The Chicago Orchestra’s 1892 Premiere of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite”

One of America’s most beloved holiday artistic traditions originated in imperial Russia and came to the United States through Chicago at the time of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. On October 22, 1892, an audience of Chicagoans—joined by distinguished guests in town for the World’s Fair Dedication Day exercises—gathered in the Auditorium to hear a concert by the Chicago Orchestra conducted by Theodore Thomas. During the third piece on the program, songs of waltzing flowers, terpsichorean reeds, and a [...]

By Scott|2025-12-02T09:28:00-06:00December 2nd, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Eulogies for George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

The death of one of America’s great inventors on November 22, 1896, came as a surprise to many. George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. succumbed to complications due to typhoid fever at the tragically young age of thirty-seven. His eponymous attraction debuted at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and helped lift the Exposition into financial success. Despite the great popularity of his rotating invention, Mr. Ferris died under crushing debt in 1896. His original Ferris Wheel, although still [...]

By Scott|2025-11-18T09:31:33-06:00November 22nd, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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Modeling an 1893 World’s Fair Building in Silver Filigree

Visitors to the 1893 World’s Fair encountered several models of notable buildings. A miniature U.S. Treasury building constructed from half-dollar Columbian souvenir coins caught the attention of those who passed through the rotunda of the Administration Building. Lever Brothers displayed an impressive model of Windsor Castle in the British section of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, and the Pullman Palace Car Company’s exhibit in the Transportation Building featured a model of the entire company town of Pullman, Illinois. [...]

By Scott|2025-09-08T08:46:27-05:00September 25th, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |1 Comment
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“It would never do to leave it out”: How the Columbian Exposition was omitted from the U.S. Capitol’s FRIEZE OF AMERICAN HISTORY

The United States Capitol almost became the home of a painting to commemorate the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. [Image from Pennsylvania Railroad to the Columbian Exposition (Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 1892).] U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., February 24, 1890 “CHICAGO WINS,” headlines read across the country the next morning. The Midwest metropolis won the bid to host the upcoming World’s Fair on the eighth vote in the House of Representatives. After a six-hour battle on February 24, 1890, the [...]

By Scott|2025-08-18T09:14:31-05:00September 18th, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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“A realized picture one will never forget”: Windsor Castle in Miniature at the Columbian Exposition

Visitors to the 1893 World’s Fair who entered the west portal of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building encountered a remarkable scene on their right. The striking display left no doubt that they had arrived in the exhibition space of Great Britain. A handsome art gallery wore a fanciful crown—a detailed miniature of Windsor Castle, forty-five feet long and eighteen feet wide. This intricate roof-top model enticed visitors to enter the Sunlight Soap pavilion sponsored by Messrs. Lever Brothers [...]

By Scott|2025-08-18T18:37:41-05:00August 19th, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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Displaying the Dead at the 1893 World’s Fair

The U.S. Government Building at the 1893 World’s Fair housed exhibits from the official host of the Exposition. A display from one federal agency was described as “the grotesque mingling with the horrible, and tender sentiment jostling with the ghastly evidences of tragedies.” [Image from Harper’s Weekly August 26, 1893.] Many visitors to the U.S. Government Building at 1893 World’s Fair claimed that one display from a federal agency was the most interesting exhibit. More engaging than the [...]

By Scott|2025-07-19T08:41:15-05:00July 26th, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Betsy Ross Cleans Up at the 1893 World’s Fair

Without the flag, there would be no Flag Day. And without Betsy Ross, there would be no flag (or so the story goes). Among abundance of eye-catching exhibits inside the Agricultural Building of the 1893 World’s Fair stood a unusual sculpture of the purported mother of the American flag. The Agricultural Building housed many wonderous exhibits of the varied output of farms and the amazing products of a burgeoning agriculture industry. Visitors could encounter the likeness of Betsy [...]

By Scott|2025-07-19T11:57:32-05:00June 14th, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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The Myth of Marble: A Roman Statue of “Minerva” at the 1893 World’s Fair

Chicago is abuzz about “Myth and Marble,” a fabulous new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago running from March 15 to June 29, 2025. On display are fifty-eight magnificent sculptures of gods and goddesses, emperors and funerary monuments. All come from the Torlonia Collection of Rome, one of the world’s finest private collections of Greco-Roman antiquities. The artwork has been out of the public view for most of the past century. Statue of Athena from the Torlonia [...]

By Scott|2025-03-18T13:49:35-05:00March 21st, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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United States Presidents Who Visited the 1893 World’s Fair

Greeting ex-President Benjamin Harrison when he visited the Indiana State Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago [Image from the Chicago Inter Ocean September 28, 1893.] Thirteen men who served as President of the United States lived at the time of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Five of them are known to have visited Chicago to see the Fair. Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) 19th U.S. President (Republican) from March 4, 1877 – March 4, 1881. Rutherford [...]

By Scott|2025-02-17T12:00:38-06:00February 17th, 2025|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , |2 Comments
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Angels in the Spandrels: The Winged Decorations of Louis Sullivan’s Transportation Building

Critics glorified and reviled Louis Sullivan’s renegade design for the Transportation Building at the 1893 World’s Fair. The polychromatic color scheme and the grand Golden Door received the most commentary at the time of the Columbian Exposition, and both elements continue to fascinate students of architecture today. Louis Sullivan’s striking design for the Transportation Building featured a polychromatic façade and majestic “Golden Door” entrance on the east side. [Image from Picturesque World’s Fair. W.B. Conkey, 1894; digitally edited [...]

By Scott|2024-09-06T10:41:43-05:00April 14th, 2024|Categories: HISTORY, RESEARCH|Tags: , , |4 Comments
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“Sick of the picturesque”: Hamlin Garland oversells the 1893 World’s Fair

Note: Hamlin Garland will be inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame at a ceremony on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, from 5:30—8 pm at the Chicago History Museum. Further information about Hamlin Garland can be found at the Hamlin Garland Society website https://www.garlandsociety.org/ “Sell the cook stove if necessary and come. You must see this fair.” This oft-repeated quote, brimming with enthusiasm and promise for the 1893 World’s Fair, was Hamlin Garland’s enticement for his parents to visit [...]

By Scott|2024-04-10T18:43:39-05:00April 12th, 2024|Categories: HISTORY, REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Seeing the Solar Eclipse of 1893 at the World’s Fair

Did you see it? Viewers on April 8, 2024, snapped countless millions of photographs of the solar eclipse. For the total solar eclipse of April 16, 1893—visible in South America and Africa—only a handful of photographs were taken. At least one made it into a display at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A photograph of the April 1893 solar eclipse, exhibited in the California State Building at the 1893 World's Fair. [Image from Bancroft, Hubert Howe [...]

By Scott|2024-04-08T08:34:28-05:00April 8th, 2024|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Cumberland Gap was passed over for the 1892 World’s Fair

Congressmen filed into the great hall of the U.S. Capitol as the House of Representatives went into session on February 24, 1890. Just after noon, the first order of business was a vote to select a host site for the upcoming World’s Fair, then planned for 1892. Boosters from New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C., packed the galleries in nervous anticipation. Support in Congress seemed to be split among the four cities vying for the honor, so [...]

By Scott|2024-03-09T10:46:20-06:00March 10th, 2024|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |1 Comment
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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 Scott|2025-06-11T14:34:41-05:00December 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 Scott|2023-12-16T12:18:20-06:00December 16th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|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 Scott|2023-12-12T14:51:11-06:00December 13th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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“After the Ball” entertains and enrages at the 1893 World’s Fair

One song served as the (unofficial) anthem of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. More popular than “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay,” more often sung than “America,” and more frequently parodied than “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow,” this tune could be heard—for better or for worse—throughout the fairgrounds all summer. Groups ranging from John Philip Sousa’s band to the marimba quartet at the Guatemala Building to the donkey boys on the Street in Cairo performed the hit of Fair, “After the [...]

By Scott|2024-01-23T08:50:26-06:00November 29th, 2023|Categories: AUDIO, HISTORY|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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This Side Up: The OTHER Man Who Mailed Himself to the Midway in a Box

[Continued from Part 1 of this article.] Millions of visitors poured into Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair. They arrived by train, boat, carriage, wagon, horseback, bicycle, and several even walked. A few others chose, well … less conventional modes of transport. For example, Herman Zeitung—the Austrian tailor, small in stature but big in bravery—mailed himself C.O.D. to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. When he popped out of his cargo box on July 28, officials must have thought “Oh, [...]

By Scott|2023-10-05T07:27:43-05:00October 4th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: |1 Comment
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This Side Up: The Man Who Mailed Himself to the Midway in a Box

Despite having nearly 120,000 people enter the fairgrounds on Friday, July 28, this was the slowest day of the week at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The day before had been a busy one, with Commercial Travelers and German Turners pouring into the Chicago fair for their "special days." Among the few events on Friday was the opening of an interesting package in the Woman’s Building. The box contained a gift from Empress Elisabeth of Austria to the Board [...]

By Scott|2023-10-05T07:24:01-05:00October 3rd, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , |1 Comment
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The Flying Dutchman Enlightens the World’s Fair of 1893

Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago who found their way into the southwest corner of the Agricultural Building Annex encountered a most curious figure. Rising above a display of farm plows stood a twelve-foot-tall, pot-bellied man flamboyantly dressed and having a pair of huge wings. He stood on a tree stump holding a luminous ear of corn, striking a pose that lampooned the famous Liberty Enlightening the World (aka the Statue of Liberty) by Frédéric Auguste [...]

By Scott|2023-09-15T08:38:26-05:00September 12th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |0 Comments
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