Reprinters Row
A collection of reprinted texts and images
from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition
When hunger overtakes visitors on the 1893 fairgrounds, they are in danger
We’re all feeling the pain of soaring food prices today. They did back in 1893, too. Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition were shocked by the cost food on the fairgrounds and frustrated by not being able to find a bill of fare before ordering in the restaurant concessions. The complaints pilled up thick in the first few weeks of the Exposition in May, especially at the White [...]
144. Picturesque World’s Fair – Interior of the Electricity Building
INTERIOR OF THE ELECTRICITY BUILDING.—How the world advances was perhaps better illustrated in the Electricity Building than in any other of the great structures on the grounds. At no previous exposition had there ever been a structure set apart for electrical exhibits and at none could there have been anything like the display here made. The marvelous advance in the use of electricity has been accomplished since Philadelphia and [...]
Feeding the masses on Chicago Day
A photograph by Charles Dudley Arnold of the lovely Café de la Marine (Marine Café) designed by architect Henry Ives Cobb. [Image from Arnold, C. D.; Higinbotham, H. D. Official Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Press Chicago Photo-gravure Co., 1893.] A sea of humanity poured into the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition on Chicago Day (October 9, 1893). The “greatest gathering in history” shattered all previous attendance records [...]
“A Medley of the Midway Plaisance” by A. B. Ward
The short story reprinted below is a romance set on the Midway Plaisance of the 1893 World’s Fair. Writing as “A. B. Ward,” Mrs. Alice Ward Bailey (1857–1922) was a prolific author of fiction around the turn of the twentieth century. The mawkish prose and bumpy pacing in this story may explain why the author is essentially forgotten today. Still, her dramatic sketch offers an intimate peek into the [...]
A Wild Conglomeration of Absurd Fantasies
On May 25, 1893, Mr. E. A. Hodge departed Marion, Kansas, heading to the World’s Columbian Exposition. A few days after arriving in Chicago, he wrote home advising other visitors: “Don’t plan to stay here less than ten days—thirty are better, and if you want to study the exhibits you can put in three months.” (Marion Record, June 9, 1893) His letter of July 7, printed in the July [...]
“Crazy Enthusiasm” for Ignacy Paderewski at the 1893 World’s Fair
Among the constellation of famous (or soon-to-be-famous) visitors to the 1893 World’s Fair, few stars shined as bright as pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860–1941). Wherever he performed, concert halls filled with passionate and adoring fans. The musical celebrity with wild and alluring red hair cast a spell over the women in the audience. One pundit, in the days before Paderewski’s concert at the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition [...]
“It filled me with a great wonder and excitement” Ignacy Paderewski Remembers the 1893 World’s Fair
Who possessed enough star power to follow President Grover Cleveland after he triumphantly opened the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago on May 1, 1893? That honor went to the most famous musician of the time—twenty-two-year-old Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who commanded the stage in Music Hall the next night. His finesse with the ivory keys, his unwieldy mass of luxuriant red hair, and his stage magnetism earned him [...]
143. Picturesque World’s Fair – Under the Government Building Dome
Whatever might have been thought of the beauties of the United States Government Building as a whole, there was but one opinion as to the attraction of one scene its interior presented, that being directly underneath the dome of the great structure, and having for its single unique exhibit a house made within the trunk of one of California's monster trees. The section of trunk shown was thirty feet [...]
This Way to the Egress of the Midway Plaisance
Had he lived to see it, many aspects of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition would have delighted P. T. Barnum. Visitors to the World’s Fair in Chicago could encounter various displays of “the biggest”—a golden colossus, a mammoth squash, a gigantic cactus, a huge walk-in flour barrel, massive chocolate statues, and an immense rotating wheel … to name but a few. A rather pedestrian object on the Midway Plaisance [...]
Jackson Park oak trees uprooted and destroyed (redux)
Some Chicago residents are expressing outrage about the number of mature trees being cut down in Jackson Park due to construction of the Obama Presidential Center (and possibly more for coming down for a planned golf course). More people than you think, perhaps, will be sorry that it has been destroyed. Many years ago, some Chicagoan were distressed by all the trees being chopped down in Jackson Park in [...]
REPRINT SERIES
Picturesque World’s Fair: An Elaborate Collection of Colored Views (W. B. Conkey Company. 1894)