Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing formed The History Bank in 1979, having worked together in publishing beginning in 1973. Husband and wife nearly as long, we have developed and produced more than 200 books on a very broad list of topics. In 1993 the National Trust for Historic Preservation contracted with us to write an exhaustive history of the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was issued in hardcover and in a $150 limited edition. In 2017 we wrote the definitive history of the Midway Plaisance for the University of Illinois Press, which has also published the Columbian History in softcover since 2002. While the hardcover is out of print, we still have an inventory of books for sale.
We continue to specialize in the Columbian Expo and currently are working on a special world's fair sale that will include 40 scarce to rare WCE tickets; I am aiming to have the sale live in November or early December.
Our blog, worldscolumbianjournal.com, provides information on all aspects of the Exposition.
While we specialize in Columbiana, you will find items from a variety of other world's fairs (including the very first in London's Crystal Palace in 1851 to Seattle Century 21 "Space Age" fair in 1962) in our store.
The History Bank also sells books, relics, tokens, documents and other Civil War items. We have written about the Civil War extensively, publishing (with Penguin Books and Scholastic) the Young Reader's History of the Civil War that has sold nearly 700,000 total copies of the seven books in the series. I also wrote "Civil War Trivia, which is more than trivia; it's an excellent overall history of the war and you can purchase copies through The History Bank along with all books I've written, beginning with the first (KLONDIKE LOST) almost 45 years ago!
You will find items here from world's fairs, a variety of historical Americana, US coins, medals and tokens and items from the Roman empire up through the 1960's and the Baby Boomer era. periods of world history.