1893 Columbian Exposition Silk Tapestry Fair Souvenir 2

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1893 Columbian Exposition Silk Tapestry Fair Souvenir 2

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Sold Date: 10/25/2007
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Advertising

For auction is this wonderful old silk tapestry textile from the Columbian Exposition, the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It measures 7 3/4 inches wide by 9 1/4 inches long and is in very good condition. The center illustration shows Columbus on board his ship with the words Discovery of America beneath. Columbian Souvenir and then Pelgram and Meyer. Pelgram and Meyer were manufacturers in the silk industry in the late 1800's ... T is a slight stain at the top edge about 1/8 inch square, and a slight darkened spot at the lower right corner. The bottom left corner is folded upwards, creased as pictured. We do our best to describe the item as accurately as possible, but aren't experts, so feel free to email us at with any questions or for more pictures. Thanks for looking at our auctions. We have two of these silk tapestry items this week. The below is some info about the Columbian Exposition, Pelgram and Meyer.

The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, was the last and the greatest of the nineteenth century's World's Fairs. Nominally a celebration of Columbus' voyages 400 years prior, the Exposition was in actuality a reflection and celebration of American culture and society--for fun, edification, and profit--and a blueprint for life in modern and postmodern America.

The Fair was immensely popular, drawing over 27 million visitors, including Frederick Douglass, Jane Addams, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Henry Blake Fuller, Scott Joplin, Walter Wyckoff, Edweard Muybridge, Henry Adams, W.D. Howells, and Hamlin Garland. It was widely publicized both nationally and internationally, and people traveled from all over the world to see the spectacle. Travelers came from the East by "Exposition Flyers" --Pullman coaches traveling at the amazing speed of 80 m.p.h -- which gave "many Americans their first look at the country beyond the Alleghenies..." People left their factories, their farms, and their city businesses to participate in what was touted as the greatest cultural and entertainment event in the history of the world.

The goals of the management and the reactions of the public to this massive event reveal a great deal about the state of America at the close of the Gilded Age. The early 1890s were a time of considerable turmoil in America, and the conflicting interests and ideas found full play in the presentation and reception of the Fair. It was an age of increasing fragmentation and confusion, of self-conscious searching for an identity on a personal and on a national level. The industrial, and increasingly electrical, revolutions were transforming America; the American way of life was no longer based on agriculture, but on factories and urban centers.

The Silk Industry in America: A History: Prepared for the Centennial Exposition states that Pelgram and Meyer began in Paterson in 1872, and they produce silk fabrics, ribbons and piece goods.

The four-story plant built by Pelgram and Meyer on Monroe and Lincoln Streets in Boonton employed 500 people until it shut in 1927. It's now known for the Packard outside on it's roof.