The Fair as a Spectacle, Introduction: Charles Mulford Robinson visits the Dream City
“The Columbian Exposition had a decidedly reformist influence,” writes World’s Fair historian Reid Badger, “and there is little question that it was at least an indirect factor in the development of the ‘City Beautiful’ movement.” [Badger 115] Among the great urban planning pioneers influenced by the 1893 World’s Fair was Charles Mulford Robinson (1869–1917). Urban-planning pioneer Charles Mulford Robinson memorialized the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in his essay “The Fair as a Spectacle.” [Image from Johnson, Rossiter A [...]