A Ticket to the World’s Fair
THE 1893 WORLD’S COLUMBIAN Exposition, more commonly known as the Chicago World’s Fair, was one of the signature events of the nineteenth century. Planned as a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World—although it opened a year late—it was the last of the century’s grand international expositions. The first was London’s 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, or Crystal Palace Exhibition, an event that attracted some six million visitors. The next major fair took place in 1876 in Philadelphia. Called the Centennial Exposition, it attracted 10 million guests, many of whom paid extra to see the right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty. Then came the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle, for which the Eiffel Tower was built. After a rancorous four-city competition, the U.S. Congress awarded the next world’s fair to Chicago over New York, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. In 1890, a furious, fraught, and sometimes fiery construction project was begun.
Chicago’s political bosses and business leaders had wanted the fair downtown in the heart of the city, but concerns about unmanageable congestion and over property rights won the day. City grandees settled on Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance, a stretch of
