The Devil In the White City

Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America...

The Chicago World's Fair produced a number of firsts besides Ferris’ 264-foot-tall wheel. Among the well-loved commercial products that made their debut at the Chicago World’s Fair were Cracker Jack, Cream of Wheat, Juicy Fruit gum and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Technological products that would soon find their way into homes nationwide, such as the dishwasher and fluorescent light bulbs, had early prototype versions on display in Chicago as well. The U.S. government also got in on the act, issuing the country’s first postcards and commemorative stamps and two new commemorative coins: a quarter and half dollar. The half dollar featured Christopher Columbus, in whose honor the fair had been staged, while the quarter depicted Queen Isabella of Spain, who had funded Columbus’ voyages—making it the first U.S. coin to honor a woman.

Perhaps the most famous first wasn't advertised in the fair literature:  America's First Serial Killer! Unbeknownst to festival goers, there was a mass murderer in their midst. For several years before and during the exposition, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes was busily luring victims (including a number of fairgoers) to a three-story, block-long building called the “Castle,” where they were tortured, mutilated and killed. Although H. H. Holmes’ heinous crimes weren’t discovered until after the fair ended, it’s believed that he was responsible for dozens of deaths in Chicago.

In his best selling book The Devil in the White City  Author Erik Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing.

 

Daniel Burnham (Architect)           HH Holmes (Killer)

"Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this story is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow" 

1) In what ways does the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture?

2) How did the 'White City' compare with Chicago, the 'Black City' or any other American City of the time?

3) How did Holmes' hotel contrast with the buildings of the World's Fair? Can architecture reflect goodness or evil, or are buildings neutral until used?

4) How was Holmes able to get away with so many murders without becoming suspect? Were you surprised by how easy it was for him to commit crimes without being caught?

5) What does the story reveal about “conflict between good and evil"? What is the essential difference between men like Daniel Burnham and Henry H. Holmes? Are they alike in any way?

6) After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted "What a human downfall after the magnificence and prodigality of the World's Fair which has so recently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month: depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next" [p. 334]. What is the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bring into focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age?

7) At the end of The Devil in the White City, Larson writes "The thing that entranced me about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city's willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world's fair in the first place" [p. 393]. What motives, in addition to "civic honor," drove Chicago to build the Fair? In what ways might the desire to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and to show New York that Chicago was more than a meat-packing backwater be seen as American?  In what ways were they problematic?