“Individual entry #1” I have read to page 50 and I have been introduced to Burnham and Root, but so far is their importance in this story unclear. The author also introduces H.H Holmes or Herman Webster Mudgett as his given name is. H.H Holmes is a doctor who I suspect is the killer in the story. It is pretty obvious that he is the killer with the example that he lied to some of his customers about where Mrs. Holton was, Mrs. Holton is a owner of a drugstore that H.H Holmes bought after her husband died. The author also tells about Chicago in the time period of the book, the competition for the fair and the some of the difficulties that was in the city at that time.
So far the book isn’t meeting my expectations at all because I was expecting a really interesting story about a killer in Chicago and so far this book is really slow to read. The author talks a lot of Chicago in the beginning and he makes it to a very boring book to read. Hopefully it picks up now when I am introduced to whom I suspect to be the killer in the story. The reason why I choose this book was that I like reading about murderers and books that is so interesting that you want to keep on reading. I don’t really feel that with this book so far.
It is really hard, in my opinion, to put a theme to this book since I haven’t read that much of it. I think that it could be the theme “Work”. Because the book talks a bit about Burnham and Root and their job as architects and how that works out for them.
Right now I don’t think it is a good book but it feels like it has potential to be a very good book. The reason why it isn’t that good is that it is a hard reading with a lot of complicated language that makes the story hard to follow with. Which doesn’t give it a flow like really good books does. I also think that the author might be building the story so it will start to pick up and be really good. But I don’t think that this book has the potential to be a book that people is talking about in ten years. I also don’t see any real cultural or social value in this book, nothing that the author wants to say with the book. Not so far but it has potential.
Individual Post #1 The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson is the story of the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago. The character we meet is the main architect working on the fair, Daniel Hudson Burnham. He is on a ship, the Olympic, headed for Europe, and his friend Francis Millet, on a sister ship headed for the United States. Burnham cannot stop thinking about Millet, and tries to send a message to him, only to discover that his ship has had an accident. Burnham’s ship is headed to help. Burnham pulls out his diary, and begins to reminisce about the fair. They then describe Chicago at the time. It was a dangerous and dirty place. Larson says, “Everywhere one looked the boundary between the moral and the wicked seemed to be degrading, (12)” and that death and violence were commonplace. You then meet the second important character, a “young handsome doctor (12)”. The next section describes how Chicago was chosen to host the Worlds Fair. People waited with bated breath. “When the crowd outside the Tribune saw that Chicago led New York by 43 votes, it exploded with cheers, whistles, and applause (16)”. The people of Chicago saw the fair as an honor, and a way to surpass New York as the greatest American city. The next topic is the beginning of Burnham’s career. A rocky start, he began as an architectural drafter, only to leave on the gold rush to Nevada. He returned, broke, to get another job. He finally met his match, an architect named John Wellborn Root. After establishing themselves working for the Union Stockyards and marrying daughters of higher ups in the stock yards, they began their own firm. They complimented each other, and created a progressive and effective firm that attacked problems, like how to construct a building that could pull down the clouds. The book is so far meeting and slightly raising my expectations, but a good book will do that to you, raise you expectations. I had heard that the beginning was slow, and that it would pick up, but for not being very far in I am enjoying the plot and the characters. The book really deals with the theme of work, Root and Burnham starting their own firm, and Burnham trying to make money, through the gold rush and his drafting work. The city of Chicago was relying on the Worlds Fair to boost their economy and their place in the United States. The theme of class also plays into the book, because the state of Chicago was fairly grim, and at this point women began looking for employment to as “typewriters, stenographers, seamstresses, and weavers (11)”. People were beginning to work in droves. I really like this book so far, and I’m excited to have the weekend to read more of it. It’s a good read so far, and it is quite the page-turner, for example introducing the doctor, who you know is the murderer, and then switching to Burnham’s life story. I am really interested to read more, especially because it is a true story. The book has historical value, chronicling an important event in American history. It covers an interesting topic, and is based on facts. It also has some literary merit, because it is well written, and has a great book that will definitely stand the test of time, both because of it’s subject matter and it’s writing style. As Burnham said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood (1).”
So far The Devil in The White City is a great book. It has far surpassed my expectations for it. When I first picked up the book I did not think it would be anything special but boy was I wrong. I did not expect it to be as great as it is. I did not always think the book was great though. The first couple pages I was thinking that this was going to be one long book. But as I got farther into the book I really started to enjoy it. Erik Larson is a great writer. He writes in a style that really engages me as a reader. I would not consider this book a page turning thriller because I do not believe it was meant to be but it definitely is something that I get excited to pick up. One thing about the book I really enjoy is the history aspect. It gives me an insight into the 19th century that I never had before. I find the murderer, Holmes, fascinating so far. I love, yet am terribly creeped out and scared by how crafty he is, especially when it comes to the building of his hotel. “Holmes cast himself as a demanding contractor. As workers came to him for their wages, he berated them for doing shoddy work and refused to pay them, even if their work was perfect. They quit, or he fired them. He recruited others to replace them and treated these workers the same way. Construction proceeded slowly, but at a fraction of the proper cost” (Larson, 67). Holmes’s cheats out the workers and I know that that is wrong but what a genius he is. One of my fears for this book is that it will turn into a gory book. I hope it does not go into bloody detail about the murders Holmes will undoubtedly commit in the future. I chose this book for a couple reasons. First was that my step mom and my dad had both read the book. My step mom completed it, my dad got distracted by his other projects and never picked it back up. Because of the reviews my step mom gave the book I had planned on reading it eventually so I capitalized on the opportunity to read it in school. What officially decided me was when I heard Mrs. Elliott say she was going to read it and had heard good things about it. I had originally planned on reading Fast Food Nation but changed my mind after hearing Mrs. Elliott talk about the book. I believe I made the right decision. A big theme of the book is architecture. Larson goes into detail of the ingenuity in architecture of Burnham and Root. Architecture is a line of work which relates to our past unit's theme of work, class and identity. Holmes is a doctor and pharmacist. Root and Burnham are architects. Olmsted is a landscape architect. Lines of work are a big theme in the book. The Devil in The White City is a book that possesses literary merit. The way in which Larson writes, the way he arranges words in a sentence and the way the story is told, shows quality. He does not state a fact but he tells a story to show it to you. He points us in the right direction leaving us to make our own conclusions. He shows and does not tell. I believe his book had literary merit because it is a quality piece of work. Larson's book is of much cultural value. The book is about a time when America distinguished itself as a big player in the world. It took on what could have made or broken its world reputation. In reading this book we learn about America during the late 19th century. Because we live in America and the book was written about Chicago it applies to us. The reason some things are the way they are today could have been because of what happened during that time. Our cultural could be a result of the worlds fair. The Devil in The White City is written about Chicago in the late 1800's. America has decided to hold a worlds fair in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the New World. That was the original motive yet another presented itself in 1889. “In Paris on the Champ de Mars, France opened the Exposition Universelle, a worlds fair so big and glamorous and so exotic that visitors came away believing no exposition could surpass it. At the heart of the exposition stood a tower of iron that rose one thousand feet into the sky, higher by far than any man-made structure on Earth. The tower not only assured the eternal fame of its designer, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, but also offered graphic proof that France had edged out the United States for dominance in the realm of iron and steel, despite the Brooklyn Bridge, the Horseshoe Curve, and other undeniable accomplishments of American engineers” (Larson, 14-15) This fair became a chance for America to reclaim its pride and re-establish its dominance.
Many cities contended for the fair knowing it would bring much revenue and fame to the city if the fair was a success. It eventually came down to Washington D.C., Chicago, St. Louis and New York. When congress put it to vote Chicago won the majority of the votes needed. The city was ecstatic yet many “doubted that Chicago really understood the challenge that lay ahead” (Larson, 32). After its victory Chicago proceeded to do the exact opposite of what it should have been doing, nothing. “It was July 1890, nearly six months since Congress had voted to give the World’s Columbian Exposition to Chicago, but the forty five men on the expositions board of directors still had not decided where within the city the fair should be built” (Larson, 48). Charles Hudson Burnham and his college, John Wellborn Root, were chosen to “direct the design and construction of the fair” (Larson, 48). With six months wasted the two very well known architects had just twenty-six months to complete what could take twice that. The recruiting process began. They needed to hire many more architects as well as designers to bring the fair to life. One man who was key to Chicago's success was Frederick Law Olmsted “the wizard of Central Park” (Larson, 49). When first confronted Olmsted declined saying that he did not do fairs and that “he doubted that enough time remained for anyone to do the fair justice” (Larson, 49). After pondering the invitation Olmsted excepted. In December of 1890, just twenty-two months till the fair needed to be ready for its dedication, the exposition director's had finally decided where to hold the fair. It was to be held in Jackson Park with a grand view of Lake Michigan. The decision as to where to locate the fair caused a rapid acceleration of events. A rough plan of the fair was to be delivered in twenty-four hours to the directors and more architects were to be recruited. Burnham traveled to New York where he persuaded some of America's best architects to join in the cause. The architects of Chicago saw this as betrayal. So Burnham and root hastily chose five Chicago firms to join in the effort. All five eventually accepted. I am going to have to read on to find out what becomes of all of these architects and the fair. Meanwhile during the construction of the worlds fair a psychopath named H.H. Holmes planned his killings. “He broke prevailing rules of casual intimacy: He stood too close, stared too hard, touched too much and long. And women adored him for it” (Larson, 36). The man was smooth. As a child he was small, odd and exceptionally bright. He was thought to have kept small boxes where he stored “skulls of small animals that he had disabled and then dissected, alive, in the woods around Gilmanton” (Larson 39). Even as a child he had a tendency to kill. Throughout Holmes life people always sensed something weird about him. That something was never a thing anyone could put a finger on. “Holmes was charming and gracious, but something about him made Belknap uneasy. He could not have defined it. Indeed, for the next several decades alienists and their successors would find themselves hard pressed to describe with any precision what is was about men like Holmes that could cause them to seem warm and ingratiating but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element of humanness was missing” (Larson, 87). During the late 80's and the early 90's of the 19th century Holmes was building a hotel in preparation for the worlds fair. He intended to have the building be “convincing enough to justify a large fire insurance policy. After the fair he intended to burn the building to collect the insurance and, as a happy dividend, destroy whatever surplus 'material' might remain in its hidden storage chambers...” (Larson, 85). The man did not stumble upon killing on accident, he planned out his murders. Three to four years prior to the fair he already intended to kill. Somehow, somewhere in the book I believe the two parallel stories will converge. Maybe Burnham and Root will be introduced to each other or meet on accident. I will have to read on to find out.
I have enjoyed the book The Devil in the White City, thus far. There is a long road ahead till I finish but I am excited to read on. In the beginning of the book Erik Larson, the author, explains that the city of Chicago is a very busy place people entering and leaving on train. He also writes that Chicago is a very violent and dirty city. The smell was of a slaughterhouse which made the city seem even dirtier. It was a Monday morning in 1880 when the whole city of Chicago awaited for the results for the World Fair holding spot. The cities in the running were Chicago, St. Louis, New York City, and Washington. “The initial ballot put Chicago ahead by a big margin, with 115 votes to New York’s 72. St. Louis came next, followed by Washington… When the crowd outside the Tribune saw that Chicago led New York by 43 votes, it exploded with cheers, whistles, and applause” (Larson 16-17). From this quote it shows that the Chicagoans wanted the good attention for holding the World Fair. The World Fair is, “the initial intent simply to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World” (Larson 14). Since the World Fair was given to Chicago to host even more people will be coming into the city. There will be too much commotion fro the police force to handle. Herman Webster Mudgett planned on making a scandal in insurance fraud which worked and no one figured it out because of so much growth in the city. I really did not know what to expect about this book. But since I have been reading it I really enjoy this book. It is a very high standard book. This book has exceeded my expectations. When I was told we had an independent reading assignment I really thought we were only going to read some boring book but this list really was great. I expected the book to be boring because when we need to read a book for class they are usually boring and very few are compelling. Since this book I have a feeling that the books we will read from here on out will be good. I hope that I will learn about the great city of Chicago and also I enjoy non-fiction books. Work is one of the themes that I have picked out of the book so far. There is a many reference to jobs and money and how much someone gets for a job or not. Here is a quote that you can tell that there is a variety in jobs, “Businessmen, clerks, traveling salesmen, stenographers, police officers, and at least one barber” (Larson 13). Job specialists were noticed in every crowd that was written about thus far as well. The quality of this book is outstanding. The way that Erik Larson writes is intriguing because he writes as if he was there in the late 1800’s that as if he was there right next to Mudgett and Holmes. I love when writers are able to do that and that is why I find this book so fascinating. Whenever I open up my book I feel as if I am in Chicago at that time. The enjoyment level is higher than almost any other book I have read. I cannot say how much I enjoy it but I am sure that my enjoyment level will be higher and higher page after page. I am glad I have chosen this book because it is engaging and makes me think of how people lived in the old days as we are caught up in the modern day world. To me I feel that The Devil in the White City is a piece of literature that reflects important American roots. It has high cultural value because Erik Larson shows interesting things that went on during this time and how the cities were not the same as they used to be. This book written by Erik Larson is a great writer therefore The Devil in the White City is a literary book because his writing is great. Also I knew this was going to be a great book when I saw the National Book Award Finalist on the cover. I judged the book by its cover I shouldn’t have but it means it has high power of writing in between the cover.
Overall our group is very excited about The Devil in the White City and we are all enjoying it a lot. We all seem to be fascinated by the serial killer, Holmes, yet are creeped out by him at the same time. We discussed that we liked learning about the history of the World’s Fair, how it came to Chicago and how it influnced America’s history. We all relized that we like reading the chapters about Holmes far more than we want to read the Burnham chapters. We also really like Larson’s writing style. Bill said it best. “Larson tells stories to communicate ideas.” Larson tells us a lot about the condition of Chicago through the stories of Holmes and Burnham. The book is starting to rise to the expectations of the group. The beginning started slowly, talking about Burnham and Root first, and their starts as architects, how they met, their marriages, etc. but as the book moved to the story of Holmes, we are getting more interested in the book, but mostly in the chapters about the serial killer. Larson keeps the story moving and keeps the reader engaged.
After reading the first portion of The Devil In The White City the book has surprised me in a positive way. The book was recommended to me by a good friend, Billy Davis. He told me he had already started the book and that it was a very interesting and twisting novel. On that note, I decided to go to the bookstore and read up on the book. After reading the back cover, I noticed that one of the main characters was a serial killer. I was never really a fan of books that were more on the dark side with killing and all, yet I noticed that it was a National Book Award Finalist so I decided to commit to reading it.
So far, the book has surpassed my expectations and it has had me on the edge of my seat wanting to read more and more. The book is a very good read and author uses very sophisticated words that help tie the story together and even make it more interesting. The book somewhat started off slow in the prologue, yet the speed of the book sped up after that. Since I have finished the prologue I have been flying through the book and understanding what has been going on. The book has me wanting to read more and more rather then just putting it down. I feel that as the book continues on it will become even more and more interesting and I feel that Root will come out more in the story as it progresses. Root is the artistic type of architect and I feel that when they start the creation of the fair he will have a more apparent part and will be more involved in the story. I also enjoy the history behind the book and the fact that Larson, who is a historian, brings the aspect of 19th century history into the story.
My favorite character so far in the book has to be the murderer. He is a very sly and crafty and Belknap attempts to describe the murderer yet he can't seem to grasp the words,
"Holmes was charming and gracious, but something about him made Belknap uneasy. He could not have defined it. Indeed, for the next several decades alienists and their successors would find themselves hard-pressed to describe with any precision what it was about men like Holmes that could cause them to seem warm and ingratiating but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element humanness was missing"( Larson, 87).
So it seems as if Belknap is unsure or senses something about Holmes that is not fully human. This puzzles Belknap and has him take a second thought over it.
Early in the book, the first chapter describes Chicago as a city. It talks about the dangerous factors of the city, and the trains being one of these factors. As noted in the book,
"Anonymous death came early and often. Each of the thousand trains that entered and left the city did so at grade level. You could step from the curb and be killed by the Chicago Limited. Everyday on average two people were destroyed at the city's rail crossings" (Larson, 12).
It then goes on to describe the fact that the Congress won and gave the opportunity to Chicago to host the fair. The reason for the holding of the World Fair is because it is the 400th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America. They have come across many problems right from the beginning. The city can not establish an exact place in Chicago where they would like to hold the fair. They also wanted to make the fair one square mile in a little over 26 months. Six months into the creation of this fair and absolutely nothing has happened. This leaves them with 20 months to basically recreate a city.
Then they introduce H.H. Holmes into the story as he walks into the train station. As a murderer he is very small in stature as I have read, "He was twenty-six years old. His height was five feet, eight inches; he weighed only 155 pounds" (Larson, 35). Holmes talks about his early childhood and the fact that he killed animals and dissected them alive. He felt that killing was his calling, "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing" (Larson). Burnham and Root recruit Olmsted. Olmsted designed central park. It took him 1858 to 1876 to built and refine the park. Holmes and a friend try to receive money through fraud with insurance. Holmes tries to get a lady to set up insurance with him as the benefactor. He makes money in other ways, "Davis estimated that Holmes made $200,000 throughout his drugstore and other business ventures, most of which were fraudulent. Burnham goes to New York to try and recruit architects to help the fair. When he goes back to Chicago all of the architects are mad at him.
The book connects with work and class because there are many different architects from all across the state and nation attempting to help this fair. All of them have different incomes and places where they live. The book also shows that Holmes a very wealthy doctor uses fraud and other ways to get money. Even though he is in a very high class he acts in a lower class manner.
Overall the book is great so far and I feel that it is a noteworthy book. I feel that this book deserves all of the awards it has received and that the entire 11th grade should read it next year and do a lot of discussion with it.
"Individual entry #2" After reading a large chunk of the book, I love the way Larson writes. He makes the book ten times more interesting with his creative writing. The theme of “work” is very evident in the book. Every character that is introduced for the most part has something to do with helping create the fair or plan it out. Also they are bringing in lower class immigrants and having them do all of the dirty work, such as digging trenches. So this theme of work is shown a lot throughout the book now that they have lower class workers doing the work for the fair. The book continues to impress me and it is very hard for me to put the book down because I just want to continue reading and find out what is going to happen next. The architects from New York, Boston, and Kansas City all met in Chicago. They met with the Exposition Committee to discuss what needed to be done to create the World’s Fair. Ned and his wife Julia are introduced into the story. Ned and Julia have just recently moved to Chicago with their eight-year old daughter Pearl. Ned got his first job at the jewelry counter in a thriving drugstore on the South Side of the city. Julia and Ned noticed what was going on with the fair, and they described the park as being very ugly: “the park an ugly, desolate place of sandy ridges and half-dead oaks, although Pearl had enjoyed tried to catch tadpoles in its pools of stagnant water” (Larson 100). Ned felt that Chicago was like any other city that he had ever visited. One of Ned’s new employers was Dr. H.H. Holmes. Dr. H.H. Holmes new object was Ned’s wife along with Ned’s sister. In this time, many people would go missing in Chicago, so they wanted to start “a separate bureau” a mysterious disappearance department. This department was going to be started within the police force. Ned was never really fond of Holmes, and he felt something weird about him. One night Holmes as Ned to do something for him, “He led him to a big vault and stepped inside, and told Ned to close the door and listen for the sound of his shouting” (Larson 102). Ned only heard a faint sound, and he never understood why Holmes asked him to do that favor. On January 12, the Eastern and Chicago architects met again. It was a Monday morning and they met in Burnham and Root’s library. Root did not attend the meeting. Hunt was the new president and Sullivan the new secretary. The meeting began and they wanted to begin work, Hunt said, “We haven’t come here on a missionary expedition. Let’s get to work” (Larson 104). The room burst with excitement because they wanted to get started. Root was unable to attend the meeting because he had pneumonia. Following the meeting Burnham went to go see Root at his house. They talked for a little bit and Root described the fact that he was having strange dreams. Root asked Burnham, “You won’t leave me again, will you?” (Larson 107) Burnham responded with a no and did end up leaving the room to go see Root’s wife. While talking with Root’s wife a relative entered the room and told Burnham that Root had passed away. This became a large problem for the World’s Fair. Burnham and Root had been partners and friends for eighteen years. The chairman of the Grounds of Building Committee talked about Root, “there is no man in the profession of architects who has the genius and ability to take up the Exposition work where Mr. Root left off” (Larson 108). This was a problem for the Exposition because they lost one of their greatest architects, Mr. Root. On Tuesday February 24, Burnham, Olmsted, Hunt, and the other architects on the top floor of the Rookery. They all brought drawings of the fair’s main structures that they wanted to create and submitted them to the Grounds and Buildings Committee. All of the drawings were of large, detailed, and magnificent buildings that they wanted to establish, “if successfully erected, George B. Post’s Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building would be the largest building ever constructed and consume enough steel to build two Brooklyn Bridges” (Larson 114). Burnham was aware of how much time there was left, and not much remained. Olmsted talked about the plants, birds, and boats that were going to be used. Burnham said that the buildings had to go in before they did any landscaping. There was now only 26 months until opening day and work still had not been started. Finally work started. Fifty Italian immigrants began work on the fair. The work they did was the dirty work such as digging trenches. The unions threatened to organize unions worldwide to oppose the fair. Many people started to die. “The old world was passing. P.T. Barnum died; grave-robbers attempted to steal his corpse. William Techumseh Sherman died, too” (Larson 122). Gertrude, Ned’s sister becomes very ill, and eventually she dies. Holmes said he was sorry, “but in his eyes there was only a flat blue calm, like the lake on a still August morning” (Larson 123). Holmes did not truly feel sorry for her. Next, Holmes offered to sell Ned the pharmacy, and he offered a payment plan for the purchase. Ned agreed and accepted the building and plan. Now that Gertrude was gone Ned and Julia became very tense. The World’s Fair was like a job to Burnham, and he rarely ever got to see his family. “I shall stop after the World’s Fair. I have made up my mind to this” (Larson 128). The work for the fair was advancing very slowly. One problem they came across was that the soil was unstable in Jackson Park. They used John Root’s grillage foundation when possible and other types of foundation in the other areas. After the mayoral election, Carter Harrison lost and Hemstead had won. Eventually, Julia became pregnant and demanded that Holmes marry her. Holmes did so. Holmes was to perform the surgery on Christmas Eve. When Julia went down to get the surgery on the second level room, he started. Instead of putting her to sleep, he put a liquid on a cloth and covered it over her mouth and nose. Pearl and Julia never ended up seeing Christmas morning. The other couple in the building tried to figure out where Pearl and Julia had went because Holmes had told them, “Julia’s sister had fallen gravely ill and Julia and her daughter had left at once for the train station” (Larson 152). The workers began to go on strike, and this became a great threat. Throughout the United States the economy was falling and the murder rate rose 40%. Cold weather had now come into play and workers were trying to find ways to work around it. This caused a great fear for Burnham, because he felt fires would begin to start in the park. This was a small problem compared to the larger one being the fact that the treasury of the Exposition Committee was non-existent. Burnham began laying-off workers. The final large problem was that no one had created any plans for a structure that was going to out-do the Eifel Tower. Also, Holmes asked Emeline to marry him and she accepted. Overall, the progress is going very slow, and they are coming across many problems.
The book has been spectacular so far, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next!
I am still enjoying The Devil in the White City immensely and it is still exceeding my expectations. I am becoming increasingly nervous that construction of the worlds fair will not be completed on time. I think the directors and committees need to leave Burnham to make decisions for himself. “He needed to seek approval from the Exposition Company's executive committee at every step to buy drafting boards. It was immensely frustrating” (Larson, 120). By requiring Burnham to seek permission for the most simple tasks the directors and committees are holding back the fair. Due to lack of time the buildings will no longer be built from stone, steel and brick. They will be made of staff, a plaster like material. I am actually seriously becoming nervous that the fair may not get done in time. I am enjoying the book for a couple reasons. It is starting to become suspenseful and I feel a slight increase in my heart rate when I read the book. Holmes is also becoming weirder and more mysterious. Regardless, he still fascinates me in a creepy way. In the book Root, a huge asset to fair, has just died. “Burnham found Root struggling for breath. Throughout the day Root had experienced strange dreams, including one that had come to him many times in the past of flying through the air. When root saw Burnham, he said, 'You won't leave me again, will you?' Burnham said no, but he did leave, to check on Roots wife, who was in a neighboring room. As Burnham talked with her, a relative also entered the root. She told them Root was dead” (Larson, 107). With Burnham's long time partner dead, he is left to find another to help him run the business. He travels to New York where he is stood up by Charles Atwood, a possible new partner and an opium addict, yet ends up hiring him. Simultaneously, Burnham and his board of architects convene to share plans for the buildings they plan to build in under two years. St. Gaudens comments on the meeting to Burnham in a state of awe saying, “I never expected to see such a moment. Look here, old fellow, do you realize this had been the greatest meeting of artists since the fifteenth century?” (Larson, 115) They are beginning to realize the worlds fair is a greater undertaking than they expected. The fair starts encountering problems. The first of which is with Union Leaders who “demand that they limit the workday to eight hours, pay union-scale wages, and hire union workers before all others” (Larson, 119). The second problem they encountered was with the flimsy soil of Chicago. “Nearly all the soil of Jackson Park was competent to support floating foundations except the one portion destined to bear the fair's biggest and heaviest building” (Larson, 130). At this point all the architects and builders are realizing that they have their work cut out for them. During all of this Holmes is continuing the construction of his hotel. One of his employees name Ned moves in with his wife, daughter and sister in law. Holmes does something to the sister in law and she returns to her home town of Mascatine, Iowa. Ned's relationship with his wife begins to deteriorate due to her “illicit affair” with Holmes. Eventually Ned files for divorce, fails to gain custody of the Pearl (their daughter) and finally moves to Gilman, Illinois. “With Ned gone and the divorce final, Holme's interest in Julia began to dissipate. He had promised her repeatedly that he would marry her once the decree was confirmed, but now he found the prospect repulsive” (Larson, 127). I am terribly excited to find out what will become of Ned's ex-wife and daughter. I hope Holmes does not hurt them. I will have to read on to find out. The theme of work and class is continually illustrated throughout the book. Class is present when the McArthur Brothers firm hires fifty Italian immigrants to work on the site. These workers were probably part of the lower class and most likely, at the time of their employment, had recently immigrated. Work is exemplified as people come from everywhere to work on the worlds fair. The reason many people come to Chicago is because of the prospect of finding work on the worlds fair. Work and class are two extremely prominent themes in the book. As I said before The Devil in the White City is still a very good book. It still is exceeding my expectations and still excites me to pick up. The story is getting better and I am become nervous that the fair will not be completed on time. I can not wait to read on.
After my first leg of reading the book I enjoyed it and could wait to indulge myself into this terrific book. In where I started off was where Larson was explaining the two lives of Holmes and Burnham. Now when people who have read ahead and said Larson go back and forth to each chapter and back I thought that I was going to be lost in the text. As I read on I was happy to feel the sense that I can understand this book because with going back and forth into their lives would be confusing but, Larson keeps the literature good. Burnham Invited architects from all over the U.S. from New York Richard M. Hunt, George B. Post and Charles McKim, From Boston Robert Peabody, from Kansas City Harry Van Brunt. Burnham wanted to send a strong message to Chicago and everywhere else that these 5 were the top and can surpass the Eiffel Tower in France. Many Challenges were proposed because all these egos together nothing will get accomplished as they have no need to listen to one another. With the world coming to Chicago they needed to build a large hotel and accommodate the people of the fair. Holmes tried to make his building into a housing building to earn a buck and help out people in the fair. This book is still exceeding my expectations because it is such a good read that you get lost in it and you would never expect that in a History book. I cannot get enough of this book. I feel the theme of work and class is both represented in what I have read up to. In the Work deal I feel that just how much work is going on in Chicago will always be represented and how the architects will always work on to beat the Eiffel Tower. During this time in America there was always work to do or be done and Larson attacks that very well. Now the Class deal end of the theme is representing is how the lower class is cleaning the streets to help benefit the upper and middle class in the preparation of the World Fair. Identifying the themes have been almost easy yet hard to spot because you have to weed out the potentials and then take them into consideration. I honestly cannot speak bad of this book. Larson is doing a great job in not loosing me and that is why I am so interested in the book. This is a great read because it deals with the great city of Chicago mixed in with some “murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America.” (cover). The devil in the White city has grabbed me in a way that no other book has done before in how it makes me want to turn the page and not the feeling of oh my goodness how much til the end of the chapter. Larson is truly a noteworthy author so therefore the book is too. I don’t know how I am so interested but all in all this is a cultural book because it still is dealing with Americas history.
Individual Post #2 I am still really liking The Devil in the White City. Larson is a really compelling writer. The story line I am enjoying the most is the story about H. H. Holmes.I am really freaked out by Holmes especially when Larson describes his obsession with Jack the Ripper. "Every Chicago resident who could read devoured these reports from abroad, but none with quite so much intensity as Dr. H. H. Holmes. I am also really enthralled by Holmes' building projects, for example his basement incinerator. As one man who was working on installing the furnace said, "The general plan for the furnace was not unlike that of a crematory for dead bodies" (92). Holmes is becoming more interesting and seems even more creepy if that's possible. The book is living up to my expectations and I am really enjoying the story about Holmes. The architect's story pales in comparison, and I am not as interested in it. But I am really interested in how the fair will be built, and how the architects will deal with the myriad of problems they will face. The book is also relevant in the context of our work and class unit. Holmes began as a nobody, and now is a man who can buy and custom build his own hotel. I really like the book and want to keep reading all the time. P.S.- I had this written before 12 and it was better than it is now, but i had to log into my google account and accidentally deleted my entry.
Much to my surprise The Devil in the White City is still meeting my expectations. For a while there it slowed down and I started to loose interest. Fortunately it has picked up again and I am excited to read on. The book is of much interest to me for many reasons. I particularity enjoy the book because it talks about quite a few successful people. Like Sol Bloom for instance. He made many thousands in his time, which translates to many hundreds of thousands today, as a teenager. He sounds like a very smart and capable entrepreneur which I hope to aspire to one day. The history aspect appeals to me. Before this book I had heard about world fairs and was planning on investigating them on my own. Then this book came up and I killed two birds with one stone. I never understood the purpose of such fairs and now I do. You do learn something new everyday it seems. There is no doubt in my mind this book will stand the test of time. It is told about an extremely chaotic time when murderers ran wild and, in Holmes case, undetected for many years. The people in the book are in many cases geniuses. Reading about them is fascinating and inspires me to work hard. I understand that that sounds stupid but I am really impressed by Sol Bloom in specific. He is the man. I am excited to read on for a couple reasons. First of which is that I want to find out how Bloom handles the task he is given and what becomes of Holmes. I have been proceeding at a slow pace but I intend to pick it up, so fear not. The actual building of the worlds fair has begun. The date is July 3, 1891 and Burnham has just “sixteen months remaining until Dedication Day” (Larson, 133). The fair has yet to find its structure “to out-Eiffel Eiffel.” “A competition held by the Tribune brought a wave of implausible proposals” (Larson, 134). In August Eiffel himself asked the directors if he might submit a proposal. Engineers all over the country were outraged and under the impression that it was decided that Eiffel would out-Eiffel himself. “His formal proposal arrived a week later, envisioning a tower that was essentially a taller version of what he had built in Paris. The directors sent his proposal out for translation, reviewed it, then graciously turned it down. If there was to be a tower at the fair, it would be an American tower” (Larson, 136). Meanwhile, a young San Fransisco entrepreneur named Sol Bloom had a plan to “at last take advantage of an asset he had acquired in Paris two years earlier” (Larson, 133). What he wanted to display was an Algerian Village to which he had acquired the rights of. He proposed this to The Ways and Means Committee and was rejected. Back in California Bloom asked Mike De Young, an influential man in San Fransisco, to help him get his village accepted. Bloom ended up getting a lot more than he had bargained for. During this time “Burnham tried to anticipate every conceivable threat to the fair” (Larson, 137). He had to worry about “Chicago's reputation for vice and violence” (Larson, 137). In response to Chicago's reputation Burnham created a large police force which he called the Columbian Guard. They were trained to prevent “crime rather than merely arresting wrongdoers after the fact” (Larson, 138). Disease also posed a large threat. An outbreak in smallpox or cholera or any other disease could destroy the record attendance needed to generate a profit. Burnham reduced the risk of disease spreading through the fair by sterilizing the water the employees and visitors drank. However, the biggest worry of Burnham's was fire. Fire could burn the fair to the ground quickly and so in response to this risk Burnham had built a series of extensive fire precautions. “He formed an exposition fire department and ordered the installation of hundreds of fire hydrants and telegraphic alarm boxes. He commissioned the construction of a fire boat, the Fire Queen... Design specifications required that every building be surrounded by an underwater main and be plumbed with interior standpipes. He also banned all smoking on the grounds... ” (Larson, 139). During this time the first deaths occur most of which from fractured skulls. Also across America, banks and companies were going under and strikes were a constant threat to production. While Burnham is combating all the problems associated with the fair Holmes murderers his should be wife, her daughter and their unborn child. On Christmas Eve Holmes tells Julia he is going to give her a painless abortion but instead kills her using chloroform. He then has her bones removed and sells the skelaton“to Hahneman Medical College... for many times the amount he had paid Chappell” (Larson, 151) to cleanse the bones. This seems to be the part where Holmes really comes out of his shell. I expect from this point on Holmes is going to kill more frequently which I am not particularly excited about. I am excited to read on though.
The Devil in the White City has been an extraordinary book and once I get in the zone to read I can read a good amount of pages where reading this book does not make me feel lost in the text. Larson is a terrific writer in how he talks about Ned and his family problems to Burnham and the architects and the people of Chicago while all of these categories eventually mesh together in the story. As I am progressing along in the book I find many interesting events that Larson makes me feel that I am next to H.H. Holmes and along side with Burnham and the architects in the Rookery. This Book really does the trick for me because I have been looking fro a good read since 8th grade year and I have found it in this book. A family moves into Holmes’ building which he made to accommodate the people of the World Fair but Icilius Conner aka “Ned”, his wife Julia and his 8 year old child Pearl moved to Chicago for a new beginning and find themselves living in Holmes’ living quarters. Holmes was looked at by Ned as a terrific man and Holmes employed him, Julia, and Ned’s sister Gertrude. Ned is a jeweler but he was put in the drug store along with the two women. Holmes has his eyes set on these two women. Burnham and the Architects are all meting in the Burnham & Root’s Library and working together to try and accomplish what needs to be done. As the Group came together and worked they got a call from Root’s wife saying he has a very bad cold. Later Burnham checks in with Root but he is in very bad condition and Burnham reflects strongly, “I have worked, I have schemed and dreamed to make us the greatest architects in the world- I have made him see it and kept him at it- and now he dies- damn!- damn!- damn!” (Larson, 107). Unfortunately Root died. And Burnham as of know is not the same prior of his close 18 year partner. The Architects again meet up in Chicago 1891 and they all finally together made/ submitted their prints of the buildings that should stand tall and unique in “The Windy City”. These buildings will be the most elaborate and most steel produced that it can make the Manhattan Bridge twice. The landscape of the buildings will have nothing. Fredrick Olmsted said he wants the people to use their imagination to accessorize the beauty of the building. The deadline at this point in the process was determined of 26 months to work. Back to Ned, Gertrude, Julia, and Dr. Holmes lives in Chicago. Dr. Holmes’ suites were now known as “The Castle” from the people around the block. The Conner’s Family is in trouble because Ned and Julia have been fighting and Holmes has been doing things with Julia that Upset Ned and he has “disturbed” Gertrude. Gertrude wants to go home but Ned notices that when her and Holmes is in the same room she feels uncomfortable and she keeps everything to herself. Ned lets his sister return back Home with his family but she shortly becomes sick and dies. Ned declares that he is sick of being in a constant quarrel with his wife and they divorce but they tear Pearl in who gets custody but Julia will never let go. Ned tries to give an “olive branch” in how he will never fight with Julia again but she said no and all Ned wants is to be around his daughter Pearl. Expectations have truly been exceeded whenever I open this book. I feel Class has been shown lately, “Class obscured their vision” (Larson, 102). This recalls the people that have been vanishing in the Chicago streets and they were classified by race and profession. This book has been a great read still I have not lost interest and I am glad. Very engaging and leads me along history of America. The Literary value is still top notch.
Individual Entry #3 As I get further into The Devil In The White City, I get more and more excited an interested. Since last time I wrote, Burnham's partner, Root, has died. The other architects are trying to keep working on getting back to the Fair after losing the man behind the plan. Newspapers all across Chicago revere Root as the best architect in Chicago, and Burnham begins to fell neglected. He was the driving force behind the fair. Holmes continues to build his hotel next to the Fair site. Meanwhile he employs a man, Ned, and his wife. Ned gets a bad feeling about Holmes, rightfully so, and leaves his wife. His wife gets angry, but gives him a second chance, telling him to return and live with her again in Holmes' building and work in his store, but Ned doesn't come back. Eventually Ned and his wife divorce, and Holmes marries her. Work is becoming more of a theme in this book. The unemployed from across the nation are heading to Chicago to work for the World's Fair. Unions begin to form and become an issue for employers. People are driven to work for Holmes out of necessity, and people become more desperate. They need money. I am really enjoying the book, although I am a little behind on the reading. I am excited to get to the execution of the fair, and to read how Holmes actually commits the murders, and how the architects pull off the feat.
Blog Entry #3 After getting very deep into this book, it has for sure stood up to my expectations, if not surpassed them. The book is so good, and still I cannot set it down. Many of the workers that are working on the fair have to work in very harsh and cold conditions. The jobs that they are undertaking are jobs of those for the underclass. Though they are doing the work in the cold and freezing weather, they are getting paid a decent amount of money. Many of the workers are of those listed as “underclass citizens.” Work is a very apparent theme in this book, because everyone is working in some way to help speed up the process of the fair. Class is also a common theme because throughout the book they talk about the different jobs that need to be done, and what kind of conditions they need to be finished in. As far as I am in the book, I still feel that it is going to continue to get much better and more exciting. Throughout the story Holmes has been a man of trickery. His friend Benjamin Pitezel went to Dwight, Illinois for the famous Keeley cure of alcoholism. Pitezel was a long time alcoholic. Holmes paid for him to go for the fact that he was a drunk, and also Holmes wanted to figure out the technique of making him sober so that he can resell the treatment to others and make money. Emeline and Holmes would ride into Jackson Park and observe the construction. Emeline was a friend of Pitzel’s. One day a man came into Holmes office looking for Holmes, the man was described as: “tall, with a clean jaw and modest mustache, and wore a cheap suit; in his thirties; good looking, in a way, but at the same time self-effacing and plain though at the moment he appeared angry”(Larson 164). The man’s name was Ned Conner. Eventually, a man by the name of M.B. Lawrence and his wife moved into Holmes apartment. Dr. Lawrence used to see Emeline all the time and he described her as, “She was one of the prettiest and most pleasant young women I ever met” (Larson 164). Eventually, Holmes asks Emeline to marry him and she accepts. Olmsted begins to grow very tired and his body begins to ache. When the contractors work would fall behind, so would Olmsted’s. Many different people were trying to get the island so that they could build something on it. “Burnham urged Olmsted to accept Japan’s approval” (Larson 168). Olmsted did accept Japans idea. Olmsted was getting frustrated because Burnham insisted on steam powered boats after Olmsted and him discussed it and felt that the electric boats would be better. Olmsted had a nervous disorder so a doctor checked him out. Olmsted described his stay in the Hampstead Heat, “You know that I am practically in prison here. Every day I look for decided improvement and thus far every day, I am disappointed” (Larson 171). The work was very slow so Burnham tried to get it going faster. He tried to speed up the process of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, which had to be completed by Dedication Day. To do this, “He ordered the builder of the Electricity Building to double his workforce and to put men to work at night under electric lights” (Larson 173). Burnham finally just gave up on ever surpassing the Eiffel Tower. Storms began tearing through the park. On April 5, 1892 a windstorm destroyed the “fair’s just-finished pumping station and tore down sixty-five feet of the Illinois State Building. Three weeks later another storm destroyed eight hundred feet of the south wall of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building” (Larson 174). The sewage brought problems up with the city’s water supply. McElroy was going to dig in Waukesha for water for the fair. Yet, “One village leader told McElroy that if he went ahead with his plan, he would not leave town alive” (Larson 176). This was a problem for the water supply for the fair. On dedication day the press was polite enough to not even make comments on the appearance of the grounds and the unfinished park of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Nothing was getting finished on time. Once again the young Pittsburgh engineer put out a proposal for “out-Eiffeling Eiffel.” Emeline’s love for Holmes diminished. She told Mrs. Lawrence that she was going to leave. Holmes created a wedding announcement for Emeline. Mrs. Lawrence was wondering why Emeline would leave without saying good-bye, so she continued to ask Holmes where she was, but Holmes had no answers. Holmes began acting differently, and Mrs. Lawrence felt as if Holmes had murdered Emeline, but she never went to the police. The weather got to be very cold out. Olmsted’s work was very far behind and Harry Codman was in the hospital recovering from surgery. There were now only four months until Opening Day. The weather began freezing water lines and hydrants. “Olmsted, in Brookline, got the news by telegram: Harry Codman was dead. Codman, his protégé, whom he loved like a son” (Larson 194). This was very unfortunate for Olmsted as well as the construction of the fair. Later on, Olmsted became sick and was confined to his hotel room. There was now only two months left until the fair was to be opened. Holmes now owned a legitimate company, a mail order sales company, and had opened his Silver Ash Institute. He continued to collect rents from the Lawrence’s and his other tenants. Holmes then need a secretary, yet he could not figure out which one to hire, “the trick lay in choosing a woman of the correct sensibility” (Larson 199). “Candidates would need a degree of stenographic and typewriting skill” (Larson 199). Holmes met a woman named Minnie. He took her to plays and concerts and bought her flowers. Finally, again, Holmes asked Minnie to marry him. “Holmes promised Minnie a voyage to Europe, art lessons, and a fine home, and of course children” (Larson 203). Holmes wanted the wedding to be quiet and be done very quickly. Again we see Holmes having women fall in love with him, and he promises them a honeymoon and great things. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Group Entry #2 Bill Davis and John Young During English today, as a group, we discussed our thoughts on Devil in the White City. To John and I's surprise, people were extremely enthusiastic about the book. We are all falling a little behind in our reading and have our work cut out for us this weekend but everyone seems to be enjoying the book immensely. Both John and I expected everyone to be a little bored with the book but boy were we wrong. What we took from the discussion was that the book is expected to only get better. Peter said it started our really slow for him but to his surprise it has really picked up. At first he felt indifferent towards the book but he is now actually looking forward to his next opportunity to read. John said part II “has been treating me well,” better than part I. He hopes it will get better, and expects it to. Olivia really likes the book, kind of like John and I. She is very excited to see how Holmes uses his hotel to lure young women. Phil said the book is interesting. He thinks, and is right, that Holmes is crazy. I told everyone I am really enjoying the book. I am a little nervous about not being able to finish by next week but at least its a great book. One of the things everyone enjoys about the book is the way Larson writes. His writing is so captivating and he shows and does not tell. There is a lot we can learn about writing from Larson. One fear that everyone expressed was that the fair may not get done on time. With a little over a year left the fair has only a couple buildings erected. We also fear for Burnham's, Chicago's and most importantly America's reputation. Should the fair end a failure the reputation of the United States will be tarnished, and none of us want that. As a group we recognized the connection between our previous unit of work and class and the book. Nearly every person in the book is involved with some type of work. Burnham is an architect, like his former partner Root was. Holmes is a doctor and an entrepreneur. All of the commissions involved with the fair work to develop the exposition. People are coming from all over the world to work on the fair. Almost everyone has some working role in the book. Overall, everyone in the group is extremely impressed with the book so far. What could easily have been a boring book, was made interesting by Larson. We (John and I, Olivia, Peter and Phil) are all excited to read on.
Individual entry #4 Lately, the book has been very slow, because they have been talking about all of the bad things that are going on with the fair. Yet, the book began speeding up and becoming more interesting in the past few days. The fair has finally started which is making it very interesting. So far I have enjoyed the book immensely, I love how all of the charcters are incorporated in the story. Erik Larson is such a good writer, and he has me not wanting to put this book down. Class is still very apparent in the story. Still, many of the underclass citizens are doing work on the fair. The fair truly needs more people from the higher classes. Many of the underclass workers are dying due to injury and sickness. Yet, all of these underclass workers are working very hard and Burnham negotiates a new salary with them. Many other countries and cities are helping the fair by delivering goods and machinery. They are bringing in exotic things such as, “Sphinxes, mummies, coffee trees, and ostriches. By far the most exotic cargo however was human. Alleged cannibals from Dahomey” (Larson 207). Carter Harrison was running for his fifth year as mayor. The Democratic elite implored the Republicans to come up with a candidate whom they too could support, anything to keep Harrison from returning to office” (Larson 214). They truly did not want Harrison to be the mayor again. In the end Harrison was elected for a fifth year. Holmes invites Minnie’s sister to Chicago on his cost. “Minnie was excited and sent the good news to Anna, who immediately accepted” (Larson 217). The weather conditions are getting somewhat better, but still workers are dying. “Four exposition workers lost their lives, two from fractured skulls, two electrocuted” (Larson 218). The fair was about to begin and still things were unfinished. Only one of the eight towers for the Ferris Wheel had been finished. Burnham had been honored at a grand banquet arranged by Charles McKim. To make the fair look more beautiful, “Olmsted had ordered more than eight hundred ducks and geese, seven thousand pigeons, and for the sake of accent a number of exotic birds”(Larson 221). There were still boxes and empty packing crates everywhere. Many of the carpenters went on strike, so Burnham hired union workers to take their jobs. Burnham then negotiated a fair wage for them, “to pay time and a half for extra hours and double time for Sundays and key holidays, including, significantly Labor Day” (Larson 223). Olmsted then got sick and was confined to a bed with a sore throat an ulcerating tooth, and much pain preventing sleep. At one point, Joseph McCarthy noticed a man named Patrick Prendergast near Chicago’s Humboldt Park. “The odd thing was, Prendergast was walking in circles. Odder still, he walked with his head tipped back and his hate pulled so low it covered his eyes. As McCarthy watched, Prendergast walked face-first into a tree” (Larson 226). Rain started coming down and showed how much work was truly left. Despite the rain, Olmsted was awed by the amount of workers. The fair was not totally finished, yet they couldn’t postpone it. Trains after train were entering the city. The fair had begun. People boarded trains and carriages and arrived. Many things were needed to be finished the night before, “Ten thousand men working through the night touched up the paint and staff and planted pansies and laid sod as a thousand scrubwomen washed, waxed, and polished the floors of the great buildings” (Larson 237). The attendance on day 1 was said to be between 250,000 and 600,000. The fair was a great success on day 1, yet the economy began to decline, and banks and companies failed. Holmes started a hotel known as World Fair Hotel. “When male visitors asked about accommodations Holmes told them with a look of sincere regret that he had no vacancies and kindly referred them to other hotels nearby. His guest rooms began to fill with women, most quite young and apparently unused to living alone” (Larson 243). Minnie became very awkward, and when more and more women entered the hotel she was inclined to stay close to Holmes. Holmes then bought a new apartment from a man by the name of John Oker. Holmes explained to move to Minnie on how they needed a new place to raise a family. Overall, the book still is very great, and I am still very interested in what Holmes has up his sleeve. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Eiffel tried to out Eiffel the Eiffel. Basically Eiffel submitted a blueprint of a bigger and better Eiffel Tower but it was denied because it was the same thing and people wanted to see something different and more creative tower/ building. It is Christmas Eve in Chicago and Julia Conner is putting Pearl to bed in anticipation for the next morning of Christmas. Holmes has a room where he plans to kill Julia and their unborn child that night/ Christmas early morning. Julia comes to Holmes’ room and Holmes grabs her and takes her to this operation room lays her down and covers her mouth with chloroform and kills her and the unborn instantly. Holmes also does this to Pearl in her sleep and this part was truly disturbing. Christmas doesn’t mean any thing to Holmes. Holmes hires an associate to clean Julia’s bones and sell the skeleton to the medical school in Chicago. Holmes changes his where about stories fro Julia and each story differs in time or day. Burnham’s workers have been acting up and have been on strike for no work/ money. The workers are favored by the Union and are upset with the pay and deals of work. Because the money is tight and it is getting cold out because of winter he has to cut jobs and tighten up the expenses of work and whatnot. This overwhelmed Burnham because this made him slow down in his try to out build Eiffel. Holmes is yet again on his way to make money the easy way. What his idea was to talk to his alcoholic assistant Benjamin Pitezel. “Gold Cure” was what Holmes is trying to duplicate. Holmes fell in love with another lady named Emiline Cigrand and they did many things. They met in Dwight when Holmes was speaking with his assistant. The Devil in the White City is still taking me by surprise in how much Larson is keeping me interested throughout the book. I have been reading on and observed that this book will stand the test of time because of its American roots and history about the World Fair held in Chicago. All in all this is a great book. It is an important book because it shows the advancement in jobs and several other things such as class and how class affects peoples jobs. I have been repeating myself blog after blog how this book is taking me to a new level of reading and it is true every time. I am going to compare this book to a movie and use a quote that is heard a lot in how almost every page puts me to the edge of my seat. The only reason I say almost every page is because when you are reading a chapter that is great and moves along you feel excited that you read it and then you can hit a text bump that is hard to get over and sometimes losses my interest. I’m not taking this into consideration fully about the book because Larson just hits the nail on the head ninety percent of the time. The Devil in the White City is most of the time a solid read and will be until it is taken off the racks. Cannot Get enough of Erik Larson!!
Once again, The Devil in the White City is holding my attention. It has slowed down a bit but I expect it to pick up. I still enjoy the book and it is still a page turner yet not as much as it first was and it is not as enjoyable as I first found it to be. Regardless of how necessary it may be to go into such intense detail of the fair I think too much detail has been given about it's inter workings. I find it boring and tedious yet interesting at the same time. My worries of the approaching date of the Dedication Day are still existent. Just four months to go, and the main buildings are not even close to being complete. The pressure is on, we'll see how it all folds out. Dedication Day is nearing for the worlds fair. As the date gets closer the problems get bigger and more numerous. “The constant threat of strike and... the fast shrinking treasury of the Exposition Company” (Larson, 154) have Burnham extremely concerned. “Burnham's department has consumed far more money than anyone had anticipated” (Larson, 154). There is a rumor that the directors are seeking a $10 million grant from Congress. In response to the lack of money Burnham “ordered his chief draftsman, in charge of exposition work under way in the attic of the Rookery, to fire at once any man who did 'inaccurate or slouchy work' or who failed to do more than his full duty” (Larson, 154). Men were dismissed that “Burnham knew, faced homelessness and poverty; their families confronted the real prospect of starvation. But the fair came first” (Larson, 155). “The absence of an Eiffel challenger continued to frustrate Burnham” (Larson, 155). At a meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club a young “thirty-three-year-old engineer from Pittsburgh who ran a steel-inspection company that had branch offices in New York and Chicago” (Larson, 155) had an idea of how to “out Eiffel Eiffel.”If what happened to Eiffel happened to him, his fortune would be assured” (Larson, 156). The exposition is proceeding slowly. Burnham “needed more power-not for his own ego but for the sake of the exposition” (Larson, 156). With the Dedication Day only four months away the exposition needs someone, one person, to start making decisions. Going threw multiple committees takes time, time that is not there. The decision to paint all of the buildings white eventually “served to fix the fair in the world's imagination as a thing of otherworldly beauty” (Larson, 174). In reading this part I finally realized why the book is name The Devil in the White City. During this time Sol Bloom encountered a problem of his own. One day he “recieved a cable from France that startled him... His Algerians, scores of them along with all their animals and material possessions, were already at sea, sailing for America and the fair-one year early” (Larson, 170). One reason I am excited to read on is that I want to see how Bloom handles the situation. I have nothing but faith in the man. Olmsted, during all of this, is going through a hard time. His health is deteriorating and he is becoming increasing pessimistic about the fair. In an attempt to get a good rest and to “enrich his visual vocabulary” Olmsted took a trip to Europe along with two of his children. The increasingly creepy H.H. Holmes is at work once again. He charmed an innocent girl named Emeline to the point where she actually loves the man. Despite the multiple warnings she was given about him, she remains steadfast in her love. Ned Conner recalls,“I told her I thought he was a bad lot and that she had better have little to do with him and get away from him as soon as possible” (Larson, 165). I am very worried about the well being of this poor girl. She hasn't the slightest clue as to what she's getting into. I hope she can escape with her life. I am terribly excited to read on and read on I shall.
The Devil in the White City is a great book. I keep doubting that the book is a factual, and Larson continues to scare me with Holmes' story and amaze me with Burnham's. Since Last time, Holmes has killed his new bride, Julia, and her daughter Pearl. Julia had gotten pregnant, and Holmes realized that it presented a perfect opportunity to make some quick money and cut himself loose from his commitment as a father. Upon hearing that Julia is pregnant, Holmes convinces her to let him give her an abortion. He leads her up to a room on the second floor, where he has set up an operating room, complete with instruments that momentarily worry Julia. Holmes tells Julia , ”There will be no pain,” and there wasn’t. He applied the rag covered in chloroform, and continued to add more, until there was no life left in Julia. He then murdered her daughter, Pearl, all on Christmas Eve. The neighbors wonder where Julia and Pearl had gone, and Holmes assures them that they have gone to visit some relatives. We then learn of another reason Holmes had committed the murders. He hires a man named Charles Chappell, an articulator, to make usable skeletons out of the corpses. The need for skeletons to teach doctors was growing exponentially, and Holmes made a great sum of money off this scheme. This really shows even more what a crazy psycho he is. Holmes then meets yet another vulnerable girl, Emeline, and asks for her hand in marriage, and he does to her what he did to Julia and Pearl. Holmes again lies to the curious neighbors. Then, in true serial killer fashion, Holmes “acquires” yet another girl, this time named Minnie. He charms her into love again, but unlike the others, Minnie is short and plump. They marry, but Holmes never registers the marriage. He also tries to appropriate her land inherited from her uncle. At this point, Minnie’s sister is about to come visit, and I think they will both be killed by Holmes, because Anna, her sister, doesn’t have a good feeling about Holmes. The architects are nearing the Dedication Day and the opening of the fair, and many of them are dying and sick. Olmstead has fallen ill many times, and Rook and Harry Codman have died. More and more exhibits are moving in, including Buffalo Bill’s Wild West adventure, and the Indian and African tribes are traveling to Chicago, although there will not be pygmies, and the delegate sent to get them is dead. The architects have also found the new Eiffel. A man by the name of Ferris, George Washington Gale Ferris, has come up with a plan to build a giant wheel that will carry large cars complete with lunch counters giving a great view of the whole fair. Although they have had many problem with construction and making the larger buildings of the fair, and many storms have destroyed the buildings over and over again. And Olmstead is getting worried that the landscape work will not be completed in time, and the fair will lack the beauty necessary to make it absolutely amazing. Work is playing an even larger role in the book. Women are looking for jobs more often, and being lured into Holmes’ traps, and the architects are battling unions putting up a right to safety and fair wages. Many people are dying on the work site, of electrocution and broken skulls, and the carpenters strike until receiving fair wages, and end up signing a contract to finish the campaign. I am very excited to read the rest of the book, and I really want to see how the fair plays out. Although I am somewhat apprehensive about finishing.
20 comments:
“Individual entry #1”
I have read to page 50 and I have been introduced to Burnham and Root, but so far is their importance in this story unclear. The author also introduces H.H Holmes or Herman Webster Mudgett as his given name is. H.H Holmes is a doctor who I suspect is the killer in the story. It is pretty obvious that he is the killer with the example that he lied to some of his customers about where Mrs. Holton was, Mrs. Holton is a owner of a drugstore that H.H Holmes bought after her husband died. The author also tells about Chicago in the time period of the book, the competition for the fair and the some of the difficulties that was in the city at that time.
So far the book isn’t meeting my expectations at all because I was expecting a really interesting story about a killer in Chicago and so far this book is really slow to read. The author talks a lot of Chicago in the beginning and he makes it to a very boring book to read. Hopefully it picks up now when I am introduced to whom I suspect to be the killer in the story. The reason why I choose this book was that I like reading about murderers and books that is so interesting that you want to keep on reading. I don’t really feel that with this book so far.
It is really hard, in my opinion, to put a theme to this book since I haven’t read that much of it. I think that it could be the theme “Work”. Because the book talks a bit about Burnham and Root and their job as architects and how that works out for them.
Right now I don’t think it is a good book but it feels like it has potential to be a very good book. The reason why it isn’t that good is that it is a hard reading with a lot of complicated language that makes the story hard to follow with. Which doesn’t give it a flow like really good books does. I also think that the author might be building the story so it will start to pick up and be really good. But I don’t think that this book has the potential to be a book that people is talking about in ten years. I also don’t see any real cultural or social value in this book, nothing that the author wants to say with the book. Not so far but it has potential.
Individual Post #1
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson is the story of the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago. The character we meet is the main architect working on the fair, Daniel Hudson Burnham. He is on a ship, the Olympic, headed for Europe, and his friend Francis Millet, on a sister ship headed for the United States. Burnham cannot stop thinking about Millet, and tries to send a message to him, only to discover that his ship has had an accident. Burnham’s ship is headed to help. Burnham pulls out his diary, and begins to reminisce about the fair.
They then describe Chicago at the time. It was a dangerous and dirty place. Larson says, “Everywhere one looked the boundary between the moral and the wicked seemed to be degrading, (12)” and that death and violence were commonplace. You then meet the second important character, a “young handsome doctor (12)”.
The next section describes how Chicago was chosen to host the Worlds Fair. People waited with bated breath. “When the crowd outside the Tribune saw that Chicago led New York by 43 votes, it exploded with cheers, whistles, and applause (16)”. The people of Chicago saw the fair as an honor, and a way to surpass New York as the greatest American city.
The next topic is the beginning of Burnham’s career. A rocky start, he began as an architectural drafter, only to leave on the gold rush to Nevada. He returned, broke, to get another job. He finally met his match, an architect named John Wellborn Root. After establishing themselves working for the Union Stockyards and marrying daughters of higher ups in the stock yards, they began their own firm. They complimented each other, and created a progressive and effective firm that attacked problems, like how to construct a building that could pull down the clouds.
The book is so far meeting and slightly raising my expectations, but a good book will do that to you, raise you expectations. I had heard that the beginning was slow, and that it would pick up, but for not being very far in I am enjoying the plot and the characters.
The book really deals with the theme of work, Root and Burnham starting their own firm, and Burnham trying to make money, through the gold rush and his drafting work. The city of Chicago was relying on the Worlds Fair to boost their economy and their place in the United States. The theme of class also plays into the book, because the state of Chicago was fairly grim, and at this point women began looking for employment to as “typewriters, stenographers, seamstresses, and weavers (11)”. People were beginning to work in droves.
I really like this book so far, and I’m excited to have the weekend to read more of it. It’s a good read so far, and it is quite the page-turner, for example introducing the doctor, who you know is the murderer, and then switching to Burnham’s life story. I am really interested to read more, especially because it is a true story.
The book has historical value, chronicling an important event in American history. It covers an interesting topic, and is based on facts. It also has some literary merit, because it is well written, and has a great book that will definitely stand the test of time, both because of it’s subject matter and it’s writing style.
As Burnham said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood (1).”
So far The Devil in The White City is a great book. It has far surpassed my expectations for it. When I first picked up the book I did not think it would be anything special but boy was I wrong. I did not expect it to be as great as it is. I did not always think the book was great though. The first couple pages I was thinking that this was going to be one long book. But as I got farther into the book I really started to enjoy it. Erik Larson is a great writer. He writes in a style that really engages me as a reader. I would not consider this book a page turning thriller because I do not believe it was meant to be but it definitely is something that I get excited to pick up. One thing about the book I really enjoy is the history aspect. It gives me an insight into the 19th century that I never had before. I find the murderer, Holmes, fascinating so far. I love, yet am terribly creeped out and scared by how crafty he is, especially when it comes to the building of his hotel.
“Holmes cast himself as a demanding contractor. As workers came to him for their wages, he berated them for doing shoddy work and refused to pay them, even if their work was perfect. They quit, or he fired them. He recruited others to replace them and treated these workers the same way. Construction proceeded slowly, but at a fraction of the proper cost” (Larson, 67).
Holmes’s cheats out the workers and I know that that is wrong but what a genius he is. One of my fears for this book is that it will turn into a gory book. I hope it does not go into bloody detail about the murders Holmes will undoubtedly commit in the future.
I chose this book for a couple reasons. First was that my step mom and my dad had both read the book. My step mom completed it, my dad got distracted by his other projects and never picked it back up. Because of the reviews my step mom gave the book I had planned on reading it eventually so I capitalized on the opportunity to read it in school. What officially decided me was when I heard Mrs. Elliott say she was going to read it and had heard good things about it. I had originally planned on reading Fast Food Nation but changed my mind after hearing Mrs. Elliott talk about the book. I believe I made the right decision.
A big theme of the book is architecture. Larson goes into detail of the ingenuity in architecture of Burnham and Root. Architecture is a line of work which relates to our past unit's theme of work, class and identity. Holmes is a doctor and pharmacist. Root and Burnham are architects. Olmsted is a landscape architect. Lines of work are a big theme in the book.
The Devil in The White City is a book that possesses literary merit. The way in which Larson writes, the way he arranges words in a sentence and the way the story is told, shows quality. He does not state a fact but he tells a story to show it to you. He points us in the right direction leaving us to make our own conclusions. He shows and does not tell. I believe his book had literary merit because it is a quality piece of work.
Larson's book is of much cultural value. The book is about a time when America distinguished itself as a big player in the world. It took on what could have made or broken its world reputation. In reading this book we learn about America during the late 19th century. Because we live in America and the book was written about Chicago it applies to us. The reason some things are the way they are today could have been because of what happened during that time. Our cultural could be a result of the worlds fair.
The Devil in The White City is written about Chicago in the late 1800's. America has decided to hold a worlds fair in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the New World. That was the original motive yet another presented itself in 1889.
“In Paris on the Champ de Mars, France opened the Exposition Universelle, a worlds fair so big and glamorous and so exotic that visitors came away believing no exposition could surpass it. At the heart of the exposition stood a tower of iron that rose one thousand feet into the sky, higher by far than any man-made structure on Earth. The tower not only assured the eternal fame of its designer, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, but also offered graphic proof that France had edged out the United States for dominance in the realm of iron and steel, despite the Brooklyn Bridge, the Horseshoe Curve, and other undeniable accomplishments of American engineers” (Larson, 14-15)
This fair became a chance for America to reclaim its pride and re-establish its dominance.
Many cities contended for the fair knowing it would bring much revenue and fame to the city if the fair was a success. It eventually came down to Washington D.C., Chicago, St. Louis and New York. When congress put it to vote Chicago won the majority of the votes needed. The city was ecstatic yet many “doubted that Chicago really understood the challenge that lay ahead” (Larson, 32). After its victory Chicago proceeded to do the exact opposite of what it should have been doing, nothing.
“It was July 1890, nearly six months since Congress had voted to give the World’s Columbian Exposition to Chicago, but the forty five men on the expositions board of directors still had not decided where within the city the fair should be built” (Larson, 48).
Charles Hudson Burnham and his college, John Wellborn Root, were chosen to “direct the design and construction of the fair” (Larson, 48). With six months wasted the two very well known architects had just twenty-six months to complete what could take twice that. The recruiting process began. They needed to hire many more architects as well as designers to bring the fair to life. One man who was key to Chicago's success was Frederick Law Olmsted “the wizard of Central Park” (Larson, 49). When first confronted Olmsted declined saying that he did not do fairs and that “he doubted that enough time remained for anyone to do the fair justice” (Larson, 49). After pondering the invitation Olmsted excepted.
In December of 1890, just twenty-two months till the fair needed to be ready for its dedication, the exposition director's had finally decided where to hold the fair. It was to be held in Jackson Park with a grand view of Lake Michigan. The decision as to where to locate the fair caused a rapid acceleration of events. A rough plan of the fair was to be delivered in twenty-four hours to the directors and more architects were to be recruited. Burnham traveled to New York where he persuaded some of America's best architects to join in the cause. The architects of Chicago saw this as betrayal. So Burnham and root hastily chose five Chicago firms to join in the effort. All five eventually accepted. I am going to have to read on to find out what becomes of all of these architects and the fair.
Meanwhile during the construction of the worlds fair a psychopath named H.H. Holmes planned his killings. “He broke prevailing rules of casual intimacy: He stood too close, stared too hard, touched too much and long. And women adored him for it” (Larson, 36). The man was smooth. As a child he was small, odd and exceptionally bright. He was thought to have kept small boxes where he stored “skulls of small animals that he had disabled and then dissected, alive, in the woods around Gilmanton” (Larson 39). Even as a child he had a tendency to kill.
Throughout Holmes life people always sensed something weird about him. That something was never a thing anyone could put a finger on.
“Holmes was charming and gracious, but something about him made Belknap uneasy. He could not have defined it. Indeed, for the next several decades alienists and their successors would find themselves hard pressed to describe with any precision what is was about men like Holmes that could cause them to seem warm and ingratiating but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element of humanness was missing” (Larson, 87).
During the late 80's and the early 90's of the 19th century Holmes was building a hotel in preparation for the worlds fair. He intended to have the building be “convincing enough to justify a large fire insurance policy. After the fair he intended to burn the building to collect the insurance and, as a happy dividend, destroy whatever surplus 'material' might remain in its hidden storage chambers...” (Larson, 85). The man did not stumble upon killing on accident, he planned out his murders. Three to four years prior to the fair he already intended to kill.
Somehow, somewhere in the book I believe the two parallel stories will converge. Maybe Burnham and Root will be introduced to each other or meet on accident. I will have to read on to find out.
I have enjoyed the book The Devil in the White City, thus far. There is a long road ahead till I finish but I am excited to read on. In the beginning of the book Erik Larson, the author, explains that the city of Chicago is a very busy place people entering and leaving on train. He also writes that Chicago is a very violent and dirty city. The smell was of a slaughterhouse which made the city seem even dirtier.
It was a Monday morning in 1880 when the whole city of Chicago awaited for the results for the World Fair holding spot. The cities in the running were Chicago, St. Louis, New York City, and Washington.
“The initial ballot put Chicago ahead by a big margin, with 115 votes to New York’s 72. St. Louis came next, followed by Washington… When the crowd outside the Tribune saw that Chicago led New York by 43 votes, it exploded with cheers, whistles, and applause” (Larson 16-17).
From this quote it shows that the Chicagoans wanted the good attention for holding the World Fair. The World Fair is, “the initial intent simply to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World” (Larson 14).
Since the World Fair was given to Chicago to host even more people will be coming into the city. There will be too much commotion fro the police force to handle. Herman Webster Mudgett planned on making a scandal in insurance fraud which worked and no one figured it out because of so much growth in the city.
I really did not know what to expect about this book. But since I have been reading it I really enjoy this book. It is a very high standard book. This book has exceeded my expectations.
When I was told we had an independent reading assignment I really thought we were only going to read some boring book but this list really was great. I expected the book to be boring because when we need to read a book for class they are usually boring and very few are compelling. Since this book I have a feeling that the books we will read from here on out will be good. I hope that I will learn about the great city of Chicago and also I enjoy non-fiction books.
Work is one of the themes that I have picked out of the book so far. There is a many reference to jobs and money and how much someone gets for a job or not. Here is a quote that you can tell that there is a variety in jobs, “Businessmen, clerks, traveling salesmen, stenographers, police officers, and at least one barber” (Larson 13). Job specialists were noticed in every crowd that was written about thus far as well.
The quality of this book is outstanding. The way that Erik Larson writes is intriguing because he writes as if he was there in the late 1800’s that as if he was there right next to Mudgett and Holmes. I love when writers are able to do that and that is why I find this book so fascinating. Whenever I open up my book I feel as if I am in Chicago at that time. The enjoyment level is higher than almost any other book I have read. I cannot say how much I enjoy it but I am sure that my enjoyment level will be higher and higher page after page. I am glad I have chosen this book because it is engaging and makes me think of how people lived in the old days as we are caught up in the modern day world.
To me I feel that The Devil in the White City is a piece of literature that reflects important American roots. It has high cultural value because Erik Larson shows interesting things that went on during this time and how the cities were not the same as they used to be. This book written by Erik Larson is a great writer therefore The Devil in the White City is a literary book because his writing is great. Also I knew this was going to be a great book when I saw the National Book Award Finalist on the cover. I judged the book by its cover I shouldn’t have but it means it has high power of writing in between the cover.
Group Post #1
Overall our group is very excited about The Devil in the White City and we are all enjoying it a lot. We all seem to be fascinated by the serial killer, Holmes, yet are creeped out by him at the same time. We discussed that we liked learning about the history of the World’s Fair, how it came to Chicago and how it influnced America’s history. We all relized that we like reading the chapters about Holmes far more than we want to read the Burnham chapters. We also really like Larson’s writing style. Bill said it best. “Larson tells stories to communicate ideas.” Larson tells us a lot about the condition of Chicago through the stories of Holmes and Burnham.
The book is starting to rise to the expectations of the group. The beginning started slowly, talking about Burnham and Root first, and their starts as architects, how they met, their marriages, etc. but as the book moved to the story of Holmes, we are getting more interested in the book, but mostly in the chapters about the serial killer. Larson keeps the story moving and keeps the reader engaged.
After reading the first portion of The Devil In The White City the book has surprised me in a positive way. The book was recommended to me by a good friend, Billy Davis. He told me he had already started the book and that it was a very interesting and twisting novel. On that note, I decided to go to the bookstore and read up on the book. After reading the back cover, I noticed that one of the main characters was a serial killer. I was never really a fan of books that were more on the dark side with killing and all, yet I noticed that it was a National Book Award Finalist so I decided to commit to reading it.
So far, the book has surpassed my expectations and it has had me on the edge of my seat wanting to read more and more. The book is a very good read and author uses very sophisticated words that help tie the story together and even make it more interesting. The book somewhat started off slow in the prologue, yet the speed of the book sped up after that. Since I have finished the prologue I have been flying through the book and understanding what has been going on. The book has me wanting to read more and more rather then just putting it down. I feel that as the book continues on it will become even more and more interesting and I feel that Root will come out more in the story as it progresses. Root is the artistic type of architect and I feel that when they start the creation of the fair he will have a more apparent part and will be more involved in the story. I also enjoy the history behind the book and the fact that Larson, who is a historian, brings the aspect of 19th century history into the story.
My favorite character so far in the book has to be the murderer. He is a very sly and crafty and Belknap attempts to describe the murderer yet he can't seem to grasp the words,
"Holmes was charming and gracious, but something about him made Belknap uneasy. He could not have defined it. Indeed, for the next several decades alienists and their successors would find themselves hard-pressed to describe with any precision what it was about men like Holmes that could cause them to seem warm and ingratiating but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element humanness was missing"( Larson, 87).
So it seems as if Belknap is unsure or senses something about Holmes that is not fully human. This puzzles Belknap and has him take a second thought over it.
Early in the book, the first chapter describes Chicago as a city. It talks about the dangerous factors of the city, and the trains being one of these factors. As noted in the book,
"Anonymous death came early and often. Each of the thousand trains that entered and left the city did so at grade level. You could step from the curb and be killed by the Chicago Limited. Everyday on average two people were destroyed at the city's rail crossings" (Larson, 12).
It then goes on to describe the fact that the Congress won and gave the opportunity to Chicago to host the fair. The reason for the holding of the World Fair is because it is the 400th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America. They have come across many problems right from the beginning. The city can not establish an exact place in Chicago where they would like to hold the fair. They also wanted to make the fair one square mile in a little over 26 months. Six months into the creation of this fair and absolutely nothing has happened. This leaves them with 20 months to basically recreate a city.
Then they introduce H.H. Holmes into the story as he walks into the train station. As a murderer he is very small in stature as I have read, "He was twenty-six years old. His height was five feet, eight inches; he weighed only 155 pounds" (Larson, 35). Holmes talks about his early childhood and the fact that he killed animals and dissected them alive. He felt that killing was his calling, "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing" (Larson). Burnham and Root recruit Olmsted. Olmsted designed central park. It took him 1858 to 1876 to built and refine the park. Holmes and a friend try to receive money through fraud with insurance. Holmes tries to get a lady to set up insurance with him as the benefactor. He makes money in other ways, "Davis estimated that Holmes made $200,000 throughout his drugstore and other business ventures, most of which were fraudulent. Burnham goes to New York to try and recruit architects to help the fair. When he goes back to Chicago all of the architects are mad at him.
The book connects with work and class because there are many different architects from all across the state and nation attempting to help this fair. All of them have different incomes and places where they live. The book also shows that Holmes a very wealthy doctor uses fraud and other ways to get money. Even though he is in a very high class he acts in a lower class manner.
Overall the book is great so far and I feel that it is a noteworthy book. I feel that this book deserves all of the awards it has received and that the entire 11th grade should read it next year and do a lot of discussion with it.
"Individual entry #2"
After reading a large chunk of the book, I love the way Larson writes. He makes the book ten times more interesting with his creative writing.
The theme of “work” is very evident in the book. Every character that is introduced for the most part has something to do with helping create the fair or plan it out. Also they are bringing in lower class immigrants and having them do all of the dirty work, such as digging trenches. So this theme of work is shown a lot throughout the book now that they have lower class workers doing the work for the fair.
The book continues to impress me and it is very hard for me to put the book down because I just want to continue reading and find out what is going to happen next.
The architects from New York, Boston, and Kansas City all met in Chicago. They met with the Exposition Committee to discuss what needed to be done to create the World’s Fair. Ned and his wife Julia are introduced into the story. Ned and Julia have just recently moved to Chicago with their eight-year old daughter Pearl. Ned got his first job at the jewelry counter in a thriving drugstore on the South Side of the city. Julia and Ned noticed what was going on with the fair, and they described the park as being very ugly: “the park an ugly, desolate place of sandy ridges and half-dead oaks, although Pearl had enjoyed tried to catch tadpoles in its pools of stagnant water” (Larson 100). Ned felt that Chicago was like any other city that he had ever visited. One of Ned’s new employers was Dr. H.H. Holmes. Dr. H.H. Holmes new object was Ned’s wife along with Ned’s sister. In this time, many people would go missing in Chicago, so they wanted to start “a separate bureau” a mysterious disappearance department. This department was going to be started within the police force. Ned was never really fond of Holmes, and he felt something weird about him. One night Holmes as Ned to do something for him, “He led him to a big vault and stepped inside, and told Ned to close the door and listen for the sound of his shouting” (Larson 102). Ned only heard a faint sound, and he never understood why Holmes asked him to do that favor.
On January 12, the Eastern and Chicago architects met again. It was a Monday morning and they met in Burnham and Root’s library. Root did not attend the meeting. Hunt was the new president and Sullivan the new secretary. The meeting began and they wanted to begin work, Hunt said, “We haven’t come here on a missionary expedition. Let’s get to work” (Larson 104). The room burst with excitement because they wanted to get started. Root was unable to attend the meeting because he had pneumonia. Following the meeting Burnham went to go see Root at his house. They talked for a little bit and Root described the fact that he was having strange dreams. Root asked Burnham, “You won’t leave me again, will you?” (Larson 107) Burnham responded with a no and did end up leaving the room to go see Root’s wife. While talking with Root’s wife a relative entered the room and told Burnham that Root had passed away. This became a large problem for the World’s Fair. Burnham and Root had been partners and friends for eighteen years. The chairman of the Grounds of Building Committee talked about Root, “there is no man in the profession of architects who has the genius and ability to take up the Exposition work where Mr. Root left off” (Larson 108). This was a problem for the Exposition because they lost one of their greatest architects, Mr. Root.
On Tuesday February 24, Burnham, Olmsted, Hunt, and the other architects on the top floor of the Rookery. They all brought drawings of the fair’s main structures that they wanted to create and submitted them to the Grounds and Buildings Committee. All of the drawings were of large, detailed, and magnificent buildings that they wanted to establish, “if successfully erected, George B. Post’s Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building would be the largest building ever constructed and consume enough steel to build two Brooklyn Bridges” (Larson 114). Burnham was aware of how much time there was left, and not much remained. Olmsted talked about the plants, birds, and boats that were going to be used. Burnham said that the buildings had to go in before they did any landscaping. There was now only 26 months until opening day and work still had not been started.
Finally work started. Fifty Italian immigrants began work on the fair. The work they did was the dirty work such as digging trenches. The unions threatened to organize unions worldwide to oppose the fair. Many people started to die. “The old world was passing. P.T. Barnum died; grave-robbers attempted to steal his corpse. William Techumseh Sherman died, too” (Larson 122).
Gertrude, Ned’s sister becomes very ill, and eventually she dies. Holmes said he was sorry, “but in his eyes there was only a flat blue calm, like the lake on a still August morning” (Larson 123). Holmes did not truly feel sorry for her. Next, Holmes offered to sell Ned the pharmacy, and he offered a payment plan for the purchase. Ned agreed and accepted the building and plan. Now that Gertrude was gone Ned and Julia became very tense.
The World’s Fair was like a job to Burnham, and he rarely ever got to see his family. “I shall stop after the World’s Fair. I have made up my mind to this” (Larson 128). The work for the fair was advancing very slowly. One problem they came across was that the soil was unstable in Jackson Park. They used John Root’s grillage foundation when possible and other types of foundation in the other areas. After the mayoral election, Carter Harrison lost and Hemstead had won.
Eventually, Julia became pregnant and demanded that Holmes marry her. Holmes did so. Holmes was to perform the surgery on Christmas Eve. When Julia went down to get the surgery on the second level room, he started. Instead of putting her to sleep, he put a liquid on a cloth and covered it over her mouth and nose. Pearl and Julia never ended up seeing Christmas morning. The other couple in the building tried to figure out where Pearl and Julia had went because Holmes had told them, “Julia’s sister had fallen gravely ill and Julia and her daughter had left at once for the train station” (Larson 152).
The workers began to go on strike, and this became a great threat. Throughout the United States the economy was falling and the murder rate rose 40%. Cold weather had now come into play and workers were trying to find ways to work around it. This caused a great fear for Burnham, because he felt fires would begin to start in the park. This was a small problem compared to the larger one being the fact that the treasury of the Exposition Committee was non-existent. Burnham began laying-off workers. The final large problem was that no one had created any plans for a structure that was going to out-do the Eifel Tower. Also, Holmes asked Emeline to marry him and she accepted. Overall, the progress is going very slow, and they are coming across many problems.
The book has been spectacular so far, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next!
I am still enjoying The Devil in the White City immensely and it is still exceeding my expectations. I am becoming increasingly nervous that construction of the worlds fair will not be completed on time. I think the directors and committees need to leave Burnham to make decisions for himself. “He needed to seek approval from the Exposition Company's executive committee at every step to buy drafting boards. It was immensely frustrating” (Larson, 120). By requiring Burnham to seek permission for the most simple tasks the directors and committees are holding back the fair. Due to lack of time the buildings will no longer be built from stone, steel and brick. They will be made of staff, a plaster like material. I am actually seriously becoming nervous that the fair may not get done in time.
I am enjoying the book for a couple reasons. It is starting to become suspenseful and I feel a slight increase in my heart rate when I read the book. Holmes is also becoming weirder and more mysterious. Regardless, he still fascinates me in a creepy way.
In the book Root, a huge asset to fair, has just died. “Burnham found Root struggling for breath. Throughout the day Root had experienced strange dreams, including one that had come to him many times in the past of flying through the air. When root saw Burnham, he said, 'You won't leave me again, will you?' Burnham said no, but he did leave, to check on Roots wife, who was in a neighboring room. As Burnham talked with her, a relative also entered the root. She told them Root was dead” (Larson, 107). With Burnham's long time partner dead, he is left to find another to help him run the business. He travels to New York where he is stood up by Charles Atwood, a possible new partner and an opium addict, yet ends up hiring him. Simultaneously, Burnham and his board of architects convene to share plans for the buildings they plan to build in under two years. St. Gaudens comments on the meeting to Burnham in a state of awe saying, “I never expected to see such a moment. Look here, old fellow, do you realize this had been the greatest meeting of artists since the fifteenth century?” (Larson, 115) They are beginning to realize the worlds fair is a greater undertaking than they expected. The fair starts encountering problems. The first of which is with Union Leaders who “demand that they limit the workday to eight hours, pay union-scale wages, and hire union workers before all others” (Larson, 119). The second problem they encountered was with the flimsy soil of Chicago. “Nearly all the soil of Jackson Park was competent to support floating foundations except the one portion destined to bear the fair's biggest and heaviest building” (Larson, 130). At this point all the architects and builders are realizing that they have their work cut out for them.
During all of this Holmes is continuing the construction of his hotel. One of his employees name Ned moves in with his wife, daughter and sister in law. Holmes does something to the sister in law and she returns to her home town of Mascatine, Iowa. Ned's relationship with his wife begins to deteriorate due to her “illicit affair” with Holmes. Eventually Ned files for divorce, fails to gain custody of the Pearl (their daughter) and finally moves to Gilman, Illinois. “With Ned gone and the divorce final, Holme's interest in Julia began to dissipate. He had promised her repeatedly that he would marry her once the decree was confirmed, but now he found the prospect repulsive” (Larson, 127). I am terribly excited to find out what will become of Ned's ex-wife and daughter. I hope Holmes does not hurt them. I will have to read on to find out.
The theme of work and class is continually illustrated throughout the book. Class is present when the McArthur Brothers firm hires fifty Italian immigrants to work on the site. These workers were probably part of the lower class and most likely, at the time of their employment, had recently immigrated. Work is exemplified as people come from everywhere to work on the worlds fair. The reason many people come to Chicago is because of the prospect of finding work on the worlds fair. Work and class are two extremely prominent themes in the book.
As I said before The Devil in the White City is still a very good book. It still is exceeding my expectations and still excites me to pick up. The story is getting better and I am become nervous that the fair will not be completed on time. I can not wait to read on.
Indy. Blog #2
After my first leg of reading the book I enjoyed it and could wait to indulge myself into this terrific book. In where I started off was where Larson was explaining the two lives of Holmes and Burnham. Now when people who have read ahead and said Larson go back and forth to each chapter and back I thought that I was going to be lost in the text. As I read on I was happy to feel the sense that I can understand this book because with going back and forth into their lives would be confusing but, Larson keeps the literature good. Burnham Invited architects from all over the U.S. from New York Richard M. Hunt, George B. Post and Charles McKim, From Boston Robert Peabody, from Kansas City Harry Van Brunt. Burnham wanted to send a strong message to Chicago and everywhere else that these 5 were the top and can surpass the Eiffel Tower in France. Many Challenges were proposed because all these egos together nothing will get accomplished as they have no need to listen to one another. With the world coming to Chicago they needed to build a large hotel and accommodate the people of the fair. Holmes tried to make his building into a housing building to earn a buck and help out people in the fair.
This book is still exceeding my expectations because it is such a good read that you get lost in it and you would never expect that in a History book. I cannot get enough of this book.
I feel the theme of work and class is both represented in what I have read up to. In the Work deal I feel that just how much work is going on in Chicago will always be represented and how the architects will always work on to beat the Eiffel Tower. During this time in America there was always work to do or be done and Larson attacks that very well. Now the Class deal end of the theme is representing is how the lower class is cleaning the streets to help benefit the upper and middle class in the preparation of the World Fair. Identifying the themes have been almost easy yet hard to spot because you have to weed out the potentials and then take them into consideration.
I honestly cannot speak bad of this book. Larson is doing a great job in not loosing me and that is why I am so interested in the book. This is a great read because it deals with the great city of Chicago mixed in with some “murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America.” (cover). The devil in the White city has grabbed me in a way that no other book has done before in how it makes me want to turn the page and not the feeling of oh my goodness how much til the end of the chapter. Larson is truly a noteworthy author so therefore the book is too. I don’t know how I am so interested but all in all this is a cultural book because it still is dealing with Americas history.
Individual Post #2
I am still really liking The Devil in the White City. Larson is a really compelling writer. The story line I am enjoying the most is the story about H. H. Holmes.I am really freaked out by Holmes especially when Larson describes his obsession with Jack the Ripper. "Every Chicago resident who could read devoured these reports from abroad, but none with quite so much intensity as Dr. H. H. Holmes.
I am also really enthralled by Holmes' building projects, for example his basement incinerator. As one man who was working on installing the furnace said, "The general plan for the furnace was not unlike that of a crematory for dead bodies" (92). Holmes is becoming more interesting and seems even more creepy if that's possible.
The book is living up to my expectations and I am really enjoying the story about Holmes. The architect's story pales in comparison, and I am not as interested in it. But I am really interested in how the fair will be built, and how the architects will deal with the myriad of problems they will face.
The book is also relevant in the context of our work and class unit. Holmes began as a nobody, and now is a man who can buy and custom build his own hotel. I really like the book and want to keep reading all the time.
P.S.- I had this written before 12 and it was better than it is now, but i had to log into my google account and accidentally deleted my entry.
Much to my surprise The Devil in the White City is still meeting my expectations. For a while there it slowed down and I started to loose interest. Fortunately it has picked up again and I am excited to read on. The book is of much interest to me for many reasons. I particularity enjoy the book because it talks about quite a few successful people. Like Sol Bloom for instance. He made many thousands in his time, which translates to many hundreds of thousands today, as a teenager. He sounds like a very smart and capable entrepreneur which I hope to aspire to one day. The history aspect appeals to me. Before this book I had heard about world fairs and was planning on investigating them on my own. Then this book came up and I killed two birds with one stone. I never understood the purpose of such fairs and now I do. You do learn something new everyday it seems.
There is no doubt in my mind this book will stand the test of time. It is told about an extremely chaotic time when murderers ran wild and, in Holmes case, undetected for many years. The people in the book are in many cases geniuses. Reading about them is fascinating and inspires me to work hard. I understand that that sounds stupid but I am really impressed by Sol Bloom in specific. He is the man. I am excited to read on for a couple reasons. First of which is that I want to find out how Bloom handles the task he is given and what becomes of Holmes. I have been proceeding at a slow pace but I intend to pick it up, so fear not.
The actual building of the worlds fair has begun. The date is July 3, 1891 and Burnham has just “sixteen months remaining until Dedication Day” (Larson, 133). The fair has yet to find its structure “to out-Eiffel Eiffel.” “A competition held by the Tribune brought a wave of implausible proposals” (Larson, 134). In August Eiffel himself asked the directors if he might submit a proposal. Engineers all over the country were outraged and under the impression that it was decided that Eiffel would out-Eiffel himself. “His formal proposal arrived a week later, envisioning a tower that was essentially a taller version of what he had built in Paris. The directors sent his proposal out for translation, reviewed it, then graciously turned it down. If there was to be a tower at the fair, it would be an American tower” (Larson, 136). Meanwhile, a young San Fransisco entrepreneur named Sol Bloom had a plan to “at last take advantage of an asset he had acquired in Paris two years earlier” (Larson, 133). What he wanted to display was an Algerian Village to which he had acquired the rights of. He proposed this to The Ways and Means Committee and was rejected. Back in California Bloom asked Mike De Young, an influential man in San Fransisco, to help him get his village accepted. Bloom ended up getting a lot more than he had bargained for.
During this time “Burnham tried to anticipate every conceivable threat to the fair” (Larson, 137). He had to worry about “Chicago's reputation for vice and violence” (Larson, 137). In response to Chicago's reputation Burnham created a large police force which he called the Columbian Guard. They were trained to prevent “crime rather than merely arresting wrongdoers after the fact” (Larson, 138). Disease also posed a large threat. An outbreak in smallpox or cholera or any other disease could destroy the record attendance needed to generate a profit. Burnham reduced the risk of disease spreading through the fair by sterilizing the water the employees and visitors drank. However, the biggest worry of Burnham's was fire. Fire could burn the fair to the ground quickly and so in response to this risk Burnham had built a series of extensive fire precautions. “He formed an exposition fire department and ordered the installation of hundreds of fire hydrants and telegraphic alarm boxes. He commissioned the construction of a fire boat, the Fire Queen... Design specifications required that every building be surrounded by an underwater main and be plumbed with interior standpipes. He also banned all smoking on the grounds... ” (Larson, 139). During this time the first deaths occur most of which from fractured skulls. Also across America, banks and companies were going under and strikes were a constant threat to production.
While Burnham is combating all the problems associated with the fair Holmes murderers his should be wife, her daughter and their unborn child. On Christmas Eve Holmes tells Julia he is going to give her a painless abortion but instead kills her using chloroform. He then has her bones removed and sells the skelaton“to Hahneman Medical College... for many times the amount he had paid Chappell” (Larson, 151) to cleanse the bones. This seems to be the part where Holmes really comes out of his shell. I expect from this point on Holmes is going to kill more frequently which I am not particularly excited about. I am excited to read on though.
INDIVIDUAL ENTRY #3
The Devil in the White City has been an extraordinary book and once I get in the zone to read I can read a good amount of pages where reading this book does not make me feel lost in the text. Larson is a terrific writer in how he talks about Ned and his family problems to Burnham and the architects and the people of Chicago while all of these categories eventually mesh together in the story. As I am progressing along in the book I find many interesting events that Larson makes me feel that I am next to H.H. Holmes and along side with Burnham and the architects in the Rookery. This Book really does the trick for me because I have been looking fro a good read since 8th grade year and I have found it in this book.
A family moves into Holmes’ building which he made to accommodate the people of the World Fair but Icilius Conner aka “Ned”, his wife Julia and his 8 year old child Pearl moved to Chicago for a new beginning and find themselves living in Holmes’ living quarters. Holmes was looked at by Ned as a terrific man and Holmes employed him, Julia, and Ned’s sister Gertrude. Ned is a jeweler but he was put in the drug store along with the two women. Holmes has his eyes set on these two women.
Burnham and the Architects are all meting in the Burnham & Root’s Library and working together to try and accomplish what needs to be done. As the Group came together and worked they got a call from Root’s wife saying he has a very bad cold. Later Burnham checks in with Root but he is in very bad condition and Burnham reflects strongly, “I have worked, I have schemed and dreamed to make us the greatest architects in the world- I have made him see it and kept him at it- and now he dies- damn!- damn!- damn!” (Larson, 107). Unfortunately Root died. And Burnham as of know is not the same prior of his close 18 year partner.
The Architects again meet up in Chicago 1891 and they all finally together made/ submitted their prints of the buildings that should stand tall and unique in “The Windy City”. These buildings will be the most elaborate and most steel produced that it can make the Manhattan Bridge twice. The landscape of the buildings will have nothing. Fredrick Olmsted said he wants the people to use their imagination to accessorize the beauty of the building. The deadline at this point in the process was determined of 26 months to work.
Back to Ned, Gertrude, Julia, and Dr. Holmes lives in Chicago. Dr. Holmes’ suites were now known as “The Castle” from the people around the block. The Conner’s Family is in trouble because Ned and Julia have been fighting and Holmes has been doing things with Julia that Upset Ned and he has “disturbed” Gertrude. Gertrude wants to go home but Ned notices that when her and Holmes is in the same room she feels uncomfortable and she keeps everything to herself. Ned lets his sister return back Home with his family but she shortly becomes sick and dies. Ned declares that he is sick of being in a constant quarrel with his wife and they divorce but they tear Pearl in who gets custody but Julia will never let go. Ned tries to give an “olive branch” in how he will never fight with Julia again but she said no and all Ned wants is to be around his daughter Pearl.
Expectations have truly been exceeded whenever I open this book. I feel Class has been shown lately, “Class obscured their vision” (Larson, 102). This recalls the people that have been vanishing in the Chicago streets and they were classified by race and profession.
This book has been a great read still I have not lost interest and I am glad. Very engaging and leads me along history of America. The Literary value is still top notch.
Individual Entry #3
As I get further into The Devil In The White City, I get more and more excited an interested. Since last time I wrote, Burnham's partner, Root, has died. The other architects are trying to keep working on getting back to the Fair after losing the man behind the plan. Newspapers all across Chicago revere Root as the best architect in Chicago, and Burnham begins to fell neglected. He was the driving force behind the fair.
Holmes continues to build his hotel next to the Fair site. Meanwhile he employs a man, Ned, and his wife. Ned gets a bad feeling about Holmes, rightfully so, and leaves his wife. His wife gets angry, but gives him a second chance, telling him to return and live with her again in Holmes' building and work in his store, but Ned doesn't come back. Eventually Ned and his wife divorce, and Holmes marries her.
Work is becoming more of a theme in this book. The unemployed from across the nation are heading to Chicago to work for the World's Fair. Unions begin to form and become an issue for employers. People are driven to work for Holmes out of necessity, and people become more desperate. They need money.
I am really enjoying the book, although I am a little behind on the reading. I am excited to get to the execution of the fair, and to read how Holmes actually commits the murders, and how the architects pull off the feat.
Blog Entry #3
After getting very deep into this book, it has for sure stood up to my expectations, if not surpassed them. The book is so good, and still I cannot set it down. Many of the workers that are working on the fair have to work in very harsh and cold conditions. The jobs that they are undertaking are jobs of those for the underclass. Though they are doing the work in the cold and freezing weather, they are getting paid a decent amount of money. Many of the workers are of those listed as “underclass citizens.” Work is a very apparent theme in this book, because everyone is working in some way to help speed up the process of the fair. Class is also a common theme because throughout the book they talk about the different jobs that need to be done, and what kind of conditions they need to be finished in. As far as I am in the book, I still feel that it is going to continue to get much better and more exciting.
Throughout the story Holmes has been a man of trickery. His friend Benjamin Pitezel went to Dwight, Illinois for the famous Keeley cure of alcoholism. Pitezel was a long time alcoholic. Holmes paid for him to go for the fact that he was a drunk, and also Holmes wanted to figure out the technique of making him sober so that he can resell the treatment to others and make money. Emeline and Holmes would ride into Jackson Park and observe the construction. Emeline was a friend of Pitzel’s. One day a man came into Holmes office looking for Holmes, the man was described as: “tall, with a clean jaw and modest mustache, and wore a cheap suit; in his thirties; good looking, in a way, but at the same time self-effacing and plain though at the moment he appeared angry”(Larson 164). The man’s name was Ned Conner. Eventually, a man by the name of M.B. Lawrence and his wife moved into Holmes apartment. Dr. Lawrence used to see Emeline all the time and he described her as, “She was one of the prettiest and most pleasant young women I ever met” (Larson 164). Eventually, Holmes asks Emeline to marry him and she accepts.
Olmsted begins to grow very tired and his body begins to ache. When the contractors work would fall behind, so would Olmsted’s. Many different people were trying to get the island so that they could build something on it. “Burnham urged Olmsted to accept Japan’s approval” (Larson 168). Olmsted did accept Japans idea. Olmsted was getting frustrated because Burnham insisted on steam powered boats after Olmsted and him discussed it and felt that the electric boats would be better. Olmsted had a nervous disorder so a doctor checked him out. Olmsted described his stay in the Hampstead Heat, “You know that I am practically in prison here. Every day I look for decided improvement and thus far every day, I am disappointed” (Larson 171).
The work was very slow so Burnham tried to get it going faster. He tried to speed up the process of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, which had to be completed by Dedication Day. To do this, “He ordered the builder of the Electricity Building to double his workforce and to put men to work at night under electric lights” (Larson 173). Burnham finally just gave up on ever surpassing the Eiffel Tower. Storms began tearing through the park. On April 5, 1892 a windstorm destroyed the “fair’s just-finished pumping station and tore down sixty-five feet of the Illinois State Building. Three weeks later another storm destroyed eight hundred feet of the south wall of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building” (Larson 174). The sewage brought problems up with the city’s water supply. McElroy was going to dig in Waukesha for water for the fair. Yet, “One village leader told McElroy that if he went ahead with his plan, he would not leave town alive” (Larson 176). This was a problem for the water supply for the fair.
On dedication day the press was polite enough to not even make comments on the appearance of the grounds and the unfinished park of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Nothing was getting finished on time. Once again the young Pittsburgh engineer put out a proposal for “out-Eiffeling Eiffel.”
Emeline’s love for Holmes diminished. She told Mrs. Lawrence that she was going to leave. Holmes created a wedding announcement for Emeline. Mrs. Lawrence was wondering why Emeline would leave without saying good-bye, so she continued to ask Holmes where she was, but Holmes had no answers. Holmes began acting differently, and Mrs. Lawrence felt as if Holmes had murdered Emeline, but she never went to the police.
The weather got to be very cold out. Olmsted’s work was very far behind and Harry Codman was in the hospital recovering from surgery. There were now only four months until Opening Day. The weather began freezing water lines and hydrants. “Olmsted, in Brookline, got the news by telegram: Harry Codman was dead. Codman, his protégé, whom he loved like a son” (Larson 194). This was very unfortunate for Olmsted as well as the construction of the fair. Later on, Olmsted became sick and was confined to his hotel room. There was now only two months left until the fair was to be opened.
Holmes now owned a legitimate company, a mail order sales company, and had opened his Silver Ash Institute. He continued to collect rents from the Lawrence’s and his other tenants. Holmes then need a secretary, yet he could not figure out which one to hire, “the trick lay in choosing a woman of the correct sensibility” (Larson 199). “Candidates would need a degree of stenographic and typewriting skill” (Larson 199). Holmes met a woman named Minnie. He took her to plays and concerts and bought her flowers. Finally, again, Holmes asked Minnie to marry him. “Holmes promised Minnie a voyage to Europe, art lessons, and a fine home, and of course children” (Larson 203). Holmes wanted the wedding to be quiet and be done very quickly.
Again we see Holmes having women fall in love with him, and he promises them a honeymoon and great things. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Group Entry #2 Bill Davis and John Young
During English today, as a group, we discussed our thoughts on Devil in the White City. To John and I's surprise, people were extremely enthusiastic about the book. We are all falling a little behind in our reading and have our work cut out for us this weekend but everyone seems to be enjoying the book immensely. Both John and I expected everyone to be a little bored with the book but boy were we wrong. What we took from the discussion was that the book is expected to only get better. Peter said it started our really slow for him but to his surprise it has really picked up. At first he felt indifferent towards the book but he is now actually looking forward to his next opportunity to read. John said part II “has been treating me well,” better than part I. He hopes it will get better, and expects it to. Olivia really likes the book, kind of like John and I. She is very excited to see how Holmes uses his hotel to lure young women. Phil said the book is interesting. He thinks, and is right, that Holmes is crazy. I told everyone I am really enjoying the book. I am a little nervous about not being able to finish by next week but at least its a great book. One of the things everyone enjoys about the book is the way Larson writes. His writing is so captivating and he shows and does not tell. There is a lot we can learn about writing from Larson.
One fear that everyone expressed was that the fair may not get done on time. With a little over a year left the fair has only a couple buildings erected. We also fear for Burnham's, Chicago's and most importantly America's reputation. Should the fair end a failure the reputation of the United States will be tarnished, and none of us want that.
As a group we recognized the connection between our previous unit of work and class and the book. Nearly every person in the book is involved with some type of work. Burnham is an architect, like his former partner Root was. Holmes is a doctor and an entrepreneur. All of the commissions involved with the fair work to develop the exposition. People are coming from all over the world to work on the fair. Almost everyone has some working role in the book.
Overall, everyone in the group is extremely impressed with the book so far. What could easily have been a boring book, was made interesting by Larson. We (John and I, Olivia, Peter and Phil) are all excited to read on.
Individual entry #4
Lately, the book has been very slow, because they have been talking about all of the bad things that are going on with the fair. Yet, the book began speeding up and becoming more interesting in the past few days. The fair has finally started which is making it very interesting.
So far I have enjoyed the book immensely, I love how all of the charcters are incorporated in the story. Erik Larson is such a good writer, and he has me not wanting to put this book down.
Class is still very apparent in the story. Still, many of the underclass citizens are doing work on the fair. The fair truly needs more people from the higher classes. Many of the underclass workers are dying due to injury and sickness. Yet, all of these underclass workers are working very hard and Burnham negotiates a new salary with them.
Many other countries and cities are helping the fair by delivering goods and machinery. They are bringing in exotic things such as, “Sphinxes, mummies, coffee trees, and ostriches. By far the most exotic cargo however was human. Alleged cannibals from Dahomey” (Larson 207). Carter Harrison was running for his fifth year as mayor. The Democratic elite implored the Republicans to come up with a candidate whom they too could support, anything to keep Harrison from returning to office” (Larson 214). They truly did not want Harrison to be the mayor again. In the end Harrison was elected for a fifth year.
Holmes invites Minnie’s sister to Chicago on his cost. “Minnie was excited and sent the good news to Anna, who immediately accepted” (Larson 217).
The weather conditions are getting somewhat better, but still workers are dying. “Four exposition workers lost their lives, two from fractured skulls, two electrocuted” (Larson 218). The fair was about to begin and still things were unfinished. Only one of the eight towers for the Ferris Wheel had been finished. Burnham had been honored at a grand banquet arranged by Charles McKim. To make the fair look more beautiful, “Olmsted had ordered more than eight hundred ducks and geese, seven thousand pigeons, and for the sake of accent a number of exotic birds”(Larson 221). There were still boxes and empty packing crates everywhere. Many of the carpenters went on strike, so Burnham hired union workers to take their jobs. Burnham then negotiated a fair wage for them, “to pay time and a half for extra hours and double time for Sundays and key holidays, including, significantly Labor Day” (Larson 223). Olmsted then got sick and was confined to a bed with a sore throat an ulcerating tooth, and much pain preventing sleep. At one point, Joseph McCarthy noticed a man named Patrick Prendergast near Chicago’s Humboldt Park. “The odd thing was, Prendergast was walking in circles. Odder still, he walked with his head tipped back and his hate pulled so low it covered his eyes. As McCarthy watched, Prendergast walked face-first into a tree” (Larson 226). Rain started coming down and showed how much work was truly left. Despite the rain, Olmsted was awed by the amount of workers. The fair was not totally finished, yet they couldn’t postpone it. Trains after train were entering the city.
The fair had begun. People boarded trains and carriages and arrived. Many things were needed to be finished the night before, “Ten thousand men working through the night touched up the paint and staff and planted pansies and laid sod as a thousand scrubwomen washed, waxed, and polished the floors of the great buildings” (Larson 237). The attendance on day 1 was said to be between 250,000 and 600,000. The fair was a great success on day 1, yet the economy began to decline, and banks and companies failed.
Holmes started a hotel known as World Fair Hotel. “When male visitors asked about accommodations Holmes told them with a look of sincere regret that he had no vacancies and kindly referred them to other hotels nearby. His guest rooms began to fill with women, most quite young and apparently unused to living alone” (Larson 243). Minnie became very awkward, and when more and more women entered the hotel she was inclined to stay close to Holmes. Holmes then bought a new apartment from a man by the name of John Oker. Holmes explained to move to Minnie on how they needed a new place to raise a family.
Overall, the book still is very great, and I am still very interested in what Holmes has up his sleeve. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Individual #4
Eiffel tried to out Eiffel the Eiffel. Basically Eiffel submitted a blueprint of a bigger and better Eiffel Tower but it was denied because it was the same thing and people wanted to see something different and more creative tower/ building.
It is Christmas Eve in Chicago and Julia Conner is putting Pearl to bed in anticipation for the next morning of Christmas. Holmes has a room where he plans to kill Julia and their unborn child that night/ Christmas early morning. Julia comes to Holmes’ room and Holmes grabs her and takes her to this operation room lays her down and covers her mouth with chloroform and kills her and the unborn instantly. Holmes also does this to Pearl in her sleep and this part was truly disturbing. Christmas doesn’t mean any thing to Holmes. Holmes hires an associate to clean Julia’s bones and sell the skeleton to the medical school in Chicago. Holmes changes his where about stories fro Julia and each story differs in time or day.
Burnham’s workers have been acting up and have been on strike for no work/ money. The workers are favored by the Union and are upset with the pay and deals of work. Because the money is tight and it is getting cold out because of winter he has to cut jobs and tighten up the expenses of work and whatnot. This overwhelmed Burnham because this made him slow down in his try to out build Eiffel.
Holmes is yet again on his way to make money the easy way. What his idea was to talk to his alcoholic assistant Benjamin Pitezel. “Gold Cure” was what Holmes is trying to duplicate. Holmes fell in love with another lady named Emiline Cigrand and they did many things. They met in Dwight when Holmes was speaking with his assistant.
The Devil in the White City is still taking me by surprise in how much Larson is keeping me interested throughout the book. I have been reading on and observed that this book will stand the test of time because of its American roots and history about the World Fair held in Chicago. All in all this is a great book. It is an important book because it shows the advancement in jobs and several other things such as class and how class affects peoples jobs. I have been repeating myself blog after blog how this book is taking me to a new level of reading and it is true every time. I am going to compare this book to a movie and use a quote that is heard a lot in how almost every page puts me to the edge of my seat. The only reason I say almost every page is because when you are reading a chapter that is great and moves along you feel excited that you read it and then you can hit a text bump that is hard to get over and sometimes losses my interest. I’m not taking this into consideration fully about the book because Larson just hits the nail on the head ninety percent of the time. The Devil in the White City is most of the time a solid read and will be until it is taken off the racks.
Cannot Get enough of Erik Larson!!
Once again, The Devil in the White City is holding my attention. It has slowed down a bit but I expect it to pick up. I still enjoy the book and it is still a page turner yet not as much as it first was and it is not as enjoyable as I first found it to be. Regardless of how necessary it may be to go into such intense detail of the fair I think too much detail has been given about it's inter workings. I find it boring and tedious yet interesting at the same time. My worries of the approaching date of the Dedication Day are still existent. Just four months to go, and the main buildings are not even close to being complete. The pressure is on, we'll see how it all folds out.
Dedication Day is nearing for the worlds fair. As the date gets closer the problems get bigger and more numerous. “The constant threat of strike and... the fast shrinking treasury of the Exposition Company” (Larson, 154) have Burnham extremely concerned. “Burnham's department has consumed far more money than anyone had anticipated” (Larson, 154). There is a rumor that the directors are seeking a $10 million grant from Congress. In response to the lack of money Burnham “ordered his chief draftsman, in charge of exposition work under way in the attic of the Rookery, to fire at once any man who did 'inaccurate or slouchy work' or who failed to do more than his full duty” (Larson, 154). Men were dismissed that “Burnham knew, faced homelessness and poverty; their families confronted the real prospect of starvation. But the fair came first” (Larson, 155).
“The absence of an Eiffel challenger continued to frustrate Burnham” (Larson, 155). At a meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club a young “thirty-three-year-old engineer from Pittsburgh who ran a steel-inspection company that had branch offices in New York and Chicago” (Larson, 155) had an idea of how to “out Eiffel Eiffel.”If what happened to Eiffel happened to him, his fortune would be assured” (Larson, 156).
The exposition is proceeding slowly. Burnham “needed more power-not for his own ego but for the sake of the exposition” (Larson, 156). With the Dedication Day only four months away the exposition needs someone, one person, to start making decisions. Going threw multiple committees takes time, time that is not there.
The decision to paint all of the buildings white eventually “served to fix the fair in the world's imagination as a thing of otherworldly beauty” (Larson, 174). In reading this part I finally realized why the book is name The Devil in the White City.
During this time Sol Bloom encountered a problem of his own. One day he “recieved a cable from France that startled him... His Algerians, scores of them along with all their animals and material possessions, were already at sea, sailing for America and the fair-one year early” (Larson, 170). One reason I am excited to read on is that I want to see how Bloom handles the situation. I have nothing but faith in the man.
Olmsted, during all of this, is going through a hard time. His health is deteriorating and he is becoming increasing pessimistic about the fair. In an attempt to get a good rest and to “enrich his visual vocabulary” Olmsted took a trip to Europe along with two of his children.
The increasingly creepy H.H. Holmes is at work once again. He charmed an innocent girl named Emeline to the point where she actually loves the man. Despite the multiple warnings she was given about him, she remains steadfast in her love. Ned Conner recalls,“I told her I thought he was a bad lot and that she had better have little to do with him and get away from him as soon as possible” (Larson, 165). I am very worried about the well being of this poor girl. She hasn't the slightest clue as to what she's getting into. I hope she can escape with her life. I am terribly excited to read on and read on I shall.
The Devil in the White City is a great book. I keep doubting that the book is a factual, and Larson continues to scare me with Holmes' story and amaze me with Burnham's.
Since Last time, Holmes has killed his new bride, Julia, and her daughter Pearl.
Julia had gotten pregnant, and Holmes realized that it presented a perfect opportunity to make some quick money and cut himself loose from his commitment as a father.
Upon hearing that Julia is pregnant, Holmes convinces her to let him give her an abortion. He leads her up to a room on the second floor, where he has set up an operating room, complete with instruments that momentarily worry Julia. Holmes tells Julia , ”There will be no pain,” and there wasn’t. He applied the rag covered in chloroform, and continued to add more, until there was no life left in Julia. He then murdered her daughter, Pearl, all on Christmas Eve. The neighbors wonder where Julia and Pearl had gone, and Holmes assures them that they have gone to visit some relatives.
We then learn of another reason Holmes had committed the murders. He hires a man named Charles Chappell, an articulator, to make usable skeletons out of the corpses. The need for skeletons to teach doctors was growing exponentially, and Holmes made a great sum of money off this scheme. This really shows even more what a crazy psycho he is. Holmes then meets yet another vulnerable girl, Emeline, and asks for her hand in marriage, and he does to her what he did to Julia and Pearl. Holmes again lies to the curious neighbors. Then, in true serial killer fashion, Holmes “acquires” yet another girl, this time named Minnie. He charms her into love again, but unlike the others, Minnie is short and plump. They marry, but Holmes never registers the marriage. He also tries to appropriate her land inherited from her uncle. At this point, Minnie’s sister is about to come visit, and I think they will both be killed by Holmes, because Anna, her sister, doesn’t have a good feeling about Holmes.
The architects are nearing the Dedication Day and the opening of the fair, and many of them are dying and sick. Olmstead has fallen ill many times, and Rook and Harry Codman have died. More and more exhibits are moving in, including Buffalo Bill’s Wild West adventure, and the Indian and African tribes are traveling to Chicago, although there will not be pygmies, and the delegate sent to get them is dead.
The architects have also found the new Eiffel. A man by the name of Ferris, George Washington Gale Ferris, has come up with a plan to build a giant wheel that will carry large cars complete with lunch counters giving a great view of the whole fair. Although they have had many problem with construction and making the larger buildings of the fair, and many storms have destroyed the buildings over and over again. And Olmstead is getting worried that the landscape work will not be completed in time, and the fair will lack the beauty necessary to make it absolutely amazing.
Work is playing an even larger role in the book. Women are looking for jobs more often, and being lured into Holmes’ traps, and the architects are battling unions putting up a right to safety and fair wages. Many people are dying on the work site, of electrocution and broken skulls, and the carpenters strike until receiving fair wages, and end up signing a contract to finish the campaign.
I am very excited to read the rest of the book, and I really want to see how the fair plays out. Although I am somewhat apprehensive about finishing.
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