48 Fun Facts About Chicago World's Fair 1893

Chicago's 1893 World's Fair marked the 400th anniversary of which event?

Columbus's landing in the Americas came in October 1492, so the fair missed its own anniversary: it was dedicated in October 1892 but did not open to visitors until May 1893.

Which national relic left Philadelphia by train to go on show at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair?

The Liberty Bell went by rail, pausing at extra stops so crowds in towns along the way could see it; after the Civil War such trips helped turn a Philadelphia relic into a symbol the whole country shared.

What nickname did the fairgrounds earn from their gleaming façades?

White City was a stage set: its marble-looking palaces were plaster on temporary frames, and fire destroyed most of them within a year of the fair closing.

The fair's Ferris wheel was designed to rival which structure from the 1889 Paris fair?

Eiffel Tower. Chicago wanted an answer to the star of the 1889 fair, and George Ferris's wheel, though it opened seven weeks late, still sold about 1.4 million rides at 50 cents each.

Where in Chicago was the fair held?

Jackson Park was a marshy stretch of lakefront seven miles south of downtown; dredged into lagoons for the fair, it was handed back afterwards as a far better public park.

Chicago Day at the 1893 fair marked the anniversary of which event?

The Great Chicago Fire began on October 8, 1871. Marking its 22nd anniversary with a party let the city show its visitors how completely it had risen from the ashes.

Who was the fair's director of works, in charge of its architecture?

Daniel Burnham had to run the job alone after his partner John Root died suddenly in 1891; the fair's success led the city's businessmen to commission his 1909 Plan of Chicago.

Which electrical system won the contract to light the fair?

Westinghouse's alternating current won by undercutting Edison's General Electric, and a fair glowing safely every night was its best advert: the same year Westinghouse won the contract to harness Niagara Falls.

Financiers from which rival offered $15m if Congress gave them the fair?

New York City's backers included J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Waldorf Astor, yet Chicago still won: its bankers raised several million extra dollars to beat their final offer.

Denied a spot, where did Buffalo Bill stage his Wild West show?

Just outside the fairgrounds turned out to be the better pitch: turned away by the fair's managers, Cody owed them no share of his takings and drew off crowds they badly needed.

Who wrote the 2003 bestseller pairing the fair's architect with killer H. H. Holmes?

Erik Larson's book set off a Hollywood tug-of-war: Tom Cruise optioned it in 2003, then Leonardo DiCaprio won the film rights in 2010, hoping to play the killer himself.

The fair's Palace of Fine Arts reopened in 1933 as which institution?

Museum of Science and Industry. Sears chief Julius Rosenwald, inspired by Munich's Deutsches Museum, paid to rescue the neglected plaster palace, and its crumbling shell was recast in limestone.

Which chewing gum is said to have made its debut at the 1893 fair?

Juicy Fruit came from William Wrigley Jr., who had arrived in Chicago selling soap and gave gum away as a free extra, until customers wanted the gum more than the goods.

Which landscape architect laid out the fairgrounds?

Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, treated the lakeside bog as a seascape, threading it with lagoons and canals that visitors toured in quiet electric boats.

About how many admissions did the 1893 Chicago fair record, when the US had 63 million people?

About 27 million admissions were counted in six months, some visitors more than once; the takings let the fair pay off its debt and close with cash in hand.

George Ferris, who built the fair's giant wheel, ran a bridge-engineering firm in which city?

Pittsburgh. His firm there tested metals for bridges and railroads, the know-how behind a 264-foot wheel that could lift 2,160 riders at once.

The Ferris wheel was finally moved to which later world's fair?

St. Louis 1904 was the wheel's last stop: it fell into disrepair once that fair closed, and in May 1906 it was brought down with dynamite and sold for scrap.

Which designer made his reputation with a chapel built for the fair?

Louis Comfort Tiffany later reclaimed the chapel from a cathedral crypt, had his workmen repair it and rebuilt it at his Long Island estate; it now stands in a Florida museum.

Which caramel maker bought the German chocolate-making machines he saw running at the 1893 Chicago fair?

Milton S. Hershey was so taken with chocolate that in 1900 he sold his thriving caramel business for $1 million to stake everything on it.

The fair is commemorated by one of the stars on what?

Chicago's municipal flag has carried the fair's star since 1917; its designer set his stars to one side so that more could be added, and two were, though every campaign for a fifth has failed.

Which Marvel series set an episode titled "1893" at the fair?

Loki and Mobius go there hunting Ravonna Renslayer and meet Victor Timely.

A belly dancer on the Midway of the 1893 fair is remembered under which stage name?

Little Egypt is the name legend gave the Midway's 'hootchy-kootchy' star, though historians still debate who she was; the tune that went with the dance lives on as the stock snake-charmer melody.

Which historian lectured at the fair on the closing of the American frontier?

Frederick Jackson Turner argued that settling the frontier, not a European inheritance, had made America distinct; that same summer Buffalo Bill was drawing Chicago crowds to a show re-enacting the West Turner said was gone.

Which Hindu monk gave the "Sisters and Brothers of America" speech at the fair?

Swami Vivekananda had sailed from India on money raised by his disciples; the speeches made him famous, and he stayed in the West for more than three years teaching Vedanta.

Whose visit to the fair inspired the "alabaster cities" line in America the Beautiful?

Katharine Lee Bates stopped at the fair on a train journey west to teach a summer course in Colorado; later on that trip, on top of Pikes Peak, the poem's opening lines came to her.

Which future author toured the 1893 fair as a girl, with Alexander Graham Bell as her guide?

Helen Keller, deaf and blind since infancy, was given special leave by the fair's president to touch the exhibits, while Bell described the sights to her.

Which patriotic text did millions of US schoolchildren first recite in October 1892, in a celebration tied to the fair?

The Pledge of Allegiance was written for a children's magazine that was also selling American flags to schools, and it timed the mass recital to the fair's dedication festivities.

Which ragtime composer, raised in Texarkana, performed in Chicago during the 1893 fair?

Scott Joplin came to the fair an unknown and left one: 'Maple Leaf Rag', the hit that made his name and ragtime's, was still six years away.

Whose football team, the Maroons, were the original "Monsters of the Midway"?

University of Chicago. Its campus runs along the Midway Plaisance, the fair's old amusement strip; after the university abolished football in 1939, the nickname passed to the NFL's Bears.

Which young music promoter developed the fair's Midway amusement area?

Sol Bloom was only 23 when he ran the Midway; the showman later sat in Congress for 26 years and chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee through World War II.

Which pioneer of motion photography charged fairgoers to watch moving pictures in his Zoopraxographical Hall?

Eadweard Muybridge projected his photo sequences from spinning glass discs with a machine he called the zoopraxiscope; his hall on the Midway is often called the first commercial movie theater.

What led organisers to cancel the 1893 fair's closing ceremony?

The mayor's assassination: Carter Harrison, newly re-elected, was shot two days before closing day by a man who believed he was owed a city job, and the festivities became a memorial.

Until 1920, the Palace of Fine Arts housed which institution?

Field Columbian Museum was set up to keep the fair's collections in Chicago, and took its name from Marshall Field after the store magnate gave $1 million; it is today's Field Museum.

The World's Congress Building, built downtown in Grant Park, has housed what since 1893?

Art Institute of Chicago. Needing a bigger home, its trustees struck a deal: the museum shared the building's cost, the fair used it first for its congresses, and the art moved in that December.

How did Norway's replica longship Viking reach the fair?

Its crew sailed it there from Norway: the copy of the Gokstad burial ship crossed the Atlantic, then worked inland by the Hudson River, the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. It survives in Geneva, Illinois.

Which firm designed the fair's polychrome Transportation Building?

Adler & Sullivan's hall stood apart from the classical palaces as if in protest, and Louis Sullivan never forgave the fair: its damage, he wrote, would 'last for half a century from its date, if not longer'.

'Hire anyone, even white rabbits,' said the fair's works chief, giving which group its nickname?

Women sculptors were almost never hired as assistants then; with every man he wanted already busy, Lorado Taft brought in his female students to finish the statuary, and several went on to notable careers.

Which composer conducted a gala "Bohemian Day" concert at the fair in August 1893?

Antonín Dvořák was then head of America's National Conservatory of Music and spending the summer in the Czech-speaking village of Spillville, Iowa, where he had just written his 'American' Quartet.

Frederick Douglass served as the fair delegate for which nation?

Haiti chose Douglass because he had been the US minister there until 1891; he used its pavilion to hand out a pamphlet protesting the exclusion of Black Americans from the fair's exhibits.

Which everyday fastener made its public debut at the 1893 fair as Whitcomb Judson's 'clasp locker'?

The zipper started out as a way to do up boots without laces; Judson's version kept jamming and sold poorly, and the word 'zipper' arrived only 30 years later, from a brand of rubber boots.

Who joined Frederick Douglass in publishing a pamphlet on why Black Americans were shut out of the 1893 fair?

Ida B. Wells wrote three of its six chapters and published it herself in Chicago, adding prefaces in French and German so that the fair's foreign visitors could read the charge too.

Which president opened the 1893 Chicago fair by pressing a button that switched on its lights?

Grover Cleveland pushed a button that set the fair's great engine running and its lamps glowing, and for many of the Americans who came it was their first sight of electric light.

Josephine Cochrane won an award at the 1893 fair for which machine, first bought mainly by hotels and restaurants?

The dishwasher: Cochrane, a socialite used to entertaining, set out to build one after finding that her fine china kept getting chipped when it was scrubbed by hand.

Which Milwaukee brewer has long claimed its beer was judged 'America's Best' at the 1893 Chicago fair?

Pabst named its Blue Ribbon beer on the strength of that claim, though it is unclear that any such prize was awarded, and the brewer had been tying blue ribbons round its bottles since 1882.

The Maine State Building was moved to which resort town after the fair?

Poland Spring's Ricker family bought the building, had it taken apart and sent home on a 16-car freight train, then rebuilt it at their resort as a library and art gallery.

Which German arms maker built its own pavilion at the 1893 fair to show off giant cannon?

Krupp's showpiece was a coastal gun with a 42 cm bore, later seen as a forerunner of the 'Big Bertha' howitzers the firm built for World War I.

Which American painter, living in France, made a vast mural, since lost, for the 1893 Chicago fair?

Mary Cassatt painted the giant canvas at home in France, showing modern women picking the fruit of knowledge; it later vanished and has never been found, though paintings and prints she drew from it survive.

Which airport staple gave its first public rides on a pier at the 1893 Chicago fair?

A moving walkway was laid along the pier to spare steamboat passengers the long walk ashore: for a nickel they could stand, or sit on benches, as it carried them to the fair's entrance.