author
Johanna Sara Wisthaler
b. 1868
A little-known late-19th-century travel writer, remembered for a lively account of a journey by steam yacht to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Her work blends sightseeing, practical travel detail, and the excitement of an era fascinated by progress and movement.
1 Audiobook
By Water to the Columbian Exposition
by Johanna Sara Wisthaler
About the author
Johanna Sara Wisthaler is a scarce figure in the historical record, but Project Gutenberg and The Online Books Page both identify her as the author of By Water to the Columbian Exposition and give her birth year as 1868. Based on the sources available here, that is the one work that can be confidently linked to her.
Published in 1894, By Water to the Columbian Exposition is a travel narrative about a trip aboard the steam yacht Marguerite to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The book follows the route through New York waterways and the Great Lakes, mixing landscape description, observations of towns and cities, and a firsthand sense of the fair's scale and appeal.
Because so little confirmed biographical information is readily available, Wisthaler is best approached through her writing itself. What survives suggests a sharp, enthusiastic observer with a gift for turning a long journey into an engaging record of travel in late-19th-century America.