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{ Technology Showcase }

Fairs and amusement parks showcase the latest and greatest. The Columbian Exposition "sent a clear message to generations, who hadn't seen much change over the previous decades, that the future was going to be different because of the ideas of progress, of science, and of technology."

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What Is Fair's Attraction?
by Greg Johnson

Trust English professor Brooks Landon on this one: new centuries begin a few years ahead of schedule.

By his calendar, the 20th century began for the United States in 1893, heralded that year by the Columbian Exposition--a world's fair of world's fairs--that introduced 21 million visitors to concepts like outdoor electrical lighting and skyscraper architecture during it's six-month run in Chicago.

Similarly, the 21st century makes an early entrance into the University's classrooms this year through Landon's course "Literature and Culture of 20th-Century America." His 30 students use a powerful network of computers in the Main Library's Information Arcade to create computerized glimpses of the sights, sounds, and ideas surrounding the Columbian Exposition.

In his course, Landon builds a strong case for the influence the Columbian Exposition had on pointing a largely rural America toward a city-based future dependent on technology.

"I think this event, which was the must-see event of the 1890s, was where America's 20th-century fascination with technology began," Landon says. "It sent a clear message to generations, who hadn't seen much change over the previous decades, that the future was going to be different because of the ideas of progress, of science, and of technology."

Landon describes how Daniel Burnham, the Columbian Exposition chairman, created what he termed a living encyclopedia, where visitors directly observed and experienced their learning about the arts and lifestyles of the world's cultures as well as breakthroughs in science and engineering. Among the first presented at this great-grandparent of a modern Disney World were:

o the first large-scale demonstration of electricity, including the use of Nicola Tesla's alternating current--the 20th-century household standard;

o the large-scale use of steel construction of the type that would spawn the new century's skyscrapers;

o the first carnival midway, called the Midway Plaisance, which featured the original Ferris Wheel, designed by engineer George Washington Gales Ferris (the wheel measured 250 feet across, and, in its pre-Wright-brothers day, took most of its riders higher than they'd been in their lives); and

o a completely designed city, called the Great White City, that featured a classic beaux arts architectural style. (It was built like a movie set with an inexpensive plaster-like facade placed over steel framed buildings that were disassembled after the fair.)

Why does a professor of English and his student spend time discussing electricity and steel-girder construction?

"Everyone who was anyone took in the Columbian Exposition that year," Landon says. "As a mass-audience event, it made a big stir in the magazines and newspapers of the time, and it influenced the writing of poets and authors such as Edgar Lee Masters and Mark Twain.

"I like the century-long circle we're drawing through this course," Landon says. "A hundred years later, we're using modern technology to recreate that walk-in encyclopedia. By combining words, still pictures, moving pictures, and sounds in their computer projects, students will allow users to experience the exposition in an integrated and intuitive way that runs closer to the experience than essays or slides alone would allow."

Citation:
Johnson, Greg. "What Is Fair's Attraction?" Spectator. Iowa City, Iowa: The University of Iowa Office of University Relations. Spring 1993. Vol. 26, No. 3.

Deem, Roger A. A Century of Big Eli Wheels. Eli Bridge Company: Jacksonville, Illinois. 2000. Permission to use photos and text granted by email by Patricia A. Sullivan, CEO. July 2000.