Excerpt from Harper's Chicago and the World's Fair

At the suggestion of Messrs. Harper & Brothers the author of this work visited Chicago in the summer of 1891 and studied the plans and aims of those who were in charge of the World's Columbian Exposition. He became convinced that the Fair was almost certain to be of unparalleled magnificence and interest and more nearly universal in character than any that has ever been held. He was permitted to make public this impression in an article in Harper's Magazine which had the merit of appearing when such an announcement - especially in a New York publication - was singularly timely. A large portion of the public, to some extent shocked by the failure of the Government to order the Fair held in New York, had been inclined to disparage the undertaking.

Even before that, the pages of Harper's Weekly had begun to build up that pictorial and literary record of the work which will finally form a brilliant history of the enterprise, and which has been accompanied by frequent articles in the Bazar and Young People. In asserting that the Harpers have thus taken the lead - and held it - in exploiting the Exposition, the intention is not to boast of their enterprise, but to explain that the present work is only a further expression of the patriotic impulse that led them thus early to support our nation's gigantic effort to entertain and instruct the world.

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