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Summary: The Fair

The Fair’s effect on America endures. Walt Disney’s father, Elias, told Walt about building the White City, and Walt went on to create the Magic Kingdom. L. Frank Baum and artist William Wallace Denslow visited the Fair, and they later dreamed up Oz. We now have Columbus Day, as well as a Ferris wheel and a Midway at almost all fairs. We use alternating current. We eat Cracker Jacks and Shredded Wheat. Most cities have Romanesque columns or facades on an older building.

The Fair introduced the idea that cities themselves can be beautiful displays of architecture. Afterward, cities asked Burnham to apply similar thinking to their cities, and he became one of the first influential figures in modern urban planning. Chicago preserved the Fair’s Palace of Fine Arts, which now houses the Museum of Science and Industry. It still looks over the now completely wild Wooded Island.

The Fair’s place in architecture is a source of debate. Some say that its neoclassical design set the nation’s progress back, killing American architecture. Louis Sullivan adopted this view after Burnham’s death. Adler & Sullivan all but stopped receiving commissions and Adler quit the firm in 1895. Sullivan’s arrogant attitude tarnished relationships that may have led to commissions. He fell into drugs and alcohol, and occasionally came to Burnham for money.   

Burnham received honorary master’s degrees from both Harvard and Yale, whose rejections had bothered him his entire life. Some people continued to believe that John Root had been the artistic vision behind the Fair, but Burnham maintained that they only had “the faintest suggestion of a plan” at the time he died. However, Root’s death and its timing spurred Burnham to grow in his artistry. Many buildings of Burnham’s remain, though only seven are in Chicago.

Burnham became somewhat of an environmentalist, realizing that reliance on natural resources was unsustainable. He also foretold the end of horses as transportation. His work never ceased. In his fifties, he developed colitis and diabetes, which caused a lifelong foot infection. He knew his visions were beyond him. On Independence Day in 1909, he told a friend: “You’ll see it lovely. I never will. But it will be lovely.”

Summary: Recessional

In the years after the Fair, Olmsted’s failing memory developed into dementia and paranoia. Eventually his family felt they had no choice but to take him to an asylum. Despite the dementia, he recognized that he had designed the grounds of his new home, McLean Asylum. Just like his other big works, he did not feel his long-term vision had been realized. He died on August 28, 1903.

George Ferris left the wheel up another year, then dismantled and reassembled it on Chicago’s North Side. The cost of this reassembling and the depression eventually led Ferris to sell most of his ownership of the wheel. Ferris and his wife separated in 1896, and by the end of that November, Ferris died of typhoid fever. His wife refused his ashes. The Chicago Wrecking Company bought the wheel at an auction in 1903 and reassembled it at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, again reaping a large profit. In 1906, they blew it up for scrap metal.

Sol Bloom of the Midway emerged a rich man. His next investment—perishable foods shipped in refrigerated freight cars—ended in ruin when the Pullman train strike caused the food to perish. His attitude remained positive. Eventually, Bloom became a congressman and helped craft the charter that founded the United Nations.

Buffalo Bill made millions. He founded Cody, Wyoming, built a fairground and cemetery for a town in Nebraska, paid church debts, and sponsored actress Katherine Clemmons. The Panic of 1907 ruined him, and he died completely broke in 1917.

Dora Root regretted her lost life with John, but kept her head up. She wrote to Burnham that she much appreciated his encouragement.

Prendergast went on trial in December 1893 under prosecutor Alfred S. Trude, to whom he had written postcards. His lawyers tried to argue insanity, but the jury believed otherwise because he had intentionally kept a chamber empty in the gun to prevent a misfire. Despite a sanity inquest achieved by Clarence Darrow, Prendergast was ultimately executed.

Summary: Holmes

In 1895, Holmes went on trial in Philadelphia for Pitezel’s murder. When Carrie testified and saw the letters from Alice and Nellie for the first time, the courtroom was heartbroken. His sentence was hanging. He wrote a confession awaiting execution. He described killing Alice and Nellie, and admitted that he planned to kill Benjamin from the beginning. 

Holmes did not want an autopsy, though study of his brain might have furthered science. After Holmes’ death, Geyer became ill. The prison’s warden committed suicide. The priest who delivered Holmes’ last rites died mysteriously. The jury foreman was electrocuted. Emeline Cigrand’s father burned in a boiler explosion. District Attorney Graham’s office caught on fire and left only a single photograph of Holmes. He has no tombstone. 

Summary: Aboard the Olympic

Before boarding the Olympic, Burnham addressed a 19-page letter to Millet on the Titanic. He wanted him to push for Henry Bacon as designer at the next meeting for the Lincoln Commission.

Burnham soon learns of the Titanic’s tragedy and Millet’s death. The Olympic does not rush to its aid. Another ship already reached it, and its builder, J. Bruce Ismay, thought it would be too humiliating for the Olympic to see its sister ship in ruins.

Burnham lives 47 more days. His diabetes, colitis, foot infection, and food poisoning put him into a coma, and he dies on June 1, 1912. His wife, Margaret, moves to Pasadena and lives through both world wars before dying in 1945. They are both buried in the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, near many of their friends from the Fair.

Analysis: Epilogue

The epilogue presents how everyone’s lives play out after the Fair, with Burnham leaving the richest legacy. In the beginning of the book, he quotes: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Burnham’s life proved that he really believed and lived out that thought. He built a grand city, and its effects stretch far and away into the future. He never saw the ripple effects of his creativity, such as the creation of Disney World or The Wizard of Oz, but they are part of his legacy. He only began to see the way that cities unfurled due to his urban planning. Burnham consistently had his sights set on the future.

Olmsted’s ending is tragic. His mind finally betrayed him after making so many beautiful things, but not so much that he couldn’t recognize that his own asylum didn’t live out his vision for the landscape. George Ferris’ fate is also tragic. The Ferris wheel was one of the greatest, most notable creations to come out of the Fair. Ferris was celebrated far and wide, yet he ended up having to sell his share to survive. Others went on to profit while he died in poverty, and his once-loving wife would not even accept his ashes. Dora Root’s ending is not so much tragic as heartbreaking. She had to watch Burnham live out her husband’s dream. Harriet Monroe, Dora’s sister, went on to found Poetry magazine, but we can imagine that Root’s death left a hole in both their lives that was never replaced.

Sullivan’s story reminds us of the importance of attitude. He had plenty of talent, but too much pride, and his inability to work with others rendered him almost useless. Despite helping to build the greatest Fair of all time, he ended up turning to drugs and asking Burnham for money. The most pathetic part is that after Burnham died, Sullivan claimed that Burnham killed the architecture of Chicago with his insecurity. The rest of the architects and entrepreneurs lived predictably. Buffalo Bill was happy to die penniless after giving his money away, and Bloom’s innovative mind helped to found the United Nations. The justice served to Prendergast feels hollow compared to the pain Chicago experienced in losing its mayor. It is a delicious bit of irony that Trude, who received many postcards, was Prendergast’s prosecutor.

Finally, Holmes received his due punishment. He finally confessed, but still tried to have the last little bit of power. He lied about the number of people he killed. There is no reason for it, other than to mess with the police and create uncertainty. Only nine murders were confirmed, but estimates ranged much higher, and some people that he said he killed were still alive. Holmes insisted that he didn’t want an autopsy, despite knowing that his brain could have furthered science. Just like Burnham, Holmes’ legacy lives beyond himself, though in a more supernatural way. The several misfortunes that took place after his death are eyebrow-raising, and strangely connected to people associated with Holmes’ arrest and death.


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