) addresses the fate of the Palace of Fine Arts, voyeurism on the Ferris Wheel, an undercover Princeton economist who worked as a World’s Fair laborer, racial discrimination in 1890s America, electric lighting of the Fair, and a mysteriously out-of-line oak tree on the Midway Plaisance.

Part III (released on April 3, 2021) covers such topics as how items from the Exposition were auctioned off (and how Chicago benefited), the Field Columbian Museum, Olmsted’s journalism career before the Fair, Pabst’s Blue Ribbon beer, the Emerald City, and alabaster cities. They wrap up the episode with a game of trivia that illuminates connection between the 1893 World’s Fair and such topics as Monty Python, the 1988 Bush-Dukakis election, Fermi Lab, and Star Trek.

The Liberty Bell, on display in the Pennsylvania Building at the 1893 World’s Fair, has a musical connection to a goofy British TV show. [Image from Graham, Charles S. The World’s Fair in Water Colors. Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, 1893.]