It made Chicago the Windy City and showed the world that the United States was a booming force. It introduced Americans to picture postcards, the Ferris wheel and the hootchy-kootchy.
The nickname, the ride and the belly dance all rode into popular culture at the World's Columbian Exposition, the "illustrated encyclopedia of civilization" that rose a century ago from a swampland on the city's South Side.A century later, the cultural icons it introduced still flavor American life.
"It really was responsible for fomenting a commercial culture through its corporate displays," said historian Robert W. Rydell of Montana State University, who studies world's fairs.
The fair opened May 1, 1893, to celebrate - a year late - the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage to the New World and the friendship of the United States and Spain. President Grover Cleve-land himself tapped the telegraph key that turned on the lights.
An exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society attempts to re-create the grandeur of the exposition with a display of artifacts and photogrpahs.
The exhibit, which opened a 14-month run Saturday, is titled "Grand Illusions: Chicago's World's Fair of 1893."
"With the Chicago fair, the U.S. was ready to show that it was going to play a major role in the world. The Japanese also used the occasion to say, `We're here,' " said architectural historian Wim de Wit, curator of the exhibit.
The fair had a mass audience even before it opened. Some 100,000 people attended a dedication of the uncompleted fairgrounds on Oct. 12, 1892, which became Columbus Day.
Millions of young people participated in absentia, thanks to Boston socialist Francis J. Bellamy's campaign to make the date a national holiday. Bellamy wrote and printed in a youth magazine a "Columbian" ceremony that included the Pledge of Allegiance.
Historians estimate 5 percent to 10 percent of the U.S. population attended the exposition. In its six-month run, there were 21.5 million admissions at 50 cents each.
Visitors strolled through 666 acres designed by architect Daniel Burnham to popularize his "city beautiful." The dazzling buildings of the "White City" were designed by architects including Stanford White and Louis Sullivan.
According to de Wit, the ornate buildings, which looked like they were made of white marble, "really were made out of `staff,' a mixture of plaster and horsehair."
The Midway Plaisance had a Venetian canal as its central mall, and the first picture postcards sold in America were views of the fair taken by its official photographer.
The fair's co-host, Spain, sent replicas of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria to commemorate Columbus' voyage.
For food, the "real, live" Aunt Jemima cooked flapjacks next to a flour barrel to promote the first successful packaged pancake mix. She was Nancy Green, a former slave who became rich and famous playing the promotional role.
But black fairgoers were advised to patronize only the restaurant at the Haitian pavilion.
For drink, Dutch rulers of present-day Indonesia imported an entire Javanese village to promote their tea.
The hot air generated by Illinois politicians lobbying Congress for the fair left Chicago a legacy. When New York newspapers lobbied against the boasts of "The Windy City," Chicago got an enduring nickname.
The Midway's lead "Cairo" dancer, "Little Egypt," was the real thing. Born Fahreda Mahzar in Damascus, she came to Chicago with a troupe of Syrian dancers and musicians. She did her "hoot-chy-kootchy" dance with a lit candelabra on her head and was the first belly dancer to capture the American imagination.
The other "must-see" was an afterthought, the huge wheel built by Galesburg, Ill., engineer G.W. Gale Ferris. He dreamed up the idea for the wheel that bears his name after plans to duplicate the Eiffel Tower, erected in Paris only a few years earlier, fell through.
The original Ferris wheel was the largest ever built - 250 feet in diameter, with 36 enclosed cars that each carried 60 passengers.
Neither the wheel nor the White City survived after the fair closed Oct. 31, 1893. During the depression winter of 1893-4, homeless people began squatting in the abandoned buildings and fires began breaking out. Most of the buildings burned to the ground July 5, 1894, during a clash between federal troops and strikers from the Pullman Co.
The fair's one permanent building, the Palace of Fine Arts, survives as Chicago's Museum of Sci-ence and Industry.