An Archive of Past Events
Relating to the 1893 World’s Fair
July 21, 2018: Devil in the White City Bus Tour
Experience the murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America on a 4-hour bus tour offered by the Chicago History Museum on Saturday, July 21, 2018. (A second tour will be offered on August 25, 2018.)Inspired by Erik Larson’s best-selling book, this tour will take you back to 1893 with historian Al Walavich to follow the trails of Daniel Burnham and the devilish doings of H. H. Holmes. Visit the historic fairgrounds, the Garden of the Phoenix in Jackson Park, and discover what has become an iconic Chicago story.Tickets are $55 ($44 for CHM members.) and available for purchase here. [...]
July 21, 2018: “World’s Fare” at Chicago Athletic Association
Experience Columbian cuisine on July 21 at “World’s Fare” held in the new pop-up bar at the historic Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) hotel. To celebrate the exhibition “John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age” running now at the Art Institute of Chicago, the CAA has created a Sargent-themed bar called “Dear Carmencita” (named after Sargent's 1890 painting La Carmencita in the exhibit), which is open from 5 pm to midnight between July 12 and August 5. On Saturday, July 21, the bar will host “World’s Fare” from 7 to 9 PM with food items that rose to popularity during [...]
July 12, 2018: National Automobile Museum talk on 1893 World’s Fair Products
The National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada, will be hosting a talk and discussion on popular products introduced during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Clothing historian Carolyn Runnells will present a 30-minute talk followed by a Q&A as part of the Museum’s “Second Thursday Talks” series. The event will be held on Thursday, July 12, 2018, from 1:30-2 p.m. in the Museum's theater. Last April, the Museum held an 1893 World’s Mini-Fair.
July-Sept, 2018: University of Kansas celebrates Dyche’s Panorama
Few full exhibits from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition remained intact after the close of the fair. A notable exception is the “Exhibit of Large North American Mammals” that was on display inside the Kansas State Building. The University of Kansas Natural History Museum is home to the display, which is the subject of a series of events this summer to celebrate its 125th anniversary. Professor Lewis Lindsay Dyche created the panorama to showcase the university’s natural-history and taxidermy collection and to “awaken a more general interest and teach valuable lessons on the natural history of North American mammals.” [...]
July 1-Sept. 30, 2018: “John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age” at the Art Institute of Chicago
A new exhibit running at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has reunited a set of paintings by John Singer Sargent that were on display at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age features approximately 100 objects from the AIC’s collection, private collections, and public institutions. Among them are four of the nine portrait paintings that Sargent exhibited inside the Palace of Fine Arts of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition: • Mother and Child (Portrait of Mrs. Edward L. Davis and Her Son, Livingston Davis), 1890; on loan from the Los Angeles County [...]
July-September, 2018: “Glory of Germania” on Display at DANK Haus in Chicago
A German ceramic tile tableau exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair is back on display for a limited time at the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center in Chicago. The Glory of Germania is an 18-by-12-foot tableau constructed of 1,057 individual tiles displayed with the German exhibit inside the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. (See our full post here.) After 93 years on display in the Germania Club of Chicago and another 32 years in boxed storage, the tiles were reassembled by the DANK Haus Museum & Collections staff in the summer of [...]
Chicago History Museum Members Open House 2018
We are enthusiastic supporters of the Chicago History Museum here at WorldsFairChicago1893.com. The museum (formerly known as the Chicago Historical Society) owns a collection filled with interesting and rare items pertaining to the 1893 World’s Fair. The museum’s regular displays of WCE artifacts can be viewed in the “Chicago Crossroads” exhibit, and a stunning miniature view of the Court of Honor on the Grand Basin resides in the Chicago Dioramas room. The CHM Research Center provided access to one of the largest and most significant collections of Columbian Exposition materials in existence, while the bookstore offers a selection of [...]
June 21, 2018: Celebrating the 125th Anniversary of the Ferris Wheel in Chicago and Santa Monica
UPDATE 6/21/2018: Navy Pier has cancelled this event: https://navypier.org/event/125th-anniversary-ferris-wheel/ The great Ferris Wheel opened to the public on Thursday June 21, 1893, at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Marking this anniversary will be celebrations of the Ferris Wheel at two of America’s most famous piers. Chicago’s Navy Pier and Santa Monica Pier will each commemorate George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.’s famous feat of engineering, which reached 264 feet into the sky above the Midway Plaisance. The festivities at Navy Pier will include free rides on their 196-foot-tall Centennial Wheel for the first 1,893 registered guests; RSVP here. Starting at [...]
June 16, 2018: It’s Your Park Day (with tour) on Midway Plaisance
June 16, 2018, is "It's Your Park Day" in Chicago, the the Chicago Parks Foundation's annual citywide volunteer day, celebrating Chicago's beautiful green spaces and the communities who support them. One site includes Midway Plaisance Park, site of the great Midway attraction of the 1893 World's Fair. In addition to a park clean-up (all morning), there will be a free historical walking tour to mark the 125th anniversary of the World's Columbian Exhibition and the first Ferris Wheel located on the Midway. Starting at 11 am, the tour will begin at Stony Island and head west to the rink [...]
June 15, 2018: “Night at the Fair” MSI After Hours (Chicago)
The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago occupies one of the few remaining buildings from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. To honor the 125th anniversary of the building and the fair, the museum is hosting “Night at the Fair” for their latest MSI After Hours event on June 15, 2018, from 7 to 10 pm. MSI invites you to “don your best fair attire” (a glass dress, perhaps?) to travel back in time and become one of the 27 million guests who experienced the glitz and glamour of the World’s Fair. Sample rare music from the era; taste [...]