One Short Day in the Emerald City
Reflecting on my first research trip to Chicago.
Dear friends,
In the eight years I’ve spent researching and writing my book, I’ve been able to meet so many wonderful people and visit so many wonderful places. Over the next few months, I’ll be reflecting back on some of my favorite past trips, including several to Bessie’s hometown of Chicago. I begin today with my first research trip to “The Second City,” when I paid a visit to the Chicago History Museum — an absolute must see!
While at the museum, I was able to (finally!) get my hands on a firsthand account of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 — what many historians consider to be the country’s first great natural disaster. As it happens, the account was actually written by Bessie’s father (and my great-great-great grandfather!), Charles Anthony, who was then just fifteen years old. Swallowing 2,500 acres of city land and leaving 100,000 people homeless and on the verge of winter, the fire irrevocably changed the course of the Anthony family’s lives and the city they called home.
Nine years after the Great Fire, Bessie was born in the spring of 1880; and thirteen years after that, the whole world journeyed to her hometown — still regarded as backward and provincial — for the 1893 World’s Fair. Hailed as the grandest event in history, the Columbian Exposition featured replicas of ancient cities, inventions like the washing machine and the doorbell, and the world’s first-ever Ferris wheel, which stood higher than the Statue of Liberty.
Fun fact: If you’ve seen the new Wicked movie, some of these images might look familiar. The movie’s production designer, Nathan Crowley, actually used the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair as inspiration for the Emerald City, weaving in architectural nods to Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan — two of Chicago’s most famous architects. The references are perfect considering L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was himself a Chicagoan who used the Chicago World’s Fair as inspiration for many facets of Oz, including the Emerald City.
With her grandfather Elliott Anthony, one of the directors of the World’s Fair, Bessie would have marveled at these incredible sights. Yet the thing that left perhaps the greatest impression on her was a speech by Bertha Honoré Palmer — the president of the Fair’s “Board of Lady Managers,” who oversaw the construction and design of the Exposition’s groundbreaking Women’s Building. “Having had a taste of independence,” Bertha stated in her address,
“Women of today…will never willingly relinquish it. They have no desire to be helpless or dependent. Having the full use of their faculties, they rejoice in exercising them.”
At just thirteen, Bessie was forever changed by her experience at the Chicago World’s Fair. Like her underdog city, she would soon emerge as a phoenix from the ashes — scared and belittled, yet intrepid as hell — to defy all expectations and achieve the impossible.
Thank you so much for reading.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
How to support
LINKAGE is a free, all-access newsletter, but I would be eternally grateful if you would share it with a friend and/or follow me on Instagram here.