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America at the Fair: Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
At the time of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the United States was fast becoming the world's leading economy. Chicago, the host city, had grown in less than half a century from a village to the country's second-largest metropolis. During this, the Gilded Age, the world's most extensive railroad and steamship networks poured ceaselessly through Chicago, carrying the raw goods and finished products of America's great age of invention and industrial expansion. The Fair was the largest ever at the time, with 65,000 exhibitors and millions of visitors. It has been called the "Blueprint of the American Future" and marked the beginning of the national economy and consumer culture.
- GenresHistory
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 5, 2022
America at the Fair serves as a time machine to visit some of the buildings, exhibits, and outdoor attractions of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Well-researched and written for the contemporary reader today, Chaim Rosenberg presents a nearly-full picture of the Fair.
Heavy in general history at first, the book quickly strolls through Chicago’s history leading up to the World’s Columbia Exposition. Little attention is given to the fire that destroyed much of the city just 22 years prior to the Fair, or to the murders that made headlines and are featured in the current true-crime story Devil in the White City. Rosenberg then turns to Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance.
The stories of the exhibiting retailers and their displays are fascinating, even if some of the biological segments seem a bit random or not directly relevant. The trade cards and other illustrations paint a picture of life in the waning days of the 19th Century.
I wish more was said about Marshall Field and his future museum, which kept many of the scientific exhibits in Chicago, but I have a book from the Field Museum that will make up for that.
The editing was not great, and there was some repetition of information. I felt the final chapters were rushed compared to the first half of the book, as though the goal was less than 300 pages and things had to be sacrificed—even at the detriment of the other countries of the world represented at the Fair.
I wish it was more, but I bought a less-than-300 page book and should have expected what I got. As Rosenberg mentions, there is a lot of material out there on the 1893 World’s Fair. Consider this an adequate starting point for a fairgoer from today.
Heavy in general history at first, the book quickly strolls through Chicago’s history leading up to the World’s Columbia Exposition. Little attention is given to the fire that destroyed much of the city just 22 years prior to the Fair, or to the murders that made headlines and are featured in the current true-crime story Devil in the White City. Rosenberg then turns to Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance.
The stories of the exhibiting retailers and their displays are fascinating, even if some of the biological segments seem a bit random or not directly relevant. The trade cards and other illustrations paint a picture of life in the waning days of the 19th Century.
I wish more was said about Marshall Field and his future museum, which kept many of the scientific exhibits in Chicago, but I have a book from the Field Museum that will make up for that.
The editing was not great, and there was some repetition of information. I felt the final chapters were rushed compared to the first half of the book, as though the goal was less than 300 pages and things had to be sacrificed—even at the detriment of the other countries of the world represented at the Fair.
I wish it was more, but I bought a less-than-300 page book and should have expected what I got. As Rosenberg mentions, there is a lot of material out there on the 1893 World’s Fair. Consider this an adequate starting point for a fairgoer from today.
April 1, 2010
There are many books about the epochal Columbian Exposition, the cultural, commercial, and technological watershed whose wonders awed the 28 million visitors who ambled through “The White City” between May and October of 1893. But one book arguably contains more detail than most others: Chaim M. Rosenberg’s “America at the Fair.”
For instance, I already knew that the Columbian Exposition was the first world’s “electric” fair and that evening ticket-holders were thrilled by dazzling displays of electric lights. But until reading “America at the Fair,” I didn’t realize that Edison’s General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric Company had been involved in a “War of the Currents” since 1883 and that Westinghouse gained not only the right to light up the Chicago fair but that it also won the “best site” award in the Electricity Building.
Most books which discuss the Fair’s Women’s Pavilion also mention that architect Sophie Hayden was commissioned to design the building. But, to my knowledge, none but Rosenberg’s relates that because of discouragements suffered relative to her association with the Fair (including being paid significantly less than her male counterparts) Ms. Hayden suffered a breakdown and never designed another building.
Perhaps, some readers will find that Rosenberg provides too much detail at times. For instance, some might not care that the New York Life Insurance Company, one of the many insurers of the Fair in case of fire, had assets of 137 million and 224,000 policies. While it cannot be denied that Rosenberg obviously adores numbers and facts, he generally makes those things work for him -- his detailed-filled descriptions can be very illuminating, as seen in the following description of Chicago’s 1892 thoroughfares, found in one of Rosenberg’s pre-Fair chapters, “From Village to Metropolis”:
“Town planners made sure that Chicago had its grand boulevards. Michigan Avenue and Oakwood Boulevard were each 100 feet wide. Drexel, Garfield and Western Boulevards were 200 feet wide, while Douglas, Central and Humboldt Boulevards were each 250 feet in width. State Street was Chicago’s main shopping street, built to resemble Regent Street in London. Madison Street was Chicago’s great east to west thoroughfare. The manufacturing district was located south of Lake Street and east of Halsted Street. Immigrants, factories, and stockyards filled this area of the city.”
But the book’s main thrust, obviously, is the Fair itself and Rosenberg devotes one chapter to each of the following Fair buildings: manufacturers and liberal arts, electricity, agriculture, transportation, machinery, one chapter combining the “freestanding pavilions,” and one which lists the nations who took part in the Fair and a detailed description of their displays. He also combines the World Congress of Ideas and the Midway Plaisance into one chapter entitled “Lofty Thoughts and Low Down Fun.”
Scattered generously throughout the book are black and white photographs, sketches, and advertisements which portray different aspects of the Fair, and, at the center of the book is an absolute treasure: 31 pages of facsimile lithograph trading cards in full color --advertising everything from kerosene lanterns and kitchen utensils to corsets and chocolate -- which were distributed during the Fair as advertisements.
Very occasionally, one wishes that the book’s plethora of facts were better organized. For instance, when mentioning how Britain came to be one of the “exhibiting nations,” Rosenberg relates that it was Robert Todd Lincoln, US ambassador to Britain and son of the late President, who formally invited Britain to the Fair, via Britain’s Prime Minister. Rosenberg then goes on to describe, in a short paragraph, the ambassador’s lineage and what became of him. It is highly interesting but more than slightly diverting and would have been better placed in a sidebar rather than in the text.
But detail-lovers, especially those hungry for information about an event at once as epochal and far removed from the present as the Columbian Exposition, will be thankful for the details, photographic and otherwise, found in “America at the Fair.”
(Published also at BookPleasures.com)
For instance, I already knew that the Columbian Exposition was the first world’s “electric” fair and that evening ticket-holders were thrilled by dazzling displays of electric lights. But until reading “America at the Fair,” I didn’t realize that Edison’s General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric Company had been involved in a “War of the Currents” since 1883 and that Westinghouse gained not only the right to light up the Chicago fair but that it also won the “best site” award in the Electricity Building.
Most books which discuss the Fair’s Women’s Pavilion also mention that architect Sophie Hayden was commissioned to design the building. But, to my knowledge, none but Rosenberg’s relates that because of discouragements suffered relative to her association with the Fair (including being paid significantly less than her male counterparts) Ms. Hayden suffered a breakdown and never designed another building.
Perhaps, some readers will find that Rosenberg provides too much detail at times. For instance, some might not care that the New York Life Insurance Company, one of the many insurers of the Fair in case of fire, had assets of 137 million and 224,000 policies. While it cannot be denied that Rosenberg obviously adores numbers and facts, he generally makes those things work for him -- his detailed-filled descriptions can be very illuminating, as seen in the following description of Chicago’s 1892 thoroughfares, found in one of Rosenberg’s pre-Fair chapters, “From Village to Metropolis”:
“Town planners made sure that Chicago had its grand boulevards. Michigan Avenue and Oakwood Boulevard were each 100 feet wide. Drexel, Garfield and Western Boulevards were 200 feet wide, while Douglas, Central and Humboldt Boulevards were each 250 feet in width. State Street was Chicago’s main shopping street, built to resemble Regent Street in London. Madison Street was Chicago’s great east to west thoroughfare. The manufacturing district was located south of Lake Street and east of Halsted Street. Immigrants, factories, and stockyards filled this area of the city.”
But the book’s main thrust, obviously, is the Fair itself and Rosenberg devotes one chapter to each of the following Fair buildings: manufacturers and liberal arts, electricity, agriculture, transportation, machinery, one chapter combining the “freestanding pavilions,” and one which lists the nations who took part in the Fair and a detailed description of their displays. He also combines the World Congress of Ideas and the Midway Plaisance into one chapter entitled “Lofty Thoughts and Low Down Fun.”
Scattered generously throughout the book are black and white photographs, sketches, and advertisements which portray different aspects of the Fair, and, at the center of the book is an absolute treasure: 31 pages of facsimile lithograph trading cards in full color --advertising everything from kerosene lanterns and kitchen utensils to corsets and chocolate -- which were distributed during the Fair as advertisements.
Very occasionally, one wishes that the book’s plethora of facts were better organized. For instance, when mentioning how Britain came to be one of the “exhibiting nations,” Rosenberg relates that it was Robert Todd Lincoln, US ambassador to Britain and son of the late President, who formally invited Britain to the Fair, via Britain’s Prime Minister. Rosenberg then goes on to describe, in a short paragraph, the ambassador’s lineage and what became of him. It is highly interesting but more than slightly diverting and would have been better placed in a sidebar rather than in the text.
But detail-lovers, especially those hungry for information about an event at once as epochal and far removed from the present as the Columbian Exposition, will be thankful for the details, photographic and otherwise, found in “America at the Fair.”
(Published also at BookPleasures.com)
February 28, 2018
Thorough and well-organized. I used it for research and found everything I needed.
June 1, 2010
I am somewhat enamored by the World's Fair in 1893. I liked the book, and enjoyed the information in it. A bit dry, but full of information about the exhibits and companies that made the fair great. I liked that part, but it ended up being a lot of "listing".
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews