RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
Aug. 11, 2020: “Britannia Visits the White City”: the Peter family and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Washington D.C.)
What was it like to attend the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago? A first-hand account from Martha Washington’s great-grandchild is the basis of “Britannia Visits the White City,” a lecture sponsored by the DAR Museum in Washington on August 11, 2020. Washington descendant Britannia W. Kennon, a seventy-eight-year-old owner of the Georgetown estate of Tudor Place, spent a week with her family at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Her surviving letters and postcards in the archives of Tudor Place Historic House & Garden will be the basis of this talk by curator Grant Quertermous. “Britannia Visits the [...]
The Voyage of “The Viking” Ship to the 1893 World’s Fair
“The presence of the Viking ship in one of our ports and her subsequent visit to Newport and New York and the trip up the Hudson, through the Erie Canal down the Great Lakes to Chicago and the ‘White City’ marks a historical event of no small importance.” —The Chautauquan, August 1893. The Viking from Norway at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. [Image from Scientific American, Aug. 19, 1893.] Few attractions at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition made such a subversive statement as the Norwegian craft moored along the shore of Lake Michigan. The reproduction Viking ship [...]
The Columbian Exposition as a New World Fable
“A New World Fable” by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen describes the 1893 World’s Fair as a “wealth of achievement” that promises to be “an elevating influence which will endure beyond the present generation.”
1776, 1861, and 1893
At a banquet held in Chicago on January 10, 1891, Chief of Construction Daniel Burnham made this patriotic appeal to the architects of the World’s Columbian Exposition: “Gentlemen, 1893 will be the third great date in our country’s history. On the two others, 1776 and 1861, all true Americans served, and so now I ask you to serve again!" [from Martin, Justin Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted. Hachette Books, 2011.] On August 14, 1891, Prof. David Swing, who had been a charismatic though controversial Chicago preacher, penned this letter which seems to respond to Burnham’s bold speech: [...]
Chicago00 Launches 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition VR Web Portal
Grab your Columbian Exposition return pass and head back to the 1893 World’s Fair virtually with the Chicago 00 Project, which has launched their 1893 World's Columbian Exposition VR web portal at https://1893.chicago00.org/. A partnership between the Chicago History Museum and filmmaker Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, the Chicago 00 Project has been producing a series of interactive multimedia experiences using historical images of important sites and events in Chicago. Their augmented reality app allows participant to overlay historic photos with real-time views at the site of the 1915 SS Eastland disaster on the Chicago River. Other projects showcase film, photo, [...]
102. Picturesque World’s Fair – Medicine and Plenty Horse, Sioux Indian Chiefs
MEDICINE" AND " PLENTY HORSE," SIOUX INDIAN CHIEFS.- The typical Indian Village on the Plaisance was not so much of a novelty as a study for American visitors to the Fair. They had seen Indians enough, but they had never seen members of widely separate tribes grouped together and so affording opportunity for comparison. To foreigners all were interesting, as savage races from abroad were to us, but to the American the contrast was the curious thing. It was decidedly marked, too. Here were remnants of some of the greatest tribes upon the continent, tribes whom the whites despoiled [...]
101. Picturesque World’s Fair – Nizaha, A Woman of Nazareth
NIZAHA, A WOMAN OF NAZARETH.— Hardly what one would expect in appearance was Nizaha, a woman with the Bedouins, who came from the locality reverentially considered by all the Christian world as the birthplace of Christ. It will be observed that in sitting for her photograph Nizaha did not forget her hands and handkerchief and that, with the left hand especially, as it is spread out against her side, a somewhat startling effect is produced. The rings are shown prominently, but the hands themselves have undue size because of their nearness to the camera. They show that they are [...]
Transported to the Land of the Fairies: A Ride on the Ferris Wheel
The great Ferris Wheel on the Midway Plaisance of the World’s Columbian Exposition opened to the public on June 21, 1893. The following account comes from Mrs. Julia Waugh, whose letter describing her ride on the Ferris Wheel was published in the July 7, 1893, issue of the Crawfordsville (IN) Weekly Journal. She notes that her “memorable trip” was taken the second day after the opening of the attraction, when 1,000 tickets were purchased in the first two hours. The impressions during the first ascent vary with the individual, the timid may be somewhat nervous from the novelty of [...]
Speaking of Whales
The excerpt below, from The Century World’s Fair Book for Boys and Girls by Tutor Jenks (Century Co., 1893), describes the whaling bark Progress exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The authentic whaling ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts, was moored in the South Pond and served as a floating museum of the fading whaling industry. A view of the Anthropology and Ethnology exhibits along the South Pond of the 1893 World's Fair, showing the whaling bark, Progress, floating museum. Bancroft, Hubert Howe The Book of the Fair. The Bancroft Company, 1893. "But, speaking of [...]
“The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress” Raises Story of a Forgotten Ship from the 1893 World’s Fair
The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress: New Bedford, Chicago and the Twilight of an Industry by Daniel Gifford. McFarland Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781476682150. Softcover, 204 pages. $45.00. Along the eastern edge of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were four different exhibits of sea craft, each with a unique story to share. The reproductions of the Spanish Caravels—the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria—served as a fitting commemoration of the theme of World’s Fair, Columbus’ 1492 voyage. The Viking reproduction offered a contrasting narrative of which European explorer may have landed on the North American continent first. The U.S. [...]