Fourth at the Fair, Part 13: A “patriotic pleasure-seeking procession” on the Midway Plaisance
The Fourth of July at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was the biggest day yet at the Fair.
Mayhem on the Midway
Chicagoans rioted in the street—looting shops, destroying property, and attacking law enforcement. They were drunk, lascivious, and did not stop their mayhem until morning. The year was 1893. The place was the Midway Plaisance, the entertainment district of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Just two nights earlier, an assassin had gunned down Chicago’s colorful and beloved mayor, Carter Harrison, Sr., at his front door. With the pageant planned for the Columbian Exposition Closing Day ceremonies cancelled out of respect for [...]
131. Picturesque World’s Fair – Interior of the Chinese Joss House
INTERIOR OF THE CHINESE JOSS HOUSE.—Even conservative and ancient China did not keep away from the World's Fair entirely, though the exhibit made was the result of private enterprise, the Chinese government manifesting no great interest in the friendly reunion of the rest of the world. What was known as the Wah Mee Exposition Company had the energy as well as the capital to erect a Chinese Village in the Plaisance, and the Theatre, Joss House, Garden and Café [...]
“Halcyon Days in the Dream City’’ Part 5: China
Halcyon Days in the Dream City by Mrs. D. C. Taylor Continued from Part 4 Still traveling along the Midway, we see on the right hand at some distance as yet, a temple that looks as if it had jumped out of the old dogs-eared geography we studied at school.[1] Two square towers composed of little balconies one above the other, each a little smaller than the last one, and all surmounted by a curved projecting roof, hung thickly [...]
THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 10)
THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)
Echoes of the White City Part 2: “A Midway in Miniature”
For two weeks in November of 1894, an ersatz Midway Plaisance sprang to life inside of the Battery D Armory and Second Regiment Armory buildings in downtown Chicago.
PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS (pp. 15-16)
PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS Page 15 A VIEW IN MIDWAY PLAISANCE.—A city in itself was the Midway, picturesque certainly, and educational as well, however meretricious some of its droll features. It was the playground of the multitude and they learned much while they ate, drank, stared and were merry. The view above presented is from a point about the center of the west half of the Plaisance and a little west of the Ferris [...]