Columbian Exposition News
The enduring legacy of the 1893 World’s Fair in modern scholarship, education, the arts, creative products, preservation, and other events.
RECENT POSTS ABOUT COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION NEWS
Pictures from “Pictures from an Exposition”
“Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair” has opened at the Newberry Library. “Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World’s Fair” has opened at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The exhibition of nearly two hundred items from the World’s Columbian Exposition fills two galleries in the Library’s newly renovated main floor. Displays are organized into sections on: • Introduction • Construction • Maps and [...]
Why Couldn’t New York Build the White City for Real?
“History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen to be In the greatest city in the world!” --"The Schuyler Sisters” from Hamilton The White City of the World’s Columbian Exposition was the undeniable center of the world for six months in 1893, but it was also a theatrical illusion -- a Dream City. Behind the scenes, a famous rivalry played out between the real cities of Chicago and [...]
History and Change in Jackson Park
The 2018-2019 class of Obama Foundation Scholars recently convened in Chicago. On one beautiful summer day, the scholars -- coming from places as far flung as Cameroon, India and Vietnam -- were provided with a history tour of Chicago’s South Side that included a visit to the former fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. The Obama Presidential Center hopes to move into the western side [...]
“From the Midway” a new 1893 World’s Fair podcast from the Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune recently launched a new podcast series called “From the Midway” that explores the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition on its 125th anniversary year. Host Colleen Connolly, digital news editor at the Trib, promises to offer listeners stories about “the legacy left behind by the fair, including the remnants that can still be viewed today, the cultural legacy of the fair, the evolution of the Ferris wheel and [...]
A look at some “Treasures from the White City” at the Driehaus Museum
Treasures from the White City: Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 opened on Saturday, September 8, at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum in Chicago, and we were the first visitors to see the exhibit. Treasures from the White City at the Driehaus Museum in Chicago The mansion is a breathtaking example of Gilded Age Chicago, and Treasures and the other current exhibit on Gilded Age portraits complement the gorgeous [...]
Sept. 25, 2018: World’s Fair Auction #32 closes
Columbian Exposition collectors may be interested in World’s Fair Auction #32, now open for preview. Online bidding closes on September 25th, 2018, at 10:00 PM EDT. The auction catalog can be viewed at: http://www.worldsfairauction.com/cgi-bin/CATALL.CGI. Lots 14 through 57 relate to the 1893 World’s Fair, and include: a rare 14-by-11-inch poster of the Viking Ship; a milk glass tumbler depicting the Illinois State Building; a jig-saw puzzle picturing Horticultural Hall; a [...]
Wooded Island Well Suited for Climate Change
It is not easy to find good news in reports about climate change. A news story in the August 17, 2018, Chicago Tribune offered one small encouraging note in an otherwise distressing description of the impacts of climate change on the Chicago region. “The birches in the corner of your kid’s favorite park, the towering spruce in your suburban backyard, that graceful linden on your block — all are likely [...]
Yerkes Observatory Faces Uncertain Future
Perched on a hilltop above Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, stands a magnificent structure having two significant connections to the 1893 World’s Fair. After more than 120 years of operation, this important legacy of the Columbian Exposition faces an uncertain future. Architect Henry Ives Cobb. (Image from The Graphic History of the Fair. (Graphic Co., 1894).] Henry Ives Cobb, born on August 18, 1859, in Brookline, Massachusetts, had become [...]
How The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Played Into Chicago’s Rivalry With New York
WBEZ’s Curious City podcast “How The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Played Into Chicago’s Rivalry With New York” answers the question Where does Chicago’s inferiority complex toward New York come from and when did it start? Recorded live at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago during their “Night at the Fair” After Hours event on June 15, 2018, this episode of Curious City exposes the roots of [...]
Take a Seat … Back to the Fair
Most people riding on municipal trains or buses don’t want to think too much about the surface their butt is planted on. For good reason. If you are a fan of the 1893 World’s Fair, however, the seat underneath your backside probably has a direct lineage to the World’s Columbian Exposition. Chicago Magazine offers a surprising report that the company that makes about eighty percent of the seats for transit agencies [...]