“Making the best show for the least money”

It’s what’s on the outside that matters, according to one engineer of the 1893 World’s Fair. That’s because most buildings for the Columbian Exposition were designed to be temporary and constructed using a coating of staff—a mixture of plaster and jute fiber—applied to metal and steel frames and creating superficial appearance of white marble. The excerpt below comes from Joseph Kendall Freitag’s article “The World’s Fair Buildings” in the November 1891 issue of Engineering Magazine. The byline for this [...]

By |2024-01-21T17:56:20-06:00January 22nd, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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Nixon Waterman Dreams of the World’s Fair

A prolific writer of prose and verse, Nixon Waterman (1859–1944) is credited with having conducted the first all-verse column in newspaper history, for the Chicago Herald. He lived and wrote in Chicago in the years before and during the 1893 World’s Fair. Waterman’s light-hearted and pun-riddled verse, often on topics of Christopher Columbus or the emerging Exposition fairgrounds in Jackson Park, filled spots throughout the run Jewell N. Halligan’s Illustrated World’s Fair, published from 1891 through 1893. “Without his [...]

By |2024-01-18T09:55:52-06:00January 19th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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159. Picturesque World’s Fair – The North Front of the Agriculture Building and Lawn

THE NORTH FRONT OF THE AGRICULTURE BUILDING, AND LAWN.—Between the magnificent Agriculture Building and the Grand Basin was a lawn not very broad, but nearly a thousand feet in length, resting the eye with its strip of green, and giving room for a just estimate of the architectural beauties displayed above. In the view given here is afforded not only a charming perspective of the Agriculture Building's graceful front, but of two Exposition features which commanded general admiration and [...]

By |2023-12-27T09:06:06-06:00December 27th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|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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158. Picturesque World’s Fair – A Vista of State Buildings

A VISTA OF STATE BUILDINGS.—Looking southwest from an elevated point about the middle of the north line of the Exposition Grounds, a view was had of a number of the most attractive State Buildings, and an idea obtained of the general appearance of this charming city by itself, which might be called the White City's great suburb, though, of course, quite as much a part of the Exposition as anything on the grounds. The White City proper was the [...]

By |2023-12-09T09:44:01-06:00December 12th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|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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Andrew Carnegie’s Eulogy for the 1893 World’s Fair

Rags-to-riches immigrant, Gilded Age capitalist, and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) built bridges and skyscrapers that still stand today. His amassed wealth and radical philanthropy built institutions that should stand even longer—museums and a college for Pittsburgh, a music hall for New York, and thousands of libraries around the world. Carnegie was well on his way in 1892 to becoming the richest man in the world when union-busting efforts and a violent strike at the Carnegie Steel plant in [...]

By |2023-11-25T07:15:11-06:00November 25th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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The White City Wish Book: Toys and Holiday Gifts from the 1893 World’s Fair

What holiday gift would you have wished for? In the years following the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, children could have received any number of fair-themed toys and games. Shown below are some examples advertised in the Montgomery Ward Catalogue & Buyer's Guide for 1895, the Carl P. Stirn Catalog of 1893, and various newspapers of the era. Which items would you have circled in the White City Wishbook? Views of the Fair Toys   Administration Building Banks Ferris Wheel [...]

By |2023-11-24T08:28:03-06:00November 24th, 2023|Categories: ANTIQUES, REPRINTS|Tags: |2 Comments
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The Great Aussie Apple Race to the 1893 World’s Fair

In the spring of 1893, two apple barrels in New South Wales, Australia, embarked on separate paths in a race around the globe. Heading in opposite directions, they reunited inside the Horticultural Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Which apples won, red or gold? How many days did it take? How did they stay fresh for so long? Find out about their journey in the story below, from the June 7, 1893, issue of the Chicago [...]

By |2023-09-23T18:10:16-05:00October 21st, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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