H.H.Holmes in Chicago 1893!

[Autolycus]

Thanks Mayerling

Hi Jeff

Your post sent me into the loft to find the book! You're right it's fact. However, the reconstruction is so well done that the thing flows like a novel. Anyway, thanks because I'm now enjoying a second reading.

Regards.

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

One correction: Larson's book is non-fiction, not fiction. THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY compares the great 1893-94 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago (the 400th Anniversry of Columbus' first voyage to the New World - it was delayed a year in opening), to Holmes' fiendish crimes in his hotel "murder castle", and also discusses the assassination of Chicago's popular if corrupt Mayor Carter Harrison Sr. by Patrick Eugene Prendergast in October 1894 on the day the exposition ended. Prendergast (like President Garfield's assassin, Charles Julius Guiteau) was a disappointed office seeker, but like Guiteau there is evidence he was insane. The Columbian Exposition is best remembered because "George Washington Ferris re-invented the wheel". The first Ferris wheel was displayed and enjoyed. Also "Little Egypt", a "hoochy-koochy" dancer on the midway made an appearance that remained famous. Finally the architecture (using electric lighting on a massive scale) influenced American architects. Larson's cast of characters in the story is a large one, with Holmes, Prendergast, Harrison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand (who visited the fair), Clarence Darrow, Louis Sullivan, Frederick Law Olmstead, and others showing up. Even later events (the sinking of the Titaniic) are drawn in. It's a very good read.

Jeff

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

Autolycus, thank you for the tip; I will read the book as soon as it is available.

Yes, Stan; people didn't have that much identity-stuff - so to say - with them. The foreign people in Chicago had their passports, but maybe not much more...

Suzi, thank you for the link; I will read it more thorougly in the next few days.

Strange ideed, that we got interested about this Holmes almost at the same time...

All the best
Jukka

[Suzi]

Hi Jukka
Spookily I've just read an account of H.H.Holmes in Colin and Damon Wilsons' 'Written in Blood'.
Theres a good link here too:-
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/s...s/index_1.html

Suzi x

[sdreid]

People weren't traceable like they are today. They didn't have things like driver's licenses, credit cards, Social Security and the like.

[Autolycus]

The Devil In The White City

Hi Jukka

The book above (Fiction - author Erik Larson) covers the crimes and the Expo project. To me, it suggests that cunning, ruthlessness, social turmoil, corruption and luck all played a part in Holmes evading detection for so long.

If you haven't read it, I bet you'd enjoy it.

Regards.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

I've just been watching a good documentary about H.H.Holmes, a serial-killer from the Chicago World Expo 1893.

All right, to the basic question:

How he could do that, despite the Expo brought loads of people to the Windy City?!

All the best
Jukka