World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
This page is bought to you by the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and its website, www.hydepark.org. Help support our work by joining the Conference. e-mail us.
History and Preservation home. Jackson Park home. Jackson Park History (incl. Viking Ship). Jackson Park Timeline. Statue of The Republic. Korean Exhibit. Iowa Building home. Paved Granite Beach. Lagoons and Olmsted. Wooded Island. The Old Oak. Osaka Japanese Garden.
|
World's Columbian Exposition of 1893This page is bought to you by the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and its website, www.hydepark.org. Help support our work by joining the Conference. e-mail us. |
The pages at the top have
more about the Exposition. Be sure to explore the site of the Hyde
Park Historical Society (www.hydeparkhistory.org).
Iowa has material on the
Germania fragments found during recent Lake Shore Drive construction. (As far
as this writer knows, the fragments are in the roundhouse building in Washington
Park that is in process of being converted to part of DuSable Museum.)
May 17,
Saturday, 12:30- 3:30 pm. Archeological Open House- Columbian Exposition-- Jackson
Park 57th/Cornell. Rebecca Graff :
We are currently conducting archaeological excavations with a class of University
of Chicago undergraduates in Chicago’s
Jackson Park to investigate the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. This
Saturday, May 17th, we are holding a site Open House from 12:30 to 3:30, and
invite anyone who is interested to come out and visit us—-you will find
us just south of the Museum of Science and Industry, next to Cornell Avenue
and south of 57th Street.
More
Columbian Exposition and Devil in... tours with Bill Hinchliff and others through
the summer. Contact Chicago
Architecture Foundation, Chicago History Museum.
Through
November 23 DePaul Art Museum, 2350 N. Kenmore in Chicago hosted an exhibit,
"The
Biography of Landscape: Jackson Park and Midewin Prairie." Developed
by Barbara Willard with contemporary photographs by Seven Harp. Reveals the
sometimes startling changes to landscape that occur through time in the nexus
of nature and culture. Juxtaposes shots of the Columbian Exposition--some rarely
seen--with the same spots before, much later, or today. Some pictures are by
Nancy Hays, longtime photographer for the Hyde Park Herald and President, Jackson
Park Advisory Council. 2350 N. Kenmore. 773 325-7506.
October 19, Wednesday, 7:30 pm. Panel Discussion on the exhibit and the nexus
of nature and culture as exemplified in Jackson, Curtis Prairie and Midewin
National Tallgrass Prairie.
Now the Jackson Park part is part of a new exhibit at Hyde Park Historical Society.
At the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago 2nd floor through April 2007. "Chicago's Two World Fairs: the Untold Asian Story. 238 W. 23rd St. 312 949-1000. See the story below. Exhibit may have ended. Call first.
An outstanding starter: A Commercially released DVD documentary (which modestly bills itself as entertainment and narrative, but is a rich documentary) on the Fair is called Expo--Magic of the White City. It's a 2005 PBS release narrated by Gene Wilder. Contact at www.ColumbianExpo.com. It makes a valiant effort to do justice to an event and age that should be called "Giant"(as in, often, "Excess") and to be three dimensional. You will see more behind-the-scenes realities and what the visitors really flocked to, as well as Fair superlatives, than visitors could possibly have seen if they went there every day for weeks. Excellent for viewing with the whole family, although it makes reference to the seamier side of life and of course the assassination of Mayor Harrison is there. It also deals, although unevenly, with the controversies and exclusions and urban context well as the triumphs of the Fair. (This reviewer did not find any clear errors.) Much was developed from photos, which one would have to do an awful lot of searching to assemble. Scenes were also shot on location in the park. Director Mark was Bussler for Inecom Entertainment Company. You can get it at the PBS catalogue. 116 minutes. To more online resources.
U of C Regenstein Library Maps Collection has recently digitalized a group of Chicago maps printed between 1900 and 1914 and are available at www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1900.
Several books from the
Fair and its era and later are available in libraries including that of the
Hyde Park Historical Society (non-lending), open Saturdays and Sundays 2-4 pm
at 5529 S. Lake Park Avenue. The Society's archives also have material remains,
most in Regenstein Special Collections at U of C.
Much material and artifacts are scattered wide--a large collection that may
not be readily available is the Fung collection acquired by Museum of Science
and Industry in 1992 (there is much else at the Museum), University of Chicago
Library Special Collections, Chicago Historical Society, and all over--don't
neglect places in Wisconsin.
Novels from the time (Hamlin Garland) to today and scholarly and popular (or both) books on an aspect in context, such as Erik Larson's Devil in the White City and even interactive video games give much insight into the Fair, although not everything in any can be fully vouched for. This writer cautions students especially to read a broad-scoped source then narrow the focus fast--both the story of the Fair and its connections and implications are vast subjects!! And, of course, the fair was full of superlatives (the 1,600-foot-long Manufactures and Liberal Arts building was at the time the world's largest, the Ferris Wheel perhaps the world's tallest structure) and innovations. And don't forget that much, including huge symposiums, took place off-site, especially at the future Art Institute of Chicago, downtown. Little known is that Washington Park was extensively reworked with new features to interest overflow crowds.
The works of Roosevelt University historian Christopher Reid show that it is not true that African Americans were not at the Fair, including in some major positions as well as down to the preparers and caretakers. They also took part in important forums at the Fair. And Frederick Douglass lectured and answered questions at the Haiti Pavilion--in fact, his was the first address at the Fair, before a crowd of dignitaries before the Fair opened.
A book that overturns blanket assertions about exclusion and about how it was dealt with by African Americans is Christopher Reed's "All the World is Here," The Black Presence at the White City. (See also his Black Chicago's First Century.) More below.
Hyde Park Historical Society's Hyde Park History in 1994 issued an article on Chicago Day at the Fair (limited supply). Later at least two issues dealt with the great Ferris Wheel (and discovery of its foundations during construction of a skating rink), and on the Iowa Exposition Building and Granite Paved Beach--including a brilliant deduction that links the building and shoreline. Most of the Fair material is on line in www.hydeparkhistory.org.
Tours are offered monthly by the Chicago Architecture Foundation May through October. Private tours are also given for book clubs, out-of-town touring groups, et al. One of the docents is renowned Doug Anderson.
(Photography of the Fair was at least supposed to be a monopoly--maybe, besides being a lucrative monopoly, partly because private pictures revealed the messy side- we think littering is new?)
An important print source is the Dover/Appelbaum 1893 Columbian Exposition.
If
you are looking for material on line about the 1893 World's Columbian
Exposition, the best is probably the following, but note that it is
read-only (copyrighted), may take a couple tries to come up, and loads very
slowly, especially the map (which is well worth it). http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ecuip//diglib/social/worldsfair_1893/index.html
The University of Chicago's Digital Internet Library Project (CUIP) is an increasingly
important source and has archived material including Jean Block's Hyde Park
Houses, lots of photo docs and other material on the World's Fair.
U of C Regenstein Library Maps Collection has recently digitalized a group of Chicago maps printed between 1900 and 1914 and are available at www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1900.
A virtual-thesis
tour, World's Columbian Exposition: Idea, Experience, Aftermath: xroad.virginia.edu/~MA96/WCE/title.html
The University of Chicago's Digital Internet Library Project (CUIP)
is an increasingly important source and has archived material including Hyde
Park Houses and pictures and other material on the World's Fair. See also the
Illinois Institute of Technology site.
See the city's Dept. of Transportation Lake Shore Drive history page.
Peter Nepstad's digital game, 1893 based at the Explosion can be explored, ordered via www.illuminatedlantern.com. (We cannot vouch for the experience or friendliness of games and sites.)
A Commercially released DVD documentary (which modestly bills itself as entertainment and narrative, but is a rich documentary ) on the Fair is called Expo--Magic of the White City. It's a 2005 PBS release narrated by Gene Wilder. Contact at www.ColumbianExpo.com. It makes a valiant effort to do justice to an event and age that should be called "Giant" and to be three dimensional. You will see more behind-the-scenes as well as Fair superlatives than visitors could possibly have seen if they went there every day for weeks. Excellent for viewing with the whole family, although it makes reference to the seamier side of life and of course the assassination of Mayor Harrison is there. It also deals, although unevenly, with the controversies and exclusions and urban context well as the triumphs of the Fair. (This reviewer did not find any clear errors.) Much was developed from photos, which one would have to do an awful lot of searching to assemble. Scenes were also shot on location in the park. Director Mark was Bussler for Inecom Entertainment Company. You can get it at the PBS catalogue. 116 minutes.
Plans afoot to dig for the past in Jackson Park
In late 2006 the Jackson Park Advisory Council heard from Rebecca Graff on her urban archeological digs in conjunction with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and of proposals to dig in Jackson Park, particularly Wooded Island--and dig seriously, not by accident as with the Germania finds in the southeast part of the park. After questions were answered, the council voted its support and asked her to return with a full description of what, where, how extensive and how long the dig would be. The support was clarified and confirmed at the January 8 meeting. Here is more information as provided in part of the Hyde Park Herald article, February 7, 2007. (By Daniel J. Yovich)
Rebecca Graff digs history, and the University of Chicago anthropology graduate student hopes to find historical remnants from the World's Columbia[n] Exposition in Jackson Park.
Graff said she is reluctant to detail her project because her proposal for a limited excavation of he are sis now under review by the Chicago Park District. However, at the Jan. 8 Jackson Park Advisory Council meting, the organization voted to support Graff's proposed urban anthropological excavation, which she hopes will shed some light on the life and times of those who visited and built the 1893 World's Fair and the years thereafter.
Graff has a personal connection with the project. The first job her immigrant great-grandfather had when he arrived from Russia in 1892 was as a laborer helping to build the complex and surrounding landscape for the fair.
"If we get permission for this project, we would hope to find some artifacts that can shed further light on how people lived at that time," Graff said. Graff, who has done similar research in other cities as part of her education, hopes to seek help for the project from local high schools. "This can be a great learning experience and ideally, if we get permission and if the timing of this works out, I'd love to partner with the local public schools, Graff said.
Map
Friends of the Parks with others, 1986. Heavy green lines are an overlay of modern (1985) roadways; light green are, and modern shorelines (Lake, harbor/inlets, lagoons although not at maximum extent, and Museum of Science and Industry ). Lines are somewhat displaced
by Gary Ossewaarde for the JPAC Newsletter, modified
This hemisphere and Jackson Park would have been found by peoples from the Old World without Christopher Columbus, but the park would have been quite different without a Columbus connection. Park and surrounding neighborhood development were moving along slowly until coming-of-age Chicago and its movers pushed for the right to host the celebration of the fourth centenary of Columbus’ New World landing. The directorate of city and local business, civic, and landowning leaders (including Hyde Park founder Paul Cornell) sited the Columbian Exposition in largely undeveloped Jackson Park and the Midway and entrusted execution to Daniel Burnham’s and Frederick Law Olmsted’s team. The area filled up as thousands came to prepare the swamp-and-swale ground, build the Fair, build housing for the visitors and serve the same. The world’s peoples brought arts, sciences, engineering wonders—even 'contraries to the established story'-Norse, Native American...
The Fair, and the new, adjacent University of Chicago, gave as much to the character of the park as did Olmsted’s original vision and design. His firm redesigned the park after the Fair, but elements are descended from the Fair, including lagoons and basins and the great museum. Of course, many features remained or are descended from pre-Fair, even pre-settlement times, including hundreds-years-old oak stands. And--as originally inspired Olmsted--Jackson remains a diversified, emergent-edge environment, not quite sure whether it belongs to lake and shore, prairie, or savanna.
But the Exposition honoring Columbus came at a cusp in developmental stages of Chicago, U.S., the park and its neighborhoods, and a world evolving into globalization. The Village came here!-exclusions and flaws and all. It drew a phenomenal proportion of Americans to the Chicago Summer. The Fair in turn left indelible marks on the psyche and on architecture. Take the time to read some of the books about the extraordinary complexities, triumphs and tragedies and the stories centered or reflected at the Fair. And watch for tours of the Fair footprint —with added docents for the many who come to Jackson Park to recall that formative moment.
A mystery from the Fair, passed on by Melissa Cook. If you can help, contact this site and we'll pass it along. hpkcc@aol.com.
I received a copy of an email that originated from Luke Van Belleghem of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, seeking ideas for the "History Detectives" program.
I live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, site of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Robie House, the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction, to name a few.
In researching the 1893 Columbian Exposition, I was fascinated by the mystery of the disappearance of the "Columbian Liberty Bell," a 13,000 bell created by Meneely in Troy, NY and intended to travel the world as a symbol of peace and freedom. It was created from metal objects collected from around the country, including objects connected to famous people in American history, from George Washington to Jefferson Davis. Various books from the Columbian Exposition era mention or picture the bell, and various websites tell pieces of the story. (I've list a few of them at the end of this email.)
Don't know if this is the type of thing you're looking for, but I for one would love for some detectives to solve the mystery of how a 13,000 pound bell could disappear within a couple years of its creation!And here may be the answer!
Hello! Bonnie Tipton Long, here. Listen, I ran a 6-week program for After School Matters this summer based on the Devil in the White City book. The kids went all over Chicago looking for whatever they could find left over from the White City and put together an exhibit based on those findings. We decided to see what we could find out about the Columbian Bell. They turned up its origins and early history at the Harold Washington Archives.
As you probably know, it was smelted out of melted down metal items from previous military actions involving several wars--buttons, keys, swords, etc. The project was a vision of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the bell was supposed to travel the U.S. after the Fair and the bell was supposed to ring in every major city. However, there was very little enthusiasm for the bell at the actual fair, so the plans became less involved. The bell eventually went to Europe, where it disappeared.We contacted the DAR, specifically their archivist, Alisa Johnson. She found an article in the DAR magazine that dated from the 1940's. In that article, there is mentioned an unsigned letter in which someone claims that the bell was held up in Russia in 1905 by the Tzarist government awaiting tariffs, I believe somewhere around 1900. This same individual claims that the bell was still there during the Revolution and was melted down by the Bolsheviks to be used for weapons.
I don't know if this helps in anyway, but we sure enjoyed finding out about it.
Bonnie Tipton Long
North Lakeside Cultural Center
6219 N. Sheridan Rd.
Chicago, IL 60660
In the original 1871 plan for the park, the lagoons, suggested by the original sand-swale-wale and-marsh landscape, were intended by Olmsted to form part of a progression from Lake Michigan through a semi-wild wetland of "awe" and "grandeur" into a grand canal (Midway) and into the lagoons of the rural-respite Washington Park.
Lagoons were proposed by Olmsted and Daniel Burnham for the Fair- and are not that far removed from their modern shape (now very much reduced). The Lagoons surrounded the Wooded Island (largely an original swale cut(knocked down-spread out and actually originally a peninsula, not island) to make an island and with its shores reshaped), which served as a respite for fairgoers and housed a wonderful Japanese pavilion (placed there against Olmsted’s wishes). The bridge that linked the north end of the newly islanded peninsula was located eastward of the present bridge.
F.L. Olmsted found Jackson Park a rather desolate stretch of lake embankments, sand ridges and watery swales that averaged a foot below the level of the lake. Olmsted scraped down ridges, brought in a layer of manure from the Union Stock Yards, 200,000 cubic yards of dirt (together accounting for the later growth of plants and trees in the formerly impoverished sand), and planted hundreds of thousands of trees, shrubs, low plants, and aquatic plants, many on Wooded Island. Olmsted and the Fair designers respected the scattered stands of stunted ancient oaks and other trees (including southeast of the Columbia Basin), keeping the buildings away from these stands where possible, while bringing in many new species of trees, including black willows, to stabilize the edge of Wooded Island and other lagoon shores. Until that time, The Island was a peninsular sand ridge with an oak savannah. Olmsted intended the Island to be a quiet nature respite, but Daniel Burnham agreed to allow the Japanese government to build at its expense a Phoenix temple (Ho-o-den) based on that outside Osaka representing 3 stages in Japanese architecture, and a small Japanese garden.
Olmsted planted a distinctive palette of aquatic and shore plants in the lagoons, including lily pads and cattails, and created a grand vista graced with willows when one looked from the north bridge south of the Palace of Fine Arts. Olmsted's idea from the start was that boaters would progress from the Lake and harbors (and you could until the 1950's) through the wild splendor of the lagoons and down the (never realized) Venetian canal in Midway Plaisance to Washington Park’s lagoons and pastoral Great Meadow. Ice skating was envisioned also, and continued for decades later on extant water, boat houses serving as warming stations in the winter. Olmsted’s sons redesigned the lagoons in the decade after the Fair.
February 2006. It is largely pictorial, but should be a good addition!
I am happy to announce that my book, "Chicago's Classical Architecture: The Legacy of the White City," is now available for sale. For those of you in the Chicago area, it is in all major bookstores and many other outlets, and anyone can buy it from my web site, www.ChicagoArch.net. There is also more information on the book, including some sample photos and text, on the web site.
Touring Chicago's famed
White City
Columbian Exposition simulation almost like being there in 1893
By William Mullen
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 28, 2005
For anyone who has pined away in wishful reverie over photos of the White City
pavilions lining canals of Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition, on Tuesday
UCLA architectural historian Lisa Snyder is offering the next best thing to
a walk through the fairgrounds in all its glory.
Snyder, 43, is a senior member of UCLA's Urban Simulation Team, a group that builds virtual-reality models of cities that digitally recreate every structure in an urban area for use in planning. The simulations, accurate down to graffiti on the walls, allow planners using computers to amble back and forth through streets and alleys, tearing down and altering old buildings and trying out new buildings in old settings.
She hit on the idea of recreating the Columbian Exposition to demonstrate the power of the technology as a teaching aid. Snyder chose the event because of its beauty and the public's continuing fascination with it, and because she could work off readily available architectural site maps and building blueprints in her computer reconstruction of the fair.
"I'm about 25 percent done with the project," Snyder said Monday as she projected stunning streetscapes of the fair on a theater screen in the Museum of Science and Industry's west pavilion. She did six free demonstrations of the virtual tour of the fair Monday and will do six more Tuesday at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. (THESE EVENTS HAVE PASSED.)
"The technology is spectacular," Snyder said at the museum, the only fair building that was left standing. "For me, as an architectural historian, I've gotten interested in it as a teaching tool, as a way to take people through ancient sites or to teach people how to understand urban spaces."
What Snyder has finished recreating so far is the heart of the vast fairgrounds, the great classical Greek and Roman exposition halls that surrounded the fair's waterways, the Grand Basin and canal system.
The real-time visual simulation technology allows viewers to see the gleaming buildings as if they were strolling in front of them along the fair's broad promenades or gliding past them in electric boat launches or gondolas along the canals. The buildings' ornate architectural details are reproduced almost with photographic accuracy, because Snyder and her colleagues have been working off architectural drawings and actual photographs.
For students of architecture, she makes a single computer mouse click and makes the facade of the fair's largest structure, the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, disappear, leaving only the soaring steel frame around which it was built.
"At the time, it was the largest building in the world," she said. "The space inside was high enough to accommodate an 18-story building. The boast was that it was big enough to hold both St. Peter's Basilica and the pyramids of Giza."
For now, she has finished, but she is still refining her rendition of most of the major exhibition halls and grounds around them. She also has recreated the great Ferris wheel along the fair's Midway, giving people a view of the main grounds as people saw it in 1893. Still to come are recreations of the rest of the vast grounds, including pavilions built by other nations and the American states, and the roistering Midway attractions.
Much of the work has been on her own time and effort, she said, making her dependent on grants to visit archives to research the fair's architecture and landscaping. The recent best-selling historical novel about the fair, "The Devil in the White City," has helped immensely in raising public interest in the fair, she said.
"I started this project several years before Erik Larson published the novel," she said. "But I was so elated when it came out. It has generated a lot more interest in what I am doing."
The reconstruction of the fair is a sort of demonstration project for how the technology could be used for recreating all sorts of ancient and not-so-ancient landscapes that have disappeared, she said. The Columbian Exposition simulation could eventually be produced on an interactive Web site or on CD-rom to allow people to explore at their leisure, she said.
All of the buildings and nearly all of the monumental sculpture that graced the exposition grounds were made of plaster of Paris, and much of it was deteriorating badly at the end of the exposition's six-month run.
That meant it all had to be torn down at the fair's end except for the Fine Arts building, which was constructed more sturdily because it had to protect valuable artworks. After the fair, for two decades the Fine Arts building became the first incarnation of the Field Museum, then in 1933 was rebuilt to become the Museum of Science and Industry.
"When we saw this technology and what Lisa was doing with it, we wanted our guests to have a chance to see it," museum spokeswoman Lisa Miner said. "We want her to keep coming back and giving us updates as she completes the project."
Hyde Parker Peter Nepstad's computer game blends history, mystery and typing.
[Nepstad has also researched, written and lectured at the Hyde Park Historical Society on the Viking Ship sailed to the Columbian Exposition. (Visit the Jackson Park History page.) Nepstad's website: www.illuminatedlantern.com. Caution: one purchaser described problems using the game.]
Hyde Park Herald, February 9, 2005. By Mike Stevens
There is an upside to the Enron scandal and it can be found right here in Hyde Park. Peter Nepstad, who lost his job when Enron-auditor Arthur Anderson collapsed in 2002, said the extra time in his Hyde Park home allowed him to complete his 4-year-long pet project--a commuter game called "1893: A World's Fair Mystery." "I had no job and I had no interest in getting anything in business at that time because of the collapse," Nepstad said last week. "I had a project that could occupy my time so I wouldn't go insane/"
Based around a diamond heist at the Columbian Exposition, the text-based mystery game is a throwback to the early days of computer gaming. Think keyboards, not joysticks. "Computer games these days use movies as a model, [text-based] games the books as t heir model," Nepstad said. "It's older technology but people still read books so I figured it would be OK."
It was a book, Donald Millers's The City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America, that stirred Neptad's interest in Chicago history. Between weekend jaunts to see Chicago landmarks and evening hours spent squinting at 100-year-old Chicago Tribune articles , Nepstad's historical sleuthing left little time for his other hobby, writing computer games. "Since I didn't have time to manage two hobbies, I combined them," Nepstad said.
The game, which retails for $19.95, also provided Nepstad a rationale and a goal for the long hours spent researching at the Harold Washington Library.
Rich with historical details and accompanied by more than 500 archival photos, the game takes players through most of the exhibits at the exposition in their hunt for eight diamonds stolen from the Kimberly Diamond Mining Exhibit.
Taking cues from a newspaper account of a man being gored at the livestock exhibit, Nepstad hid one diamond around the neck of a black bull. "It's a low body count, not a no body count [game]," Nepstad said.
After its 2002 release, Nepstad's game sold only a few copies despite some positive reviews. Eventually, Nepstad found his market in museums and institutions like the Chicago Architecture Foundation. By last December, he had sold 2,000 copies. Sales figures for independently-produced games are hard to come by according to DIY games.com, which monitors the field, but 2,000 "seems pretty solid."
A modest press releases touting the 2,000 mark ended up catching the attention of a New York Times contributor. although he knew a story was coming, Nepstad said he did not realize the Jan.31 [2005] Sunday Times carried it until he checked his e-mail box later that day and had a backlog of orders to fill.
Now employed again, a new game seems difficult to contemplate, Nepstad said. But given time, the next game will likely center around the Pullman Porters' strike of 1894. "I am pretty sure that would be completely unpopular," Nepstad joked. "So I am interested in that." To order a game or for more information, go to www.illuminatedlantern.com.
[note: Museum of Science and Industry does not have the ship on its priorities and says it will not be involved in fundraising for rescue or restoration. JPAC at its April 2004? meeting resolved to nonetheless seek to enlist Museum involvement, noting that MSI is the natural place for it, first because it houses the two ends, then as both are related to the World's Columbian Exposition, and MSI exhibits much on nautical technology and prowess and is spending 20 million to restore, move, and re house the U-505 Submarine.
JPAC was told by the Park District in July 2006 that various organizations have raised monies already and for the ship to be moved for restoration and exhibition. JPAC passed a resolution of support. However, the Museum of Science and Industry has informally declined suggestions that it would be a good fit for storage-restoration-display of the ship, the MSI spokesperson citing space, money, and especially that the ship is historical technology while the Museum seeks exhibits and objects illustrating technology that looks to the future. GMO personal information.
Hyde Park Herald, March 26, 2003, by Peter Nepstad
About an hour's drive west of Chicago, in a private park, sits a 110-year-old wooden ship that once made headlines around the world. The flimsy tarp that protected it from the elements has been blown aside by strong winds, and rain now freely pounds against the exposed wood. It is only a matter of time until the ship is damaged beyond repair. But in its current location, few people will even note its disappearance; many believe it is gone already.
It wasn't always this way.
The story of the ship is a long one that goes back to 1880, to Gokstad, Norway, and the discovery of a Viking war vessel unearthed from a burial mound. The Gokstad, as it was called, was built around 890 and was in remarkable shape. It provided the first tangible evidence that the Vikings had built ships capable of traveling to the New World.
But the proof would have to wait for a Norwegian named Magnus Andersen who decided that a replica of a Viking ship should be sailed across the Atlantic, as a counterpoint to the World Exhibition that would be held in America in 1893 to honor Columbus. He later recalled, "As I thought this over more closely, I found the idea more and more attractive. That Leif Eriksson had been in America before Columbus had been clearly proved but was not commonly known either in America or elsewhere, not even Norway...".
The replica of the Gokstad was funded by popular subscription and completed in time for the Exposition. It was decorated with a silk banner embroidered with ravens. The ship itself was christened "The Raven," but American popular press quickly named it, "The Viking." Magnus Andersen was the Captain.
The Viking sailed from Bergen, Norway and reached Newfoundland four weeks later. The crew, uncertain how the ship would handle on the open seas, found it had exceeded all expectations. "We noted with admiration the ship's graceful movements," Andersen later wrote.
From Newfoundland, Viking headed south to New York, then sailed into the Great Lakes. Carter Harrison, Chicago's four-term mayor, boarded and took command for the last leg of the voyage, arriving at Jackson Park on Wednesday, July 12, 1893 to much fanfare. Magnus Andersen had turned his dreams into reality.
The Viking moored at Jackson Park for the remainder of the fair. Afterwards, the Captain piloted it through the ILM canal to the Mississippi River, all the way to New Orleans--the only seafaring vessel ever to do so.
The ship was brought back to Chicago and stored in the Field Columbian Museum until 1919, when it was restored and placed in Lincoln Park. In 1933, Magnus Andersen repeated his historic voyage in a modern freighter to appear at Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition.
The ship sat in Lincoln Park right up until the 1970's. Covered by a roof and enclosed by a chain-link fence, it sat outside in the blistering heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter until the wood seems more akin to steel than anything else. Time had taken its toll on the Viking.
The Chicago Park District, without the funds to do a proper restoration, sold the ship for $1 to the American Scandinavian Council, which promised to raise the necessary funds, estimated at $12 million dollars, to restore the historic vessel.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. But the funds were never successfully raised, and no preservation or restoration has been done. Unfortunately, the ship was also moved out of Lincoln Park, and has been out of the public eye for nearly thirty years. Now it sits in Good Templar Park, a private park located in Geneva, IL, and closed to the public for much of the year. And the careful work of keeping it dry for the past fifty or so years is being undone by a temporary shelter that no longer keeps off the rain.
It seems unbelievable that the historic vessel has ended up in this condition. But the situation is not entirely without hope. Ownership may have reverted to the Chicago Park District. And all parties are now seeking a new, permanent location. Cook County Commissioner Carl Hansen, a long time advocate of the project, describes all parties as committed to saving the ship and giving it a new home where everyone can enjoy this part of their cultural heritage. "We are looking for a permanent location for the ship, before we try again to preserve it," Hansen said. "We've all learned the hard way how hard it is to raise funds for something when no one knows what will happen to it once it is finished."
Nothing has been decided yet, and discussions for a new home for the Viking are still underway. Among the possibilities: the Museum of Science and Industry, housed in the last remaining World's Fair building still located in Jackson Park. Perhaps someday soon, the Viking will once again set sail, and return to the place that has always been its only true destination.
This is one of a series of articles being published monthly through a collaboration of the Herald with the Hyde Park Historical Society.
Peter Nepstad has studied the 1893 World's Fair for the past four years to develop a CC-ROM adventure game called "1893: A World's Fair Mystery" which can be ordered on line at http://illuminatedlantern.com/1893.
[March 29, 2003] at 1:00 p.m. Peter Nepstad and Douglas Anderson [appeared] at the Hyde Park Historical Society [5529 S. Lake Park] for a presentation on the Columbian Exposition followed by a related tour through the Wooded Island.
At the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago 2nd floor through April 2007. "Chicago's Two World Fairs: the Untold Asian Story. 238 W. 23rd St. 312 949-1000. Through April 2007. Here is the story, from a review in the Hyde Park Herald, June 14, 2006. By Caitlin Devitt.
When the Chinese government turned down President Benjamin Harrison's invitation to participate in the 1893 World's fair, in protest of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act restricting immigration, two Chicago Chicago Chinese groups began competing for the chance to represent their home country. Korea had emerged from its notorious isolation to participate (the King himself organizing the exhibit), and Japan spent nearly $500,000 constructing its own fairgrounds, building, teahouse and gardens.
For the Chinese exhibit, located near the Ferris Wheel [on the Midway], a group calling itself the Wah Mee Company won the bid, and erected an elaborate temple [Joss House], theater and teahouse to showcase China. The businessmen spent around $20,000 just on bringing over actors from China. They went bankrupt within three months, despite the exhibit's popularity.
If at the time the world considered the 1893 World's Fair to be history in the making, time has borne that out. The fair is one of those events constantly plumbed for new stories. Now the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago has documented the East Asian contribution to this and the 1933 Chicago World's Fair.
First a word about the museum itself. It's housed in a narrow brick warehouse building on a Chinatown side street, a typical Chicago industrial four-flat, with glass brick windows and a vacant garbage-strewn lot next door. The museum is one year old, and the building is only half rehabbed, but the place seems busy with weekend traffic. Large banners flap on the facade advertising quirky exhibits, including the simply titled "Tofu, and Silk and Wood," and opening last Saturday at a crowded reception, "Chicago's Two World Fairs."
Several Asian countries participated in the 1893 World's Fair, giving many Americans their first look at the people and artifacts from the Exotic East; this is where Frank Lloyd Wright saw Japanese architecture for the first time. The exhibit provides a solid overview of the Korean and Japanese contribution, but gets deeper as it details the Chinese participation, emphasizing the personalities and politics of the powerful Chinese Americans who got involved in the big events.
By 1933, the world had darkened considerably, and fewer Asian countries participated in that fair. Several that did were colonized, and presented by the occupier. The Great Depression was deepening, and China and Japan were moving toward war. In this fair, the Chinese exhibit was represented by five often-hostile groups, three of which were not even Chinese, including a New York jeweler and a Swedish-led committee that had designed the extravagant Chinese temple.
Made up of photographs, artifacts, maps and reproductions, many of the show's materials were donated by the Museum of Science and Industry, which in 1992 inherited a great collection from Silas Henry Fung, as well as the University of Chicago Library.
It's the museum's fist exhibit on the newly rehabbed second floor. Like all non-profits, the institution is on the lookout for funding, as it wants to finish the top two floors and has plans to convert the adjacent lot into parking and a garden.
African Americans at the Columbian Exposition
Christopher Reid of Roosevelt U. in his two books, "All the World is Here," The Black Presence at the White City and Black Chicago's First Century, shows that not all African Americans joined Ida B. Wells in protesting and boycotting the Fair, nor was there a universal ban on their presence but that African Americans were a significant presence, from 1 in a key administrative position and many participating in the symposia and exhibits, to labor.
There have to have been African Americans in the city and especially the South Side at the time for presence to have been debatable. African Americans after the era of DuSable were a small percentage of the population of the boom town, but here nonetheless. As early as the 1880s they were observed to be using Washington Park and especially Washington Park Racetrack, where some worked.
Participants at the Fair included
- workers who cleared the site,
- the Ferris Wheel operator,
- directions-givers (although they were excluded from the Columbian Guard),
- chair boys/cart pushers,
- carpenters (ultimately excluded),
- artists who were African American as exhibitors (Henry Mc Neil Tanner's "First Lesson on the Bagpipe" and put art on plants displays),
- scientists- George Washington Carver,
- performances- 1000 uniformed Knights of Pythias from Mississippi and black cowboys at the opening,
- speakers at conferences- Booker T. Washington on labor, Ida B. Wells , ____Bishop on God is Black, Fanny B. Williams, a conference on black women writers, and an 8 day conference on whether African Americans should stay in America. At least 6 black women spoke. (W.E.B. Dubois was in Germany at the time.)
Tribute marker to Frederick Douglass, Haitian Pavilion at Fair planned
Tribute to Frederick Douglass, Haitian Pavilion at Columbian Exposition
For some years in the mid 2000s Barry Rapoport, then teacher at South Shore High School Small School for Leadership, led groups of students in marking off the footprint of the Haitian Pavilion at the Columbian Exposition and talking about the pavilion (first completed building, near where the Bowling Green is, southeast of the Museum and by Lake Shore Drive) and the role of Frederick Douglass there in giving speeches (including the first ceremonial speech) and informing the public. Mr. Rapoport has also made and used large puppets of Douglass and other notables of the time in the educational project at the site.
In his report on the project, Rapoport proposed a maker to Douglass and the Fair occasion at the site and markers at two other historic spots in Jackson Park and Midway Plaisance. The proposal for the Douglass marker was, with Council approval and advice and that of elected officials narrowed to a small boulder with incised text. The proposal was submitted with support to the Park District and a summit was held that has presumably led to recommendation to the CPD Board of Commissioners. Here is the notice from the Hyde Park Historical Society's Autumn 2007 Hyde Park History.
If all goes as planned, a collaborative effort between the School of Leadership of South Shore High School and the Chicago Park District will result in a commemorative marker honoring abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass. Plans call for an engraved boulder to be installed near the present Lawn Bowling Court in Jackson Park just north of the 59th Street Harbor, the precise location of the Haitian Pavilion of the 1893 Columbian World Exposition. This project, which began more than two years ago, credits Douglass for his leadership and commitment to the quest for knowledge and will give Chicagoans a more inclusive historical perspective about the activities of this great leader.
Douglass, appointed the Minister-in-Charge of the Haitian Pavilion, gave the dedication address on January 2, 1893, Haitian Independence Day.
From final report and recommendations of the South Shore High Frederick Douglass/CPS-CPD park teaching project
In the Spring of 2005, during our Cross-Curricular Unit on Chicago, we… became aware that Frederick Douglass was a former slave, abolitionist, orator, statesman, Conductor for the Underground Railroad, journalist, and founder of the newspaper, The North Star: later known as The Frederick Douglass newspaper. Douglass also spent much time in Chicago where he lived in 1893 and was directly involved in a major Chicago event. For example:
1. Douglass gave the Dedication speech opening The Columbian Exposition on January 2, 1893, from the Haitian Pavilion located north of the Bowling Green.
2. We also learned that George Ferris designed and led a team that constructed the first ever Ferris wheel for the Fair.
3. We also became aware through an alumni survey that South Shore alumni are ignorant when it comes to many of the facts pertaining to Jackson Park.
4. We learned that many people who live in and around the park, both currently and those who have lived here in the past are largely unaware of the historical significance of the intellectual discussions raised in this park during the World’s Columbian Exposition.
5. And what a surprise it was to find out that the Museum of Science and Industry was The Fine Arts Palace, designed and built for the Columbian Exposition.We would like to make three suggestions to support knowledge and awareness of the park. The suggestions are graphic and have been stimulated by the Project…
During the summer of ’05, I obtained letters of support for a school-park collaborative project from the Jackson Park Advisory council and from Alderman Hairston. The Chicago Park District also gave their approval for our proposed programming.
Throughout the year, ending in June 2006, we chalked the spot where Douglass was and entertained passersby. We had two students and three adults on site. We spoke with fishermen, pedestrians, bicyclists (if they stopped), joggers and the harbormaster as well as many of the boaters in the motorboat harbor. We had no complaints that we were aware of. Everyone recognized immediately, that what we were doing was a good thing. One of the participating students, absorbing the positive energy of the site, learned to juggle three juggling clubs. He could already juggle beanbags, but from beanbags to juggling clubs is a step not all jugglers make.
I am hopeful that the markings recommended to the Park will be approved, passed along and implemented.
It was great meeting so many wonderful people with each step on this project. It is my hope that seeds have been planted that will find fertile soil.
Thank you very much!
Barry RapoportEd. The three recommended markings honoring sites at the Columbian Exposition are: 1) two boulders with plaques, like the one honoring Paul H. Douglas at Osaka Garden on Wooded Island—one on the spot where Frederick Douglass gave the inaugural address at the Haitian Pavilion and the other near the foundation site of the great Ferris Wheel on Midway Plaisance. 2) a sign on 57th Drive near the Museum of Science and Industry saying “Welcome to Jackson Park, Site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.”
In the run-up to the Exposition, many Chicagoans vociferously protested the Fair or contested its being or not being near them.
William Zieske notes in a letter to the August 15, 2007 Herald, on expressed opposition to the 2016 Olympics,
"Mr. Staples' letter (July 11) mentions the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, which transformed our neighborhood to an urban environment, catapulted Hyde Park to its first fame, and truly made Chicago a world-class city."The history leading up to the Exposition is less well known. I invite the Herald's readers to peruse the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times from 1890 through 1891. It is fascinating to read some of the stories about high-profile haggling among chicagoans in the early 1890s, about whether the Fair should be held on the South Side, West Side, or in Lakefront Park (now Grant Park). New Yorkers argued that Congress should reconsider awarding the coveted Exposition to Chicago, where no one apparently wanted it, and relocate it to their great city, where the entire city would pull together to put on great show for the world. In combination with concern over fiscal over-runs, this became a real possibility.
"It is interesting to read the very same arguments Mr. Staples makes--"not-in-my-backyard" or NIMBY arguments--that were vociferously made by various factions nearly 120 years ago, and nearly derailed Chicago's greatest moment in history.