RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
Quarantine Has Us Going to Pieces
Assembling this birds-eye-view of the 1893 World’s Fair lifted our spirits and offered a detailed visit to the fairgrounds of the Columbian Exposition, while cooperating with our stay-at-home ordinance.
1893 World’s Fair Director’s Medal Sells for $3,240
A rare Director’s medal from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition sold for $3,240 in Heritage Auctions’ April 26, 2020, coin auction.
May 15, 2020: Virtual Tour of the 1893 World’s Fair (online)
Chicago "history detective" Ray Johnson will offer a virtual tour of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition fairgrounds at 4 pm (Central) on May 15, 2020. The webinar, offered by Vamonde, is free but registration is required.
100. Picturesque World’s Fair – Arabian Horses and Riders
ARABIAN HORSES AND RIDERS.—Ottoman's Arab camp, or the "Wild East Show' as it was finally called, was one of the World's Fair enterprises which, with various striking features, was yet financially unsuccessful. The Bedouins, with their families and equipments, were brought to Chicago by a private company, and the original intention of the promoters of the enterprise was to exhibit them in a park near the Exposition, but this design was, for some reason, impossible of execution, and the performances were given in a park in the western part of the city, remote from the Fair and from the [...]
May 20, 2020: A Tale of Two Fairs (Chicago Architecture Center)
Forty years after the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago again hosted the world for the Century of Progress. Chicago Architecture Center (CAC) docent Ellen Shubart will compare the two—and explain why one is talked about so much more often than the other today—in a video lecture "A Tale of Two Fairs" at 7 pm on Wednesday, May 20, 2020. The program will be hosted on Zoom; registered guests will receive an email directly from Zoom on the day of the program with details about how to access and view it. The cost is $8 for the public and free [...]
Opening Day at the 1893 World’s Fair
“The Electric Button” [Image (colorized) from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, May 18, 1893.] Opening Day at the World's Columbian Exposition, May 1, 1893, brought “the greatest crowd Chicago has ever seen or probably ever will witness” into Jackson Park. The tally of total visitors inside the fairground, was close to 400,000, with 242,000 people buying tickets at the gate and another 150,000 arriving with pre-purchased souvenir tickets. The event may have been the greatest crowd Chicago had ever seen, but the record soon would be broken. Imagining such a "surging sea of humanity" from the perspective of May 1, [...]
CANCELLED May 30, 2020: Ride Like the Devil in a “Devil in the White City” Bike Tour (Chicago)
This event has been cancelled. The Chicago History Museum is offering a “Ride Like the Devil: a Devil in the White City Bike Tour” on Saturday, May 30, 2019, from 9:45 am to 12:45 pm. Cycle back to 1893, pedal past sites related to the World’s Fair, and discover its lasting influence on Chicago. Along the way, tour guide Greg Borzo, author of Where to Bike Chicago, will uncover Daniel Burnham’s grand plans and the devilish doings of H. H. Holmes. The route will take riders past the site of one of the greatest attractions of the Columbian Exposition, [...]
99. Picturesque World’s Fair – Paseleo, A Samoan Chief
PASELEO, A SAMOAN CHIEF.—Splendid specimens of manhood and womanhood physically were the Samoans at the Exposition, and comment was as general upon their fine proportions as upon their intelligence and courtesy of demeanor. It may be that a remembrance of this time when Samoans imperiled their lives so recklessly in aid of the crews of American warships wrecked in the great hurricane at Apia had something to do with the good will shown, but, whatever the cause, the Samoans became popular at once and were admired and made much of. The story of the United States they will carry [...]
Olmsted 200: The Frederick Law Olmsted Bicentennial Celebration
April 26, 2022, marks the bicentennial of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. A celebration is being planned in honor of the author, journalist, city planner, landscape architect, public official, and creative genius who transformed the modern American landscape. Olmsted 200 will be a coordinated national and local celebration, engaging wide and inclusive audiences in examining the foundational principles of Olmsted’s democratic vision, values, and resilient designs. The Bicentennial will bring together, in a loose and creative coalition, landscape architects, city planners, historians, journalists, policy makers, public health professionals, and community [...]
Frederick Law Olmsted’s 1893 Report to the American Institute of Architects
Equaling or surpassing the grandeur of the White City palaces were the awesome scenic grounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The eminent landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who had laid out New York's Central Park and the Chicago suburb of Riverside, transformed Jackson Park (“the least park-like ground within miles of the city”) into a garden of stunning beauty enjoyed by tens of millions of visitors. In this report to the American Institute of Architects (published The American Architect and Building News September 9, 1893, Vol. XLI, No. 924, pp. 151-54.), Olmsted lays out his ideas for defining [...]