RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
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 [...]
Historic Woman from the 1893 World’s Fair on “Jeopardy!”
Jeopardy! featured an important figure from the 1893 World's Fair on their show #8766 (airing on Monday, December 19, 2022). The category of "Famous Woman" in the Double Jeopardy round included the answer: "In 1893, activist Fannie Barrier Williams successfully fought for Black inclusion at this city's Columbian Exposition." The correct question "What is Chicago?" required no knowledge of Williams and escaped all three contestants. Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944) was an Black teacher, political activist for the civil rights of African Americans and women, and the first Black woman to gain membership to the Chicago Woman's Club. The Rochester Regional [...]
“Very sterling qualities about the Hoosiers”: Lunch in the Indiana State Building
Hoosiers visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago were mighty proud of the Indiana State Building. Designed by one of distinguished Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb, the French Gothic structure stood in the southwest section of the state buildings on a lovely spot along the North Pond and nestled between the state buildings of Illinois, California, and Wisconsin. One of the twelve state buildings to receive an award for beauty of design and merit in its display, the Indiana Building featured a twenty-foot-wide veranda wrapping around the lower story, from which four entrances led inside. Visitors to the [...]
Dec. 2, 2022 – Feb. 1, 2023: A Columbian Exposition quilt on display (Woodland, CA)
“Expressions in Cloth,” a new exhibition at YoloArts’ Gallery 625 in Woodland, California, includes a beautiful quilt by artist Sherry Werum that features images inspired by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. World's Fair enthusiasts might see Louis Sullivan's iconic Golden Door entrance to the Transporation Building or William Le Baron Jenney's stunning glass dome of the Horticultural Building among Werum's intricate design. “Expressions in Cloth” runs from December 2, 2022, to February 1, 2023, at Gallery 625 (625 Court St. in Woodland). Sherry Werum's quilt featuring the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition is part of an exhibition [...]
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 main street which led across the grounds to Lake Michigan and between State Buildings exclusively. Close at hand in the [...]
A diary from the 1893 World’s Fair
Sally MacNamara Ivey "has read more than 10,000 unpublished diaries and spent 35 years collecting them.... Whenever MacNamara Ivey has had pocket change, it’s gone to purchasing diaries. Back in the late ’90s, when she and her husband were raising four kids with the money she brought in waiting tables and he made working at the local mill, she bought a diary on layaway for $500 (about $900 today). It was written by a woman who attended the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. In exquisite detail, the author described the exotic events, including the devastating fire that erupted in a [...]