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In 1893, the money and influence of Chicago industrialists and meat packers beat out New York’s bankers and merchants, and the Columbian Exhibition, one of the most important World’s Fairs, was held in the Windy City. In addition to celebrating Columbus’ 400th anniversary of arriving on our hemisphere, the CE was a masterpiece of architectural, cultural and technological wonders. The Fair covered 600 acres, featured 200 new buildings, manmade canals and lagoons, and showcased the people, cultures, and products of the world. During its 6 months run, over 27 million people attended, which was equivalent to half the nation’s population at that time. The Columbian Exhibition gave us the Ferris Wheel, hamburgers, Cracker Jacks, Quaker Oats, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, Juicy Fruit Gum and Aunt Jemima Pancake mix. Mr. Hershey discovered chocolate at the fair, and America was introduced to Scott Joplin’s ragtime, the hula, and the wonders and power of electricity.

One of the most far reaching effects of the Columbian Exhibition was its appearance. Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, along with Frederick Law Olmstead, brought in many prominent architects of the age, including New Yorkers McKim, Mead and White, and they designed what came to be called The White City, following Beaux Arts principals of European classical architecture. The central part of the fair featured vast buildings set on wide avenues, with lakes and lagoons. All of the buildings were covered with white stucco or paint, and the city was lit with thousands of electric lights, creating a gleaming city, the source of the alabaster cities in the song America the Beautiful, as well as the Emerald City in L. Frank Baum’s Oz series, and later, Disneyland.

The White City was well planned, with spacious avenues, water features and parkland, was clean, bright, had great sanitation, and no crime, no poverty, no unrest. (Of course there was crime not publicized, the poor were not encouraged to attend, there was a huge African-American protest because no blacks were hired to build, or work at the fair, and were otherwise marginalized, and there was a sizable security force to keep order and the wrong element out. But, I digress.) In spite of all of this security, most of the Fairground burned to the ground in 1894. However, this was the beginning of the City Beautiful Movement, an important development in modern city planning, as well as attitudes towards social reform. The acclaim over the White City brought great popularity to the Beaux Arts movement, classical Greco-Roman forms, and light colored building materials. Our limestone row houses and apartment buildings at the turn of the century, directly or indirectly, are a result of this movement. Next week: New York and the City Beautiful.