Expressly intended to demonstrate America's national progress toward utopia, the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago pointedly excluded the contributions of African Americans. For them, being left outside the gates of the "White City" merely underscored a more general exclusion from America's bright future. Exhibits at the fair were controlled by all-white committees, and those that acknowledged African Americans at all, such as the famous Aunt Jemima pancake exhibit, ridiculed and denigrated them. Many African Americans saw the racist policies of the World's Columbian Exposition as mirroring, framing, and reinforcing the larger horrors confronting blacks throughout the United States, where white supremacy meant segregation, second-class citizenship, and sometimes mob violence and lynching. In response to the politics of exclusion that governed the fair, and of its larger implications, several prominent African Americans resolved to publish a pamphlet that would catalog the achievements of African Americans since the abolition of slavery while articulating the persistent political economy of apartheid in the American South. The authors of this remarkable document included the antilynching crusader Ida B. Wells, the former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the educator Irvine Garland Penn, and the lawyer and newspaper publisher Ferdinand L. Barnett. An eloquent statement of protest and pride, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition reminds us that struggles over cultural representation are nothing new in American life. Robert Rydell's introduction provides insight into the sometimes conflicting strategies employed by African Americans as they strove to represent themselves at a cultural event that was widely regarded as a defining moment in American history.

What came to be known as the World s Columbian Exposition was planned to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus s 1492 landfall in the New World. Chicago beat out New York City, St. Louis, Missouri, and Washington, DC, in its bid as host a coup for the Windy City. The site finally selected for the fair was Jackson Park, originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, a marshy area covered with dense, wild vegetation. Daniel H. Burnham and John W. Root were selected as chief architects, creating the famous White City. The fair featured several different thematic areas: the Great Buildings, Foreign Buildings, State Buildings, and the Midway Plaisance, a nearly mile-long area that featured exotic exhibits. The exposition also showcased the world s first Ferris Wheel and introduced fairgoers to new sensations like Cracker Jack, Pabst Beer, and ragtime music. The World s Columbian Exposition, covering 633 acres, opened on May 1, 1893. Admission prices were 50cents for adults, 25cents for children under 12 years of age, and free for children under six. Unfortunately, by 1896, most of the fair s buildings had been removed or destroyed, but this collection takes readers on a tour of the grounds as they looked in 1893."

128 rare, vintage photographs: 200 buildings — 79 of foreign governments, 38 of U.S. states — the original ferris wheel, first midway, Edison's kinetoscope, much more. 128 black-and-white photographs. Captions. Map. Index.

The 1893 Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, presented the Latter-day Saints with their first opportunity to exhibit the best of Mormonism for a national and an international audience after the abolishment of polygamy in 1890. The Columbian Exposition also marked the dramatic reengagement of the LDS Church with the non-Mormon world after decades of seclusion in the Great Basin. Between May and October 1893, over seven thousand Latter-day Saints from Utah attended the international spectacle popularly described as the ''White City.'' While many traveled as tourists, oblivious to the opportunities to ''exhibit'' Mormonism, others actively participated to improve their church's public image. Hundreds of congregants helped create, manage, and staff their territory's impressive exhibit hall; most believed their besieged religion would benefit from Utah's increased national profile. Moreover, a good number of Latter-day Saint women represented the female interests and achievements of both Utah and its dominant religion. These women hoped to use the Chicago World's Fair as a platform to improve the social status of their gender and their religion. Additionally, two hundred and fifty of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's best singers competed in a Welsh eiseddfodd, a musical competition held in conjunction with the Chicago World's Fair, and Mormon apologist Brigham H. Roberts sought to gain LDS representation at the affiliated Parliament of Religions. In the first study ever written of Mormon participation at the Chicago World's Fair, Reid L. Neilson explores how Latter-day Saints attempted to ''exhibit'' themselves to the outside world before, during, and after the Columbian Exposition, arguing that their participation in the Exposition was a crucial moment in the Mormon migration to the American mainstream and its leadership's discovery of public relations efforts. After 1893, Mormon leaders sought to exhibit their faith rather than be exhibited by others.

'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .