why was chicago called the white city

Both are housed in buildings constructed for the 1893 worlds fair. One can also take this as the claim. [2] "White City" was also the name associated with the landscaping and architecture of the World's Columbian Exposition, held near the same location in 1893 because the exhibition's buildings used plaster of Paris and were painted a chalky white. Native American and anthropological treasures told the story of American and world history. There would be another worlds fair in Chicago, some 40 years later. Now, the newspaper wanted to provide free access to the park for 100 lucky boys and girls who sent in the best letters explaining why they wanted to come to Sally's party and spend a day at White City. Erik Larson describes one scene in his historical nonfiction book about the fair, Devil in the White City: [The passenger] began throwing himself at the walls of the car with such power that he managed to bend some of the protective iron. [1], In October 1910, White City served as the home of a major Christian evangelistic crusade. Each was an enormous steel-framed warehouse with a staff faade, designed by one of the leading architects of the era: Charles McKim, of McKim, Meade & White (of, on, she could gaze on the Columbian Fountain, featuring Frederick MacMonniess sculpture, . And in this battle of cities its most insistent claim was it must have the fair because it was the "most typically American" of the country's large cities. The Ferris Wheel is a monument to American ingenuity, bravery, and creativity. White City (sometimes listed as White City Amusement Park in print advertisements) was a recreational area located in the Greater Grand Crossing and Woodlawn community areas on the south side of Chicago from 1905 until the 1950s. "State and City Inquiry in Balloon Tragedy", "The Roller-Coaster Life Of Towering And Tawdry White City", "WHITE CITY" FOR BERLIN: Charles R. Lynch of Chicago Projects New Amusement Enterprise", "CHICAGO White City amusement park Ferris wheel railway", "White City Roller Rink Demonstration, 1949", "Annette Kellerman Sullivan, 87, 'Million Dollar Mermaid,' Dead", "Question of the Month: African Dip Carnival Game", "Skating through the color barrier Jimmy Davis's persistence led to the first roller rink open to black enthusiasts", White City Amusement Park 1905-1933. To help with planning and landscaping, the pair hired Frederick Law Olmstead, a landscape architect who planned both New Yorks Central Park and suburban Riverside, Ill. When France hosted its Exposition Universelle in Paris, in 1889, the events ultramodern steel-and-glass exhibit halls and symbolic Eiffel Tower sparked international jealousy. Analysis. (Image GN90799d courtesy Field Museum), The 1893 Columbian Exposition: Remembering Chicagos White City. Starting in the ballroom, it spread and did over $200,000 in damage; the tower that was not harmed in the 1911 fire finally was destroyed in this blaze. It was a dirty, workingmans city, a place that East Coast elites considered uncultured and lacking sophistication. [21] The park also featured the first Shoot-the-Chutes ride in Chicago. Today, a new exhibit at the Elmhurst Historical Museum, 120 E. Park Ave., in Elmhurst, shows a local angle on the Columbian Exposition. Where the Columbian Exposition was grand and classic, the 1933-34 Century of Progress was sleek and modern. Two articles of American patriotic practice emerged from the Fair: Francis J. Bellamy (cousin to Edward Bellamy, the socialist novelist quoted above who was considerably less enamored with the Fair) composed the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States for school children to recite across the country in honor of the occasion, and Katharine Lee Bates composed the song America the Beautiful after a western trip that included a stop at the Fair (one of its later verses includes a reference to the alabaster White City gleaming). He did so in reference to the city's full-of-hot air politicians who were advocating and wooing organizers to hold the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in the city instead of in . Built in Norway and transported to Chicago, it was a recreation of a Norwegian chapel. To her left, the soaring archways of the Mines and Electricity Buildings welcomed her inside, while a seemingly endless row of columns decorated the front of the Machinery Building. Nicknamed the "White City," the fair's grand Neoclassical buildings were planned as a cohesive whole in a landscaped setting; they made a lasting impression on millions of visitors. One of the buildings housed a ballroom with a dancefloor large enough for 1,000 dancers. "Second City" originates as an insult from a series of articles in The New Yorker by A.J. Liebling, later combined into a book titled Chicago: The Second City (1952). Photo album and 32 original 1905 advertising articles, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=White_City_(Chicago)&oldid=1102059891, Defunct amusement parks in the United States, Demolished buildings and structures in Chicago, Former buildings and structures in Chicago, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 3 August 2022, at 05:42. Women look at Holmes as he walks through Chicago. The Surprisingly Interesting Reason Chicago is Called the "Windy City". In 1909, Burnham developed Chicagos Burnham Plan, a blueprint for generous lakefront parks, a highway system and planned communities with parkland. One of the big things Ive learned is that American and international fairs were these huge investments and showcases that drew millions of visitors from around the world, she says. White City served as the place of assembly and departure point for the first Goodyear Blimp, called the "Wingfoot Air Express". [6][7], "Chi-town", "Chi-Town", or "Chitown" (/atan/ SHY-town)[8] is a nickname that follows an established pattern of shortening a city's name and appending the suffix "-town", like "H-Town" refers to Houston. Top: Entrance under construction, c. 1905; Middle: At night, 1916: Bottom: Ballroom, 1915, Top: Exhibit, c. 1905; Middle: White Horse Tavern, 1905: Bottom: Children sitting on an amusement device, 1915. [30] By 1908, another area amusement park, Riverview Park, was also involved in this cause. The single-span building, supported by a steel frame, was larger than anything from the Paris exposition. He is young, handsome, and well dressed, and his eyes are blue and hypnotic a trait, a physician once pointed out, which many murderers, and great men in other fields, often share. Both Nikola Tesla, who developed alternating current technology, and Thomas Edison, who championed direct current technology, displayed their devices. Few buildings shined as brilliantly as the Administration Building, at the center of the Court of Honor. Black people were discouraged from attending during the park's early years. Nineteenth-century journalists first gave Chicago . [4], Time once used the park as point of reference for the city of Chicago. 3 (#99152), Dr. Elena FitzPatrick Sifford on casta paintings, Defining Pre-Columbian and Mesoamerica, Introduction to the Spanish Viceroyalties in the Americas, About geography and chronological periods in Native American art, Fort Ancient Culture: Great Serpent Mound, Mississippian shell neck ornament (gorget), Paquim (Casas Grandes), Mogollon culture, Late pre-classicMesoamerica, an introduction, Mesoamerican art in context: an excerpt from an origin story (Popol Vuh), Olmec mask (offering 20 from the Templo Mayor), Olmec mask at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rock paintings of Sierra de San Francisco, Pyramid of the Moon and Pyramid of the Sun, The Mesoamerican ballgame and a Classic Veracruz yoke, YaxchilnLintels 24 and 25 from Structure 23 and structures 33 and 40, The Templo Mayor and the Coyolxauhqui Stone, The House of the Eagles, and sculptures of Mictlantecuhtli and Eagle Warrior, Remembering the Toxcatl Massacre: The Beginning of the End of Aztec Supremacy, Mirror Pendant in the Form of a Bat-Human From Grave 5, Sitio Conte, Central American art in context: an origin story of the Bribri people, Global trade and an 18th-century Anishinaabe outfit, Juana Basilia Sitmelelene, Presentation Basket (Chumash), Mat Njin/Standing Bear (Minneconjou Lakota/Teton Sioux), Battle of Little Bighorn, Nellie Two Bear Gates (Ihktuwana Dakhta, Standing Rock Reservation), Suitcase, Carrie Bethel (Mono Lake Paiute), Basket bowl, Pueblo architecture and its relationship to place, Mission Church, San Esteban del Rey, Acoma Pueblo, Nampeyo (Hopi-Tewa), Polacca polychrome water jar, Maria Martinez (Puebloan), Black-on-black ceramic vessel, The pueblo modernism of Ma Pe Wi (Puebloan), Bentwood Boxes of the Northwest Coast peoples, Tlingit mortuary and memorial totem poles, Tlingit Proud Raven totem pole, Saxman Totem Park, Tlingit Oyster Man totem pole, Saxman Totem Park, Northwest Coast BasketryWoven Traditions, Prints and Printmakers in Colonial New Spain, Defensive saints and angels in the Spanish Americas, Hispaniolas early colonial art, an introduction, Classical Architecture in Viceregal Mexico, Puebla de los ngeles and the classical architectural tradition, Mission churches as theaters of conversion in New Spain, The Convento of San Nicols de Tolentino, Actopan, Hidalgo, A new Jerusalem in the Americasthe convento of Acolman, Murals from New Spain, San Agustn de Acolman, Images of Africans in the Codex Telleriano Remensis and Codex Azcatitlan. Updates? The original statue was destroyed a few months after the worlds fair, when a giant blaze claimed many buildings. [10], "City of Big Shoulders" is a nickname coined by Carl Sandburg in his 1914 poem "Chicago", which describes the city as "stormy, husky, [and] brawling". On America the Beautiful, see, Official Views of the Worlds Columbian Exposition, (Learn more about the ideas behind and construction of the Worlds Fair in this introductory essay.). Many of the fairs state-of-the-art technologies are still with us, and its architectural wonders are still known throughout the region. The telescopes two optically perfect glass disks made it the worlds largest refractor telescope when it was displayed at the Manufactures & Liberal Arts building. Elmhursts Roche is amazed at what shes discovered about the fair. May 9, 2017 Matt Blitz. The White House Correspondents' Association has an online shop, where it sells a T-shirt that is funnier than most . Their brilliant, whitewashed color earned the nickname The White City, a contrast to dirty, industrial Chicago, the Black City.. The Court of Honor, with its many fountains and rippling lagoons, was anchored by opulent, whitewashed palaces that reflected the most classic facades of Europe. It stretched from Grant Park to around what is now McCormick Place, along parkland preserved by the Burnham Plan. The Chicago World's Fair played a key role in the creation of the City Beautiful movement. The newspapers reported on the construction rush, which led to an incident in February 1905 when three plasterers fell 25 feet (7.6m) from a scaffold, as they worked on a ceiling. An April 1890 act of Congress declared it would be held in Chicago, which had won out over New York, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, and the already booming city was poised for even more growth. But Chicago was an unlikely location. When the Field Museum moved to Grant Park in 1921, the building sat vacant until a gift from Sears CEO Julius Rosenwald funded major renovations and a hands-on museum dedicated to science. And to think that just a few years earlier, this had been a swampy, desolate place, an untamed wilderness along Lake Michigan, inside a city exploding with growth after the Great Fire 20 years earlier. Yerkes Observatory: This astronomical outpost for the University of Chicago features what was the worlds largest lens-type telescope when it was displayed at the worlds fair. Wells and famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass (who had been appointed as a delegate for Haiti, not the United States) circulated 10,000 copies of a pamphlet at the Fair entitled, The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the Worlds Columbian Exposition. Can you match each critters photo to its name? The mid-western city of Chicago is sometimes. He never meets Holmes, but there is also an overarching struggle between Burnhams inherent goodness as the protagonist and Holmes inherent depravity as the antagonist. Couney[32] maintained an exhibit of an incubator in which live infants were tended, including the daughter of the editor of the Chicago Tribune. 4.1K views, 50 likes, 28 loves, 154 comments, 48 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from 7th District AME Church: Thursday Morning Opening Session The centerpiece was the Court of Honor, with grand halls, statues and lagoons, through which Venetian canal boats traveled around the fairgrounds. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [11] After the park had opened, there was one occasion when a ride malfunctioned; a patron was killed, and two other patrons were injured. On a particularly blustery February South Side day, it is easy to understand why the city of Chicago has the nickname of the "Windy City.". Led by Bertha Palmer, a savvy businesswoman and wife of real estate magnate Potter Palmer, the Lady Managers attempted to secure exhibits from women in all of the Fairs exhibition halls. [31] From 1906 through 1920, a doctor, identified in some sources as simply "Dr. Couney", and elsewhere as Dr. M.A. Set on what is now Northerly Island and the Museum Campus, the fair was filled with bright colors, art deco inspiration and a wealth of scientific and cultural displays. "If you had always assumed that Chicago earned its nickname as the Windy City from the chilly gusts coming off Lake Michigan, you would be wrong. During this period it was known as the Great White City due to the white marble cladding used on the exhibition pavilions, and hence gave its name to this part of Shepherds Bush. What's the origin of 'The city that works'? In a county with an incredibly diverse economy, robust farmland, Its a fitting tribute to the patron saint of travelers Copyright Hughes Media Corp. - All Rights Reserved, Our website uses cookies to improve your experience. Still located in their original places, both buildings have undergone extensive renovations. The first known repeated effort to label Chicago with this nickname is from 1876 and involves Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati.The popularity of the nickname endures to this day, more than a century . [5], The Court of Honor was perhaps the most prominent section, but there was a great deal more to see on the grounds of the Worlds Fair. [33], In late September 1911, White City experienced a serious fire, as flames swept through the southern section of the park. [9] Despite many mentions by well-known figures in popular works, such as C.W. McCall's song "Convoy", its popularity as a nickname used by locals is disputed. Though the official guide to the Fair called these symbols an invitation of liberty to the nations of the earth, the eagle (the national bird of the United States) on top of the globe sent a message that all the earth was U.S. domain. [4] The slogan was replaced with another in 2022. White mobs flooded the city's Black neighborhoods, lighting homes on fire and attacking residents. It opened in 1933 during the citys next worlds fair. And Why NYE Organizers Chose It", "Meet the Man Who Coined the Word 'Chiberia', "Pic of the Week: Chicago Lives up to 'Chiberia' Nickname after Cold Snap Turns City to Ice", "Despite 'Chiraq' Label, Data Show Chicago Not Even Close to Iraq", "Chiraq: What's in a Nickname? , Cite this page as: Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott, "The Worlds Columbian Exposition: The White City and fairgrounds," in, Not your grandfathers art history: a BIPOC Reader, Reframing Art History, a new kind of textbook, Guide to AP Art History vol. Jones had visited the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and been so impressed that he aspired to create an amusement park that was similar to it. [18] For example, Spike Lee used the nickname as the title of his 2015 film,[17] Lil Reese used it in his 2013 song "Traffic", and Urban Dictionary added it as an entry in 2012. ", "Chicago Is a City of Objectionable Nicknames", "Does Anyone Use 'Chi-Town'? The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago was sometimes called "The White City" and is said to have inspired the Emerald City of Oz in the 1899 collaboration between L Frank Baum and W W Denslow. A gilded statue of a woman, her arms raised, looked over the court. It Could Be a Lot". Everywhere the Fair was touted as a symbol of the new era in the onward march of civilization that heralded the ascendance of the United States in world events. [46], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}414644N 873701W / 41.779N 87.617W / 41.779; -87.617. This essay will focus on the visitor experience within the main fairgrounds; you can read about the Midway Plaisance in this essay. [22][23] It also featured a roller coaster and the Garden Follies Dancers. Their brilliant, whitewashed color earned the nickname "The White City," a contrast to dirty, industrial Chicago, the "Black City." His protg, Frank Lloyd Wright, then a young architect, is believed to have found inspiration in the fairs Japanese exhibits. There is evidence that tiny infants were displayed at White City from the park's earliest days. He thought they looked cool. The fair made such an impact that it was immortalized as one of the four stars on Chicagos municipal flag. [39] But the Depression, along with the ongoing problems from the fires of 1925 and 1927, had a very negative impact on White City. Denslow left San Francisco to document the Chicago fair for local newspapers, and visited it frequently. The movable sidewalk, today a staple at airports, made its first appearance on the south pier. [43], The same anti-black policies that had beset the amusement park also applied to the roller rink at the park. Haydens design echoed those of the other exhibition halls in celebrating the styles of Italy as the highest form of architecture, but contemporaries, like the, , remarked on the buildings soft and soothing atmosphere of womanliness and the evidence within that womens achievements were the more refined avenues of effort which culminate in the home, the hospital, the church, and in personal adornment. [12], Within the structure, murals by women artists depicted the mythical progress of women over the centuries: the two largest, on either end of the building, were the murals by Mary Fairchild MacMonnies (painter and wife of Frederick), Primitive Woman, showing women carrying jugs of water on their heads and welcoming men back from the hunt, and, If our visitor continued into the southeastern corner of the Fair, she may have been greeted by a few unusual sights: a set of Penobscot bark tipis from the Northern Woodlands region of Maine and Quebec, a Kwakw, village was the work of the Department of Anthropology at the Fair. The housing development was to be called Parkway Gardens, and at the time, it was seen as a hopeful sign that a neglected neighborhood would have new housing. [18] The Baby Incubators exhibit, a feature of several other fairs and parks of that time, attracted much attention and many donations. the grandeur of the White City, electrically lighted at night, temporarily led to a resurgent interest in Classical architecture. On February 24, 1890, Congress chooses Chicago to host the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, also known as the World's Fair, and nicknamed the White City. [6][7] In its prime the park rivalled Coney Island as a model for worldwide amusement park architects, designers and planners. https://prezi.com/xu-mzpbjtuk6/the-devil-in-the-white-city-by-erik-larson/, https://fourminutebooks.com/the-devil-in-the-white-city-summary/, https://prezi.com/qwatzetdrmkl/the-devil-in-the-white-city/, https://wp.stolaf.edu/president/2017/01/31/devil-in-the-white-city-murder-magic-and-madness-at-the-fair-that-changed-america-forever/, https://www.academia.edu/33673083/Devil_In_The_White_City_Paper, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/the-devil-in-the-white-city/context/, https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-1893-chicago-worlds-fair, https://www.thoughtco.com/the-devil-in-the-white-city-by-erik-larson-361903, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/the-devil-in-the-white-city/facts/, https://www.americanheritage.com/white-city, https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/crime-in-the-media/the-devil-in-the-white-city/, https://prezi.com/tpbs0hmcfgtt/the-devil-in-the-white-city-nonfiction-book-report/, https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-devil-in-the-white-city/symbols/the-ferris-wheel, https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-devil-in-the-white-city/themes, https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Analysis-Of-Erik-Larson-s-The-Devil-PKHGYJLW3FT85, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_City,_London, https://www.britannica.com/event/Worlds-Columbian-Exposition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_White_City, [ANSWERED] php Container Registry TYPO3 not available , [ANSWERED] php nested while loop in smarty using foreach. [23] The park featured regular outdoor concerts,[24] and it had a roller rink. The huge attendance and extensive foreign participation resulted in a technical exchange never seen before, says Srail, the collector. The Park City rink closed in 1958. Over the course of a week, 38 people died and over 500 sustained injuries with Black Chicagoans making up a majority of the victims. But reminders are still around Chicagoland and the Midwest today. The riot soon escalated, and, of course, gunfire erupted, striking two teen boys, who are in stable condition. Burnhams plans for the site incorporated the designs of architects trained at the cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, who paired the balance and harmony of Neoclassical and Baroque architecture, buildings, Chicago, Illinois, United States. They show beautiful workmanship with applied gold lattice work and hand-painted floral designs.. [4] The College Inn, a restaurant, could seat 2,500 diners at a time. The magnificent facades were built from wood and steel frames. In 1901, he helped Washington to realize the master plan created almost a century earlier by Pierre LEnfant. The former site of Mudgett's "murder castle" is now a post office in Englewood. Firefighters were able to put the fire out without anyone sustaining serious injuries. Most structures downtown were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 (an exception being the Water Tower).. Chicago's architectural styles include Chicago Bungalows, Two-Flats, and Graystones along Logan Boulevard and Lawndale Avenue. Patrice Roche, the museums marketing and communications specialist, marvels at what shes discovered. [23], In 1945, the land on which White City had stood was designated for a co-operative housing development for African-Americans. In doing so, Larson is able to explore the details of the fair in-depth, while keeping the interest of the reader. Chicagos next worlds fair, hosted in 1933 and 34, was far different from the Columbian Exposition. [28], Midget City was a popular exhibit that featured 50 men and women who all had dwarfism; at the time, the word used to describe them was 'midgets,' and working the carnival circuit was one of the few jobs open to them. The scenic railway and half of the Figure 8 took the brunt of the damage. The White City glimmered in the warm summer sun. Journal Entry #1 Erik Larson has organized The Devil in the White City chronologically, alternating between the construction of the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair and the evolution of a serial killer. The numbers of Indigenous people living in the United States reached a demographic nadir of between 200,000 and 300,000 individuals around 1900, or less than 10% than had lived in North America before the arrival of Columbus. Despite a petition to name some women to the Fairs governing body, Congress instead created a Board of Lady Managers. [10], They hoped to steer the Fair away from giving visitors the impression that the progress of civilization was entirely the work of men. [4][27] Daredevil aeronautic shows of performers like Horace Wild were also common at the park. Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nicknames_of_Chicago&oldid=1151382174, This page was last edited on 23 April 2023, at 18:06. Morris was frequently called the president of the corporation that operated the park, and the 1910 United States Census states that he is President of the White City Amusement Park. Required fields are marked *. (Don't worry, not that kind of wind.) [4] Both B. F. Goodrich and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company assembled dirigibles at the park for the United States Navy. Philadelphians selected no fewer than 10 paintings by Thomas Eakins to exhibit at the Fair, among them, (which had been painted for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition but rejected for its depiction of gore). [38] A later fire in June 1927, however, was much more serious. Why is it called the White City? [3] In 2011, Chicago announced its adoption of the slogan "Second to None", a protest stance indirectly referring to Liebling's publications. Jean Bond. [39] But the Depression, along with the ongoing problems from the fires of 1925 and 1927, had a very negative impact on White City. Inside those palaces lay hundreds of new technologies, anthropological treasures and artistic symbols celebrating human progress. She painted a mural for the Womens Building, and had work displayed at the Palace of Fine Arts. At the core of the fair was an area that quickly became known as the White City for its buildings with white stucco siding and its streets illuminated by electric lights. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, quoted in Alan Trachtenberg, This early version of the pledge was shorter: , I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Catholic fraternal order, the Knights of Columbus, urged Congress to add under God to the pledge in the 1950s. The city experienced dramatic increases in ridership on the public transportation that took people to White City. To put it simply, Erik Larsons main claim in The Devil in the White City can be surmised by the tagline on the books cover: Murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America. This is the very meaning of the book. The dark tale was made famous by the best-selling The Devil in the White City, a work of historical non-fiction that tells the intertwined stories of Holmes and the fair's head architect Daniel Burnham. Chicagos lobbying effort was so thorough that a New York columnist dubbed it the Windy City.. If it was all too grand, that was the intention. The exhibit showed a miniature city, with a miniature mayor, and even miniature horses. With the 10th pick, the Chicago Bears select Tennessee offensive tackle Darnell Wright. Its done in conjunction with a national traveling exhibit that describes all of Americas worlds fairs, from New York in 1853 to Knoxville, Tenn., in 1982. Travelers to Chicago may experience the wind gusts that come off Lake Michigan, get tossed around a bit and think, "So this is why it's called the Windy City.". A headline in the Cincinnati Enquirer stated: "That Windy City. Purpose: The Devil in the White City is a story meant to inform readers on the juxtaposition of the lives of two famous people during a major event in American history.
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