GOOD
AND EVIL AT THE WORLD’S FAIR
Topics: Depravity; Evil; Fall of Humanity; Free Will; Human Condition; Human Nature; Human Will; Power; Sinful Nature; Violence
References: Matthew 12:35; Luke 6:45; Romans 8:5–11
Set against Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Erik Larson’s bestselling book The Devil in the White City tells the true story of two men, each serving as an extreme example of the good and evil in humans.
Daniel Burnham, one of the greatest architects of his day, was the driving force behind the Chicago World’s Fair, transforming it into a phenomenon that forever changed his country. In less than two years, Burnham supervised the construction of more than two hundred buildings along the coast of Lake Michigan. The largest exhibition, called the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, had enough interior volume to have housed the U.S. Capitol, the Great Pyramid, Winchester Cathedral, Madison Square Garden, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, all at the same time.
The fair attracted more than 27.5 million visitors at a time when the nation’s total population was 65 million.
Dr. H. H. Holmes also achieved notoriety during this era, but not for creating beauty. The year before the fair, Holmes constructed a block-long, three-story building that included a soundproof vault, several gas chambers, and a specially crafted furnace designed to eliminate odors. Holmes called it “The World’s Fair Hotel.” In it he murdered at least twenty-seven men, women, and children. At least that’s what he confessed to. Investigators believed the number was much higher, since fifty young women alone were traced to Holmes’s hotel and were never seen or heard from again.
Burnham was quoted as saying, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Holmes, by contrast, stated, “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.”
The Devil in the White City symbolizes the present condition of humanity. Even when we achieve our highest dreams and potential, there is evil afoot.
—Story told in Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City (Vintage, 2003)