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People, Places, Events
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Chicago World’s Fair
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H. H. Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett)
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Daniel Hudson Burnham
Margaret –wife
John Wellborn Root – died before completion
World’s Columbian Exposition Company
Burnham and Root – lead designers
Frederick Law Olmstead – landscape architect
Harry Codman – new member of Olmstead’s firm
Sol Bloom – in charge of Midway
George Washington Gale Ferris
Buffalo Bill
Annie Oakley
Carter Henry Harrison - mayor
Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast – murdered Harrison
A. S. Trude – lawyer
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First wife – Clara Lovering
Second wife – Myrta Belknap – daughter Lucy
Third wife – Minnie Williams (not legal)
Three associates:
Charles Choppel
Patrick Quinlan
Benjamin Pitezel
Nine known victims:
Julia and Pearl Conner
Emeline Cigrand
Minnie and Anne Williams
Pitezel
Alice, Nellie and Howard Pitezel
Others who disappeared:
Boy in Mooers Fork, Michigan
Mrs. Holton – druggist wife
Misc. drugstore clerks
Georgiana Yoke
Detective Frank Geyer
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1. Discuss the author’s writing
style. Did you like the frequent
foreshadowing? For example, on page 30
when writing about minor setbacks, the author wrote, “Far worse was to occur,
and soon.”
2. Discuss Barnham and Root’s working
relationship and the atmosphere in their office. Ahead of their times, they had a gym and
played handball over the lunch hour.
Another employee stated that, “The office was full of a rush of work, but
the spirit of the place was delightfully free and easy and human in comparison
with other offices I worked in.” (page
27)
3. Discuss Holmes and his
childhood. His parents were very strict
and often spanked him and sent to the attic without food or talking, he
tortured animals, his friend, Tom, was killed in a fall while playing with
Holmes.
4. How was Holmes able to fool so many
people? What was it about him that drew
women in particular to him? On page 36
the author wrote that he “broke prevailing rules of casual intimacy.” Would he be able to avoid detection for so
long in today’s culture?
a. How
was it that so many people were able to go missing without any trace?
5. Would you
have been one of the first to ride the Ferris Wheel?
6. Were you able to visualize or
comprehend the scope of the Fair? Do
you think something like that could be accomplished today?
7. Discuss
Barnham’s motto, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s
blood.”
8. Were you surprised that so many new
products, innovations and important people were either introduced at the Fair
or somehow connected with the Fair?
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Important people and events connected to
the World’s Fair
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Augustus St. Gaudens, sculptor
Elias Disney – son Walt – carpenter and furniture maker
Westinghouse Electric Company – won contract to illuminate
exposition
Francis J. Bellamy – Pledge of Allegiance
Bloom’s three-bar tune
Burnham’s concession to carpenters and ironworkers –
contract became model for future – gave strength to labor movement
Frank Lloyd Wright – junior partner with Louis Sullivan,
architect for Transportation Building
New products introduced at fair:
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