The Devil in the colour City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
By Erik Larson. Vintage Books 395 pp.
A phoenix rising from the ashes is a bittersweet cycle that entails a tragic loss and a triumphant rebirth into the world. Like the statement of this mythical creature, wampum has endured devastating losses and a victorious restorations namely by dint of the events of the Great conflagration of 1871 and the Chicago Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893. Erik Larson captures the aggregate of this era of advancement in his book, The Devil in the unclouded City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. From the ashes of the Great Fire of 1871, the tales that composed this story were born.
Combining comprehensive research with conjecture, the story tells the winning parallel tales of two remarkable men, each of whom pursued an preposterous undertaking that was linked to the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893. Larsons framing narration is the story of Daniel Burnham, the main architect, lead organizer, and day-to-day manager of the large event. It was Burnham who brought together and directed an enormous array of architects, engineers, businessmen, laborers, and exhibitors, secured millions in congressional funding, and who, in a scant eighteen months, transformed a bleak wasteland on the shores of Lake Michigan into the monumental White City.
Larsons account of Burnhams desperate race against time and deft dialog of economic, logistical and bureaucratic hurdles is alternated with an equally suspenseful tale of ingenious ambition. A few blocks from the fairs grounds lived and worked Henry H. Holmes, a charming young man and amateur architect. In his eery but cleverly practical Worlds Fair Hotel, Holmes constructed a cryptical lair, complete with built-in crematorium and custom-designed gas vents, in which he murdered between nine and...
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