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“Think of it. Three thousand people on a wheel!”

By |2023-06-11T08:42:03-05:00June 21st, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |

The magnificent Ferris Wheel on the Midway Plaisance of the World’s Columbian Exposition opened to the public on June 21, 1893. Some first-hand accounts of riding in the mechanical monster capture the thrill of what it felt like for those first passengers—many of whom may have never even been in a building with more than a few floors tall—to be lifted into the air. A special correspondence to the San Francisco Morning Call (July 7, 1893) shared this experience [...]

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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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The “Dream City” of 1893

By |2023-03-19T13:22:01-05:00March 20th, 2023|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: |

“Then or now, no words can express the beauty of the Dream City, for it is beyond even the unearthly glamour of a dream.” — Candace Wheeler “The White City” is the most common moniker given to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This nickname—referring to the uniform alabaster color of most of the main exhibition palaces—was coined by H. C. Bunner in his essay “The Making of the White City” (Scribner’s October 1892). A view of a [...]

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146. Picturesque World’s Fair – Birds-Eye View of State Buildings – Looking Northeast

By |2022-12-03T13:53:46-06:00December 3rd, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |

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 the entrance to the grounds, and is that of the [...]

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Listen to the journey of the Viking Ship to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago

By |2023-04-09T09:02:04-05:00October 10th, 2022|Categories: AUDIO, NEWS|Tags: |

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, 2014), an English translation of the memoir written by crew [...]

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A Wild Conglomeration of Absurd Fantasies

By |2022-10-04T06:06:59-05:00October 4th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |

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 27 issue of the Marion Record (when he finally had [...]

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The Plaster Lighting Catcher of the 1893 World’s Fair: Carl Rohl-Smith’s Benjamin Franklin statue (Part 1)

By |2022-09-04T09:06:10-05:00September 3rd, 2022|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , |

“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 Quaker’s 40–0 victory over the visiting team from Swarthmore College, [...]

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Baggage for 1893 World’s Fair Visitors

By |2022-08-23T08:43:11-05:00August 25th, 2022|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: |

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 agents on this subject, which is as well adapted to [...]

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Did the Art Institute of Chicago lions come from the 1893 World’s Fair? (Pt 2)

By |2022-07-14T06:22:03-05:00July 14th, 2022|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , |

The pair of lion sculptures by Edward Kemeys that stand in front of the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) are not cast from sculptures at the 1893 World’s Fair. This misinformation, which appears to have originated in the late 1980s, now permeates descriptions of these iconic Chicago mascots in institutional, popular, and scholarly sources. A set of sixteen lion sculptures stood at the entrances to the Palace of Fine Arts at the World’s Columbian Exposition (WCE), and numerous contemporary sources credit their authorship to A. Phimister Proctor and Theodore Baur (not Kemeys). More importantly, the designs of Kemeys’ AIC lions clearly do not match any of the WCE lions.

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Did the Art Institute of Chicago lions come from the 1893 World’s Fair? (Pt 1)

By |2024-09-25T08:34:45-05:00July 14th, 2022|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

The pair of lion sculptures by Edward Kemeys that stand in front of the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) are not cast from sculptures at the 1893 World’s Fair. This misinformation, which appears to have originated in the late 1980s, now permeates descriptions of these iconic Chicago mascots in institutional, popular, and scholarly sources. A set of sixteen lion sculptures stood at the entrances to the Palace of Fine Arts at the World’s Columbian Exposition (WCE), and numerous contemporary sources credit their authorship to A. Phimister Proctor and Theodore Baur (not Kemeys). More importantly, the designs of Kemeys’ AIC lions clearly do not match any of the WCE lions.

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