Afterword: the Woman's Building Library and history.(Woman's Building Library at the Chicago World Fair)

This afterword reflects on the articles in this special issue on the Woman's Building Library and observes that each article argues that the books held in the library speak to tensions in women's roles and shifts in women's writing in late-nineteenth-century America. These same tensions evident in the library were also evident in the presentation of history and progress in the Woman's Building and throughout the fair. Seen against this backdrop of the Columbian Exposition and the Woman's Building, the historical fiction included in the library reveals how, in the years leading up to the fair, women themselves participated in presenting narratives of the nation's history.

**********

The Woman's Building Library represents women's lives and writing at an historical moment characterized by paradox and transition. As almost every article in this special issue reveals, the books held in the library articulate tensions in women's roles in late-nineteenth-century America and speak to shifts in women's writing during the period. The shifts and tensions, transitions and paradoxes, contained in the holdings of the library were also in evidence throughout the Woman's Building and the larger fair. A celebration of progress as well as an idealization of the past, the Woman's Building and the other buildings and exhibitions throughout the World's Columbian Exposition presented history and progress in conflicted ways as the fair attempted to showcase a particular version of the past, one that would prove useful in highlighting and advancing the nation's progress. Because the Woman's Building Library included both historical fiction and works of history by women, the holdings also give us a way to think about how women participated in writing national narratives--in representing the nation's history themselves--in the decades leading up to the fair. The historical fiction contained in the library embodied many of the versions of history on display at the fair, and, like other genres in the library, it reveals a world of women's writing that might have been forgotten were it not for the efforts of women around the country to collect books by female authors from their home states.

Visitors to the 1893 Columbian Exposition were greeted with a narrative of the nation's history. To mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus's "discovery" of the New World the fair memorialized Columbus not only in its name but also in statues throughout the grounds, replicas of Columbus's ships, and a tapestry representing Columbus's first view of America. (1) These representations of Columbus transformed him into a "triumphant" figure at the origin of all progress that would then follow in the New World. One guidebook describes the Columbus quadriga, "representing Columbus as he appeared in the triumphal fete given in his honor on his return from his first voyage ... the head thrown back proudly as an indication of the daring determination of the bold navigator." (2) Other historical figures were memorialized in similarly triumphant and determined poses, including Benjamin Franklin, whose statue stood next to the Electricity Building, he too with "head thrown back." The Columbian Exposition Album (1893) describes the Franklin statue as follows: "Gazing toward the sky, the great scientist stands ready with kite in hand to draw the lightning from cloud to earth." (3)

In the designs of various state buildings…