Common Grace at the 1893 World’s Fair

Sixty people crammed into a wooden car and were soon carried to a height of 250 feet. They, along with the passengers in another 35, identical cars, looked out over 630 acres of the most stupendous spectacle they would ever see. They were riders on the first Ferris wheel, situated on the “Midway Plaisance,” beside a reconstructed “street in Cairo.” This was the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (on the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in America), arguably “the greatest world’s fair of alltime.” ¹Over 25 million attended.

It was a time of wonder, as fairgoers saw a number of firsts: moving pictures on Edison’s Kinetoscope; the zipper; the electric dishwasher; Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix, Juicy Fruit gum, Cracker Jacks, and Shredded Wheat.² They were also enthralled by images and ideas they had not experienced back on the farm: “Little Egypt” scandalized great crowds with her danse du ventre (belly dance)³ and Swami Vivikenanda’s appearance at the World Parliament of Religions meant a public relations windfall for Hinduism.⁴

The fair bore mixed fruit. Along with the wonders of technology came a greater susceptibility to religious relativism and worldliness. But the spiritual ground of this vast enterprise was a nation self-consciously accountable to the God of the Bible. Christ consciousness was everywhere obvious. It was a different day, as evidenced by such items as the following:

1. As a sea of people, one-hundred deep along a half mile of lake shore, sat awaiting the July 4 fireworks show, one man began singing “Nearer My God to Thee.” Thousands joined him.⁵

2. Methodist Bishop Charles Fowler’s dedicatory prayer,⁶ before 140,000 people, included the words, “We thank Thee for the revelation of Thyself in Thy Son to take away all sin.”⁷

3. At that same dedication, a 5000-voice choir sang Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus, accompanied by 500 musicians.⁸

4. In his official “Columbian Oration,” Chauncey Depew said, “The force . . . which made possible America, and its reflex influence upon Europe, was the open Bible by the family fireside.”⁹

5. The official poem, “Columbian Ode,” by Harriet Monroe, pictured Columbus as, “Into the west away, sped by the breath of God.”¹⁰

6. In an effort to honor the Lord’s Day, Congress tied some of its funding to Sunday closing. Chicago fudged on this, allowing visitors to stroll the grounds on Sunday. But machinery and merchandising were shut down.¹¹

7. Louis Tiffany of Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company (cf. Tiffany Lamps), constructed a stained glass chapel, the central window depicting “The Descent from the Cross.”¹²

8. The Palace of Fine Arts featured paintings entitled “The Expulsion from Paradise” and “The Flight into Egypt” and sculpture entitled “Christ Healing the Sick” and “Christ Raising the Daughter of Jairus from the Dead.”¹³

9. So many of the student guides were religion majors that visitors dubbed the rented, rolling chairs they pushed, “gospel chariots.”¹⁴ The fair’s “White City” was popularly compared to John Bunyan’s “Celestial City” in Pilgrim’s Progress.¹⁵

10. Revealing their Bible knowledge, visitors called a copy of the Statue of Liberty carved from a single block of Louisiana salt, “Lot’s Wife.”¹⁶

Here was a culture saturated with—and unashamed of—the Bible. Ministers were held in high esteem. Commerce and the arts reflected piety. Hymns and Christian books were cultural icons. Critics of the faith claim that Christian devotion is an enemy of civilization, yet the 1893 World’s Fair shows that the fragrance of a gospel-saturated culture is not repellent, but a winsome testimony to a watching world.

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