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 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, [...]