The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is an interesting book set in Chicago near the turn of the nineteenth century.  Its main point of interest is with the World’s Fair of 1893, the people who affected it, and the people who were affected by it.  Most often, the book focuses on Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s chief architect who designed the fair from the ground up with his partner, John Wellborn Root.  After Root’s early death in 1891, it was left to Burnham alone to follow through with the vision they had for the largest, most glorious fair the world had ever seen.  At times, it seemed as though the expectations of Chicago and America alike could not be met, especially under the time constraints and fiscal oversight imposed on Burnham.  Added to his problems were the swampy Chicago landscape chosen for the site, the economic panic spreading through the country, and the personalities and interests of all who were involved.  The book does an amazing job of demonstrating the difficult balance Daniel H. Burnham had to constantly maintain in order to complete the fair without compromising its core values, principle among them to exhibit to the world Chicago in the way he knew it and loved it.

The World’s Fair was planned to coincide with the four hundred year anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America in 1892 and more significantly as an answer to Paris’ World’s Fair held in 1889.  It was at the Paris World’s Fair that Alexandre Gustave Eiffel showcased his now world famous tower.  The United States of America had presented itself poorly at the Paris World’s Fair and its leading citizens looked for an opportunity to demonstrate America’s skill and ingenuity by hosting a fair of their own.  The common rallying cry was to build something that would “out-Eiffel Eiffel.” Through an act of Congress, Chicago was chosen as the site of this new fair, a fitting match between the fair that would be used to show America’s industry and a city that sought to prove the same and still earn a profit.

Chicago was elected as the site of the World’s Fair on February 24, 1890, leaving less than three years until the dedication ceremony scheduled for October 12, 1892.  Although the actual opening of the fair would not be until seven months later, May 1, 1893, political delays prevented the selection of the actual site of the fair until November 1890.  The nine month delay was devastating and the actual site selection was less than ideal.  To tame the landscape, Burnham enlisted the help of the famous landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, who had designed New York’s Central Park, Boston’s Emerald Necklace, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, and the grounds of Harvard and Yale.  He also selected the country’s top architects to design the buildings which would comprise Burnham’s vision for a Court of Honor.  Together the team would scramble to put their designs into motion and build the White City as quickly as possible.

Earlier, I explained that although Burnham and the World’s Fair are central topics of the book, they are certainly not the only topics discussed.  Larson sets against the dream of the White City, the cold realities of life in Chicago.  At the time, Chicago was known mainly for its meat packing districts and pig slaughtering houses.  The stench of pig carcasses permeated the air.  As bad, if not worse, was the stench of the garbage-strewn alleys and the raw sewage pumped into Lake Michigan and the Chicago River.  Black sludge could be seen spreading across the lake, eventually reaching the intake pipes for the city’s water supply.  Horses defecated in the streets and when they died their corpses were left rotting where they fell.  Crime was prevalent in Chicago which was home to Mickey Finn, for whom a drug-laced cocktail intended to immobilize a victim in order to rob him is named, and Herman Webster Mudgett, who under the name of Dr. H. H. Holmes earned the distinction of one of the most accomplished serial killers of all time and killed men, women, and children alike.  Mudgett’s murders far exceeded those of Jack the Ripper who preyed on London’s Whitechapel district at the same time Mudgett was constructing his hotel of death, only blocks from the fairgrounds.  Larson also describes in detail William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his Wild West Show, the young engineer George W. G. Ferris whose wheel would rival Paris’ Eiffel Tower and earn a place in American fairs for centuries to come, the outrageous Chicago mayor, Carter Henry Harrison, and his assassin, Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast, whose single act of murder signaled the close of the fair and caused the cancellation of its final day of celebration.

Erik Larson’s book, The Devil in the White City, is a fascinating read.  Larson’s attention to detail and painstaking research results in a story that is often times absorbing and at all times factual.  I recommend it highly for anyone interested in reading about what Americans can accomplish through sheer determination and patriotism.  It serves as a sad reminder of what may be missing from citizenry today, particularly considering how strongly these men and women fought to put together a national celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery and yet the 500th anniversary came and passed with little fanfare despite its close proximity to the Millennium, something that also didn’t achieve near the stature of the Fair of 1893.

Ordinarily, I’d try to include a single quote to summarize this posting.  Here, however, I thought I’d choose instead a passage from the book.

"At precisely 12:08 he touched the gold key.  A roar radiated outward as successive strata of the crowd learned that the key had been pressed.  Workmen on rooftops immediately signaled to peers stationed throughout the park and to sailors aboard the warship Michigan anchored in the lake.  The key closed an electric circuit that activated the Electro-Automatic Engine Stop and Starter attached to the giant three-thousand-horsepower Allis steam engine at the Machinery Building.  The start’s silver-plated gong rang, a sprocket turned, a valve opened, and the engine whooshed to life on exquisitely machined shafts and bearings.  Immediately thirty other engines in the building began to thrum.  At the fair’s waterworks three huge Worthington pumps began stretching their shafts and pistons, like praying mantises shaking off the cold.  Millions of gallons of water began surging through the fair’s mains.  Engines everywhere took steam until the ground trembled.  An American flag the size of a mainsail unfurled from the tallest flagpole in the Court of Honor, and immediately two more like-sized flags tumbled from flanking poles, one representing Spain, the other Columbus.  Water pressurized by the Worthington pumps exploded from the MacMonnies Fountain and soared a hundred feet into the sky, casting a sheet rainbow across the sun and driving visitors to raise their umbrellas against the spray.  Banners and flags and gonfalons suddenly bellied from every cornice, a huge red banner unscrolled along the full length of the Machinery Building, and the canvas slipped from Big Mary’s gold-leaf shoulders.  Sunlight clattering from her skin caused men and women to shield their eyes.  Two hundred white doves leaped for the sky.  The guns of the Michigan fired.  Steam whistles shrieked.  Spontaneously the throng began to sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” which many thought of as the national anthem although no song had yet received that designation.  As the crowd thundered, a man eased up beside a thin, pale woman with a bent neck.  In the next instant Jane Addams realized her purse was gone.

The great fair had begun.”
Erik Larson in The Devil in the White City