World's fair studies

Contents

PAGE

Preface c . 5

The Ferris Wheel ....... 10

Preface

I shall try to be fair to my reader, seeking to tell him briefly in advance the scope and general character of the present book, not concealing certain important omissions, so that he can at once decide whether he wishes any further acquaintance with it after having glanced through this preface. For it is a mistake, I hold, to ask a person to read a book which he may have no inner call to know, and with which he can feel no sympathy ; he will certainly lose his time, and probably his temper, in the perusal. ^

The plan is to study the Fair as a great event of history, I might say, a world-historical event, which took place at Chicago in the year 1893, but whose significance reaches beyond all urban, or even national boundaries. What did that huge outburst of secret, unexpected power mean ? We shall not rest content till we have grappled with the spirit which lurked in the mighty ap-

6 PBEFACE.

pearance, and indeed created the same; we shall only be satisfied by getting some glimpses of its creative Idea.

Doubtless, however, the most enduring effect has been produced upon those who live under the more immediate influence of the city where the Exposition was held — the people dwelling in the Chicago belt, whose periphery extends round the city at distances varying from several hundred to a thousand miles, according to the direction. This population, probably at the present moment the most energetic, enterprising, and aspiring set of human beings on the globe, found its supreme expression in the Fair, which it visited with the keenest delight, and of which it carried home a vivid image, together with all sorts of printed descriptions, tables, catalogues, columns of figures, ilhistrative pictures, down to advertisements. Since the Fair the printing press has been pouring forth a stream of literature upon the subject ; especially the pictorial reproductions of the buildings have met with a colossal response from the people. Most of us still like to read or see anything which recalls the great event; we look back at the Fair not only with strong admiration, but with stronger love ; it has taken possession of our hearts more deeply than of our heads. The affection with which the people regard the Exposition is profoundly significant, and shows that they still appreciate the heroic deed in whatever way it is done.

PREFACE. 7

But the vast multitude of details, as yet more or less chaotic, must be reduced to order, before the event can become our intellectual property ; this floating mass of images, recalled and reproduced by the thousands, must be united and held together through their Idea ere they can become truly our spiritual possession. Such is the en-^ deavor of this book, only a beginning ; it seeks to crystallize into thought the enormous cloudr masses of fact and image still hovering around the Fair. The hour for a complete organic work of this kind has by no means yet arrived ; the spirit must still brood long over the waters, ere the cosmos be born. But it is time to begin. '

Thus, from the standpoint of the present book at least, the Columbian Exposition is by no means dead, and is not going to die for a while yet ; nay, it may be said to have taken on a new and higher phase of life, different from the former one, yet springing out of the same. It is true that the outer semblance of the mighty spectacle has quite vanished, and that unseemly heaps of rubbish and ashes lie where the splendid edifices once stood; still they are not lost, but have become internal — the soul's possession, which is immortal. Strange but true is the statement: once they were transitory, but now they are eternal; while they existed, they could perish, but having perished, they live. ..J

Not only in the heart and imagination of the^ people of the West is the World's Fair still

8 PREFACE.

alive; it is re-incarnating itself on many sides, especially in architectural forms. In villages, towns and cities throughout the country one can see its spirit at work in the buildings just erected or in the process of erection. Verily creative is the Idea, it must be embodying itself afresh in hundreds of shapes, and thus reach its true ( heritage in the world of sense. It will therefore produce no surprise that the present book puts its chief stress on architecture.

On the other hand, the works of the sculptor and painter find almost no mention. Multitudinous and splendid was their display, never to be forgotten; still they were felt at last to be a foreign imitation, not yet naturalized, in spite of prodigious effort. The spirit of the Fair somehow would not express itself this time in sculpture and painting ; may these sister arts win their laurels next time !

But to record all the things omitted in this book would require another book, and less interesting, if possible. Let the matter be cut short with the statement that, in the author's judgment, the three greatest and most original products of the Fair were the Ferris Wheel, the Architecture, and the Midway Plaisance. These are the three main themes of the present book, two-thirds of which appeared in pamphlet form during the Fair, while the remaining third is printed now for the first time

THE FERRIS WHEEL,

Triumphantly the World's Fair announces itself in the distance by the Ferris Wheel, before any building or tower or dome can be seen. A piece of machinery of colossal size is the introduction to the Exposition; a writer, searching for his point of beginning, may be permitted to start his book upon the World's Fair with the same grand mechanical contrivance, in the hope of gaining thereby a little needful momentum.

The Ferris Wheel is primarily a work of scientific engineering, but it is something more. What this additional quality may be, so subtle and so ideal, we shall try to investigate. Not only a work of engineering, but also a work of imagination we hold it to be ; it reaches over science and sweeps into the domain of art.

10 WOBLD't^ FAIR STUDIES.

Mathematics cannot adequately explain it ; the imagination itself is required to understand and interpret the imagination.

In the Ferris Wheel the Plaisance, if not the whole Fair, finds its culmination. The mighty mechanism mounting heavenward from the heart of the avenue along which lie the nations of the globe, images in its massive rotation the revolving earth, and permits us to take, in one of its swinging coaches, a short journey round the world. Ascending, descending, it moves in a kind of inner rhythmic harmony with yonder Sun, which also to the vision turns round the sky, rising, setting. Still this mighty disc resting on the Midway is of us and not of the Gods, being made by mortal hands and showing strong terrestrial sympathies.

Undoubtedly the Ferris Wheel has taken the Grand Prize at the Fair. The judges are the millions who have been present and have witnessed it, impartial, unpurchasable, inexorable, appointed only by themselves, and constituting the tribunal of last resort which passes judgment upon whatever is great and lasting in this vast display of man's activities. A world-judgment we have to consider it, most emphatic too; we could not appeal from it if we would. Surely there is something very human in the big Wheel, calling out to the multitudes which surge below, and eliciting a marvelously sympathetic response from every heart. All feel its deep sugfi^estiveness, and catch its flashes afar into the Past and Future ; it fills the soul with glimpses of meaning quite beyond what we can at first tell; an unspeakable, overwhelming element lurks in it which picks up our struggling spirit and makes a bold dash for the Infinite. Who does not wrestle with his soul's limits in contemplating it, beating vainly his wings against the walls which shut him in? Still our thoughts must at last find some utterance; everybody has finally to give an answer to that imperative question sounding throuojh the Plaisance : What is the big Wheel saying?

To the visitor approaching Jackson Park by^ land or water, it is the first object which becomes visible, rising more than one hundred feet higher than the highest dome, and thus soaring above all the lofty architecture of the Exposition. Slowly it can be seen turning, turning ; what does it turn? Has it not some unseen belt attached to its broad rim, and is not this belt connected with the main grounds, whose machinery is moved by the rotations of the Ferris Wheel? Such it appears at a distance: it must be driving something, and what else is there for its enormous energy but the Great Fair? That wonderful belt in mid air never quite vanishes from the mind of the visitor, even when he walks up the Plaisance and stops for a gaze just under the

12 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIEIS.

Wheel, which is felt to have some strong though invisible bond with the entire Exposition. Still we ask, what does it turn?

^ The Ferris Wheel turns itself. It is an ideal thing, it has no direct mechanical use, it is not for driving a machine ; it exists for itself, being its own end, and thus becomes an image of the self-active spirit. Its supreme use is to manifest an idea, and therein its ideality is shown to

r be its dominant element. It appeals far more powerfully to the imagination than to the understanding ; very manifest is the fact that the people feel its poetry more deeply than its mechanics; accurately measured it must be, but so is verse ; a piece of mechanism it is, and yet it sings. A cunning adjustment of cog and rod and shaft and manifold contrivances we know it to be, all founded upon rigid mathematic calculation ; still it bears within itself something incalculable, its hard material of iron casts a shadow of aught beyond mensuration. Not a belt but an idea is that which connects it with the total World's Fair, transforming it into a vast symbol thereof, which is finally the thing which we must make our own and carry away. Much have we all read about its materials, its process of construction, its measurements; very useful is such information. Useful for what? Surely not for itself ; useful for the idea which is just that which created the grand structure, and

THE FEBRIS WHEEL. 13

still holds it together and keeps it revolving. Could we somehow remove the idea out of it, at once it would fall back into chaos. The Ferris Wheel is, then, an utterance of an idea, and has a voice for him who can hear, expressing the new fact in a new way, wherein it becomes the last and freshest artistic expression, possibly heralding a new art.

Engineer Ferris would probably laugh at us if he were told that he had built an iron poem with deep harmonies in it, or had constructed a fresh symbol of the spirit's triumph over matter. He did not intend any such thing, it is very likely; but he may well be surprised at what he has done, since the unexpected always happens to the genius. Unconscious, unpurposed by the human maker is the great work or deed; especially at pivotal epochs of time a secret universal energy co-operates with the chosen individual and makes him mightier than himself. The man must rise out of the limits of his own vocation, must break his professional chains and take to wing. Clearly Mr. Ferris is the prince of wheelwrights, but it required something more than a wheelwright to make this Wheel. Did not his fellow engineers scout his plan, they being simply engineers and nothing more? Such at least is the printed report of the matter, and it is too like the truth to be untrue.

The mere fact of seizing upon the wheel and making it the image of industrial progress was a wonderful flash of insight. Indeed is not the Exposition rendered possible by the wheel ? Has not everybody been borne hither on a wheel of some kind? Car-wheel, wagon-wheel, boatwheel, bicycle — what are they but the great means of transportation ? Vast is the importance of the wheel in the world's economy, appearing in every shape of mechanism from the timepiece in our pocket to the Corliss steam engine ; the mail who invented it began civilization. The work of Mr. Ferris by its magnitude calls attention to the wheel and its place in the Universe ; it becomes an image of all rotary motion on earth and in heaven, from the spinning of the boy's top to the whirl of the planets around the Sun.

It may, therefore, be affirmed that the Chicago Fair has been set in motion by wheels, of which fact the Ferris mechanism is the colossal emblem, perhaps we might say, the best artistic expression. It is beautiful, it is sublime, and yet graceful ; moreover, it utters an idea, and though particular in form, being just this wheel, it has an universal meaning, being a type of all rotation. A deep harmony with the very sources of the Exposition it shows, its conception goes to the heart of the great opportunity ; exact mathematical science furnished its body, but its soul was born of the creative imagination.

In order to justify these opinions, which may seem lawless rhapsody to some people, it is worth our while to reflect a little upon the significance of a wheel. Many persons, though using it all their lives, have never spent a thought upon it ; the present writer has to confess that he was first driven by the Ferris Wheel into the question : What, then, is a wheel? Is it really so large a thing? What is the fundamental fact about it? Primarily it is the means of changing a rectilinear force into a circular one, which can then be turned into any required direction. Rude force pushes straight out or pulls ; it has to be transformed into a circle when it can be drawn off for a new purpose. The simple cart is moved by the ox on a line, but this line of force sets in motion the wheel of the vehicle which carries the load. The wheel turning on an axle and rolling on a road is the first great humanitarian, taking the heavy burden from the back of man and even of beast.

The primitive force of nature has to be transformed into the circular by the wheel ere it can be controlled and directed. For the circle complete and returning into itself, is the universal form of. nature's energy; earth, sun and stars move in circles or in the kindred form of an ellipse. But observe particularly that supreme mechanical contrivance of man, the steam engine; its central fact is the movement of the piston-rod, one end of which is rectilinear and the other end circular in its sweep ; wherein we behold the straight line passing into the circle. Just that indeed was the grand invention; the enormous power of steam expansion was cornered and driven into a circle, being compelled to turn a crank, which is really a wheel and moves a wheel. Thence the power of steam was distributed at will and sent forth upon its errands ; man now controls the rude energy of nature by transforming it into awheel. Verily, the Ferris Wheel stands for something inherent in our time and in our consciousness: hardly less does it affirm than the subjugation of physical forces to human control — which is the task and the triumph of the present epoch.

Thus the wheel in some form is the basis of all transportation of men and materials, the bearer of the railroad, the driver of the steamship — the main questions about it being, How rapidly and how cheaply can we make it whirl? Commerce, intercommunication, the mastery over land and sea, the victory over Space and Time seem largely to turn on the wheel. It is well to note again its three constituent elements : (1) The direct power applied to make it move on its axis; (2) the resultant rotary motion, which is motion universalized, being the possibility of every direction; (3) the transfer of the rotary into the direct motion, which is brought about by some force counteracting the rotary one, as when the wheel of the wagon meets the ground, or the wheel of the steamboat strikes the water. Thus rotation is the grand mean in the realm of mechanical forces, and the wheel has a truly mediatorial function, standing in the middle and mediating between two diverse energies, which must be brought into co-operation. The engine will not go forward by its own sheer power, however great; it must first be set upon wheels and then it will run. The Ferris Wheel towering solitary and existing for its own sake, emphasizes strongly its own ideal principle, and therein suggests from afar the thought of a mediating element, not only in the sphere of nature but also in that of mind. It has a character like a man's, which we come to know and love after an intimate fellowship, and it speaks through its actions a tongue which we can only understand after some affectionate study.

There can be no doubt that the Ferris Wheel gives a decided impression of beauty; it is forever rising out of dead mechanism into the living thrill of art. Its colossal size is coupled with harmony of form, suggesting the grand cosmical order which holds the Universe together. By night it is illuminated, and is thereby drawn into a kind of competition with the stars in Heaven which bend over it and twinkle in rivalry with its electric lamps. From one point in the distance it appears a vast hoop of light resting on the earth; at another point, this hoop divides into two luminous circles, and one fancies that the rings of Saturn, shooting out of their orbits, may have dropped down to the World's Fair for a visit by night in the Plaisance. Surely the radiance below strikes subtle notes of harmony with the stellar radiance above, and the music of the spheres, terrestrial and celestial, begins to be felt, if- not heard. In fact, illumination has risen quite to the rank of a new art during the Exposition, and the Ferris Wheel has made itself visible by night as well as by day, exciting strong novel emotions by its brilliant nocturnal image.

The visitor will often take his seat somewhere just beneath the big Wheel, and look up with wonder into the intricate network of rods and beams and supports, and ask himself, what does all this mean? It certainly hints a complex social system, each little part of which fulfills its special duty and thereby works for the great common end. Is there not a society with members mutually helpful up yonder made of iron? Behold the harmony of the scheme, with its triple shape of axle, middle rim and outer rim, interlaced and locked together in hundreds of ties and cross-pieces, each giving and receiving

THE FEBEIS WHEEL. 19

aid from the whole. Dependent on the totality, yet necessary to the same is each small bolt or screw ; well may we deem it a note, one little note helping to make the grand orchestral harmony, which the sympathetic listener will hear with his inner ear if not with his outer.

Thus the Ferris Wheel casts an image, in its complex yet reciprocal parts, of the great social order, which is also complex and reciprocal in its structure. Indeed the mighty Wheel is the product of this social order which it images ; it required the co-operation of all kinds of workers in iron from all portions of the country to make it and hang it up cloudwards and set it going. Each man hammering at it in Pittsburg, in St. Louis, in New Bethlehem and elsewhere, represents a little nail or clamp or screw holding together the vast complicated system. Only a society like the Ferris Wheel, complex, colossal, could produce the Ferris Wheel, making the same, as God made man, in its own'image.

Very graceful the Wheel rises upward, with even ? ^' nder look, seeming almost to float and sway, like a huge round cobweb against the sky. Its motion is not ponderous, but easy and light for such a massive body; slow, steady, dignified it turns in measured cadence to a kind of musical beat, repeating only its monosyllabic click, click, click; otherwise quite silent. It is not grotesque, as it might easily become through its enormous

20 WOELD'S FAIR STUDIES,

size, being hung up in mid air 125 feet above the earth. Its colossality is truly national, American, imaging the big country and the consciousness of the people, who must have magnitude in their art or in any picture of themselves. Big country, big Wheel, big Fair; even the American savage, true to the spirit of the land, calls himself big Indian. And what is bigness but a crude greatness, which one day shall get ripe?

The total appearance of the Ferris Wheel, seen afar or near at hand, is not magnificently barbarous, but truly grand and beautiful. There is also a triumphant daring in it which connects it intimately with the locality which it overlooks ; it ought never to leave its present site, it will be out of place anywhere else. Its very idea links it closely with the city where it first rose up before the wondering eyes of men. Chicago has utilized the wheel more than any other place on the globe, being the center in which transportation has shown its most sudden as well as its greatest and boldest triumph. Verily Chicago is the child of the wheel, the brinf^er of railroad and steamboat, along: with the new order which is not hampered with prescription or privilege. Here the wheel, bearing its heavy burdens from all directions, seems to turn with the least friction on its axle ; it shows an innate tendency to run toward the City by the Lake, whatever be its propelling energy, steam, electricity, horse-power. Therefore let us magnify the Wheel and set it up in mighty proportions before the whole world when we exhibit ourselves.

While the Ferris Wheel was in process of construction many people said they would not trust it. A very old man, leaning on his staff one day and looking up at it, declared: *' Life is too precious to be risked in that way." But the wheel started and nearly everybody is taking a ride ; men, women and children are seen going up and returning in safety to their friends. Yet some grow pale and get sick at the stomach dur-1 ing the trip; women cry and become hysterical,, and sometimes they faint. For most people it isj probably a little trial at the start; but there is a feeling that courage needs a taste of discipline when it fears to go where there is no danger. One can often see a workman carried around on the inside of the rim ; when the Wheel starts he walks ; when it stops for a moment, he inspects a bolt, or taps the megatherion with his hammer, just to hear the ring of the monster's voice.

Characteristic is it that the Ferris Wheel sometimes separates husband and wife; one goes up without the other, but has to come down again and resume his or her former lot. Mrs. Ferris, wife of the inventor, is said to have accompanied her husband when the latter went to the top in a terrific tempest in order to note the effects of the wind-storm which paid a visit to the Fair in July, hastening hitherwards at the eager pace of 110 miles an hour, according to good authority. Brave woman, she clung to her husband and he clung to his Wheel, and the rough visitor swept by without producing any break of any kind. Two young ladies from the country, after vainly trying to persuade their father to go with them, take the trip alone: a significant deed, showing improvement in the blood and a dash of the American woman. But there is one set of people who always start up and come down harmonious, rapturous, indissoluble: who can they be? . Lovers, a class well represented at the Fair.

I have been told that an Indiana woman refused to be penned up inside, but heroically mounted the top of a coach and thus took her ride, breakino' over man's reo-ulation: which revolution of her's on the Ferris Wheel may foreshadow the great woman's revolution which is said to be coming.

After pondering the matter a while, and seeing the huge toy revolve several times in a playful way, the visitor concludes that his experience of the Fair will not be complete unless he takes the trip. He enters the coach and the thing starts, slowly rounding upwards and bearing its burden along, the body standing erect yet always circling. Most people will have a slight tremor, an unusual sensation of life's uncertainty, however stoical they be ; the imagination starts to working with no little vigor, being set in motion by the Wheel*. Can any person help asking himself repeatedly with some eagerness : What if? Half in banter with his soul, half seriously shoot the questions through his brain: What if the Wheel should leap from its supports and start to rolling down the Plaisance like a boy's hoop? What if it should break a cog and begin whizzing round and round with the velocity of the earth-ball? What if it should stop when we are at the summit and absolutely refuse to budge? How could we ever get down, thus lodged in cloudland? We glance at the pivot of the coach in which we are ascending, and observe that it must cancel the wheel's circular motion ; that pivot might get caught and cease moving ; what a tumbling together of men, women and children, topsyturvy, would take place in the coach during the course of a single revolution !

Thus the imagination frisks about, calling up all sorts of possibilities, and painting the consequences in vivid colors, while the wheel keeps steadily going its appointed way, inevitable as the law of the planets, and paying not the least attention to the fantastic humors of mortals. An Olympian serenity it maintains amid all these fluttering hearts and capricious bubblings of humanity. One has to go round twice and it is well, for one is occupied inwardly at first ; but with the second revolution the mind is called outward by the splendid views of the Plaisance with its currents, eddies, and counter-currents of people, by the new outlook upon the Buildings of the Fair, with gleams of the Lake beyond, and of the City in the smoky distance. Not the least interesting is the aspect of the Wheel itself from above, many-handed as fabled Briareus, holding us out at arm's-length and giving us a slow sportive toss through the air as a fond father does his child. Down it brings us once more, and we pick up our terrestrial thread where we left it a few moments before for a sweep heavenward.

The Ferris Wheel is reported by the guide-books to be 264 feet high, and the passengers ascend 250 feet in the coaches, ere the turn is made downward. Thirty-six of these pendent swinging coaches are counted in the orb, each of which is capable of holding sixty people, thus more than 2,000 persons may be seen winding up toward the moon and then descending earthward. It is a long railroad train made to mount in the air and turn and come back to the starting point; wherein we behold the iron horse transformed into a heaven-scalino^ Peo^asus and bearino^ aloft thousands of Bellerophons, at present in no danger of beinfj hurled from the back of the soaring steed and falling from the clouds. Thus the wildest fable of antiquity is translated into the literal modern fact with wilder additions, the

THE FERRIS WHEEL. 25

dream of the poet becomes a prophecy forecasting the reality, and everybody can now do without heroism what the Greek hero alone could do in the old ages — mount the flying horse and conquer the lire-breathing Chimaera. What next? Shall we not in time be able to invade the lunar territory? At any rate we can contemplate the new appearance with wonder: that long line of a railroad train, carefully hugging the earth hitherto, of a sudden rears like a steed and leaps up skyward, gradually transforming itself into a soaring circle. On such a train did we, the people of the United States, come to Chicago to see something marvelous; but hardly did we expect to behold our very vehicle take wings before our eyes and soar like the American eagle, inasmuch as we intended to do the chief soaring ourselves.

Still when we come to look a little more closely into the matter, what are we all doing just now but taking a ride around the sky in a long circular train, of which the earth is the Ferris Wheel, and of which this city, this house or even this room may be regarded as one of the coaches? Around and around, up and down, overhead and underfoot are we whirled, yet always erect: thus we circled in the Wheel, yet never lost our straight line of gravity. And this is not all : are we not sweeping through a circular or an elliptical orbit around the Sun on an earth-car, a small coach compared to the encompassing immensity of space? And perchance this is not all: the whole solar system is but a little coach in the grand cycle of the Cosmos.