Claude Harvard, Ford inventor and engineer at the Fair

An article in Aug 11, 1934, The New York Amsterdam News trumpeted “Henry Ford Has Negro Demonstrator at Fair,” featuring an African American presenter at the Ford Pavilion, Claude Harvard. As one of the few African American presenters at A Century of Progress, Claude Harvard quickly gained notice. While there was no explicit segregation at the Fair’s exhibits, companies provided their own employees and presenters, and the overwhelming majority of those were white. The exception that proved this rule was Claude Harvard, who was a Ford engineer, selected to be one of the presenters at the Ford building, demonstration one of his own inventions.

Claude Harvard was born in 1911 in Dublin, Georgia, and later moved to Michigan with his family as a young child. Showing technical aptitude from a young age, Harvard went to the Henry Ford Trade School starting from the age of 15, and upon graduation, was hired by Ford in 1932. While working at Ford, Harvard was a success, creating several patented inventions, then presenting his own work at A Century of Progress in 1934. Ford forced him out of the company in 1938 when Harvard became separated from his wife, since the morally stringent Ford would not hire divorced employees. Harvard’s engineering career continued long after the Fair, racking up inventions and accomplishments over the years. After Harvard left Ford, he worked at the U.S. Tank-Automotive Command until 1977. Harvard’s Oral History is in the Library of Congress as part of the The Civil Rights History Project.

Chicago through the eyes of Jun Fujita

When researching the Century of Progress, one of my favorite things is going down a rabbit hole in pursuit of a new-to-me historical tidbit. When researching photos for my World’s Fair book, I came across information about a photographer that was vitally important to Chicago and photographic history: Jun Fujita. Jun Fujita, a Hiroshima-born, Chicago-based, photojournalist took some of the most iconic photos of Chicago events, yet is seemingly little remembered today. Something of a renaissance man, Fujita also created paintings and poetry, but is most known for his work as a photojournalist. Working for the Chicago Evening Post and the Chicago Daily News, Fujita captured pictures of the Eastland Disaster, the 1919 Race Riots, and perhaps most famously, the aftermath of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Jun Fujita had a photo booth at the Century of Progress - which started me on this quest, and which I can find little reference to - and eventually started his own photo studio. Though largely forgotten over the past decades, Fujita has gotten more recognition in the past few years, for his poetry along with his photos. His great-nephew Graham Lee wrote a book about Fujita and his photography, Fujita: Behind the Camera, and his Instagram has a great array of Fujita photos. I am also excited to learn about an upcoming exhibit on Fujita at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Jun Fujita: American Visionary, which will run from January 24, 2020 – Tuesday, March 31, 2020. There are also special events and seminars at the Newberry in conjunction with the exhibition.

The Virtual White City

Like most World’s Fairs, the storied “White City” of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition was mostly destroyed after the end of the Fair, and little evidence remains today. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to experience the fairgrounds in person. This December at the Newberry Library in Chicago I was able to meet Dr. Lisa Snyder of UCLA’s Urban Simulation Team (UST), who is making that far-fetched dream a reality. Since 1997, the members of UST have been re-creating the 1893 fairgrounds in painstaking detail in virtual reality form. What is truly amazing is the accuracy with which the fairgrounds are rendered.

A rendering of the Fine Arts Building, now the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago

In order to get the most realistic details. Snyder and her team have spent countless hours scouring through archives and photographs, and in some cases even acquire architectural remnants themselves. The colors for the exteriors and finishes, including that of Louis Sullivan's red Transportation Building (a rarity in the “White City”), were sourced from contemporary watercolors and postcards. Even the virtual plants that appear were re-created by comparing records of what species were showcased in the Fair exhibits, and listed in the landscape design plans. The ultimate goal is to have the simulated fairgrounds serve as an educational tool for classrooms, though I can imagine other creative and commercial applications for this type of immersive reality. Below is a video of the VR simulation in action, so take 5 minutes and time-travel back to 1893!