Season’s Readings: 2024 Books about the World’s Columbian Exposition

Relatively few new books were added to the Columbian Exposition bookshelf this past year, but the small selection does cover several interesting topics. Three new academic works explore the Woman’s Building, model Haida Village, and Haiti Building and Frederick Douglass. A new children’s novel time-travels back to 1893. Note: We provide this announcement of new titles without any compensation from authors or publishers. We encourage shopping through independent local book dealers and online platforms that support them, such as [...]

By |2024-11-28T13:44:45-06:00December 1st, 2024|Categories: FICTION, NEWS, PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Angels in the Spandrels: The Winged Decorations of Louis Sullivan’s Transportation Building

Critics glorified and reviled Louis Sullivan’s renegade design for the Transportation Building at the 1893 World’s Fair. The polychromatic color scheme and the grand Golden Door received the most commentary at the time of the Columbian Exposition, and both elements continue to fascinate students of architecture today. Louis Sullivan’s striking design for the Transportation Building featured a polychromatic façade and majestic “Golden Door” entrance on the east side. [Image from Picturesque World’s Fair. W.B. Conkey, 1894; digitally edited [...]

By |2024-09-06T10:41:43-05:00April 14th, 2024|Categories: HISTORY, RESEARCH|Tags: , , |1 Comment
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Season’s Readings: 2023 Books about the World’s Columbian Exposition

This has been a year of rich and valuable additions to the Columbian Exposition bookshelf. Summarized below are important new nonfiction works that explore connections between the Chicago fair and Western Pennsylvania, Lebanon, England, and Massachusetts. Two others look at the religious and spiritual legacy of the Columbian Exposition. New fictional works explore the fairgrounds though the eyes of visitors in both realistic stories and magical adventures. We also include a few late additions that we missed last season. [...]

By |2023-12-06T14:37:41-06:00December 6th, 2023|Categories: FICTION, NEWS, PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Season’s Readings: 2022 Books about the World’s Columbian Exposition

2022 brought several additions to the World’s Columbian Exposition bookshelf.

By |2024-02-17T10:00:49-06:00December 1st, 2022|Categories: FICTION, NEWS, PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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1893 Chicago Midway Playing Cards & History of the World’s Fair Card Deck

1893 Chicago Midway Playing Cards & History of the World’s Fair Card Deck by Stuart Van Leer Bradley. Railway Station Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781951299057. Softcover, 40 pages. $15.00. This companion book to the recently produced set of Midway Playing Cards contains a summary of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the Midway Plaisance, technical notes about the set of Barnhart Brothers & Spindler (BB&S) type foundry printers ornaments, scans of a set of letterpress history cards, and an [...]

By |2020-07-18T10:22:26-05:00July 18th, 2020|Categories: PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: |0 Comments
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“The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress” Raises Story of a Forgotten Ship from the 1893 World’s Fair

The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress: New Bedford, Chicago and the Twilight of an Industry by Daniel Gifford. McFarland Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781476682150. Softcover, 204 pages. $45.00. Along the eastern edge of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were four different exhibits of sea craft, each with a unique story to share. The reproductions of the Spanish Caravels—the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria—served as a fitting commemoration of the theme of World’s Fair, Columbus’ 1492 voyage. The Viking [...]

By |2020-07-18T10:18:45-05:00June 15th, 2020|Categories: NEWS, PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: |0 Comments
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“Haunts of the White City” Offers a Few World’s Fair Ghost Stories

Haunts of the White City: Ghost Stories From the World's Fair, the Great Fire, and Victorian Chicago by Ursula Bielski. History Press, 2019. ISBN: 9781467139656. Softcover, 272 pages. $21.99. Even those of us who don’t believe in ghosts can enjoy a good ghost story. And Chicago is full of them. Ursula Bielski collects many of the more famous spectral tales, and few lesser-known phantoms, in Haunts of the White City. Spawning these claims of the supernatural are the expected [...]

By |2024-02-17T10:01:37-06:00February 1st, 2020|Categories: PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: , |0 Comments
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“Chicago’s Lollapalooza Days: 1893-1934” Explores the Windy City’s Raucous Roots

Chicago's Lollapalooza Days: 1893-1934 by Jim Edwards. Arcadia Publishing, 2019. ISBN: 9781467103701. Softcover, 128 pages. $21.99. Partying ruled in the years between Chicago’s two World's Fairs, writes historian Jim Edwards in his introduction to Chicago's Lollapalooza Days: 1893-1934. The collection of 169 annotated images form a loose theme around the titular “lollapalooza” (a ball in the notorious First Ward, not a modern music festival). Edwards curates a visual review of many of the characters, fetes, and vice that enlivened [...]

By |2022-12-10T10:08:53-06:00January 21st, 2020|Categories: PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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