World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893: Print Resources

Also know as the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

Although largely forgotten nowadays, the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 held in Chicago was a major world event of its time. Thanks in part to Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, and shows like American Experience’s City of the Century, there as been a revival in interest in the exposition.

We’ve been learning and talking about the Fair in class this week. Here are some print resources to help you find out more information (some of which we will look at in class). The description of the books are not by me and are taken from other sources.

Exploring the Chicago World's Fair, 1893 (Paperback)
by Laurie Lawlor
Historical Fiction
The latest entry in the American Sister series shows the glamour and grittiness of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Twelve-year-old Dora Pomeroy and her younger sisters, Phoebe, Lillian, and little Tess, are in town because their father has a job with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. But no women are allowed there, so the girls and their mother are on their own. The atmospheric story is chockfull of the sights and sounds of the exposition: the gleam of the electric lights, the crush of the crowds, the tastiness of the treats, the excitement of the rides. Yet, there is also fear and poverty as their father gambles his money away, and their mother lurches from one job to another (including a stint as a hootchie-kootchie dancer), forcing the girls to find work of their own. The characters are stock, but the situation is not. Lawlor attempt to weave some social issues into the story, and the sisters' resentments about not being in a traditional family and having to fend for themselves will ring true for many of today's readers. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association.

The World's Columbian Exposition: The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 (Paperback)
by Norman Bolotin, Christine Laing
This exceptional chronicle takes readers on a visual tour of the glittering "white city" that emerged along the swampy south shore of Lake Michigan as a symbol of Chicago's rebirth and pride twenty-two years after the Great Fire.
The World's Columbian Exposition, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to America, was held from April to October in 1893. The monumental event welcomed twenty-eight million visitors, covered six hundred acres of land, boasted dozens of architectural wonders, and was home to some sixty-five thousand exhibits from all over the world. From far and wide, people came to experience the splendors of the fair, to witness the magic sparkle of electric lights or ride the world's first Ferris wheel, known as the Eiffel Tower of Chicago.

Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing have assembled a dazzling photographic history of the fair. Here are panoramic views of the concourse--replete with waterways and gondolas, the amazing moving sidewalk, masterful landscaping and horticultural splendorsÐ-and reproductions of ads, flyers, souvenirs, and keepsakes. Here too are the grand structures erected solely for the fair, from the golden doorway of the Transportation Building to the aquariums and ponds of the Fisheries Building, as well as details such as menu prices, the cost to rent a Kodak camera, and injury and arrest reports from the Columbian Guard.

This unique volume tells the story of the World's Columbian Exposition from its conception and construction to the scientific, architectural, and cultural legacies it left behind, inviting readers to imagine what it would have been like to spend a week at the fair.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson
Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. --John Moe

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (Paperback)
by Donald L. Miller
While this book, the companion PBS series and Website cover Chicago history to 1900, there are sections on the World’s Fair.

Do you kow of any other good sources? If so, let me know.