When hunger overtakes visitors on the 1893 fairgrounds, they are in danger

We’re all feeling the pain of soaring food prices today. They did back in 1893, too.

Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were shocked by the cost food on the fairgrounds and frustrated by not being able to find a bill of fare before ordering in the restaurant concessions. The complaints pilled up thick in the first few weeks of the Exposition in May, especially at the White Horse Inn on the south end of the fairgrounds. At this exact replica of the famous English public house in Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers (1836–37), guests were confronted with wide swings in the cost of a meal or drink, seemingly dependent on the whim of the wait staff. By mid-May, the Council of Administration stepped in to guarantee that prices were uniform across concessions and clearly advertised to guests.

In the meantime, a reporter from Marshfield, Missouri, sent this word of caution back home to readers of the Marshfield Mail (“World’s Fair Melange”  May 10, 1893, p. 2):

“When hunger overtakes a visitor on the fair grounds, he is in danger. It is possible, if the visitor knows the places, to get in at one door and come out of another giving up only 10¢ for a cup of coffee, the same for a glass of milk, ditto for a sandwich or three small doughnuts. But the danger lies in striking the White Horse Inn, or some other of the fancifully named restaurants which are run under “concessions.” That means a percentage of profits to some brother-in-law of the World’s Fair management. Roast beef was 30¢ a week ago in one of the restaurants on the grounds. It was 50¢ on Saturday. It reached 80¢ on Monday, and a victim said he could see through it. Think of Americans paying 25¢ for half of quarter of a pie! Rice pudding 30¢! Crackers and a crumb of cheese 35¢! A Boston man who paid 40¢ for a dish of baked beans said he counted them and would make affidavit that they were only eleven beans in the lot. The Commission has promised to overhaul these restaurants. Until there is reform, let the visitor pull up his belt another notch and save his appetite until he is without the gates.”