The White City - Heavyweight

It was inevitable that we would design a shirt that celebrated our shared hometown. Chicago is known today as the Windy City or the Second City but for six months in the summer of 1893, it was The White City as the greatest world’s fair in history rose up in Jackson Park and touched the lives of over 27 million people who visited from around the world.

Made famous again in recent years by the riveting book The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, The World’s Columbian Exposition celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage to the New World. The name ‘White City’ comes from the stately neoclassical architecture which was almost completely white in color. The scale and grandeur of the fair would go on to inspire a generation of architects and urban planners, including Frank Lloyd Wright, and also became a symbol of the emerging idea of American exceptionalism.

As we build Tee Shirt Co., we’re inspired by this powerful advice from the visionary behind the fair, Daniel Burnham:

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”