The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

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Part 3, Chapters 16-19 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “In the White City”

Part 3, Chapter 16 Summary: “Love”

Couples sought permissions to marry on the Ferris wheel. Holmes brought Georgiana Yoke to the fair. He asked her to marry her, under a different name. Mayor Harrison was also in with Annie Howard, less than half his age. The Retrenchment Committee recommended drastic cuts to spending, but the Exposition Board rejected this request. Still, they pressured railroad companies to reduce fares to the Exposition. Millet staged several special events to attract more visitors to the fair, including a sumptuous ball. Another bank failed, and the Metropole was once again scene of a suicide. Several days after what the papers called a “riot” outside the City Hall, 25,000 unemployed workers gathered at the lakeside.

Part 3, Chapter 17 Summary: “Freaks”

On July 31st, 1893, the Retrenchment Committee dictated drastic spending cuts at the fair. While the fair’s directors pressured railways to decrease fares, Frank Millet designed ever more alluring events to draw visitors. The greatest of these was the Midway Ball held on August 16th. The Tribune called it “the Ball of the Midway Freaks” (311), referring to the foreigners in traditional dress whom Millet had sourced from exotic destinations. The celebrity George Francis Train—the model for Phileas Fogg—hosted the Ball. Attendance to the fair rose, at last reaching profitable numbers. On August 3rd, a large Chicago bank failed and another banker committed suicide—the Metropole’s “third suicide that summer” (315). Several days later, 25,000 unemployed workers gathered on the lakeshore to protest inequality, alarming the city’s merchant bankers.

Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary: “Prendergast”

Prendergast visited City Hall, what he believed would be his future office, but the staff laughed at him.

Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary: “Toward Triumph”

On October 9th, the fair sold more tickets than the record set at the Paris Exposition. Five people were killed that day in or near the fair. The fair sold over 700,000 tickets that day and repaid its last outstanding debts. Burnham, and Chicago, were triumphant.

Part 3, Chapters 16-19 Analysis

Larson draws a parallel in these chapters between the couples who are swept off their feet by the romance of the fair, and Holmes’ victims, many of whom fell prey to his powers of seduction. Holmes’ drug store employee C.E. Davis says:

He was the smoothest man I ever saw […] [Creditors would] come here raging and calling him all the names imaginable, and he would smile and talk to them and set up the cigars and drinks and send them away seemingly his friends for life. I never saw him angry. You couldn’t have trouble with him if you tried (71).

Just as the architects engineered the wheel’s turning with great precision and ingenuity, so could Holmes spin lies that would maneuver his victims into whatever position he wished. He would take them on a ride and had absolute control over when it ended. It is clear from the increase in deaths on the day of the fair’s biggest turnout that it was the ideal distraction for criminal activity. Such predatory behavior requires not only sleight of hand but grooming. Con artist criminals like Holmes were employed in creating a fantasy as magical and distracting as the fair itself. This parallelism is brought into focus again through Larson’s inclusion of Sol Bloom’s Public Relations work, which was essential to attracting the required numbers of fairgoers. Clearly, Holmes faced a similar problem, first with his insurance fraud scheme and later to satiate his thirst for killing. The themes of Eros and Thanatos, love and death, are found together once again in Larson’s book.