At The World's Fair- the diary of Isak Isakson
July 6, 1893
I left in the middle of the night, stepping quietly through the cabin past my sleeping family. I had seen a handbill in the post office. I took it and kept it hidden. It was my secret. "See The World’s Columbian Exposition" the handbill stated, and on it was a drawing of the single large wheel of some strange machine that looked to be hundreds of feet high. I kept the paper under the pillow of my bed and read it again and again until it was dirty on the edges from my fingers. "Never before gathered in one place-- All The Wonders Of The World," it stated. I knew little of the world, only the farm and the woods, and the unending Lake Superior by which we live. We came from Norway when I was four. Half-way around the world we traveled, but I remember little of that. "We came for the land," Papa said, "for a life of our own." But I only remember a large boat, and endless dark days deep in a ship’s belly. "To start a new life," Papa said. I remember nothing of an old life. I knew nothing of the world, either, but all the world would be in Chicago at the Columbian Exposition.
Papa would certainly have never let me go if I had asked. "Too much work, Isak," he would have said. "We need you here."
"Too young," Mama would have said. "You are just a boy."
All these things I knew they would have said. These things were true. To leave them with just my younger sister and brother to help on the farm, it was not right, but I had to go. I left with a wool blanket, food for two days, the clothes I wore, and a pocket knife.
July 7, 1893
Two months I have traveled, walking most of the way, sometimes finding a ride on a wagon going from some town to the next. But mostly I walked, and I worked some. I worked for lumbermen running a raft of logs down the Wisconsin River. I helped the cook, an ornery Swede, in the camp kitchen while the men worked on a monstrous wall of logs that jammed at a narrow place in the river. I was paid two dollars for two days of peeling and stirring and scrubbing and scraping. Then I had enough. I had "All The Wonders Of The World" to see. Tomorrow I will reach my destination--The Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing in America.
July 8, 1893
This afternoon I walked right down through the city of Chicago. I had never seen buildings like those. Stone monsters towered on each side of me. People shuffled and yelled, streetcars and horses crowded the streets. And that might have been the end of an adventure in itself. But even from a mile or more off, I could see the big wheel pictured on the handbill that I still carried in my pocket. The towering spoked wheel. I could not imagine what it was. And it rose over "All The Wonders Of The World." Unwilling to spend any of the $1.27 I had resting in my pocket, I slept in my blanket near some stock pens outside the fair. I was well used to sleeping outdoors.
In the night as I huddled under my blanket I was awakened by the clanking of bells and pounding of hoofbeats. The yells of "Fire, Fire," resounded. "The electrics have set The Peristyle on fire."
These were strange words, and I knew nothing about what they shouted. But as I ran through an open gate into the fairgrounds, I saw large columns lit with sparkling lights(the electrics), and the columns were ablaze. But they looked like stone. I didn’t understand. Burning stone? Someone shoved me to the side as I stood agape. Others watched with me as the firefighters battled the blaze. Then the fire died and the scene dimmed and quieted just as quickly as it erupted. The fire was out. And I, so stirred by the rushings in the dark, could not sleep. I sat on some steps for hours near splashing water and there watched the sun rise on the White City.
July 9,1893
The White City--
I sat in the midst fourteen shining buildings (or more like palaces), all white stone with columns and carvings of beasts and gods and monsters. The palaces circled an immense pool of calm water that stretched around for at least a mile. Splashing fountains and placid water alike dotted the scene. And then I was jerked by my shirt.
"What’re you doin’ here you little urchin. Where’s your ticket?" a husky uniformed man said to me.
"Ticket?"
"You don’t belong here," he said. And with the price of admission in my pocket, I was summarily thrown out of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
July 10, 1893
Today I journeyed to the steel wheel. I paid a 25 cent children’s fee (even though I was over the age of twelve). And I went right to the wheel. I had to travel across that court of palaces and across great gardens of flowers and ponds, and buildings of elaborate architecture. As I got closer to the wheel, I could see that people were riding on this giant machine. And I read the sign. "Ferris Wheel" it said, the first ever in the entire world, built by George Ferris specifically for the fair. And on the giant wheel I boarded and rode to the top of the sky, where I could see for miles out into Lake Michigan and back to Chicago and the surrounding farmland. I was one of the first people on the entire planet to ride such a fantastic machine. And that was only the beginning of the wonders.
I ate something called a hamburger, never seen in the United States before. I drank soda pop, a sweet fizzed drink and ate Cracker Jacks, new inventions for the new fair.
After that it was time for me to discover "All The Wonders Of The World." And they were all there along the Michigan lakeshore. Africa was there with art and music and dance. Egyptian mummies and tombs of ancient kings were there. China ad Japan brought replicas of temples. Java tribesmen from steaming jungles stood before the world. Snake charmers and dancers performed in front of strange looking buildings. Places I had never heard of were there, ways of life I could never have imagined.
July 12,1893
I ventured into the other fair areas today, and over to that circle of palaces I had seen the first morning. I entered the first building I came to, and upon entering found it to be framed on the inside with wood and steel. So confused I went back outside to see if my eyes had deceived me. For what does a stone palace need with timber framing on the inside? The stone of the palace was warm to my touch. I pulled my knife from my pocket, and dug the blade into the stone. The knife made a deep groove in the block. It was plaster, soft molded plaster. The palaces were wood covered with plaster, not real.
I don’t know if the fakeness of the palaces detracted from what was inside. But what was inside was fantastic. Machines of all types lined the place, new machines to change the world. They included a machine that put moving pictures on a wall, and electric lights that lit up the buildings inside and out. There was a 70 ton telescope to view the stars. They were called the technological wonders of the modern world.
Outside the palace railroads raised into the sky carried visitors around the fairgrounds. Electrically powered boats cruised in a network of canals and lagoons. A sidewalk moved riders along in a big loop. And there were oddities. I saw a 22,000 pound piece of cheese and a Liberty Bell made out of oranges.
These new and unique displays baffled me, for it never occurred to me before that all these things were necessary for life. I had never yearned for them before. We had no electricity on our farm back home.
I peered through a little hole into a large tank of water. Here a man in a bulky suit and helmet connected to a hose dove to the bottom of tank to retrieve coins ad speak through some communication device. I felt a bit like that man in the suit. He smothered by water, I by all the things at this Columbian Exposition. I left the fair that day with so many images in my head that I did not know what to think of it all. So many different kinds of people in the world, so many different ways of life, and so many new inventions. Why was it like this, and why did all these different people come here? All these things I wondered that night as I slept curled in my blanket behind the stock pens.
July 17, 1893
Several days ago I ran out of money, so I picked up day jobs at the exhibits by the Ferris wheel, cleaning this or serving that. Surprisingly, many of the workers are not from the countries of the exhibits they represent. I suspect the Egyptian dancers are not from Central Egypt, but rather Central Chicago.
Every evening I have walked down to the court of palaces, that White City, to see the buildings lit up by the thousands of electric lights so bright they rival the stars in the sky. I was still wondering what had compelled all these millions of people(and myself) to come together here in this place. And then I got my answer.
Yelling was coming from down the way. "The ship is here. It has arrived."
"What," I asked a passerby.
"The Viking ship, a longboat. Come all the way from Norway," a stranger said, and I followed the crowd.
A sailing ship had traveled all the way across that Pacific Ocean to be at The Columbian Exposition, but not to honor Columbus. They came to honor those who they felt really sailed to America from Europe first-- Viking explorers from Norway. I waited by a large pond with a small crowd. Applause and cheers went up when the long open ship with its fiercely carved bow glided up the inlet into the pond. Rugged men with burned faces rowed rhythmically. I was suddenly very proud. I spoke to the strangers next to me. "I am from Norway," I said. "I am Norwegian." People next to me smiled and I smiled back. The boat bumped up to the pier smoothly to the applause of the crowd, mine the loudest. And then I knew why I had come here.
I saw many things that I wont forget at the Columbian Exposition, but the vision of that sea worn ship gliding into that lagoon is what I’ll remember the most. It told me why all these people came here. They all came to introduce themselves to the world. And I’m not just a farm boy from the shore of Lake Superior. I’m the ancestor of Vikings.
27 million people visited the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. It was the largest gathering of its kind up to that time and inspired the modern-day fair concept.
