Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Visit to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Part 3

Continued from Part 2 Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in 1880. Charmed with the wonders of the White City As Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi prepared to depart Chicago, he was leaving behind his name with the son of a new friend, and he was leaving behind his statue of Washington and Lafayette with an uncertain future. Although Bartholdi reportedly had planned for only a two-week sojourn in Chicago, he had stayed for three. On the afternoon of Sunday, September 24, [...]

By |2024-08-18T14:50:15-05:00July 7th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , |1 Comment
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Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Visit to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Part 2

Continued from Part 1 Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in 1880. “I come to see the American side of the Fair” On September 10, 1893, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and his wife Jeanne-Émilie arrived in Chicago and settled into the Hotel Metropole. This hotel stood on Michigan Avenue at 23rd Street, just south of the tony Prairie Avenue District called home by many of Chicago’s elite citizens, including Marshall Field, George Pullman, Ferdinand ("Ferd") W. Peck, and John Jacob Glessner. [...]

By |2024-01-28T12:05:19-06:00July 6th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |2 Comments
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Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Visit to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Part 1

“My only ambition has been to engrave my name at the feet of great men and in the service of grand ideas.” —Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in 1880. Most monographs about Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi conclude his story with the 1886 unveiling ceremony for his Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. A lesser-known chapter in the French sculptor’s life involves his next and final trip to the United States in 1893, a six-week visit from [...]

By |2024-10-22T14:28:10-05:00July 5th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , |1 Comment
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Ballyhoo on the Midway Plaisance

“All new words are created because a new sound is needed to voice an idea, usually also new.” —Charles Wolverton The word ballyhoo, according to the renowned and authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (OED), means a “a showman’s touting speech, or a performance advertising a show.” It can be used as a mass noun to mean “bombastic nonsense; extravagant or brash publicity; noisy fuss.” Though this “carnival” usage has uncertain origins, the OED and other etymology sources cite the first [...]

By |2023-12-20T14:25:32-06:00May 18th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Prominent Petunias

On April 29, 1893, gardeners at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition held a christening ceremony for a pair of plants. Inside the greenhouse behind the Horticultural Building, they sprinkled water from a can onto the opening blossoms of two petunias, baptizing the large white bloom as “Mrs. Potter Palmer” (named after the President of the Board of Lady Managers) and the black one having one tiny white fleck as “The Burnham” (named after the Director of Works for the [...]

By |2021-05-08T14:32:44-05:00May 8th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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Progress of the Century: The Celebrated Agave Plant of the 1893 World’s Fair

Uncle John rose with the morning sun on April 23, 1893 and made a bee-line for the Horticultural Building on the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park, Chicago. The opening of the Fair—when President Cleveland would push the button to unfurl the flags along the White City rooftops and release the water to the glorious fountains—was still nine days away. Today, however, the Chief of the Horticultural Department was expecting a throng of visitors to his [...]

By |2023-03-11T16:15:10-06:00May 7th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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THIS IS A LOAN from Isabella Stewart Gardner

A new Netflix documentary This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist reveals the grievous but fascinating story of a 1990 art theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Two paintings from the collection (thankfully not stolen!) were loaned by Mrs. Gardner to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and exhibited in the Palace of Fine Arts. Hanging in the Swedish display in Gallery 70 was Anders Zorn’s Omnibus (1892). Mrs. Gardner purchased this 49 [...]

By |2021-04-25T11:09:28-05:00April 25th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |0 Comments
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“Farthest North”: An Arctic Tableau at the 1893 World’s Fair

Crowds gather at the 1893 World's Fair to see a panorama depicting the Greely Expedition to the North Pole. [Image from the Illustrated American World's Fair Special Issue, 1893.] Seventy five years ago today, arctic explorer David L. Brainard (1856–1946) died at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. He was the last survivor of the famous Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881–84 under the command of Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greely (1844–1935), whose final resting place is close [...]

By |2021-05-08T14:38:44-05:00March 22nd, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: |0 Comments
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Claude Monet’s paintings at the 1893 World’s Fair

Irises, water lilies, and poppies can be spotted around Chicago this winter, colorful images promoting the exhibition Monet and Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago through June 14, 2021. The show explores Chicago’s early connection to Claude Monet, whose canvases began arriving in this city around the time of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition because of a few visionary collectors. Monet paintings adorned the walls of Bertha and Potter Palmer’s “castle” in Lincoln Park, Martin A. Ryerson’s mansion [...]

By |2021-12-09T04:58:43-06:00January 31st, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Christmas in the Palace of Fine Arts of the 1893 World’s Fair

More than a dozen works of art depicting Christmas themes adorned the halls of the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Edwin H. Blashfield's oil painting Christmas Bells (1891). [Image from Hitchcock, Ripley The Art of the World Illustrated in the Paintings, Statuary, and Architecture of the World's Columbian Exposition. D. Appleton, 1895.] An oil painting titled Christmas Bells (1891) by Edwin H. Blashfield hung on the north wall in Gallery 1 of the [...]

By |2022-12-09T11:19:45-06:00December 25th, 2020|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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