“Quietly Enjoying His Lunch.” Thomas Edison Visits the 1893 World’s Fair

In August 1893, Thomas A. Edison visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His time at the World's Fair bears little resemblance to the story portrayed on screen in The Current War. According to the report below, from the September 2, 1893, issue of Electrical Review, Edison kept a low profile and showed little interest in the electrical exhibits. Thomas A. Edison, accompanied by his family, arrived in Chicago last Monday evening, and went immediately to a house on [...]

By |2019-10-26T18:34:12-05:00October 26th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |1 Comment
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Guidance for the Unsophisticated

Before “Goin’ to the Fair,” Americans received unsolicited advice in their small-town newspapers on how to navigate the city of Chicago during their visit to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The June 22, 1893, issue of the Mount Vernon (OH) Democratic Banner offered these words of guidance: There is little doubt that a large proportion of those who will attend the World's Fair ought to be under the charge of a guardian while in the Windy City. This would [...]

By |2019-10-20T08:45:54-05:00October 22nd, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |1 Comment
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Goin’ to the Fair

Americans planning to visit the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago were inundated with cautionary tales about evil trappings in the big city and stories of tourists being ripped off. While an event the size of the World’s Columbian Exposition certainly had its fair share of scammers, reports of exorbitant prices on the fairgrounds were largely unsubstantiated. Even before the opening of the Fair, the poem reprinted below offered guidance to the unsophisticated who contemplated a trip to see the [...]

By |2019-10-20T08:47:28-05:00October 21st, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |1 Comment
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR – Interior of Machinery Hall (p. 88)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 88 – INTERIOR OF MACHINERY HALL INTERIOR OF MACHINERY HALL.—Quite different from the view afforded inside any other of the buildings of the Fair was that where the acres of all kinds of modern machinery were exposed in competition. So constructed that the most effective display of such exhibits could be made, the vast hall presented a scene never equaled of its kind before. A common simile in describing [...]

By |2019-10-20T06:55:21-05:00October 20th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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A Fair Harvest

With autumn comes the fall harvest. The doggerel below, from the April 1892 issue of Halligan’s The Illustrated World's Fair, has a rural farmer anticipating the upcoming World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Poet W. H. Jewett may be referencing Littleville, Alabama, in the second verse. A photograph of pumpkins from the California exhibit in the Agricultural Building, from a Kilburn stereoscope card. [Image from the Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography, University of California at Riverside.] FARMER HEDGEROW'S [...]

By |2019-10-05T09:16:55-05:00October 6th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR – Egyptian Swordsmen (p. 87)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 87 – EGYPTIAN SWORDSMEN EGYPTIAN SWORDSMEN.— Among the attractions of a Street in Cairo were a number of swordsmen, some of them very expert in their profession. Their weapons were not of the style in use among Europeans and Americans, but resembled Japanese swords somewhat and had no guard above the hand grip. The blades were not, however, used much in a defensive way, that being left to the [...]

By |2019-12-17T13:27:33-06:00September 30th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |1 Comment
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR – The Curious Grain Picture (p. 86)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 86 – THE CURIOUS GRAIN PICTURE THE CURIOUS GRAIN PICTURE.—There were many fine exhibits in the big Illinois Building, many novel displays and a great showing of objects with what might be called an agricultural tendency, but the throng was always greatest at one particular point, that being immediately in front of what became known popularly as " The Grain Picture." The picture represented a typical, well-conducted Illinois prairie [...]

By |2019-09-14T18:21:06-05:00September 14th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |1 Comment
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Frederick Law Olmsted and the Spark of Genius

The Wooded Island in the fairgrounds of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. On the anniversary of the death of Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903), we endeavor that the memory of his name and personality is not dimmed in the passage of years. This tribute to Olmsted’s design of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition comes from the May 3, 1893, issue of Garden and Forest, written just after Opening Day on the fairgrounds. In [...]

By |2019-08-17T13:03:52-05:00August 28th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |1 Comment
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR – A View Through the Ferris Wheel (p. 85)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 85 – A VIEW THROUGH THE FERRIS WHEEL A VIEW THROUGH THE FERRIS WHEEL.—Imposing as was the Ferris Wheel seen from a distance, a great object towering aloft and showing the location of the Fair from a distance of miles away, it was scarcely less impressive when its monster parts were examined from one of the cars which revolved with it, carrying their hosts of passengers. It was not [...]

By |2021-05-16T11:25:24-05:00August 26th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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