President Benjamin Harrison Appoints a Member of the Planning Committee For the Columbian Exposition, the First Great World’s Fair in the United States
It became a symbol of emerging American power, prosperity, and influence
An uncommon document, as we can find record of only two others in the last 25 years
The Columbian Exposition was a world’s fair held in Chicago in 1893, and was the first great world’s fair in the United States. Its purpose was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival...
An uncommon document, as we can find record of only two others in the last 25 years
The Columbian Exposition was a world’s fair held in Chicago in 1893, and was the first great world’s fair in the United States. Its purpose was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the fair, the large water pool, represented the long voyage Columbus took on his celebrated journey. The exposition covered more than 600 acres, featuring nearly 200 new buildings of predominantly neoclassical architecture, canals, and lagoons, and people and cultures from 46 countries. Many prominent architects designed its 14 great buildings. Artists and musicians were featured in exhibits and many also made depictions and works of art inspired by the exposition. The color of the material generally used to cover the buildings facades gave the fairgrounds its nickname – the White City. More than 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month run. Its scale and grandeur far exceeded all previous world’s fairs, and it became a symbol of emerging American power, prosperity, and influence.
Henry Ingalls was a railroad tycoon, banker and Maine state legislator. President Harrison named him to the commission planning the Columbian Exposition.
Document signed, as President, large folio, Washington, May 24, 1890, appointing “Henry Ingalls of the State of Maine…to be an Alternate Commissioner at Large under the Act of Congress entitled ‘An Act to provide for celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus by holding an International Exhibition’…” The document is countersigned by Secretary of State James G. Blaine, who was then Maine’s most prominent national politician. Quite possibly Blaine suggested Ingalls’ name to President Harrison.
A very uncommon document. A search of public sale records shows only two other Columbian Exposition appointments having reached that marketplace in the past quarter century. This is the first we have ever had.
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