Season’s Readings 2025: New Books about the World’s Columbian Exposition

New books explore the colorful campus and souvenir coins of the Columbian Exposition and profile a host of people associated with the Fair, including architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, photographer Alice Austen, exhibitors Nancy Green (who portrayed Aunt Jemima) and Louis Vuitton, and another investigation of H.H. Holmes. That devil also creeps into a supernatural thriller. Note: We provide this announcement of new titles without any compensation from authors or publishers. We encourage shopping through independent local [...]

By Scott|2025-12-04T13:11:32-06:00December 4th, 2025|Categories: FICTION, NEWS, RESEARCH|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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“Behold the spirit of Chicago’s heart.” Diana of the Tower departs Gotham for the 1893 World’s Fair

Adorning the top of the dome of the Agricultural Building at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago was Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ marvelous statue of Diana. The golden huntress previously had stood high above New York City, atop Madison Square Garden. That was the problem: she stood when she should have rotated. Installed on the building's tower in the fall of 1891 as a graceful weather vane, Diana resisted smooth rotation in the wind. Both Saint-Gaudens and Madison Square Garden architect [...]

By Scott|2023-10-11T20:39:40-05:00April 20th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |2 Comments
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Gotham’s Golden Goddess: A Tale of Diana of the Tower

“The beautiful statue of Diana which swings as a weather vane above the central dome is one of the great attractions of the Exposition.” --John J. Flinn in Guide to the World’s Fair Grounds, Buildings and Attractions (Standard Guide Co., 1893) The short story reprinted here comes from the November 1892 issue of Comfort, a monthly periodical from Augusta, Maine. Just weeks before, Gotham’s golden goddess--who is the subject of this tale--had been removed from her lofty perch above [...]

By Scott|2022-03-05T08:34:09-06:00April 19th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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Article on “Diana of the Tower” in New York Archives magazine

“America’s Grandest Tower” by Suzanne Hinman in the Spring 2019 (Volume 18, Number 4) issue of New York Archives magazine explores the 1891 dedication of the new tower of the Madison Square Garden in New York City. Topping the tower was a golden goddess who would come down in less than a year and be shipped off to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The article features several beautiful photos of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Diana (including one supplied by WorldsFairChicago1893.com) showing [...]

By Scott|2019-04-16T11:28:56-05:00April 18th, 2019|Categories: NEWS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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July 1-Sept. 30, 2018: “John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age” at the Art Institute of Chicago

A new exhibit running at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has reunited a set of paintings by John Singer Sargent that were on display at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age features approximately 100 objects from the AIC’s collection, private collections, and public institutions. Among them are four of the nine portrait paintings that Sargent exhibited inside the Palace of Fine Arts of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition: • Mother and [...]

By Scott|2022-03-05T10:36:39-06:00July 22nd, 2018|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: , , |1 Comment
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John Singer Sargent at the World’s Columbian Exposition

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was one of the most talked-about American artists whose works were displayed at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. “Mr. Sargent easily leads the portrait painters,” wrote Ernest Knaufft in his review of art at the Exposition. “We should dislike to pick out any separate example, but taking him in the aggregate, he becomes the ideal painter for painters.” Another contemporary review of the Columbian Exposition art display observed that: Nine out of ten of our [...]

By Scott|2024-01-07T08:46:22-06:00July 22nd, 2018|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , |1 Comment
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR – Statue of Columbus Taking Possession (p. 57)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 57 – STATUE OF COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION Only in a lesser degree than that accorded the Statue of the Republic was attention secured by its commanding situation to the statue representing Columbus taking possession of America. It stood in front of the eastern portal of the Administration Building, where were always throngs assembled whether the attendance of the Fair was light or heavy. In this part of the plaza [...]

By Randy|2022-09-02T08:20:31-05:00July 8th, 2018|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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May 4-Nov. 25, 2018: “Celebrating Libbey Glass, 1818-2018” at Toledo Museum of Art

The Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) currently has an exhibit commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Libbey Glass Company. Celebrating Libbey Glass, 1818-2018 features several pieces showing the Toledo glassmaker’s contributions to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The Libbey Glass Works building on the Midway Plaisance. [Image from Views of the World's Fair and Midway Plaisance (Conkey, 1894).] The Libbey Glass Works building, located at the east end of the Midway Plaisance at the Columbian Exposition, served [...]

By Scott|2024-01-15T07:40:52-06:00May 20th, 2018|Categories: EVENTS (past), EXHIBITS (past)|Tags: , , , , , |3 Comments
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Rare Saint-Gaudens Columbian Exposition Medal Sells for $45,600

A medal described as the “holy grail of Columbian Expo numismatics” sold at auction on March 21, for $45,600. Stack’s Bowers Galleries offered a rare example of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Columbian Exposition award medal with his original--and ultimately rejected--reverse side image of a nude male youth. Each exhibitor at the 1893 World’s Fair received an award medal, meaning that 20,000 or so such medals were minted, and many still circulate among collectors. At any given time, several typically are for [...]

By Scott|2024-09-23T08:13:10-05:00March 31st, 2018|Categories: ANTIQUES, COLLECTING|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Happy Birthday to Architect Robert Peabody

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Robert Swain Peabody on February 22, 1845. Peabody was a cofounder of the Boston architectural firm of Peabody & Stearns, designer of Machinery Hall (also known as the Palace of Mechanical Arts) and the Massachusetts Pavilion for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Architects invited by Daniel Burnham to contribute building for the World's Columbian Exposition gathered in Chicago on January 10, 1891. Robert S. Peabody traveled from the east [...]

By Scott|2022-03-05T08:35:09-06:00February 22nd, 2018|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. – Dome of Agriculture Building (p. 33)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 31 – DOME of AGRICULTURE BUILDING DOME OF AGRICULTURE BUILDING.—The agriculture department of the World's Columbian Exposition was housed in a palace, for the great building devoted to the purpose was a magnificent structure, both as to dimensions and architectural character. The main building stood beside Lake Michigan its principal facade facing the grand basin in the Court of Honor, full opportunity being thus afforded for the display of [...]

By Randy|2018-07-07T12:14:47-05:00February 17th, 2018|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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Meadows Museum displays BEACH AT PORTICI from 1893 World’s Fair

The Meadows Museum on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas has announced their acquisition of Beach at Portici, a work that was on display at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and the final painting of 19th century Spanish artist Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838-1874). The American Exhibit of art occupied 24,000 square feet of space in the northeastern part of the Palace of Fine Arts at the Columbian Exposition. One section was devoted to foreign masterpieces owned [...]

By Scott|2018-09-02T18:33:59-05:00February 4th, 2018|Categories: EXHIBITS (current), NEWS|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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