We Can Thank the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair for These Amazing Things

Disney World/ EPCOT

Finally, Walt Disney wasn’t born when the 1893 World’s Fair happened. Despite this, his design for Disney World’s EPCOT park uses themes from Burnham’s grand showcase. Historian Steve Nelson draws parallels between the Worlds Fair and Disney’s tribute to technology, land and seas, and cultures around the world. Disney designed EPCOT to be an experimental community prototype and template for good urban planning, similar to what Burnham envisioned for the White City.

It includes a world showcase, much like the cultural pavilions in the 1893 World’s Fair Midway Plaisance. Nelson states that the 1893 World’s Fair “…demonstrates that the complex performative attractions of EPCOT, for all their technological prowess, are the descendants of traditional world’s fair presentations.”

Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

10 everyday items brought to us by the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.  Jocelyn Mackie, TopTenz.  17 October 2017.

15 Inventions and Landmarks that you had no idea debuted at Worlds Fairs.  Frank Olita, Insider.  18 July 2019.

A World (Fair) of invention: Heinz had a hit at 1893’s Chicago Exposition.  And some then-unknowns like Milton Herskey got a taste of sweet inspiration.  Maggie Overfelt, CNN Money.  1 April 2003.

Chicago was home to a serial killer during the 1893 World’s Fair.  Barbara Maranzani, History.com.  1 May 2013.

The contentious historical origins of spray paint. What Moser, Chicagomag.com.  7 November 2011.

How Chicago’s architectural style of today developed from the Word’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.  Jane York, ESSAI, vol. 14.  2016.

How Chicago almost stole New York’s title of America’s greatest city.  James Nevius, New York Post.  17 September 2018.

How Daniel Burnham and the 1893 Columbian Exposition influence innovation at Burnham Nationwide.  Carson P. Kyhle, burnhamnationwide.com

Fair-as-Foodway:  Culinary worlds and modernizing tastes at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.  Rebecca Graff and Megan Edwards, Historical Archaeology, 52(2), pp. 420 – 437.

The real history behind The Current War.  Olivia B. Waxman.  Time.com.  25 October 2019.

Sell the cookstove if necessary, but come to the fair’.  Phil Patton, Smithsonian, 24(3), pp 38 – 50.  June 1993.

TESLA: Life and legacy, War of the Currents. Pbs.org, n.d.

This socialite hated washing dishes so much that she invented the automated dishwasher.  Joanna Goodrich, spectrum.ieee.org, (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), 6 October 2020.

Walt Disney’s EPCOT and the World’s Fair Performance Tradition.  Steve Nelson (1986).  The Drama Review 30(4), pp.106-146.  DOI: 10.2307.1145786

The World’s Fair and the Fair Sex. Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune. 18 April 1993.

Where did Pabst win that blue ribbon?  Jimmy Stamp, Smithsonian Magazine.  20 November 2012.