The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson, is a gripping read about the 1893 World Fair in Chicago. It combines history, biography, and crime drama. The book tells stories of Daniel H. Burnham and the architects who built the White City. This included the buildings, expositions, and gardens on display at the Fair. It also tells the story of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, one of the world’s first known serial killers. Alternating chapters lead the reader on a journey that reveals the best and worst of human character. In addition, the book illuminates an important period in American and world history.
The Gilded Age, three decades after the American Civil War, introduced numerous inventions that would become commonplace in the following century. The World Fair in Chicago followed a similar exposition in Paris, in 1889. The French exposition featured the newly built Eiffel Tower, which was the standard the Chicago architects hoped to exceed. The exposition of technological and architectural achievements at the Chicago fair and others like it, including cultural symbols and expositions from around the world, would serve as the inspiration for the Disney Epcot Center nearly a hundred years later.
Notable personages from around the world attended the Fair, including the young Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian Archduke who’s assassination would spark the events leading to World War I nearly twenty years later. It was also a time of rapid urbanization, growing independence of women, and increasing economic inequality. Larson vividly describes in his book how Holmes took advantage of this mobility among young women and the inherent chaos of the rapid migration of people, to prey on unsuspecting victims.
Devil in the White City Turns History Into Thriller
The Devil in the White City turns history into a thriller and is an enthralling read. Larson discussed his methodology for historical research and how he visited the Library of Congress and inspected primary sources. He described the personal notes of Prendergast, the man who murdered Mayor Harrison, and observed how deeply the letters were carved into the page. Prendergast had been writing the Mayor furiously for weeks to followup on a promised civil service position that never materialized. It is this meticulous research that makes discovering history its own adventure.