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Never before had so many of history’s brightest lights, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Clarence Darrow, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, Henry Adams, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Nikola Tesla, Ignace Paderewski, Philip Armour, and Marshall Field, gathered in one place at one time.
Other nations, he wrote, had mounted exhibits of dignity and style, while American exhibitors erected a mélange of pavilions and kiosks with no artistic guidance and no uniform plan. “The result is a sad jumble of shops, booths, and bazaars often unpleasing in themselves and incongruous when taken together.” In contrast, France had done everything it could to ensure that its glory overwhelmed everyone. “Other nations are not rivals,” the correspondent wrote, “they are foils to France, and the poverty of their displays sets off, as it was meant to do, the fullness of France, its richness and
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Make France Great Again
This humiliation could not be allowed to stand. America’s pride in its growing power and international stature had fanned patriotism to a new intensity. The nation needed an opportunity to top the French, in particular to “out-Eiffel Eiffel.” Suddenly the idea of hosting a great exposition to commemorate Columbus’s discovery of the New World became irresistible.
No way they’d have final say now
Very ADHD
Of the 352 men who worked on the bridge’s notorious east caisson, pressure-related illness killed twelve, left two crippled for life, and injured sixty-six others, a casualty rate of over 20 percent.
Once built, the Montauk was so novel, so tall, it defied description by conventional means. No one knows who coined the term, but it fit, and the Montauk became the first building to be called a skyscraper.
rich beyond anything either man had expected, enough so that each year Burnham bought a barrel of fine Madeira and aged it by shipping it twice around the world on slow freighters.
Starrett recalled being moved by Burnham’s frequent admonition: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.”
“In fact,” he said, “the general plan of the furnace was not unlike that of a crematory for dead bodies, and with the provision already described there would be absolutely no odor from the furnace.”
The exposition went with Westinghouse, and helped change the history of electricity.
“To out-Eiffel Eiffel” had become a battle cry among the directors.
The ranks included a carpenter and furniture-maker named Elias Disney, who in coming years would tell many stories about the construction of this magical realm beside the lake. His son Walt would take note.
The dedication had been anticipated nationwide. Francis J. Bellamy, an editor of Youth’s Companion, thought it would be a fine thing if on that day all the schoolchildren of America, in unison, offered something to their nation. He composed a pledge that the Bureau of Education mailed to virtually every school. As originally worded, it began, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands …”
Burnham claimed the agreement was a victory for the exposition, but in fact the fair’s concessions were a breakthrough for organized labor, and the resulting contracts became models for other unions to emulate. The fair’s capitulation pumped steam into America’s—and Chicago’s—already-boiling labor movement.
A woman stepped up and unfastened her skirt. To the astonishment of all aboard, she slipped the skirt off and threw it over Wherritt’s head, then held it in place while murmuring gentle assurances. The effect was immediate. Wherritt became “as quiet as an ostrich.”
