The 1893 Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, is often referred to as the beginning of the 20th century. This was supposed to set the seen for what the next 100 years would be like in America. The stage of Chicago, Illinois was set very grand inside of the White City, but outside it was not the same. Brothels were of great numbers outside the city. This was a time when people ran rampant, and when worker riots and unemployment were at an all time high. The White City did a good job of covering up what a mess America actually was. One way they accomplished this was using a mixture called staff, made with plaster of paris and hemp fiber. The buildings were not meant to last, and they didn’t. The director of the fair was Charles H. Wacker. He chose Frederick Law Olmsted to design the fair. Olmstead had already designed the famous, and still in use, Central Park in New York City, he was the perfect man for the job. He used the architecture Venice, Italy for inspiration. The site he choose was Jackson Park on the outskirts of Chicago next to Lake Michigan. The site was filled with landfill, a mixture of rocks, dirt, and sand. The land fill wasn’t enough and the city was built on a kind of wooden stilts. The building of the city took approximately two years. The fair officially opened on May 1st, 1893.
The first impression was bewildering. Americans have reason to be proud of what was to be viewed in Jackson Park; as such buildings no previous generations of men have seen, congregated in this manner; and the display of the achievements of science, art, and industries, exhibited in them, has undoubtedly eclipsed all other expositions in the world’s annals of progress. (Wisthaler)
28 million people from all over the world visited the fair in the six months it was running. The tickets were 50 cents per person. The fair introduced many things that are still around today, such as, the hamburger, ferris wheel (it could hold up to 2,160 at one time), quaker oats, and Aunt Jemima. Electric lights made a great debut also, a grand array of lights was set of at the opening ceremony. Grover Cleveland, the president at the time, set off all the lights using a telegraph that read “1492-1893,” thus marking the 400 year anniversary since Columbus had landed in the Americas.
Greatest of all the exhibits of the Fair are the palaces which contain them, forming of themselves a display more superb and imposing than any of their contents. Viewed from a distance sufficient to display their sky-lines, as in their entirety they only can be viewed to advantage, these temples of industry present a dazzling spectacle. As seen from the waters of the lake, and especially at eventide, when their long array of columns and porticos, their lofty towers and stately domes, mirrored in the waters, stand forth against a glowing sky, they are in truth a revelation surpassed only by the inspired vision of him by whom was beheld the city not made with hands. (Bancroft)
There were over 200 buildings at the fair but only one still remains today, The Palace of Fine Arts. The building was reopened in 1931 after the structure was rebuilt. The fair that happened more than 100 years ago still left remnants of what it once was. The 20th century really was a time of prosper, but also hardship, for America. Hopefully, the length in time the fair ran doesn’t mean anything for the country either…
Three days before the fair was scheduled to close, Chicago mayor Carter Harrison, Sr. was assassinated by a disgruntled office seeker, Eugene Patrick Prendergast. A massive closing ceremony was planned, but was canceled due to the assassination. The closing ceremony was expected to break the record the fair had already set on Chicago Day for the most single-day attendance of a major event. (wikipedia)
Bancroft, Hubert HoweThe Book of the Fair: An Historical and Descriptive Presentation of the World’s Science, Art, and Industry, As Viewed Through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893.Chicago: The Bancroft Company, 1893.
Wisthaler, Johanna H.By Water to the Columbian Exposition. United States: PG Distributed Publishers, 1894.
