The Woman's Building was designed and built for the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. It had exhibition space as well as an assembly room, a library, and a Hall of Honor. The History of the World's Fair states, "It will be a long time before such an aggregation of woman's work, as may now be seen in the Woman's Building, can be gathered from all parts of the world again."
Origins
Beginning in 1889, activist women in Chicago lobbied to make their city the site of the world's fair of 1892. They also petitioned for an official place for women in the planning and exhibitions at the fair. Led by Emma Gilson Wallace, they suggested forming a "Women's Department for the Fair". These activists came from various women's organizations involved in philanthropy, education, and suffrage. The Quatro-Centennial Committee of the Senate approved the Fair Bill naming Chicago as the site. When the bill was sent to the House of Representatives, William McKendree Springer attached an amendment to create a Board of Lady Managers. The House accepted the bill and in 1890 President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill into law. The Board appointments, made by the National Commission, numbered 117, including two Lady Managers from each state, territory and the District of Columbia, as well as members-at-large. Among their duties related to the Fair, the Lady Managers were in charge of the plans for the Women's Hall.
14 women architects submitted designs for the Woman's Building. The Board of Architects selected Sophia Hayden's design. Alice Rideout was chosen as the official sculptor for the Woman's Building. She created the exterior sculpture groups and the pediment. Enid Yandell designed and created the caryatid that supported the roof garden. Candace Wheeler supervised the interior decorations. Interior decoration included murals painted by Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low and Mary Cassatt. Cassatt was asked to paint a 58 x 12 foot mural for the north tympanum over the entrance to the Gallery of Honor, showcasing the advancement of women throughout history, called Modern Woman. Four panels in the Hall of Honor were painted by Lucia Fairchild Fuller, Amanda Brewster Sewell, Rosina Emmet Sherwood and Lydia Field Emmet. The British sculptor Ellen Mary Rope contributed a bas relief, depicting ‘Hope, Charity, Faith and Heavenly Wisdom’, which found a later home in the dining room of the first Ladies' Residential Chambers in London, a project of cousins Rhoda and Agnes Garrett. The library ceiling mural was painted by Dora Wheeler Keith.
Exhibits
The Woman's Building contained exhibits of works by women across a variety of fields from fine art, applied art, literature and music, to science, and home economics. There were also exhibits about women in American History and other cultures and places in the world. Annexed to the Woman's Building was the Children's Building which exhibited American 19th century best practices for child-rearing and education.
Legacy
Yandell co-wrote a semi-autobiographical account of her involvement in planning the fair, Three Girls in a Flat. The exhibits at the Woman's building inspired Danish noblewoman, Sophie Oxholm, to organize a women's exhibition in Copenhagen, eventually resulting in the 1895 Copenhagen Women's Exhibition. Buildings at world's fairs are often demolished when the event ends, and finding another home for them is rarely practical. The Woman's Building was destroyed as part of the general demolition after the Fair. Sadly, after the exposition, Cassatt's mural and many other artworks by many women were placed in storage and subsequently lost. Eighty years later, the Woman's Building had been almost lost to history. With the flourishing of second-wave feminism, women went searching for what had gone before. Feminist artist Judy Chicago and her team of students, in the midst of creating The Dinner Party, discovered a copy of the Woman's Building catalog in a second-hand bookstore. When the Los Angeles Woman's Building was opened in 1973, the founders decided to name the organization after the 1893 Woman's Building.
