Meet Me at the Midway [Plaisance]

The last few weeks we spent time diving into the fantasy that was the World’s Columbian Exposition. This has always been an event that I would do anything to go back in time to attend. In reality, if I existed as myself all the way back in 1893, there’s no way I would’ve attended the Fair. At best, I would’ve been on display at the Midway.

Show Notes here! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We back from a little hiatus. Uh, had to catch up on some things, but we take you to the midway and uh yeah, tell you about these ethnovillages. Let's go, 77. Uh, uh, uh, what's up?

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Welcome back. Uh to well, not welcome back, welcome to another 77 Flavors of Yeah, yeah. Well, let me get my intro out. If this is your first time listening, welcome to another episode of 77 Flavors of Chicago. Every week we dive into a Chicago history story. Today is part four.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Four or five? The World's Fair? Yeah, four. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

I think we're part four. Um, so if you haven't listened to the first three episodes, please go back and listen to them. They were pretty fun. We did a couple different uh days. Last week was not last week, the week before was um an itinerary at the my personal favorite itinerary at the World's Fair. Uh and so it was it was a really fun one.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Uh if uh this is not your first time listening, welcome back. Thank you so much for coming back. Uh we are almost almost wrapping up the World's Fair here. We have a probably a couple more episodes left. Um, today we're talking about the Midway Plaissance. Next week we're gonna talk about the experience of Black Americans at the fair. So um we are we we are done with the uh um kind of like overview. Now we're doing what was in it, more a bit more dive into it. So we're excited to get into that. But before we get into it, um please make sure you're following us on all socials at seven, all of our social media is at 77 Flavors C H I. And that's the number 77. We'd love to have you. We post weekly videos, uh, sometimes like four or five videos a week about the topic that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

And we kind of doing good, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah. Right when we have time. Uh, and we we kind of give you visuals of everything that we talk about during the episodes. There's so much on there that's uh super fun. We also post recaps of things that we did throughout the week uh to give you some ideas of how to experience the city in a fun way. And this week was a fun one. We uh we had uh we had some some really good uh activities this week.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

I feel like we've been on a boat a lot, about the water a lot.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

We've been on the boat a lot. Um, and the first thing that we did actually at the beginning of the week, which we will do two more times, yeah, is we visited the Obama Center.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Oh my god, y'all.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

And it was just an insane experience.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Man, like if you're a fan of Obama, this is a great like walk through his life and his presidency. And I mean, as a museum, phenomenal, phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

I think like we're not allowed to post until the fourth, I think is what they said, because that's when it, you know, they it opens um more to like media, but you know, we did a preview um and we got to see the museum. The museum is super cool. I I want to share more about it once they allow it. Yeah, I feel like we can talk about it. We just can't I guess we can talk about it. We can't show none. Um the my favorite part was that the museum um is actually not just Obama, like the first floor is American history, and so it is a lot of like US politics, uh kind of like from this the birth of the country. Like it's basically America 250, right? Right, as the first floor. A good version, yeah. Kind of like not necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

There's a lot of talk about like how how like well-done version. You know what I mean? Well done version.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Yes, yeah, uh historically accurate version. Yes, exactly. Y'all know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Um, and then you know, like Dario said, we dive, we it dives into Obama's history and his presidency and a lot of artifacts uh that I didn't know Obama had in his personal collection, which are on display. And I that's that I won't say too much else, because I I want y'all to see what I'm talking about. He got some Obama got some stuff, but then also you it taking you back through that time in 2007, 2008, and then obviously, and even leading up to you know, leading up more so up to 2008, man, seeing all the buttons and the pins and the video displays and uh the moments, the moment he like accepted inauguration, the moment he became elected as pre president, man, dude, it's just a vibe. Yeah, honestly, we we you need like two, three times at least to go across.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

We spent 45 minutes just on the first floor of the museum, and that's that was just the first floor, and we and we kind of like started moving faster through the other floors just because we were short on time. We were there a total of three and a half hours, yeah. Right, we didn't we were there for a while, yeah, and we didn't even do the uh the vegetable garden, which so to give you an idea, if you are not aware, the museum is the only part that is paid, everything else is open and free. So there's like a vegetable and fruit garden, there's a kids' play area, which is huge. I mean I wish I was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

You gotta you could be in, you gotta be in. Oh, mama was sliding down that the thing fly. Those two.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Uh, there's obviously the basketball court, uh, and then there's the public library, which I think is like one of my favorites. The forum and the forum.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Um, the forum was really cool because it's like where they're going to hold, you know, there's an auditorium, there's a cafe, there's a restaurant, there's a bunch of stuff in there. Um and then the public library was amazing. Yeah. The 82nd public library.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

82nd public library in Chicago. That is, I mean, it is fantastic in there. Honestly, it was cool is see the birth of a brand new library. All the books were new. Yeah. All the books in it. I was like, dang, all the books is new, like brand new. And I asked, I was like, Y'all get all new books? They were like, We bought all new books, all new books. Every book in there is brand new right now. And you, I believe right now you can check out books. Not yet. Not yet.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

When we went, it wasn't yet. I think like the 19th is when it officially the campus opens, I think, or something. Okay. So once the campus is open, yes. So everything. Right. Right now, it's still everything's gated still because they're not done with fully done with construction. Yeah. They're still like, yeah, they're still working on the gardens. So um you can't really go in just like a you know what I mean. So I don't think you can check out anything. Problems, yeah. You know what that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah, I mean, you, but you can go in there and you can while you're there, you can look at the books.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

The the reading room was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Man, look, the basketball court is crazy. It's it's crazy because it's actually NBA regulation. And it it doesn't look big, but it's big.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

It's it looks giant.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

It look, I mean, the whole thing is just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Yeah, yeah. I guess it doesn't feel large because there's no there's no like seating.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

I mean, there is seating, but it's not stadium seating yet. Right, yeah. Uh, you know what else was really cool is the auditorium that was in there. The auditorium was really cool. The auditorium is they call it the uh is it the forum? The forum is where the free is the free main free thing. That that auditorium is fantastic, but the you can walk underneath it all because like the lower level is like a connecting space.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Yeah, so the museum connects to the forum. It's like the the two buildings are connected to each other.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

And let me tell you very cool. It's very cool. Let me tell you though, they got probably one of the best museums in, I mean best uh museum stores.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Oh, yeah, all of the museums. I really liked it.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Very nice, very curated, and it's got things that you actually want. Yeah, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Because it's like it like not only is it like about them, but it's also like Michelle and uh like the Obamas, it it's also about their interests. So like there's gardening things there, you know what I mean? Like there's books for kids, there's all types of things. There's like home decor, yeah, pieces that they mean something to them. So it was it was like a night, it's like a further look into what they're into. I don't know. I really enjoyed it a lot. Y'all are gonna love it when you go to it. I think so. I think people are gonna love it. I think I think the campus is insane. Like it's gonna be the hangout spot. It's so peaceful, it's so beautiful. The the landscaping is unreal, the views from the rooftop are the staff is nice. Why the staff, everyone was so nice.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Staff gotta be nice, man. You don't can't sullied Obama's name. Imagine going to the Obama Center building. Oh, they were rude up in there. Nah, he ain't gonna have that. Valerie Jarrett was walking around. Yo, we ran into Valerie Jar Jarrett. She's just walking around the cafeteria. She's the CEO of the foundation. Just and just walking around. Valerie Jarrett, y'all. Crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Um, next we went to the uh Radisson Blue, which is the Aqua building. So our friend uh Ronnie, he is uh he creates content, but he takes uh tons of tons of pictures of Chicago uh doors, and his handle is Doorways of Chicago. Very cool look into like Chicago architecture. Um, and uh his photographs are on display at the Radisson Blue. So um we stopped and we had uh lunch at the uh uh it's uh Fire Lake uh Bar and Grill is the name of the uh save by life and uh they have a list of cocktails that is based on Chicago history, yeah, which rotates. So if you're interested in it, go try it now because it's gonna rotate soon. And Dario found his favorite drink.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Man, look, I ain't gonna hold you. Uh man, what is it's the one with tequila and mescalo?

SPEAKER_03 9:11

So it's tequila and mescalo ginger and bitters is the that one is the drink.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Maybe, maybe I was just taken back just that moment. He made it perfect for me that one time. I don't, I doubt that that's the case. I feel like he could do this on repeat.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Just all boy. Here's the thing: all the festivals are gonna be down there in that area. You could walk, you and you don't think about going to a hotel to like have a nice drink or have a nice.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Honestly. Honestly, that burger was really good.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Burger was good. If you are in a hotel, you probably want to at least try it out. You're probably coming back to the hotel like late night, you know, and everything, clothes, kitchen clothes. Don't do that to yourself. Trust me, this is one that you're gonna want.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

But it's literally right across the street from Millennium Park, right across the street.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

You just walk right across the street, you go up in there, they got a little patio thing, nice little, slightly off the beam path, because I'm sure it ain't gonna be as crowded down that way, you know. But man, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

That that drink and the aqua building is really cool already.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Like just seeing it as you know what I just realized, I just I wrote it down the name of the drink. Um, the Laundale. It was the Lawndale is is the one you wanted. And if you hear this podcast, hopefully you hear it soon so that you can go get it. Because I is it rotates like Ceresia.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Yeah. Uh we also went to Bruce and Bites, which is it was on it's on the river. It's a you know, one of the river fronts. It's right across the street from the Mart because the art on the Mart started this uh last week, and uh we were there for the first day that it started, and I didn't realize it starts at 8 30 p.m. Duh, because it's like it needs to be dark. And it shifts, it shifts. Yeah, right. My bedtime is nine. Um, it actually shifts the start time because it starts getting later darker. So I think it moves to 9 p.m. Rotating up uh, but it was such a cute experience. I mean, the uh just sitting on the river was really nice. I will say, like, um we ordered the burger, which was good. It was a decent burger. Uh it doesn't look pricey. I mean, it's on the river, you know. $25 for the river. It's on the river. You got y'all gotta expect it. They have a ton of drinks, it's really fun. You don't even I just got a like a ginger beer.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

And you know the vibe of being it's just fun. Yeah, right. That's the thing. Um, I will river.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

I will say I am uh effective immediately old because they had a they just it was uh uh you know it was a special event, so like obviously they had a DJ. I don't think that they normally like maybe have a DJ, I think it's usually like more mellow. But at one point I was like, I am so old because I would love for them to turn the music down, you know, and I think this it's a me problem because everyone else was vibing, but I was like, I wish it was like 30% lower volume.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Here's the thing, we And it wasn't even that loud, right? Well, we don't hang out on the river like that. Yeah, no, we the thing is we move, yeah. We should definitely should, but like we be moving around. We trust me, we buy the river all the time, but we don't just we don't like just sit there and enjoy. Like you say, we definitely need to just vibe out. Honestly, you and I just need that peaceful, just chill, non-work, non-work, because the river might be the best vibe. Yeah, I ain't gonna lie to you. That might be even the boat tours are fire, but like, you know, you on the boat. Yeah, yeah. Don't you just want to tuck off real quick and just sit there? Everybody was just sitting there gazing at the at the art, you know what I mean? Like, and just it was quiet. Yeah, me and Sarah was loud as hell laughing. Yeah, right. We were giggling. See, that's not our problem.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

That's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

We just go there and we start giggling for no reason.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

We can't un-giggle.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

We the kids in the in the classroom that just we're just so annoying. You know what's funny? The 24? 25. I would I'd be dying if somebody did that.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

That's funny. Yeah, um, and then we uh we stopped by Green City Market uh over the weekend because we are actually, it hasn't been announced yet, so this is like kind of a you're getting a sneak peek, but we are host um Chef Sarah Stegner from Progress Cafe and Chef Ethan from uh Hermosa are uh cooking a dinner together July 28th, and they're donating the uh the proceeds from the dinner to our nonprofit. So um the tickets aren't up yet, they will be soon, but um yeah, that's 14 tickets, man. Y'all come out and support a good time. So, and and actually two of those tickets are going to be given away to another opportunity for you to support us is uh we are we have a scavenger hunt that is through the loop uh on June 13th and 14th, and um you basically download the eAtlas app, which is a local Chicago uh tour app, yep, and uh you take a self-guided scavenger hunt, and the the a group or person that finishes first and with the most correct answers wins like three thousand dollars worth of prizes.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

That's a good one of them is a tour and a stay at the Palmer House.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

That's some good though. That's some good though, right there. That's some good prizes.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Some really good prizes. I'm like I'm like really jealous uh that the that I don't get to win these prizes. Yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Just imagine here's the thing, because we looked at the uh the rules for the tickets uh the uh for the Palmer House stay. You you got till 27, uh 2027 next year, right? But here's the thing you get to pick whichever one you want. Yeah, Christmas time at the Palmer House. Can you imagine? Sick. Now here's the thing. I I know your first notion would be like, let me get the summertime, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Which is fine.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Which is cool, which is I mean, obviously gonna be a fine house. Christmas at the Palmer, right there by State Street, right there by Marshall Field. Let us come stay with you. Yeah, for us. Get a double double.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

If you live through it. Um, but yeah, so there's a ton of opportunities for you to um actually well support us, but also like interact in the city. Yeah, um last one is I don't know if you're gonna hear this in time, but on June 7th, we are doing a tour in Bronzeville. This is uh it's called What the Girls Are Doing. So it is um Women only Women Only, but it's super fun. I'm sure they host co-ed tours. We're doing a few more with them, so I'm sure there's gonna be a co-ed tour soon, but this is like to get girls out into the neighborhoods and explore. Um, I will have all of this information in our um Substack or newsletter or show notes, whatever you want. You can subscribe to the show notes to be sent to your inbox uh through our website. I will um so that you can get them in your inbox. You don't have to go looking for them. So if you want to do that, uh you can do you can find us on Substack, you can go to our website and sign up for the newsletter. All of that will get you all that information. Today was housekeeping was a long one. I'm sorry. I mean, look, it is moving. We we took last week off for the for the holiday week. So we're we we had a lot to catch up on. Blaze the heck out of Obama. So but yeah, for real. It's eight minutes. Yeah all right, let's get into it. The midway, baby.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, let's go. I ain't gonna lie, I almost forgot to press the button.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

That's fine. It's been it's been two weeks. Yeah, it's like your muscle memory is gone. Yeah, uh, today we are at the midway. And uh this is a very very interesting one. Um, as are they all are. Right. But um I think it's I think it's fascinating because this was kind of like um they were scared of how they were going to advertise it because and not for the reason that you might think. Uh they were worried that it would seem like they were allowing lowbrow people in. Yes, that's the vibe. Crazy? Isn't that insane? This was that's not insane, actually. I'm not surprised at all.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

This was an actual accident, too. I know you're gonna get into it.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

I will get into it.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

This is what he's supposed to have.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Uh so a little bit about the Midway Plaissance itself, or Plaisance, whatever, however you want to say it's a French word, it you know, from pleasance, and uh it's basically an an area where people like promenade, like they walk around. Um, the Midway Plaissance was designed as part of the boulevard system and the emerald necklace, which if you want to learn more about that, you can go listen to our Herbs and Orto episode. We dive into that. Uh, but it it kind of was a vision of Paul Cornell in the 50s and 1850s, and um, you know, he was a developer from New York, he kind of wanted to remake this marshy land area. Uh in 1869, Cornell and the South Park Commission were given the right to set up the parks and the boulevards, and so and to connect Jackson Park and Washington Park, uh, Midway Plaissance was built. Olmstead uh was who the who created uh Central Park, was hired, and uh the the Midway was built.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

These dudes had resumes for built uh Central Park. And then they say, you know what, I got you, I'll do some stuff. I guess I'll do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Um this is a uh so this guy, Julian Hawthorne, he he was a pep uh uh famous writer, his dad was also a famous author, uh, wrote a series of uh articles for a few magazines at the time in 1893 where he recapped his visit to the um to the fair. And I I'll link those if you are interested in reading his multiple. I think there's five of them that he wrote, but he wrote one specifically for the plaissance, and I thought this was a good way to set up for uh what this was this really was. He said the Midway Plaissance is a sort of a curiosity shop in which the curiosities are mainly men and manners.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

So Damn, that's not for low-key. Yeah, you dissect that internally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Uh when the fair was being designed, they actually did not want to have these side shows, and uh they wanted it to be kind of exclusively like the uh high-end experience, like arts and culture and uh that kind of stuff. So when excuse me, um when they looked at the 1889 World's Fair of Paris, they saw that these sideshows made them a ton of money. And so they were like, fine, you can have it, but you can't have it on the grounds of the actual fair.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

We'll give you this one mile strip. It was one mile by 600 feet. So can you imagine just 600 feet wide? And I mean long.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

That's kind of large though.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Not for what they built, because they imagine like there's a a middle walking uh path, yeah, and on each end, like these villages. Like you're building full villages on the ends of each. Think about it. It's not that wide.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

It it but think here, let me put it in some context for you. In between uh where uh the artist is and across the street, that's 124 feet. That's kind of big. Now multiply that by four.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

I guess.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

That's kind of well, I mean, you know, we up here talking about multiply, just go to the play science, you know. It is big. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

It is big. It felt, it felt uh it was it was when people spoke about it, they said it was a narrow passage, and it was narrow in comparison with the actual fair grounds.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

Um even Julian uh Hawthorne when he was describing the fair, by the way, he's kind of he's kind of a little uh a little sassy about it at some points because he you know he wasn't shying away from like criticizing it. So it's it was it's an interesting read. I read I read three of the five, and um it was it was I think it's fascinating. I I definitely recommend you reading it. It's he was critical of things that other people were not critical of, like the military performances and like the bands and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

He was like, Well, he we why'd we need all this stuff? Yeah, basically. I mean, because they was doing a lot of it, though.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

They were doing a lot of it, even the midway, at the end of the midway, there was two uh two plots of land that were dedicated to military uh performances, like you know, military grounds.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

And then you gotta think they was doing that before um the uh the the dedication, the building dedication the year before.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

It was like all the time, yeah. Man, like they were like all right, all right, could have been in 2026, yeah, yeah. Um it's too much enough, enough. Um so they meant for this uh midway to be kind of the uh the sorry um where you saw people that it was supposed to be an anthropological study. Okay, it wasn't supposed to be very entertaining, like they didn't have amusement park as the idea.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

They was supposed to like you said before, just look at people into the mirror window into yes, they hired uh Frederick Putnam, who was the head of Department of uh Ethnology and Archaeology, and uh this man was already very accomplished. He uh was the first director of the Peabody Museum, and he was actually the guy that convinced George Peabody to fund a Peabody Museum. And so He uh was a very well-known archaeologist and anthropologist, and uh his collection in the anthropology department became later on the field museum. So his collection what he collected for the World's Fair later on was made into the Field Museum.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

But Field Museum, reach out to us, man. We need to be up in there. Like, do you know? Do you know the field museum said, because I was down there for a job, um, the field museum said they have less than one percent of their entire collection on display.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

I believe that.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

That is in y'all think about it. Because if you go to the field museum, it's massive.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

But less, so what you see is less than one percent of what they have multiplied by 100.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

I mean, if we if we just think about like uh we heard that the uh Chicago History Museum is no longer accepting World's Fair uh artifacts because they have so much. They're like, we don't don't bring it here. We don't want anymore. It's probably just the same stuff over and over. Yeah, I don't want it anymore. Man, and so like I mean, people saved a lot of this stuff, but I mean the field museum to think of like how much they have field museum was busy right around that time.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah, I mean, like they were well it wasn't open at the time. It wasn't right. I it was what 19 uh 10?

SPEAKER_03 23:20

No, no, I think it was it was before that.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was it was open, they moved location.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Um, I think in 1912 was like when it was like the the current location.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

I can't remember, but um so the field museum opened June 2nd, 1894.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

Um, and it was yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

And it moved.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

I went that's when I was concerned with because like technically in the Palace of Fine Arts, and it was it moved to its current location in Grant Park in May s uh and reopened uh May 2nd, 1921.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Man, I had my numbers transposed. I knew it was yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Transposed, that's a good word. Yeah. Uh so Frederick Putnam uh hired someone, he hired uh impresario Sol Bloom, who was 23 years old. He was a Jewish Polish uh he started out as um, you know, he wanted to develop these like fun experiences, but he later on became became a politician.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Okay, doing what?

SPEAKER_03 24:20

He was a politician, yeah, yeah. Just doing politics. Just doing politics, just basic. No, he ran, he ran for fundamental politics. Fundamental politics. No.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

This is a bill.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

You know, you know what's crazy when I'm when I type these notes up and I do this research, it's so hard for me not to go down multiple rabbit holes. Like I wanted to spend I spent probably like 35 minutes just reading about Frederick Putnam when I did not need to, because like I just needed to tell you who he is and keep him moving. But I could do a whole episode just on him and his life.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

It gives you some context to who he was, so you can better tell the story, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 24:53

But I I it's just like it's so hard for me to like stay focused on on topic because there's so many cool things happening, and like these are the people that literally built the city, like yeah, you know what I mean? Like 1893 is still pretty young, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

You know, and like yeah, we was only what six sixty years old? Sixty years old, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Um so Soulblum was 23 years old and he helped develop the midway, and he developed a lot of the stuff uh that kind of created the vibe of of he he made it more of this um um what's it called? Like uh when you why can't I remember the word? When you go and you oh like when you go and you go on rides and stuff. What is that called? Carnival, car yeah, more of that vibe. Yeah why I can't remember that word. And uh he developed a song that's actually super popular, and this was m one of the many things that he did that kind of like weren't patented or you know credited to him. It was just used over and over and over again so much. It's called the uh one of the names of it is called the Arabian Riff. And it was and he actually developed it at the piano at the uh press club in Chicago, and I know you would know it. So I'm gonna play it for you so you can uh see what that sounds like.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

We know what that is one more time for you. Well, the snakes come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

So, and that sound has obviously been used plenty of times in different songs.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Cartoons, yeah, all kinds of things, all kinds of things. I've now I played it twice. That's eight seconds now. Don't don't come for us now. No, you got 60.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

I think.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

No, I think six seconds. Six seconds before they be like YouTube be own it though.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

I don't think anyone owns this sound.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Really? I mean, they can't. The Bugs Bunny was uh out here doing his antics. How we let Bugs Bunny slide?

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Let's be honest.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

He was he was pushing it. He was he was pushing it.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Um the so when Soul Bloom took over, the Midway was kind of presented as a living museum of human evolution, right? It really pushed the racist ideas of social Darwinism, which means that people that were not white were uh just inferior biologically and therefore socially. And so it that was really what this became. And even though it wasn't necessarily explicitly set labeled as that in their marketing, it was so easy to see because so many people that wrote about that at the time, that is exactly what they noticed. There was even a quote from the Tribune uh of November 1st of 1893. They said, uh, this was an opportunity, and sorry, an opportunity was here afforded to the scientific mind to descend the spiral of evolution, tracing humanity in its highest phases down to the animalistic origins. And that's how they describe the midway, an experience for you to kind of go and watch how people evolve. Animalistic is wild to call people wild. And here's why they thought of it as kind of like as you're walking through, you're seeing the animalistic evolution, quote unquote. Yeah, is because at each end of the fair, even though it was never explicitly said that this was intentional, but tr very visibly you could notice it, is at the far end of the fair. So the the the the midway plaissance was you exit the the main fair grounds and it's like to the west immediately, right? And I don't know if this is intentional or not, but the closest building to the Midway Plaissance was the women's building. Immediately after you exit, uh I actually have a so the one that was like at that border of uh the main grounds and the uh quite literally the women's building was at the entrance, like across the street from the midway. It was right there.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Um, you I know so so they was like women, y'all, you on the break now.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

Yeah, you close close enough.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Uh white women are almost like we will we'll change that border. Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Um, the first few buildings, if we're going from east to west, uh of the uh midway place haunts were really excuse me, we're really dedicated to kind of like the model home. What did the model home look like? And most of these buildings were sponsored by certain brands. So you had like a glass company, no, not Nike, Libby Glass Company was one of them, uh the Bohemian Glass Company, and they were showcasing different, you know, rail railroad companies. So the first, like, I don't know, six or seven, maybe up to ten uh uh booths work for for that, right? And then it was almost like the the um groups of people that were closest to being white American were next. So then you had German, Irish, not not even Irish, sorry, you had uh Dutch, Japanese, German. Okay, so those were considered like now we're getting these are like the closest, the next best thing. After that, you had Algerian, Moorish, uh, Roman, Moroccan, and then at the bottom of bottom of the totem pole, according to this uh midway plaisance, was um Indian, uh, you know, any American Indian um is what it's labeled as Chinese village and Chinese tea house, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

What's crazy is that they had they had India India was there, yes.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

It was India and then American India.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

So, so hold on. We had the in India there celebrating the 400-year anniversary of him coming to see the Indians, correct, and not in the end.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

And no one saw it like no one was like, maybe we should rename this whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Maybe y'all not we still inviting y'all, but we y'all not nobody thought about that.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Yeah, no, I mean it was horrible. That's crazy, it was absolutely horrible, but there was a vibe down there though. Here's the thing it for the people attending, it was, and and um I read more of you know Julian Hawthorne's kind of diary of attending it, and he described everything as dirty. Shit. He was like, Wow, you see these, you know, that he's talking about the Cairo Streets of Cairo, which was one of the more popular is popular uh exhibits. He was like, they're wearing their dirty hats with their dirty pants and their brown skin with their brown fingers playing the tool. Yeah, yeah. It was it was very like that? Yes, yes, absolutely they were. People talk crazy now. You think they weren't talking crazy in 1893.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Um the 90s was crazy because you imagine oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

There was absolutely no fear of no no consideration that this was in any way offensive or derogatory or a racist or any of those adjectives. Um, they thought it was entertaining, and the people that attended also thought it was entertaining. And the reason that the people that people, you know, most of the people have had a pleasant experience is because most of the accounts that we hear are from white attendees, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:08

So we ain't got the we ain't got the people of color.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Of course not. Talking about you don't have no Egyptians were coming to attend as attendees. They were there as like you watch them.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

No pen of paper for y'all to write.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

None of none of the indigenous folks that were there were there to attend. They were a show. Right, basically, they were the show. And so, um, yes, obviously, like this was a very grand and cool experience, but you can't kind of like bypass the idea that this was also deeply racist and reflective of the time.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Layered in in there. Super, super layered. But you know what's wild though about that experience is that they basically the boots were zooglass, right? That was that was the equivalent of zooglass. They didn't know that, they didn't know that that's where, and I don't think a lot of people know, like listeners that of our podcast and people in general, you know, when you talk about the World's Fair, a lot of the things we celebrate came from that part of the World's Fair. The part that was deemed dirty and like the the the zoo glass.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah, yeah. Kind of like kind of like the the cheap, yeah, uh, you know, I mean we low class.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

You know, we got uh the the the flattened uh the flattened coin was in the in stretch coin was was given there. The mobile sound, all the elegant stuff, right? You know, Pabst beer was there, Nabisco, all that stuff started right there, right? You know what I mean? But like all the stuff that the other stuff, the fun stuff, the fun, fun stuff, man. Like, you know, we we just said the zipper was patent today, it's the 31st, March, May 31st. The zipper was patent, you know, at the World's Fair during that time. You had the Vienna beef hot dogs. Vienna beef, we love Vienna beef here in Chicago. There was some of the that was in a section, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

And that was that was at it was called Vienna Sausage, and it was at the Austrian village. You could go in, and these villages were inhabited, like made to look as if they were inhabited. Uh the people that set them up either were from these countries or uh whoever you know was sponsoring it to be set up would travel to these areas and map out these villages to look exactly like villages in those countries and cities. So they were they were they visually looked accurate. Yeah, they look good as hell. And it was like one of the only times that people could experience this much culture and history and uh archaeology from other countries without actually going.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

A few dollars too.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

For and I I think I mentioned it in a couple episodes ago, or yeah, at last last episode, is that to attend every single exhibit at the uh c at the midway was like thirteen and a half dollars, which is a lot of money uh for for the people that are attending, but I mean you couldn't do it all. Yeah, you couldn't do it all you couldn't do it all, and and that's why you get six months, and you could see so much without actually paying for stuff. Like you could walk through the villages, but you don't, you know, you pay for the theater, you pay at the bazaar, you pay at the restaurant, but you could walk through the village and look at it. You don't have to pay to go into the village.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Yeah, you don't have to pay.

SPEAKER_03 35:16

Um fascinating. Some of the things that you could um you could see there was a submarine village where men in sub submarine, like in uh uh scuba diving suits were in tanks just swimming around. And if you threw coins or dollars into this into the tank, they would hold up a sign that says thank you for what? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

It was some everything going on, man.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

There was wild animals riding bicycles. What how do you even train that? How do you yeah, a wild like you know, tigers and and riding bicycles, uh, or maybe elephants or something. Uh, you could throw a baseball at pins.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Most people had never seen a baseball, like you know, maybe the sport, but you shout out to AG uh Spaulding, which that lines all the way up. Yeah, baseball was just about to start cracking.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Yeah, you could buy Wow, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, it was like the first time people had seen baseball. You could buy Venetian glass, which was like brought from Venice. Uh, there was one of the exhibits was 40 women from 40 nations, so you could see the 40 most beautiful women.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

You kept calling like crazy. Yeah, you dudes was going crazy, I bet. Yeah, baby, baby. I'm just going to I'm just going to the Austria Village. Hey, don't just go. Come on now. Take the kids and get out of here. Go to the Ferris Wheel. Go to the horticulture building. The women building.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Um, they also had rig um obviously the Ferris Wheel. We know the Ferris Wheel was in the midway, and uh there was something called the Chicago Captive Balloon, which only lasted through July 11th, I believe, because it uh a gust of wind tore it apart. But it was basically like you know, a hot air balloon that people would fly, would get into and it would go up 1,500 uh feet in the air. It was tethered though, it wasn't like loose. Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

You couldn't fly away, but you couldn't fly away. You were in your wigs naturally.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

You could have flow you could have flown away.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

If that somebody had came through and just uh snip, snip, snip, snip. I I do want to elaborate just a little bit more on uh the Italian, I mean Italian beef, the that was not created there. Uh uh the Vienna beef. Now, we went to Vienna. I think I might have said this last time. So if I repeated myself, I'm sorry, y'all. But when we went to Vienna, having the the sausage there, crazy. It was so good. I mean, almost like I feel like I think I said this before. Okay, but I I don't know. When we were there in Vienna, I think I said, y'all, we might have the the low-end version of the of the Vienna beef. Right?

SPEAKER_03 37:52

No, we have Vienna beef, which is uh first Vienna sausage is what they had. It's them. I don't know if it's the same, the same exactly that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

We need we need the Vienna sausage. That the hot dog is cool.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

They say you got hot legs.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

I mean, we got the hot they they do sell the sausage, but like maybe I need to like eat maybe I need to uh have the uh the the Vienna sausage.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

I think it's also like the experience of having it from a food cart in Vienna. But what you know, like like I think the experience is different. Like now you know it's different. It's like having a hot dog at a baseball stadium is but different than having a hot dog at home. Like it just tastes so much.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

One of them costs five dollars, not even called $20.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Exactly. But you but you know what I mean? Like the experience adds to the whole though, yeah, the whole of the song.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

Um, one other thing about the Plaissance is that it kind of had its own sound, right? There was uh there was actually a ton of famous musicians that came and just set up and played music, but there was also uh musicians that played in front of each one of these booths or villages or exhibit exhibitions to kind of lure you in. So like if you were uh if you were standing in front of the uh German uh village, they would stand there and somebody just yeah, somebody somebody's playing that floating. And it there was there's you know, the um the guy that I kept uh Julia Julian uh Hawthorne, he mentioned that he said the woman with her brown fingers played the flute. Um I will leave that for you so you can you can go experience it.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

But I think the sound of the place on screen was another that's crazy, isn't that Sarah gonna slide by that one? I leave that to you so you can go read that yourself. Figure that out. Um but clean in in it, brother.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

There's uh there's an an hour-long uh kind of presentation from the Newberry Library. It's seven years old, but they did a an event where someone came and spoke about uh the music at the World's Fair. And I I thought this uh and it was I thought it was really a really cool. I watched the whole hour. I think it's really good cool. I link it if you want to watch it. I think it's worth it because there's also some really cool historic images. But I just wanted to play a part that kind of described the music vibe of the fair. So let's let's listen to that.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

But what's particularly interesting is the the music that was heard on the Midway, uh, which was of course this sort of pleasure avenue off coming off the fair. And there was uh a lot of uh what we call Ballyhoo performers along the Midway. And these are people that were would be standing outside a particular country's uh pavilion and then would be playing music to advertise it. So the result was kind of cacophonous, and a lot of people reported that it was just uh kind of insane walking down the midway, all this sound, and a lot of the sound was very unfamiliar to most Americans. So um one one newspaper reporter said uh it is good for the pilgrim to go to the world's fair if he have music in his soul and be moved by the concord of sweet sounds, but not that the fair is entirely a bed of roses, for there is a most awful cacophony to be heard upon the midway plaisance. There are two or three authentic and awful bagpipers caterwalling attention to one of the sideshows. Then there are a Turkish orchestra, an Egyptian orchestra, an Algerian orchestra, all of the same model, comprising a giant mandolin and a violin played like a cello, and drums beaten by hand. Uh the Javanese orchestra is more consoling, consisting of mild flutes and an assortment of zithers. All the same, the lover of what the civilized modern man means by music will get little good out of the barbarous band.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

That was um Don Um Don Mayer, and he's a musicologist and a professor uh that studies the history of music. So I I just thought that was a really interesting kind of snippet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

What the hell was a zipper?

SPEAKER_03 42:12

You know what a zipper is. Do I know what? Yeah. When we talked about um um what's the uh company that made the uh organ?

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Uh uh Degan. Deegan. Yeah. Is that what that is?

SPEAKER_03 42:27

We we looked at the ziffer.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Let me hold on. Let me instrument. All right. All right, let me see what oh okay. I've seen that before. Yeah, it's like it's like a piano with like a piano. I mean not a piano, uh guitar.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

Yeah, it's it's a flat, it's like a flat board. What your boy was playing over in a yeah. Movies in Egypt? Is that what it's similar? That's uh that's uh nood is it looks like a guitar. Um, and it's the one that you're look thinking of your boy was getting saucy last time when we was when I was like, hold on. The one you're thinking of is called a kanoon, and it's uh it's also a string instrument, it's a it's flat, it's it has a 90 degrees on both sides, and then one side is a diagonal. Um it's a trapezoid.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

You know, you gotta be a real good you uh musicians are fantastic people, like your the ability to play these weird ass instruments.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Well, I mean, for for them at the time it was probably like what was a shit.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

Look, a guitar is weird. I that's what I'm saying. A guitar is still weird to me. How the hell can you do that? A piano is crazy to me. How can your fingers do that all at once? Y'all, y'all weird people. But I like y'all.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

I like y'all. Y'all crazy, but Jesus, that's I mean, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

It was uh but yeah, it was it was an interesting uh interesting place to be, I think. Uh, you know, obviously very nuanced, uh nuanced experience. And um what what would your what What would your thoughts have been? Like how would you have felt?

SPEAKER_02 44:02

You know, if I was walking down through the midway, when you come from the big, like main grounds, right? You on such a high of like Was it called Grand Court or something? That was the the Great Basin and like the main area where the administration building was. But the whole thing, then you walk to the park, the party, basically. I would have been the midway, would have been where I would have been at. If I have if I'm me, if I'm me right now, but in those times, I definitely would have been like, yo, this is what a party at. Because you got to think you seeing all this where the party is at. Yeah, you see all these different people from all over the country, all over the world. Uh, you you eating the food, you experiencing the culture, you seeing animals just out there like that. Heck shit, I would have been I would have been there. But then at the same time, though, going to the different mega extravagant buildings, seeing all like the flowers and the the mining and the artwork and all these things, I man, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

You would have had to spend like at least a week.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

I mean, good thing the thing was there for six months. Because I feel like this would have been a thing. Let's go there this month. Hey, we're gonna we're gonna be there this month. We're gonna be there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 45:15

Man one thing about the the Midway is that it actually redefined how amusement parks existed after this. Obviously, amusement parts, amusement parks had been around for a very long time. I think the oldest amusement park is uh from 1583 in Denmark, but it was never anything like this. It was um, you know, the Midway didn't have the rides that we think of now when we think of amusement parks, but amusement parks until that point were not as compact, were not as packed of people, we're not as kind of like everywhere you look, someone is trying to get your attention. Right. And that was kind of really a redefining moment. It was also, you know, the word midway entered the English lexicon as like the uh the grounds of a fair, right? Like an amusement park, I guess, uh where that became called the Midway because of Midway playsons. So it it it made history just because of the way that it existed. Um and it it kind of just reintroduced or introduced a new form of amusement that just was not around. So um, you know, as we talk about all of the negative things that were happening in it at the time, it's also I think equally well maybe not equally, but it's also important to rem to to recognize the things that came from it. I don't know. I feel like it's really hard when you when you talk about these um events in history that are j generally viewed as so positive and so entertaining and so fun and so lighthearted. But you also kind of have to remember that a huge majority of the country, not the country, but a huge majority of people, because I you know, I don't know how diverse the country was at the time. Um but like you know, we're this Colombian exposition was celebrating a moment in history that for so many people was considered positive, but for so many people was an end of civilization as they knew it. Uh or not, maybe civilization is not the right word. I don't know. I don't know how to word it in a way that like makes sense, but I think it's like it's just so nuanced when you when we talk about these, and it's kind of like I we I try to like present it in a way that makes it um it seem you know, we understand that it was positive and fun and and lighthearted, but we also understand that it was terrible, it was it was racist, it was it took advantage of people, it um it didn't view people as human, like those all both things are true, right?

SPEAKER_02 47:53

So you know, to kick to keep on with that, um I think the best way to that I think about the world's fair is kind of like what we've been doing all five years that we've been doing this, right? You just gotta tell the history the way it is, right? Yeah, and and it happened, it was that, and I think on our end of it, if we don't tell the story, we're we're we are bad uh researchers, bad historians, bad storytellers, right? But at the same time, when you put it in the context of what those times were, right? And then mix it with the context that happened just over two decades later, right? It's located at the University of Chicago currently. University of Chicago came and did kind of the same complex situation with the community area. Right. So all they did, it's this that same mentality of what we are today, yeah, kind of started literally in the grounds where we started. You know what I'm saying? So, in in the sense of it's hard to, you know, all of it was bad, right? You know, slavery was absolutely horrendous. We got limbs out of it. You know what I'm saying? Barbecue. We got barbecue. That recipe, but you know what I'm saying? That recipe is from that. The culture that we have is uh that we saw for the first time, a lot of people saw for the first time, it was is something that it makes us today at Chicago.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

I think what I struggle with when we talk about these topics is like I don't want to be reductive, you know what I mean? Like I don't wanna I don't wanna make it seem like um like I'm I'm boiling it down to like a morsel, you know what I mean? So if people are thinking like that as well. And it's no, I know they're not. I'm thinking like that. I'm thinking like I I want to do it justice. Um, because also like as a brown person that is deeply fascinated by the world's fair, I also recognize that I would have been an attraction, not an attendee. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And so like I think I think that is also hard to to like grapple with when we look at history because a lot of the times, like now we have this immense privilege that we can do it from a distance and like retell the story. Obviously, we're living in an insane time, but like when we're looking back, but uh you know, I probably would not have seen it at the time that it was around. Right. And if I was gonna see it, I probably would have been in like an outfit doing like serving coffee as you know what I mean. Like it wouldn't have been an a great experience for me. So um yeah, I think I feel like that sorry to trauma dump, but I feel like that's kind of like where where what I struggle with when we tell these stories of like things that are object like m mainstream thinks of it as a positive thing. Right, but it wasn't you have to and and next week is gonna be even more difficult because we're really diving into how black Americans experienced that. Like Arabs weren't in the US yet, you know what I mean? Like there wasn't like Arab Americans at that point yet. Right. So I there was no reason for me to, you know what I mean? But like black Americans were here, right? And they were in Chicago. We're gonna talk about it. So like I feel like that is also going to be a f yeah, a really interesting way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

Um that was that's a very interesting time, too. Because you know, we you are uh almost 30 years removed from uh you know, free, being free, yeah, being free, and uh you you're not quite on the move yet. You know, you still in the antebellum south, you know, technically. Uh and yeah, you ain't moving yet. So like the people, the blacks that were up here in Chicago, you know, you had Ida B. Wells, who was doing her thing. The dynamic between her and uh Bertha Palmer and dynamic mainly Jane Addams. But you know, we'll get into that next week. But yeah, I mean, these stories are never, yeah, they're never gonna feel good.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

You you know why they don't feel good is uh in in one of our credits is that we tell the stuff that ain't it ain't fun. You know what I mean? Like it, but we but we know that's a story you gotta tell. You know, you gotta tell the story, it ain't never gonna feel good. But you know, well, what you know, say Love V. So it's unfortunately that's the thing is like that it happened. All we could do is like enlighten people. And that's that's the that's the best part about it. We get to we get to tell these stories, and like I think the the craziest, wildest, but coolest part of it all is when you finally put these pieces of the puzzle together, right? Like we find some stuff, and you'd be like, oh, so maybe that's how that person was moving. You know, you hear a lot of stories. Here's the thing I was just talking about this uh when we were doing the videos for um the scavenger hunt. Yeah, we were talking Mercedes, and we, you know, Daniel Burnham get a lot of credit, right? But Daniel Burnham also was ego, ego maniac. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, but in in I don't now again, I'm not gonna say he was a bad person because I don't know that, but like you could deduce that your boy had an ego. He was he was built, he was, he had what, three major plans of cities, one overseas in Manila, something like that, over in uh Asia. Um he planned that city, he planned Everton, he planned Chicago, he built buildings in New York, all over the world. So this man I mean, I would have an ego too. Yeah, I mean, and we think about the major ego that is an underlying thing that I people haven't thought about. We know that the plan of Chicago was really anticipated uh by this, right? By the World's Fair. Which, if you put it together, when he finally built the city civic center, it looked just like the World's Fair. Right. Which again continue to connect the dots. Why do you have, why do you make buildings where they you demolish them? Was that was that burn them being like, nah, I don't want y'all to do this yet. I got another plan. Yeah, I just this is this is a part of this part of the thing. So, you know, it's it's a whole bunch of that going on. You know, we weren't there in those times. All we can do is like look at, you know, read the things that we got, the diaries that we have.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

I think the uh the diaries, the diary entries, the articles, that kind of stuff is the best insight as to what was going on. Because like, you know, this is what they thought in that exact moment. Right. And I think that those are those are my favorite, like uh again, the these are opinions of people, so I would never take them as like fact of what was happening, but I think they give a great window as to like what people thought of so like you know, the the uh person that I kept mentioning, um what's his name? Now I forgot Julian. Julian, yeah, um, Julian Hawthorne. You know, like maybe he said the buildings were ugly or you know, the statues were too much, or whatever he said. I'm not taking it as fact, like of course the statues were too much. Oh my god, fact, write it down. I am taking it as like this wealthy white person attending this was like not impressed, but you know what I mean? Like it's just uh and I that's why I think those are always fascinating, and I encourage you to read them because they're just interesting.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

Also, this is a good call to action to uh go out to your library, research. If you don't just rely on the internet, the best example that we give is the Harry Monroe, right? If you if you just do research online from what you see on the internet, right, the all the information isn't there, and so you will get the cross-level of the story, right? You know, we're gonna do a reel on it, but I almost want to do a whole nother episode on Harriet just by herself, you know, uh, like a deeper part two of it. Because that was kind of about her. But going to University of Chicago, shout out to the library there. Uh, but seeing the articles and the transcripts between her, the Chicago magazines, the New York companies, how they was all beefing, how she went through, we had the actual court documents, transcripts of her beefing after the world after the world fair was over with. We have all that. And then now you know more to the story. You, you know, she wasn't all that happy at the World's Fair. Right. I mean, they they really, first of all, they struggled alone for a good year. A good year. She was writing this damn poem. You know, she was writing a poem that was supposed to be done given in uh 1892. Yeah, it didn't open. All right, cool. So we're gonna hold off till 1893. Oh shit, her stuff got leaked the month before. You know what I mean? Like, you know, you know, it's like, come on now. Like, what I if so she wasn't happy. If you read the if you read the internet, you're like, oh man, she was she had a poem there. Nah, they was telling her to change stuff, they weren't paying her, she had to go back and forth. Hey, this is my right. Or come on now. So it was a lot. So that it's just that I don't know how we got here.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

And even well, you were talking about how like going to the library and doing the research in there. And and like what's really cool is like that the uh University of Chicago resources are free. Free, like we are not paying to do this research. Like we email them or we log on on to their um database and we request these documents and we just go in there and we have access to them. Like the same thing with like um any newspaper article that I reference or mention, uh, these are through the Chicago Public Library for free. Yeah, like I can uh access all of the Tribune archives for free. I don't have to do the story. Yeah, so you know, I I always love that.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

But um, thank you for uh letting me rant a little bit at the end there. Um I I think this one this was one of my favorite subjects to talk about. It's been it's been a dream of mine to talk about it for a while. So I hope you enjoyed it. Um if you did love this episode, please share it with someone you love. It's the best way to support us. Do not forget to sign up for the Substack so you can get our weekly newsletter with all of the fun activities that you can do around the city as well as the history. And that is all I got for you today. Hopefully, we'll see you next week. See see you next see you next week. Peace.