Chicago Expo 1893
NAME: Chicago Exposition 1893
ALTERNATIVE NAME:
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: Chicago, IL
CATEGORY: Exhibition
ASSOCIATION:
DESCRIPTION:
By the end of the nineteenth-century, World's Fairs were an established form of cultural and entertainment with immense international influence. From the first major exposition, the 1851 "Crystal Palace" fair in London, to Philadelphia's 1876 Centennial Exhibition to Paris' Exposition Universelle of 1889, hundreds of millions of people around the world visited over fifty international fairs. They found them entertaining, but also a window into cultural enlightenment, commercial opportunity, and a reflection of their age.
The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was the last and the greatest of the nineteenth-century's World's Fairs.
Officially planned to celebrate Columbus' voyages 400 years prior, the Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was a reflection and celebration of the drive in American culture and society for fun, edification, and profit—a blueprint for life in modern and postmodern America.
The goals of the organizers and the public reaction to this massive event reveal a great deal about the state of America at the end of the Gilded Age. The early 1890s were a time of considerable turmoil in America. It was an age of increasing fragmentation and confusion, due in large part to the Industrial Revolution. Life was no longer based on agriculture; rather, people were moving to urban areas to find work in factories and city centers. The Fair was the perfect vehicle to explore these immense changes, while at the same time celebrating the kind of society America had become.
At the same time, fairs were also money-making ventures. Chicago's City Council began their campaign to host the Fair on July 22, 1889. The Council directed Mayor De Witt C. Cregier to appoint a committee of one hundred citizens to carry out the project. Bank president Lyman Gage, publisher Andrew McNally, railroad tycoon George Pullman, and CM Schwab* were among the businessmen who helped raise five million dollars in stock to show Chicago's determination to host the Fair.
The U.S. House of Representatives took up the issue in late 1889, considering petitions from Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Washington, D.C. After months of consideration and conflict, the House gave the fair to Chicago on February 24, 1890. There was a catch: the city was required to raise an additional five million dollars. However, many of the financial supporters of the Fair were big names in business and the money was raised.
On December 24, 1890 a Presidential Proclamation recognized the city’s compliance with fundraising restrictions and the Fair officially belonged to Chicago. The architectural firm of Burnham and Root were chosen to design the site. Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who had designed New York's Central Park, chose prime Lake Front space for the Exhibition buildings; however, wealthy Michigan Avenue residents objected. Instead, they pushed for little-used and marshy Jackson Park as the site for the Fair.
By 1891, over 40,000 skilled laborers and workers were employed for the construction project—in Jackson Park. Olmsted, Burnham, and the Board of Architects decided on an unusual Fair plan. In addition to the fourteen main buildings, they used the natural landscape of the 1.3 mile long Jackson Park. Olmsted created a system of lagoons and waterways fed by Lake Michigan, which served as decorative reflecting pools, waterways for transportation, and a place of respite for summer visitors.
Interest in the construction of the Fair increased, due in large part to the competition and controversy that went into the selection process. Burnham decided to allow spectators into the Fair compound, but he charged them 25 cents to watch the progress of construction. An average of 3000 people visited per week.
The enormity of the task forced Burnham and the commission to push the opening day back from late 1892 to May, 1893. This only served to increase public interest. In fact, Julian Ralph released Harper's Chicago and the World's Fair in 1891—two years before the Fair opened.
After three years of preparation and $28 million, the fair opened to great fanfare on May 1, 1893. One hundred thousand people crowded in the Court of Honor to watch President Cleveland turn the key on the great engine in the Machinery Hall, designed by Westinghouse*, who had won the contract to do the lighting for the Fair. Visitors were greeted with 633 acres of Fairgrounds, 65,000 exhibits, and restaurant seating for 7,000.
Between the first of May and the end of October, an estimated 27 million people attended the Exposition. The Fair was immensely popular with everyday and famous citizens, drawing visitors such as Frederick Douglass, Jane Addams, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Henry Blake Fuller, Walter Wyckoff, Henry Adams, Howells*, and Hamlin Garland. Visitors were introduced a cornucopia of national and international inventions, from cracker jacks, zippers, and the Ferris Wheel to advances in architecture, machinery, and child care.
The Fair also included music as an important element. John Phillip Sousa's work was frequently performed by the many marching bands on the Fairgrounds, Dvorak* composed the New World Symphonyin honor of the Exposition, and a young piano player named Scott Joplin was quietly developing a new sound in music while working at the Fair—ragtime.
Others also benefited from the publicity of the Fair. It is widely regarded as the pinnacle of the success and achievement of Doulton* and the Doulton Lambeth Art Pottery. Doulton displayed some of the most outstanding pieces ever made with the pottery sent for the exhibition.
For most, the Exposition epitomized the inevitable betterment of humankind that would follow if the world embraced civilization and science, seen as the twin gods of progress. Exact attendance figures are difficult to determine; however, it can be safely assumed that approximately 25% of the United States' population visited the Fair, and the majority of the rest of the country experienced it through newspaper accounts, photographic guidebooks, and the pictures and stories of friends and family who visited it themselves.
ASSESSMENT: The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was the last and the greatest of the nineteenth-century's World's Fairs. For most, the Exposition epitomized the inevitable betterment of humankind that would follow if the world embraced civilization and science, seen as the twin gods of progress.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: One exhibitor was Ayrton*
ONELINER: 1893 Chicago Exposition
BIBLIOGRAPHY: “1893 World's Columbian Exposition: Romancing the City”
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/wce.html Accessed August 10, 2003.
“World's Columbian Exposition: A History of the Fair” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/WCE/history.html Accessed August 10, 2003.
http://www.worldcollectorsnet.com/magazine/issue19/iss19p5.html Accessed August 11, 2003.
Wikipedia See link 2