Beloit College Museums collection

Collection

Identifier: AC 79

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The bulk of this collection contains materials relating to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, held in Chicago, where some artifacts related to Beloit College were on display. Included are many souvenir books and albums, and a guestbook-style register for the expo itself and for visitors to the College’s museums that subsequently held artifacts that were on display at the fair. There are also many drafts and correspondence regarding The Columbian Collections: The Museums at Beloit College and the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, written by Mark Rich in 1991, which details the College’s involvement with the fair. Additionally, there are promotional materials about Beloit College’s two museums, the Logan Museum of Anthropology and the Wright Museum of Art.

Dates

1892-1894, 1955-1959, 1991-2000s

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research; however, certain materials are fragile and require Archives staff for handling, or use may be restricted altogether.

Biographical / Historical

The World's Columbian Exposition (the official shortened name for the World's Fair: Columbian Exposition, also known as The Chicago World's Fair) was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self-image, and American industrial optimism. The Chicago Columbian Exposition was, in large part, designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted. It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be. It was designed to follow Beaux Arts principles of design, namely French neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance, and splendor.

(source: Wikipedia, retrieved April 18, 2012)