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Dec. 2, 2022 – Feb. 1, 2023: A Columbian Exposition quilt on display (Woodland, CA)
“Expressions in Cloth,” a new exhibition at YoloArts’ Gallery 625 in Woodland, California, includes a beautiful quilt by artist Sherry Werum that features images inspired by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. World's Fair enthusiasts might see Louis Sullivan's iconic Golden Door entrance to the Transporation Building or William Le Baron Jenney's stunning glass dome of the Horticultural Building among Werum's intricate design. “Expressions in Cloth” runs from [...]
146. Picturesque World’s Fair – Birds-Eye View of State Buildings – Looking Northeast
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF STATE BUILDINGS—LOOKING NORTHEAST.—Very popular was the Fifty-seventh street entrance, at the northwest corner of the Exposition Grounds, situated as it was close to a railroad station and at the end of a street car cable system, and hundreds of thousands of people became, in consequence, familiar with the view given in the illustration. The scene is that presented looking to the northeast from a point near [...]
A diary from the 1893 World’s Fair
Sally MacNamara Ivey "has read more than 10,000 unpublished diaries and spent 35 years collecting them.... Whenever MacNamara Ivey has had pocket change, it’s gone to purchasing diaries. Back in the late ’90s, when she and her husband were raising four kids with the money she brought in waiting tables and he made working at the local mill, she bought a diary on layaway for $500 (about $900 today). [...]
Dec. 10-11, 2022: “Sophia Hayden Deserves Better” play reading (Normal, IL)
In 1891 a brilliant 23-year-old woman won an architecture contest to design the Woman’s Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. What should have been the start to a flourishing career in architecture became career-ending. Throughout the two-year process of building the Woman’s Building, the architect quietly endured bullying, micromanaging, and undermining until she finally spoke up. In a time when women were defined as physically and intellectually [...]
Season’s Readings: 2022 Books about the World’s Columbian Exposition
2022 brought several additions to the World’s Columbian Exposition bookshelf.
Tiffany sterling silver monumental flagon made for the 1893 World’s Fair sells for $40,950
A silver monumental flagon made by Tiffany & Company for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and exhibited in their pavilion there has sold at auction for $40,950. Included in Doyle’s “American Furniture, Silver & Decorative Arts” auction on November 2, 2022, the silver flagon came from the family of Katherine Medill McCormick (1853–1932), daughter of Joseph Medill and wife of Robert S. McCormick. The item exceeded its estimate of [...]
Dec. 3-27, 2022: Joffrey Ballet’s “Columbian Nutcracker” (Chicago)
Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet once again will stage their spectacular production of The Nutcracker, with story set on the fairgrounds of 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Performances run from December 3-7, 2022, at the Lyric Opera House (20 N. Wacker Dr. in Chicago) This ballet by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, which premiered in 2016, invites the audience to … “journey inside Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair ... when young Marie and her mother, [...]
“World’s Fair Souvenir Cook Book” advice for Thanksgiving
Utah Public Radio’s “Eating the Past: Old-time Advice on Table Manners” explores a culinary contribution from the 1893 World’s Fair Board of Lady Managers. Dr. Tammy Proctor recently dug out a copy of The 'Home Queen' World's Fair Souvenir Cook Book (George F. Cram, 1893) from Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier Library. “The emphasis on Progress with a capital ‘P’ at the fair,” Proctor observes, “itself translates well to this [...]
A big statement from Norway for the 1893 World’s Fair
"Constructed for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Norway building offered its namesake country a means of promoting their culture and rich history in the U.S. For many newly-arrived Norwegian immigrants, the Jackson Park building also stood as a testament to their belonging in America." Read more at "Hyde Park Stories: The Norway Building" by Patricia L. Morse in the Hyde Park Herald (posted November 16, 2022). [...]
Nov. 3, 2022–Oct. 28, 2023: “The City Beyond the White City” (Charnley-Persky House Museum, Chicago)
A new exhibition explores the history of race and the built environment in Chicago through archaeology connecting the “White City” of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition to the material, spatial, and social histories of two 1892 structures—the Charnley-Persky House and the Mecca Flats—located respectively on Chicago’s privileged Near North and disinvested Near South Sides. The City Beyond the White City: Race, Two Chicago Homes, and their Neighborhoods, sponsored by [...]
“A blazing, colorful panorama.” Edith Ogden Harrison remembers the 1893 World’s Fair
As the daughter-in-law of Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., Edith Ogden Harrison had a front-seat view of the 1893 World’s Fair. Born in New Orleans on November 16, 1862, Edith married Carter Harrison, Jr. in 1887. While he walked in his father’s footsteps, serving as mayor of Chicago from 1897–1905 and 1911–1915, Mrs. Harrison was prolific author of children’s fairy tales. Fifty-six years after the close of the Fair [...]
Arkansas exhibits at the 1893 World’s Fair
A female architect designed the Arkansas State Building for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The state’s displays at the Fair included a fountain made of crystals (also designed by a woman) and a 14,000-pound piece of zinc and inspired the writing of the song “My Happy Little Home in Arkansas.” Read more in “Arkansas A–Z: From middling to mighty — State’s hand in World’s Fairs” by Guy Lancaster, the Arkansas [...]
Hiding the pickle at the 1893 World’s Fair
The dramatic merchandizing showcased at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition included a quirky subset of exhibits that might be described as “a blank made out of blank.” Much of it involved playing with food. Visitors could admire a Liberty Bell made out of citrus fruit, a Knight on horseback made out of prunes, a landscape painting made out of cereals and grasses, and a Venus de Milo statue made [...]
Childe Hassam painting of the 1893 World’s Fair sells for $44,000
American impressionist painter Childe Hassam (1859–1935) created several paintings of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition fairgrounds. He visited Chicago for the first time in 1892 to prepare his works that depicted what the World’s Fair would look like when open the following year. He also exhibited five oil paintings and five watercolors in the Palace of Fine Arts. An original 1893 World’s Fair painting by Hassam sold for $44,000 [...]
145. Picturesque World’s Fair – West Main Entrance of the Manufactures Building
WEST MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING.—Columbia Avenue, the great thoroughfare which extended north and south through the Manufactures Building, was crossed at the center by a similar broad way, and. this interior street where it terminated at the west afforded exit upon a particularly beautiful scene. Across the North Canal and at the entrance to the East Lagoon a bridge extended, over which passed and repassed the throng [...]
Singles Night at the 1893 World’s Fair
In the era before dating apps, how were singles to meet? One Chicagoan in 1893 proposed a special day on the fairgrounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition for not-so-young-and-still-unattached visitors. The October 21, 1893, issue of the Chicago Inter Ocean carried the following Letter to the Editor, signed “A. LS.” (presumably one of the “autumn lassies” mentioned in the letter?). Although the Fair held many “special days”—for groups ranging [...]
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 [...]
1893 World’s Fare in Downtown Chicago
The 1893 World’s Fair is the puported theme of three new food and drink establishments in downtown Chicago in September 2022. Kinsley, a new restaurant and bar in the One North Wacker building, promises to evoke a “spirit of innovation and diversity, inspired by the ultimate Fairgrounds of old, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and its gleaming White City.” The name comes from famed Chicago restaurateur Herbert M. Kinsley, [...]
“It will take two years to see it all”
When Barney Fredendall from Guilderland, New York, returned home from his visit to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, he commented that “it will take two years to see it all.” In her article "In 1892, Columbus was celebrated in big Chicago fair and by school children locally," Mary Ellen Johnson describes other impressions of the Columbian Exposition from the pages of the Altamont Enterprise newspaper. “The matter [...]
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 [...]