Season’s Readings: 2023 Books about the World’s Columbian Exposition

This has been a year of rich and valuable additions to the Columbian Exposition bookshelf. Summarized below are important new nonfiction works that explore connections between the Chicago fair and Western Pennsylvania, Lebanon, England, and Massachusetts. Two others look at the religious and spiritual legacy of the Columbian Exposition. New fictional works explore the fairgrounds though the eyes of visitors in both realistic stories and magical adventures. We also include a few late additions that we missed last season. [...]

125. Picturesque World’s Fair – Arab and Bedouin Horsemen

ARAB AND BEDOUIN HORSEMEN.—Just what the distinction was between Arabs and Bedouins, visitors to the Wild East Show were puzzled to determine. Those of them who had ever paid attention to the terms counted "Arab " as a general description, including all the desert dwellers, and " Bedouin " as something more definite, applying to a single tribe or nation. They left the Wild East Show with just as much and no more information on the subject than they [...]

111. Picturesque World’s Fair – A group of Arabs, Turks and Bedouins

A GROUP OF ARABS, TURKS AND BEDOUINS.—If there be a region in the world where caste and race distinctions are forgotten where the religion is the same, it would appear to be in northern Africa, for the people at the Fair from that continent seemed utterly devoid of prejudice as regarded each other. The group here represented should have the addition of some swarthy Nubian chief, to convey a full idea of the good fellowship which prevailed, but, as [...]

100. Picturesque World’s Fair – Arabian Horses and Riders

ARABIAN HORSES AND RIDERS.—Ottoman's Arab camp, or the "Wild East Show' as it was finally called, was one of the World's Fair enterprises which, with various striking features, was yet financially unsuccessful. The Bedouins, with their families and equipments, were brought to Chicago by a private company, and the original intention of the promoters of the enterprise was to exhibit them in a park near the Exposition, but this design was, for some reason, impossible of execution, and the [...]

By |2020-10-27T10:19:36-05:00May 6th, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , |0 Comments

98. Picturesque World’s Fair – Kaleife and his Dromedary

KALEIFE AND HIS DROMEDARY.—The Bedouin and the dromedary, "the ship of the desert," were very much in evidence at the Ottoman's Arab camp, or "Wild East Show ' The "ship" when under full sail around the encampment was gorgeously decorated, and his driver was not less brightly appareled. Why in a region as warm as the desert is supposed to be so much covering should be deemed a necessity is hard to say, but on all state occasions both [...]

By |2020-10-27T10:20:32-05:00April 9th, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

97. Picturesque World’s Fair – Fettome, A Bedouin Woman

FETTOME, A BEDOUIN WOMAN.—Much as has been written about the Arabs and their wild life upon the North African plains, descriptions have been, as a rule, confined mostly to the men and how the woman of the desert lives, moves and has her being has been left largely to the imagination. So it came that the Bedouin women, at the Columbian Exposition, were looked upon with a good deal of curiosity and were found to be by no means [...]

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