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World's Columbian Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, held in Jackson Park, was a large water pool representing the voyage that Columbus took to the New World. Chicago won the right to host the fair over several competing cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. The exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on American architecture, the arts, American industrial optimism, and Chicago's image.

The layout of the Chicago Columbian Exposition was predominantly designed by John Wellborn Root, Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Charles B. Atwood. It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be. It was designed to follow Beaux-Arts principles of design, namely neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance, and splendor. The color of the material generally used to cover the buildings' façades white staff gave the fairgrounds its nickname, the White City. Many prominent architects designed its 14 "great buildings". Artists and musicians were featured in exhibits and many also made depictions and works of art inspired by the exposition.

The exposition covered 690 acre, featuring nearly 200 new but temporary buildings of predominantly neoclassical architecture, canals and lagoons, and people and cultures from 46 countries. More than 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month run. Its scale and grandeur far exceeded the other world's fairs, and it became a symbol of emerging American exceptionalism, much in the same way that the Great Exhibition became a symbol of the Victorian era United Kingdom.

Dedication ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21, 1892, but the fairgrounds were not actually opened to the public until May 1, 1893. The fair continued until October 30, 1893. In addition to recognizing the 400th anniversary of the "discovery of the New World" from the European perspective, the fair also served to show the world that Chicago had risen from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire, which had destroyed much of the city in 1871.

On October 9, 1893, the day designated as Chicago Day, the fair set a world record for outdoor event attendance, drawing 751,026 people. The debt for the fair was soon paid off with a check for $1.5 million (equivalent to $ in ). Chicago has commemorated the fair with one of the stars on its municipal flag.

Planning and organization

Many prominent civic, professional, and commercial leaders from around the United States helped finance, coordinate, and manage the Fair, including Chicago shoe company owner Charles H. Schwab, Chicago railroad and manufacturing magnate John Whitfield Bunn, and Connecticut banking, insurance, and iron products magnate Milo Barnum Richardson, among many others.

The fair was planned in the early 1890s during the Gilded Age of rapid industrial growth, immigration, and class tension. World's fairs, such as London's 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition, had been successful in Europe as a way to bring together societies fragmented along class lines.

The first American attempt at a world's fair in Philadelphia in 1876 drew crowds, but was a financial failure. Nonetheless, ideas about distinguishing the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing started in the late 1880s. Civic leaders in St. Louis, New York City, Washington DC, and Chicago expressed interest in hosting a fair to generate profits, boost real estate values, and promote their cities. Congress was called on to decide the location. New York financiers J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and William Waldorf Astor, among others, pledged $15 million to finance the fair if Congress awarded it to New York, while Chicagoans Charles T. Yerkes, Marshall Field, Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Cyrus McCormick, Jr., offered to finance a Chicago fair. What finally persuaded Congress was Chicago banker Lyman Gage, who raised several million additional dollars in a 24-hour period, over and above New York's final offer.

Chicago representatives not only fought for the world's fair for monetary reasons, but also for reasons of practicality. In a Senate hearing held in January 1890, representative Thomas Barbour Bryan argued that the most important qualities for a world's fair were "abundant supplies of good air and pure water", "ample space, accommodations and transportation for all exhibits and visitors". He argued that New York had too many obstructions, and Chicago would be able to use large amounts of land around the city where there was "not a house to buy and not a rock to blast" and that it would be located so that "the artisan and the farmer and the shopkeeper and the man of humble means" would be able to easily access the fair. Bryan continued to say that the fair was of "vital interest" to the West, and that the West wanted the location to be Chicago. The city spokesmen would continue to stress the essentials of a successful exposition and that only Chicago was fit to fill these exposition requirements.

The location of the fair was decided through several rounds of voting by the United States House of Representatives. The first ballot showed Chicago with a large lead over New York, St. Louis and Washington, D.C., but short of a majority. Chicago broke the 154-vote majority threshold on the eighth ballot, receiving 157 votes to New York's 107.

The exposition corporation and national exposition commission settled on Jackson Park and an area around it as the fair site. Daniel H. Burnham was selected as director of works, and George R. Davis as director-general. Burnham emphasized architecture and sculpture as central to the fair and assembled the period's top talent to design the buildings and grounds including Frederick Law Olmsted for the grounds. The temporary buildings were designed in an ornate neoclassical style and painted white, resulting in the fair site being referred to as the "White City".

The Exposition's offices set up shop in the upper floors of the Rand McNally Building on Adams Street, the world's first all-steel-framed skyscraper. Davis' team organized the exhibits with the help of G. Brown Goode of the Smithsonian. The Midway was inspired by the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, which included ethnological "villages".

Civil rights leaders protested the refusal to include an African American exhibit. Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Irvine Garland Penn, and Ferdinand Lee Barnet co-authored a pamphlet entitled "The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition – The Afro-American's Contribution to Columbian Literature" addressing the issue. Wells and Douglass argued, "when it is asked why we are excluded from the World's Columbian Exposition, the answer is Slavery." Ten thousand copies of the pamphlet were circulated in the White City from the Haitian Embassy (where Douglass had been selected as its national representative), and the activists received responses from the delegations of England, Germany, France, Russia, and India.

The exhibition did include a limited number of exhibits put on by African Americans, including exhibits by the sculptor Edmonia Lewis, a painting exhibit by scientist George Washington Carver, and a statistical exhibit by Joan Imogen Howard. Black individuals were also featured in white exhibits, such as Nancy Green's portrayal of the character Aunt Jemima for the R. T. Davis Milling Company.

Operation

The fair opened in May and ran through October 30, 1893. Forty-six nations participated in the fair, which was the first world's fair to have national pavilions. They constructed exhibits and pavilions and named national "delegates"; for example, Haiti selected Frederick Douglass to be its delegate. The Exposition drew over 27 million visitors. The fair was originally meant to be closed on Sundays, but the Chicago Woman's Club petitioned that it stay open. The club felt that if the exposition was closed on Sunday, it would restrict those who could not take off work during the work-week from seeing it.

The exposition was located in Jackson Park and on the Midway Plaisance on 630 acre in the neighborhoods of South Shore, Jackson Park Highlands, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn. Charles H. Wacker was the director of the fair. The layout of the fairgrounds was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Beaux-Arts architecture of the buildings was under the direction of Daniel Burnham, Director of Works for the fair. Renowned local architect Henry Ives Cobb designed several buildings for the exposition. The director of the American Academy in Rome, Francis Davis Millet, directed the painted mural decorations. Indeed, it was a coming-of-age for the arts and architecture of the "American Renaissance", and it showcased the burgeoning neoclassical and Beaux-Arts styles.

Assassination of mayor and end of fair

The fair ended with the city in shock, as popular mayor Carter Harrison Sr. was assassinated by Patrick Eugene Prendergast two days before the fair's closing. Closing ceremonies were canceled in favor of a public memorial service.

Jackson Park was returned to its status as a public park, in much better shape than its original swampy form. The lagoon was reshaped to give it a more natural appearance, except for the straight-line northern end where it still laps up against the steps on the south side of the Palace of Fine Arts/Museum of Science & Industry building. The Midway Plaisance, a park-like boulevard which extends west from Jackson Park, once formed the southern boundary of the University of Chicago, which was being built as the fair was closing (the university has since developed south of the Midway). The university's football team, the Maroons, were the original "Monsters of the Midway." The exposition is mentioned in the university's alma mater: "The City White hath fled the earth, / But where the azure waters lie, / A nobler city hath its birth, / The City Gray that ne'er shall die."

Attractions

The World's Columbian Exposition was the first world's fair with an area for amusements that was strictly separated from the exhibition halls. This area, developed by a young music promoter, Sol Bloom, concentrated on Midway Plaisance and introduced the term "midway" to American English to describe the area of a carnival or fair where sideshows are located.

It included carnival rides, among them the original Ferris Wheel, built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. This wheel was 264 ft high and had 36 cars, each of which could accommodate 40 people. The importance of the Columbian Exposition is highlighted by the use of rueda de Chicago ("Chicago wheel") in many Latin American countries such as Costa Rica and Chile in reference to the Ferris wheel. One attendee, George C. Tilyou, later credited the sights he saw on the Chicago midway for inspiring him to create America's first major amusement park, Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, New York.

The fair included life-size reproductions of Christopher Columbus' three ships, the Niña (real name Santa Clara), the Pinta, and the Santa María. These were intended to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the Americas. The ships were constructed in Spain and then sailed to America for the exposition. The celebration of Columbus was an intergovernmental project, coordinated by American special envoy William Eleroy Curtis, the Queen Regent of Spain, and Pope Leo XIII. The ships were a very popular exhibit.

Eadweard Muybridge gave a series of lectures on the Science of Animal Locomotion in the Zoopraxographical Hall, built specially for that purpose on Midway Plaisance. He used his zoopraxiscope to show his moving pictures to a paying public. The hall was the first commercial movie theater.

The "Street in Cairo" included the popular dancer known as Little Egypt. She introduced America to the suggestive version of the belly dance known as the "hootchy-kootchy," to a tune said to have been improvised by Sol Bloom (and now more commonly associated with snake charmers) which he had composed when his dancers had no music to dance to. Bloom did not copyright the song, putting it immediately in the public domain.

Also included was the first moving walkway or travelator, which was designed by architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee. It had two different divisions: one where passengers were seated, and one where riders could stand or walk. It ran in a loop down the length of a lakefront pier to a casino.

Although denied a spot at the fair, Buffalo Bill Cody decided to come to Chicago anyway, setting up his Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show just outside the edge of the exposition. Nearby, historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave academic lectures reflecting on the end of the frontier which Buffalo Bill represented.

The electrotachyscope of Ottomar Anschütz was demonstrated, which used a Geissler tube to project the illusion of moving images.

Louis Comfort Tiffany made his reputation with a stunning chapel designed and built for the Exposition. After the Exposition the Tiffany Chapel was sold several times, even going back to Tiffany's estate. It was eventually reconstructed and restored and in 1999 it was installed at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art.

Architect Kirtland Cutter's Idaho Building, a rustic log construction, was a popular favorite, visited by an estimated 18 million people. The building's design and interior furnishings were a major precursor of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Among the other attractions at the fair, several products that are well-known today were introduced. These products included Juicy Fruit gum, Cream of Wheat, Cracker Jacks, Shredded Wheat cereal, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, among many others.

Anthropology
There was an Anthropology Building at the World's Fair. Nearby, "The Cliff Dwellers" featured a rock and timber structure that was painted to recreate Battle Rock Mountain in Colorado, a stylized recreation of an American Indian cliff dwelling with pottery, weapons, and other relics on display. There was also an Eskimo display. There were also birch bark wigwams of the Penobscot tribe. Nearby was a working model Indian school, organized by the Office of Indian Affairs, that housed delegations of Native American students and their teachers from schools around the country for weeks at a time.

Rail

The John Bull locomotive was displayed. It was only 62 years old, having been built in 1831. It was the first locomotive acquisition by the Smithsonian Institution. The locomotive ran under its own power from Washington, DC, to Chicago to participate, and returned to Washington under its own power again when the exposition closed. In 1981 it was the oldest surviving operable steam locomotive in the world when it ran under its own power again.

A Baldwin 2-4-2 locomotive was showcased at the exposition, and subsequently the 2-4-2 type was known as the Columbia.

An original frog switch and portion of the superstructure of the famous 1826 Granite Railway in Massachusetts could be viewed. This was the first commercial railroad in the United States to evolve into a common carrier without an intervening closure. The railway brought granite stones from a rock quarry in Quincy, Massachusetts, so that the Bunker Hill Monument could be erected in Boston. The frog switch is now on public view in East Milton Square, Massachusetts, on the original right-of-way of the Granite Railway.

Transportation by rail was the major mode of transportation. A 26 track train station was built at the South West corner of the fair. While trains from around the country would unload there, there was a local train to shuttle tourists from the Chicago Grand Central Station to the fair.

Country and state exhibition buildings
Forty-six countries had pavilions at the exposition. Norway participated by sending the Viking, a replica of the Gokstad ship. It was built in Norway and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean by 12 men, led by Captain Magnus Andersen. In 1919, this ship was moved to Lincoln Park. It was relocated in 1996 to Good Templar Park in Geneva, Illinois, where it awaits renovation.

Thirty-four U.S. states also had their own pavilions. The work of noted feminist author Kate McPhelim Cleary was featured during the opening of the Nebraska Day ceremonies at the fair, which included a reading of her poem "Nebraska". Among the state buildings present at the fair were California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas; each was meant to be architecturally representative of the corresponding states.

Four United States territories also had pavilions located in one building: Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah.

Visitors to the Louisiana Pavilion were each given a seedling of a cypress tree. This resulted in the spread of cypress trees to areas where they were not native. Cypress trees from those seedlings can be found in many areas of West Virginia, where they flourish in the climate.

The Illinois was a detailed, full-scale mockup of an Indiana-class battleship, constructed as a naval exhibit.

Guns and artillery

The German firm Krupp had a pavilion of artillery, which apparently had cost one million dollars to stage, including a coastal gun of 42 cm in bore (16.54 inches) and a length of 33 calibres (45.93 feet, 14 meters). A breech-loaded gun, it weighed 120.46 long tons (122.4 metric tons). According to the company's marketing: "It carried a charge projectile weighing from 2,200 to 2,500 pounds which, when driven by 900 pounds of brown powder, was claimed to be able to penetrate at 2,200 yards a wrought-iron plate three feet thick if placed at right angles."

Nicknamed "The Thunderer", the gun had an advertised range of 15 miles. On this occasion John Schofield declared Krupps' guns "the greatest peacemakers in the world". This gun was later seen as a precursor of the company's World War I Dicke Berta howitzers.

Religions
The 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions, which ran from September 11 to September 27, marked the first formal gathering of representatives of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions from around the world. According to Eric J. Sharpe, Tomoko Masuzawa, and others, the event was considered radical at the time, since it allowed non-Christian faiths to speak on their own behalf. For example, it is recognized as the first public mention of the Baháʼí Faith in North America; it was not taken seriously by European scholars until the 1960s.

Moving walkway

Along the banks of the lake, patrons on the way to the casino were taken on a moving walkway designed by architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee, the first of its kind open to the public, called The Great Wharf, Moving Sidewalk, it allowed people to walk along or ride in seats.

Horticulture
Horticultural exhibits at the Horticultural Hall included cacti and orchids as well as other plants in a greenhouse.

White City
Most of the buildings of the fair were designed in the neoclassical architecture style. The area at the Court of Honor was known as The White City. Façades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement, and jute fiber called staff, which was painted white, giving the buildings their "gleam". Architecture critics derided the structures as "decorated sheds.” The buildings were clad in white stucco, which, in comparison to the tenements of Chicago, seemed illuminated. It was also called the White City because of the extensive use of street lights, which made the boulevards and buildings usable at night.

In 1892, working under extremely tight deadlines to complete construction, director of works Daniel Burnham appointed Francis Davis Millet to replace the fair's official director of color-design, William Pretyman. Pretyman had resigned following a dispute with Burnham. After experimenting, Millet settled on a mix of oil and white lead whitewash that could be applied using compressed air spray painting to the buildings, taking considerably less time than traditional brush painting. Joseph Binks, maintenance supervisor at Chicago's Marshall Field's Wholesale Store, who had been using this method to apply whitewash to the subbasement walls of the store, got the job to paint the Exposition buildings. Claims this was the first use of spray painting may be apocryphal since journals from that time note this form of painting had already been in use in the railroad industry from the early 1880s.

Many of the buildings included sculptural details and, to meet the Exposition's opening deadline, chief architect Burnham sought the help of Chicago Art Institute instructor Lorado Taft to help complete them. Taft's efforts included employing a group of talented women sculptors from the Institute known as "the White Rabbits" to finish some of the buildings, getting their name from Burnham's comment "Hire anyone, even white rabbits if they'll do the work."

The words "Thine alabaster cities gleam" from the song "America the Beautiful" were inspired by the White City.

Role in the City Beautiful movement

The White City is largely credited for ushering in the City Beautiful movement and planting the seeds of modern city planning. The highly integrated design of the landscapes, promenades, and structures provided a vision of what is possible when planners, landscape architects, and architects work together on a comprehensive design scheme.

The White City inspired cities to focus on the beautification of the components of the city in which municipal government had control; streets, municipal art, public buildings, and public spaces. The designs of the City Beautiful Movement (closely tied with the municipal art movement) are identifiable by their classical architecture, plan symmetry, picturesque views, and axial plans, as well as their magnificent scale. Where the municipal art movement focused on beautifying one feature in a city, the City Beautiful movement began to make improvements on the scale of the district. The White City of the World's Columbian Exposition inspired the Merchants Club of Chicago to commission Daniel Burnham to create the Plan of Chicago in 1909.

Great buildings

There were fourteen main "great buildings" centered around a giant reflective pool called the Grand Basin. Buildings included:
 * The Administration Building, designed by Richard Morris Hunt
 * The Agricultural Building, designed by Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White
 * The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, designed by George B. Post. If this building were standing today, it would rank third in volume (8,500,000m3) and eighth in footprint (130,000 m2) on list of largest buildings. It exhibited works related to literature, science, art and music.
 * The Mines and Mining Building, designed by Solon Spencer Beman
 * The Electricity Building, designed by Henry Van Brunt and Frank Maynard Howe
 * The Machinery Hall, designed by Robert Swain Peabody of Peabody and Stearns
 * The Woman's Building, designed by Sophia Hayden
 * The Transportation Building, designed by Adler & Sullivan
 * The Fisheries Building designed by Henry Ives Cobb
 * Forestry Building designed by Charles B. Atwood
 * Horticultural Building designed by Jenney and Mundie
 * Anthropology Building designed by Charles B. Atwood

Transportation Building

Louis Sullivan's polychrome proto-Modern Transportation Building was an outstanding exception to the prevailing style, as he tried to develop an organic American form. Years later, in 1922, he wrote that the classical style of the White City had set back modern American architecture by forty years.

As detailed in Erik Larson's popular history The Devil in the White City, extraordinary effort was required to accomplish the exposition, and much of it was unfinished on opening day. The famous Ferris Wheel, which proved to be a major attendance draw and helped save the fair from bankruptcy, was not finished until June, because of waffling by the board of directors the previous year on whether to build it. Frequent debates and disagreements among the developers of the fair added many delays. The spurning of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show proved a serious financial mistake. Buffalo Bill set up his highly popular show next door to the fair and brought in a great deal of revenue that he did not have to share with the developers. Nonetheless, construction and operation of the fair proved to be a windfall for Chicago workers during the serious economic recession that was sweeping the country.

Surviving structures
Almost all of the fair's structures were designed to be temporary; of the more than 200 buildings erected for the fair, the only two which still stand in place are the Palace of Fine Arts and the World's Congress Auxiliary Building. From the time the fair closed until 1920, the Palace of Fine Arts housed the Field Columbian Museum (now the Field Museum of Natural History, since relocated); in 1933 (having been completely rebuilt in permanent materials), the Palace building re-opened as the Museum of Science and Industry. The second building, the World's Congress Building, was one of the few buildings not built in Jackson Park, instead it was built downtown in Grant Park. The cost of construction of the World's Congress Building was shared with the Art Institute of Chicago, which, as planned, moved into the building (the museum's current home) after the close of the fair.

The three other significant buildings that survived the fair represented Norway, the Netherlands, and the State of Maine. The Norway Building was a recreation of a traditional wooden stave church. After the Fair it was relocated to Lake Geneva, and in 1935 was moved to a museum called Little Norway in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. In 2015 it was dismantled and shipped back to Norway, where it was restored and reassembled. The second is the Maine State Building, designed by Charles Sumner Frost, which was purchased by the Ricker family of Poland Spring, Maine. They moved the building to their resort to serve as a library and art gallery. The Poland Spring Preservation Society now owns the building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The third is The Dutch House, which was moved to Brookline, Massachusetts.

The 1893 Viking ship that was sailed to the Exposition from Norway by Captain Magnus Andersen, is located in Geneva, Illinois. The ship is open to visitors on scheduled days April through October.

The main altar at St. John Cantius in Chicago, as well as its matching two side altars, are reputed to be from the Columbian Exposition.

Since many of the other buildings at the fair were intended to be temporary, they were removed after the fair. The White City so impressed visitors (at least before air pollution began to darken the façades) that plans were considered to refinish the exteriors in marble or some other material. These plans were abandoned in July 1894, when much of the fair grounds was destroyed in a fire.

Later criticisms

Frank Lloyd Wright later wrote that "By this overwhelming rise of grandomania I was confirmed in my fear that a native architecture would be set back at least fifty years."

According to University of Notre Dame history professor Gail Bederman, the event symbolized a male-dominated and Eurocentrist society. In her 1995 text Manliness and Civilization, she writes, "The White City, with its vision of future perfection and of the advanced racial power of manly commerce and technology, constructed civilization as an ideal of white male power." According to Bederman, people of color were barred entirely from participating in the organization of the White City and were instead given access only to the Midway exhibit, "which specialized in spectacles of barbarous races – 'authentic' villages of Samoans, Egyptians, Dahomans, Turks, and other exotic peoples, populated by actual imported 'natives.'"

Two small exhibits were included in the White City's "Woman's Building" which addressed women of color. One, entitled "Afro-American" was installed in a distant corner of the building. The other, called "Woman's Work in Savagery," included baskets, weavings, and African, Polynesian, and Native American arts. Though they were produced by living women of color, the materials were represented as relics from the distant past, embodying "the work of white women's own distant evolutionary foremothers."

Visitors

Helen Keller, along with her mentor Anne Sullivan and Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, visited the fair in summer of 1893. Keller described the fair in her autobiography The Story of My Life. Early in July, a Wellesley College English teacher named Katharine Lee Bates visited the fair. The White City later inspired the reference to "alabaster cities" in her poem and lyrics "America the Beautiful". The exposition was extensively reported by Chicago publisher William D. Boyce's reporters and artists. There is a very detailed and vivid description of all facets of this fair by the Persian traveler Mirza Mohammad Ali Mo'in ol-Saltaneh written in Persian. He departed from Persia on April 20, 1892, especially for the purpose of visiting the World's Columbian Exposition.

Pierre de Coubertin visited the fair with his friends Paul Bourget and Samuel Jean de Pozzi. He devotes the first chapter of his book Souvenirs d'Amérique et de Grèce (1897) to the visit. Swami Vivekananda visited the fair to attend the Parliament of the World's Religions and delivered his famous speech Sisters and Brothers of America!. Kubota Beisen was an official delegate of Japan. As an artist, he sketched hundreds of scenes, some of which were later used to make woodblock print books about the Exhibition. Serial killer H. H. Holmes attended the fair with two of his eventual victims, Annie and Minnie Williams.

Souvenirs

Examples of exposition souvenirs can be found in various American museum collections. One example, copyrighted in 1892 by John W. Green, is a folding hand fan with detailed illustrations of landscapes and architecture. Charles W Goldsmith produced a set of ten postcard designs, each in full colour, showing the buildings constructed for the exhibition. Columbian Exposition coins were also minted for the event.

Electricity

The effort to power the Fair with electricity, which became a demonstration piece for Westinghouse Electric and the alternating current system they had been developing for many years, took place at the end of what has been called the War of the currents between DC and AC. Westinghouse initially did not put in a bid to power the Fair but agreed to be the contractor for a local Chicago company that put in a low bid of US$510,000 to supply an alternating current-based system.

Edison General Electric, which at the time was merging with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, put in a US$1.72 million bid to power the Fair and its planned 93,000 incandescent lamps with direct current. After the Fair committee went over both proposals, Edison General Electric re-bid their costs at $554,000 but Westinghouse underbid them by 70 cents per lamp to get the contract. Westinghouse could not use the Edison incandescent lamp since the patent belonged to General Electric and they had successfully sued to stop use of all patent infringing designs. Since Edison specified a sealed globe of glass in his design Westinghouse found a way to sidestep the Edison patent by quickly developing a lamp with a ground-glass stopper in one end, based on a Sawyer-Man "stopper" lamp patent they already had. The lamps worked well but were short-lived, requiring a small army of workmen to constantly replace them.

Westinghouse Electric had severely underbid the contract and struggled to supply all the equipment specified, including twelve 1,000-horsepower single-phase AC generators and all the lighting and other equipment required. They also had to fend off a last-minute lawsuit by General Electric claiming the Westinghouse Sawyer-Man-based stopper lamp infringed on the Edison incandescent lamp patent.

The International Exposition was held in an Electricity Building which was devoted to electrical exhibits. A statue of Benjamin Franklin was displayed at the entrance. The exposition featured interior and exterior light and displays as well as displays of Thomas Edison's kinetoscope, search lights, a seismograph, electric incubators for chicken eggs, and Morse code telegraph.

All the exhibits were from commercial enterprises. Participants included General Electric, Brush, Western Electric, and Westinghouse. The Westinghouse Company displayed several polyphase systems. The exhibits included a switchboard, polyphase generators, step-up transformers, transmission line, step-down transformers, commercial size induction motors and synchronous motors, and rotary direct current converters (including an operational railway motor). The working scaled system allowed the public a view of a system of polyphase power which could be transmitted over long distances, and be utilized, including the supply of direct current. Meters and other auxiliary devices were also present.

Part of the space occupied by the Westinghouse Company was devoted to demonstrations of electrical devices developed by Nikola Tesla including induction motors and the generators used to power the system. The rotating magnetic field that drove these motors was explained through a series of demonstrations including an Egg of Columbus that used the two-phase coil in the induction motors to spin a copper egg making it stand on end.

Tesla himself showed up for a week in August to attend the International Electrical Congress, being held at the fair's Agriculture Hall, and put on a series of demonstrations of his wireless lighting system in a specially set up darkened room at the Westinghouse exhibit. These included demonstrations he had previously performed throughout America and Europe including using a nearby coil to light a wireless gas-discharge lamp held in his hand.

Also at the Fair, the Chicago Athletic Association Football team played one of the first night football games against West Point (the earliest being on September 28, 1892, between Mansfield State Normal and Wyoming Seminary). Chicago won the game 14–0. The game lasted only 40 minutes, compared to the normal 90 minutes.

Musicians

 * John Philip Sousa′s Band played for the Exposition dedication celebration in Chicago, 10 October through 21 October 1892.
 * Joseph Douglass, classical violinist, who achieved wide recognition after his performance there and became the first African-American violinist to conduct a transcontinental tour and the first to tour as a concert violinist.
 * Sissieretta Jones, a soprano known as "the Black Patti" and an already-famous opera singer.
 * A paper on African-American spirituals and shouts by Abigail Christensen was read to attendees.

There were many other black artists at the fair, ranging from minstrel and early ragtime groups to more formal classical ensembles to street buskers.
 * Scott Joplin, pianist, from Texarkana, Texas; became widely known for his piano playing at the fair.

Other music and musicians

 * The first Indonesian music performance in the United States was at the exposition. The gamelan instruments used in the performance were later placed in the Field Museum of Natural History.
 * A group of hula dancers led to increased awareness of Hawaiian music among Americans throughout the country.
 * Stoughton Musical Society, the oldest choral society in the United States, presented the first concerts of early American music at the exposition.
 * The first eisteddfod (a Welsh choral competition with a history spanning many centuries) held outside Wales was held in Chicago at the exposition.
 * A 250-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir competed in the Eisteddfod, taking the second place prize of $1,000. This was the first appearance of the choir outside the Utah Territory.
 * On August 12, 1893, Antonín Dvořák conducted a gala "Bohemian Day" concert at the exposition, besieged by visitors including the conductor of the Chicago Symphony, who arranged for performance of Dvořák's American string quartet, just completed in Spillville, Iowa, during a Dvořák family vacation in a Czech-speaking community there.
 * American composer Amy Beach (1867–1944) was commissioned by the Board of Lady Managers of the fair to compose a choral work (Festival Jubilate, op. 17) for the opening of the Woman's Building.
 * Sousa's Band played concerts in the south bandstand on the Great Plaza, 25 May to 28 June 1893.
 * The University of Illinois Military Band conducted by student leaders Charles Elder and Richard Sharpe played concerts twice daily in the Illinois Building 9 June to 24 June 1893. Soloists were William Sandford, euphonium; Charles Elder, clarinet; William Steele, cornet. The band members slept on cots on the top floor of the building.
 * On June 8, 1893, The Exposition Orchestra, an expanded version of the Chicago Symphony conducted by guest conductor Vojtěch I. Hlaváč, played the American premiere of Modest Mussorgsky's A Night on Bald Mountain as part of a concert of Russian folk music.
 * A pipe organ containing over 3,900 pipes, one of the largest in the world at the time, was built by the Farrand & Votey Organ Company to the specifications of Chicago organist Clarence Eddy. It was one of the first great organs to rely on electrical connections from its keys to its pipes.
 * Musicologist Anna Morsch and composer Charlotte Sporleder presented a program of German music.
 * Composer and pianist Anita Socola Specht won the title "best amateur pianist in the United States," although some of the judges told her, "You are not an amateur, you are an artist!"

Painters

 * Adam Emory Albright
 * Henry Alexander
 * Maitland Armstrong
 * William Jacob Baer
 * William Bliss Baker
 * Cecilia Beaux
 * James Carroll Beckwith
 * Enella Benedict
 * Frank Weston Benson
 * Daniel Folger Bigelow
 * Ralph Albert Blakelock
 * Edwin Howland Blashfield
 * Mary Cassatt
 * Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson
 * Thomas Eakins
 * Charles Morgan McIlhenney
 * Gari Melchers
 * Anna Lea Merritt
 * John Harrison Mills
 * Robert Crannell Minor
 * Louis Moeller
 * Harry Humphrey Moore
 * Edward Moran
 * John Singer Sargent

Sculptors

 * Sarah Fisher Ames, sculptor
 * John J. Boyle sculptor
 * Cyrus Edwin Dallin, sculptor – Signal of Peace
 * Charles Grafly – Bust of Daedalus
 * Mary Lawrence, sculptor
 * Edward Kemeys
 * Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson (as Theo Alice Ruggles)
 * Aloys Loeher
 * Carol Brooks MacNeil (as Caroline Brooks)
 * Helen Farnsworth Mears
 * Samuel Murray – Bust of Walt Whitman
 * William Rudolf O'Donovan – Bust of Thomas Eakins
 * Bessie Potter
 * Peter Moran
 * George D. Peterson
 * Preston Powers
 * Katherine Prescott
 * A. Phimister Proctor
 * John Rogers
 * Carl Rohl-Smith
 * Lorado Taft
 * Douglas Tilden
 * Luella Varney

Japanese art
Japan's artistic contribution was mainly in porcelain, cloisonné enamel, metalwork and embroidery. While 55 paintings and 24 sculptures came from Japan, 271 of the 290 exhibits in the Palace of Fine Arts were Japanese. Artists represented included Miyagawa Kozan, Yabu Meizan, Namikawa Sōsuke, and Suzuki Chokichi.

Women artists exhibiting

The women artists at the Woman's Building included Anna Lownes, Viennese painter Rosa Schweninger, and many others. American composer Amy Cheney Beach was commissioned by the Board of Lady Managers of the fair to compose a choral work (Festival Jubilate, op. 17) for the opening of the Woman's Building. The Mrs Potts sad-iron system was on display. Ami Mali Hicks' stencil design was selected to adorn the frieze in the assembly room of the Women's Building. Musicologist Anna Morsch and composer Charlotte Sporleder presented a program of German music.

The Woman's Building included a Woman's Building Library Exhibit, which had 7,000 books — all by women. The Woman's Building Library was meant to show the cumulative contribution of the world's women to literature.

"Greatest Refrigerator on Earth" fire tragedy
A large Romanesque structure called "Greatest Refrigerator on Earth" stored thousands of pounds of the Exposition's food and held an ice-skating rink for patrons. The large structure demonstrated artificial freezing, a recent development, and was planned by architect Franklin P. Burnham. The structure's floor space was 130 by 255 feet and its height reached almost 200 feet. On the evening of July 10, 1893, the "Greatest Refrigerator on Earth" caught fire. Two firemen entered, one sliding down a rope and another on a line of hose, and both were trapped in the burning refrigerator. A total of fifteen people died, twelve firefighters and three civilians, in front of a crowd of more than a thousand fairgoers. The only artifact that survived the fire was a twelve-foot copper statue of Christopher Columbus, which was kept as a monument to the men who lost their lives and is kept by the fire museum of Chicago.

Concepts

 * Frederick Jackson Turner lectured on his Frontier thesis.
 * The Pledge of Allegiance was first performed at the exposition by a mass of school children lined up in military fashion.
 * Contribution to Chicago's nickname, the "Windy City". Some argue that Charles Anderson Dana of the New York Sun coined the term related to the hype of the city's promoters. Other evidence, however, suggests the term was used as early as 1881 in relation to either Chicago's "windbag" politicians or to its weather.

Commemorations

 * United States Mint offered its first commemorative coins: the Columbian Exposition quarter dollar and Columbian Exposition half dollar
 * The United States Post Office Department produced its first picture postcards and Columbian Issue commemorative stamps.

Edibles and potables

 * Cream of Wheat
 * The brownie was invented by Bertha Palmer for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
 * Milton Hershey bought a European exhibitor's chocolate manufacturing equipment and added chocolate products to his caramel manufacturing business.
 * Juicy Fruit gum
 * Quaker Oats
 * Shredded Wheat
 * Pabst Blue Ribbon
 * Peanut butter
 * Aunt Jemima pancake mix was widely popularized by spokesperson Nancy Green's pancake cooking and story telling performances.
 * Cracker Jack's new recipe was introduced at the Exposition
 * Vienna Sausage started selling its frankfurters and sausages near one of the entrances to the Midway Plaisance, just outside the Old Vienna Village. The company later became known as Vienna Beef, famously recognized as "Chicago's Hot Dog".

Inventions and manufacturing advances

 * A device that made plates for printing books in Braille, unveiled by Frank Haven Hall, who met Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan at the exhibit.
 * Moving walkway, or travelator
 * The third rail giving electric power to elevated trains led directly to its first continuing US use.
 * The "clasp locker", a clumsy slide fastener and forerunner to the zipper was demonstrated by Whitcomb L. Judson
 * Elongated coins (the squashed penny)
 * Ferris Wheel
 * First fully electrical kitchen including an automatic dishwasher
 * Phosphorescent lamps (a precursor to fluorescent lamps)
 * John T. Shayne & Company, the local Chicago furrier helped America gain respect on the world stage of manufacturing
 * Clark cell as a standard for measuring voltage
 * A first prototype of a pressurized aerosol spray, by Francis Davis Millet.
 * The first practical electric automobile, invented by William Morrison.

Organizations

 * Congress of Mathematicians, precursor to International Congress of Mathematicians
 * Interfaith dialogue (the Parliament of the World's Religions)
 * First recorded public mention of the Baháʼí Faith in North America

Performances

 * The poet and humorist Benjamin Franklin King, Jr. first performed at the exposition.
 * Bodybuilder Eugen Sandow demonstrated feats of strength, promoted by Florenz Ziegfeld.
 * Magician Harry Houdini and his brother Theodore performed their magic act at the Midway.

Later years

The exposition was one influence leading to the rise of the City Beautiful movement. Results included grand buildings and fountains built around Olmstedian parks, shallow pools of water on axis to central buildings, larger park systems, broad boulevards and parkways and, after the start of the 20th century, zoning laws and planned suburbs. Examples of the City Beautiful movement's works include the City of Chicago, the Columbia University campus, and the National Mall in Washington D.C.

After the fair closed, J.C. Rogers, a banker from Wamego, Kansas, purchased several pieces of art that had hung in the rotunda of the U.S. Government Building. He also purchased architectural elements, artifacts and buildings from the fair. He shipped his purchases to Wamego. Many of the items, including the artwork, were used to decorate his theater, now known as the Columbian Theatre.

Memorabilia saved by visitors can still be purchased. Numerous books, tokens, published photographs, and well-printed admission tickets can be found. While the higher value commemorative stamps are expensive, the lower ones are quite common. So too are the commemorative half dollars, many of which went into circulation.

Although not available for purchase, The George Washington University maintains a small collection of exposition tickets for viewing and research purposes. The collection is currently cared for by GWU's Special Collections Research Center, located in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library.

When the exposition ended the Ferris Wheel was moved to Chicago's north side, next to an exclusive neighborhood. An unsuccessful Circuit Court action was filed against the owners of the wheel to have it moved. The wheel stayed there until it was moved to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair.

The Columbian Exposition has celebrated many anniversaries since the fair in 1893. The Chicago Historical Society held an exhibition to commemorate the fair. The Grand Illusions exhibition was centered around the idea that the Columbian Exposition was made up of a series of illusions. The commemorative exhibition contained partial reconstructions, a video detailing the fair, and a catalogue similar to the one sold at the World's Fair of 1893.

Academic views
Henry Adams wrote in his 1907 Education: “The Exposition denied philosophy ... [S]ince Noah’s Ark, no such Babel of loose and ill-jointed, such vague and ill-defined and unrelated thoughts and half-thoughts and experimental out-cries... had ruffled the surface of the Lakes.”

Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that the academic aspect of the event was not very important, even though the Harvard Peabody Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and Franz Boas made contributions.

In popular culture

 * The Exposition is portrayed in the 2017 historical film, The Current War, concerning the competition between George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison to establish the dominant form of electricity in the United States.
 * 1893: A World's Fair Mystery, an interactive fiction by Peter Nepstad that recreates the Exposition in detail.
 * Against the Day, a fictional novel that takes place during the Exposition during the first act.
 * The Devil in the White City, a non-fiction book intertwining the true tales of the architect behind the Exposition and serial killer H. H. Holmes.
 * Timebound, a time travel novel by Rysa Walker, culminates at the Exposition.
 * Expo: Magic of the White City, a 2005 documentary film about the Exposition by Mark Bussler.
 * The Exposition served as the setting for Against Odds, a novel by Emma Murdock Van Deventer.
 * Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, a graphic novel set in part at the Exposition
 * Wonder of the Worlds, an adventure novel where Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain, and Houdini pursue Martian agents who have stolen a powerful crystal from Tesla at the Exposition.
 * The Will of an Eccentric, an adventure novel by Jules Verne. The Exposition is evoked with admiration in the early chapters.
 * The Exposition appears in the season 1 episode "The World's Columbian Exposition" of the NBC series Timeless.
 * The Exposition is referenced in Sufjan Stevens's song in his album Illinois, "Come On! Feel The Illinoise!", which consists of two parts. Part 1 is titled, "World's Columbian Exposition".
 * The Exposition plays a role in the historical novel, Owen Glen, by Ben Ames Williams.
 * Mystery Train Island, a video game level on Poptropica released in 2011, is based on and is partially set at the Exposition, referred to as the 1893 Chicago World's Fair in the game.
 * BioShock Infinite, a 2013 video game. The floating city-state of Columbia was created at the Exposition and toured across the world to promote American exceptionalism.
 * The exposition is a key setting of the novel The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros.
 * The exposition appears in the travel book by Aleko Konstantinov, To Chicago and Back.
 * The young adult novel Fair Weather by Illinois native author Richard Peck takes thirteen-year-old Rosie Beckett and her family from their downstate family farm to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.
 * The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me, a 2022 video game which was inspired by H. H. Holmes murder castle.
 * The Exposition appears in "1893", the third episode of the second season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series Loki (2023). In the episode, Loki and Mobius M. Mobius attend the Exposition in search of Ravonna Renslayer and Miss Minutes, and encounter Victor Timely, a variant of Kang the Conqueror, whose help they need to save the multiverse.
 * The Exposition also appears in the post-credits scene of the MCU film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), which uses footage from Loki despite being released before it.

title: World's Columbian Exposition


text:
Data processing

Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information. Data processing is a form of information processing, which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer.

Functions
Data processing may involve various processes, including:

 * Validation – Ensuring that supplied data is correct and relevant.
 * Sorting – "arranging items in some sequence and/or in different sets."
 * Summarization (statistical) or (automatic) – reducing detailed data to its main points.
 * Aggregation – combining multiple pieces of data.
 * Analysis – the "collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data."
 * Reporting – list detail or summary data or computed information.
 * Classification – separation of data into various categories.

History
The United States Census Bureau history illustrates the evolution of data processing from manual through electronic procedures.

Manual data processing
Although widespread use of the term data processing dates only from the 1950s, data processing functions have been performed manually for millennia. For example, bookkeeping involves functions such as posting transactions and producing reports like the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. Completely manual methods were augmented by the application of mechanical or electronic calculators. A person whose job was to perform calculations manually or using a calculator was called a "computer."

The 1890 United States Census schedule was the first to gather data by individual rather than household. A number of questions could be answered by making a check in the appropriate box on the form. From 1850 to 1880 the Census Bureau employed "a system of tallying, which, by reason of the increasing number of combinations of classifications required, became increasingly complex. Only a limited number of combinations could be recorded in one tally, so it was necessary to handle the schedules 5 or 6 times, for as many independent tallies." "It took over 7 years to publish the results of the 1880 census" using manual processing methods.

Automatic data processing
The term automatic data processing was applied to operations performed by means of unit record equipment, such as Herman Hollerith's application of punched card equipment for the 1890 United States Census. "Using Hollerith's punchcard equipment, the Census Office was able to complete tabulating most of the 1890 census data in 2 to 3 years, compared with 7 to 8 years for the 1880 census. It is estimated that using Hollerith's system saved some $5 million in processing costs" in 1890 dollars even though there were twice as many questions as in 1880.

Computerized data processing
Computerized data processing, or electronic data processing represents a later development, with a computer used instead of several independent pieces of equipment. The Census Bureau first made limited use of electronic computers for the 1950 United States Census, using a UNIVAC I system, delivered in 1952.

Other developments
The term data processing has mostly been subsumed by the more general term information technology (IT). The older term "data processing" is suggestive of older technologies. For example, in 1996 the Data Processing Management Association (DPMA) changed its name to the Association of Information Technology Professionals. Nevertheless, the terms are approximately synonymous.

Commercial data processing
Commercial data processing involves a large volume of input data, relatively few computational operations, and a large volume of output. For example, an insurance company needs to keep records on tens or hundreds of thousands of policies, print and mail bills, and receive and post payments.

Data analysis
In science and engineering, the terms data processing and information systems are considered too broad, and the term data processing is typically used for the initial stage followed by a data analysis in the second stage of the overall data handling.

Data analysis uses specialized algorithms and statistical calculations that are less often observed in a typical general business environment. For data analysis, software suites like SPSS or SAS, or their free counterparts such as DAP, gretl, or PSPP are often used. These tools are usually helpful for processing various huge data sets, as they are able to handle enormous amount of statistical analysis.

Systems
A data processing system is a combination of machines, people, and processes that for a set of inputs produces a defined set of outputs. The inputs and outputs are interpreted as data, facts, information etc. depending on the interpreter's relation to the system.

A term commonly used synonymously with data or storage (codes) processing system is information system. With regard particularly to electronic data processing, the corresponding concept is referred to as electronic data processing system.

Simple example
A very simple example of a data processing system is the process of maintaining a check register. Transactions— checks and deposits— are recorded as they occur and the transactions are summarized to determine a current balance. Monthly the data recorded in the register is reconciled with a hopefully identical list of transactions processed by the bank.

A more sophisticated record keeping system might further identify the transactions— for example deposits by source or checks by type, such as charitable contributions. This information might be used to obtain information like the total of all contributions for the year.

The important thing about this example is that it is a system, in which, all transactions are recorded consistently, and the same method of bank reconciliation is used each time.

Real-world example
This is a flowchart of a data processing system combining manual and computerized processing to handle accounts receivable, billing, and general ledger

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Data processing


text:
Chicago River

The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 mi that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chicago Portage is a link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico.

The river is also noteworthy for its natural and human-engineered history. In 1887, the Illinois General Assembly decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River through civil engineering by taking water from Lake Michigan and discharging it into the Mississippi River watershed, partly in response to concerns created by an extreme weather event in 1885 that threatened the city's water supply. In 1889, the Illinois General Assembly created the Chicago Sanitary District (now the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District) to replace the Illinois and Michigan Canal with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a much larger waterway, because the former had become inadequate to serve the city's increasing sewage and commercial navigation needs. Completed by 1900, the project reversed the flow of the main stem and South Branch of the Chicago River by using a series of canal locks and increasing the flow from Lake Michigan into the river, causing the river to empty into the new canal instead. In 1999, the system was named a "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

The river is represented on the Municipal Flag of Chicago by two horizontal blue stripes. Its three branches serve as the inspiration for the Municipal Device, a three-branched, Y-shaped symbol that is found on many buildings and other structures throughout Chicago.

Course
When it followed its natural course, the North and South Branches of the Chicago River converged at Wolf Point to form the main stem, which jogged southward from the present course of the river to avoid a baymouth bar, entering Lake Michigan at about the level of present-day Madison Street. Today, the main stem of the Chicago River flows west from Lake Michigan to Wolf Point, where it converges with the North Branch to form the South Branch, which flows southwest and empties into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

North Branch
Early settlers named the North Branch of the Chicago River the Guarie River, or Gary's River, after a trader who may have settled the west bank of the river a short distance north of Wolf Point, at what is now Fulton Street. The source of the North Branch is in the northern suburbs of Chicago where its three principal tributaries converge. The Skokie River—or East Fork—rises from a flat area, historically a wetland, near Park City, Illinois to the west of the city of Waukegan. It then flows southward, paralleling the edge of Lake Michigan, through wetlands, the Greenbelt Forest Preserve and a number of golf courses towards Highland Park, Illinois. South of Highland Park the river passes the Chicago Botanic Gardens and through an area of former marshlands known as the Skokie Lagoons. The Middle Fork arises near Rondout, Illinois and flows southwards through Lake Forest and Highland Park. These two tributaries merge at Watersmeet Woods west of Wilmette. From there the North Branch flows south towards Morton Grove. The West Fork rises near Mettawa and flows south through Lincolnshire, Bannockburn, Deerfield, and Northbrook, meeting the North Branch at Morton Grove. In recognition of the work of Ralph Frese in promoting canoeing on and conservation of Chicago-area rivers, the forest preserve district of Cook County, Illinois has designated a section of the East Fork and North Branch from Willow Road in Northfield to Dempster Street in Morton Grove the Ralph Frese River Trail.

The North Branch continues southwards through Niles, entering the city of Chicago near the intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Devon Avenue, from where it serves as the boundary of the Forest Glen community area with Norwood Park and Jefferson Park. This stretch of the river meanders in a south-easterly direction, passing through golf courses and forest preserves until it reaches Foster Avenue, where it passes through residential neighborhoods on the north side of the Albany Park community area. In River Park the river meets the North Shore Channel, a drainage canal built between 1907 and 1910 to increase the flow of the North Branch and help flush pollution into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. From the confluence with the North Shore Channel south to Belmont Avenue the North Branch flows through mostly residential neighborhoods in a man-made channel that was dug to straighten and deepen the river, helping it to carry the additional flow from the North Shore Channel. South of Belmont the North Branch is lined with a mixture of residential developments, retail parks, and industry until it reaches the industrial area known as the Clybourn Corridor. Here it passes beneath the Cortland Street Drawbridge, which was the first 'Chicago-style' fixed-trunnion bascule bridge built in the United States, and is designated as an ASCE Civil Engineering Landmark and a Chicago Landmark.

At North Avenue, south of the North Avenue Bridge, the North Branch divides, the original course of the river makes a curve along the west side of Goose Island, whilst the North Branch Canal cuts off the bend, forming the island. The North Branch Canal—or Ogden's Canal—was completed in 1857, and was originally 50 ft wide and 10 ft deep allowing craft navigating the river to avoid the bend. The 1902 Cherry Avenue Bridge, just south of North Avenue, was constructed to carry the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway onto Goose Island. It is a rare example of an asymmetric bob-tail swing bridge and was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2007. From Goose Island the North Branch continues to flow south east to Wolf Point where it joins the main stem.

Main stem

The source of the main stem of the Chicago River is Lake Michigan. Water enters the river through sluice gates at the Chicago River Controlling Works with a small additional flow provided for the passage of boats between the river and Lake Michigan through the Chicago Harbor Lock. The surface level of the river is maintained at 0.5 to 2 ft below the Chicago City Datum (579.48 ft above mean sea level) except for when there is excessive storm run-off into the river or when the level of the lake is more than 2 feet below the Chicago City Datum. Acoustic velocity meters at the Columbus Drive Bridge and the T. J. O'Brien lock on the Calumet River monitor the diversion of water from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River basin, which is limited to an average of 3200 cuft per second per year over the 40-year period from 1980 to 2020.

The main stem flows 1.5 mi west from the controlling works at Lake Michigan; passing beneath the Outer Drive, Columbus Drive, Michigan Avenue, Wabash Avenue, State Street, Dearborn Street, Clark Street, La Salle Street, Wells Street, and Franklin Street bridges en route to its confluence with the North Branch at Wolf Point. At McClurg Court it passes the Nicholas J Melas Centennial Fountain, which was built in 1989 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago; between May and October the fountain sends an arc of water over the river for ten minutes every hour. On the north bank of the river, near the Chicago Landmark Michigan Avenue Bridge, is Pioneer Court, which marks the site of the homestead of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable who is recognized as the founder of Chicago. On the south bank of the river is the site of Fort Dearborn, an army fort, first established in 1803. Notable buildings surrounding this area include the NBC Tower, the Tribune Tower, and the Wrigley Building. The river turns slightly to the south west between Michigan Avenue and State Street, passing the Trump International Hotel and Tower, 35 East Wacker, and 330 North Wabash. Turning west again the river passes Marina City, the Reid, Murdoch & Co. Building, and Merchandise Mart, and 333 Wacker Drive.

Since the early 2000s, the south shore of the main stem has been developed as the Chicago Riverwalk. It provides a linear, lushly landscaped park intended to offer a peaceful escape from the busy Loop and a tourist attraction. Different sections are named Market, Civic, Arcade, and Confluence. The plans reflect ideas first proposed by the Burnham Plan as early as 1909.

South Branch
Before reversal, the South Branch generally arose with joining forks in the marshy area called Mud Lake to flow to where it met the North Branch at Wolf Point forming the main branch. Since reversal, the source of the South Branch of the Chicago River is the confluence of the North Branch and main stem at Wolf Point. From here the river flows south passing the Lake Street, Randolph Street, Washington Street, Madison Street, Monroe Street, Adams Street, Jackson Boulevard, Van Buren Street, Ida B. Wells Drive, and Harrison Street bridges before leaving the downtown Loop community area. Notable buildings that line this stretch of the river include the Boeing Company World Headquarters, the Civic Opera House, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Union Station and Willis Tower. The river continues southwards past railroad yards and the St. Charles Air Line Bridge. Between Polk and 18th Streets the river originally made a meander to the east; between 1927 and 1929 the river was straightened and moved 1/4 mi west at this point to make room for a railroad terminal. The river turns to the southwest at Ping Tom Memorial Park where it passes under the Chicago Landmark Canal Street railroad bridge. The river turns westward where it is crossed by the Dan Ryan Expressway; these immovable bridges have a clearance of 60 ft requiring large ships that pass underneath to have folding masts.

At Ashland Avenue the river widens to form the U.S. Turning Basin, the west bank of which was the starting point of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Prior to 1983, this was where the US Coast Guard Rules of the Road, Great Lakes ended & Rules of the Road, Western Rivers began. Since 1983, there is just a single Inland Navigational Rules passed by Congressional Act in 1980 (Public Law 96-591). At the basin the river is joined by a tributary, the South Fork of the river, which is commonly given the nickname Bubbly Creek. A bridge used to span the South Fork at this point that was too low for boats to pass meaning that their cargo needed to be unloaded at the bridge, and the neighborhood at its east end became known as Bridgeport. The river continues to the south west, entering the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal at Damen Avenue. The original West Fork of the South Branch, which before 1935 led towards Mud Lake and the Chicago Portage, has been filled in; a triangular intrusion into the north bank at Damen Avenue marks the place where it diverged from the course of the canal. From there, the water flows down the canal through the southwest side of Chicago and southwestern suburbs and, in time, into the Des Plaines River between Crest Hill on the west and Lockport on the east, just north of the border between Crest Hill and Joliet, Illinois, eventually reaching the Gulf of Mexico.

Discharge
The United States Geological Survey monitors water flow at a number of sites in the Chicago River system. Discharge from the North Branch is measured at Grand Avenue; between 2004 and 2010 this averaged 582 cuft per second. During the winter months as much as 75% of the flow in the North Branch is due to the discharge of treated sewage from the North Side Water Reclamation Plant into the North Shore Channel. Flow on the main stem is measured at Columbus Drive; between 2000 and 2006 this averaged 136 cuft per second.

Name
The name Chicago derives from the 17th century French rendering of shikaakwa or chicagou, the Native American name for ramps (Allium tricoccum), a type of edible wild leek, which grew abundantly near the river. The river, and its region, were named after the plant.

Exploration and settlement
Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, though probably not the first Europeans to visit the area, are the first recorded to have visited the Chicago River in 1673, when they wrote of their discovery of the geographically vital Chicago Portage. Marquette returned in 1674, camped a few days near the mouth of the river, then moved on to the Chicago River–Des Plaines River portage, where he stayed through the winter of 1674–75. The Fox Wars effectively closed the Chicago area to Europeans in the first part of the 18th century. The first non-native to re-settle in the area may have been a trader named Guillory, who might have had a trading post near Wolf Point on the Chicago River in around 1778. In 1823 a government expedition used the name Gary River (phonetic spelling of Guillory) to refer to the north branch of the Chicago River.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is widely regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago; he built a farm on the northern bank at the mouth of the river in the 1780s. The earliest known record of Pointe du Sable living in Chicago is the diary of Hugh Heward, who made a journey through Illinois in the spring of 1790. Antoine Ouilmette claimed to have arrived in Chicago shortly after this in July 1790.

In 1795, in a then minor part of the Treaty of Greenville, an Indian confederation granted treaty rights to the United States, to a parcel of land at the mouth of the "Chicago River". This was followed by the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis and Treaty of Chicago, which ceded additional land in the Chicago area. In 1803, Fort Dearborn was constructed on the bank opposite what had been Point du Sable's settlement, on the site of the present-day Michigan Avenue Bridge. Lieutenant James Strode Swearingen, who led the troops from Detroit to Chicago to establish the fort, described the river as being about 30 yd wide and upwards of 18 ft deep at the place where the fort was intended to be built; the riverbanks were 8 ft high on the south side and 6 ft on the north.

Early modifications

Between 1816 and 1828 soldiers from Fort Dearborn cut channels through the sandbar at the mouth of the river to allow yawls to bring supplies to the fort. These channels rapidly clogged with sand requiring a new one to be cut. On March 2, 1833, $25,000 was appropriated by Congress for harbor works, and work began in June of that year under the supervision of Major George Bender, the commandant at Fort Dearborn. In January 1834 James Allen took over the supervision of this work and, aided by a February storm that breached the sandbar, on July 12, 1834, the harbor works had progressed enough to allow a 100 ST schooner, the Illinois to sail up the river to Wolf Point and dock at the wharf of Newberry & Dole. The initial entrance through the sandbar was 200 ft wide and 3 to 7 ft deep, flanked by piers 200 ft long on the south wall and 700 ft long to the north. Allen's work continued, and by October 1837 the still unfinished piers had been extended to 1850 and 1200 ft respectively.

In 1848, the Illinois and Michigan canal linked the river to the Illinois River and the Mississippi Valley across the Chicago Portage. This canal was the farthest west, and the last, of a series of United States' government land grant canals. It provided the only water route from New York City to New Orleans through the country's interior and Chicago.

Reversing the flow

During the last ice age, the area that became Chicago was covered by Lake Chicago, which drained south into the Mississippi Valley. As the ice and water retreated, a short 12 to 14 ft ridge was exposed about a mile inland, which generally separated the Great Lakes' watershed from the Mississippi Valley, except in times of heavy precipitation or when winter ice flows prevented drainage. By the time Europeans arrived, the Chicago River flowed sluggishly into Lake Michigan from Chicago's flat plain. As Chicago grew, this allowed sewage and other pollution into the clean-water source for the city, contributing to several public health problems, like typhoid fever. Starting in 1848, much of the Chicago River's flow was also diverted across the Chicago Portage into the Illinois and Michigan Canal. In 1871, the old canal was deepened in an attempt to completely reverse the river's flow but the reversal of the river only lasted one season.

Finally, in 1900, the Sanitary District of Chicago, then headed by William Boldenweck, completely reversed the flow of the main stem and South Branch of the river using a series of canal locks, increasing the river's flow from Lake Michigan and causing it to empty into the newly completed Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. In 1999, this system was named a "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Before this time, the Chicago River was known by many local residents of Chicago as "the stinking river" because of the massive amounts of sewage and pollution that poured into the river from Chicago's booming industrial economy.

Through the 1980s, the river was quite dirty and often filled with garbage; however, during the 1990s, it underwent extensive cleaning as part of an effort at beautification by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

In 2005, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign created a three-dimensional, hydrodynamic simulation of the Chicago River, which suggested that density currents are the cause of an observed bi-directional wintertime flow in the river. At the surface, the river flows east to west, away from Lake Michigan, as expected. But deep below, near the riverbed, water seasonally travels west to east, toward the lake.

All outflows from the Great Lakes Basin are regulated by the joint U.S.-Canadian Great Lakes Commission, and the outflow through the Chicago River is set under a U.S. Supreme Court decision (1967, modified 1980 and 1997). The city of Chicago is allowed to remove 3200 cuft/s of water from the Great Lakes system; about half of this, 1 e9USgal/day, is sent down the Chicago River, while the rest is used for drinking water. In late 2005, the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes proposed re-separating the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins to address such ecological concerns as the spread of invasive species.

Eastland disaster

In 1915, the SS Eastland, an excursion boat docked at the Clark Street bridge, rolled over, killing 844 passengers. Many of the passengers were trapped by moving objects such as pianos and tables. The site is now the location of a memorial dedicated in 1989. The marker was stolen in 2000 and replaced in 2003. There are plans to build an outdoor exhibit at the site as well.

Chicago flood of 1992
On April 13, 1992, a flood occurred when a pile driven into the riverbed caused stress fractures in the wall of a long-abandoned tunnel of the Chicago Tunnel Company near the Kinzie Street railroad bridge. Most of the 60 mi network of underground freight railway, which encompasses much of downtown, was eventually flooded, along with the lower levels of buildings it once serviced and attached underground shops and pedestrian ways.

Bridges

The first bridge across the Chicago River was constructed over the North Branch near the present day Kinzie Street in 1832. A second bridge, over the South Branch near Randolph Street, was added in 1833. The first moveable bridge was constructed across the main stem at Dearborn Street in 1834. Today, the Chicago River has 38 movable bridges spanning it, down from a peak of 52 bridges. These bridges are of several different types, including trunnion bascule, Scherzer rolling lift, swing bridges, and vertical-lift bridges.

Pollution
The Chicago River has been highly affected by industrial and residential development with attendant changes to the quality of the water and riverbanks. Several species of freshwater fish are known to inhabit the river, including largemouth and smallmouth bass, rock bass, crappie, bluegill, catfish, and carp. The river also has a large population of crayfish. The South Fork of the Main (South) Branch, which was the primary sewer for the Union Stock Yards and the meat packing industry, was once so polluted that it became known as Bubbly Creek. Illinois has issued advisories regarding eating fish from the river due to PCB and mercury contamination, including a "do not eat" advisory for carp more than 12 inches long. There are concerns that silver carp and bighead carp, now invasive species in the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, may reach the Great Lakes through the Chicago River. A program on the north channel next to Goose Island seeks to increase wildlife habitat through the use of floating plant islands. The program is managed by the non-profit conservation group Urban Rivers with assistance from the Shedd Aquarium.

Recreation
Despite the pollution concerns, the Chicago River remains a very popular target for freshwater recreational fishing. In 2006, the Chicago Park District started the annual "Mayor Daley's Chicago River Fishing Festival", which has increased in popularity with each year. Between 2013 and 2016, the Chicago Park District opened four boat houses, two on the south branch and two on the north, for river recreation.

St. Patrick's Day
As part of a more than fifty-year-old Chicago tradition, the Chicago River is dyed green in observance of St. Patrick's Day. The actual event occurs on the Saturday on or before March 17.

The tradition of dyeing the river green arose by accident in 1961 when plumbers used fluorescein dye to trace sources of illegal pollution discharges. The dyeing of the river is still sponsored by the local plumbers union. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disallowed the use of fluorescein for this purpose, since it was shown to be harmful to the river. The parade committee switched to a mix involving forty pounds of powdered vegetable dye. Though the committee closely guards the exact formula, they insist that it has been tested and verified safe for the environment.

The environmental organization Friends of the Chicago River disapproves of dyeing the river, saying the practice "gives the impression that it is lifeless and artificial", adding "Friends doesn't think that the river should be treated as a decoration for an annual holiday, but treasured and cared for as the wonderful natural and recreational resource it deserves to be".

In 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama, a Chicago native, inspired by the river tradition, requested that the water in the White House fountains be dyed green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Chicago Cubs rally
For the Chicago Cubs rally and parade for their 2016 World Series Championship celebrations, the river was dyed Cubs blue. Friends of the Chicago River executive director Margaret Frisbie told the Chicago Sun-Times, "We do not want to set a precedent where, every time we want to celebrate, we dye the river a different color and potentially hurt the aquatic life that lives in it. While it may seem festive, it's actually potentially harming a natural resource."

McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum
The southwest bridgehouse of the DuSable Bridge (Michigan Avenue) serves as a museum on the river, its history, its challenges, and its renaissance. The McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum is a 5-floor, 1,613-square-foot (149.9 m2) museum that opened on June 10, 2006; it is named for Robert R. McCormick, formerly owner of the Chicago Tribune and president of the Chicago Sanitary District. The Robert R. McCormick Foundation was the major donor that helped meet the $950,000 cost to open the museum. It is run by the Friends of the Chicago River, a non-profit environmental organization. Visitors are also allowed to access the bridge's gear room; during the spring and fall bridge lifting visitors can see the bridge gears in operation as the leaves are raised and lowered. Due to its small size and tight access stairway only 79 people are allowed inside the museum at any one time. In October 2019, Chicago Tribune cultural arts writer Steve Johnson profiled the museum, calling its gear room where the DuSable Bridge mechanics can be viewed "a little chamber of heaven for infrastructure nerds".

Monitoring the impact of extreme weather events on the Chicago District
The US Army Corps of Engineers have monitored the development of harbors and channels for navigation on the Great Lakes since the early 1800s. They began monitoring hydrological conditions and lake levels in 1918. A December 26, 2012 report revealed that Chicago District navigation infrastructure did receive significant impacts from Hurricane Sandy with some areas experiencing severe shoaling. Chicago Shoreline Project mitigated the damage of the storm event.

The same report noted that the low Great Lakes levels were drought-induced, caused by a very hot, dry summer and a lack of a solid snowpack in the winter of 2012. At the time of the report, December 2012, Lake Michigan-Huron was 28 inches below its long-term average which is near the record lows of 1964. Historic lake levels for Lake Michigan reported from 1918 to 1998 show that the low levels observed in 1964 were the lowest since 1918. In 2012 Lake Michigan-Huron's seasonal rise was about 4 inches where it usually is about 12 inches. Normally the Chicago River water level is two feet lower than the lake and therefore does not flow into the lake. If the lake level falls too low threatening to reverse the river flow, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago would be forced to close locks between the lake and river for longer periods of time, limiting navigation. A reversal flow of the Chicago River into Lake Michigan would have a negative impact on navigation and on the quality of Lake Michigan water, which is the source of drinking water. Chicago's raw sewage in the river is normally carried upstream toward the Mississippi River which flows south towards the Gulf of Mexico. On January 9, 2013, Chicago meteorologists announced 320 days without at least one inch of snowfall. Water levels in the lake started to level off with the river and sewage was visible at the cusp of the locks, just a few hundred feet from Lake Michigan. David St. Pierre, executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago warned the low lake levels were nearing a point of real concern. However, the District maintains that it is not possible for the river to reverse due to low lake level alone.

Measurements taken by the US Army Corps in January 2013 revealed that both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron had reached their "lowest ebb since record keeping began in 1918, and the lakes could set additional records over the next few months, the corps said. The lakes were 74 centimetres (29 inches) below their long-term average and had declined 43 centimetres (17 inches) since January 2012".

title: Chicago River