Ephemeral City

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 other Chicago World’s Fair and how visitors interacted with a pivotal moment in American history.