Women and their work will be more conspicuously represented at this Exhibition than at any of its predecessors, and there has therefore fittingly been formed a Board of Lady Managers. At its first session, on November 20th, 1890, Mrs. Potter Palmer, of Chicago, was unanimously elected President. She was born at Louisville, Kentucky, her maiden name being Bertha Honore, and she was educated at Louisville and Baltimore, Maryland. She was married in 1871 to Potter Palmer, one of the foremost business men of Chicago, and has since been one of the most prominent and most admired leaders of society in that city, besides being identified with innumerable benevolent and educational enterprises.
The Director-General of the Exhibition, its chief executive officer, upon whom the real responsibility for the conduct of the World’s Fair rests, is Col. George R. Davis, of Chicago. He was born in Massachusetts in 1840, and was educated in the schools of that State. Early in the war of the Rebellion, he became a volunteer in the Union Army and served through the entire struggle with great distinction. In 1871 he retired from military service and entered business life in Chicago, where he was eminently successful. In 1878 he was elected to Congress and was re-elected in 1880 and 1882, and in the fall of 1886 he was elected Treasurer of Cook County, Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago.