I've been doing some otherwise non-Twain-related research on the Eskimo Village at the Chicago World's Fair and wonder if any evidence has emerged to indicate that Twain visited it while he was in Chicago in April 1893. He is said to have stayed in his hotel room because of illness, and his visit to Chicago was apparently before the May 1 opening of the Fair, but the Eskimo Village was the first attraction established there the previous fall and was open when he was there. Whether he visited it or not, I think "The Esquimau Maiden's Romance" was inspired by it and the attention it received that year. The Eskimo Village at the fair became a sensation in October and November of 1892 when three "World's Fair babies" were born there within weeks of the group's arrival from Labrador, and a fourth was born in January. They were also featured in exposition publicity through the winter. In early April 1893, several of the Inuit sued the concession company in a Chicago court because of the poor treatment they were receiving, and on April 20, ten of the twelve families "seceded" from the official Eskimo Village on the fairgrounds. On April 25, they incorporated the Esquimaux Exhibition Company to establish an independent Eskimo Village outside the fairgrounds. The events in April were so unusual that they received considerable local and national attention. Between that and all the "World's Fair babies," the Eskimo Village became one of the most talked-about attractions at the World's Fair. Twain's story repeats stereotypes about hygiene that were prevalent in the reporting about the Eskimo Village. The parts about relative values of furs and iron fishhooks are actually more accurate than many readers (including myself) probably thought. Most of the Inuit from Labrador at Chicago were familiar with trade for credit from contact with the Hudson Bay Company and Moravian missions (which also acted as trading posts) but Robert Peary funded his Arctic explorations in part by trading things like bits of scrap metal and wood that were extremely scarce in Northern Greenland for furs and ivory that were much more valuable here. The furs worn at Chicago received considerable attention. The Inuit left the village after the concession company tried to force them to wear them even as temperatures rose into the 70s in March and April. There were also fashion articles that compared them favorably with furs worn by American and European women. Inuit fashion was said to be more exacting but less frequently changing than that of "civilized" women. My research project on the Eskimo Village exhibits really has nothing to do with Twain but it's yet another example of how he was everywhere things were happening. Besides Chicago, he apparently had at least three other opportunities to cross paths with some of the same Inuit who were in Chicago. While he was in London in early 1900, they were exhibited there while on route to the World's Fair in Paris. Anthony Chibbaro's book on the Charleston Exposition (in Arcadia's Images of America series) lists Twain among the prominent visitors to that exposition in 1901-1902, and he visited the Jamestown Exposition twice in 1907. I haven't seen anything else on his visit to Charleston but assume it must have been during one of his yachting trips with H. H. Rogers. I also haven't seen anything that mentions him visiting the amusement section of the Jamestown Exposition where the Eskimo Village was located. Is anyone aware of any letters or notebook entries mentioning them from those expositions? Jim Zwick