![]() ![]() ![]() The fair was a city unto itself, the first to make wide-scale use of alternating current to illuminate its 200,000 incandescent bulbs. Overcoming gargantuan obstacles-politically entangled delays, labor unrest, an economic panic, and a fierce Chicago winter-to say nothing of the architectural challenges, Burnham and his colleagues, including Frederick Law Olmsted, produced their marvel in just over two years. Burnham assembled what a contemporary called “the greatest meeting of artists since the 15th century” to turn the wasteland of Chicago’s swampy Jackson Park into the ephemeral White City, which enthralled nearly 28 million visitors in a single summer. The contrast in these accomplishments of determined human endeavor could not be more stark-or chilling. Henry Howard Holmes, whose rambling World’s Fair Hotel, just a short streetcar ride away, housed windowless rooms, a gas chamber, secret chutes, and a basement crematory. ![]() Burnham, chief planner and architect of exposition, and Dr. In roughly alternating chapters, former Wall Street Journal reporter Larson ( Isaac’s Storm, 1999, etc.) tells the stories of Daniel H. ![]() A vivid account of the tragedies and triumphs of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the concurrent depravities of America’s first serial killer. ![]()
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