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Nov 3, 2022: “MEET ME AT THE FAIR!: Music from the Great World’s Fairs” (Williamsport, PA)
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra will present MEET ME AT THE FAIR!: Music from the Great “World’s Fairs” on November 3, 2022. A spectacular musical celebration of the legendary world’s fairs, including the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Music played a key role in the success of all these international festivals, launching both hit songs and the illustrious [...]
The Indian guru who spoke at the 1893 World’s Fair
“One morning in September 1893, a 30-year-old Indian man sat on a curb on Chicago’s Dearborn Street wearing an orange turban and a rumpled scarlet robe. He had come to the United States to speak at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, part of the famous World Columbian Exposition. The trouble was, he hadn’t actually been invited …” Read more about Swami Vivekananda’s time at the 1893 World’s Fair [...]
Listen to the journey of the Viking Ship to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago
Few surviving artifacts from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition are as treasured as the Viking, an exact replica of the Gokstad ship that sailed from Norway to be displayed at the Fair. Friends of the Viking Ship in Geneva, Illinois, work to preserve and educate about the Viking and her crew. They have released a new audiobook version of Viking: From Norway to America (Friends of the Viking Ship, [...]
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 [...]
Keanu pulls a Reeves-versal and ditches the “Devil”
If you’ve been holding your breath since the January 2023 announcement that Keanu Reeves would star in The Devil in the White City mini-series … you can exhale now. He’s out, according to Deadline. The on-again-off-again limited series currently “in production” at Hulu has lost its make-no-little-plans Director of Works for the 1893 World’s Fair. Daniel Burnham (left) discussing his role as Director of Works for the 1893 [...]
“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 [...]
The Plaster Lighting Catcher of the 1893 World’s Fair: Carl Rohl-Smith’s Benjamin Franklin statue (Part 2)
[Part 1 of this article describes the commission and construction of Carl Rohl-Smith’s statue of Benjamin Franklin for the Electricity Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.] “I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known one hundred years hence.” —Benjamin Franklin, July 27, 1783 The capital of the world vanished like a sweet dream [...]
World’s Fair Chicago 1893 : 5th Anniversary
Hip Hip Hooray! Today marks the 5th anniversary of World'sFairChicago1893.com 375,000 views 142,000 visitors 702 posts 5 years 0 ads Thank you for reading.
The Plaster Lighting Catcher of the 1893 World’s Fair: Carl Rohl-Smith’s Benjamin Franklin statue (Part 1)
“The scientists says that electricity is life. Then Jackson Park is of a truth a living thing.” — H. D. Northrop, The World's Fair as Seen in One Hundred Days (1893) A crowd of fans sporting blue and red poured out of the new Franklin Field in Philadelphia on the first day of October in 1895, a warm and sunny start to the college football season. Elated with the [...]
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 [...]
Baggage for 1893 World’s Fair Visitors
In our modern era of frustrating travel, here is a reminder that the more things change the more they stay the same. This complicated advice for train travelers heading to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago comes from April 1893 issue of The Station Agent: “General Passenger Agent De Haven of the Chicago & West Michigan and Detroit, Lansing & Northern railroads has issued a poster to all [...]
Oct. 6-20, 2022: “Olmsted in Chicago: Iconic Greenspaces and the 1893 White City” (online seminar)
To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr, the Newberry Library is hosting a seminar on "Olmsted in Chicago: Iconic Greenspaces and the 1893 White City." The online seminar will run for three Thursday sessions from 6-8pm on October 6, 13, and 20. Hosting the sminar will be Julia Bachrach, consulting historian and preservationist and author of The City in a Garden: [...]
Aug. 20-Dec. 22, 2022: An exhibit of Korean Fashion from the 1893 World’s Fair (Washington, D.C.)
After centuries of relative isolation, Korea opened its borders to international trade and diplomacy in 1876, but for years the country remained little known outside of Asia. Korea’s participation in the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 changed that. Visitors to the Korean pavilion were dazzled by the colorful displays of traditional clothing (hanbok), such as embroidered silk jackets and robes made for the Joseon royal court. South Korea's emergence [...]
Sept 10, 2022: 1893 Chicago’s Columbian Exposition doc film premiere (Chicago)
A new full-length documenary film 1893 Chicago's Columbian Exposition will have it theatrical premier on September 10th, 2022, at 5 pm. The event is in coordination with the Design Museum of Chicago and will be held at Chicago Filmmakers (1326 W. Hollywood Ave. in Chicago). A $10 donation is requested. Following the screening will be a demonstration on the patio of a World's Fair augmented reality project. For more [...]
Daniel Burnham on Architecture and “The Intellectual Reflex of the Exposition”
What influence would the White City erected for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago likely have on the development of American architecture in the years to come? Pondering that question, architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler noted that Daniel Burnham, Director of Works for the Columbian Exposition, offered a vision that was able to “crystallize into a lucid and specific form a general hazy expectation.” Burnham’s made his comments in this [...]