Reprinters Row
A collection of reprinted texts and images
from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition
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, [...]
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 [...]
The 1893 World’s Fair, a Glorified Park
June 8, 1893 was “Princess Eulalia Day” at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Attendance swelled to around 169,000 visitors—the largest yet. Most were eager to catch a glimpse the Infanta from Spain as she toured the fairgrounds. A report from that day reprinted below (originally published in the July 12, 1893, issue of Garden and Forest) makes only a passing mention of the royal guest. Instead, the author focuses on the [...]
Edward Kemeys’ “Buffalo”, Masked
Edward Kemeys' buffalo sculptures for the 1893 World's Fair "possess that touch of the ideal—that suggestion of the soul—which, lacking in the real animal, is bestowed by the magic of art."
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
98. Picturesque World’s Fair – Kaleife and his Dromedary
KALEIFE AND HIS DROMEDARY.—The Bedouin and the dromedary, "the ship of the desert," were very much in evidence at the Ottoman's Arab camp, or "Wild East Show ' The "ship" when under full sail around the encampment was gorgeously decorated, and his driver was not less brightly appareled. Why in a region as warm as the desert is supposed to be so much covering should be deemed a necessity [...]
97. Picturesque World’s Fair – Fettome, A Bedouin Woman
FETTOME, A BEDOUIN WOMAN.—Much as has been written about the Arabs and their wild life upon the North African plains, descriptions have been, as a rule, confined mostly to the men and how the woman of the desert lives, moves and has her being has been left largely to the imagination. So it came that the Bedouin women, at the Columbian Exposition, were looked upon with a good deal [...]
Columbian Exposition Poetry: “The Man in the Moon”
In honor of World Poetry Day, we offer this whimsical verse from the pen of popular newspaper poet Nixon Waterman, published in the December 1892 issue of Illustrated World's Fair. THE MAN IN THE MOON by Nixon Waterman The man in the moon, as he sails through the sky, Can't help but to turn an admiring eye, And linger a while as he passes the site Of that perfectly [...]
REPRINT SERIES
Picturesque World’s Fair: An Elaborate Collection of Colored Views (W. B. Conkey Company. 1894)