1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition Midway Plaisance

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1893 CHICAGO WORLD’S COLUMBIAN

EXPOSITION

THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE

The street today is quiet, largely forgotten, dominated by its great grassy median of park land... a

200 yard wide, one mile long lawn, where neighborhood residents walk their dogs and students from the

University of Chicago across the street take a break to relax on fine, sunny days.

Yet 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 the world's fair it adjoined. Here, amidst Moslem mosques andChinese 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 most skyscrapers downtown.

This was where America first "turned out for an unrestrained good time". [1] Here, the Victorian

age of amusements ended and our modern age began. For the next hundred years, Chicago would help

lead this revolution in American popular culture-- the revolution that created the modern amusement park-

- a revolution that began here, on the Midway Plaisance, that summer of 1893.

HOW THE MIDWAY CAME TO BE

Promoters of Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition intended it to be the grandest of all

world's fairs to date. Realizing what an expensive proposition this was, they looked from the start to

concessions to provide much of the funding for the fair.

In this regard, they drew upon the experience of previous world's fairs. The Philadelphia

Centennial Exposition of 1876 had allowed no concessions on the grounds. They popped up anyway, in a

tawdry `Shantytown' outside the grounds, where Fair managers could neither control them nor share in

their profits. By contrast, the Paris Exposition of 1889 included amusement concessions, and some of

these, such as a collection of exotic `ethnic villages' from around the world, proved to be the most

lucrative attractions there. [2]

"It was only after Paris had opened its splendid fair that Chicagoans became serious abouthosting" their own. Driven by a desire to rival the Paris fair, Chicago would emulate it in many ways. [3] In

the matter of concessions, the lesson was clear. Chicago would follow the successful Paris model.

Original discussions for the Columbian Exposition site suggested the downtown lakefront where

Grant Park exists today. When this choice proved unsuitable, the fair's promoters called on noted

landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner, Henry S. Codman, to select an alternative

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site. The plan of the fair, submitted by Olmsted and Codman along with Chicago architects Daniel

Burnham and John W. Root in November 1890, settled instead on Chicago's South Park System. [4]

This system, planned for the city by Olmsted in 1870, consisted of Washington Park inland and

Jackson Park on the lakeshore connected by a strip of parkway one mile long and 600 feet wide.

Because of its location between the two parks, this strip was named the Midway; Olmsted added the word

`Plaisance', a landscape term from the French for "pleasure ground".

Olmsted's 1870 plan had called for connecting the two parks by water, from an artificial pond or

`mere', in Washington Park to a great lagoon in Jackson Park, by means of a canal and series of basins

down the length of the Midway Plaisance. But in 1871, in the wake of Chicago's Great Fire, all work on

the South Parks was suspended. In the years since, due to limited funds, only Washington Park had

been completed, with much modification of the original design. [5]

Thus, by late 1890, the Plan for the Exposition centered on the largely undeveloped Jackson

Park, with Washington Park and the Midway Plaisance reserved for "other parts" of the fair as needed. [6]

Gradually, the plan was refined. The idea of using Washington Park was abandoned. The

Midway Plaisance, as of February, 1891, was still "largely reserved for the overflow [of exhibits from

Jackson Park] and for military encampments and displays." [7] By March, however, a change was made

which determined the Midway's ultimate use. Now it was to be "devoted to curious exhibits of various

sorts, installed as privileges," as well as the "overflow from states." [8] By the fall of 1891, concessions

granted by the Fair were being segregated on the Midway Plaisance. [9]

As chief architect Daniel Burnham developed a scheme of monumental buildings for JacksonPark, it became evident that `foreign villages' and commercial concessions would mar the "stateliness" of

what would soon be called "The White City". Again, the 1889 Paris fair provided an example of what to

do; the `villages' and concessions there had been shunted to the far edges of the fair site. In Chicago,

the Midway Plaisance, jutting off at a right angle from the main fairgrounds, became the perfect place to

consign these attractions. [10] "Many applications have been made for locations by private parties,

companies and syndicates," Director General George R. Davis reported to the National Commission on

the fair, in September, 1891. "As a general policy it was deemed wise to place those exhibits showing the

manners and customs of peoples in Midway Plaisance." Davis emphasized themed `villages' of the type

that had been the rage of the previous Paris fair--mentioning a Bazaar of all Nations, a Street in Cairo, an

Indian Village and a Turkish Village as already proposed for Chicago at this time-- but his next sentence

makes it clear that a strict `Street of Nations' was never intended. "There will also be located in Midway

Plaisance panoramas, cycloramas, etc., and a sliding railway..." [11] Concessions of all types were to be

placed on the Midway.

"This narrow strip of land," wrote fair president Harlow N. Higinbotham, "gave an opportunity for

isolating these special features, thus preventing jarring contrasts between the beautiful buildings and

grounds" of Jackson Park "and the amusing, distracting, ludicrous and noisy attractions of the `Midway'."

[12]

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Commercial amusements could thus be segregated from the educational and cultural concerns of

the main Exposition. "Ethnic"--i.e., non-European--"villages" like those in Paris, with their "picturesque"

architecture (not to mention inhabitants), could be kept apart from the lofty classicism of the White City.

Yet the Exposition could still cash in on both.

The isolated amusement zone thus created, the first of its kind at any world's fair, gave its name

to the "Midways" of every fair and carnival since, and provided the model for the modern amusement park

to come.

MIDWAY MYTH # 1: THE PROFESSOR AND THESHOWMAN

The assignment of the Midway to Department M, the ethnological section of the fair headed by

Professor F. W. Putnam of Harvard, has resulted in much confusion by latter-day historians. Some have

asserted that the Midway was originally intended to be a serious anthropological display of foreign and

primitive cultures under Putnam's guidance. [13]

This has been compounded by the claims of Sol Bloom, manager of the Midway's Algerian

Village who later became a U.S. Congressman. According to Bloom, when the fair's organizers belatedly

decided to make the Midway an amusement zone, they realized that keeping Putnam in charge "was

about as intelligent as it would be today to make Albert Einstein manager of the Ringling Brothers and

Barnum & Bailey Circus." And so (Bloom claimed), Chief of Construction Burnham hired the young

showman to really run the Midway, though Putnam kept his nominal title. [14]

The story of the Professor and the Showman makes a nice myth, but that's all it is. President

Higinbotham recorded that the Midway was "abandoned to the Committee on Ways & Means at the

outset and did not occupy very much thought of the Exposition management outside of that committee

until the time...for opening the gates." As scholar Gertrude M. Scott has pointed out, all concessions

were granted by Ways & Means, with which Putnam had no involvement at any time. [15] And, as we

have seen, the Midway was never intended to be solely a street of `foreign villages'.

Actually, the assignment of the Midway to Department M was almost an afterthought; in order to

bring in the various exhibits on the Midway Plaisance, "in April, 1893"--just one month before the Fair was

to open--"a section of Isolated Exhibits was organized by instruction from the Director General (Davis),

with John Bidlake, of North Dakota"--not Putnam nor Bloom--"as superintendent." This section was

"grouped in the Department of Ethnology merely for classification, and had no direct connection with it.

The manifold attractions of the Midway Plaisance...were the work not of this department, but of the

Committee on Ways and Means of the Directory, who planned all arrangements and closed contracts for

these features." [16]

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As for Bloom's claims, they were made in his 1948 Autobiography, more than 50 years after the

Fair. Either his memory was faulty, or he was fudging the truth to make his role on the Midway more

important... he was, after all, both a showman and a politician. Whichever the case, contemporary

accounts note Bloom only as manager of the Algerian and Tunisian Village on the Midway, and Secretary

of the Concessionaires' Club. [17]

Rather than ever having any serious educational intent, the Midway was reserved from the outset

for, in Higinbotham's words, the "light entertainment of visitors...for various forms of amusement,

refreshment, comfort and rest..." [18]

MEETING THE NEW NEED FOR AMUSEMENTS

Much as the Exposition itself collected representative samples of the world's arts and industries,

so did the Midway methodically collect the range of amusements available in Chicago and elsewhere in

1893.

The 1890s were the beginning of commercialized popular culture in America--Tin Pan Alley,

vaudeville, etc.--as opposed to the high culture of museums and classical music, and the folk culture of

ethnic groups.

The rise of public amusements was a by-product of the enormous growth of America's urban

population and white- collar work force. Wages and disposable income increased as work hours

declined, but the shortened workday "was increasingly regimented, concentrated, and tedious, creating a

need for recreation." `Going out' had become not a luxury but a necessity in the new urban life. [19]

The new miracle of electricity, powering street lights and mass transit, made going out at night

"not only safer and more exciting but easier and cheaper than ever before." [20] Electricity was the great

marvel of the Columbian Exposition, but it made excit ing new entertainments possible in the city outside

the fairgrounds as well.

Chicago, as the nation's fastest growing metropolis, was second only to New York City as an

entertainment center at the time, and the Fair created not only a banner season for Chicago's established

theaters but occasioned the rise of all sorts of amusements outside the Fairgrounds.

Downtown theaters featured special plays and acts brought in for the Fair summer: America, Imre

Kiralfy's patriotic extravaganza, at the Auditorium Theater, the New York Company of David Belasco's

“The Girl I Left Behind Me” at the Schiller, Lillian Russell in comic operas at the Columbia, etc. [21]

At the Trocadero music hall (Michigan Avenue at Monroe Street), Flo Ziegfeld, Jr. began his show

business career by exhibiting the "strongest man in the world", Eugene Sandow. [22]

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A favorite diversion of the time was the panorama. Downtown Chicago boasted three fine

examples of the art: the Battle of Gettysburg Panorama at 401 Wabash, Jerusalem and the Crucifixion

directly across the street, and the Chicago Fire at 130 Michigan. [23]

There were also two `labyrinths' or mirror mazes-- the Mystic Labyrinth on Congress near the

new L line to the Fair, and the Oriental Labyrinth and Panopticon at 292-4 Wabash-- and three dime

museums-- the Clark Street and State Street Dime Museums owned by Kohl and Middleton, and

Epstean's on Randolph Street, owned by the alderman of the 1st Ward. [24]

On Wabash Avenue, just south of downtown (between 14th and 16th), there was a Civil War

museum in the Confederate Libby Prison, which had been moved, brick by brick, from Richmond,

Virginia, in 1889. For the Fair season, it added the "Original Cabin of Uncle Tom", a 16'x18' cypress log

house "from the Legree plantation at Chopin on the Red River in Louisiana". [25]

Just north of Libby Prison (at 1341 Wabash)-- and hoping to rival its popularity-- was "John

Brown's Fort", the engine house from Harper's Ferry, WV, where the raiders of 1859 had been besieged

and captured. Not to be outdone by Libby's "Uncle Tom's Cabin", the Fort presented "Songs and Scenes

from Slavery/ the Only Colored Vocal Spectacular Company before the People of Chicago." [26]

Proposed for the blocks just south of Libby Prison, (between 16th and 18th) was the unique

Hardy Subterranean Theater. Here visitors could travel by elevator to a vaudeville theater in a `stalactite

grotto' supposedly 1200 feet below the earth. At stops along the way, the elevator doors would open to

give passengers glimpses of the underground world. [27]

Hypolite Hardy, a Parisian entrepreneur, had originally applied for four and a half acres on thelakefront to build this "subterranean exposition" as a concession at the Fair. He proposed to "illustrate,

among other things, the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, the buried cities of Herculaneum, Stabie and

Pompeii, Dante's Inferno, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, etc." These were probably the scenes staged

at the `stops' made by the trick elevator. [28]

Unfortunately, Hardy's attraction never got off the ground-- or into it. "An exchange gravely

announces that work on the Underground Theater in this city has been stopped.... the builders in sinking

the pit for the underground effect struck a quicksand, and it was found impracticable to cope with the

problem this presented. No other suitable site was available." [29]

Finally, a number of amusements sprang up just outside the Fair's own gates. With the exception

of the brand new University of Chicago (then being built just north of the Plaisance), the area aroundJackson Park and the Midway-- like the Fair site itself-- was largely undeveloped before the advent of the

Fair. Once the Fair was announced, vacant lots adjoining the site were quickly leased, and a building

boom began. Hotels, restaurants-- and all manner of amusements-- sought the patronage of Fair visitors.

On Cottage Grove Avenue, at the west end of the Midway, the Garden City Observation Wheel, a

rival to the Ferris wheel, was erected, as was another, smaller wheel (see page 33). Nearby was the

Serpentine and Cavern Railway, a scenic railway ride probably built and operated by L. A. Thompson,

"father of the American roller coaster". Pain's, a firm world-famous for their elaborate fireworks displays,

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presented the "Last Days of Pompeii" and the Crimean War battle of Sebastopol on Cottage Grove as

well. [30]

Directly across Stony Island Avenue from the Fair in Jackson Park, Buffalo Bill's Wild West show

settled in to play the Fair season, much as it had in Paris during the Exposition of 1889. Reportedly,

Cody had originally applied for space at the Fair itself, but had been turned down. [31] Along Stony Island

Avenue, between Buffalo Bill's and the Midway, a shanty-town of rough amusements popped up as it had

in Philadelphia in 1876: gypsy fortune tellers, carousels, games of chance, and another much smaller,

much cruder `Ferris' Wheel (see page 43). [32]

Altogether, there were said to be "thirty-two first class theaters and places of amusement in

Chicago"... and a good number of lesser class entertainments besides. [33] These amusements were

not, of course, under the control of the fair's organizers. They would bring no revenue into the fair's

coffers. It was up to the Midway, therefore, to effectively compete with all these outside entertainments if

the fair was to make a profit.

Thousands of applications, for concessions of all sorts, from all around the world, deluged Ways

& Means. The committee actively considered at least 491. Many that were agreed to ultimately never

reached contract or failed to operate, and spaces were still being filled after the Exposition opened. This

state of flux is readily seen by comparing `official' maps of the Midway issued and updated throughout the

Fair's run. [38]

The result was an arbitrary mix of "authentic" ethnic villages, commercial versions of the same,

miscellaneous amusements and rides.

THE THEMED VILLAGES

The popularity of the themed "foreign villages" at the Paris Exposition of 1889 ensured a desire

for concessions of this type on the Plaisance.

An early proposal for the Midway was a "Bazaar of All Nations", selling characteristic wares from

around the world. This would have kept the commercial sale of articles separate from exhibits. This idea,

however, was abandoned early on, and individual "village" concessions granted instead. [39] The f irst

"foreign village" to officially break ground on the Midway--indeed, the first concession of any sort, though

not the earliest to have been granted by the fair--was the Turkish Village. Robert Levy, a concessionairefrom Constantinople, raised the Turkish flag to dedicate the attraction's site September 20, 1891, one day

after his application was approved by the Committee on Ways & Means. [40]

The themed "foreign village", often thought to have been original to this Fair, clearly was not. In

fact, it had been a popular type of amusement in both Europe and America for some twenty years prior to

the Columbian Exposition.

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In the 1870s, the great animal trainer Carl Hagenbeck imported a family of Laplanders to tend

reindeer at his Hamburg, Germany ̀ zoo'. They quickly became an attraction in their own right. By the

1880s, Hagenbeck had added a group of Soudanese along with their domestic and wild animals; and for

the next six years, he toured Europe with "ethnographic exhibitions" of Lapps, Nubians, Eskimos, etc., as

well as a troupe from India including magicians, jugglers, snake charmers and dancing girls. [41]

In 1878, while Hagenbeck was presenting a "Nubian Camp" in London [42], the `foreign village'

became a highlight of that year's Paris Exposition. "Perhaps the most innovative and widely admired

feature of (this) fair was the Street of Nations, planned and executed by Georges Berger, director of

foreign sections. In the central courtyard of the Palace of Industry, each participating nation was invited

to build an entranceway to its exhibits. The result was a splendid row of facades that announced, in

architectural terms, the character and aesthetic values of every nation....The whole ensemble takentogether allowed fairgoers to see, at one glance, the eclectic nature of the world in 1878." [43]

Outside, in the parc du Trocdero, a `Street of Algiers' featured merchants and performers from

that French colony. Nearby were Japanese, Chinese, Persian and Tunisian and Moroccan `villages'. [44]

In 1884, a "Japanese Village" was erected in London; two years later, another was exhibited at

the Columbia Theater in Chicago, and yet a third at Chicago's Cheltenham Beach. In 1885, two East

Indian "Villages" played London. [45]

The most direct influence on the villages of the 1893 Midway were those that appeared at the

1889 Paris Exposition. On the eastern edge of that fair, along the Esplanade des Invalides, the "exoticcultures" of the French colonial empire were displayed "in an attractive jumble of huts, bazaars, and cafes

attended by thousands of natives plying their crafts." One of these, the Algerian & Tunisian Village, won

a gold medal at the Exposition and captured the imagination of American visitor, young Sol Bloom. [46]

Across the fair site was the "Rue du Caire", a reproduction of a Cairo street "and an attraction

second only to the Eiffel Tower." There, in the Cafe Egyptien, a girl named Aioucha performed the

"seductive danse du ventre (belly dance)" which "became an international sensation..." [47]

Aioucha and the Rue du Caire were not solely responsible for this sensation. There were other

exotic dancers at the Paris Exposition; according to a souvenir history of the fair, it was "impossible" to

avoid the many oriental cafes on the Esplanade des Invalides where "Jewish and Moslem dancing girls"

named "Mouny, Farila, Zaina or Fatima" swayed "their breasts, their abdomens, and their loins." Yet the

Rue du Caire got the major credit for the danse. "It is already famous in Paris, this Street of Cairo..." [48]

Not surprisingly, a version of the "Rue du Caire" was one of the first concessions to apply for and

be granted space on the Midway Plaisance. (Plans for the Columbian Exposition were announced in

1889, so concessionaires at that year's Paris fair knew it was coming.) The Egypt-Chicago Exposition

Company was chartered to bring essentially the same plan as in Paris to the Chicago fair, where it was

called the Street in Cairo. It became the single most popular attraction on the Midway, even more

popular than the Ferris wheel. [49]

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The Street contained cafes, a mosque, a replica of the ancient Egyptian `Temple of Luxor'

complete with imitation mummies, a theater, and sixty-two shops. The buildings admirably captured "the

general architectural flavor of Cairo. Its inhabitants were equally as authentic--Egyptian, Nubian, and

Sudanese men, women and children, along with their dogs, donkeys, camels and snakes. These

residents gave frequent impromptu street performances, including fights, sword and candle dances,

weddings and other celebrations. Snake charmers and fortune tellers lined the street." [50] Visitors could,

for a fee, ride the donkeys; riding the camels was even more popular, especially with couples, and even

more so with spectators, "because the lass always repented when it was too late and the altitudinous

camel was rising in sixteen parts." [51] But again, as in Paris, the Street's top attraction was the danse du

ventre... which again, not surprisingly, became the sensation of this fair as well.

Adjacent to the Street in Cairo on the Midway were two other Mid-Eastern "villages". One was

the Algerian and Tunisian Village, again a version of an 1889 attraction, this time the award winning

exhibit seen in Paris by the young Sol Bloom. It consisted of a semicircle of buildings including a covered

bazaar, a cafe and coffee house, and a number of stalls in a decorated "Moorish Arcade". Street

performances included jugglers and snake charmers. At the center was an Algerian Theater, featuring

various performances including a `torture dance', but most notably, of course, the danse du ventre.

Compared to the Street in Cairo, this was a theatrical set designer's version of Algeria and Tunis, its

tightly clustered, brightly colored buildings lacking its neighbor's subtlety and detail. [52]

Even less authentic was the near-by Persian Palace of Eros. A single building whose first floor

was devoted to a bazaar selling jewelry, candy, Persian carpets and curios, its name derived from the

coffee house upstairs, where, again, the danse du ventre was performed. The dancers here, however,

were Parisian, not Persian; French danseuses imported from cabarets of Montmartre like the Moulin-

Rouge where the belly dance lasted long after the 1889 fair. [53]

Elsewhere on the Midway was Robert Levy's Turkish Village, also known as the Street in

Constantinople. Unlike most Midway concessions, it had no enclosing fence and no admission charge,

being less a compound than a collection of shops. Gertrude M. Scott considers this to have been, in

terms of architecture, the "least authentic" of the Mid-Eastern "villages". Instead, its authenticity came

from its 200 to 350 merchants and performers, the largest population of any concession, who roamed the

Midway in red fezzes, never failing to attract crowds of curious fairgoers. The Turkish Village was very

popular and financially successful, and its manager, Constantinople caterer Levy, served as Chairman of

the Concessionaire's Club. [54]

Levy's Turkish Village contained an authentic Moslem mosque, donated by Abdul Hamid, the

Sultan of Turkey. It was open to the public only when it was not being used for religious services by the

villagers. Later in the summer, a "Moorish Mosque of Tangiers" opened separately on the Midway; this

was an exhibit selling photos and curios of Morocco. [55]

The last of the Midway's Mid-Eastern attractions did not arrive on the Plaisance until mid-

summer, and due to the late date was placed at the west end, farthest from the White City. The Bedouin

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Camp or Ottoman Hippodrome was brought to Chicago by promoters who originally booked the ensemble

in the old West Side Baseball Grounds as a non-fair attraction. After a series of calamities, the promoters

left the tribe of Bedouins stranded in Chicago, and the fair found room for them on the Midway. Often

called "the Wild East show", the Bedouin horsemen put on exhibitions of Oriental riding in hopes of

competing with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show just outside the Midway. Due to its late arrival, and its

assignment at the farthest point from the Fair proper, the Bedouin Camp was the least successful of all

the Mid-Eastern "villages". [56]

Instead of villages, merchants from India and Japan erected purely commercial bazaars. A

troupe of "Hindoo Jugglers" performed first in a booth at the Street in Cairo, then moved during the

summer to their own small building next to the Illinois Central Railroad tracks at the east end of the

Midway. [57]

What was often erroneously referred to as "the Chinese Village" was instead a single building

containing a bazaar, a tea house and a replica of a temple or "Joss House". It was generally authentic,

although the `Joss House Cafe' did sell pork & beans, potato salad, ham sandwiches and oatmeal as well

as lichee nuts and oolong tea. [58] Not very popular-- fairgoers reportedly found the Chinese music

cacophonous and their dramas bewildering-- this may reflect the general racial prejudice of 1890s

Americans toward the Chinese. Scott suggests that the exhibit may well have been a front for smuggling

Chinese immigrants into the U.S. despite the Exclusionary Laws of the time. [59]

The Chinese concession was said to have been built by members of the very small Chinese

community in Chicago in 1893. The city's largest and most powerful immigrant groups of the time-- with

much greater political and economic clout than the Chinese-- led to the inclusion-- and much greater

popularity-- of their own European villages on the Midway.

There were not one, but two separate Irish villages on the Plaisance, reflecting the split between

the Protestant Ulster provinces and the Catholic rest of Ireland. Each was erected by a group promoting

cottage industries like lace- making, embroidery and wood carving. The Catholic village, with a

reproduction of Blarney Castle featuring what was said to be an actual fragment of the Blarney Stone (but

rumored to be just a piece of ordinary Chicago street paving brick) was the most popular, overshadowing

the Protestant village with its replica of Donegal Castle. [60]

Large and influential as the Irish population was in Chicago, the Germans were an even stronger

segment of the city. Consequently, the Midway featured a German Village that was among the largest of

all concessions. Part of it was indeed a kind of museum village, with representative houses from

respective provinces of the Fatherland and a reproduced fortress exhibiting medieval armaments. More

popular, however, was the large beer garden that featured performances of two different bands from the

German army, one from the infantry, and one from the cavalry. This concert garden was not that different

from many commercial bier gartens on Chicago's North Side, an area so heavily populated by German

immigrants that it was commonly called the "Nord Seit". [61]

The German Village beer garden gained a reputation for being a boisterous and rowdy spot.

Quite the opposite was the reputation of Old Vienna, a compound reproducing "Der Graben", a Viennese

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The "village" attractions of the Midway, with their ethnic, exotic and nostalgic themes, were clearly

the prototype for early 20th century amusement park settings as well as the theme parks to come.

THE RIDES

Contrary to our modern concept of a `Midway', the original of 1893 had very few mechanical

amusement rides. And, strictly speaking, three of the four attractions visitors could ride on the Plaisance

were not originally intended to be `rides' as we think of them today--i.e., for the purpose of amusement.

The reason was simple: the merry- go-round and the mild `scenic railway' type of roller coaster were

virtually the only amusement rides existing in 1893 -- and most likely, neither were considered

spectacular enough to merit a spot on the Midway. Yet the physical dominance--and tremendouspopularity--of one single Midway attraction in 1893, the Ferris wheel, paved the way for a boom in

mechanical rides, ensuring their place as the dominant amusement feature of midways to come.

Despite the common belief that the Plaisance was intended from the beginning for "foreign

villages", the very first concession assigned space on the Midway was a ride. The Barre Sliding Railway

was not intended, however, to be an amusement. Instead, it was meant as an example of the

`transportation of tomorrow', much like the monorails at later world's fairs. Concession Agreement # 1 was

granted, August 26, 1891, to the Barre Sliding Railway Co. to build a "Hydraulic Sliding Railway" one mile

long, or the length of the Midway Plaisance. A train without wheels that hydroplaned over a track covered

by a thin sheet of water, it was the invention of a Frenchman, Charles A. Barre. Previously demonstrated

at the 1889 Paris Exposition and an 1890 exposition in Edinburgh, Scotland, it was built as an elevated

railway down the southern edge of the Midway, and was originally intended as a means of rapid transit

between Washington and Jackson Parks. [70]

Unfortunately, two separate sets of promoters failed to ever get the Barre Railway successfully

running on the Midway. Fairgoers seeking the future of urban mass transit were better off taking the city's

first L line, just opened from downtown to the fair. [71]

More successful, while using a similar principle to the Barre, was the Ice Railway. Instead of

wheels, the Ice Railway's cars had sleigh runners; and instead of tracks, the coaster's course was iced--

even in the heat of a Chicago summer--by pipes containing freezing ammonia gas. [72]

Built by the De la Vergne Refrigeration Company of New York, the railway was invented by

Thomas L. Rankin, "an `all around' refrigerater" (sic) who pioneered cooling systems for ice houses,railroad freight cars and the manufacture of ice skating rinks. Like the Barre, the Ice Railway was first

intended "as a means of transportation" for fairgoers; the original application was made to build it in

Jackson Park, from the Horticultural building to the Liberal Arts building, passing over the Wooded Island

and the East Lagoon. [73] When Ways & Means consigned the railway to the Midway, a decision was

made to construct it as, essentially, a roller coaster. And so, to build the Ice Railway, the De la Vergne

Company hired as contractor the man who knew more about such things than anyone else in 1893-- the

"father of the American roller coaster", L. A. Thompson. [74]

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Born March 8, 1848 in Jersey, Licking County, Ohio, La Marcus Adna Thompson was a man of

his times, a mechanical genius of the great 19th Century industrial boom. In 1875, he invented a new

kind of seamless hosiery and traveled to Chicago to interest merchants in it. Convincing Field, Leiter and

Company (later Marshall Field and Company) to place a $10,000 order, Thompson founded the Eagle

Knitting Company in Elkhart, Indiana in 1877. "By 1882, the company had built and owned a complete

mill, employed over 300, and annually netted over $250,000 in various grades of hosiery, leggings,

scarfs, and mittens distributed over the United States." But business success took its toll on Thompson.

Near a nervous breakdown, he sold his interest in the mill and went to Arizona to recuperate. Upon

returning to Elkhart, he devoted his energies toward developing an amusement device for adults as well

as children. In 1884, he built his invention at Brooklyn's Coney Island, then still just a seaside resort.Called the Switchback Railway, it was America's first roller coaster.

"From 1884 to 1887, Thompson was granted thirty patents, all leading to the improvement of the

gravity ride." In partnership with James A. Griffiths of Atlantic City, he added tunnels with elaborate

artificial scenery to the ride, and called this improved version a Scenic Railway. It "quickly became the

most popular and famous amusement device in the world", and L. A. Thompson Scenic Railways were

built throughout America and overseas. From 1889 to 1893, he and Griffiths built a version called a

"Serpentine Railway". The Serpentine and Cavern Railway operating on Cottage Grove Avenue just

south of the Midway was probably one of these. [75]

Despite a fatal accident on its test run-- a coupling bolt broke and a car slid off the track, killing

one passenger and injuring five others-- the Ice Railway operated successfully during the fair. The cars

ran to the jingle of sleigh bells and patrons were given a souvenir snowball made by the same

refrigeration process, all in the middle of summer. [76]

At the far west end of the Midway was a Captive Balloon, the only Plaisance attraction intended

as an amusement ride. In honor of Christopher Columbus, the Chicago rose 1493 feet in the air to give 15

to 20 passengers a panoramic view of the Exposition and the surrounding city, all the while securely

tethered to the ground by cables. Hydrogen-filled balloons like this one had been standard features at the

Paris Expositions and American circuses for some time. [77] During a freak windstorm on the Midway, the

Chicago was damaged beyond repair, and for the rest of the fair season, its grounds featured a Mexican

orchestra, a vaudeville revue, a "large orchestreon" (sic), and a trapeze act. [78]

Far more successful as both a ride and an observation device–- indeed, the major sensation of

the fair--was the great Wheel built by George Ferris, Jr. Yet, like the Barre and Ice Railways, the Ferris

wheel was not originally intended to be anything as mundane as an amusement ride. Instead, it was to be

Chicago's answer to the great monument of the Paris Exposition, the Eiffel Tower.

It was thought that the Chicago fair had to have a tower to rival Eiffel's and many schemes for

one were proposed, including a Circular Railway Tower which would have featured roller coaster-like

trains spiraling up and down its height. All these plans came to naught but inspired Ferris to conceive his

giant Wheel. [79]

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"Towers of various kinds have been proposed but towers are not original," Director of Works

Daniel H. Burnham told a meeting of architects and designers early in 1892. "Mere bigness is not what is

wanted--something novel, original, daring and unique must be designed and built if American engineers

are to retain their prestige and standing." [80]

Among Burnham's listeners was 33 year old engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. Born

February 14, 1859 in Galesburg, Illinois-- a town founded by his family-- Ferris, like L.A. Thompson, was a

child of America's industrial boom. An 1881 graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy,

New York, Ferris had spent the ten years since building railroads, tunnels, trestles and bridges. By age

26, he was a recognized expert in the use of structural steel and established his own engineering firm in

Pittsburgh, PA. Four years later he formed Ferris, Kaufman and Company, to construct bridges over the

Ohio River at Wheeling, WV and Cincinnati, OH. [81]

Now he took up Burnham's challenge. According to a legend that Ferris himself helped promote,

the idea came to him at a "chop house dinner", and he sketched out the complete Wheel on scrap paper

at the restaurant table. Actually the process was far more involved. There had been other proposals for a

giant wheel, and much of the specifications that made Ferris' idea workable were calculated by one W.F.

Gronau, an engineer employed in Ferris' firm. But the dinner table story made a good story for the

press....and, in many ways, it was good publicity that made the great Wheel go round. [82]

Ferris' original application for a concession at the Fair was granted, then revoked the following

day in June 1892. His plan for the Wheel was so audacious that many thought it impossible to build, or

that people would be afraid to ride it. While critics scoffed that he had "wheels in his head", Ferris turned

to a group of railroad men familiar with his bridge building. They agreed to finance the Wheel, and with

their backing secured, a concession was finally granted by the Fair in late November, 1892. [83]

The agreement gave Ferris five months to build his Wheel. It wound up taking eight months, but

even that is remarkable considering the staggering feat of construction involved. [84]

Two steel towers, each 140 feet tall, had to be built and anchored to massive foundations sunk 35

feet deep in the ground. This required excavation through 20 feet of water and quicksand in brutal winter

weather. With the mercury hitting 10 degrees below zero, the concrete for the foundations had to be

continuously steam heated to keep it from freezing before it was poured. [84b]

To the top of these towers, fourteen stories high, a great axle, 45 feet long and nearly 3 feet indiameter-- the largest single piece of steel ever forged to that date-- had to be hoisted into place. On this

axle, not one, but two steel wheels, spoked like bicycle wheels, would rotate. Each wheel was 250 feet in

diameter.

Between the two wheels, 36 enclosed passenger cars were hung. The size of streetcars-- 27'

long, 13' wide and 9' high-- with large observation windows barred by iron safety gratings, each car was

fitted with 40 swivel chairs and had room for twenty more standing passengers. Each car weighed 13

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tons. Stepped platforms at the base of the Wheel enabled six cars to be loaded and unloaded at a time.

Fully loaded, the Wheel's maximum capacity was an astounding 2160 passengers. [85]

It was instantly hailed as the "eighth wonder of the world". With skyscrapers in their infancy, the

264'-tall Ferris wheel stood just a bit shorter than the tallest building in North America at that time,

downtown Chicago's Masonic Temple! Outlined at night by 1400 light bulbs, the Wheel reportedly could

be seen from fifty miles away. [86]

Rising from the very center of the Midway Plaisance, the Ferris wheel was a major reason the

amusement zone became more popular with visitors than the Fair proper. Nearly a million and a half

people paid fifty cents each--as much as it cost for admission to the Fair itself--to ride the Wheel between

its opening June 1 and the Fair's closing November 1. [87]

It was sketched, photographed and written about for hundreds of newspaper and magazine

articles. Nine different songs were composed in its honor. Booklets, framed pictures, paper weights,

medals, spoons, and dozens of other items sold as official souvenirs of the Wheel were eagerly snapped

up by the public. Like the Eiffel Tower at the previous Paris fair, the Ferris wheel became the very symbol

of the World's Columbian Exposition... as such, it also symbolizes the triumph of the Midway over the

White City in public popularity. [88]

Contrary to our modern concept of a `Midway', the 1893 original had only these few rides. Yet

the sensation caused by the Ferris Wheel--and its sheer physical dominance at the center of the entire

Plaisance, looming like Leviathan over every other concession--set the pattern for mechanical thrill rides

to dominate the Midways and amusement parks that followed.

OTHER WHEELS

Following the spectacular success of the great Wheel on the Midway in 1893, all such devices

have been called `Ferris wheels'. Yet the concept was an ancient one, and even in America before and

during the Columbian Exposition, there were other wheels than Ferris'.

According to Dr. Norman D. Anderson's definitive Ferris wheels: An Illustrated History, primitive

pleasure wheels existed in Europe, Russia and Asia as far back as the 1600s. In America, the earliest

known pleasure wheels operated at the New York State Fair in 1849 and Atlanta, Georgia in the early

1850s.

Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut, and Rocky Point, Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, two

early American resorts that later became full-fledged amusement parks, reportedly had wheel-type rides

in 1854 and 1858 respectively. (In 1892, carousel maker Charles I.D. Looff built a wheel approximately

60' high at Rocky Point.) In the 1870s, C.W.F. Dare, general manager of the New York Carousal

Manufacturing Company in Brooklyn, advertised two sizes of wheels-- 20' and 30' in diameter--calling

them Revolving or Aerial Swings.

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amusements on Stony Island Avenue just outside the fair. The names of these rides' promoters are

unknown today.

Although the Somers Company built the Garden City Observation Wheel, William Somers had no

business interest in it except for the royalties he received on the use of his patent. In July, 1893, the

Garden City Company brought suit against the Ferris wheel for infringement on Somers' patent, but the

court eventually decided in favor of Ferris.

History did the same. The impact on the nation's consciousness of Ferris' great engineering feat

inevitably led to calling all wheel rides `Ferris wheels', regardless of their size or who built them. [89]

MISCELLANEOUS AMUSEMENTS

The rest of the Midway Plaisance was a potpourri of the amusements of the time.

From the zoo world came Hagenbeck's Animal Arena. Carl Hagenbeck not only started the

exhibition of `foreign villages', but "revolutionized the presentation of wild animals in circuses by inventing

new and humane methods of training and sustaining wild animals in captivity." [90]

Born in 1848, the son of a Hamburg, Germany fishmonger, Hagenbeck was only 4 years old

when his father obtained six seals some fishermen had caught in their nets. The boy exhibited the seals

in wooden tubs for a penny admission. At age 21, he embarked on a career exhibiting wild animals of all

kinds, running a menagerie, and sending out ethnographic exhibits. He developed the method of training

animals through praise and rewards, the modern open-air zoo, and the exhibition of animals in the high-

cage arenas used by circuses today. By 1888, Hagenbeck was exhibiting tigers, bears and cheetahs at

London's Crystal Palace and sending groups of trained animals all over the world. [91]

On the Midway, in Hagenbeck's first U.S. engagement, the world-renowned trainer astonished

audiences with lions that rode horse's backs, polar bears climbing ladders and jaguars that played with

lapdogs. [92]

Another menagerie-type concession, the California Ostrich Farm, featured twenty-eight African

ostriches with names like Grover Cleveland, James G. Blaine, Susan B. Anthony, and General Grant. A

display showed how the exotic birds were hatched by incubators on a ranch in Fall Brook, CA. [93]

According to Sol Bloom's Autobiography, this concession had a "restaurant where the specialitede la maison was ostrich-egg omelet. This delicacy consisted of the finest chicken eggs, and everybody

sent postcards home to Kansas or Iowa or South Carolina describing its subtle flavor.... A minor strike

interfered with egg deliveries... [and the Ostrich Farm's manager had to] canvass the grocers and

restaurants of the South Side and buy everything with a shell around it.... for a few days the ostrich-egg

omelets were more subtly flavored than usual: in addition to hen's eggs, they contained duck, goose and

turkey eggs. For all I know, they might have had a few ostrich eggs in them." [94]

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After such exotic animal exhibitions, it is with much chagrin that one finds, in the latter days of the

fair, a "Dog Show" assigned space on the Midway, between the Ostrich Farm and Sitting Bull's Cabin.

[95]

The panorama, a type of entertainment widely popular in Chicago and elsewhere in 1893, was

represented on the Midway by two elaborate examples. The Panorama of the Volcano Kilauea simulated

the largest active volcano in the Western Hemisphere, located in the Hawaiian Islands. As part of the

attraction, a kahuna or Hawaiian priest chanted to Pele, the goddess of fire, and a native octet sang

kanaka melodies. Ironically, this concession’s owner was Loren A. Thurston, leader of the American and

European sugar planters who had overthrown Hawaii’s native government just that January of 1893.

Thurston’s low opinion of Hawaiian native culture did not, evidently, stand in the way of his exploiting it for

profit on the Midway. [96]

The Panorama of the Bernese Alps was the work of Swiss artists, simulating a breathtaking view

of their native terrain. [97]

An improvement on the latter panorama was the Midway's Electric Scenic Theater. Combining

the tricks of the panorama with effects from 250 incandescent lights, it simulated "A Day in the Alps" from

sunrise to twilight. "The show opened at dawn with light just beginning to play on a painted scene of the

Alps and Mt. Blanc, moved through the atmospheric changes of the day from morning mists to a

thunderous lightning storm, and ended with a re-creation of evening, with moonlight and stars. The visual

drama produced by the theatre's electric lighting was enhanced by the music of Tyrolean singers and

musicians." [98] This type of display, presented for the first time on the Midway, would go on to be a

popular, widely presented amusement of the next two decades. [99]

It has often been written that Thomas Edison's kinetoscope, showing the first motion pictures,

was part of the inventor's display in the Electrical Building in Jackson Park. In fact, Edison did not have

the kinetoscope ready in time for his exhibit. [100] However, an early version of the motion picture was

presented on the Midway by Eadweard Muybridge in his Zoopraxographical Hall.

In the 1870s, Leland Stanford of California employed photographer Muybridge to settle a wager:

whether a racehorse had all four of its legs off the ground at any point during a run. Muybridge placed "a

row of cameras along a track and set them off in rapid succession as the animal went by", making a

series of still photos like the frames of a movie-- and proving that the horse did, indeed, have all legs off

the ground at one point. He continued his work at the University of Pennsylvania, taking some 30,000photographs of lions, kangaroos, athletes and nude men and women in motion. [101]

On the Midway, Muybridge presented these photos (though probably not the nudes) in his

Zoopraxiscope (Greek for life action view), a machine he devised from a `magic lantern' and a rotating

slotted disk. Each sequence of photos was transferred to a circular glass disk for use in the projector. A

descriptive book and a portfolio of fifty zoopraxographic disks were available for purchase at the hall.

[102]

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Today, we recognize the historic significance of Muybridge's concession. In 1893, ironically, it

was a flop, and his exhibit was replaced during the course of the summer by a concession offering

"Stereopticon Views of Pompeii". Actually a painted panorama of the ancient Roman city, with a second

view of the site as it was in the 1890s, "it proved a great success, producing $19,505 in gross earnings

compared to the meager" $320 Muybridge grossed. [103]

Later in summer, the Electro-Tachyscopes (electric rapid views) of Ottmar Anschutz, an imitator

of Muybridge, were presented on the Midway. Under the patronage of the German army and Ministry of

Education, Anschutz-- like Muybridge-- used a series of cameras to record motion (military drills, troop

maneuvers, cavalry charges, as well as gymnasts) and then transferred the photos to a revolving disk.

Unlike Muybridge, Anschutz' device used a flashing electric light to show his pictures without projection

(somewhat like Edison's kinetoscope, a peep-show device presenting a crude, early form of movies).

Anschutz' machines were displayed both as part of Germany's exhibit in the fair's Electricity building, and

separately on the Plaisance, where Arthur Schwartz, concessionaire of the Electric Scenic Theater,

secured the right to install them under the viaducts where Stony Island, Woodlawn, and Madison

Avenues crossed the Midway. [104]

Another optical device added to the Midway later in the season was a Camera Obscura, offering

views of the fairgrounds, and of "The Big Tree" or "Tree of Wonders". [105]

A number of Midway attractions presented acts or displays one could easily have found in the

dime museums of the day.

The United States Submarine Diving Company featured deep sea divers in a tank of water, in the

bulky diving suits and helmets of the time. [106]

The International Dress and Costume Company's Congress of Beauty presented "40 Ladies from

40 Nations". Though this sounds like a burlesque show, the object was to present the native costumes of

these women. Despite the show's claims, some commentators of the time claimed all the girls came from

New York's Tenderloin district. [107]

The Vienna Bakery and Natatorium was perhaps the oddest concession on the Midway. It

combined versions of two popular Chicago enterprises. The bakery was based on the Vienna Model

Bakery at 36 Washington Street downtown, the Natatorium (or indoor swimming pool) on the popular

Chicago Natatorium run by L.J. Kadish at 888 Milwaukee Avenue. [108]

When the Natatorium part proved to be a failure on the Midway, it was converted to a vaudeville

theater. The first revue presented featured then-heavyweight champion of the world "Gentleman Jim"

Corbett, along with knife-throwers, bell-ringers, a boxing kangaroo sparring partner and some racy French

`split dancers'. Unfortunately, Corbett's act had already bombed at the Haymarket Theater downtown,

and did no better on the Midway. After two weeks, Fair authorities decided the show was of questionable

character even for the Midway and ordered it shut down. [109]

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Scale models of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome (and other European churches) and the Eiffel

Tower in Paris were presented on the Midway; such models were commonplace in dime museums. A

mock-up of a Colorado gold mine straddled the line between these dime museum type attractions and the

industrial ones we will look at in a moment. [110]

The Moorish Palace, while seeming to be a Mid-Eastern concession in name and in architecture,

was actually a combination of a wax museum featuring distinctly non-Mid- Eastern subjects and what in

later years would be called a funhouse. Wax museums, called at the time "Eden Musses", were as

popular and prevalent as panoramas and dime museums.

Upon entering, visitors found themselves in a `Palm Garden' filled "with a number of palm treeswith mirrors set between, so that impressions are multiplied by the thousand. A number of Arabs in armor

and other figures in wax heighten the effect; also a fathomless well (the illusion being produced by

mirrors)." [111]

Visitors made their way through the Palm Garden to the Moorish Palace itself, a "labyrinth"

representing the exterior of Spain's Alhambra, with endless colonnades and scenes of the coast of

Tangiers; in one part there was a Harem scene, complete with wax Sultan, dancing girl and eunuch.

Back into the labyrinth, one had to "ask the attendant for escape". [112]

Next one entered the Cave, a grotto with stalactites, more wax tableaux (this time, of Hell) and

the "Monster Kaleidoscope", a Hall of Mirrors. In a routine still followed in today's "haunted houses", a

costumed employee--in this case dressed as the devil-- would jump out to scare patrons; when thishappened to one of the American Indians from the Midway, he beat the devil with his cane and broke

$200 worth of glass. [113]

Originally, there was to be a Chamber of Horrors, but this was replaced by a potpourri of wax

figures, from Lincoln, Christ, and Martin Luther to Little Red Riding Hood, a "Dying Zouave", and a

tableau titled "You Can't Make Me White, Honey" (a white child being bathed by a black nurse tries to

sponge the color from the "mammy's" face). The Chamber of Horrors motif was retained only in "The

Execution of Marie Antoinette" with what was touted as the original guillotine. [114]

In another room, two illusion acts with names drawn from classical mythology were performed.

"Magneta" featured a woman on a rising globe; as the globe descended, the woman remained in mid-air.

In "Galatea", a marble statue transformed into a living girl right before patrons' eyes. Good illusions neverdie; versions of both acts would pop up in Chicago amusement parks for decades to come. Indeed, a

form of the "Galatea" illusion can still be seen at carnivals today as the "Girl into a Gorilla" act. [115]

In yet other rooms, visitors encountered a circus clown named Sparrow, exotic dancers and the

musicians and singers of the "Royal Roumanian Quartette". [116]

The final concessions on the Midway were commercial/industrial in nature, and could easily have

been placed in the White City in Jackson Park. Perhaps the reason for placing the exhibits of the Libbey

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Glass Company, the Venice-Murano Glass Company and the Parisian Art Glass Company on the Midway

is that the wares produced by their glass blowing artisans were for sale to the public. (Products exhibited

in the Fair proper were not supposed to be for sale.) The same rationale may be why the Diamond Match

Company and Adams Express Company exhibits were placed on the Midway. [117]

Seemingly, no such explanation fits the model Workingman's Home presented by the

Philadelphia branch of the fair's Women's Auxiliary. (A similar model home was part of the New York

state exhibit in Jackson Park.) Perhaps all these industrial exhibits wound up on the Midway because,

ultimately, no space was available for them in Jackson Park. [118]

Plantings of trees, actually nursery exhibits of the fair's Horticulture department, added a bit of

park-like nature to the Midway, though the landscaping was nowhere near that of Jackson Park. [119]

Scattered among the major Midway concessions were smaller booths selling refreshment drinks,

cigars, and official photographs. [120]

After noting what was on the Midway, it should also be noted what was not. Unlike our modern

idea of a Midway, nowhere on the Plaisance were there any `carnival' games. Games of chance and

gambling were strictly forbidden by the Fair's directors. Nor were there any `freak' shows of the type then

common in both circuses and dime museums. [121] Both, however, could be found in force among the

more tawdry amusements lining Stony Island Avenue between the Midway and Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

OUTSIDE THE GATES

The Fair's managers had hoped, by including concessions and amusements in the Fair itself, to

avoid the kind of `shantytown' of crude amusements that had popped up outside the Philadelphia fair of

1876. That strategy did not work.

"For a mile along the west side of Stony Island Avenue, from Fifty-Sixth Street to Sixty-fourth,"

reported the Inter-Ocean, "sideshows and other alleged attractions" sprang up on the empty lots across

from the Fair, north and south of the Midway.

In quickly slapped-up shanties, rented for $2 to $5 a day, "theaters" presented low vaudeville and

the inevitable Uncle Tom's Cabin, not to mention "the iron-skulled man" who pounded his head with a

rock. "Oriental museums, museums of anatomy... and collections of human curiosities galore" offered fat

ladies and living skeletons, `ossified' (or petrified) men and women, a "human spider", a three-headed

woman, and a man who rode a bicycle standing on his nose. Sidewalk stands sold sweet cider, lemonade

and sandwiches, peanuts and popcorn balls, trinkets and tintype photographs and cheap souvenirs,

amidst the clamor of "mournful barrel organs...agonizing horns and shouting shrieking fakirs." [122]

For five cents, one could hang from a strap on wheels and speed down a wire across a vacant

lot, "flying through the air as if shot out of a catapult." Nearby was an "alleged Ferris wheel", crude and

small, with a "wheezy boiler and rickety engine". There were also at least two merry-go-rounds, one of

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them a "Palace Carousel" from Germantown, PA, featuring horses, chariots, camels, giraffes, goats and

reindeer. [123]

Though the Chicago Herald compared the scene to "Podunkville when the circus comes to town",

some Fair and Midway people played both sides of Stony Island Avenue. After suing their concessionaire

over conditions, a group of the Eskimos originally exhibited in Jackson Park set up their own show

outside the grounds. Milhim Ouardy, a Syrian swordsman at the Moorish Palace, ran an "Oriental

bazaar" on 55th St. [124] And, though Stony Island was the most publicized `shantytown', a similar strip

of cheap saloons, dance halls, shooting galleries, and games of chance sprang up in shacks and tents on

Cottage Grove Avenue, between the Midway and 63rd St. [125]

Stony Island, too, had games of chance a plenty: gypsy tents, striking machines, shooting

galleries, and wheels of fortune. It also had an "African Dodger", perhaps the most racist and inhumane

`amusement' ever devised. A black man was hired to put his head through a hole in a canvas backdrop;

patrons (generally white) paid to throw baseballs with the object of hitting this target. The "African's"

ability to "dodge" the ball was limited to ducking his head from side to side. Eventually, "Dodgers" wore

wooden skullcaps covered with fake `kinky' hair for protection.

An incident at the Dodger on Stony Island Avenue shows just how cruel this sickening `game'

could be. One day, "a quiet young man" put down a nickel for three balls. His first throw "went through

the air like a rocket, brushing the right ear of the human target, who hadn't seen it coming. The young

man twisted his fingers around the second ball and sent it whizzing on a wide out curve. The colored

man didn't know which way to dodge. He ducked and the ball struck the top of his head with a sound like

hitting a muffled drum. Before he could recover, the third projectile came along, grazing his scalp.

"`Give me six more,' said the quiet young man. `I'd rather throw than take the cigars (that were

the prize).'" The "quiet young man" was Bill Hutchison-- professional pitcher for Cap Anson's Chicago

Colts, forerunner of the Cubs. In 1892, the year before he stepped up to the Stony Island Dodger,

Hutchison led the National League in strikeouts; his specialty was the fastball. [126]

The Dodger, along with many of the freak and `girly' shows, illustrates just how low the

`pleasures' of the Stony Island strip could be. Yet the cheap entertainments drew scores of working-class

patrons who could not afford the more expensive Fair and Midway, as well as `swells' like Hutchison who

had a taste for `slumming'; early in the season, when the Fair and Midway were closed on Sundays,

"thousands" attended these lesser attractions. [127]

In general, however, these sideshows were vastly overshadowed by the Midway. It's ironic,therefore, that they would give many Americans their first taste of the Midway concept. At Fair's end,

some Chicago entrepreneurs got the idea to put together a `traveling Midway', to play the nation's state

and county fair circuits. As most attractions from the real Midway were not available, it was from these

cheap entertainments outside the Fair's gates that America's first traveling carnival was assembled. (see

page 80).

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SATISFYING P0PULAR TASTES

More people visited the Midway than rival Chicago amusements. This was what the Fair's

planners had hoped for, and done their best to ensure. The Midway, after all, was part of the Fair; the 50

cents admission to the Fair admitted one to the Midway as well (though, of course, most individual

attractions charged additional entrance fees). As part of the Fair, the Midway had crucial advantages

over its rivals: it had "official" status and was much better publicized, it had unique attractions/attractions

of better quality, and it was safer than the city's other amusement zones. Most importantly, the variety of

amusements scattered throughout the city were available on the Midway in one single place.

However, the Fair's planners probably did not foresee that the Midway would draw more visitorsthan the White City itself. On April 10, 1893--about 3 weeks before opening--the Chicago Daily Inter-

Ocean noted: "With one exception, yesterday was the greatest Sunday the World's Fair proper has

seen. The turnstiles’ show that 11,907 spectators passed into the grounds. But far more popular than its

great white neighbor, Midway Plaisance...was the great attraction ....Men who were on the ground all day

estimated the crowd at 20,000." [128]

This continued to be the case during the Fair as well. "Soon after the Exposition opened new

booths and entrances were established on 59th and 60th Streets, where the tracks of the Illinois Central

Railroad cross the Midway Plaisance...This was necessitated by the popularity of the Midway Plaisance,

which was greater than had been expected." [129]

"Admissions to the Exposition through the western entrance to the Midway Plaisance exceedthose of any other avenue to the Fair." [130] Those visitors then had to travel the whole one mile length of

the Midway before they reached the Fair itself. Who can say for certain if they ever even made it to

Jackson Park?

Thus, the popularity of the Midway was not only "greater than expected", the Midway in fact

proved to be more popular with visitors than the White City itself. The Fair's planners may not have

anticipated this, but it's easy to see why it happened. [131]

By segregating amusements onto the Midway, the Exposition created a dichotomy that could not

be ignored. The Fair proper--the White City in Jackson Park--was grandiose, awe-inspiring, packed with

education and high culture. It was also an unrelenting mass of exhibits. So many, that even attempting

to see everything in a given building was a tiring proposition. The same had been true of the ParisExposition, with the same result: a tremendous fatigue factor. [132]

Most Fairgoers, therefore, took in only those exhibits of personal interest to them - farmers looked

at agriculture, etc. - then looked for something with general appeal. What had the most general appeal

was the Midway Plaisance; and as journalist Theresa Dean wrote, sooner or later, everybody went there.

[133]

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The Midway, with its emphasis on commercial entertainment, stood in such marked contrast to

the Fair proper that some commentators dubbed it the "Fair improper". The term was meant to be

disparaging, but it proved to be seductive. To most people, it seems, the `impropriety' of the Plaisance

meant fun-- a much-needed respite from the White City's decorum, dignity, and social restraints.

The Midway signaled this intention to the public in a variety of ways. Even before the Fair

opened, the Inter-Ocean story of April 10 singled out the following elements to explain why the Midway

was drawing more visitors than the White City: "its cosmopolitan character of architecture, the beauty of

its disorder and lack of general design, the lively variation in color, and the motley exhibition of dark-

skinned Orientals..." These, said the paper, were the factors that made the Midway-- and not the White

City-- "the great attraction." [134]

ARCHITECTURE AND COLOR

Volumes have been written on the majestic architecture of the Fair proper, the White City. The

architecture of the Midway, on the other hand, has been largely ignored, except to point out its lack of

aesthetic merit. Yet, as the Inter-Ocean pointed out, the Midway's architecture was one of the features

that beckoned most strongly to visitors.

The Fair proper-- the White City-- was vast and staggering, its buildings monumental and

imperious. The Midway, by contrast, was an eclectic hodgepodge of styles, designed on a pedestrian

scale, full of picturesque, inviting alleyways and quarters. Its form perfectly expressed its function as a

place of entertainment and amusement.

The authentic-seeming architecture of the foreign villages appealed to many fairgoers as a

substitute for world travel. Though the days of the Grand Tour of Europe had arrived, only the wealthiest

Americans could afford such a trip. Fewer still were the Americans in 1893 who could trek to Africa and

the Orient. If "seeing the world" was an implicit promise of a world's fair, it was only on the Midway that

one could actually feel like a globe-trotter.

While the Street in Cairo or the Java Village-- even, for that matter, Sitting Bull's Cabin - appealed

to those who fantasized about adventures in far-off places, the European concessions further appealed to

nostalgia for the "homeland" among large numbers of Chicagoans (and other Fairgoers) who had

emigrated from Germany, Ireland, and the Slavic lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today, of

course, these are the same lures--adventure, fantasy, nostalgia-- that attract Americans to the moderntheme park.

The Midway's architecture also appealed in its use of color. The great buildings of the Fair proper

were, of course, all white-- stately and unified, yet ultimately as much impassive as impressive... cold and

emotionally distant in their absence of color. The Midway, on the other hand, was a riot of bright, even

gaudy hues... the blue pagoda towers of the Chinese Temple with their red and yellow trim, the green and

red cars of the great Ferris wheel, the minarets of Cairo trimmed in scarlet and gold, the huge blue dome

of the Moorish Palace.

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ACTION AND INTERACTION

Architecture and color set the stage for the third component-- Life, or action. With all the street

life of an actual street, the Midway bustled with activity--people, animals, etc. Its often tight quarters

accentuated this. The White City, even when thronged with visitors, seemed emptier because of its vast

scale. Ironically, even the official photographs put out by the Fair revealed this contrast, an

Documents

1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition Midway Plaisance