Building A Century Of Progress

From the summer of 1933 to the fall of 1934, more than 38 million fairgoers visited a 3-mile stretch along Lake Michigan, home to Chicago's second World's Fair. Millions more experienced the Century of Progress International Exposition through newspaper and magazine articles, newsreels, and souvenirs. Together, all marveled at the industrial, scientific, consumer, and cultural displays, many of which were housed in fifty massive and colorful exhibition halls, the largest architectural project realized in the United States during the Great Depression. In the richly illustrated Building a Century of Progress, Lisa D. Schrenk explores the pivotal role of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair in modern American architecture. She recounts how the exposition's architectural commission promoted a broad definition of modern architecture, not relying on purely aesthetic characteristics but instead focusing on new design solutions. The fair's pavilions incorporated recently introduced building materials such as masonite and gypsum board; structural innovations (for example, the first thin-shell concrete roof and the first suspended roof structures built in the United States); and new construction processes, most notably the use of prefabrication. They also featured curiosities like the giant, constantly operating mayonnaise maker and the glass-walled House of Tomorrow, which had no operable windows. Schrenk shows how the halls' designs reflected cultural and political developments of the period, including the expanding relationships between science, industry, and government; the rise of a corporate consumer culture; and the impact of the Great Depression. Many of the designs provoked intense responses from critics and other prominent architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Ralph Adams Cram, fueling heated debates over the appropriate direction for architecture in the United States. Demonstrating the rich diversity of progressive American building design seen at the fair, Building a Century of Progress captures a crucial moment in American modernism. Lisa D. Schrenk is assistant professor of architecture and art history at Norwich University and former education director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation.

Chicago's 1933 world's fair set a new direction for international expositions. Earlier fairs had exhibited technological advances, but Chicago's fair organizers used the very idea of progress to buoy national optimism during the Depression's darkest years. Orchestrated by business leaders and engineers, almost all former military men, the fair reflected a business-military-engineering model that envisioned a promising future through science and technology's application to everyday life. But not everyone at Chicago's 1933 exposition had abandoned notions of progress that entailed social justice and equality, recognition of ethnicity and gender, and personal freedom and expression. The fair's motto, "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms," was challenged by iconoclasts such as Sally Rand, whose provocative fan dance became a persistent symbol of the fair, as well as a handful of other exceptional individuals, including African Americans, ethnic populations and foreign nationals, groups of working women, and even well-heeled socialites. Cheryl R. Ganz offers the stories of fair planners and participants who showcased education, industry, and entertainment to sell optimism during the depths of the Great Depression. This engaging history also features eighty-six photographs--nearly half of which are full color--of key locations, exhibits, and people, as well as authentic ticket stubs, postcards, pamphlets, posters, and other it

For centuries two meg-powers from the future have been waging war for control of timelines of history. Alan Norlund, a WWII airman vet, is promised a life saving cure for his granddaughter, if he will undertake a mission fifty years back in time to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. Hitler with his 'angels' from the opposing power would like to take over our timeline and 1933 Chicago may be just the place to start. Continuing the time-line wars of Fred Saberhagen's MASK OF THE SUN. More Saberhagen time travel adventures: PYRAMIDS and AFTER THE FACT

In the depths of the Great Depression, when America's future seemed bleak, nearly one hundred million people visited expositions celebrating the "century of progress." These fairs fired the national imagination and served as cultural icons on which Americans fixed their hopes for prosperity and power. World of Fairs continues Robert W. Rydell's unique cultural history—begun in his acclaimed All the World's a Fair—this time focusing on the interwar exhibitions. He shows how the ideas of a few—particularly artists, architects, and scientists—were broadcast to millions, proclaiming the arrival of modern America—a new empire of abundance build on old foundations of inequality. Rydell revisits several fairs, highlighting the 1926 Philadelphia Sesquicentennial, the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, the 1935-36 San Diego California Pacific Exposition, the 1936 Dallas Texas Centennial Exposition, the 1937 Cleveland Great Lakes and International Exposition, the 1939-40 San Francisco Golden Gate International Exposition, the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and the 1958 Brussels Universal Exposition.

The legacy of Leo Hendrik Baekeland and his development of phenol formal- hyde resins are recognized as the cornerstone of the Plastics Industry in the early twentieth century, and phenolic resins continue to ?ourish after a century of robust growth. On July 13, 1907, Baekeland ?led his “heat and pressure” patent related to the processing of phenol formaldehyde resins and identi?ed their unique utility in a plethora of applications. The year 2010 marks the Centennial Year of the prod- tion of phenolic resins by Leo Baekeland. In 1910, Baekeland formed Bakelite GmbH and launched the manufacture of phenolic resins in Erkner in May 1910. In October 1910, General Bakelite began producing resins in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Lastly, Baekeland collaborated with Dr. Takamine to manufacture phenolic resins in Japan in 1911. These events were instrumental in establishing the Plastics Industry and in tracing the identity to the brilliance of Dr. Leo Baekeland. Phenolic resins remain as a versatile resin system featuring either a stable, thermoplastic novolak composition that cures with a latent source of formaldehyde (hexa) or a heat reactive and perishable resole composition that cures thermally or under acidic or special basic conditions. Phenolic resins are a very large volume resin system with a worldwide volume in excess of 5 million tons/year, and its growth is related to the gross national product (GNP) growth rate globally.

“A true gem . . . period images of the Windy City and a glimpse back at a moment that not only shaped the city of Chicago but the world around us today. ” —Week99er Between 1933 and 1934, over forty-eight million visitors attended “A Century of Progress Exposition,” the world’s fair located in Chicago, Illinois. Conceived of during the Roaring Twenties and born during the Great Depression, this was a sprawling event celebrating Chicago’s one-hundredth anniversary with industrial and scientific displays, lascivious entertainment, and a touch of unadulterated bad taste. Century of Progress is a collection of rare photographs from the world’s fair that have been carefully chosen from the Chicago Tribune’s voluminous archives. Featuring an informative introduction by Tribune reporter and historian Ron Grossman, this book documents one of the most expansive displays of technological advancement and cultural diversity that took place in the twentieth century. The lakefront exposition, on the present site of McCormick Place and Northerly Island, opened on May 27, 1933, and was reopened in 1934 at the urging of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who hoped it would stimulate the Depression-era economy. This book is an engrossing and fascinating look at the numerous sides of the “A Century of Progress Exposition”: the whimsical attractions, the architectural and scientific achievements, the palpable spirit of fun, and the occasionally unsavory exhibits of differing cultures. At a time when the entire U.S. population numbered just over 125 million people, the Chicago world’s fair left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of American culture, and Century of Progress captures that feeling as only a photograph can.