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Realizing the Dream
America in the early 1890’s
Potential Fulfilled• In the 1890’s, America was coming of age. Cities like Chicago and New
York were taking on their modern shapes.
• Key inventions: elevators, hardened steel girders, electricity used to make lighting for buildings and streets, refrigeration…
World’s fair 1893
World’s fair 1893
• Chicago chosen to host event due to its booming economy, architecture and culture.
• Also to dispel demons of the Great Fire of 1889
• Used to show off American innovation and cultural achievements
• Culmination of the Gilded Age. Things would never be so good again…
The Midway and the StatueOf the Republic
The famous Balloon
George Washington Ferris’s Wheel
The World Columbian Exposition, Illuminated by Tesla’s Dynamos
The end of the dream
The White City crumbles into nothing
The “Gilded Age”
Benefits• A time of great industrial
innovation
• America becomes extremely prosperous (Economy grew at fastest rate in American History)
• national transportation and communication network was created
• Increase in Political participation (voter turnout 90% in some areas)
Problems• Social problems because of
changing society, high immigration, racism
• Boom and bust recession cycle begins (mid-1890s)
• Environmental degradation and closing of frontier bring about disaffection among many
• Political corruption is rampant
Irony of World’s fair• By the 1890’s the economic boom of the Gilded Age was coming to an
end.
• The World’s fair was the last gasp. Even as its buildings were torn down in October 1893, economic hardships were beginning due to too much growth in too short a time.
• Political corruption began to paralyze the country.
• A growing expansionist sentiment was growing in the country due to the closing of the frontier. – Already, some politicians advocated war with first England (dispute over Venezuela) and
then Spain (disputes over revolutionary claims in Cuba). Chief among these was Theodore Roosevelt.
