RECENT POSTS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION’S BUILDING, FAIRGROUNDS, EXHIBITS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE.
Nov. 30, 2017: “Fair Game” theater show at Northwestern University
An interactive theater show opening soon at Northwestern University will allow audience members to walk through the magic (and menace) of the 1893 World’s Fair. “Fair Game: A Chicago Spectacle” by Sit and Spin Productions explores Chicago in the years 1891 to 1893, as the city builds and then hosts the Columbian Exposition. Written and directed by Eli Newell, the choose-your-own-adventure “FAIR GAME” is described this way: As the 1890s commence and the new century beckons, Chicago is a city reborn into grand opulence, danger, and, above all, spectacle. Throughout the town, people of all ages and from all [...]
See the Midway, German Building, and Palace of Fine Arts on Film
The Chicago Tribune has posted a video mash-up of Chicago aerial scenes, pairing vintage film footage—shot in 1914 from a dirigible flying over the city—with modern video of the same locations. The German Building (looking south) Of particular interest to fans of the 1893 World’s Fair are scenes of the Midway Plaisance (shown at 3:45 minutes in the video) followed by a fly-over of the 58th Street Beach (at 4:15), where during the fair were the Great Britain Government Building ("Victoria House"), North Pier, and the (replica) U.S.S. Battleship Illinois. The dirigible then flies right past the [...]
Model Stock Car from Woman’s Building at Dec. 6 Auction
A beautiful item that was displayed at the 1893 World’s Fair will be coming up for auction on December 6, 2017. Geneva Armstrong's model cattle car (Jackson's Auction) Exhibits in the Woman’s Building showcased the achievements of many women inventors. Among them was Geneva Armstrong, who displayed a model of the railroad stock car she designed and patented, which had an adjustable trough for feeding and watering cattle. Armstrong’s original model is offered as Lot 1155 by Jackson's Auction in Cedar Falls, IA, in their “World Treasures: Featuring Important Native American, Asian, European & American Works.” The [...]
Get Your (So-Called) Orange Cider
You’ve just taken the thrill ride of your life—ascending 264 feet into the air on a giant rotating wheel of iron, viewing the expansive fairgrounds of the Columbian Exposition from a perspective intended only for birds, and gently returning to terra firma in a car filled with scores of other passengers. You need a drink. Visitors to the 1893 World’s Fair walking along the Midway may have spotted a little beverage stand tucked underneath the east side of the Ferris Wheel. From this small structure, P. G. Mattox offered “Florida Orange Cider” for 5 cents a glass. A [...]
Weinstein, War, and the White City
The 1893 World’s Fair has made small guest appearances on the big screen and small screen, but has yet to be a major featured setting for a film or television series. The 2005 documentary film EXPO – Magic of the White City, narrated by Gene Wilder, (link to online video) uses still images of the Columbian Exposition along with video footage (oddly chosen, in some cases) to tell the story of the history of the fair. Advances in computer-generated graphics offer filmmakers unprecedented opportunities to recreate the spectacle of the White City, and many Columbian Exposition enthusiasts have been [...]
West Point Cadets’ Encampment on the Fairgrounds
In honor of Veteran’s Day, let’s look back to the summer of 1893, when the 300 young soldiers camped on the grounds of the World’s Fair in Chicago. The West Point Cadets traveled to the Columbian Exposition by train from their home on the Hudson, pulling into Terminal Station in Jackson Park at noon on August 18. Crowds gathered to watch the troops assemble in the plaza. “The battalion was in full dress,” reported the Chicago Tribune, “and with the spotless white waist and cross belts and bright buttons made a fine display.” Once in formation, the cadets marched [...]
C. D. Arnold Gelatin Silver Prints at Nov. 10th Auction
Charles Dudley Arnold served as the official photographer of the 1893 World's Fair. Between 1891 and 1894, he documented the construction of the fairgrounds and operation of the Exposition, capturing spectacular views of architecture, events, and visitors. Some of the most iconic images of the Columbian Exposition came from C. D. Arnold's camera. Sets of his beautiful large-size platinum prints can be found in several library collections, and many of Arnold's photographs are reproduced in Stanley Appelbaum's The Chicago World's Fair of 1893: a Photographic Record (Dover, 1980) and Spectacle in the White City: The Chicago 1893 World's Fair (Calla Editions, 2009). On [...]
Chicago History Museum WCE display updated
The World's Columbian Exposition exhibit at the Chicago History Museum The Chicago History Museum blog post "New Additions to an Old Favorite" reports that the museum's permanent exhibition Chicago: Crossroads of America made some updates this past summer to the section on the 1893 World's Fair, including: an expanded section on activist and author Ida B. Wells, showing her 1893 pamphlet “The Reason Why The Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition,” a new video that includes excerpts from Frederick Douglass’s speech on August 25, 1893, for “Colored American Day,” and two flip books featuring photographs of the exposition [...]
Carter Harrison Played His Part, October 1892
An excerpt from The Illustrated World's Fair Vol. 3, No. 16, October 1892, p. 330: EX-MAYOR CARTER H. HARRISON ON CHICAGO AN ARTICLE BY THE BEST-KNOWN CHICAGOAN. In the middle of an elegant street, well toward the heart of the city of Chicago, stands a dead cottonwood tree. Trunk and branches are bare of bark. It is gnarled and white. Should one cut a cross-section of the trunk he would probably not be able to count a hundred annual rings, for the tree when it died a little while ago was less than a century old ... But today, [...]
1893 World’s Fair trading cards from Topps
Sports card collectors know the name Topps well. The company that has produced countless baseball cards and other sports trading cards, often packaged with a stick of chewing gum, also releases non-sports trading cards. One of their recent "vintage" collector's card lines is an "Allen & Ginter" series, named after the Virginia company that produced the first cigarette trading cards. Topps three Columbian Exposition trading cards from 2017 Earlier this year, Topps released a series of 20 World's Fair cards in the "Allen & Ginter" line. Three of them show color images of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Card [...]