"The Trouble Is Just Begun"
- On the morning of February 24, 1890, Chicago is full of pride. Why? The city is waiting to learn if it has won the bid to host a global exposition.
- By this time, Chicago's population is over one million, making it the second most populated American city after New York.
- Winning the bid means Chicago can shake off the perception that it's nothing but a "greedy, hog-slaughtering backwater" (1.2.2). However, failure to get the bid means national humiliation.
- All of Chicago's leading men talk such big talk about winning the bid for the fair. In fact, it's this big talk, and not the actual wind, that prompts New York editor Charles Anderson Dana to nickname Chicago "the Windy City" (1.2.2).
- The city has such immense confidence in itself that the nation soon begins to ask, why not Chicago?
- A committee comprised of over two hundred of Chicago's most prominent men report, "The men who have helped build Chicago want the fair, and having a just and well-sustained claim, they intend to have it" (1.2.12).
- In case you're wondering, Chicago wins the fair. Yay, Chicago.
- But the New York competitors who wanted the fair offer a warning: Chicago has no idea of the challenges that lie ahead.
- One New Yorker told the Chicago Tribune: "Whatever you do is to be compared with [Paris]. If you equal it you have made a success. If you surpass it you will have had a triumph. If you fall below it you will be held responsible by the whole American people for having assumed what you are not equal to" (1.2.68).
- The 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris had stunned the world, most notably for its grand entrance. You may have heard of it: the Eiffel Tower.
- Chicago establishes the World's Columbian Exposition Company to finance and build the fair.
- Daniel Burnham, famous by this time for creating some of Chicago's first skyscrapers teams up with his partner John Root. Together, they will be the lead designers. And together, they brace for what's about to happen.
- "At this moment [he] saw the challenge in its two most fundamental dimensions, time and money, and these were stark enough" (1.2.72).