A Week of Presentations

The last few days have been filled with presentations and preparations for them.  Chiefly, that was for the SVSU OLLI class I am teaching on the Columbian Exposition.  I love to study that fair since so much happened there and in Chicago at the time it was taking place.  

I had two hours to talk about the buildings of the Fair.  That got me through the fourteen major buildings and two or three exhibits in each of them.  I got to go over the careers of the successive architects which added so understanding to what their thinking on design was.  I also got to review the material we had last week.

This class of seventeen went well.  I am quit happy with it, but , like normal, there is so much that I would like to do. I'd like more video of the time to show what was happening.  I'd also like to put on an effective section on the music of the era since so much was changing right then with the advent of the phonograph.

I have done nothing with the medical field of the 1890's.  That area would be interesting too.

I do want to cover military developments as well since this was a time of great military change as well.  The Krupp exhibit at the fair had a piece called "the Thunderer"  that was capable of a fifteen mile range.  The United States had several artillery pieces at the fair as well.

I could enjoy doing a ten week course on this fair but time only allows me one more session.

Today, I had 100 students studying the lumber industry.  That went well.  It ended up dealing with City Hall as well.  The kids were great and a joy to have.