World's Fair, 1892–93

World's Fair, 1892–93

Members of the AP U.S. History electronic discussion group have been recommending books to other AP U.S. History teachers to assign to students over the summer. I ordered a couple of the recommended titles and have finished reading one of them: The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. It is an historical novel—a good, exciting one that is based on historical facts. Indeed, the author researched both secondary and primary sources and listed them by chapter in the back of the book.

The White City. The main subject of the book is the World Columbian Exposition (400 years since Columbus came to America) of 1892–93. It was also called a World's Fair. We follow the civic leaders of Chicago and prominent American architects as they lobby for the right to hold this World’s Fair in Chicago. They win the competition over New York, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. Chicago architect Daniel Burnham is the main force behind getting other major architects to design the buildings, including Louis Sullivan, Richard Hunt, and Charles McKim. Frederick Law Olmsted was hired to design the landscape. The collection of monumental buildings became called the White City because the architects agreed that all of the structures had to be painted white. This contrasted with the rest of Chicago, which sometimes was called the Black City because of all the grime and dirt (and smells from the stockyards).

The Dark Subplot. Interspersed in the story of the creation, opening, and closing of the World’s Fair of 1892–93 is a subplot about a soft-spoken young doctor who owned a large building about a mile from the fair grounds. For unexplained reasons, Dr. H.H. Holmes (that is one of his names) liked to kill and dissect people. He set up a gas chamber and a crematorium in his building, advertised rooms for rent, and waited to see who would show up. He befriended a number of unattached young women and even married some of them before killing them. And there were many young, single women coming to Chicago in the 1890s to look for jobs and go to the World’s Fair.

Why Was the World’s Fair Significant? The White City showed that beautiful cities could be planned. This was the start of the city planning movement that developed in the Twentieth Century. The tradition of the midway began at this fair also, actually on land just outside the fairgrounds. Buffalo Bill made a million dollars putting on his show every day on the Midway. A Morrocan village was another attraction. What is a fair today without a midway full of unusual attractions and scary rides? The Ferris Wheel originated at this midway. The planners of the fair wanted a structure that would rival the Eiffel Tower, which had been built for the Paris Exposition of 1889. George Ferris had the idea of building a giant, vertical wheel with cars attached around the edge of the wheel. No metal, moving wheel this big had ever been built before. But it was built in Chicago, did not fall down (as predicted), and provided tens of thousands of Americans with a unique experience.

Cracker Jack and Shredded Wheat were born in the White City. Incandescent bulbs powered by alternating current lit up the fair in a spectacular manner that Americans had not seen before. Walt Disney’s father helped build the fair. Perhaps Walt heard tales of the fair that were transformed into plans for the Magic Kingdom. L. Frank Baum visited the fair. Perhaps he got ideas for Oz from that experience. Because of the fair, President Harrison made October 12 a national holiday (Columbus Day). I could go on, but why? Read the book yourself! I only hope that the AP U.S. History students enjoy the book as much as I did. But I doubt that the subject matter of the book will be on an AP test, so they should still read Amsco's U.S. History: Preparing for the AP Examination.