RARE-- WORLD'S FAIR 1893 TYPES & SCENES FROM THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE Chicago 1894

Description: 1893 World's Fair "Types & Scenes from the Midway Plaisance" Green cloth with gilt design. Published by The American Engraving Company, Chicago, 1894. For one brief summer in the 1890s, it was the greatest attraction in Chicago, in all America, in fact, more visited and talked about than any previous world's fairs. Here, amidst Muslim mosques and Chinese pagodas, European castles and South Sea island huts, straw-hatted Americans came by the thousands to see Bedouin warriors, Egyptian belly dancers, lions that rode horseback and roller-skating bears. Over it all loomed the first giant Ferris wheel, taller than all but one downtown Chicago skyscraper. When the Fair's boosters originally conceived of the World s Columbian Exposition, they did not intend to set aside any space for a side show where popular amusements and exotic exhibits could titillate spectators. The Fair was to be what they considered high culture (the ideas and achievements of westerners) without any 'low-brow' entertainments. But the popularity of the ethnological exhibits at the 1889 Paris exhibition not to mention its handsome profits convinced the Chicago Fair directors to include such a space. For this purpose, they decided to reserve the Midway Plaisance, a mile-long shady pleasure drive that connected Jackson Park with nearby Washington Park. In this way, the pre-existing name, Midway Plaisance, was shortened to midway and entered the English lexicon as a term denoting any carnival area with games, rides, and vendors. To give the Midway the sheen of educational value, the directors put Frederic Putnam, the head of the Fair's Department of Ethnology and Archaeology, in charge. Putnam and his associates hired impresario Sol Bloom to plan the Midway's exhibits, explaining its curious mix of spectacle and education. Consequently, visitors were encouraged to see the Midway not just as a carnival but as a kind of living museum of human evolution. At the far end of the strip were exhibits from the Dahomeans and the Indigenous Americans, near the center were Middle Easterners and Pacific Islanders, and closest to the fairgrounds were the Japanese, Irish, and Germans. The Chicago Tribune reported that on the Midway, an opportunity was here afforded to the scientific mind to descend the spiral of evolution, tracing humanity in its highest phases down almost to its animalistic origins. Good condition. Published 1894. Hardcover. Dark green cloth with gilt lettering. Unmarked, binding mostly tight throughout, although near the front there is a crack in the binding where 4 pages have come loose, but all pages are present. Souvenir book from the 1983 Chicago's World's Fair. Pages are unnumbered, but each page contains a large-scale black and white photograph from the Midway (with a caption giving details), totaling 400+. 7.75" x 11" x 1" RARE FIND. A wonderful addition to any home library.

Price: 395 USD

Location: Bountiful, Utah

End Time: 2024-08-17T00:44:50.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6.13 USD