THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY

Author and Genre OverviewHistorical ContextPeople and Places

ERIK LARSON

Born January 3, 1954 in Brooklyn, NY (grew up on Long Island)

Studied Russian history at University of Pennsylvania

Grad school in journalism at Columbia University

The Bucks County Courier Times in PA- fi rst newspaper job

Writes features for The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine

Also has contributed to The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly

HIS BOOKS:

1992: The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities

1994: Lethal Passage: How the Travels of a Single Handgun Expose the Roots of America's Gun Crisis

1999: Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

2003: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

2006: Thunderstruck 2011: In the Garden of

Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

TRUE CRIME GENRE

True crime is a non-fiction literary and fi lm genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people. The genre has been described as infotainment and as factional—a mix of fact and fiction.

Crimes Depicted: Most common crime= murder Serial Killers- 40% of genre in a 2002 survey Also other subjects, like memoirs of policemen, reality TV

showsRange from formulaic to journalistic to “literary”

(nonfiction meets novel)Appeal of the macabre

TRUE CRIME CONTINUED…

First true crime author: Scotsman named William Roughead- lawyer who attended every murder trial of significance between 1889-1949- wrote about essays published in journals and collections

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965) about a quadruple murder in Kansas popularized the genre in America quintessential true crime novel

CHICAGO: ORIGINS

"Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, translated as “smelly onion" or "wild garlic” (Miami-Illinois)

Mid 18 th century, inhabited by Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples

CHICAGO: ORIGINS

1780s: 1st non native settler: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (from the DR) built a farm at the mouth of the

Chicago River Left Chicago in 1800 In 1968, Point du Sable was

honored at Pioneer Court as the city's founder and featured as a symbol.

1795- Northwest Indian War then several treaties and ceding of land from Indians to Europeans

Treaty of Chicago 1833- Potawatomi forcibly removed from their land

BRIEF TIMELINE OF CHICAGO IN THE EARLY-MID1880S

1829- City of Chicago plotted out- population 100

1830s-40s: potential as transportation hub recognized; Lake Michigan utilized- population 4000 (grew to 1.7 million by 1900- now around 2.7 million)

1848: 1st railroad and canal between Great Lakes and Mississippi River

1850: Abe Lincoln emerges from Chicago1856: 1st US Comprehensive sewage system

(dumped in Chicago River- whoops)

SOME ACTUAL FOOTAGE:

Corner of Madison and State Streets, Chicago 1897

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG2h-bGjjlwWhat does this video tell us about Chicago at

this time?The Sheep Runhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKoIPvdC7KUBuffalo Bill and Iron Tail (1910)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KeZ9IgrQ2AWhat do you think they are saying?

NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

The westward expansion of the United States continued after the Civil War, and the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869

Within 16 years, three other transcontinental railroads were fully functional.

As a result, western cities grew exponentially.While the wealth of America also grew

exponentially, the vast majority of this wealth was controlled by a very small percentage of the population.

THE GILDED AGE

Roughly the 1870s to the turn of the centuryCoined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley

Warner in a satire called The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Vanderbilt’s mansion in Asheville, NC:

THE GILDED AGE

During this period there was a great disparity between the fabulously wealthy and the poor.

Barons, like John D. Rockefeller (the oil tycoon), Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad tycoon), and Andrew Carnegie (the steel tycoon) showed off their wealth by building mansions and throwing lavish parties.

Other industries, such as Sears and the automobile industry, got their starts during this era

THE GILDED AGE

An era of serious social problems disguised by a thin layer of “gold-gilding”

Industrialization, Urbanization, Railroads, Stockyards (Chicago), Immigration Poverty, Class Disparity, Child Labor

Oppression of women, children, immigrants, Native Americans, African-Americans

THE HAVE-NOTS

As Americans moved westward, they continually displaced Indian tribes. Several brutal massacres occurred when these tribes tried to

fight back (Wounded Knee)Recently freed slaves (Emancipation Proclamation

1863) and already free African Americans continued to struggle against racism and segregation

Immigrants also suff ered from poor living situations and discrimination.

WOMEN’S ROLES EXPAND

The women’s suff rage movement begins.

Several universities allow women to enroll

Women’s literature breaks through with authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Kate Chopin, the celebrated Southern short story author, and Edith Wharton, whose novels depicted the snobbery and small mindedness of the upper classes

THE GREAT FIRE OF 1871

THE HAYMARKET RIOT

HULL HOUSE

THE JUNGLE