The book begins in 1890, when Chicago is a candidate to hold the World’s Fair, or the World’s Columbian Exposition, meant to commemorate Columus’ arriving in America. Daniel Burnham was responsible for building the White City. He overcame multiple crushing obstacles and personal tragedies to make the Fair the magical, awe-inspiring event that it was. He brought together some of the greatest architects of the Gilded Age such as Charles McKim, George Post, Richard Hunt, Frederick Law Olmsted, and others, and convinced them of the importance of the Fair. Burnham somehow got them to work together to achieve what many considered to be an impossible project in an astonishingly short amount of time. The result of their strenuous hard work ended in a beautiful even that brought almost 40 million people to the city of Chicago and transformed the shoreline of Chicago forever.…
Why was Chicago so eager to win the World’s Fair in the first place? More specifically, what motives, in addition to "civic honor," drove Chicago to build the Fair?…
At the time Chicago was called the 'Black city' because it was industrial and dirty but Daniel Burnham was making what they called the 'White City'. He built the fair in a neoclassical design with the roman pillars and they painted it all white, Some say it looked like a dream land. Then we have H.H.…
The good coming from the grandeur of the World’s Fair. This event was only orchestrated due to America’s need to be better than Europe, specifically France, after they had their own Paris World’s Fair in 1889. With Larson’s use of language, he is able to accurately display just how great this product was supposed to be. Another aspect of the “good” side of the World’s Fair is Daniel Burnham. Burnham has to prove his personal worth, through his work, to his peers and to himself. He vowed that one day he would be the greatest, and this was his chance. He is nothing less than a beacon of hope for the city of Chicago, a place of unfathomable corruption and disgust. Not only was he responsible for his own reputation, he was also responsible for the reputation of the city itself. Chicago was eager to prove itself among the elite cities of the United States, and Burnham was the medium to accomplish such a goal. This man was the sole reason for the success of the World’s Fair, which not only put Chicago on the map as one of the “greats”, but also displayed the unity and perseverance that was capable from Americans slowly dipping into a…
Larson uses to figurative language to depict how addicting the fair was for the people nation-wide. His metaphor comparing its enticing nature to being cast “under a spell” gives the reader an idea of how captivating the environment was. Being kept under a spell is typically associated with something being inescapable, furthermore explaining Larson’s purpose of why everyone seemed to attend the fair despite the number of people disappearing continuing to increase.…
Although the Chicago World's fair of 1893 only lasted 6 months, I had an enormous impact on the city of Chicago, its people, and indeed the entire country. Up until that point in its history, the US had done nothing on the scale of the world's fair, and was regarded as a country of barbarians and cowboys by much of the world, especially Old Europe. The fair was a perfect way for the US to disprove this. In building the fair, they would be placed in direct competition with France, who had built a magnificent fair only a few years before. If Chicago could at least build a fair on par with the Paris fair, it would prove to the world that the US was a cultural, military and political force to be reckoned with. Because of the fair's gigantic scale, it became a microcosm of the conflicts and the tenor of the times.…
During the time period in which the story takes place, Chicago held the nickname “The Back City” due to its heavily polluted air and the dark crimes that occurred on its streets. Women went missing each day, disappearing into the smoke of the city, and credit fraud was common. In building The World's Fair upon Chicago’s grounds, Burnham attempted to beautify Chicago’s reputation. He designed glorious buildings to transform the wasteland of Jackson Park into a stunning spectacle. To lighten up the air of Chicago, Burnham had the structures painted white. The fair brought hope and light to the city through its festivities and bright color. The city was changed from dark and dreary to light and hopeful with the construction of the World's Fair.…
The main concerns during the 1890’s was poverty, violence, and starvation. Larson expresses these concerns by ushering in the Black City. The Black City welcomed people with filth, starvation, and violence (323). The Black City was simply the side of Chicago under the surface or the White City was covering up. How easy it was to disappear, thousands of women came in who have never been in the city, trying to make it their home (336). Crime, such as murder, was a big threat during this time period, it was difficult to tell who was missing because there were so many people to begin with. In addition, crime lead to the end of the fair. The fair had begun and ended with death (332). With the fair closing, that meant that numerous jobs were being…
Since the fair was introduced, the reader could predict the immensity and great work of this attraction. Not only were many new inventions created, but also many ideas were inspired by this fair. Because of the great success and its original ideas, I believe that the World’s Fair “had a powerful and lasting impact on [Chicago’s, the world’s and] the nation’s psyche.”…
2. Clearly there were many motives that drove Chicago to build the world fair. Civic honor is probably the most prominent of these motives as well as wanting to be as good as other monumental cities such as New York- they wanted to prove themselves. Chicago wanted to be respected as much as possible. Chicago proving that it was more than a meat packing backwater showed how they could push through difficult times to gain honor which is problematic in this situation.…
The 1930’s were a time when social changes were happening at a much faster pace than in recent years passed. The fair culture of America was also changing. It was sort of evolving into what was to become an unrecognizable creation, both in the physical sense and the ideological sense. The fairs of the 1930’s however, while being the first time in history where we see large additions of amusement without purpose, as in today’s massive regional amusement parks. The old splendor of educational dioramas and panoramas of lands in the four corners of the earth was quickly disappearing.…
There are over six million ex-convicts in the United States. Research proposes that the best way for ex-cons to avoid prison again is to reintroduce them into the working world and find them jobs. However, most employers are hesitant to give them a chance. With the unemployment rate approaching its highest it makes keeping a job is challenging. When a person has been to prison, their chances of getting hired decrease drastically. Chapter five of David K. Shipler's The Working Poor: Invisible in America, Shipler emphasizes attaining a job, maintaining a job, and living while employed to construct his arguments on the barriers and biases that the working poor have to overcome.…
Everyday items taken for granted; the zipper, fluorescent lights, dishwashers, and spray paint. All of these were unveiled to the world at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The Columbian Exposition, also called the Chicago World’s Fair, was a place of many firsts. Some were good, and some were necessary evils. Planned advancements were that of technology and inventions. Contrasting areas of development such as architecture were surprising, as no one knew how magnificent and cutting-edge the city would become. On the other hand of things, America’s first serial killer came to fruition during the height of the fair, gaining us an insight to the psyche of a whole other mental state of killers. During the few months of this extravagant fair, which…
The US economy is one of the strongest in the world (Prableen Bajpai, 2016), but millions of Americans live on the poverty line and a large percentage of them suffer from hunger throughout the year. Although there were efforts from the government to eliminate the phenomenon, the numbers are increasing. The number of Americans living below the poverty line jumped to a record $51.5 million in 2012, this is shown in the 2012 official poverty rate for nation was 15.0 percent and there were $51.0 million people in poverty, not statistically different from the last year. (Census 2012). From the Census reports we can notice that the percentage of poverty did not change, instead people are still suffering from poverty and inequality according to their,…
"Poverty." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Gale, Cengage Learning, 2010.Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.…