Refurbishing the “Statue of the Republic”

The replica Statue of the Republic that stands in Jackson Park to commemorate the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition is getting a new coat. Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times on March 31, 2026, architectural critic Lee Bey reports that a $1 million restoration project will repair the sculpture, remove worn and flaking gold leaf, and apply a new layer of the micro-thin substance over the entire work (“Jackson Park’s 'Gold Lady' could look like a million again, thanks to a planned [...]

By Scott|2026-04-01T11:10:27-05:00April 1st, 2026|Categories: NEWS|Tags: |0 Comments
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A nightly scene of fairy-like loveliness: Illumination of the 1893 White City

Many of the most effusive and eloquent descriptions of the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition focus on the nightly illumination. This electrical spectacle, augmented with flame torches and fireworks, dazzled visitors in Chicago’s Jackson Park. Some cried. Others thought they were glimpsing the heavenly beyond. The luminous poetry seemed like magic, but was actually cutting-edge science. Ponderous steam engines generating some 17,000 horse power drove great dynamos that created the electrical current feeding the 8,000 arc lamps [...]

By Scott|2026-03-26T20:20:05-05:00March 27th, 2026|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Jackson Park Prints to Support Block Club Chicago

Block Club Chicago—a nonprofit news organization dedicated to delivering reliable, nonpartisan, and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods—has two gorgeous poster prints depicting remnants of the 1893 World’s Fair. The 6-by-20-inch limited-edition prints by Steve Shanabruch print are premiums for donors who purchase, gift, or upgrade a Block Club subscription by December 31, 2024. The poster for Hyde Park shows a lovely vista of the Wooded Island and the original Palace of Fine Arts. The Woodlawn neighborhood poster features [...]

By Scott|2024-12-30T08:29:46-06:00December 30th, 2024|Categories: NEWS, PRODUCTS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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2024 Columbian Exposition Gift Guide

Shopping for a gift to give a Columbian Exposition enthusiast? Or wanting to treat yourself to a little something during the holiday season? If so, check on these products relating to the 1893 World’s Fair. Note: We provide this announcement of new products without any compensation from vendors. Prices and availability subject to change. Add a Ferris Wheel to your tree with a World’s Fair Wooden Ornament from Transit Tees. The image of the Great Wheel on the Midway [...]

By Scott|2025-01-20T09:41:00-06:00December 2nd, 2024|Categories: COLLECTING, NEWS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Horace Spencer Fiske’s odes to Daniel Chester French’s Columbian Exposition sculptures

The great sculptural works of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition have been memorialized in photographs, paintings, and prose. Poetry, too, honors some of the famous sculptures from the Fair. Horace Spencer Fiske (1859–1940) taught English at Beloit College and Wisconsin State Normal School before a long career on the faculty and administration of the University of Chicago beginning in 1894. He stablished the John Billings Fiske Prize in Poetry (in honor of his father) for University students in 1919 [...]

By Scott|2024-07-11T06:07:08-05:00July 11th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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25 Impressions of the 1893 World’s Fair

Toward the close of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, The Critic invited twenty-five notable scholars, writers, and leaders of the day to offer their brief impressions of the World’s Fair. At such a monumental event with so many novelties … what impressed them the most? It is interesting how frequently these contributors sing the same notes as they rhapsodize about the fairgrounds at night and the illumination of the Court of Honor, praise (except for Henry Fuller!) [...]

By Scott|2026-02-20T11:03:41-06:00April 10th, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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The most admired and the most criticized of the sculpture at the 1893 World’s Fair

Daniel Chester French’s Statue of the Republic … “was the most admired and the most criticized of the sculpture at the World’s Fair—admired because of its magnificent proportions and criticized by many artists because they claimed to see nothing artistic in a female figure with both arms raised. Its fate as a work of art was sealed when some unkind critic saw in the rear elevation of the figure the semblance of a washerwoman hanging out clothes.” Ouch. [...]

By Scott|2024-02-21T15:52:49-06:00February 21st, 2024|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , |0 Comments
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159. Picturesque World’s Fair – The North Front of the Agriculture Building and Lawn

THE NORTH FRONT OF THE AGRICULTURE BUILDING, AND LAWN.—Between the magnificent Agriculture Building and the Grand Basin was a lawn not very broad, but nearly a thousand feet in length, resting the eye with its strip of green, and giving room for a just estimate of the architectural beauties displayed above. In the view given here is afforded not only a charming perspective of the Agriculture Building's graceful front, but of two Exposition features which commanded general admiration and [...]

By Randy|2023-12-27T09:06:06-06:00December 27th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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2023 Columbian Exposition Gift Guide

If you are shopping for a gift to give a Columbian Exposition enthusiast or just want to treat yourself to a little something during the holiday season, check on these products relating to the 1893 World’s Fair. Note: We provide this announcement of new products without any compensation from vendors. Prices and availability subject to change. We already reported on a fun new World’s Fair board game, Chicago 1893: The City Beautiful, from Transit Tees ($40). Atlas Stationers has [...]

By Scott|2024-11-21T09:26:51-06:00December 1st, 2023|Categories: NEWS, PRODUCTS|Tags: , , |0 Comments
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The Fair as a Spectacle, Part 1: “Behold my grandeur!”

Continued from Introduction THE FAIR AS A SPECTACLE. How it seemed to a visitor—Strolling and dreaming by day and by night. By Charles Mulford Robinson Part 1: “Behold my grandeur!” As a loving word rings in the heart when the voice that breathed it is still, as a beautiful face dwells in Memory’s kingdom after years have flown, and a noble deed still lives though its occasion be passed, so the beauty of the Fair, written anew in thousands [...]

By Scott|2023-07-03T06:44:38-05:00June 30th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , |2 Comments
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The Making of the White City (Part 2)

[Continued from Part 1] A great stage decked with ambitious scenery Perhaps the first thing that would strike a stranger entering the World’s Fair grounds in the summer of 1892 would be the silence of the place, the next the almost theatrical unreality of the impression by the sight of an assemblage of buildings so startlingly out of the common in size and form. When I speak of the silence, I mean the effect of silence. There are seven [...]

By Scott|2025-07-23T10:15:53-05:00February 13th, 2023|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Death of the Republic: The fiery end to the golden colossus of the 1893 World’s Fair

They toppled the Republic at dawn on August 28, 1896. As the first rays of the sun spread across Lake Michigan and into Jackson Park, a funeral pyre lit inside the colossus began to spread up the structure. A flash of light soon appeared in her raised left arm. On a pedestal in the lagoon, the ghostly goddess stood with impassive dignity as muffled cracking within her heralded impending doom. A halo of yellow light formed about her head, [...]

By Scott|2022-12-09T11:20:09-06:00August 28th, 2021|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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From Hades to Heaven: Penelope Gleason Knapp’s Visit to the Court of Honor

A visit to the 1893 World’s Fair inspired Penelope Gleason Knapp to pen a romantic and effusive love letter to the wonders of the White City. With Victorian flourish, she describes her rapturous experience in the Court of Honor, “where enchantment reigns supreme.” Her memoir offers a reminder that electric illumination on such a grand scale was an overwhelming experience for many visitors from small towns in America. Penelope Gleason Knapp In 1893, twenty-two-year-old Penelope Gleason Knapp was living [...]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:11:32-05:00March 22nd, 2021|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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1893 World’s Fair Replicas in Chicago Parks

The Chicago Public Library Blog post "World’s Fair Replicas in Chicago Parks" offers a brief review of four replica sculptures from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition that can be seen today in various Chicago Parks. These include Daniel Chester French's Statue of the Republic (1918 replica) in Jackson Park, George Wade's Fountain Girl (2012 replica) in Lincoln Park, and Edward Kemey's Prairie King and Sound of the Whoop bison (1911 replicas). Other statues from the 1893 World's Fair grace [...]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:12:23-05:00March 13th, 2021|Categories: NEWS|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
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Chicago Statues from the 1893 World’s Fair Under Scrutiny

The City of Chicago has announced the beginning of a process to review forty-one statues, monuments, murals, and plaques in the city that have been “identified for public discussion.” The list includes four statues that have a direct connection to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago: The Republic by Daniel Chester French https://chicagomonuments.org/monuments/the-republic This 1918 smaller replica of the original 1893 Statue of the Republic by Daniel Chester French is an enduring icon of the World’s Fair in [...]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:14:54-05:00February 21st, 2021|Categories: NEWS|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
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Voting Ends on Tuesday, November 3.

Just a friendly reminder from worldsfairchicago1893.com to exercise your right to vote. Voting ends on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. "Miss Chicago Up to Date" showing a suffragette posing as the Statue of the Republic from the 1893 World's Fair. [Image from the August 11, 1913, issue of The Chicago Examiner.]

By Scott|2021-04-02T11:22:17-05:00October 28th, 2020|Categories: NEWS|Tags: |0 Comments
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In-cider Information on a Columbian Exposition Beverage

The Columbian Exposition adult beverage shelf has a new addition. Reach past those cans of “Fist City” and “All the World is Here” beer, Field Gin, and the long line of products from Few Spirits and grab a can of Virtue Cider’s new Southcider. Crafted in their cider houses in Fennville, Michigan, using local apples and blended with botanicals, Southcider--along with its companion beverage Northcider--honors Chicago’s famous crosstown baseball series. Among several South-side Chicago images decorating the Southcider can [...]

By Scott|2020-08-17T08:21:27-05:00August 17th, 2020|Categories: PRODUCTS|Tags: |0 Comments
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Winter 2019 Trivia Question

Our seasonal newsletter includes a “Palmer Puzzler” exclusive to those who subscribe. (You can sign up here.) The first person to send us the correct answer wins a small prize. The Winter 2019 Trivia Question What was at the top of the staff held in the left hand the Statue of the Republic? A. an eagle B. a wreath of laurel and placard proclaiming liberty C. a Phrygian cap D. a globe E. a torch We had several correct [...]

By Scott|2024-05-29T14:24:40-05:00December 23rd, 2019|Categories: TRIVIA|Tags: |0 Comments
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THE CITY OF WONDERS: A Souvenir of the World’s Fair (Chapter 1)

THE CITY OF WONDERS A SOUVENIR OF THE WORLD'S FAIR by Mary Catherine Crowley (1894)

By Scott|2022-12-10T10:10:07-06:00December 22nd, 2019|Categories: REPRINTS|Tags: , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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Echoes of the White City Part 3: “Fourteen Villages and a Jail”

Entering Battery D Armory, visitors to “Echoes of the White City” faced a replica in miniature of one of the greatest attractions of the 1893 World’s Fair

By Scott|2022-12-10T10:10:12-06:00November 20th, 2019|Categories: HISTORY|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment
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