The Imperial White City - Chicago, 1893

The 1893 Fair was called the Columbian Exposition and was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering the New World.

The Columbian Exposition was lit up like an overloaded Christmas Tree, especially at night, thanks to Thomas Edison and his staff's development of the electric light bulb. Millions of lights were used, making Chicago the home to The White City, the core of the exposition.

PT Barnum said about the fair, "Make it the greatest show in earth!"

The Electric Building displayed several large search lights that cut the sky with wide swaths of electric white light each night for six months.

Chicago Exposition hosted a Congress on Literature. There, Hamlin Garland talked about America's need in the coming century for a new genre that he called "veritism" or "local color."

Garland felt that America needed something distinctly American in literature. The US had had enough of European literature to last them a while, he thought.

During the time that the Congress on Literature was held, Theodore Dreiser was working in Chicago to write about the Exposition in his job as reporter for the St. Louis Republic.

Dreiser himself did not attend the Congress on Literature, but in the future, he fulfilled a principal role creating the style of literature that Garland suggested for American. It was a happy coincidence.

In addition to amusement rides and camera equipment, there were foods first introduced in 1893 during the six months of the exhibition. Some of these include:

• Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix (invented in about 1889)
• Cracker Jack (and Licorice Jack, which pictured an African native on the front of a black and white box and was later banned)
• Shredded Wheat
• Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum
• The Hamburger, shown again at the St. Louis Worlds Fair in 1904
• USPS Commemorative Picture Postcards and Stamps

The video below is a book trailer, actually, made to advertise Erik Larson's thriller-novel The Devil in the White City. It is a story of historical fiction, based in the true lives of the noted architect that designed the 1893 World's Fair, Daniel Hudson Burnham and the serial killer, H. H. Holmes. Holmes lured his victims into the fair to kill them.