World's Columbian Exposition - Attractions

Attractions

The World's Columbian Exposition was the first world's fair with an area for amusements that was strictly separated from the exhibition halls. This area, developed by a young music promoter, Sol Bloom, concentrated on Midway Plaisance and introduced the term "midway" to American English to describe the area of a carnival or fair where sideshows are located.

It included carnival rides, among them the original Ferris Wheel, built by George Ferris. This wheel was 264 feet (80 m) high and had 36 cars, each of which could accommodate 60 people. The importance of the Columbian Exposition is highlighted by the use of "Rueda de Chicago" (Chicago Wheel) in many Latin American countries such as Costa Rica and Chile in reference to the Ferris Wheel.

Eadweard Muybridge gave a series of lectures on the Science of Animal Locomotion in the Zoopraxographical Hall, built specially for that purpose on Midway Plaisance. He used his zoopraxiscope to show his moving pictures to a paying public. The hall was the first commercial movie theater.

The "Street in Cairo" included the popular dancer known as Little Egypt. She introduced America to the suggestive version of the belly dance known as the "hootchy-kootchy", to a tune said to be improvised by Sol Bloom (and now more commonly associated with snake charmers) which he had made as an improvision when his dancers had no music to dance to. Bloom did not copyright the song, putting it straight into the public domain.