RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
White City dark again as “Devil” departs Hulu
In various stages of development for twenty years, the screen adaptation of Erik Larson’s 2003 best-selling book about the Columbian Exposition, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, has blown another fuse. In the wake of leading man Keanu Reeves and director Todd Field dropping out of the drama last October, Hulu has pulled the plug on the production on March 6. Hulu ordered the miniseries in February 2019, but little more than flickering cast rumor have emerged since. New outlets report that the streamer, working with Paramount Television Studios [...]
Come on Feel the Fair! Illinois, the musical
“Oh, great White City I've got the adequate committee Where have your walls gone? I think about it now.” —Sufjan Stevens Come on Feel the Fair! A stage musical adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’ acclaimed 2005 concept album Illinois, which features a song about the 1893 World’s Fair, will open this summer. The lyrics in Illinois reference iconic persons, places, and events related to the Prairie State. In addition to tracks about UFOs, zombies, and predatory wasps is the triumphant "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" (Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition – Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a [...]
149. Picturesque World’s Fair – The Statue of Plenty
THE STATUE OF " PLENTY."—The pieces of statuary which stood beside the portals of the great buildings or bridge approaches, or on pedestals overlooking the Grand Basin and canals and lagoons, had all definite names fitted to the idea of their conception. What Kemeys and Proctor did with wild animals Potter and French did with domestic ones, introducing them in statuary with fine effect. The Statue of " Plenty " was well conceived in the female figure leaning carelessly and trustingly against the massive side of the bull, one arm resting on the abundant product of the field half [...]
Mar 29, 2023: “Deconstructing The Devil in the White City” seminar (online)
The Newberry Library's Adult Education program will offer an online writing seminar on Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. This acclaimed 2003 historical non-fiction book introduced millions of readers to the facinating and tumultuous history of how the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition was built. "Deconstructing The Devil in the White City" will analyze the craft of the storytelling in Larson's writing. Dr. Caroline Malloy—a historian, book coach, and developmental editor—will guide the discussion of character, plot, and setting. The seminar will meet online from 2-4 pm on March [...]
The Making of the White City (Part 2)
[Continued from Part 1] A great stage decked with ambitious scenery Perhaps the first thing that would strike a stranger entering the World’s Fair grounds in the summer of 1892 would be the silence of the place, the next the almost theatrical unreality of the impression by the sight of an assemblage of buildings so startlingly out of the common in size and form. When I speak of the silence, I mean the effect of silence. There are seven thousand and odd men at work, and they are hammering and hauling and sawing and filing as noisily as any [...]
The Making of the White City (Part 1)
Few essays about the fairgrounds for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition better capture the creative energy of its construction than H. C. Bunner’s “The Making of the White City.” The American novelist, journalist, and poet Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896) visited Jackson Park in Chicago during the summer of 1892. There he witnessed laborers assembling the great exhibit halls, hundreds of smaller structures, and magnificent landscaping in advance of the October 1892 Dedication Day ceremony. While Bunner employs an ornate and poetic writing style, evoking Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” several times, his essay also provides important technical details of how the [...]
148. Picturesque World’s Fair – The Spanish Government Building
THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT BUILDING.—It was to be expected that Spain, the country in one respect most honored by the World's Columbian Exposition, should be well represented in the displays, and that its government should enter into the broad spirit of the occasion. The Spanish government showed earnestness in its course from the beginning, not merely in assisting Spanish exhibitors but in such special direction as the building of the duplicate "Santa Maria," the flagship of Columbus, the loan of treasured relics, shown in the Convent of La Rabida and the care paid to make something typical of the Spanish [...]
Feb. 4 – Dec. 23, 2023: “Viking’s Voyage” (Geneva History Museum, IL)
One of the largest surviving display artifacts of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition sits in a park in Geneva, Illinois. The Viking ship, a replica of the ancient Viking ship Gokstad, was built in Norway in 1892 and sailed to Chicago in 1893, surviving a long and dangerous non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Since 1995, the ship has stood in Good Templar Park in Geneva, Illinois, and now is managed and preserved by the Friends of The Viking Ship (FOVS). A newly restored nine-foot-tall dragon head and tail of the ship will be on display for the first [...]
147. Picturesque World’s Fair – The French Colonies Building
THE FRENCH COLONIES BUILDING.—Situated well over toward the southeast corner of the grounds and out of the great tide of movement, the French Colonies Building at the Exposition did not attract the attention it merited, though it attained a degree of popularity toward the close, as the interesting nature of its contents became known. Its locality was sometimes referred to as "the back yard of the Fair," though it contained many curious and beautiful displays, not the least among which were in the structure mentioned. Here were products and works of skill and art from both North African and [...]
How the Myth of the American Frontier Got Its Start at the 1893 World’s Fair
"It was getting late. The lecture hall was stifling from a day of blazing sun, which had tormented the throngs visiting the nearby Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition, a carnival of never-before-seen wonders, like a fully illuminated electric city and George Ferris’ 264-foot-tall rotating observation wheel. Many of the hundred or so historians attending the conference, a meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA), were dazed and dusty from an afternoon spent watching Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show at a stadium near the fairground’s gates." This excerpt from "How the Myth of the American Frontier Got Its Start" by Colin [...]