Santa Clara at the 1893 World’s Fair

During the summer of 1893, 126 years ago, there was a 400th anniversary celebration of Christopher Columbus’s arrival to the New World in 1492. This celebration took place in Chicago, and is known as the World’s Columbian Exposition, or the 1893 World’s Fair. The fair pulled people from all over the world to see massive buildings and demonstrations all constructed for the sole purpose of entertaining and educating the masses for a few months.

A photo of the administration building, a building with a large domed top surrounded by numerous flags. There are many fairgoers around the building and on a bridge that goes over a river in the foreground. — The Administration Building

A large ferris wheel towers over many buildings below it — The Ferris Wheel

Two of the most beautiful and revered structures at the fair were the Administration Building, with a large and beautiful dome, and the Ferris Wheel. The first Ferris wheel to exist was designed by George Washington Gale Ferris, could hold 2000 persons at a time, and stood 265 feet tall. While both of these structures were sights to see, there was another very important building on the fairgrounds: the largest building in the world at the time, the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building.

The Manufactures and Liberal Arts building was designed by George P. Post for the fair and cost $1,700,000 to construct. While that doesn’t seem like an astronomical amount for the largest building in the world, that amount of money was equivalent to over 40 million dollars in today’s currency. The building occupied 31 acres of ground and had enough floor space to comfortably fit 300,000 people. Almost, but not quite reaching the height of the Ferris wheel, the building stood 212.75 feet tall. Within the building was an array of displays from all over the world, including the Catholic Educational Exhibit (CEE).

A large building (the Manufactures building) with arched doorways around the perimeter lies in the background with a river crossing a bridge in the foreground — A view of the colossal Manufactures Building

two fairgoers stand at the fence on the top of the Manufactures building, look down on a dock with boats as well as some buildings of the fair — Two fairgoers looking out from the top of the Manufactures Building

international flags and exhibits are set up in the very spacious Manufactures building with very wide walkways and very high ceilings — A look at the inside of the Manufactures Building

The Catholic Educational Exhibit (CEE) was established to show fair-goers how Catholic education was building up the country through youth education. Not much was known about Catholicism at the time, and CEE helped inform the public more about the religion and its ties to education. Santa Clara College, its official name at the time, could be found within this exhibit.

CEE kept a detailed catalogue of what each school had within their exhibit. Santa Clara College’s exhibit was well-rounded in portraying all of the aspects of a successful education. The exhibit contained quite a bit of material: five mathematics textbooks, pen-work by the Professor of Penmanship, photos of current and former students, as well as equipment used in the Commercial Department. In addition to these, there was also a decent amount of student work on display: 14 pieces in the mediums of watercolor, India ink, and crayon; 21 albums filled with student essays, samples of prose in poetry in English, Latin, and Greek, as well as student materials on mathematics, philosophy, and book-keeping. Unfortunately, we don’t have a photo of Santa Clara College’s display specifically, only a list of the items it had. The header image in this blog post is the closest image we could find of Santa Clara College’s presence at the fair: it is of alcove no. 17, diocesan exhibit of San Francisco, colleges of Jesuit Fathers at San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa Clara, California and is from page 63 of The Catholic educational exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.

Santa Clara College wasn’t the only representation that Santa Clara had at the fair. In the California building, Santa Clara County had an exhibit as well. Santa Clara County’s exhibit was filled with an array of goods from the area. There were numerous rows of jarred fruits, displays of hundreds of bottles of varieties of wines, flowers, photos, redwood counters, and the main attraction of the California building, the “Prune Horse”. The Prune Horse had a pedestal filled with prunes and was a statement of California’s outstanding production of prunes in 1891, a total of 20,000,000 pounds.

a statue of a man on a horse (the prune horse) stands atop a container of prunes and is surrounded by various goods from santa clara county: California Republic flags are seen hung as well as many, many jars filled with fruits — The “Prune Horse” surrounded by many goods from Santa Clara County

All of this information and these photos were found through the SCU Archives & Special Collections resources, as well as some online resources published by Loyola University Chicago. There are multiple books and photo collections accessible through LUC’s digital collections and physical copies of some archival materials on the Exhibition at SCU’s Archives & Special Collections. Drop in if you’d like to learn more about the 1893 World’s Fair or its many exhibits!