- Historic Sites The Great White City More than any world’s fair
before or since, the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893 had a
lasting effect on its visitors, the taste of the times, and the
lusty community that brought it forth October 1960 | Volume 11,
Issue 6 Moreover, Chicago had become conscious of herself as a
metropolis, a focus of trade, spokesman for the Prairie West—a
combustible mixture of optimism, acumen, elbow-grease, and
idealism that was ready to explode into action given the right
catalyst. Meat and grain still formed her principal exports, but
imports now included wines, oysters, chocolates, brocades,
laces, and even “wigs, curls and ringlets"—scathingly described
in one editorial as “the humbugs and fripperies of the East.”
Gold was in her banks, and the wives and daughters of her
merchant princes knew Paris, London, and Rome. The city may have
resembled Rosalie the Prairie Flower, but she was fast preparing
to take a decisive step forward in her civic and social
progress. A unique featur