The 10th World Science Fiction Convention was held on Labor Day weekend from August 30 - September 1, 1952 at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. Unlike most Worldcons before or since, it never had an official name other than "10th World Science Fiction Convention," as both the convention's issued membership card and program book clearly stated. Of all Worldcons to date, only the 11th in Philadelphia, 1953, shared this same lack of a formal convention title. The phrases "Tenth Anniversary World Science Fiction Convention" (TAWSFiC) and "Tenth Anniversary Science Fiction Convention" (TASFiC, likely a simple linotype error, as "World" is missing) were each used in some of this Worldcon's pre-convention materials; but the phrase's acronyms "TAWSFiC" and "TASFiC" were never used officially by Chicago at that time. However, the 10th Worldcon was frequently referred to by many of its members as Chicon II, so dubbed for the previous Chicago Worldcon, Chicon, held in 1940; this nickname proved so popular that the convention became known by that unofficial name in science fiction fandom's lore and written histories.
The convention chair was Julian C. May (later also known as Judy Dikty). Hugo Gernsback was the convention's official guest of honor. The program included the performance of an original science fiction ballet.
For many years this Worldcon held the record for the largest attendance at any science fiction convention, with 870 registered attendees, a figure which was not surpassed by another Worldcon until 1967 for Nycon 3 in New York. By way of comparison, the previous year's Worldcon, Nolacon in New Orleans, had an attendance of 190.
It was at this Worldcon that the idea for the Hugo science fiction awards was first proposed and adopted. These awards, the highest and oldest honor in science fiction, were first awarded at the 1953 Worldcon in Philadelphia.
The convention is said to have been the place where Sturgeon's Law was first formulated (although other origin stories claim Sturgeon first articulated the concept in 1951, a year earlier). During a panel discussion on science fiction, one of the panelists observed that about 90% of science fiction was crud. Theodore Sturgeon, also on the panel, replied that 90% of everything was crud.
Famous quotes containing the words world, science, fiction and/or convention:
“Freedom-loving people around the world must say ... I am a refugee in a crowded boat foundering off the coast of Vietnam. I am Laotian, a Cambodian, a Cuban, and a Miskito Indian in Nicaragua. I, too, am a potential victim of totalitarianism.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our narratives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose, there is no instance. To write a true work of fiction even is only to take leisure and liberty to describe some things more exactly as they are.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every one knows about the young man who falls in love with the chorus-girl because she can kick his hat off, and his sister’s friends can’t or won’t. But the youth who marries her, expecting that all her departures from convention will be as agile or as delightful to him as that, is still the classic example of folly.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)