Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. 49 a mighty pother of arms might have been saved and the greatest poem in the world lost. In our modern contest, each participant strives not to take from but to give to her sisters the palm. In many of the other departments of the Fair there has been an infinite amount of political friction. One country will not exhibit because our duties are unjust, another will put itself to very little trouble for us because it has so little commercial relation with our own. We find nothing of this in the Woman’s Building. We find a singleness of purpose which is truly impressive. The queens of England, of Spain, and of Italy take part in our enterprise; the empresses of Japan and of Russia testify their interest; the wife of the president of the French Republic lends us her countenance, and the great ladies of Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Den- mark, Russia, Austria, and all the other nations represented in our building have put their hands to our work. The Queen of England, her daughters, and her granddaughters send us their handiwork. Not only have the great ladies lent us their countenance, but the work-women all over the world have helped to enrich our building. In the Spanish section we notice the neatly rolled cigarettes of the cigarette-makers and the nets of the fisher-wives lying near the rich embroideries of the nuns, the exquisite missals from the convent schools, the paintings and writ- ings of royal amateurs. The insane women of a Pennsylvania almshouse make a contribution of neatly embroidered linen to our applied arts. The little children of the charity schools of Paris send us drawings and maps of so exquisite a workmanship that it is difficult to realize that the signatures, “ Rachel, aged 13,” and “Helene, aged 14,” belong to their authors. Many lessons may be learned at the World’s Fair, and many in the Woman’s Building; the most important of these is the unity of human interests. No man or woman who has truly entered into the life of the White City, which is not Chicago’s, nor the United States’, nor the Americas’, but , the world’s city, can ever again be satisfied with mere city or State citizenship. In this miniature world we have tasted world’s citizenship, we have learned that nothing that is not for the good of humanity at large can benefit us or our country. Maud Howe Elliott. 4