I finally got around to reading Cheryl Ganz’s The 1933 World’s Fair; A Century of Progress (2008, University of Illinois Press), a book that been on my shelves since it was new, and I’ve just finished it. I have to say it was slow going at first. While the initial chapter works as an appetizer, focusing on the risqué ostrich feather dances Sally Rand performed at the fair, most of the next few chapters are a detailed look at how the idea of an exposition to mark Chicago’s centennial got off the ground, how the fair was financed, and how jockeying for influence on the fair’s development played out among Chicago’s elites. Sally Rand is a subject the author never really gets back to, which left me feeling a bit manipulated. The early pages suggest there will be some discussion of the underbelly of the fair, but that never materializes.
Held in 1933 and 1934, The Century of Progress presented technology, architecture, science, and industry as symbols of progress and hope at the height of the Great Depression, a time when many Americans were facing economic hardship and despair. I would have liked a more detailed look at precisely how those themes were presented by the various countries, corporations, and organizations that exhibited. There is comparatively little description of what a visitor to the fair might actually have seen and done there. The focus is very much on the people behind the fair’s conception, financing, logistics, and execution. I found the book somewhat more interesting as it moved on to look at how women were (and weren’t) represented at the fair and how black Americans were (and weren’t) represented, and then to aviation-related topics, notably the visit of the Graf Zeppelin to the fair, as my interest in the fair has always been mainly a philatelic interest, but I suspect the book would struggle to sustain the interest of a casual reader without a particular interest in the details of Chicago history. Well written, and I enjoyed it enough to finish it (slowly), but I had hoped for more about the experience of visiting the fair than was presented here.
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