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Kaz Rowe Ranks the Weirdest Things at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

By |2024-01-23T08:53:13-06:00January 23rd, 2024|Categories: NEWS, VIDEO|Tags: , , , , |

YouTuber Kaz Rowe has posted an engaging video “Ranking the Weirdest Things at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair” in which she explores twenty-five quirky, surprising, or just-plain-strange attractions of the Columbian Exposition and ranks them on a scale from “slumgullion” to “some pumpkins.” From the Ferris Wheel to the Mammoth Cheese to the Windmill exhibit, visitors to the Chicago fair were treated to a salmagundi of curiosities. During an interlude in her rankings, Rowe visits with Marissa Croft of [...]

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Nixon Waterman Dreams of the World’s Fair

By |2024-01-18T09:55:52-06:00January 19th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |

A prolific writer of prose and verse, Nixon Waterman (1859–1944) is credited with having conducted the first all-verse column in newspaper history, for the Chicago Herald. He lived and wrote in Chicago in the years before and during the 1893 World’s Fair. Waterman’s light-hearted and pun-riddled verse, often on topics of Christopher Columbus or the emerging Exposition fairgrounds in Jackson Park, filled spots throughout the run Jewell N. Halligan’s Illustrated World’s Fair, published from 1891 through 1893. “Without his [...]

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Doctor Who goes to the 1893 World’s Fair

By |2023-12-20T17:08:06-06:00December 22nd, 2023|Categories: AUDIO, PRODUCTS|

If you could travel anywhere in space and time, what would be your destination? If there is a golden colossus, a giant rotating wheel, mammoth chocolate statues, and a tower of oranges involved, then get yourself to the Doctor. Doctor Who and the TARDIS take a trip the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Max Kashevsky’s “All’s Fair” a new audio-drama included in the collection Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Volume 05: Everywhere and Anywhere from [...]

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The Columbian Exposition, a Scintillating Diadem

By |2023-12-12T15:28:53-06:00December 15th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |

Mr. Gerald James of London, puzzled by the discouraging impressions of the Fair reaching him through the New York press, came to Chicago to see for himself what the Exposition had to offer an open mind. “The Fair is supreme,” he wrote. “It is a scintillating diadem crowning the civilized world with the honor and glory of peace. It tells a story that centuries of books and newspapers could not tell, and is worth more to a man or [...]

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158. Picturesque World’s Fair – A Vista of State Buildings

By |2023-12-09T09:44:01-06:00December 12th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

A VISTA OF STATE BUILDINGS.—Looking southwest from an elevated point about the middle of the north line of the Exposition Grounds, a view was had of a number of the most attractive State Buildings, and an idea obtained of the general appearance of this charming city by itself, which might be called the White City's great suburb, though, of course, quite as much a part of the Exposition as anything on the grounds. The White City proper was the [...]

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The Fair as a Spectacle, Introduction: Charles Mulford Robinson visits the Dream City

By |2023-07-03T06:40:16-05:00June 29th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |

“The Columbian Exposition had a decidedly reformist influence,” writes World’s Fair historian Reid Badger, “and there is little question that it was at least an indirect factor in the development of the ‘City Beautiful’ movement.” [Badger 115] Among the great urban planning pioneers influenced by the 1893 World’s Fair was Charles Mulford Robinson (1869–1917). Urban-planning pioneer Charles Mulford Robinson memorialized the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in his essay “The Fair as a Spectacle.” [Image from Johnson, Rossiter A [...]

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153. Picturesque World’s Fair – Sections of Timber and Gladstone’s Axe

By |2023-06-27T06:05:08-05:00June 27th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |

SECTIONS OF TIMBER AND GLADSTONE'S AX.—One of the great " show pieces " in the Forestry Building had a personal attraction in that the implement actually used in chopping by one of the most famous men in the world formed a portion of the exhibit. This was the ax, with its history properly attested, which had been used by Mr. Gladstone in cutting down a tree upon his eightieth birthday. In the center of the building stood a collection [...]

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A Comedy of Errors at the Gates to the 1893 World’s Fair

By |2023-06-18T15:38:57-05:00June 19th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , |

Do you remember that time when the Vice President of the United States was refused admission to the World’s Columbian Exposition? Because Adlai Stevenson had forgotten to bring his pass that day,  he was held up by a gateman just trying to follow the rules. The Boston Globe reported on a similar “comedy of errors” enacted at the 63rd Street entrance gate just three days later, on the morning of May 26, 1893: As usual, the principals were Columbian [...]

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150. Picturesque World’s Fair – Interior of the Mining Building

By |2023-04-02T03:28:28-05:00April 2nd, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |

INTERIOR OF THE MINING BUILDING.—There was much in the Mines and Mining Building the value of which was not apparent save to the expert, bit there was a great deal there also which was glitteringly attractive, and a great deal that was curious even to the casual visitor. The display of gold and silver made from some of the states was striking, as were the exhibits of precious stones from different countries, and the great monuments of coal were [...]

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“Very sterling qualities about the Hoosiers”: Lunch in the Indiana State Building

By |2022-12-11T06:16:22-06:00December 11th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |

Hoosiers visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago were mighty proud of the Indiana State Building. Designed by one of distinguished Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb, the French Gothic structure stood in the southwest section of the state buildings on a lovely spot along the North Pond and nestled between the state buildings of Illinois, California, and Wisconsin. One of the twelve state buildings to receive an award for beauty of design and merit in its display, the [...]

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