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25 Impressions of the 1893 World’s Fair

By |2024-04-05T08:27:41-05:00April 10th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Toward the close of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, The Critic invited twenty-five notable scholars, writers, and leaders of the day to offer their brief impressions of the World’s Fair. At such a monumental event with so many novelties … what impressed them the most? It is interesting how frequently these contributors sing the same notes as they rhapsodize about the fairgrounds at night and the illumination of the Court of Honor, praise (except for Henry Fuller!) [...]

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The Ninth Wonder of the World: Turning Day into Night at the 1893 Columbian Exposition

By |2024-04-05T08:26:47-05:00April 6th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |

“However grand, complete and astonishing the World's Fair may appear to the public by daylight, it is at night that it can be seen in all its splendor and magnificence,” wrote the World’s Columbian Exposition Illustrated [read the article here]. Another description of the nightly illumination of the Court of Honor comes from the newspaper story reprinted below, originally from an (unknown) Chicago newspaper. Turning Day into Night “After dark at the World's Fair will be one of the [...]

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In All Its Splendor and Magnificence: The World’s Fair at Night

By |2024-03-31T16:42:21-05:00April 5th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |

The illumination of the White City evoked awe and wonder among visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. “Nothing earthly can ever exceed this; man has reached high, higher, his fingers have almost touched the bars of heaven,” wrote Mrs. D. C. Taylor in her memoir Halcyon Days in the Dream City. [Read the full work here.] Reprinted below is a description of the fairgrounds at night published in the World’s Columbian Exposition Illustrated. The World’s Fair at Night [...]

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Edward Bellamy Looks Backward to the 1893 World’s Fair

By |2024-03-18T17:33:06-05:00March 26th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|

America’s favorite futurist fustigated the Fair. “The underlying motive of the whole exhibition, under a sham pretense of patriotism is business, advertising with a view to individual money-making,” wrote Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Bellamy’s 1888 novel Looking Backward: 2000–1887 was among the most popular and influential writings of the Gilded Age. His protagonist Julian West falls asleep in 1887 and awakens in 2000, when the United States has [...]

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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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The Flying Dutchman Enlightens the World’s Fair of 1893

By |2023-09-15T08:38:26-05:00September 12th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , |

Visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago who found their way into the southwest corner of the Agricultural Building Annex encountered a most curious figure. Rising above a display of farm plows stood a twelve-foot-tall, pot-bellied man flamboyantly dressed and having a pair of huge wings. He stood on a tree stump holding a luminous ear of corn, striking a pose that lampooned the famous Liberty Enlightening the World (aka the Statue of Liberty) by Frédéric Auguste [...]

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DREAM CITY DREAMING by Cindy Angell Keeling

By |2023-08-07T14:14:27-05:00August 8th, 2023|Categories: FICTION, NEWS|

Dream City Dreaming by Cindy Angell Keeling. Petite Parasol Press, 2023. 336 pages. Hardcover, $27.99. ISBN 9798987489000. Paperback, $17.99. ISBN 9798987489017. Kindle $9.99. “There’s magic at the fair that turns the most stalwart souls into hopeless romantics,” asserts one character in Dream City Dreaming by Cindy Angell Keeling. Combining well-rounded characters, a captivating story about visiting the Columbian Exposition, and vivid descriptions of the fairgrounds, this new historical novel crackles with the magic and romance of the 1893 World’s [...]

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The Fair as a Spectacle, Part 4: A Transformation Scene

By |2023-07-03T17:23:44-05:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , |

Continued from Part 3 THE FAIR AS A SPECTACLE. How it seemed to a visitor—Strolling and dreaming by day and by night. By Charles Mulford Robinson Part 4: A Transformation Scene In such a mental condition, the best thing one could do was to take the Intramural Electric Railroad, itself a scientific exhibit, to the southern end of the grounds, and there to visit La Rabida. This was not part of a dream city, but of the living world—the [...]

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The Fair as a Spectacle, Part 1: “Behold my grandeur!”

By |2023-07-03T06:44:38-05:00June 30th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Continued from Introduction THE FAIR AS A SPECTACLE. How it seemed to a visitor—Strolling and dreaming by day and by night. By Charles Mulford Robinson Part 1: “Behold my grandeur!” As a loving word rings in the heart when the voice that breathed it is still, as a beautiful face dwells in Memory’s kingdom after years have flown, and a noble deed still lives though its occasion be passed, so the beauty of the Fair, written anew in thousands [...]

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