HISTORY Archives - Page 4 of 10 - Chicago's 1893 Worlds Fair

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Visit to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Part 1
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Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s Visit to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Part 1

HISTORY

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 Scott|2024-10-22T14:28:10-05:00July 5th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Frederick Law Olmsted, George Post, Maillard's Chocolates, Richard Hunt|1 Comment

Ballyhoo on the Midway Plaisance
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Ballyhoo on the Midway Plaisance

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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 Scott|2023-12-20T14:25:32-06:00May 18th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: fakirs, Midway Plaisance, Ostrich Farm, Turkish Village|0 Comments

Prominent Petunias
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Prominent Petunias

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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 Scott|2021-05-08T14:32:44-05:00May 8th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Bertha Palmer, Daniel Burnham, Horticultural Building|0 Comments

Progress of the Century: The Celebrated Agave Plant of the 1893 World’s Fair
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Progress of the Century: The Celebrated Agave Plant of the 1893 World’s Fair

HISTORY

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 Scott|2023-03-11T16:15:10-06:00May 7th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Horticultural Building, John Thorpe, pulque, William Le Baron Jenney|0 Comments

THIS IS A LOAN from Isabella Stewart Gardner
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THIS IS A LOAN from Isabella Stewart Gardner

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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 Scott|2021-04-25T11:09:28-05:00April 25th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Harlow Higinbotham, Palace of Fine Arts|0 Comments

“Farthest North”: An Arctic Tableau at the 1893 World’s Fair
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“Farthest North”: An Arctic Tableau at the 1893 World’s Fair

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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 Scott|2021-05-08T14:38:44-05:00March 22nd, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: U.S. Government Building|0 Comments

Claude Monet’s paintings at the 1893 World’s Fair
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Claude Monet’s paintings at the 1893 World’s Fair

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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 Scott|2021-12-09T04:58:43-06:00January 31st, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Claude Monet, Palace of Fine Arts|0 Comments

Christmas in the Palace of Fine Arts of the 1893 World’s Fair
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Christmas in the Palace of Fine Arts of the 1893 World’s Fair

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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 Scott|2022-12-09T11:19:45-06:00December 25th, 2020|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Charles S. Reinhart, Edwin Blashfield, J. Alden Weir, Julian Hawthorne, Palace of Fine Arts|0 Comments

Ontario’s Mammoth Squash at the 1893 World’s Fair
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Ontario’s Mammoth Squash at the 1893 World’s Fair

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Ontario’s Mammoth Squash at the 1893 World’s Fair

So many things were big, big, BIG at the 1893 World’s Fair that it may have been easy to miss the world’s biggest squash. On display in the Horticultural Building in late September was a quarter-ton “monster squash” from Canada. Gourdzilla received some proud coverage back home in the September 29, 1893, issue of the Windsor Star, which reported on the sensational vegetable: “Ontario is again the sensation provider for the fair. No longer is the “Canadian Mite,” as [...]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:21:04-05:00November 26th, 2020|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Horticultural Building|1 Comment

Remembering Nancy Green, Aunt Jemima, and the 1893 World’s Fair
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Remembering Nancy Green, Aunt Jemima, and the 1893 World’s Fair

HISTORY

Remembering Nancy Green, Aunt Jemima, and the 1893 World’s Fair

Though relatively unknown at the time, one participant in the 1893 World’s Fair later became a famous fixture of food advertising and a part of many people’s kitchens for more than a century. For the past ninety-seven years, the final resting place of the real woman behind the character was an unmarked plot of grass in a cemetery on Chicago’s South Side. A sign welcoming guests to the September 5, 2020, headstone ceremony for Nancy Green. On [...]

By Scott|2024-01-15T07:42:58-06:00September 9th, 2020|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: Agricultural Building, Aunt Jemima, Nancy Green, Thomas Edison|2 Comments