World’s Columbian Exposition | History, Facts, & Significance (2024)

World’s Columbian Exposition, fair held in 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage to America.

In the United States there had been a spirited competition for this exposition among the country’s leading cities. Chicago was chosen in part because it was a railroad centre and in part because it offered a guarantee of $10 million.

Continuing the precedent set at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (1876) of creating a vast gardened layout containing numerous separate buildings rather than a single great hall, the World’s Columbian Exposition was planned to spread over 686 acres (278 hectares) along the city’s south lakefront area; part of this location is now Jackson Park in Chicago. The chief planner was the Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham; Charles B. Atwood was designer in chief; and Frederick Law Olmsted was entrusted with landscaping. The fair’s new buildings had impressive Classical facades with a uniform cornice height of 60 feet (18.25 metres). The plaster palace fronts bore little functional relationship to exhibition halls inside; but the grandeur of the “White City,” electrically lighted at night, temporarily led to a resurgent interest in Classical architecture.

Behind the calm pillared facades and Classical porticoes of the great “White City” the visitor found unexpected excitement and novelty. The Ferris wheel (invented by G.W.G. Ferris, a Pittsburgh engineer) and a dazzling new wonder—electricity—were presented for the first time in America. Electricity had been introduced and exploited at the Paris Exposition of 1889, but in 1893 it was still unfamiliar to most Americans. The exposition was opened by a dramatic act when U.S. Pres. Grover Cleveland pushed a button on a ceremonial platform in front of the Administration Building and set the great Allis engine in motion, turning on the electric power for the exposition. The engine, the dynamo, and the alternating-current generator displayed for the first time by George Westinghouse later became the basic tools of the electric power industry.

The Columbian Exposition’s gross outlays amounted to $28,340,700, of which $18,678,000 was spent on grounds and buildings. There were some 21.5 million paid admissions to the exposition, and actual total attendance (including free admissions) was more than 25.8 million. However, because some visitors were counted twice, the total figure is sometimes reported as having been between 27 and 28 million. The cash balance remaining at closing was $446,832, making it the first American international exposition to close with a profit. The Palace of Fine Arts, a 600,000-square-foot building, was rebuilt in permanent limestone in 1928–32 to house the public exhibitions of the Museum of Science and Industry.