The Devil In The White City Summary

Supplementary Reading Assignment - An overview of The Devil in the White City

The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson is a classic non-fiction that has always caught my eye. I remember when I was younger I had heard briefly of H.H Holmes and the horrible things he did to receive the title “America’s first serial killer” and he remained intriguing to me. The Chicago World’s Fair was something that never got exemplified in school as something too important, and unfortunately I never took the time to research it on my own. Therefore, I am glad I chose this story to read based on my curiosity and despite its lengthy page count and, in my opinion, more challenging word choice, I learned a great deal from this story. The Devil in the White City

Through the stories of two historical men, Erik Larson uses extensive research to reveal the lives of Daniel Burnham, the lead architect of the fair, and Herman Webster Mudgett, better known under the name of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, who is one of America’s first documented serial killers. The story is broken into four parts with two perspectives that switch between chapters. While Daniel Burnham invests his life into the creation of a World’s fair and tries to rid Chicago of its bad name, H.H Holmes only adds more devastation to the city by exploiting the fair and using its guests as prey at his “modified” hotel, which would be uncovered soon after the fair is over. Erik Larson wrote before the prologue, “Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.” ( Larson xi). Larson’s quote not only sums up the characters in the story, but of society as a whole in the late 1880’s as the economy and social standards were being tested, and the two different perspectives people took to get by. The battle of the evil in the “goodness” of the world

Holmes simultaneously produced his own legacy, as another plot that unfolds while Daniel Burnham produces the World’s Fair. In 1886 Holmes moved to Chicago to pursue a career as a pharmacist, and later a doctor. He soon learns how to manipulate companies out of money and people out of their lives. He buys land on the corner of Wallace and 63rd street and builds a custom hotel. The Hotel consisted of 3 floors, the first, a layer of retail shops furnished by frauds and loans he never planned on paying off and his own pharmacy, the second and third floors full of rooms attached by secret hallways, doorless rooms, and chutes headed to the building’s basements which suited his practice of killing and disposing of victim’s bodies. When news broke about the fair, Holmes added a specially designed kiln to the basement for much quicker disposal, and decided to turn his castle into the World’s Fair Hotel. His victims mainly consisted of early to mid-aged twenty year old women who lived in Chicago alone and needed to depend on a man. Holmes seem to delight everyone, male or female, with his charms and good looks. Erik Larson wrote, "Immediately Holmes deployed his tools of seduction, his soothing voice and touch and frank blue gaze.", showing how he made so many women fall into his arms, and on the specific account of the quote, a woman he married (163) and later killed. Holmes married many of the women he murdered because he would take out life insurance policies in their names