The Devil in the White City: America's Urban Aspirations - and Nightmares

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

10:30 AM to 3:30 PM

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

California State University - East Bay

In his book The Devil in the White City, Eric Larson interweaves the history of Chicago’s epic 1893 World Columbian Exposition with the horrifying story of one of America’s first serial killers, Dr. H. H. Holmes.  Larson’s book forms the backdrop for my lecture on America’s great hopes for its cities—and the nightmares encountered along the way.

The 1893 Columbian Exposition

Join me for this day of exploring:

• The historical and social context of the 1893 Expositions glamorous and promising While City

• The scandalous living and working conditions, crime and utter hopelessness that was the lot of the have-nots in America’s cities of the Gilded Age that were exposed by the 1890 photographic work of Jacob Riis (How the Other Half Lives)—and that further shocked the American public when Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906 

H. H. Holmes

• The City Beautiful Movement with its beaux arts architecture and principles of landscape architecture proposed by Frederick Law Olmstead embraced by the White City and cities around the country as a cure for urban ills.

• And of course, the story of  serial killer, H. H. Holmes (Herman Webster Mudgett) - along with Caleb Carr’s 1984 novel The Alienist, the fictional story of a serial killer roaming New York City when Teddy Roosevelt was chief of police, inspired Larson’s pursuit of Holmes with its philosophy of the nature of evil and poverty.

This lecture is no less epic than the exposition itself!