Book Review

The novel Devil in the White City by Erik Larson mainly focuses on the construction of Chicago and especially the Chicago World's Fair and the events surrounding it. The beginning of the book talks about the buildings and the architects that had the idea's for all of the buildings. The story follows a man named Daniel Burnham and the obstacles he comes across while planning the fair in 1880. Daniel is on his own in the beginning but he and his crew still push threw to create something special, soon he comes up with the idea to create the Ferris Wheel hoping to surpass the greatness of the Eiffel Tower. At first the fair has a tough time with attendance but because of the Ferris Wheel the fair starts to generate a lot of revenue and becomes a great success. The book also follows another man named H.H Holmes. Holmes moves to Chicago in hopes to be a pharmacist/doctor but he has a sketchy past. Soon he acquires a building for a pharmacy and retail shops hoping to make a lot of money. Holmes also has other plans for his building, the upper floors are used for him to commit illegal activities. Holmes is a man who commits a lot of fraud because of the debt he has acquired and he also is a murderer. Some people start to realize what Holmes is doing and he flees. Read the book to find out what happens to Holmes and to Burnham! Personally, I would not recommend the book because it was hard for me to get through. A lot of it focuses on architecture and architects themselves. The parts about Holmes were a little more interesting but they were mainly at the end of the book so they took a while to get to. The book has a lot of history about the construction of Chicago's buildings and it helped me appreciate how difficult it is to be a contractor or an architect. Burnham goes through a lot to get the Fair to happen and that seemed very hard especially because of the pressure that was on him so I find that honorable. This book can be connected to 2013 in many ways. In the book they were constructing something that many people were looking forward to and had many high expectations for. Today there are many things being created like that too. For example, the new 911 memorial was very anticipated and that was a huge thing to build and the creators had a lot of pressure to create something great that can remember the people who were lost. Now the building is the tallest in America and people will always think about that sight just as people will always remember and think about the Chicago World's Fair. Bibliography: Title: The Devil in the White City Author: Erik Larson Date Published: 2003 Publishing company: Crown Publishers City: New York

Blog Post #2

Sydney MacQuilken Mr. Loja Period 7 History 11-27-13 In Norwood in the 1900’s influenza broke out harming many people. People needed someone to blame, so they started saying it was the immigrants fault and they brought the flu. Many people started to question whether immigrants should be allowed because they thought immigrants were causing more harm than good. Along with accusing them of carrying diseases Americans started to blame immigrants for the rising prices and the shrinking job market. Immigrants started to get angry because they were being accused of many things and some even fought back.

first blog assignment

my name is: Sydney MacQuilken i'm reading: Devil in a White City