Morgan Large History Professor Hall 12 February 2018 The Devil in the White City 1. Chicago wanted to be better than New York. Everyone talked about how fabulous New York was and they wanted to outshine that city. They thought that if they built the fair and had a lot of people from across the country, they would be the new “New York”. The obstacles they faced were waiting for everything to pass, waiting for inspections to be done, and waiting for everyone to be on board with it. They overcame these obstacles from sticking together and everyone having the same mindset which was to be better than New York and they were inspired by Paris. This was a opening for the new city and they wanted everything to go smoothly and be perfect. 2. The fair was called the “Columbian Exposition”. It was a social even that was in the honor of Christopher Columbus and had beautiful architect pieces to it that were built. The most popular feature was the centerpiece which was a large water pool. The pool represented the journey that Columbus took to get to America. Another popular feature was the Ferris Wheel. The fair included three life size representations of Christopher Columbus’ ships. The Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria. I reflected on the ambition and optimism because of how things were socially. There was conflict between groups and people in general. 3. H.H Holmes was a serial killer in the 19th century. His crimes went undetected for so long because he was a liar. He made up these stories that were so believable and he had a mental illness and during this era, mental illnesses were still new. He also fled from town to town to avoid being caught and to have to serve his time. He was caught in November of 1895 by trying to use a corpse in an insurance scam. He was granted the death penalty in May of 1896. The story of Holmes shows how technology has extremely progressed over the years. Now adays if someone flees town, the town over can catch them there and keep them in prison. During this era it would have took awhile for everyone to get the message of holmes being on the loose. They also had no way of tracking him down like police do these days with cell phones, credit card statements, security cameras, etc. 4. The book revealed that gilded age Chicago is not a place that I would have wanted to live in. it was a time of hatred, mental illness and there were a lot of significant events that happened during this time and it was a time period of hard work and not enough money. It was similar but the two cities had different stories. If there were only one story the book would be boring. One story compliments the other and so on. The fair was the main story of the book. Everything tied in with the fair because everyone wanted to be better than everyone else with the fair in mind. They wanted everyone to come see that Chicago was the new go to city to be in.
