The Dymaxion Car - displayed at the 1933/34 Chicago World's Fair.

In the late 1920s, experiments were being undertaken to test the aerodynamics of automobiles. One result of these tests was three prototype Dymaxion 3-wheelers built by the 4D company in the USA. The term "DYMAXION" comes from the words: DYnamic, MAXimum, and tensION.

Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller conducted a wind tunnel test on three-wheeled teardrop shapes with a V-shaped groove running under the vehicle. A rudder was also added to the vehicles and Fuller intended that this would unfold from the upper side of the tail and provide stability.

Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller

The 4D company of Bridgeport Connecticut built three prototype Dymaxion Cars, or "Omni-Medium Transport" vehicles.

In 1933 Fuller hired Starling Burgess, a naval architect, and a crew of expert sheet metal workers, woodworkers, former coachbuilders, and machinists and they designed and built Dymaxion Car Number One which was shown publicly in July 1933. As a result of enclosing all the chassis and wheels in a streamlined shape, Fuller is reported to have driven at 120 mph with a 90 hp engine. 

Gulf Dymaxion Car Number One, designed by Buckminster Fuller, outside the Chrysler Motors Building at the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, 1933.

A conventional 1933 car would have required, Fuller estimated, at least a 300 hp engine. Fuller also claimed that fuel consumption of the Dymaxion car Number One was 30% less than a conventional car at 30mph and 50% less at 50mph. The Dymaxion weighed in around 1600 lbs. It was extraordinary maneuverability and could U-turn within its own length.

The two front wheels of the Dymaxion Car One were driven by a Ford V-8 engine. The single wheel at the rear was steerable.

On Dymaxion Cars Number Two and Three an angled periscope was provided to help compensate for the lack of a rear window. Initially, the car created vast attention where ever it went. However, a British auto enthusiast flew to Chicago to examine the Dymaxion car, and when he was injured and his driver killed after the Dymaxion collided with another car the headlines in the press referred to the vehicle as a “freak car” and undermined its 3-wheeled design. Although an investigation exonerated the Dymaxion car the car received a bad reputation and the British group canceled their order for Dymaxion Car Two.

The Dymaxion Car Three was featured in the finale of Edward Hungerford’s “Wings of a Century” exhibit at the Century of Progress Exposition. The "Wings Of A Century" production took place daily on an open-air stage opposite the Travel & Transport Building which housed the displays.

The design of the Dymaxion cars was one of the biggest breakthroughs in automobile design since the car had originated some fifty years earlier. Only one car (Car Two) now remains and is kept at the National Auto Museum, Reno NV. 

2010 Working Replica of the Dymaxion.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Glass Blocks; a Chicago Invention for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

Glass block, or glass brick, has an interesting history and connection to Chicago via two Chicago World's Fairs and multiple Chicago-based companies.

Gustave Falconnier
Glass Designer

The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition is known for introducing many things to the United States. One lesser-known first at the World's Fair showed the United States the first glass bricks made by Gustave Falconnier. 

Falconnier, an architect, Chicago city council member, prefect of Nyon, France, and a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, held many patents in the 1880s for various types of glass blocks of interesting geometric shapes.

At the Columbian Exposition, Falconnier exhibited his glass in buildings outside the Horticultural Building, showing their potential uses in architecture and horticulture. Falconnier was awarded by the fair commission for "a new departure in glass buildings."

Despite being shown in the horticultural pavilion, the fair commission gave him a somewhat backhanded compliment, saying, "Their adaptability for conservatories intended for plant cultivation has not yet been fully demonstrated, but for conservatory vestibules and other rural effects, they are well adapted." And finally, "In the construction of surgical, photographic, and other experimental laboratories, where extra subdued light is required, they possess great merit."

The Northern Pavillion of the Horticultural Building and Exhibit of Hot-Houses and Summer Houses.

Falconnier's glass block had a flaw that prevented it from taking hold in America. Because they were blown glass, the blocks needed a hole. Even a tiny hole eventually plugged up, leading to fogging. Once fogged, the bricks would need to be replaced. A tall order indeed for something that is meant to be permanently put into a wall.

Glass Block would get a second chance at Chicago's Century of Progress International Exposition in 1933 before it took hold in US architecture. However, other types of architectural glass that would be formative to the glass block's future were taking shape in Chicago.

The popularization of Art Deco glass block walls came via the crowd-pleasing thirteen houses of the future displayed at the 1933–34 Chicago World's Fair. Glass block walls gave builders an avant-garde 20th-Century sensibility that people really liked.

At the time, the Chicago World's Fair buildings were considered the height of American modernity and influenced United States architectural design for many years. The Century of Progress, planned before the crash of 1929, opened in the middle of a worldwide economic crisis. Despite that fact, or perhaps because of it, the Century of Progress resolutely focused on an optimistic vision of the United States yet to come, a premise that proved to be a wise move as it attracted so many visitors that organizers kept the fair open for a second year.

Owens-Illinois exhibit at the Chicago Century of Progress International Exposition, 1933-34.

Keck's design, which the Fair billed as the "House of Tomorrow," made the June 1933 cover of Popular Mechanics.

One of the Fair's most popular exhibits featured thirteen futuristic houses clustered together on the shores of Lake Michigan. Those houses, built from innovative construction materials and with several examples clearly paying homage to the European "International Style" or the colloquial "Streamline Moderne," turned out to be a crowd-pleaser. 

Few fairgoers actually contemplated living in homes like George Fred Keck's Glass House, a three-story, glass-clad, polygonal tower suspended from a central pole that clearly owed a lot to Le Corbusier's idea of the house as a "machine for living," but most attendees marveled at the technology displayed within and without. 

Keck's house controlled its own climate via central systems and sealed windows. It included a garage for the car and a hanger for the family plane. Keck's design, which the Fair billed as the "House of Tomorrow," made the June 1933 cover of Popular Mechanics. The idea of an "automatic" house that heated and cooled itself, rotated to face the sun and opened its own Venetian blinds caught the fancy of fairgoers. It likewise influenced architects throughout the United States in the subsequent years before World War II. Bits and pieces of the Fair's dramatic architecture appeared on the cultural periphery. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago Demonstrates the Mechanical Television.

An early form of television known as “mechanical” television was demonstrated at Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair in 1933. Mechanical television used a perforated spinning disc illuminated from behind to create an image.

Mechanical Television Explained.

The 1939 World's Fair in New York City is usually associated with early television demonstrations in the United States. RCA’s splashy display introduced a fully electronic form of television to America. This is the version of television that focused a stream of electrons on a cathode ray tube and became the world's standard for television.

The Century of Progress demonstration took place in the small Television Theater in the Fair’s Electrical Building. Volunteers would appear before a primitive camera and the image would be displayed live on a large screen to the astonished audience.

The volunteer would get a card afterward saying they had personally appeared in a television demonstration. This gimmick was copied by RCA at their demonstration at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

The technology shown at the Century of Progress was developed by Chicagoan Ulises Sanabria, whose experiments in television go as far back as the mid-1920s. Sanabria demonstrated his invention at stores and conventions across the country culminating in his 1933 World’s Fair display sponsored by the Hudson-Essex Motor Company as a way to promote their own products at the fair.

Watching a homemade mechanical-scan television receiver in 1928. The "televisor" (right) which produces the picture uses a spinning metal disk with a series of holes in it, called a Nipkow disk, in front of a neon lamp. Each hole in the disk passing in front of the lamp produces a scan line which makes up the image. The video signal from the television receiver unit (left) is applied to the neon lamp, causing its brightness to vary with the brightness of the image at each point. This system produced a dim orange image about 1 1/2 inches square.

Sanabria, who taught himself electronics as a teenager, went on to found the American Television Institute in Chicago, a technical school where students were trained in the electronic television that was later adopted by the industry. Sanabria also worked with inventor Lee deForest, a pioneer in ship-to-shore radio broadcasts, to build a flying torpedo controlled by television (an early military drone).

Also at the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair was a demonstration of a device called a two-way telephone-television, which allowed people to see each other while speaking on the telephone.

Patricia Marquam, Fair beauty queen, and Phil Baker, Armour's star jester on the radio, see and hear each other over the very latest in two-way telephone-television at the Television theater in the Electrical Building at the new World's Fair in Chicago. This picture shows the manner in which the telephone booths are equipped and the image each saw. Patricia has just interrupted one of Phil's jokes with a merry quip of her own which, as can be seen, beings a broad grin to Phil's face.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Lunchtime Theater - The Entire Film from the Full Rigged Ship Sørlandet to the 1933 Century of Progress Expedition.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

The entire film from the full rigged ship Sørlandet

to the 1933 Century of Progress Expedition. 

[runtime 49:00]

Norway sends her training ship, Sorlandet, a three-masted barque of 577 gross tons. She was accompanied by Capt. Magnus Anderson, who was in comman of the ship which Norway sent to the Fair in 1893.  The Sorlandet was moored at the southern tip of Northerly Island.

The Lunchtime Theater - Chicago Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. 1933

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

Chicago Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. 1933

 A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation. The fair's motto was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms."

The architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one side of the fair to the other. The Sky Ride was designed by the bridge engineering firm Robinson & Steinman, that ferried people across the lagoon in the center of the fair. It was demolished after having carried 4.5 million riders during the run of the fair. The Sky Ride had an 1,850-foot span and two 628-feet tall towers, making it the most prominent structure at the fair. Suspended from the span, 215 feet above the ground, were rocket-shaped cars, each carrying 36 passengers. 

The Lunchtime Theater - World's Fair 1933.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

World's Fair 1933.

[runtime 35:00]

Thompson’s Cafeteria Restaurants of Chicago, Illinois.

Although it is largely forgotten today, the Chicago-based John R. Thompson Company was one of the largest "one arm lunchrooms" chains of the early 20th century. Food would be very cheap but customers had to sit in a schoolroom style chair with a small eating surface and widespread out arm-rests, one being short, making it difficult to get real comfortable and stay too long. It was Thompson's way to turn-over tables faster and increase profits by decreasing a customer's dining time.

We so strongly associate fast-food chains with hamburgers that it may be surprising to learn that Thompson’s popular sandwiches included Cervelat (a cooked sausage), smoked boiled tongue, cold boiled ham, hot frankfurter, cold corned beef, cold salmon, and Herkimer County cheese, served on “Milwaukee Rye Bread” baked by the restaurant chain’s own bakery.

Thompson’s Cafeteria Restaurant at Madison and Kedzie, Chicago. Circa 1933.

Thompson's Cafeteria on Randolph Street, Chicago.

Thompson was proud that his meals were suited for sedentary office workers of the early 1900s. A 1911 advertisement claimed that lunch at Thompson’s “won’t leave you logy and lazy and dull this afternoon.” Thompson, an Illinois farm boy, ran a rural general store as his first business. He sold it in 1891, moved to Chicago, and opened a restaurant on State Street. He proved to be a modernizer in the restaurant business as well as in politics.

He operated his cafeteria's on a “scientific” basis, stressing cleanliness, nutrition, and quality while keeping prices low. In 1912 he moved the chain’s commissary into a premier new building on North Clark Street. Thompson’s, then with 68 self-service lunchrooms plus a chain of grocery stores, became a public corporation in 1914, after which it expanded outside Chicago and into Canada.

By 1921 there were 109 restaurants, 49 of which were in Chicago and 11 in New York with a commissary (a restaurant or cafeteria in a military base, prison, movie studio or other institution) in New York City. By the mid-20s Thompson’s Restaurants, Childs Restaurants, and Waldorf Lunch System were the big three U.S. restaurant chains.

John R. Thompson Restaurant Office:

350 North Clark Street

John R. Thompson Restaurant Locations:

350 North Clark Street

15 West Adams

141 North Clark Street

354 North Clark Street

528 North Clark Street

44 South Clark Street

220 South Clark Street

520 South Clark Street

105 North Dearborn Street

337 South Dearborn Street

414 South Dearborn Street

80 East Jackson Boulevard

24 West Jackson Boulevard

60 West Madison Avenue

119 West Madison Avenue

339 West Madison Avenue

521 West Madison Avenue

811 West Madison Avenue

955 West Madison Avenue

1548 West Madison Avenue

3200 West Madison Avenue

1152 South Michigan Avenue

1418 South Michigan Avenue

2201 South Michigan Avenue

31 East Monroe Street

61 West Monroe Street

340 Plymouth Court

91 West Randolph Street

62 East Roosevelt Road

314 South State Street

412 South State Street

76 West VanBuren Street

110 West VanBuren Street

7 South Wabash Avenue

104 South Wabash Avenue

207 South Wabash Avenue

343 South Wabash Avenue

175 West Washington Street

3813 North Broadway

3875 Cottage Grove Avenue

235 South Halsted Street

1223 South Halsted Street

4167 South Halsted Street

6215 South Halsted Street

6243 South Halsted Street

3169 North Lincoln Avenue

1228 North Milwaukee Avenue

1581 North Milwaukee Avenue

206 West 31st  Street

1122 West 35th Street

1031 West Wilson Avenue

In politics, Thompson served as a Republican committeeman and managed the campaign of a “good government” gubernatorial candidate in 1904. A few years later he failed in his own bid to run for mayor, promising he would bring efficiency to the government while improving schools and roads. In the 20s he financed a personal crusade against handguns.

Despite John R. Thompson’s progressive politics, his business would go down in history as one that refused to serve Negroes. Or, as civil rights leader Marvin Caplan put it in 1985, “If the chain is remembered today, it is not for its food, but for its refusal to serve it.” Thompson died in 1927.

Where he stood on the question of public accommodations is unclear but the chain faced numerous lawsuits by Negroes in the 1930s. However, the best-known case occurred in 1950 when a group of integrationists led by Mary Church Terrell was refused service in a Washington D.C. Thompson’s Restaurant. 

The group was looking for a case that would test the validity of the district’s 19th-century public accommodations laws. After three years in the courts, the Thompson case (for which the Washington Restaurant Association raised defense funds) made its way to the Supreme Court which affirmed the so-called “lost” anti-discrimination laws of 1872 and 1873 as valid.

Over the years the Thompson chain absorbed others, including Henrici’s and Raklios. At some point, possibly in the 1950s, the original Thompson’s concept was dropped. 

By 1956 Thompson’s operated the Holloway House and Ontra Cafeterias. In 1971, as Green Giant prepared to buy Thompson’s, it had about 100 restaurants, including Red Balloon family restaurants, Henrici’s restaurants, and Little Red Hen Chicken outlets. 

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Sally Rand (Helen Gould Beck) 1904-1979, "Fan Dancer" at Chicago's Century of Progress World's Fair of 1933 and "Bubble Dancer" at the Fair in 1934.

"Although reformers have raised a storm of protest over nude dancers in the Streets of Paris, the Oriental Village, and Old Mexico at the Chicago World's Fair, the dances have not yet been stopped. One of the girls, Sally Rand, is shown in her "Fan Dance," in which the feathers are her only covering, and do not cover her at times." Chicago, IL - July 22, 1933.

"I haven't been out of work since the day I took my pants off." Sally Rand.

She's considered an American icon in the world of entertainment although most contemporaries have no idea who she is until her legendary risqué "fan dance" is brought up. Then they put two and two together. Burlesque star Sally Rand was born in the Ozark Mountain town of Elkton, Missouri on Easter Sunday in 1904, her father a corporal in the Spanish-American War, and her mother a Pennsylvania Dutch Quaker.

Inspired by the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova, Sally became interested in dance at a young age and left home to join a carnival as a teen. She invariably became a cigarette girl, chorine, café dancer, artist's model, and circus performer (Ringling) through a series of introductions. She subsequently joined a repertory theater company and took acting seriously for the first time.

During the 20s she appeared in a number of stage shows. Films came her way as she was able to score work (due to her agile background in the circus) from Mack Sennett and Hal Roach in a few of their daredevil slapstick shorts. 

A Wampas (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) Baby Star of 1927, she joined mentor Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and entered feature films with a new name that DeMille gave her - "Sally Rand."

She decorated a number of silents, including westerns with Hoot Gibson and others, but a pronounced lisp hurt her career comes the advent of sound. It was at this juncture that the shapely dame decided to work on incorporating her talent for dancing back into her career. With the right mixture of enticement, imagination, and intricate feathery placement, Sally Rand came upon her secret formula to success.

As an exotic burlesque performer, she not only winningly ignited male libidos but found a steady gig for the rest of her days. A long-standing job at the Paramount Club in 1932 is where the idea of her "fan dance" was created.

Initially coming to Chicago in a show called "Sweethearts on Parade," in 1932, Sally soon accepted a position at the Paramount Club, in response to an advertisement for "exotic acts and dancers."

It was at the Paramount Club that she first performed the "fan dance," using two large ostrich feather fans purchased at a second-hand shop.

Following a "Lady Godiva" inspired stunt at the gates of the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair, Sally became a featured performer in the "Streets of Paris" concession and catapulted into stardom on May 30, 1933, with her performance of the now legendary "Fan Dance."

VIDEO

1933 Chicago World's Fair.

Sally Rand's Fan Dance Video

Nearly every account of Sally Rand's career includes the declaration that she "danced nude at the 1933 World's Fair."  Well, maybe.  As often as not Sally Rand's "nudity" was actually a body stocking or, perhaps, a coat of white theatrical cream.  Whatever the reality, the illusion was sensational.  As Sally manipulated two pink seven-foot ostrich fans to conceal and reveal much, but not all, only the eagle-eyed could successfully claim to have seen anything.

As you might imagine, the act was an unqualified sensation. At 29 years old, the diminutive (5' 1") damsel with the knockout figure (35-22-35) began packing them in by the thousands.  And it wasn't long before the shouts hit the fans.  Pillars of the community were outraged, public officials were consulted, and officers of the law were dispatched. Miss Rand found herself in court, answering to charges that certain performances at the Century of Progress Exposition were "lewd, lascivious, and degrading to public morals." To his credit, the judge was a man of sober perspective:

"There is no harm and certainly no injury to public morals when the human body is exposed, some people probably would want to put pants on a horse. When I go to the fair, I go to see the exhibits and perhaps to enjoy a little beer. As far as I'm concerned, all these charges are just a lot of old stuff to me. Case dismissed for want of equity." -- Superior Judge Joseph B. David, July 19, 1933

Some 22½ million paid visitors celebrated the Century of Progress in Chicago, ensuring that the name "Sally Rand" would be remembered for generations to come.

When the Chicago fair reopened in 1934, Sally perceived the need for something new: "I had to find a new twist." She decided on a bubble dance: "I wanted a balloon sixty inches in diameter, which is my height, made of a translucent or transparent material." The only trouble was that the biggest balloons available were a mere 30" in diameter. They were heavy red target balloons used by the War Department. Since no one knew how to make the required equipment, Sally fronted the funds for necessary experimentation herself. After numerous tests, the super-dooper, see-through bubble was born.

VIDEO

1934 Chicago World's Fair.

Sally Rand's Bubble Dance

In the 1930s she also appeared in legit plays including a stint as Sadie Thompson in "Rain" in 1935 opposite Humphrey Bogart. She would appear in later years at various revues, expositions and fairs still teasing and playing "hide and peek" with the guys, her act seldom straying from its original concept. 

She was arrested a few more times than she was married (at least three husbands can be credited to her marriage account). She continued to appear on stage doing her fan dance past age 60 and once replaced an ailing burlesque star Ann Corio in the stage show "This Was Burlesque" in the 1960s. She also shared the stage with burlesque topliners Tempest Storm and Blaze Starr. 

Sally's final appearance took place in Kansas City in 1978 and she died the following year.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

---

SALLY RAND PHOTO ALBUM

1933 Chicago Surface Lines Century of Progress World's Fair Ticket.

1933 Chicago Surface Lines Ticket (pre-CTA) to/from the Century of Progress World's Fair.
From the private collection of Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Artist's sketch of the "Ride of the Century" for the 1934 Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago.

If you notice the bottom right, it says "Beach Midway... 1934". The Sky Ride was built in 1933, and it wasn't on the Midway Plaisance. The Midway was on the mainland south of it in 1933. 

The 1934 Beach Midway was just south of Adler Planetarium and replaced the Jantzen (a swimsuit company) bathing beach that was there in 1933. 

The steel coaster "Ride of the Century" was never built.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.