World's Columbian Exposition: History, Facts And Significance

The World's Columbian Exposition (the official shortened name for the World's Fair: Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World in 1492. Visitors from around the country and world were first introduced to many industrial technologies and commercial offerings that would shape 20th century culture. The fair celebrated technological, social, and artistic progress on a grand civic scale and heralded Chicago as a mercantile and cultural destination. The fair represented a complex blend of mass cultivation, education, and entertainment during an era dominated by tensions over immigration, urbanization, race, class, and Euro-American westward expansion. This book explores a collection of event photographs and juxtaposes them against a set of modern images to catalog the living remnants in art and architecture around the city as a legacy to the 1893 World's Fair.