Guide Map of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, 1893 -- CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

This is a guide map for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 (AKA the World’s Columbian Exposition). I decided to search across the CARLI digital collections and see what I could find on it. A sampling follows.

[I would be a poor Metadata Librarian if I didn’t mention that this would be much more effective if we all used LC subject headings and input them as controlled vocabulary in CONTENTdm.]

If you zoom in on the pale horizontal band in the map, you see the Entrance to the "White City" marked at the leftmost edge (postcard courtesy Booth Library). Walking east through the Midway it is about a half mile to the Ferris Wheel. The ride was invented expressly for the Exposition and inspired George Maywood to pen the "Ferris Wheel March" (music courtesy Southern Illinois University Edwardsville).

As a fairgoer, you could use this handy map to make your way to the Manufactures Building on the shore of the lake north of the pier. There you would be dazzled by "the greatest compilation of school methods, materials, and records that has ever been massed together" according to Amalie Hofer in Kindergarten Magazine (courtesy National-Lewis University).

Lewis University (of the featured map) has exploded with digital collection activity this fall, creating a breathtaking suite of digitized primary resources about the Illinois and Michigan Canal. For instance, today’s featured collection also includes an 1834 map of the proposed Canal route. But although the collections are connected to each other by the I&M Canal theme, there’s a wealth of information on all sorts of topics in them. Including the World’s Columbian Exposition.

Written by Mary Rose, Metadata Librarian, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville