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Feb. 10, 2024: “S. S. Christopher Columbus with Todd Gordon” (Plymouth, WI)

A program on the S.S. Christopher Columbus whaleback steamer, used to transport visitors to and from the 1893 World’s Fair, will be sponsored by the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center on Saturday, February 10, 2024. Part of the Center’s “Second Saturdays — Journeys Into Local History” series, “S. S. Christopher Columbus with Todd Gordon” will explore the history of the steamer that was built to ferry passengers from downtown Chicago to the fairgrounds. The only passenger whaleback ever built, [...]

By |2024-03-13T08:54:10-05:00January 12th, 2024|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: |0 Comments
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Christmas to a child

“The child dancing with life and delight all through the days before Christmas is a fair emblem of what society should be in the presence of coming events … The meeting of Nations in 1893, the meeting on the shores of Lake Michigan, the meeting in a young republic, the meeting in such a period of intelligence unite to compose an event which should be to all Americans more than a Christmas to a child. —Prof. David Swing (1830–1894) [...]

By |2023-12-24T12:14:53-06:00December 24th, 2023|Categories: NEWS|Tags: |3 Comments
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Doctor Who goes to the 1893 World’s Fair

If you could travel anywhere in space and time, what would be your destination? If there is a golden colossus, a giant rotating wheel, mammoth chocolate statues, and a tower of oranges involved, then get yourself to the Doctor. Doctor Who and the TARDIS take a trip the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Max Kashevsky’s “All’s Fair” a new audio-drama included in the collection Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Volume 05: Everywhere and Anywhere from [...]

By |2023-12-20T17:08:06-06:00December 22nd, 2023|Categories: AUDIO, PRODUCTS|0 Comments
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Ron Soule’s “Escape from the Emerald City” imagines an origin story for Oz at the 1893 World’s Fair

Escape from the Emerald City by Ron Soule. Independently published, 2023. 105 pages. Hardcover, $14.95. ISBN 9798395968029. Paperback, $7.95. ISBN 9798395968111. In the growing library of “fairground fiction,” stories that involve historical figures offer a special treat to readers who enjoy imagining how famous (and soon-to-be-famous) people experienced the 1893 World’s Fair. A then-unknown traveling salesman from Chicago visited the fairgrounds on several occasions with his wife and four sons. Only a few years later he would burst onto [...]

By |2023-12-21T06:05:37-06:00December 21st, 2023|Categories: FICTION, PRODUCTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Did you see the 1893 Fair? Prove it with a “Certificate of Visitation to the World’s Columbian Exposition”

You bought your train ticket and booked your lodging in Chicago, traveled to Jackson Park and paid your fifty-cent admission. You’ve finally made it into the City of Wonders, the Dream City, the White City … the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition fairgrounds. How will anyone believe you are here if you don’t purchase an official “Certificate of Visitation” to show friends back home? T. Dart Walker’s drawing “In the Rotunda of the Administration Building” depicts a busy ground [...]

By |2023-12-28T11:47:33-06:00December 20th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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Tea from the Boston Tea Party at the 1893 World’s Fair

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on December 16, 1773, American colonists angry at the British crown for imposing taxation without representation, staged what became known as “The Boston Tea Party.” This act of colonial defiance to British rule has become a legendary part of American history, although aspects of the story are steeped in myth. Some of the tea from Boston Harbor appears to have made its way to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In the [...]

By |2023-12-16T12:18:20-06:00December 16th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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“A credit to Chicago’s wonderful pluck”: An Easterner’s take on the White City

This gracious comment about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition comes a Connecticut man visiting the Fair in early May. [reprinted from “Noted by a Meriden Man: Jottings at the Big World’s Fair” Meriden (CT) Daily Republican May 6, 1893] The number, area and styles of the buildings on Jackson Park are astonishing and a credit to Chicago's wonderful pluck and executive ability. New York would never have poured out the millions to erect the mammoth white structures that her [...]

By |2023-12-15T09:15:08-06:00December 16th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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The Columbian Exposition, a Scintillating Diadem

Mr. Gerald James of London, puzzled by the discouraging impressions of the Fair reaching him through the New York press, came to Chicago to see for himself what the Exposition had to offer an open mind. “The Fair is supreme,” he wrote. “It is a scintillating diadem crowning the civilized world with the honor and glory of peace. It tells a story that centuries of books and newspapers could not tell, and is worth more to a man or [...]

By |2023-12-12T15:28:53-06:00December 15th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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California’s “Tower of Oranges” at the 1893 World’s Fair

California had a knack for building unusual towers for the 1893 World’s Fair. An amber-hued obelisk known as the “Olive Oil Tower” greeted visitors entering the south portal of the California Building. This display from Santa Barbara County was constructed from 2,000 quart-sized bottles of virgin liquid. In the northwest corner of the building, Butte County built twin towers made from several hundred boxes of choice dried fruits. In an upper floor of the Horticultural Building stood a “Walnut [...]

By |2023-12-12T14:51:11-06:00December 13th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Literary Tributes to the World’s Fair

Reprinted below are ten “Literary Tributes to the World’s Fair” from the October 1893 issue of The Dial, a literary magazine published in Chicago. The notable contributors are: Mary Hartwell Catherwood (1847—1902), Midwest author of popular historical romances, short stories, and poetry; Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900), essayist and novelist best remembered as the co-author with Mark Twain of The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873); George W. Cable (1844–1925), novelist who portrayed Creole life in his native New [...]

By |2023-12-09T08:37:26-06:00December 9th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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