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Like its predecessor in 1876 the 1893 Fair would have a dual significance. It was planned as a commemoration of Christopher Columbus’ first voyage to America in 1492 hence the name “World’s Columbian Exposition.” Like the Centennial Exhibition the Columbian Exposition would also showcase American industrial capability and technological innovation.[2
However it fell to the 1893 Fair to demonstrate something that the 1876 Fair had not: that the United States was not only the technological equal of Europe but had risen past a century of cultural inferiority to stand on even footing with the “Old World”.[2

The city chosen to host the Fair was Chicago the great urban center of the Midwest which had flourished exponentially in the years since its decimation by fire in 1871. The city’s population and trade rather than being dampened by the blaze had actually increased by the following year. It was a fitting setting for an event which was expected to showcase America’s rise from a collection of mostly rural colonies to an international power: what had been a backwater fur-trappers’ village in 1830 had in less than a century developed into a full-fledged metropolis with a variety of cultural amenities.[3