Columbian Exposition - Essay Example

COLLEGE: COLOMBIAN EXPOSITION The World’s Columbian Exposition takes credit for the transformation of the of Chicago in 1893 and influencing the city’s development for several years to follow. The Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, took place in Jackson Park, at the current location of the Museum of Science and Industry and the Midway Plaisance. It drew close to 27 million visitors, 14 million coming from outside the United States, at a time when the population of Chicago was slightly over one million. However, there is an assumption that close to 25% of the United States population made a visit to the Fair, and the remaining bulk of the country only had the experience through newspaper accounts, detailed guidebooks, and the pictures and stories of friends and family who visited it themselves. The organization of world Columbus Exposition to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus entry into the new world became a defining moment in the history of Chicago as well as history as a whole (Rydell and Wells-Barnett, 78). The World’s Columbus Exposition came into the picture just 22 years after the Chicago Fire of 1871 and only 28 years after the American civil war. The organizers of this event had the motive of showcasing the nations and at the same time demonstrate Chicago’s international stature after the fire destruction. The fair’s lead architect and overseer of the design and planning of the fair’s main buildings was Daniel Burnham. These massive, neoclassical structures came to be known, commonly, as the White City. Despite their elegant appearance, the buildings were made from wood frames wrapped in staff, a plaster mixture that creates the illusion of stone (Rydell and Wells-Barnet, 33). The White City was lasting for not more than six months. The exhibition closed in late October 1893 and that winter, almost all of the buildings came down due to the massive fire. The documents that follow present the history of the Columbian Exposition in comparison to the history of Chicago. With the town’s location on the Michigan, there was the facilitation of access to road, sea as well as rail. It was a congregation of ideas, men and technologies from every part of the world, with each country putting forth the best of their industrial, cultural, commercial and educational enterprises. The Renaissance style of the expositional buildings was unlatches by its architecture beauty. The Exposition itself was a work of art. The Exposition was a brilliant show of science, art, and industry. All the people of the world have its pilgrimage to Columbian Exposition. The fair’s contribution to the restoration and development of Chicago as a whole is without the doubt great. The over 40,000 skilled laborers and workers who took part in the construction of the fair--at Jackson Park together with Burnham, who headed up the selection of the a Board of Architects. And together they conceived the general design of the Fairs buildings and the Court of Honor, as well as the design and construction of the 200 additional buildings (Rydell and Wells-Barnett, 81). The Fair was intended to be awe-inspiring, and in large part achieved its objective. The welcoming of visitors by 633 total acres of Fairgrounds, 65,000 exhibits, and restaurant seating for 7,000 was rather unusual. They were amazed by the clean and safely raised railway and the electric launches leading to the canals and lagoons (Rydell and Wells-Barnett, 45). Visitors, on the way to the entertainment and the sight of the Midway, felt pretty safe with the hundreds of Columbian Guards and plainclothes detectives on duty. Several of concessionaires, selling everything from souvenir paperweights to popcorn and the newly introduced carbonated soda, crowded the walkways, and nearly every day had an unusual outcome for the newcomers to celebrate. The daily presentations and teachings held by the Worlds Congress Auxiliary, 5,978 in all, covering areas including ethics, authors, economics, labor, and the enormous week-long Congress of Religions. The Worlds Columbian Exposition paid back all of its moving expenses, even giving back $1 million to its 30,000 subscribers, a part of their original investments. It had a great influence on a turn of the century American society, as well as social, economic, cultural, and political legacies to modern America. The Fair presents itself to the country and the world as a festivity of the progress of American civilization and receiving the positive response as well. The first step to illustrate its reception is to understand the abstract landscape and physical dimensions in the official tour (Grossman et al, 48). The Columbian Exposition was the venue for the introduction of consumer products that are so familiar today, for instance, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, Pabst Beer, Aunt Jemima syrup, and Juicy Fruit gum. The platform that the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building provided for American products and showed them to advantage for the world got to know what Chicago, as well as America as a whole, can offer in the production field. To presentation at the Fair, and possibly win a Columbian medal in product competitions, was a perfect way to gain product recognition and an advantage for the advertising departments. The next advertisements in the months following the Fair outstandingly ribbon display that proudly point out, for instance “1st place, Bicycle Division," the central of the ribbon being to promotion for quick sale. The Fair also saw the introduction of picture postcards to the American public, as well as two staples of the late-twentieth century diet that are carbonated soda and hamburgers (Grossman et al, 55).But it was not merely the Fairs product introductions that have had an impact on the face of modern America. The Exposition also saw the United States gain a new holiday, Columbus Day, and a new method of teaching patriotism in school children that are the Pledge of Allegiance (Rydell and Wells-Barnett, 21). Though the fair ended its effects are still present in Chicago, several exhibits found their way into museums throughout the country. Chicago today boasts of the worlds largest artifacts in connection with the trade fare thus having a large number of visitors who visit the country to experience a highly praised and talked occasion in the world over (Grossman et al, 108). WORK CITED Grossman, J. R., Keating, A. D., Reiff, J. L., Newberry Library, Chicago., & Chicago Historical Society. (2004). The encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://www.chicagohs.org/history/expo.html http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/amex/chicago/index.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/houdini/peopleevents/pande08.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140318051012/http://xroads.virginia.edu/ma96/wce/legacy.html Rydell, R. W., & Wells-Barnett, I. B. (1999). The reason why the colored American is not in the Worlds Columbian Exposition: The Afro-Americans contribution to Columbian literature. Urbana [u.a.: Univ. of Illinois Press. Read More