Frederick Law Olmsted’s 1893 Report to the American Institute of Architects

Equaling or surpassing the grandeur of the White City palaces were the awesome scenic grounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The eminent landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who had laid out New York's Central Park and the Chicago suburb of Riverside, transformed Jackson Park (“the least park-like ground within miles of the city”) into a garden of stunning beauty enjoyed by tens of millions of visitors. In this report to the American Institute of Architects (published The American [...]

By |2020-04-26T15:18:28-05:00April 26th, 2020|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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Updates on Plans for the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition emerged from an idea to a White City on the lake in a little more than three years. Building the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) along one edge of Jackson Park certainly will take much longer—if it materializes in that location at all. “The Obama Foundation first announced its site in Jackson Park back in 2016 and hoped to break ground in late 2018 after gaining city approvals that spring.” reports Curbed Chicago. “Two years [...]

By |2020-01-31T16:20:49-06:00February 2nd, 2020|Categories: NEWS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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Frederick Law Olmsted and the Spark of Genius

The Wooded Island in the fairgrounds of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. On the anniversary of the death of Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903), we endeavor that the memory of his name and personality is not dimmed in the passage of years. This tribute to Olmsted’s design of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition comes from the May 3, 1893, issue of Garden and Forest, written just after Opening Day on the fairgrounds. In [...]

By |2019-08-17T13:03:52-05:00August 28th, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |1 Comment
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White City Walking Tours 2019

There is something magical about walking through Jackson Park and thinking about how this was the center of the world for six months in 1893. On the surface there is little left of the White City, except for the some of the main landscaping features and a rebuilt Art Palace that now serves as the Museum of Science and Industry. But with an expert tour guide, the grandeur of the Dream City on the Lake resurfaces in the mind’s [...]

By |2022-04-29T18:39:27-05:00May 10th, 2019|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: |0 Comments
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Restored Map of Jackson Park Before the 1893 World’s Fair

To celebrate the American Library Association’s Preservation Week (April 21-27, 2019), the Chicago Public Library has posted some remarkable photographs of their conservation work on a very fragile map of Jackson Park before the 1893 World’s Fair. Portion of an 1885 map showing the “General Plan for the Jackson Park Shore Protection.” [Image from the Chicago Public Library.] The “General Plan for the Jackson Park Shore Protection” was drawn for the South Park Commissioners in 1885, five years before [...]

By |2019-04-16T09:57:01-05:00April 21st, 2019|Categories: NEWS|Tags: |0 Comments
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Columbian Exposition Books from 2018

The 125th anniversary year of the World’s Columbian Exposition offered scholarship, images, and fiction relating to the World’s Fair in several new publications in 2018. Pioneers of Promotion: How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World’s Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing by Joe Dobrow. University of Oklahoma Press. Communications professional and business history writer Joe Dobrow traces the origins of modern American marketing by shining the spotlight on three men: pioneers of promotion John M. [...]

By |2024-10-27T12:19:09-05:00January 5th, 2019|Categories: FICTION, PRODUCTS, RESEARCH|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Dec. 9, 2018: Hyde Park Historical Society book discussion (Chicago)

On Sunday, December 9, the Hyde Park Historical Society will host Chicago Historian Andrew Taylor Call, who will discuss his new book Chicago: A Civic, Industrial, and Familial History. Among the many topic covered in his book are the construction technologies used to build the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the social and civic development of Jackson Park. The event runs from 11 am to 2 pm at 5529 Lake Park Blvd. Light Refreshments will be served; copies of [...]

By |2022-03-05T11:15:38-06:00December 2nd, 2018|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Nov. 15, 2018: “From White City to Green Haven: Jackson Park’s Late 19th-Century Transformations” at the Newberry Library (Chicago)

The Newberry Library’s Pictures from an Exposition: Visualizing the 1893 World's Fair includes a series of rich programs about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. On Thursday, November 15, 2018, the Newberry will host “From White City to Green Haven: Jackson Park's Late 19th-Century Transformations”. Historian Julia Bachrach will highlight the early development of Jackson Park, exploring the ways in which natural features, Olmsted’s philosophies about society, recreational needs and expectations, and collaborations with designers such as architect Daniel H. Burnham [...]

By |2022-10-10T09:00:30-05:00October 15th, 2018|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Oct. 13, 2018: “The History of Jackson Park” at Chicago Public Library

As part of the annual Chicago Open Archives program, the Chicago Public Library will open their collection on Saturday, October 13, for an event exploring the history of the city park that became home to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. “From Swampland to Presidential Center: The History of Jackson Park” will be held from 10 am to noon at the Harold Washington Library Center. CPL offers this description of the program: “Throughout many of Illinois's 200 years, Chicago's Jackson [...]

By |2022-07-08T10:00:29-05:00October 11th, 2018|Categories: EVENTS (past)|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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History and Change in Jackson Park

The 2018-2019 class of Obama Foundation Scholars recently convened in Chicago. On one beautiful summer day, the scholars -- coming from places as far flung as Cameroon, India and Vietnam -- were provided with a history tour of Chicago’s South Side that included a visit to the former fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. The Obama Presidential Center hopes to move into the western side of the Lagoon. An Obama Foundation Scholar viewing a [...]

By |2023-08-05T08:33:58-05:00September 24th, 2018|Categories: NEWS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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