Midway Marketplace
New products relating to
the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition
NEW 1893 WORLD’S FAIR PRODUCTS
If you know of any interesting new products relating to the Columbian Exposition, please contact us at worldsfairchicago1893@gmail.com.
“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 [...]
“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 [...]
Season’s Readings: World’s Columbian Exposition Books from 2019
2019 brought several additions to the World’s Columbian Exposition bookshelf.
All the World is Beer
A HAPPY PROSPECT. Sing a song of wondrous things A city full of sights: Common folks and queens and kings Enjoying the delights. When the fair is opened, And all the world is here, We'll have a jolly time throughout the Exposition year. (from The Illustrated World’s Fair, May 1892) For a jolly time throughout the current year, consider a taste of “All the World is Here,” a new [...]
Columbian Exposition Books from 2018
The 125th anniversary year of the World’s Columbian Exposition offered scholarship, images, and fiction relating to the World’s Fair in several new publications in 2018. Pioneers of Promotion: How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing by Joe Dobrow. University of Oklahoma Press. Communications professional and business history writer Joe Dobrow traces the origins of modern American marketing by shining [...]
Spirit of the 1893 World’s Fair in Journeyman Distillery’s new Field Gin
Raise your glass to the 1893 World’s Fair with a new spirit that delivers tastes and aromas from the Columbian Exposition's Agricultural and Horticultural buildings. Journeyman Distillery of Three Oaks, Michigan, has partnered the Field Museum in Chicago to celebrate the museum's 125th anniversary by creating Field Gin, a new small-batch spirit released in July 2018 and made using botanicals displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition. Field Gin [...]
Icons of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition notecards
The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago held their “Revel in the White City” virtual simulation at the museum on May 19 and May 20 to a packed auditorium. It was spectacular. Making the event even more festive were a set of posters designed by Chicago artist David Lee Csicsko, titled “Icons of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.” Greeting cards of the set of eight images were [...]
Souvenir Music from the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893
March, waltz, polka, and hoochie koochie your way back to the 1893 World’s Fair with Souvenir Music from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, a new recording of vintage sheet music from Lake Forest College Press. Donald C. Meyer, Professor of Music at Lake Forest College, has assembled a fascinating collection of 18 pieces of music written for or about the Columbian Exposition. A trio of musicians (pianist Chris [...]
1893 World’s Fair trading cards from Topps
Sports card collectors know the name Topps well. The company that has produced countless baseball cards and other sports trading cards, often packaged with a stick of chewing gum, also releases non-sports trading cards. One of their recent "vintage" collector's card lines is an "Allen & Ginter" series, named after the Virginia company that produced the first cigarette trading cards. Topps three Columbian Exposition trading cards from 2017 [...]
Fist City: a monumental beer
Move over PBR, there’s a new beer for 1893 World’s Fair enthusiasts. Fist City did not win a blue ribbon at the Columbian Exposition (hey, neither did Pabst!), because Revolution Brewing first released their pale ale in 2014. Initially offered only on tap at Big Star—a self-described “bourbon and beer-focused, taco-slinging, late-night honky-tonk in the heart of Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood”—Fist City’s popularity encouraged Revolution to offer this brew year-round, [...]