Chicago was the host of two international expositions. The first was the Worlds's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The second was A Century of Progress International Exposition held in 1933 and 1934. The postcard and pictures in this post are all from the Century of Progress and show the cow exhibits there.
The first image (above) is a postcard from the International Harvester Company dairy exhibit in the Agricultural Building. A mechanical cow was used to demonstrate the McCormick-Deering milker. This cow was a reproduction of a Holstein that chewed its cud, moved, breathed and gave milk that could be seen through a window in the pail of the milker.
The Dairy Building was filled with dairy exhibits starring the cow as "Our Foster Mother." The next three pictures are from a souvenir book showing many of the exposition exhibits and buildings. The first picture is of the Dairy Building exterior.
The first image (above) is a postcard from the International Harvester Company dairy exhibit in the Agricultural Building. A mechanical cow was used to demonstrate the McCormick-Deering milker. This cow was a reproduction of a Holstein that chewed its cud, moved, breathed and gave milk that could be seen through a window in the pail of the milker.
The Dairy Building was filled with dairy exhibits starring the cow as "Our Foster Mother." The next three pictures are from a souvenir book showing many of the exposition exhibits and buildings. The first picture is of the Dairy Building exterior.
The next picture is of a mural and a mechanical cow with its insides representing "nature's greatest food factory." This cow consumed roughage and turned it into milk.
The next picture claims to show the difference in growth and size when an animal was fed milk. (Believe it or Not!)
The last picture is a page from an article in the Official World's Fair Weekly. (Click the picture to enlarge it to readable size.)
A very interesting post. We have children these days who have never seen a cow. Their milk comes froma supermarket, a bottle of milk on your doorstep is a thing of the past.
ReplyDelete"Our foster mother....the cow." Love it!
ReplyDeleteThat mechanical cow must have drawn the crowds! These days it would all be computer animated.
ReplyDeleteWell -- no wonder our kids are taller than we are ;>) it's all that milk!
ReplyDeleteAn interesting bit of history.
Oh I really enjoyed your cow post! It gave me the feel of being at the State fair or the county fair...I tour all the animals buildings as well! Great Sepia themed post...Alan should really be in cow-glory reading this!
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures. Interesting how few people drink full-fat milk nowadays. I switched to semi-skimmed years ago and can't drink full-fat any more.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. My eldest consumes several pints of milk per day but his younger brother is still taller than him.
ReplyDeleteGreat post...and agreed with other commenters about the children who have never seen a cow.
ReplyDeleteOr stepped in a fresh cow paddy...
;)
This is an awesome post! I enjoyed it all, but maybe the picture of the dog, pig and duck (duck?) being bigger because of drinking milk from their foster mom isn't too far off ... we are all bigger these days after generations of drinking milk with growth hormones (okay a big leap, but who knows!).
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job, I really enjoyed how you pulled together the themes.
Happy SS!
Kathy M.
I love the mechanical cow, even if it leaves some processes out of the picture.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the horns. Sadly these horns are cut off often nowadays.
ReplyDeleteSeems that I remember something about a real, live cow with a window in her side.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if someone has the mechanical cow on display in their basement. It would be a keeper.
ReplyDeleteVery moooving post:-)
ReplyDeleteWonderful, entertaining post!
ReplyDeleteLove my milk, skim that is. Most folks hate skim milk but when I had to drink it I got used to it now and am better off for it at my age. Great post. Yep Alan will like this.
ReplyDeleteQMM
A wonderful set of photographs. You tie up the theme with such style - parcel the images together with such craftsmanship. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI am attending the Napan Fair next week, I will look at the cows in a different way now, thanks. great post.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post. My mother left me collector pins and a collector spoon from the Century of Progress Exposition. Now I have seen something she may have seen while there! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteA Perfect Antidote To Soya Milk!
ReplyDelete