A man exploring the 1893 World’s Fair in July conveyed this story about an unimpressed visitor from New York: I met a friend on the plaisance yesterday who has just returned from New York. While there he met a New Yorker, whom he asked if he had visited the fair. The New Yorkers said “Yes, in May. I was roasted brown.” “Didn't you like the exposition?” “Like it? I should think not. I wouldn't go across the street to [...]
Viewers of The Gilded Age on HBO Max meet several real historical figures mingling with a cast of colorful fictional characters. Although the series takes place in 1882–84, ten years before the Columbian Exposition will open in Chicago, The Gilded Age features several of the designers, participants, and visitors associated with the 1893 World’s Fair. [This post will be updated as new episodes are released.] Jane Addams Social activist Jane Addams is mentioned in Season 2, Episode 4, when [...]
Congressmen filed into the great hall of the U.S. Capitol as the House of Representatives went into session on February 24, 1890. Just after noon, the first order of business was a vote to select a host site for the upcoming World’s Fair, then planned for 1892. Boosters from New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C., packed the galleries in nervous anticipation. Support in Congress seemed to be split among the four cities vying for the honor, so [...]
This gracious comment about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition comes a Connecticut man visiting the Fair in early May. [reprinted from “Noted by a Meriden Man: Jottings at the Big World’s Fair” Meriden (CT) Daily Republican May 6, 1893] The number, area and styles of the buildings on Jackson Park are astonishing and a credit to Chicago's wonderful pluck and executive ability. New York would never have poured out the millions to erect the mammoth white structures that her [...]
Few essays about the fairgrounds for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition better capture the creative energy of its construction than H. C. Bunner’s “The Making of the White City.” The American novelist, journalist, and poet Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896) visited Jackson Park in Chicago during the summer of 1892. There he witnessed laborers assembling the great exhibit halls, hundreds of smaller structures, and magnificent landscaping in advance of the October 1892 Dedication Day ceremony. While Bunner employs an ornate [...]
Dessert: Chilled Relations Continued from Part 4. “I have never called Chicago a pork-packing town.” —Ward McAllister As Opening Day of the 1893 World’s Fair approached, Chicago busied herself with final preparations for hosting millions of guests from around the world. The Exposition would be the biggest party ever thrown, and the names of many dignitaries populated the guest list. Royalty rolled down the Midway Plaisance when the Princess Eulalia, Infanta of Spain, visited the 1893 World’s Fair [...]
Third Course: The Head Butler Serves Another Helping Continued from Part 3. “Mr. McAllister, with ill-concealed triumph, proceeds this week to rub salt into the wounds so freshly made.” —The New York World, April 16, 1893 His thick sauce decidedly unappetizing for Chicago’s taste, Ward McAllister surveyed the indigestion caused by his arrogant advice column targeted at the city about to host the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Nathan Lane portrays Ward McAllister in HBO’s period drama The Gilded [...]
Second Course: Chicago Bites Back Continued from Part 2. “The World’s Fair cannot help but open the eyes of our Western Natives to our superiority.” —Ward McAllister Would Chicago frappé its wine too much? Certainly not with the rising temperatures caused by Ward McAllister’s sanctimonious sermon on proper entertaining during the 1893 World’s Fair. Chicago newspapers launched a vigorous counterattack in the days following the publication of McAllister’s interview in the New York World on April 9, 1893. [...]
First Course: The Frappé Fracas Continued from Part 1. “A new and amusing feature of life in this Republic is the war between Chicago and Mr. Ward McAllister.” —New York World, April 16, 1893 Ward McAllister, arbiter of New York Society. [Image from Society As I Have Found It (Cassell & Co., 1890).] The first champagne cork flew across Chicago Society’s nose on April 9, 1893, in the pages of the New York World. Ward McAllister set out [...]
Appetizer: New York’s social dictator “The real Chicago, which works and hustles and brags about the Fair, cares nothing about McAllister or what he says.” —The New York World, April 16, 1893 He has been called “New York society’s panjandrum of lavish entertaining,” “a greater official than the mayor, a custodian of the ultra-fashionables,” a “flamboyant and outspoken figure,” the “foremost consultant in pleasure” and a “master of punctilio and snobbery.” Others named him “the Autocrat of Gotham’s 400,” [...]
THE PENOBSCOT INDIAN CAMP.—To those familiar with the history of the Indians who lived near the Atlantic coast and so came into early contact with the whites, the Penobscot Indian Camp, or Village, was an object of interested study. There were four families of Penobscots, or, as they were once called, "Panawanskeks," and there was also a lodge of Iroquois, peopled by a few of the living representatives of that famous tribe, and forming a part of the New [...]
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
The May 29, 1892, issue of New York Sun contained a nearly full-page invective titled “Chicago As Chicago Is.” Although the piece was signed "THE PICADOR," news outlets attributed this diatribe directly to the Sun’s editor and owner, Charles Dana. Having rebounded from the Great Fire of 1871, the Windy City easily extinguished his malicious editorial roast.
In honor of National Potato Day, here is a look at “the best potato display ever made,” which was exhibited the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The agricultural exhibit from New York State occupied 4,000 square feet on the south side of the main aisle of the Agricultural Building, near the eastern entrance. For the autumn season, the exhibit featured potato varieties grown all around New York State--from Chittenango to Chateaugay and from East Aurora to Westbury Station. [...]
World’s Columbian Exposition celebrated “American Cities Day” on Saturday, October 28, 1893, two days before the close of the Fair. Chicago’s Mayor, Carter Harrison, hosted what was thought to be the largest congregation of U.S. mayors ever assembled. Greeting the guests as they arrived on the fairgrounds on the bitterly cold day was the blast of a cannon and musical fanfares from a group of sixteen trumpeters stationed around Music Hall. Mayors represented the great cities of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, [...]
“History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen to be In the greatest city in the world!” --"The Schuyler Sisters” from Hamilton The White City of the World’s Columbian Exposition was the undeniable center of the world for six months in 1893, but it was also a theatrical illusion -- a Dream City. Behind the scenes, a famous rivalry played out between the real cities of Chicago and New York to lay claim to title of the greatest [...]
WBEZ’s Curious City podcast “How The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Played Into Chicago’s Rivalry With New York” answers the question Where does Chicago’s inferiority complex toward New York come from and when did it start? Recorded live at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Chicago during their “Night at the Fair” After Hours event on June 15, 2018, this episode of Curious City exposes the roots of the rivalry between the two cities to be the fierce [...]
Colleen Connolly’s piece “How Chicago beat New York to get the 1893 World’s Fair” in the May 11 Chicago Tribune provides a short history of Chicago’s effort to win the bid to host the World’s Columbian Exposition. Testimony by Republican Rep. Robert Hitt of Illinois before the House of Representatives in February 1890 argued for holding the event in Chicago, then a city only 53 years old: “The people of Chicago are unanimous, hearty, enthusiastic; no word of bickering, no [...]
