Description
It took six years and cost $100 million, but on May 27, 1933, the gates swung open on the biggest birthday party the city of Chicago had ever seen. The Century of Progress Exposition, better referred to as the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair, commemorated the amazing progress that had been made since the founding of the city just 100 years earlier. Many of The united states’s largest companies joined with countries from world wide to showcase their histories and promote it their newest products. The road to opening day used to be not a very easy one, with the Great Depression making it appear to be the fair might never be built, but thousands of small investors stepped forward to help close the financial gap. The fair went on to an unprecedented second season, and when the gates in the end closed after the last of the 39 million visitors went home, it had achieved something relatively rare among world’s fairs: earning a profit. This collection of rare photographs, prior to now unpublished, highlights the major attractions of the fair and the astonishing changes made between seasons.