Essay On The Devil In The White City

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a compelling book about the abundance of man power that the country abruptly constructed with the Chicago World Fair of 1893. The Chicago World Fair portrayed human ingenuity with electricity, and steel with the beginning works of the Ferris wheel that would create amusement parks that are known today. The Devil in the White City creates the vision that anything was possible in this time. Doctor Holmes plays a role as a villain in The Devil in the White City by creating a business that would create a heaping amount of debt that he is not willing to pay off and murdering many of the people he would become in contact with thus by further expressing the human ingenuity of success he had from his unwillingness

‘I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.” (171) Thus further explaining that at this time excelling in what you do best that one could basically create success. Although he created a fake business as a pharmacist and later developing a hotel for the world’s fair that is would be coming to Chicago. This time period did not have many technological advances except for the electricity that was first modernly used at the fair with the Ferris Wheel. So, they did not have the ability to accuse a man of murdering his guests when they only think he owns a hotel. There was no motive for the police or any officials to question Holmes further succeeding his business.
Americas ingenuity was at all time high during the time the Chicago Fair was constructed. With the ability to construct attractions in an area close to water on unleveled ground in an area that was popular for violence was a very risky action. Since the fair was a major success we can infer that American Ingenuity was used for something other than producing industrial machines and products and using their resources to create architecture within America itself. Chicago was not the tier location to construct the World’s fair but in the end it was an intelligent decision for the American