“One morning in September 1893, a 30-year-old Indian man sat on a curb on Chicago’s Dearborn Street wearing an orange turban and a rumpled scarlet robe. He had come to the United States to speak at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, part of the famous World Columbian Exposition. The trouble was, he hadn’t actually been invited …”
Read more about Swami Vivekananda’s time at the 1893 World’s Fair in Jennie Rothenberg Gritz’s “The Indian Guru Who Brought Eastern Spirituality to the West” for Smithsonian Magazine (October 6, 2022).
Swami Vivekananda (center) and other East India Delegates to Congress of Religions at the 1893 World’s Fair. [Image from Pictorial Album and History of the World’s Fair and Midway (Harry T. Smith & Co., 1893).]