 |
| Home » Notable Events » 1933 Century of Progress Exposition |
|
| 1933 Century of Progress Exposition Documents |
Curtain Drops on America's Greatest Show
|
Source: Chicago Daily Times, 13 November 1933, pg. 5.
|
The world's biggest show—A Century of Progress—dropped its curtain at midnight with a bigger and better encore promised next June.
Opened May 27 and hailed as a harbinger of returning prosperity, the 1933 world's fair won acclaim of the national and foreign visitors and rolled up the largest attendance record of any exposition in the United States.
At a time when the nation was singing financial "blues," nearly 22,300,000 persons flocked to the nation's second city spending money to belie the word depression.
Spent $1.15 Each
On the fair grounds the visitors spent an average of about $1.15 each, a total of $25,545,000. Outside the fair grounds, according to estimates of the Association of Commerce, some $400,000,000 was expended for living expenses and entertainment of the millions who came for the exposition and the hundreds of conventions held during the summer.
It cost, fair officials said, some $37,000,000 to put on the lake front show with its eye-stabbing color, modernistic buildings, and myriad exhibits. That was some $10,000,000 less than expenditures for the Columbian exposition here 40 years ago, the previous biggest exposition from the attendance standpoint. Forty years ago 21,480,141 persons visited that exposition.
May Be First Paying Fair
The 1933 fair was put on with a bonded indebtedness of $10,000,000. Tomorrow all but 50 per cent of that will be paid backers of the exposition. When the fair opens next year, estimates indicate that when the 12,000,000th visitor clicks through the turnstiles the exposition will have been paid for in toto, the first exposition in the United States to be a moneymaker. In the Columbian exposition only 10 per cent of the investment of backers was paid off.
But Chicago was not the only one to benefit financially. Railroads, bus lines, aviation companies, lake steamers all reported the biggest business in years bringing visitors to Chicago. For example, from May 27 to Oct. 31, the New York Central brought 652,147 passengers into Chicago on its 3,228 regular trains and 1,307 special trains and sections. Other roads reported similar business and even airlines ran extra sections.
Over the nation trekked thousands of automobiles headed Chicago-ward, their occupants spending money for gasoline, food, and lodging en route.
Majority Coming Back
The show was a counterpoint of modernitity [sic] over a background of antiquity. Most popular was the Hall of Science where the miracles of man's attainment were brought to vivid attention for comparison with the past. In exhibits on the three and one-half-miles-long grounds transportation, art, religion, science—passed in review.
But all was not the serious side. There was the Midway—its concessions where beer flowed freely, and fan dancers created a furore that had no counterpart in the raised eyebrows that greeted "Little Egypt," the dancing sensation of the Columbian exhibition.
As the turnstiles were locked concessionaires and exhibitors, nearly all of them, signified intention to return next year. Managers of the fair said hundreds of other exhibitors promised to bring their wares to the new Century of Progress.
During the winter months most of the exhibits will be stored. A skeleton police force will be maintained to guard the buildings. When spring comes, painters again will dress up the buildings with their flaring colors and next June the show goes on again.
[End of news article]
|
|
Page compiled: 14 January 2006
|
|
|
