Current exhibits at The Field Museum from the WCE Department of Anthropology⁴ offer only a hint of the scope of items originally on public display in the World's Columbian Exposition—Zulu beadwork; Javanese masks, puppets & musical instruments; South Asian jewels; Malay carpentry tools; Maori jades and capes; thousands of South American antiquities from many pre-Columbian cultures and times; treasures from the ancient culture of Ohio called Hopewell; Pacific Northwest carvings; Japanese tapestries, Korean, Russian, Javanese, Turkish, Native American clothing and accessories. As more and more material cultural objects were added to the Museum collections, many of the original WCE accessions were moved into Museum storage after conservation work was completed. While there clearly was a great effort to expose the American public to a range of diverse cultures organizers placed great emphasis on Native American cultures and cultures of Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, both from ancient times and the present. This website offers an unprecedented view of some of the objects originally displayed at the WCE.

Of course, not everything from the WCE ended up in our anthropology collections! Materials from other exhibits are in The Field Museum Departments of Botany, Geology and Zoology. Still other items went to Hull House, the newly forming Art Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, and numerous museums, libraries, and private collections around the world. Unfortunately, a number of objects simply were not meant to last, and could not be preserved after the Exposition closed, for example the Aquarium fish, the Horticulture plants, and all of those magnificent statues made of perishable fruits, vegetables, and agricultural products.

Why such an elaborate Exposition? There was great curiosity at the time among Europeans and Euro-Americans about cultures that were unfamiliar to them. Increased travel and communication across the world also resulted in a great desire among many wealthy individuals to collect and study objects from other cultures. A consumer market for material goods from foreign countries and colonies began to flourish. This resulted in the establishment of specialized businesses in the U.S. and Europe, such as the Umlauff Company, that focused on collecting and marketing objects from "exotic" areas. The nature of these collecting endeavors often went hand-in-hand with European and U.S. expansion and colonialism. Field Museum Anthropology Curator George Dorsey listed key purchases by the Field Columbian Museum from the WCE in a 1900 article, including "the Umlauff collection of ethnological material from northwestern America, and from Patagonia, Africa, and Oceanica".⁵ However,at the same time, the academic field of anthropology was becoming more established and professional. These new professionals offered hope for a new level of respect and understanding among the world's peoples.


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