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The World's Columbian Exposition (also called The Chicago World's Fair), a World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The Chicago Columbian Exposition was, in large part, designed by Daniel Burnham. In essence, it was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be. It was designed to follow Beaux arts principles of design, namely, European Classical Architecture principles based on symmetry and balance.

The Exposition covered more than 600 acres (2.4 km²), featuring nearly 200 new buildings of European architecture, canals and lagoons, and people and cultures from around the world. Over 27 million people (about half the U.S. population) attended the Exposition over the six months it was open. Its scale and grandeur far exceeded the other world fairs of the time, and became a symbol of then-emerging American Exceptionalism, much in the same way that the The Great Exhibition became a symbol of the Victorian era United Kingdom.

Opening ceremony

Dedication ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21, 1892 but the fairgrounds were not actually opened to the public until May 1, 1893. The fair continued until October 30, 1893. In addition to recognizing the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World, the fair also served to show the world that Chicago had risen from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire, which had destroyed much of the city in 1871.

Description

The exposition was located in Jackson Park and on the Midway Plaisance on 630 acres (2.5 km²) in the neighborhoods of South Shore, Jackson Park Highlands, Hyde Park and Woodlawn. Charles H. Wacker was the Director of the Fair. The layout of the fairgrounds was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Beaux-Arts architecture of the buildings was under the direction of Daniel Burnham, director of Works for the fair. Renowned local architect Henry Ives Cobb designed several buildings for the expostition. The Director of the American Academy in Rome, Francis David Millet, directed the painted mural decorations. Indeed, it was a coming-of-age for the arts and architecture of the "American Renaissance".

Most of the buildings were based on classical architecture, and the area taken up by the fair around the Court of Honor was known as "The White City". It became known as the White City for two reasons. For one, because the buildings were made of a white stucco, which, in comparison to the tenements of Chicago (and the rest of the United States for that matter) at that time, seemed illuminated. It was also called the White City because this was the first time street lights were ever used, making the boulevards and buildings walkable at night. It included such buildings as:

The Administration Building, designed by Richard Morris Hunt
The Agricultural Building, designed by Charles McKim
The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, designed by George Post
The Mines and Mining Building, designed by Solon Spencer Beman
The Electricity Building, designed by Henry Van Brunt and Frank Maynard Howe
The Machinery Building, designed by Robert Swain Peabody of Peabody and Stearns

Louis Sullivan's polychrome proto-Modern Transportation Building was an outstanding exception, as Sullivan was of the opinion that the classical style of the "White City" had set back modern American architecture by forty years.

As detailed in Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City, it required an extraordinary effort to accomplish the exposition, and indeed much of it was unfinished when its opening day arrived. The famous Ferris Wheel, which proved to be a major attendance draw and helped save the fair from bankruptcy, was not finished until June, because of waffling by the fair's board of directors the previous year, on whether to build the structure or not. Frequent debates and disagreements among the fair's developers added many delays. The spurning of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show proved a serious financial mistake, as Buffalo Bill set up his highly popular show next door to the fair, and brought in a great deal of revenue that he was not obligated to share with the fair's developers. Ultimately, though, construction and operation of the fair proved to be a windfall for Chicago workers, during a serious economic recession that was sweeping the country at the time.

Early in July, a Wellesley College English teacher named Katharine Lee Bates was a visitor at the fair, and was rather more impressed by it than was Sullivan. In her poem (later a song) America the Beautiful, the phrase, Thine alabaster cities gleam, was inspired by the "White City".^[1]

Some famous visitors to the fair included Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Scott Joplin, Annie Oakley, Eadweard Muybridge, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frederick Douglass, Henry Blake Fuller, J.P. Morgan, Henry Adams, Andrew Carnegie, W.D. Howells, Hamlin Garland, Swami Vivekananda, Helen Keller, Octave Chanute, John J. Montgomery, Nikola Tesla, and President Grover Cleveland.

Of the more than 200 buildings erected for the fair, the only two which still stand in place are the Palace of Fine Arts and the World's Congress Auxiliary Building. From the time the fair closed until 1920, the Palace of Fine Arts housed the Field Columbian Museum (now the relocated Field Museum of Natural History). In 1931 the building re-opened as the Museum of Science and Industry. The cost of construction of the World's Congress Auxiliary Building was shared with the Art Institute of Chicago, which moved into the building (the museum's current home) after the close of the fair.

Pinta, Santa Maria, Nina replicas from Spain

There are two other significant buildings that survived the fair. The Norway pavilion, a building now preserved at a museum called "Little Norway" in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. The Maine State Building, designed by Charles Sumner Frost, was purchased by the Ricker family of Poland Spring, Maine and brought the building to its resort to serve as a library and art gallery. The Poland Spring Preservation Society now owns the building which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The full scale replica of Columbus' flagship the Santa María rotted in the Jackson Park lagoon, and is now an island.

The main altar, as well as its matching two side altars at St. John Cantius in Chicago are reputed to be from the Columbian Exposition

The other buildings at the fair were all intended to be temporary. Their facades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement and jute fiber called "staff", which was painted white, giving the buildings their "gleam". Architecture critics derided the structures as "decorated sheds". The "White City", however, so impressed everyone who saw it (at least before air pollution began to darken the façades) that plans were considered to refinish the exteriors in marble or some other material. These plans had to be abandoned in July 1894 when much of the fair grounds was destroyed in a fire. (The fire occurred at the height of the Pullman Strike; since the strikers set other fires that very week, it is possible the fire was set by disgruntled Pullman employees.)

The fair itself ended on a shocking sour note, as popular mayor Carter Harrison, Sr. was assassinated two days before the fair's closing date. Closing ceremonies were cancelled in favor of a public memorial service. The fair's developers kidded about a controlled burning or dynamiting of the fair buildings, rather than letting them deteriorate in place, but as noted, an arsonist usurped their plans.

Jackson Park was eventually returned to its status as a public park, albeit in much better shape than its original swampy texture, and the lagoon was reshaped to give it a more natural appearance, except for the straight-line northern end where it still laps up against the steps on the south side of the Palace of Fine Arts/Museum of Science & Industry building. The Midway Plaisance, a park-like boulevard which extends west from Jackson Park, once formed the southern boundary of the University of Chicago, which was being built as the fair was closing. (The University has since developed south of the Midway.) The university's football team, the Maroons, were the original "Monsters of the Midway". The Exposition is mentioned in the university's alma mater: "The City White hath fled the earth,/But where the azure waters lie,/A nobler city hath its birth,/The City Gray that ne'er shall die."

The north side of the Museum of Science and Industry was fronted by a paved parking lot for many years. In the 1990s, an ambitious project was undertaken to build an underground garage surfaced by natural grass, thus extending the park completely around the building.

McKim, Mead and White designed the Agriculture building. Sophia Hayden designed the Women's Building.

Electricity at the fair

File:WorldColumbian.JPG

Columbian Exposition from stereopticon card photo.

The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. The general public observed firsthand the qualities and abilities of alternating current power. All the exhibits were from commercial enterprises. Thomas Edison, Brush, Western Electric, and Westinghouse had exhibits.

General Electric Company (backed by Edison and J.P. Morgan) had proposed to power the electric exhibits with direct current at the cost of one million dollars. However, Westinghouse, armed with Tesla's alternating current system, proposed to illuminate the Columbian Exposition in Chicago for half that price, and Westinghouse won the bid.

Tesla's high-frequency high-voltage lighting produced more efficient light with quantitatively less heat. A two-phase induction motor was driven by current from the main generators to power the system. Edison tried to prevent the use of his light bulbs in Tesla's works. Westinghouse's proposal was chosen over the less efficient (but safer) direct-current system to power the fair. General Electric banned the use of Edison's lamps in Westinghouse's plan, in retaliation for losing the bid. Westinghouse's company quickly designed a double-stopper lightbulb (sidestepping Edison's patents) and was able to light the fair.

The Westinghouse Company displayed several polyphase systems. The exhibits included a switchboard, polyphase generators, step-up transformers, transmission line, step-down transformers, commercial size induction motors and synchronous motors, and rotary direct current converters (including an operational railway motor). The working scaled system allowed the public a view of a system of polyphase power which could be transmitted over long distances, and be utilized, including the supply of direct current. Meters and other auxiliary devices were also present.

Tesla displayed his phosphorescent lighting, powered without wires by high-frequency fields. Tesla displayed the first practical phosphorescent lamps (a precursor to fluorescent lamps). Tesla's lighting inventions exposed to high-frequency currents would bring the gases to incandescence. Tesla also displayed the first neon lights. His innovations in this type of light emission were not regularly patented.

Also among the exhibits was Tesla's demonstration, most notably the "Egg of Columbus". This device explains the principles of the rotating magnetic field and his induction motor. The Egg of Columbus consisted of a polyphase field coil underneath a plate with a copper egg positioned over the top. When the sequence of coils were energized, the magnetic field arrangement inductively created a rotation on the egg and made it stand up on end (appearing to resist gravity). On August 25, Elisha Gray introduced Tesla for a delivery of a lecture on mechanical and electrical oscillators. Tesla explained his work for efficiently increasing the work at high frequency of reciprocation. As Electrical Congress members listened, Tesla delineated mechanisms which could produce oscillations of constant periods irrespective of the pressure applied and irrespective of frictional losses and loads. He continued to explain the working mean of the production of constant period electric currents (not resorting to spark gaps or breaks), and how to produce these with mechanisms which are reliable.

The successful demonstration of alternating current lighting at the Exposition dispelled doubts about the usefulness of the polyphase alternating current system developed by Westinghouse and Tesla.

Other notable attractions

The World's Columbian Exposition was the first world's fair with an area for amusements that was strictly separated from the exhibition halls. This area developed by a young music promoter, Sol Bloom, concentrated on Midway Plaisance, included carnival rides — among them the first Ferris Wheel, built by George Ferris. This wheel was 264 feet (80 m) high and had 36 cars, each of which could accommodate 60 people. One of the cars carried a band which played whenever the wheel was in motion.

File:Ferris-wheel-93.jpg

First Ferris Wheel

Nearby, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show performed. Buffalo Bill had asked to perform at the fair, but was turned down, because too many people thought he was too western, and would not fit in with the other attractions. He decided that he would come to Chicago anyway, where he set up his show just outside the very outer edge of the exposition. At the same time, historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave academic lectures reflecting on the end of the same frontier. Another popular Midway attraction was the "Street in Cairo", which included the popular exotic dancer known as Little Egypt, who introduced America to the suggestive version of the belly dance known as the "hootchy-kootchy", to a tune improvised by Bloom (and now more commonly associated with snake charmers). The Midway Plaisance introduced the term "midway" to American English, to describe a sideshow.

The Electrotachyscope of Ottomar Anschütz, which used a Geissler Tube to project the illusion of moving images was demonstrated.

Louis Comfort Tiffany made his reputation with a stunning chapel he designed and built for the Exposition. This chapel has been carefully reconstructed in recent years, and can now be seen in excellent condition at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art.

Architect Kirtland Cutter's Idaho Building, a rustic design log construction, was a popular favorite [1], visited by an estimated 18 million people. [2] The building's design and interior furnishings were a major precursor of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The John Bull, the steam locomotive that would become the oldest surviving operable steam locomotive in the world when it ran under its own power again in 1981, was also displayed. At the time of the exposition, the locomotive was only 62 years old, having been built in 1831. However, it had already by this time become notable as the first locomotive acquisition by the Smithsonian Institution. The locomotive ran under its own power from Washington, DC, to Chicago to participate, and returned to Washington under its own power again when the exposition closed.

File:John Bull at the Columbian Exposition.jpg

John Bull on display at the exposition.

Also on display in Chicago was an original frog switch and portion of the superstructure of the famous 1826 Granite Railway in Massachusetts, which was the first commercial railroad in the United States to evolve into a common carrier without an intervening closure. The railway brought granite stones from a rock quarry in Quincy, Massachusetts so that the Bunker Hill Monument could be erected in Boston to commemorate that important battle during the American Revolution. The frog switch is now on public view in East Milton Square, MA, on the original right-of-way of the Granite Railway.

The 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions, which ran from September 11 to September 27, marked the first formal gathering of representatives of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions from around the world.

Forty-six nations participated in the fair, including Haiti, which selected Frederick Douglass to be its coordinator. The Exposition drew nearly 26 million visitors, and left a remembered vision that can be recognized even in the Emerald City of L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz and in Walt Disney's majestic theme parks Disneyland and Walt Disney World (his father Elias had been a construction worker on some of the buildings).

Norway participated with a replica of a Viking ship, a replica of the Gokstad ship, being built in Norway and sailed across the Atlantic by 92 men, led by their helmsman Magnus Andersen. In 1919 this ship was moved to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and was recently taken to Good Templar Park in Geneva, Illinois, where it awaits renovation[3].

Two 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.

Famous firsts at the fair

Aunt Jemima pancake mix
Cracker Jack
Cream of Wheat
Quaker Oats
Congress of Mathematicians, precursor to International Congress of Mathematicians
Elongated coins
The Frontier thesis was first promulgated by Frederick Jackson Turner.
Ferris Wheel
Juicy Fruit gum
Shredded Wheat
The hamburger was introduced to the United States (others say it was invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis).
Milton Hershey bought a European exhibitor's chocolate manufacturing equipment and added chocolate products to his caramel manufacturing business.
The United States Postal Service produced its first:
- Picture postcards.
- Commemorative stamp set.
United States Mint offered its first commemorative coins: a quarter and half dollar.
The term "midway" came into common use to define an area where park rides, entertainment and fast food booths are concentrated at parks and fairs, after the area of that type located on Chicago's Midway Plaisance at the World Columbian Exposition.
There is some debate surrounding the origin of Chicago's nickname, the "windy city". Some argue it was Charles Anderson Dana of the New York Sun who coined the term in regard to the hype of the city's promoters during the considerations as to where the Exposition would be held. Other evidence, however, suggests that this term was used as early as 1881 in relation to either Chicago's "windbag" politicians or to its weather. See windy city.
Pabst beer won a blue ribbon at the fair.
Appearance of Bai Ganio, a famous anti-hero in Bulgarian literature (Neuberger, 2006)

Image gallery

The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, seen from the southwest.
Horticultural Building, with Illinois Building in the background.
A view toward the Peristyle from Machinery Hall.
The Administration Building, seen from the Agricultural Building.
Midway Plaisance
Ticket for "Chicago Day"

Later years

Following World Fair traditions, the buildings were temporary installations, and as such were eventually demolished or destroyed by riots. The only building to remain was Daniel Burnham's building, the Palace of Fine Arts now known as the Museum of Science and Industry.

It gave rise to the "City Beautiful" movement which began in Chicago. Results included grandiose buildings and fountains built around Olmstedian parks, shallow pools of water on axis to central buildings, larger park systems, broad boulevards and parkways and after the turn of the century, zoning laws and planned suburbs. Examples of the City Beautiful movement's works include the City of Chicago, the Columbia University campus, and the Mall in Washington D.C.

Notes

^ Falnmouth Historical Society: Famouth Museums on the Green

Bibliography

Neuberger, Mary. 2006. "To Chicago and Back: Alecko Konstantinov, Rose Oil, and the Smell of Modernity" in Slavic Review, Fall 2006.

External links

Interactive Guide to the World's Columbian Exposition
1893 World's Fair
The Exposition in American culture.
Photographs of the 1893 Columbian Exposition
Photographs of the 1893 Columbian Exposition from Illinois Institute of Technology
Interactive map of Columbian Exposition
Congress of Mathematicians
Fabulous Imperialism!: The 1893 Columbian Exposition - a Pinky Show online video
"Expo: Magic of the White City," a documentary about the World's Columbian Exposition narrated by Gene Wilder
A large collection of stereoviews of the fair
Archival records relating to the World’s Columbian Exposition are located in the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera at the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum, near Wilmington, Delaware.

Preceded by Exposition Universelle (1889)	World Expositions 1893	Succeeded by Brussels International

[1] Falnmouth Historical Society: Famouth Museums on the Green

[1]

@@ Line 183: / Line 183: @@
 *[http://www.columbianexpo.com/ "Expo: Magic of the White City]," a documentary about the World's Columbian Exposition narrated by Gene Wilder
 *[http://columbianexpo.50megs.com A large collection of stereoviews of the fair]
+*[http://findingaid.winterthur.org/html/HTML_Finding_Aids/COL0046.htm Archival records relating to the World’s Columbian Exposition are located in the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera at the [[Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum]], near Wilmington, Delaware.]