In this book Glory is overwhelmed with how her town is handling people who are different than they are. She realizes that her favorite local pool is closing down so colored people can’t swim with the whites. Glory becomes an activist herself and writes a letter to the newspaper lining which makes her preacher father proud. Therefore, the theme of this book is to treat everyone equally, such as when Glory’s friend Frankie from Ohio drinks out of the “colored fountain”. Also, when Glory’s sisters boyfriend that he was arrested for sitting with a “colored friend” at the white table.
The World fair was the engineering project of its time. It brought plenty of excitement and attention to itself, but it also brought crime. The problem is, even though everything seems fine with the fair, there were bad things still happening. Stealing, cheating, and in extreme cases even murder. Chicago was in charge of building the World’s fair, but ended up hosting a murderer in its walls.
Book Analysis- The Devil in the White City The Chicago World’s Fair continues to be one of America’s defining moments. This is where America proved to the world they had grown up and were able to hold their own. Erik Larson eloquently illustrates the entire fair in little black words on paper. Although he was not alive during this event, Larson is able to reconstruct the story with factual events; he created twists to keep you ensnared into the story.
The Devil In The White City had many plot lines that took place in Chicago around 1893 at the World's Fair. The first plot line focuses mainly on Daniel Burnham constructing the World's Fair with his partner John Root. It tells a story of struggle for the men, how they had such a hard time constructing the large Farris wheel, to having to open unfinished, then having trouble getting attendance up. Then the struggle is over for the two guys for a short amount of time. Not long after they gather up just enough money to pay off their debts, the Fair had to shut down, as the mayor of Chicago had been assassinated, honestly a more positive reputation for Chicago.
“In the first six months of 1892 the city experienced nearly eight hundred violent deaths”(12). Catastrophes happened even before the fair technically started, but the with a huge flow of people to help build the fair came a huge amount of crime. In a short time frame, “[in] August alone the building took three lives. Elsewhere on the grounds four other men died and dozens more suffered all manner of fractures, burns, and lacerations”(178). Many people lost their lives.
Their city was growing and was awarded the chance to host the World’s Columbian Exchange. Chicago was becoming a prideful place. Officials and citizens were not concerned when people went missing because their city was thriving. Because Chicago was a selfish city, people dying in Chicago was not a concern. “Chicago was nothing more than a greedy, hog-slaughtering backwater.”
The Chicago World Fair stirred many emotions in this great time of industrialization, but not only was Chicago shining in the spotlight from the fair, it was also promoting something much more sinister, this dark enclosing spotlight shined directly on H.H Holmes. Burnham the leader of the World Fair and H. H Holmes the notorious serial killer, are the two main characters in this novel that Erik Larson uses the balance between light and dark between these two’s personalities. In the novel The Devil in the White City Erik Larson uses Imagery, paradox, and alliteration to show the balance between the light and dark in the ever growing city of Chicago. Imagery paints an ever expanding picture for the audience, the detailed descriptions such as “but his eyes are as blue as ever, bluer at this instant by proximity to the sea" (Larson 3).
The Devil in the White City Rhetorical Analysis Essay The Chicago World’s Fair, one of America’s most compelling historical events, spurred an era of innovative discoveries and life-changing inventions. The fair brought forward a bright and hopeful future for America; however, there is just as much darkness as there is light and wonder. In the non-fiction novel, The Devil in the White City, architect Daniel Burnham and serial killer H. H. Holmes are the perfect representation of the light and dark displayed in Chicago. Erik Larson uses positive and negative tone, juxtaposition, and imagery to express that despite the brightness and newfound wonder brought on by the fair, darkness lurks around the city in the form of murder, which at first, went unnoticed.
Black on White, and White on Black violence was a regular occurrence. Many knew that a riot was impending due to the signs that were around, especially regarding the racial tension. What could be added to the tension was the growth of the city with regard to the mix of people as mentioned earlier – ex-confederates, “backwoods preachers, Southern white evangelists, and shouters” was part of the population. This meant that Detroit became a melting pot not only for religious and racial intolerance, but also for agitators such as the Black Legion, and the Ku Klux Klan. Brown’s view gives one an overview of Detroit that was perhaps built on the wrong foundations, and which led to what it became in the twenty-first century as well – the fourth city of the United States that died because of its race intolerance.
The fair in a way, made way for racism to rise in the city of
The Devil in the White City The Devil in the White City is a historical non-fiction book written by Erik Larson that reads like a novel. The book follows two, real main characters, during the building and existence of the Chicago World’s fair. The first is an American architect named Daniel Burnham.
“Late one night, when we were all in bed, Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in the shed. Her cow kicked it over, then winked her eye and said, ‘There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!’ (Abbott)” In 1871, a disaster arose in Chicago and reshaped the city permanently: a fire scorched around three square miles of land, leveled thousands of buildings, and stole hundreds of lives (“Chicago Fire of 1871”). Although the effects of this tragedy were harrowing, it actually served as the catalyst which allowed Chicago to become one of America’s largest, most influential cities.
The people around us and our surroundings shouldn’t change who we are because we all have our own personalities and our own ways of doing things. David Foster Wallace, author of “Ticket to the Fair,” grew up a couple of hours from down state Springfield but moved to the east coast is writing a articles on the Illinois state fair. As he goes through the days of the fair he realizes thing are different from the East Coast, and that the people are not what he expected. The way people treat David makes him act different toward people. “Lacking a real journalist’s killer instinct, I’ve been jostled way to the back, and my view is observed by the towering hair of Ms. Illinois country fair, whose function here is unclear.”
The Chicago World’s Fair was an opportunity for the city to come together and create event so spectacular to shock the world. However, as Chicago prepared to awe people with this extravagant fair the city faced skepticism on weather or not issues of urbanization, sanitation, and crime would be fixed in time for the World’s Fair. In beginning of the novel, Larson takes the reader back to the start before Chicago wins the bid for the World’s fair to be held in Chicago. The idea of the World’s Fair in the United
In The Devil in the White City, author Eric Larson expresses, in explicit detail, the irony of both the good and evil occurrences