Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Part 4 Still traveling along the Midway, we see on the right hand at some distance as yet, a temple that looks as if it had jumped out of the old dogs-eared geography we studied at school.[1] Two square towers composed of little balconies one above the other, each a little smaller than the last one, and all surmounted by a curved projecting roof, hung thickly [...]
Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Part 3 Do you see yonder carved and arched doorway, hung about with gaudy foreign stuffs, where a constant stream of people is being swallowed up in the gloom within? Let us too undergo the swallowing process. So! Here we are! A long broad avenue lined on either side with little cells containing merchandise of strange forms.[1] Here is one larger than the others, let us [...]
Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Part 2 A long stretch of high stone wall above which clearly outlined against the blue of the summer sky, is seen a confused medly [sic] of queer tiled roofs, glimpses of latticed and casement windows, and above all a tall minaret, the turban like top holding up star and crescent. We pay the magic twenty-five cents and step into a curving narrow street, lined with [...]
Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Part 1 A May morning, cool but not cold, with a brisk wind, blowing, cloud shadows and sun bursts chasing one another across the deep blue sky. To-day we make our way straight from the 60th street entrance to the Midway Plaisance. When we have passed through that tunnel like passage under the intramural railway, we have left America behind us. We are in foreign countries [...]
Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Introduction With what joyous hearts and eager eyes, we first stepped through the turnstile at the 60th street entrance to the great Columbian Exposition of ’93. For three years we had talked of it, dreamed of it, read about it, and now at least it was a thing accomplished and we had entered the charmed precincts. We had decided to devote the first day to a [...]
Personal accounts of trips to the 1893 World’s Fair offer candid and authentic insight into how visitors experienced the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Visitors famous and unknown have left behind memories of the Midway and whims of the White City on postcards and letters back home, in personal diaries preserved in archives, and through first-hand accounts published in newspapers. Some recollections appear in bound volumes published both professionally—Henry Adams’ The Education of Henry Adams (1909) and Clarence Day’s [...]
MIRIAMNA, A WOMAN FROM CEYLON.—The Singhalese type was well illustrated in Miriamna, a woman who, from the nature of her position at the Fair, became, perhaps, better known than any other one of her race there. The Ceylon tea room, in the Woman's Building, was a popular resort, and there Miriamna sold tea and made a pretty picture as she moved about. She was a wee bit of a woman, but had a dignity of her own which she [...]
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
FIVE SAMOAN WARRIORS IN A CHARACTER SONG.—There was a theatre in the village where the Samoans were, and they gave daily performances of no mean quality. Among these were the Tapate, a dance peculiar to the Wallis islanders in which both men and women appeared, the men carrying paddles which they struck together as the dance proceeded to the time beaten on a stick by one of the number sitting on the ground and controlling the movements of the [...]
DAHOMEY MEN.—The Dahomey Village consisted of three houses and a group of huts, much of the material being brought from Dahomey for the purpose, and was occupied by sixty men and forty women. Other Pages from PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR.
HINDU JUGGLERS.—Some time before the close of the Fair there was erected a small building on the Midway Plaisance in which Hindu jugglers appeared, to display their skill for the first time before American audiences. Other Pages from PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR.
A SOUTH SEA ISLAND HOUSE.—The South Sea Island Village included among its inhabitants natives of various islands in the Polynesian Archipelago, though so superior to all the rest were the Samoans that they soon attracted most attention, and the place was as often alluded to as the Samoan Village as otherwise. The houses were of Samoan construction, and the largest of them was a building of repute, having once stood for ten years in the village of King Mataafa, [...]
SOLOMON JOSEPH AND TA-RA-RA BOOM-DE-AYE.—As a group of uncompromisingly rapacious and mannerless patronage-seekers the donkey boys of a Street in Cairo were probably never surpassed, and of these Solomon Joseph was admittedly the chief brigand. He was noisy, persistent and altogether intolerable in soliciting people to ride upon his dwarfish beasts, and was always grinning and good-natured. Of the two, the donkey shown in the picture had probably the greater number of lovable qualities, though even " Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-aye," [...]
“The presence of the Viking ship in one of our ports and her subsequent visit to Newport and New York and the trip up the Hudson, through the Erie Canal down the Great Lakes to Chicago and the ‘White City’ marks a historical event of no small importance.” —The Chautauquan, August 1893. The Viking from Norway at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. [Image from Scientific American, Aug. 19, 1893.] Few attractions at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition [...]
“A New World Fable” by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen describes the 1893 World’s Fair as a “wealth of achievement” that promises to be “an elevating influence which will endure beyond the present generation.”
At a banquet held in Chicago on January 10, 1891, Chief of Construction Daniel Burnham made this patriotic appeal to the architects of the World’s Columbian Exposition: “Gentlemen, 1893 will be the third great date in our country’s history. On the two others, 1776 and 1861, all true Americans served, and so now I ask you to serve again!" [from Martin, Justin Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted. Hachette Books, 2011.] On August 14, 1891, Prof. David [...]
MEDICINE" AND " PLENTY HORSE," SIOUX INDIAN CHIEFS.- The typical Indian Village on the Plaisance was not so much of a novelty as a study for American visitors to the Fair. They had seen Indians enough, but they had never seen members of widely separate tribes grouped together and so affording opportunity for comparison. To foreigners all were interesting, as savage races from abroad were to us, but to the American the contrast was the curious thing. It was [...]
