Sarah Visits The White City: Chicago World's Fair 1893

In the loose pages I discovered Sarah's description of her trip to the World's Fair, the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Sarah had just turned 10 years old and was as full of adventure and curiosity as ever.

Typical of Sarah, her mind wanders from her topic to the subject of books, so we learn more about her reading material than about the fair. Still, it's fun to know that she went there. I'm sure she wrote more about the Howe family's visit to "The White City," but this is all I've found so far. As you read, you can "visit" the buildings and exhibits Sarah saw in an online virtual tour of the Chicago World's Fair.

As before, ellipses indicate lost or omitted words (these pages are badly torn), and brackets enclose my own comments or clarifications.

*********************

Now the last day of school, in the 3rd grade, drew near, and I was certainly glad of it! We had passed all the exams and had also gotten display papers ready to be sent to the Kentucky display of the Educational Exhibit at the World’s Fair (in the Liberal Arts building, I think). I had one in Geography and in Grammar — diagramming sentences — also one in arithmetic! We also had papers in Kentucky history, tho I believe the book was not studied that year but in the 4th grade; we were just given questions to answer about Boone, Harrod, the date of settlement, names, date of statehood, products of Kentucky, first governor and so forth.

Now I come to the crowning event, the unforgettable one of 1893 for us, our two weeks at the World’s Fair in September. I know it must have been, because the fair was nearing its close and the nights on the lake were getting quite cool. (I remember us sitting in “the Peristyle” restaurant and of my wanting to order “chilled watermelon” because I saw it on the menu! And how Mama shuddered at the thought, with those cold breezes blowing, through I think we probably went up there about the last of August. Papa¹ was already there — he had to go ahead, as he had to combine a business trip for buying millinery, I imagine (he always did that for the store).  

Bird's-eye view of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 | Library of Congress

Grandpa Cost,² being rather influential in the city and "in charge” as a commission merchant and broker at the Chamber of Commerce building in Cincinnati, was able to get passes on the railroad quite often as there was no rule against them at that time. He therefore got a round trip pass for Mama³ and myself, and we went to Cincinnati and left from there; Grandma⁴ put us up a good lunch. I’ve heard Mama often speak of how delicious the cold beef steak sandwiches were — sliced thin on French bread — as we ate them on the train on that long trip, of which I remember little except the never ending fields of ripe corn. 

Papa met us at Evanston and took us to the place he had rented for us, at a Mrs. Baker’s, such a nice lady and a nice home. Like many other Chicago ladies, she had opened her home to “paying guests” for the duration of the Fair. Several other friends of ours stayed there, both before and afterwards.

The main thing I remember about this room was the change in what I had to read — magazines on the table, provided for Mama and Papa but giving me a taste of these adult publications I would not otherwise have had. I imagine they were Harpers and Atlantic.    ... the artist [Rudolph Dirks] who drew [starting in 1897] the Katzenjammer Kids, in fact. I imagine he may have been the inspiration for those gentlemen(?). The end of the rhyme stays with me — the bad boys had fallen into the sausage grinder at the close of one of their worst pranks and were ground out in small pieces which fell on the ground in the outline (shown vividly) of themselves. Said the rhyme, “Chickens, leaving other seed, gobble up the coarse grained feed,” a truly German “finis.”

Midway, Columbian Exposition

Now to the real business, that of describing the Fair. Mama that year was not yet 34, Papa was about 38 1/2 when we were in Chicago, and I of course was 10. The Fair came back to me so much more vividly when, this spring, I visited at Bob’s⁵ home and Loretta⁶ took me to the site of the Fair, Jackson Park, which with Hyde Park was the center of activities. The University of Chicago now stands where the great midway was, first and largest of carnival Fair sites, imitated at other fairs but I imagine hardly surpassed. 

... I loved them all. I remember the lady modeling in butter,⁷ I remember of course — she was making busts of Columbus and Isabella — and there was a butter replica of the "Vanderbilt family" which was

also there in marble — it was only about 3 feet high but was said to be one of the best pieces there. What I loved best, though, was “Jesus and the Child,” the face of Christ so calm and lovely, the

Butter sculptor with bas-relief of Christopher Columbus

child with his pretty hands and feet, his curls, the dimple in his elbow. It was life-size, in white marble. 

Mama kept looking for two “portrait heads” made by her cousin Al White (Aunt Milly’s son) but we couldn’t find them — they were there, tho. I may come back to this building as I think of more things, forgotten so long — one picture comes back, whether here or in another building, a ruby-throated hummingbird poised on a flower.
 
... The Iowa building was fascinating — its pictures and decorations were done in corn mosaics, red, yellow, black and white, the effect was beautiful in the extreme.

The New Mexico building I liked so much (it was still a territory, you know, and so was Arizona) (or maybe just made into a state, I know Oklahoma was quite new — we still had “Indian Territory” on our maps in the little geography). One exhibit of opals; Mama was so interested in the Indian relics, beadwork and all, I liked it very much. Grandma Cost had bought me a beaded show (an ornament to hang up) from Columbus when I was a little girl; it was red cambric with red & white beadwork. ... 

 [The beginning of the next paragraph is missing. Sarah apparently refers here to books she read at the house in Chicago where they were the paying guests of Mrs. Baker. Huckleberry Finn had been published in the U.S. only eight years before.]  ... but it was that part of Huckleberry Finn where he describes the  ... killing of his friends. I never forgot the vivid scene, but it was many years later when I found its place in literature. From another (as yet unidentified) serial, which I’m sure was much too advanced for me, all I retained was a new way to eat an orange, which I therewith adopted and kept up for years. We had always peeled off the skin and eaten them by sections, but in this story it described the sultry heroine as “sinking her white teeth into the skin and then sucking the juice as tho she were a tiger sucking the blood of her prey.” Now our hostess, not knowing what the solemn child was gleaning from these choice bits, brought her some children’s books! One of them had nursery (!) rhymes, one of which was so harrowing and unpleasant that I have never forgotten it. It was about two “characters” named Max and Maurice [Moritz], and by its brutal and violent nature so reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm, I am pretty sure it was translated from the German.

ENDNOTES
¹1 Robert James Howe (1855-1910).
² Richard Henry Cost of Cincinnati (1831-1910)
³ Alice Ada Cost Howe (1859-1939)
⁴ Sarah Evaline Arnet (1836-1917)
⁵ Sarah's son Robert King Salyers (1907-1977)
⁶ Loretta Smith Salyers, wife of Robert King Salyers
⁷ Caroline Shawk Brooks, whose talent in butter sculpting made her a favorite attraction at many fairs and expositions. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_sculpture.

****************************

So ends the only writing I have found about Sarah's trip to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Here are some links to websites that offer details that help us imagine more about the Howe family's time there. The first link goes to a beautiful, full-color, 31-page "program" or portfolio, digitized from an original. I'm surprised not to find one in Sarah's scrapbooks.

• https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/authenticportfo00
• http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma96/wce/tour.html
• https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/1893-worlds-fair-what-remains-125th-anniversary/ 
• http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/11421.html
• https://dcc.newberry.org/collections/chicago-and-the-worlds-columbian-exposition
• http://www.friendsofthewhitecity.org/architecture/buildings/the-midway-plaisance