Social Event of 1893: The World’s Fair

• Large-scale murals and atmospheric projections that will take visitors into the Fair’s grounds
• Two digital interactive allowing visitors to explore and engage with the earliest Museum’s collections through new technologies

New Look at the Old Fair

History here doesn’t stay still, The Field Museum is the legacy of the Fair and scientists continue their groundbreaking research on the ever-growing collections to learn more about the old items presented at the Fair.

120 years ago fossil plants were displayed as potential fuel source. Today we are learning how these kind of plants fueled fires burning more than 100 million  years before the dinosaurs.

 Then and Now

There were also live exhibits at the World Fair. Sixty Inuit people were brought from Labrador, Canada to be displayed at the Fair. Bad living conditions and unfair treatment drove Inuit people to quit the Fair. There were also other exhibits at the World’s Fair that presented oversimplified look of other cultures of other countries.

These days The Field has a collaborative relationship with the Labrador Inuit for research and exhibit. New approach lets communities speak for themselves.

Learning So Much More

The World’s Fair is a new exhibit that requires a special admission and it is quite interesting to learn about the collection. However, you can find many other items from the World’s Fair at the Museum. You can find items exhibited at the Fair 1893 at the Pacific Spirits, Bird Hall, Mammals, reptile Hall, Pacific Northwest Hall and other places but how can you possibly know that?

Before heading out to the museum, download Field App onto your Smartphone and here you have your own tour guide. The app will actually tell you where you can find the items with a map locator and the QR code reader on the same app will tell you even more about the item.

This is what the QR code at the museum looks like.

I would highly suggest you familiarize yourself with the app first. I wish I understood it from the start – I would have taken so much more out of my trip and now I just have to go back (good thing the exhibit will be around until September of 2014). Your phone might or might not have reception inside of the World’s Fair exhibit (mine didn’t), so try to take advantage of the Field museum WIFI if you can. At least take a picture of the QR code and scan it when you do have reception. You will get a chance to hear interviews, history and more images

 Some Facts

1. Chicago had to beat St. Louis, New York and Washington, D.C. to get the fair.

2. The Fair produced a number of firsts.  Among the well-loved commercial products that made their debut at the Chicago World’s Fair were Cream of Wheat, Juicy Fruit gum and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Technological products that would soon find their way into homes nationwide, such as the dishwasher and fluorescent light bulbs, had early prototype versions on display in Chicago as well.

3. A Ferris wheel saved the Fair from financial ruin. Despite the money raised by private investors and the U.S. Government squabbling among the organizers and numerous construction delays resulted in a huge budget deficit. The fair’s precarious finances received a boost in June 1893 with the world’s first Ferris wheel proved so popular it was moved to Chicago’s North Side, where it remained in operation for 10 years before it was sold to the organizers of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.