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 1, Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Frozen Music”

Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “‘Becomingness’”

The construction of the fair had a very tight schedule, not helped by initial disagreement on its location. Fair Director James Ellsworth hired leading landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who arrived just after a heatwave had killed 17 people in Chicago. He argued that the world fair should be a showcase for “becomingness.” Burnham and Root attended the opening of the world’s tallest building, along with former mayor Carter Henry Harrison. Prendergast ran a team of newsboys but wrote fervent letters to the city’s political leaders, championing Harrison in particular. In October 1890, amid financial turbulence, Burnham was made chief of construction for the still displaced fair.

Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “‘Don’t Be Afraid’”

By the close of 1886, Holmes had a thriving business. He courted and eventually married Myrta Z. Belknap whom he had met in Minneapolis, neglecting to tell her that he was already married to Clara Lovering. Holmes secretly charged his former wife with infidelity but failed to prosecute. In 1888, Myrta became pregnant. When she began to get in his way, giving birth to Lucy, she left to live with her parents. Holmes instantly transformed in a successful effort to woo her back. He designed an eccentric building for the lot opposite his pharmacy. A bricklayer called George Bowman said that Holmes offered to pay him to drop a brick on his brother-in-law’s head. Benjamin Pitezel was a carpenter, one of the few men whom Holmes did not fire.

Pitezel became Holmes’ assistant and was arrested for trying to pass forged checks in Indiana. Holmes paid the bail. Pitezel was an alcoholic and was married to Carrie Canning. The couple’s children would become famous throughout America. Holmes erected his building during Jack the Ripper’s murders in England. Jack the Ripper murdered five people, far fewer than Holmes. The building was completed in 1890, and Holmes was able to pacify his creditors through his charm. Holmes began buying large quantities of chloroform. He terrified his laundry-lady, Strowers; after encouraging her to take up life insurance, he reassured her that she shouldn’t be afraid of him. The fair ground was to be Jackson Park, due east of Holmes’ building.

Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Pilgrimage”

Sitting Bull died on December 15th, 1890, when Burnham travelled to New York to encourage a reticent gathering of the nation’s leading architects to design the fair. At the beginning of the new year, Root travelled to New York to garner interest in the project, with more success.

Part 1, Chapters 4-6 Analysis

The parallels between the architects of change and Holmes, the architect of death, continue as the businessmen strive to succeed in their endeavors. The fair is beset by deaths and “a billion smaller obstacles” (75), much as Holmes’ morbid operations are plagued by angry creditors. Holmes manages to manipulate others with ease, while Burnham struggles to persuade the group of Eastern architects to join in the preparations for the fair. Larson juxtaposes the board of architects’ ambition to give birth to a new vision of America’s “becomingness” with Holmes’ construction of what would become known nationally as his “castle of death.” Indeed, the psychopathic Holmes himself is machinelike: “Events and people captured his attention the way moving objects caught the notice of an amphibian: first a machinelike registration of proximity, next a calculation of worth, and last a decision to act or remain motionless” (36). The tadpoles that Pearl enjoys trying to catch are reminiscent of this description of Holmes’ atavistic and predatory mind. The little girl and her family would later become his prey. As the fair architects construct great machines, Holmes’ head was whirring nearby with more destructive machinations. The age, like the tadpole, was in a process of transition, leaving it vulnerable to manipulation by predators.