An Affair to Remember

Not many cities have a chance to host two world's fairs, but Chicago was ready. Forty years after the Midwest city had welcomed one and all to the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicagoans were planning another fair in honor of their town's 100th birthday. They would call it "A Century of Progress 1833 - 1933." In 1893, the Eastern newspaper folks had seriously doubted Chicago's ability to put on a world-class exposition. They labeled the city with less than a million people the Windy City, for boasting, but the U.S. Congress awarded the fair to Chicago anyway. By 1933, Chicago's transformation from a frontier outpost to a skyscraper metropolis was a point of civic pride. This time the fair would be educational as well as entertaining, and not even the 1929 stock market crash would stop it.

Modernistic buildings in bright, bold colors with ramps and towers rose up against the backdrop of the blue waters of Lake Michigan. At night, colorful neon tubing highlighted the architectural features while floodlights intensified the shapes and forms. For the summer of '33, the Windy City had become the Rainbow City.

Fairgoers viewed an auto-assembly line at the General Motors building, oohed and ahhed over the House of Tomorrow with its all-electric kitchen and central air conditioning and paid more visits to the Electricity Hall--where a strange and wonderful invention called "television" vied for attention with radio- -than they did to the midway. They could watch an FBI demonstration of fingerprinting, tour Admiral Byrd's South Pole ship, listen to John Philip Sousa's "The Century of Progress March"--composed especially for the fair--or enjoy The Chicago Institute's special exhibit of paintings.

If that weren't enough, come nightfall they could mosey over to the Streets of Paris designed with stone-paved streets and sidewalk cafes. Its famous attraction was the risque fan dancer Sally Rand. Local churches fretted, but the fair organizers let her dance.

The fair went on for two summers (it was extended to help pay its investors) and on October 31, 1934, "A Century of Progress" exposition closed for good. The buildings came down and the displays were dispersed. The memories and the memorabilia, however, lived on. Today there's a wide variety of wonderful souvenirs commemorating the fair.

The most valuable Century of Progress souvenirs are Art-Deco posters ($800 and up, depending upon the artist), pocket watches ($1,000), employee uniforms ($1,000) and cast-iron or metal toys, especially the Greyhound buses and Pullman train cars ($300 - $1,500). Sally Rand memorabilia is also hot: a True-Vue set of all 24 photo posters of Sally Rand in various poses today might bring $1,000. But there are plenty of less expensive items, too, from pennants to programs to postcards. More than just memories of a city's progress, memorabilia from the Chicago World's Fair capture a time less jaded when folks could still be amazed by a ride on a cable car 219 feet above the city, the sight of a scantily clad dancer and the flickering image on a TV set.

The Mystery of a World's Fair Quilt

We can thank the pessimistic organizers of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair for the wonder quilts commemorating the event. When financial backers of the fair worried that no one would come, they launched all sorts of promotions, including a quilt contest sponsored by Sears, Roebuck and Company. In spite of the short notice--the contest was announced in January with a deadline of May 15--nearly 25,000 quilters entered.

Sears offered a $200 bonus to the $1,000 prize money if the grand-prize quilt had been designed with "A Century of Progress" theme, so many of the quilters used fair symbols--Fort Dearborn, the Travel and Transport building, the Sears Pavilion, the "I Will" Lady and the Star Arcturus--in their work.

I first saw the Chicago World's Fair quilt when I researched the quilt contest for a book I co-wrote with quilt historian Barbara Brackman (Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, Rutledge Hill Press, 1993). During our research, a Sears archivist shared black and white file photos of a few contest theme quilts. This particular quilt, with its bird's-eye view taken from an image used on fair maps, tickets, jigsaw puzzles and tour books, caught my fancy. Hoping to track down the quilt or the maker, we examined the photos carefully, trying to decipher the information on the entry tags attached to some quilts in the bottom right-hand corner. The entrant's name, Louise Rowley of Thorndale Avenue in Chicago, was clearly visible, but we couldn't find Louise or the quilt.

Five years after the book was published, the same quilt appeared in an antique auctions listing. I attended the auction in north Georgia simply to see the quilt with my own eyes but, surprise, surprise, I left with the quilt under my arm, wondering how in the world it ended up in north Georgia.

Piecing together the quilt's history hasn't been easy. The auctioneer handed me an undated note from a Rowley family member with some surprising new information. According to the family, the quiltmaker was Richard H. Rowley, a draftsman. He wrote his mother's name on the contest entry form, thinking the judges wouldn't believe a man made the quilt.

The 1928 Chicago city directory listed a R. Harry Rowley as chief draftsman for Quinn & Christiansen Architects living in Maywood, a suburb west of Chicago. Edward Rowley (possibly a brother) was a student at Armour Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology). And a Louise Rowley resided at 133 Thorndale Avenue with her husband, Frank.

Despite concerted efforts, neither Richard H. Rowley nor his descendants have been found. If anyone has any information, please contact Merikay Waldvogel by e-mail at quiltalive@aol.com or write to 1501 Whitower Drive, Knoxville, TN 37919.

World's Fair Collectibles 101

Among the millions of visitors to Chicago's "A Century of Progress" was my mother, Virgene Kemp, age 12, of Sparta, Wis. She kept a diary of her six-week visit to the big city and her many treks to the fair. "The Chrysler building was white, orchid and gold with a fish pond with orchid fish to match the building!" she wrote on August 4. "It was beautiful." She glued in various souvenirs, including publications from such exhibits as Sinclair Oil's dinosaur display, and described the fair's many high points, which ranged from seeing her first TV to getting a peek at Sally Rand, the infamous fan dancer, and eating ice cream three times in one day. Such diaries are hard to put a value on (and few families would want to part with such a keepsake), but a collector might pay as much as $50 for a souvenir-packed journal.