FYS 70 The Chicago World's Fair
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition honoring the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’s “discovery” of America. The Fair was designed to showcase the achievements of the United States. It was an immense popular success. But from the beginning the Fair became a flashpoint for controversy. Doubts were expressed about the transformative new technology on display and the fake Neoclassical architecture which housed it; the display of indigenous people in what were essentially human zoos; and the emergence of mass culture at the expense of more elite forms of cultural authority. This course will examine the Chicago World’s Fair as an inflection point in American history, with a special focus on the issues it foregrounded: empire, technology, race, mass culture, urban planning and the emergence of a modernity that Americans had yet to fully reckon with or understand. Join us for a ride on the ferris wheel and some Cracker Jacks, both of which made their debut at the Fair.
Open only to first-year frosh.