Mary Beth Raycraft, Senior Lecturer in French at Vanderbilt University, speaks about the book she translated, A Parisienne Discovers Chicago. The memoir recounts Madame Léon Grandin’s surprising discoveries during a cross-cultural journey through fin-de-siècle Paris, New York, and Chicago. This illustrated lecture highlights the young parisienne’s reactions to social and cultural life in Chicago at the time of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the unexpected consequences of her travels.

Recorded Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at Chicago Architecture Foundation.