Today we are off to The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, which was held from May the 1st to October the 31st, 1893.
The exhibition had many items of grandeur, but today we are going to push chocolate to its limits, with this fountain, which stood thirty-eight feet high, and was made from 30,000 lbs of chocolate. It was housed in the Agricultural Building, which alone covered nineteen acres
This postcard has a reverse that suggests it was handed out at the exhibition itself, for it goes into great detail about what to look for when looking at the statue - that the marbling of the columns is caused by applying cocoa butter, that the statue beneath the dome is modelled after the "Niederwald" Monument and sculpted out of a solid block of 2,200 pounds of chocolate, that the flying eagles atop the columns are also solid chocolate, and that the reliefs on the pedestal are more than life size and depict Emperors William I, William II, and Frederick III, plus Bismarck and Moltke. With all this weight, it is no wonder that the whole was supported by and covering a wooden frame.
Oddly, there was another Germania fountain in the same exhibition, but outdoors, north of the German building, and not made of chocolate; this figure held a lamp, which illuminated in the darkness.