When the World Came to Chicago: The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893
Sunday, April 27th, 2025, at 2:30 pm via Zoom
April 2025 Theodore Talk with Dr. Nicholas McCormack
In 2003, Eric Larson’s book, The Devil in the White City, sparked widespread popular interest in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, 1890s Chicago, and world fairs, generally. While readers were enthralled with the grisly details of the murderous H.H. Holmes, the world’s fair was more than just a setting for a true crime tale (and was not, in fact, the location of the murders), it was an important moment in Chicago’s history that set a trend for fairs for decades.
In this lavishly illustrated talk, Dr. Nicholas McCormack will examine a brief history of the World’s Fair and the context for Chicago playing host to the first one in the United States. You’ll learn how the fair was designed, what its intended purpose was, and its impact on Chicago and the future of world fairs, especially Chicago’s second world’s fair in 1933-34. Vibrant scholarship and historiography of world’s fairs highlights serious issues such as colonialism, classism, and racism, which many popular retellings of the Columbian Exposition and other world’s fairs either ignore or distort. This talk will engage with those debates and issues as well.
Register for this presentation here: https://tinyurl.com/2rz27nfa.
You must register for each lecture with an email address associated with your Zoom account. If you don’t have one, you can sign up for a free Zoom account at: https://zoom.us/signup.
Even if you can’t attend the live Theodore Talks lecture and any of the discussions that follow, provided you register in advance you will receive a link to a recording of the event. All Theodore Talks have closed captioning enabled.
A full write-up and contact info for this event�appeared in the January issue of the Mensa Bulletin and more information is listed on the American Mensa National Events Calendar. To promote the 2025 American Mensa AG in Chicago, the first seven Theodore Talks of this year are intended to highlight some of Chicago’s unique attractions. You can learn more about the AG here.
Theodore Talks take place via Zoom on the fourth Sunday of each month at 2:30 pm (CT).
Remember, Theodore Talks are always offered FREE in an effort to provide more value for your Mensa membership.
Questions? For more information, contact Brad Lucht.
