Summary Along with thousands and thousands of other people, Minnie, Anna, and Holmes attend the Fourth of July celebration at the fair. The event is an elaborate production of images and sounds. Storms threaten the festivities, but bad weather manages to stay away for the fireworks production. However, afterward, dark […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 37 – Independence Day

Summary The chapters focus on the Ferris wheel’s implementation and impact on the fair. Chapter 33 begins with a successful test run of the Ferris wheel with 6 of the 36 cars attached. After the rest of the cars are attached, Ferris and Burnham get into a minor argument about […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapters 33-36 – Vertigo, Heathen Wanted, At Last, and Rising Wave

Summary Anna “Nannie” Williams, Minnie’s school teacher sister from Texas, arrives for the visit previewed in Chapter 24, “The Invitation.” She is immediately charmed by Holmes’s affection for Minnie, and her suspicion of Holmes vanishes. Holmes and Minnie take Anna on a tour of downtown Chicago, the Union Stockyards where […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 32 – Nannie

Summary The Ferris wheel takes its first cargo-less test spin. While the compartments designed to carry passengers are not yet attached to the wheel, people celebrate the first successful rotation of the wheel and are hopeful the attraction will be done soon. In the meantime, Spanish royalty Infanta Eulalia visits […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 31 – One Good Turn

Summary This chapter recounts the disappearance of many nameless guests at Holmes’s World’s Fair Hotel. Descriptive details include odd smells of gas, cleaner, and medicine running rampant throughout the hotel. Larson sheds light on Holmes’s killing practices: using his vault or chloroform to subdue and snuff out his victims. Holmes […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 30 – Modus Operandi

Summary Chapter 29 begins by describing what the typical fairgoer might experience at the fair. The fair is a place of great inventions and many firsts. Children are left at day care, and parents are given a claim check for them. The first zipper, first all-electric kitchen, and a new […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 29 – Night Is the Magician

Summary Prendergast writes a Jesus-preaching postcard to a man named W.F. Cooling and tells him that once Prendergast becomes corporation counsel, Prendergast will be Cooling’s boss. Analysis Prendergast demonstrates growing insanity along with continuing fascination with the prospect of Harrison appointing him to Prendergast’s desired position.

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 28 – Prendergast

Summary With the hotel ready for guests, Holmes frequently denies men access, claiming that there are no vacancies, leaving more rooms for young women. All the young female guests only spark jealousy in Minnie. In response, Holmes decides to rent a flat outside of the hotel, telling Minnie it would […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 27 – The World’s Fair Hotel

Summary On Opening Day of the fair — May 1, 1893 — a line of carriages carries important people, including President Grover Cleveland and Daniel Burnham, to the fair at Jackson Park. President Cleveland speaks at a ceremony signifying the much-anticipated opening of the exposition. The general consensus among the […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part III: Chapter 26 – Opening Day

Summary It’s April 1893, and a great amount of work awaits on the fair. More people have been injured and killed in the construction of the fair, and carpenters who are working on the fair are striking. In the midst of all this, Burnham makes a trip to New York […]

Read more Summary and Analysis Part II: Chapter 25 – Final Preparations