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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

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Part 3, Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “In the White City”

Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary: “Nannie”

Anna Williams arrived in mid-June and was promptly charmed by Holmes. He took the sisters on a tour of Chicago, stopping at the Stock Yards to see the butchering chambers, and also at the fair. Holmes asked her to stay the rest of the summer.

Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary: “Vertigo”

Mrs. Ferris rode the wheel for the first official revolution, excitedly telegraphing her husband the news afterward. Several people were killed that day at the fair’s Ice Railway attraction.

Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary: “Heathen Wanted”

Back in California, Olmsted took the temperature of public opinion. Enthusiasm was on the rise, though there were issues. Olmsted wanted to engineer more spontaneous moments of magic in the park. Burnham was unmoved, and despite his rigorous control of the park, a small fire occurred in the Cold Storage Building.

Part 3, Chapters 7-9 Analysis

It is in these chapters that the fates of the two protagonists cross most discernibly. The magic of the fair is the ideal lure for a predator such as Holmes. Among the ironies that Larson retrospectively discerns in the events described in these chapters is the Williams sisters’ visit to the fair: “[T]hey saw the first electric chair” (267). Little did they know that their own deaths were nigh, or that Holmes would ultimately face the death penalty for his crimes. That Holmes took the sisters to see the bloody corpses at the Stock Yards is another horrific irony. As Holmes maneuvers the women about, unimpeded by police, Larson draws a parallel with Burnham’s dictatorial management of the Exposition, not least the establishment of a special police force: “The exposition was a dream city, but it was Burnham’s dream. Everywhere it reflected the authoritarian spandrels of his character” (276). Burnham and Holmes mirror each other, but the mirror reveals undeniable similarities.