Ephemeral City: A People's History of Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair

Less celebrated than the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the 1933-1934 Century of Progress Exposition brought visitors face-to-face with gleaming American consumerism in the midst of the Great Depression.Lindsay Fullerton draws on a wealth of personal photographs, scrapbooks, oral histories, and writings to illuminate the wildly different experiences of fairgoers against the backdrop of a city steeped in poverty and segregation. The Exposition took place amidst massive changes sparked by expansion of mass media, Franklin Roosevelt’s election, the repeal of Prohibition, and the Great Migration.A diverse cross-section of Chicagoans informs Fullerton’s history of the event in the context of the fast-changing America of the interwar era.These personal accounts tell stories of how attendees interpreted their own experiences while being surrounded by whiz-bang products and full-throated evangelism on the benefits of progress. A colorful people’s history, Ephemeral City takes readers inside the ot