146. Picturesque World’s Fair – Birds-Eye View of State Buildings – Looking Northeast

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF STATE BUILDINGS—LOOKING NORTHEAST.—Very popular was the Fifty-seventh street entrance, at the northwest corner of the Exposition Grounds, situated as it was close to a railroad station and at the end of a street car cable system, and hundreds of thousands of people became, in consequence, familiar with the view given in the illustration. The scene is that presented looking to the northeast from a point near the entrance to the grounds, and is that of the [...]

By |2022-12-03T13:53:46-06:00December 3rd, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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“A blazing, colorful panorama.” Edith Ogden Harrison remembers the 1893 World’s Fair

As the daughter-in-law of Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., Edith Ogden Harrison had a front-seat view of the 1893 World’s Fair. Born in New Orleans on November 16, 1862, Edith married Carter Harrison, Jr. in 1887. While he walked in his father’s footsteps, serving as mayor of Chicago from 1897–1905 and 1911–1915, Mrs. Harrison was prolific author of children’s fairy tales. Fifty-six years after the close of the Fair (and the tragic assignation of her father-in-law in his home), [...]

By |2022-11-24T08:17:43-06:00November 16th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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145. Picturesque World’s Fair – West Main Entrance of the Manufactures Building

WEST MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING.—Columbia Avenue, the great thoroughfare which extended north and south through the Manufactures Building, was crossed at the center by a similar broad way, and. this interior street where it terminated at the west afforded exit upon a particularly beautiful scene. Across the North Canal and at the entrance to the East Lagoon a bridge extended, over which passed and repassed the throng between the Manufactures and the group of large structures west [...]

By |2022-11-13T09:03:45-06:00November 13th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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Singles Night at the 1893 World’s Fair

In the era before dating apps, how were singles to meet? One Chicagoan in 1893 proposed a special day on the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition for not-so-young-and-still-unattached visitors. The October 21, 1893, issue of the Chicago Inter Ocean carried the following Letter to the Editor, signed “A. LS.” (presumably one of the “autumn lassies” mentioned in the letter?). Although the Fair held many “special days”—for groups ranging from North Dakotans to Nicaraguans, French Engineers to Fishermen—the author’s [...]

By |2022-10-12T12:11:30-05:00October 30th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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When hunger overtakes visitors on the 1893 fairgrounds, they are in danger

We’re all feeling the pain of soaring food prices today. They did back in 1893, too. Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were shocked by the cost food on the fairgrounds and frustrated by not being able to find a bill of fare before ordering in the restaurant concessions. The complaints pilled up thick in the first few weeks of the Exposition in May, especially at the White Horse Inn on the south end of the fairgrounds. At [...]

By |2022-10-24T09:25:29-05:00October 25th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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144. Picturesque World’s Fair – Interior of the Electricity Building

INTERIOR OF THE ELECTRICITY BUILDING.—How the world advances was perhaps better illustrated in the Electricity Building than in any other of the great structures on the grounds. At no previous exposition had there ever been a structure set apart for electrical exhibits and at none could there have been anything like the display here made. The marvelous advance in the use of electricity has been accomplished since Philadelphia and Paris did their best. Science and invention have but lately [...]

By |2023-12-05T09:38:46-06:00October 14th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Feeding the masses on Chicago Day

A photograph by Charles Dudley Arnold of the lovely Café de la Marine (Marine Café) designed by architect Henry Ives Cobb. [Image from Arnold, C. D.; Higinbotham, H. D. Official Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Press Chicago Photo-gravure Co., 1893.] A sea of humanity poured into the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition on Chicago Day (October 9, 1893). The “greatest gathering in history” shattered all previous attendance records with 713,646 paid admissions to the Fair and over three-quarters [...]

By |2022-10-07T08:39:28-05:00October 9th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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“A Medley of the Midway Plaisance” by A. B. Ward

The short story reprinted below is a romance set on the Midway Plaisance of the 1893 World’s Fair. Writing as “A. B. Ward,” Mrs. Alice Ward Bailey (1857–1922) was a prolific author of fiction around the turn of the twentieth century. The mawkish prose and bumpy pacing in this story may explain why the author is essentially forgotten today. Still, her dramatic sketch offers an intimate peek into the lives of fictional inhabitants of the Midway and invites us [...]

By |2022-10-07T08:01:02-05:00October 7th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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A Wild Conglomeration of Absurd Fantasies

On May 25, 1893, Mr. E. A. Hodge departed Marion, Kansas, heading to the World’s Columbian Exposition. A few days after arriving in Chicago, he wrote home advising other visitors: “Don’t plan to stay here less than ten days—thirty are better, and if you want to study the exhibits you can put in three months.” (Marion Record, June 9, 1893) His letter of July 7, printed in the July 27 issue of the Marion Record (when he finally had [...]

By |2022-10-04T06:06:59-05:00October 4th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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“Crazy Enthusiasm” for Ignacy Paderewski at the 1893 World’s Fair

Among the constellation of famous (or soon-to-be-famous) visitors to the 1893 World’s Fair, few stars shined as bright as pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860–1941). Wherever he performed, concert halls filled with passionate and adoring fans. The musical celebrity with wild and alluring red hair cast a spell over the women in the audience. One pundit, in the days before Paderewski’s concert at the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, diagnosed their craze as “Paddymania.” The Musical Courier [...]

By |2022-12-10T09:57:36-06:00September 25th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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