Ranking the Weirdest Things at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

Kaz being like, "The Victorians loved to make things out of things they shouldn't be made out of" like we didn't have a whole TV show about trying to figure out whether or not something is made of cake.

As someone who just suffered through working christmas in retail, it is FASCINATING to learn that "being tortured by the one song played endlessly at your crappy retail job" predates the invention of recorded music.

I love how we just skid over 3 reports of finding a fetus on the ground. Like wait what? How common was that at other events?! Now I’m just imagining a Victorian woman giving a tiny squat in her finery like a chicken dropping an egg and walking off like nothing happened.

Glad to see that even in the 1890s, workers were getting infuriated by the playing of the same song over and over. Having just escaped the retail hellhole of Mariah Carey Christmas, it comforts me to know that people 130 years ago felt exactly the same.

You mentioned the Viking ship but you totally forgot the context: see, since it was the columbian exposition, the Spanish had built replicas of Christopher Columbus' three ships and had them sailed to Chicago, and the Scandinavians American community was upset because they wanted lief Erikson's discovery acknowledged, hence why they also built a replica boat and had it sailed to Chicago

I took Food History recently and we discussed the chicago world fair for like a class and a half because of all the foods that came out. But lemme tell you THAT CHOCOLATE STATUE had to be protected because people were BITING IT for the silliness of it. People would apparently go crazy go silly at the fair.

When I was a child I was raised by my old aunt’ s tastes in music and literature. I was given Victorian children’s encyclopaedia to read and magazines from the 1920s. We joined a club to buy records from the ‘20s and ‘30s. As such, I was an odd child and bullied constantly for my lack of knowledge of pop music. However, my point is this: I really expected beef tea when unwell, and my aunt would replicate it by watering down tinned Beef Consommé (an already thin soup) with boiling water, so I could sip the concoction and believe I was being suitably revived.

For the false orange cider, molasses and vinegar isn't THAT out there as a drink. That's basically what a shrub or switchel is - a sweetened vinegar drink. Made properly, they're actually really tasty and refreshing.

As a kid I watched a lot of old cartoons and was very upset to find that I could not, in fact, go to the world’s fair. Truly devastating

Great video Kaz. I love the idea of Kaz being the judge for if something is allowed at the fair, stood with a clipboard at the entrance “what is your exhibit sir?” “It’s a recreation of the statue of liberty using salt” “is it true to scale sir?” “No it’s made of one single slab of salt, but is only 2/3rds the size” Kaz shouts “Nope, if it isn’t full size, just leave” lol. Love the video, really interesting stuff.

So a note about the taxidermy--the reason why it's there is because the method that it uses was founded by Carl Akeley (the father of modern taxidermy) and was actually very new at the time to make them so realistic (he only mastered his method around 1900). His method and his own personal knowledge and experience with wildlife meant that he could accentuate things like musculature much better and make animals look as if they were alive, leading to the tableau dioramas you see at natural history museums still today. Having them be set in their natural habitat wasn't the norm until this point since this allowed visitors to see animals within their natural context and not just as parts of cabinets of curiosity. He was even the one who went to hunt the animals originally, which is part of why he had such a good grasp of their natural history and how he had photographs to work from as well. You can still see most of his famous works today at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, and the Smithsonian in DC in the diorama halls. The Hall of African Mammals here in NYC is still named after him.

The Kinetscope at the show is actually very significant. Arguably, this was the first time that the general public would see motion pictures; 3 years before the Lumiere's show in Paris.

One story that I've heard about how the great Chicago Fire of 1871 happened was 2 drunks fighting over a bottle of whiskey and knocking over a candle.

As a historical educator, the one thing I harp on is that no matter how different circumstances are, human nature is always the same. The reaction to that song is absolutely hilarious anecdotal evidence to that effect. 😂 Also bless you for taking your life in your own hands and trying that Evil Cider for us!

If you want to read a bit about Indigenous performers at the Columbian World's Fair (and what some of them got out of it participating) one good place to start is the world fair chapter of Paige Raibmon's book Authentic Indians (2005). There's also an article I especially like about Indigenous performers at Seattle's first world's fair by Josh Reid titled "Professor Igloo Jimmie and Dr. Boombang Meet the Heathens: Indigenous Representations and the Geography of Empire at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition" in Pacific Northwest Quarterly (2010). (I'm a professional historian and this is an area of particular interest of mine, so happy to share more).

dying at the orange cider food blogger imitation. so accurate lmao Kat sounds like every influencer on TikTok making Disney World food recommendations.

"a thing victorians were really into for whatever reason was things made out of things that they are not" gonna absolutely destroy a victorian's grip on reality with some cake videos rn

For those who don't know, Dahomey was a kingdom in what's now Benin that lasted from 1600 to 1904. They fought the French in two wars, the first leading to giving up Porto-Novo and customs rights in Cotonou to the French in 1890, and the second leading to it to become a French protectorate in 1894 (and eventually a full colony in 1904). When it gained independence as a republic, it kept the name Dahomey until 1975 when it was renamed to Benin as Benin was deemed politically neutral for all ethnic groups. From what I found, the salty Statue of Liberty (exhibited by the UK) was twelve feet tall. Interestingly, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who sculpted the real Statue of Liberty, came back to the US in 1893 and visited the fair. He visited because he was exhibiting and attempting to sell more sculptures. There was a bronze pairing of Washington and Lafayette and a silver Columbus. The Columbus statue was made for the fair but was cast in Providence. After the fair, the statue returned to Providence where it was melted down and a bronze cast of it was made and it stood until 2020 (reinstalled in nearby Johnston in 2023). The Washington and Lafayette monument was not purchased in Chicago and went back to Paris. It was purchased for NYC in 1900 and is at Lafayette Square by Morningside Park. Bartholdi had hoped to display them at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Selling them in 1893 to Chicago was his backup plan. No one wanted to meet his price at the time, so he took them back home. It is unknown if he ever saw the Statue of Liberty made of salt, as it was in a different pavilion from his exhibition.

Pigeons are truly Some Pumpkins, I agree with you there. Humans need to remember our responsibility to them. If we're going to domesticate them, we need to not abandon them once our interest wanes.

"A city is a city is a city" THIS!! I find this especially striking living in an old city neighborhood in Detroit. I hear so much inflammatory rhetoric surrounding the city, but its always the same people complaining about its problems that perpetuate them. Legacy Cities like Chicago, Detroit & St. Louis and so many others deserve our respect and I'm glad to hear someone defend them!