#columbianexposition

1892 Columbian Exposition Chicago Choice B.U. MS-63

This coin was issued for the Exposition held in Chicago from 1892-1893.

Mint: Philadelphia Content: 90% Silver Diameter: 30.6mm

Obverse Designer: Charles E. Barber and Olin Lewis Warner

Reverse Designer: George T. Morgan and Olin Lewis Warner

“The palace intrigue behind Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition is alive and well in this tidy 60-minute act from magician Sean Masterson. The narrative revolves around a cryptic coin dating back to the World's Fair, acquired by Masterson when he was a boy.”

—The Chicago Reader reviewing Timeless Magic at Theater Wit

The solid silver commemorative coin from the Columbian Exposition belonged to my great Uncle Ed. He passed it on to his younger brother, my grandfather.

The Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893 has always loomed as a magical place in my imagination. I’m not the only one. Chicago resident Frank L. Baum took his inspiration for the Land of Oz from the “White City”.

What fascinates me is how the fair brought together many of the notable players of the following century. Nikola Tesla beat out Thomas Edison to generate the fair’s electricity with his alternating current (Edison won the 20th century with his direct current). George Ferris constructed the very first Ferris Wheel on the fairgrounds to compete with the visual wonder of the Eiffel Tower from the 1889 Paris fair. The Yerkes telescope was built for the fair as the world’s largest refracting telescope (It’s still the largest and you can still visit it today). Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination ten years later would kick off a series of events leading to World War I, also visited the fair.

My main fascination is the magicians who performed and passed through the fair including Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston. I include both of these magicians in my show Timeless Magic now playing at Theater Wit. Much has been written about Houdini. But, in the beginning of the 20th century Thurston’s name was far more synonymous with magic. An extraordinarily adept manipulator of playing cards, Thurston went on to command one the great illusion shows of the 20th century. For 35 years he crisscrossed the entire country with his full-evening show. The sets and illusions for his lavish spectacle filled eight railroad cars.

Billy Robinson is another magician who came to Chicago for the fair and is the main character in my show at The Wit. In 1893, like Houdini and Thurston, he was also an unknown prestidigitateur who would later skyrocket to fame.

The show “functions as a historical anthology, highlighting the performers and the tricks... that informed much of magic’s golden era.”

—The Chicago Reader reviewing Timeless Magic at Theater Wit

Bibliography:

Steinmeyer, Jim (2011). "The Last Great Magician in the World: Howard Thurston versus Houdini & the battles of the American wizards". New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin

My ever-dapper great Uncle Ed (center) from whom I inherited a silver commemorative coin from the Columbian Exposition of 1893.

Much has been written about Houdini. But, in the beginning of the 20th century Thurston’s name was far more synonymous with magic. 

Nikola Tesla beat out Thomas Edison to generate the fair’s electricity with his alternating current (Edison won the 20th century with his direct current).

Chicago resident Frank L. Baum took his inspiration for the Land of Oz from the “White City”

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not read the book, refrain from reading this review for a lot of key, sensational details were revealed and analyzed here. 

Admittedly, this book was a fascinating read and it enlightened me in many ways given my position as a Non-Americanist with little expertise on the field. It is a well-blended story of murder, development, and society constructed on the backdrop of real historical events in late 19th century America. Erik Larson's writing was enticingly descriptive despite his meticulously laboring over a few minor details that I think did not contribute significantly to the development of the story. With that being said, this book is definitely not a conventional history book, but rather a combination of fictional writing with certain stylistic elements and real-world events. How much history the readers grasp from reading the book really depends on the vantage point from which ones approach the history matters in this thriller of murder and societal development. Here goes my elaborate review of the book.       

The Gilded age in late 19th century was an era of rapid economic development and industrialization in America. Not only did this critical period vastly transformed America as an emerging nation but it also brought about tremendous social and political perplexity into the American society by the time. “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson, as a non-fiction, gave readers many historical insights into the economic and social development of America through the lens of Chicago’s radical transformation into a rising metropolis that promised both prosperity and arising social diseases, and the story of the very first American serial killer during this so-called Gilded age. The book was excellent at providing the readers with substantial information on the history of America during post-civil war reconstruction in general and Chicago history in particular. It even did a more excellent job at exposing the dark, degrading and wretchedness that had always existed side by side with this glorious sight of upward development in America, and tactfully linking these two contradictory matters to display a big-picture history of America’s social turmoil, policy flaws, and economic instability as the imperfections of the rapidly industrialized era.

The novel revolved around two main stories that were narrated in a parallel fashion: the Columbian World’s Exposition held at Chicago in 1893 and the mass-murders of Chicagoan women and children committed by H.H. Holmes, also known as the America’s first serial killer during the time of the world fair’s occurrence. The book carefully depicted the tension faced Chicago in its battle for honorary status and recognition against New York and Washington D.C in their attempts to gain the right to host the World Fair. For Chicago itself, this opportunity meant optimism, a resurrection of its capability for a city whose reputation had always been associated with the status of being the “America’s slaughter house”, and a brand-new era of Chicago’s ever-changing image to the perception of Americans and to the world. Along with the exposition, the story featured two America’s greatest architects and their toils as well as various pressures imposed on them throughout the process: Daniel Burnham and John Root. Perfectly situated next to the story of the World Fair was the incredibly gruesome story of H.H. Holmes, who by taking advantage of the World Fair situations created his impeccable murder castle that mercilessly slaughtered several hundred innocent people. Written in a parallel fashion, the two stories intertwined to create a historical work of suspense that revealed the weakness of America in the industrialized period.

The juxtaposition of the Chicago World Fair and H.H. Holmes was the keystone that enabled us to understand American history from two different angles. Lying underneath the mere sight of wealth, prosperity, and grandeur, as indicators of skyrocketing economic growth and expansion were the inconvenient truths of crimes and murders. In order to truly grasp the theme of the book that Mr. Larson was trying to convey, understanding how these two stories worked together remained essential. Undeniably, the World Fair was a humongous work of marvelous architecture that represented Chicago as a world-class metropolitan. Chicago would earn its nationwide and worldwide reputation of being the center of innovation, where all the unprecedented were introduced into it. Moreover, the fair transcended its role of an architectural beauty by exposing to the world America’s powerful economic transformation and civilization. On the other hands, it was the World Fair that forever changed America as a wealthy, powerful industrialized state in various ways. First, the World Fair completely elevated American architectural development to a new level on the world’s architectural arena by this time. Larson wrote as Burnham pondered upon the idea of Chicago’s eligibility to host the fair “He argued that Chicago’s fair, unlike any other before it, would be primarily a monument to architect. It would awaken the nation to the power of architecture to conjure beauty from stone and steel (Larson, 80)” America now was not considered incompetent in terms of its architectural development compared to Paris or London. Larson’s vivid description of the detailed architectural technicalities that spread through the chapters served a critical purpose: it did the American architecture’s rapid growth justice and showed that America was now able to cope with the even the toughest environment that might have hindered architects from making construction possible by its own innovations and ideas. Besides a boost in the development of architecture, the fair tremendously impacted American cultures of consumption and commercialization by introducing new things that had been unheard of. Larson described: 

“They saw the first moving pictures on Edison’s Kinetoscope, and they watched, stunned, as lightning chattered from Nikola Tesla’s body. They saw even more ungodly things- the first zipper; the first-ever all-electric kitchen, which included an automatic diswasher; and a box purporting to contain everything a cook would need to make pancakes, under the brand name Aunt Jemima’s, etc (Larson, 247)”

Obviously, the World Fair was not just about architecture but it was also about inventions that symbolized America’s Gilded age and forever changed the world’s perception of the country and the city of Chicago itself: America was now civilized and innovative while Chicago received the honorary title of being home to the world’s first inventions. The fair’s impact on America was undoubtedly enormous.

Behind this picture of innovations and glorious achievements emerged the imperfections of American weaknesses and unpreparedness at the forefront of the World Fair that forever changed America. H.H. Holmes came into place as the most notorious, yet though-provoking case to ponder upon the irony of development in the American Gilded age. Understanding Holmes’ motives and positioning them next to the World Fair brought us more complete perspectives on the situations in America during this period. Understanding how a person so merciless with no sense of repentance who ruthlessly said “I was born with the devil in me (Holmes)” took advantage of the opportunities to slaughter was key to the interpretation of “The Devil in the White City” and Larson’s purpose of juxtaposing the World Fair with Holmes’ horror. Chicago on the eve of the fair was described as a chaotic and dangerous place. Larson commented “ It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root (Larson, 12)” The World Fair with an overflow of visitors flocking to contemplate the world-class architectural beauty served as the best opportunity for murderer like Holmes to enjoy himself. It could be inferred from the book two possible motives that actually encouraged Holmes to conduct the genocide: the psychological and economic motives. However, Larson’s criticism lied in the fact that these motives would not have been made possible without the weakness of America’s social control and overrated security system that enabled Holmes to leak through the loopholes. The documentary “H.H. Holmes- America’s First Serial Killer” along with the book provided the basis for Holmes’ inferences of motives. Its depiction of Holmes’ dysfunctional childhood gave insights into Holmes’ development as a psychopath who was educated and scarily rational in his killing albeit killing for pleasure was the major desire. A clever, well-educated and appealing young man, he utilized his medical skills and passion for anatomy as a way to gain pleasure from his victims. Thus, Holmes emerged within the American society also as an “innovation” and a completely new type of person. He created a new American society for himself that no American at this time would ever expect: a society of psychopaths. Larson was so clever at his intentional juxtaposition because while the World Fair introduced its inventions, Chicago and the American society experienced a brand-new type of mass killing, dangerous, brutal, uncontrolled and intelligent. America was unprepared to deal with this type of smart and rational serial killer in the reality. Holmes’ another motive lied in the facet of economic benefits. Performing anatomy on the victims and selling their corpses to medical schools were his purposes. Holmes regarded the World Fair as a wonderful moneymaking opportunity and at the same time perfect to fulfill his desire for killing. However, Erik Larson did not simply end there but he went further to suggest many of American weaknesses that created the ideal surrounding for this society of psychopath to flourish side by side with industrialization. First was Holmes’ construction of the murder castle, which he virtually paid everything on credits without ever intending to pay back. This revealed the underdevelopment in the banking system with a poor system of credit risk evaluation that led to an indiscriminate borrowing of credits allowing Holmes’ to bypass the system and make his massacre dream come true. The fact that many visitors vanished without a trace during the World Fair without ever being detected and the detective’s long enduring process to find the bodies of three Pitezel’s children exposed the weakness of the Chicago municipal police force in particular and America’s poor security system in general. Erik Larson nicely summed up these deficiencies in the following reflection:

“It is humiliating to think that had it not been for the exertions of the insurance companies which Holmes swindled, or attempted to swindle, he might yet be at large, preying upon society, so well did he cover up the traces of his crime. Chicago’s feeling of humiliation was not surprising, the New York Times said; anyone familiar with the saga “must be amazed at the failure of the municipal police department and the local prosecuting officers not only to prevent those awful crimes, but even to procure any knowledge of them (Larson, 370)”

These loopholes combined, covered up in the glamour of the Chicago World Exposition thus reveal America’s vulnerability during the period of economic expansion with numerous opportunities. The juxtaposition of the World Fair with H.H. Holmes served its powerful function of uncloaking these layers of America’s development. It revealed a history, politics and the difficulties facing a rapidly transforming society.

Without a doubt, Larson’s versatility of a great writer and his literary style contributed to the success of “The Devil in the White City” as a significant nonfiction and historical work that helped us to understand a critical period of American history. Although Larson’s depiction of the architectural technical details throughout the book seemed lengthy and stagnant to the development of the narratives that put me under the impression that the story progressed too slowly, Larson was judicious enough to include these details in an organized manner to show the intensity and magnitude of the World Fair, and the herculean efforts to make it possible. He also did this task purposefully so as to bring into an extremity of contrast between the fair and the story of the murderer- also the contrast between the age of burgeoning economy and social evilness. The greatest thing that Larson was able to achieve was his excellent presentation of the people, the society and the politics that made the past come alive. Through vivid and realistic description of Chicago from a “Black city” to becoming a “White city”, Larson brought the city to life: from a dangerous and obnoxious state to a city filled with opulence and opportunities. The politics came subtly to the surface of the narrative through this description but I could clearly feel the tension and turmoil enveloping the city’s constant growth. By alternating the narrative between the progress of the World Fair and murder mystery, Larson pushed the story to the pinnacle of suspense and retained this curiosity-provoking element in his style to keep the readers going. Rarely do I find in a historical work such a well-balanced synchronization of suspense and history as in “the Devil in the White City”.

“The Devil in the White City” was an excellent book profuse with historical knowledge of America in the Gilded age, specifically the urban economic development of Chicago as a rising metropolis. On the other hands, it was a brilliant source of insights to conduct both historical and social analysis on America’s period of booming industrialization. Chicago appearing to the world in its utmost splendor, wealth and prosperity was now revealing America’s vulnerability through its inability to control the degradation and wretchedness reflected via H.H. Holmes’s series of mass killing. Larson has made an incredible amount of efforts to depict Chicago in the 1890s from a decayed and filthy city to the center of inventions floating to the top of the world, and the problems confronting the American society by the time. Overall, I highly recommend this book to avid readers who want to learn more about the Gilded age in America through a different optical lens: the World Columbian Exposition and an emerging society of psychopaths. 

Sources: 

Larson, Erik, “The Devil in the White City”, Vintage Books, New York, 2003