RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
92. Picturesque World’s Fair – The Javanese at Home
THE JAVANESE AT HOME.— In their home life the Javanese are said to be a simple and happy people, and this will be readily believed of them by those who were in the Javanese Village at the Fair frequently enough to note the home demeanor of its occupants. They were most interesting, these gentle Javanese, and, in certain ways and habits and views of life, quite unlike any other people in the world, so fax as the Fair afforded an illustration. There was an apparent sadness, which was not so much a sadness as a speculative dreaminess, in their [...]
Jan. 28, 2020: World’s Fair History Happy Hour at the Chicago History Museum
The Chicago History Museum will host History Happy Hour with an 1893 World’s Fair theme on Tuesday, January 28, from 6-9 pm. The Chicago 00 Project will offer a preview of their 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition virtual reality experience. Guests will be taken on an immersive tour of the world’s fair, known for its dazzling White City and eclectic Midway Plaisance, experiencing Chicago’s past and present in 360 degrees and flying 264 feet in the air on a virtual ride of the world’s first Ferris Wheel. Museum staff will share information about some of the unique World’s Fair items in [...]
Jan. 11-12, 2020: “Sangamon Songs” Musical Play Tells of Illinois Boy Who Visited the 1893 World’s Fair (Skokie, IL)
A diary written by a 16-year-old Illinois boy who visited the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago is the source material for a new musical. Sangamon Songs: A Musical Play by Tom Irwin and John W. Arden will be performed at Skokie Theatre for Performing Arts on Jan. 11 and 12, 2010. After discovering Harry Glen Ludlam’s journal in his family farmhouse, Tom Irwin began composing an acoustic song cycle about late-nineteenth-century life of a teenager in a small town in Central Illinois. Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, his 2012 album Sangamon Songs collected twelve of the pieces, including one [...]
THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 13)
THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)
THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 12)
THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)
Jan. 20, 2020: John Mark Hansen Discusses “The City in a Garden” (Chicago)
For a short time in 1893, the Hyde Park and Kenwood neighborhoods of Chicago bordered the capital of the world, as millions visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance. The City in a Garden, a new book by John Mark Hansen explores the history of these neighborhoods: Chicago suburb, world’s fair grounds, college town, the city’s first stably integrated community, Hyde Park and Kenwood have many distinctions. The City in a Garden tells the neighborhood’s story through the experiences and lives of its residents. Paul Cornell, the Illinois Central Railroad, the South Park system, [...]
THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 11)
THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)
Jan. 10, 2020: James Hagy Presentation on Magicians at the Columbian Exposition (Chicago)
The January 10 luncheon of the Caxton Club of Chicago features James Hagy, co-author with Sage Hagy of Fair Tricks: The Magicians at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893. Recent scholarship has confirmed the long-assumed basic presence of a young Howard Thurston and an even younger Harry Houdini, both then unknown but who would soon become the two most recognized magicians of the vaudeville era. But how extensive were conjurors’ contributions to the “Magic of the White City”? Fair Tricks pulls back the (non-existent) curtain of the Midway to reveal the remarkable range of world magicians who appeared in, and around, [...]
THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 10)
THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)
THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 9)
THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)