the devil in the white city author and genre overview historical context people and places
TRANSCRIPT
THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
Author and Genre OverviewHistorical ContextPeople and Places
ERIK LARSON
Born January 3, 1954 in Brooklyn, NY (grew up on Long Island)
Studied Russian history at University of Pennsylvania
Grad school in journalism at Columbia University
The Bucks County Courier Times in PA- fi rst newspaper job
Writes features for The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine
Also has contributed to The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly
HIS BOOKS:
1992: The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities
1994: Lethal Passage: How the Travels of a Single Handgun Expose the Roots of America's Gun Crisis
1999: Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
2003: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
2006: Thunderstruck 2011: In the Garden of
Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
TRUE CRIME GENRE
True crime is a non-fiction literary and fi lm genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people. The genre has been described as infotainment and as factional—a mix of fact and fiction.
Crimes Depicted: Most common crime= murder Serial Killers- 40% of genre in a 2002 survey Also other subjects, like memoirs of policemen, reality TV
showsRange from formulaic to journalistic to “literary”
(nonfiction meets novel)Appeal of the macabre
TRUE CRIME CONTINUED…
First true crime author: Scotsman named William Roughead- lawyer who attended every murder trial of significance between 1889-1949- wrote about essays published in journals and collections
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965) about a quadruple murder in Kansas popularized the genre in America quintessential true crime novel
CHICAGO: ORIGINS
"Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, translated as “smelly onion" or "wild garlic” (Miami-Illinois)
Mid 18 th century, inhabited by Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples
CHICAGO: ORIGINS
1780s: 1st non native settler: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (from the DR) built a farm at the mouth of the
Chicago River Left Chicago in 1800 In 1968, Point du Sable was
honored at Pioneer Court as the city's founder and featured as a symbol.
1795- Northwest Indian War then several treaties and ceding of land from Indians to Europeans
Treaty of Chicago 1833- Potawatomi forcibly removed from their land
BRIEF TIMELINE OF CHICAGO IN THE EARLY-MID1880S
1829- City of Chicago plotted out- population 100
1830s-40s: potential as transportation hub recognized; Lake Michigan utilized- population 4000 (grew to 1.7 million by 1900- now around 2.7 million)
1848: 1st railroad and canal between Great Lakes and Mississippi River
1850: Abe Lincoln emerges from Chicago1856: 1st US Comprehensive sewage system
(dumped in Chicago River- whoops)
SOME ACTUAL FOOTAGE:
Corner of Madison and State Streets, Chicago 1897
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG2h-bGjjlwWhat does this video tell us about Chicago at
this time?The Sheep Runhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKoIPvdC7KUBuffalo Bill and Iron Tail (1910)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KeZ9IgrQ2AWhat do you think they are saying?
NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION
The westward expansion of the United States continued after the Civil War, and the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869
Within 16 years, three other transcontinental railroads were fully functional.
As a result, western cities grew exponentially.While the wealth of America also grew
exponentially, the vast majority of this wealth was controlled by a very small percentage of the population.
THE GILDED AGE
Roughly the 1870s to the turn of the centuryCoined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley
Warner in a satire called The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
Vanderbilt’s mansion in Asheville, NC:
THE GILDED AGE
During this period there was a great disparity between the fabulously wealthy and the poor.
Barons, like John D. Rockefeller (the oil tycoon), Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroad tycoon), and Andrew Carnegie (the steel tycoon) showed off their wealth by building mansions and throwing lavish parties.
Other industries, such as Sears and the automobile industry, got their starts during this era
THE GILDED AGE
An era of serious social problems disguised by a thin layer of “gold-gilding”
Industrialization, Urbanization, Railroads, Stockyards (Chicago), Immigration Poverty, Class Disparity, Child Labor
Oppression of women, children, immigrants, Native Americans, African-Americans
THE HAVE-NOTS
As Americans moved westward, they continually displaced Indian tribes. Several brutal massacres occurred when these tribes tried to
fight back (Wounded Knee)Recently freed slaves (Emancipation Proclamation
1863) and already free African Americans continued to struggle against racism and segregation
Immigrants also suff ered from poor living situations and discrimination.
WOMEN’S ROLES EXPAND
The women’s suff rage movement begins.
Several universities allow women to enroll
Women’s literature breaks through with authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Kate Chopin, the celebrated Southern short story author, and Edith Wharton, whose novels depicted the snobbery and small mindedness of the upper classes
THE GREAT FIRE OF 1871
THE HAYMARKET RIOT
HULL HOUSE
THE JUNGLE