The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

Once again in these chapters, Holmes and Burnham are drawn into parallel. While Burnham struggles to wrestle control of the fair from George R. Davis, Larson writes of Holmes: “What he craved was possession and the power it gave him; what he adored was anticipation—the slow acquisition of love, then life, and finally the secrets within” (199). Harrison and Prendergast, too, are hungry for power in these pages. Harrison, Larson writes, was “magnetic. He was able and willing to talk to anyone about anything and had a way of making himself the center of any conversation” (213). Harrison resembles Holmes, who was described by porter Henry Owens: “I candidly believe that [Holmes] had a certain amount of influence over me. While I was with him I was always under his control” (204). Medill’s characterization of Harrison paints him as a kind of composite of the dark and light sides of the city as Larson portrays them, accusing Harrison “of nurturing the city’s basest instincts”; he also called him “the most remarkable man that our city has ever produced” (214). All the men in the book are used in Larson’s wider investigation into national identity and consciousness, not only as architects but as “American archetypes,” or men undertaking great deeds; Holmes represents the shadow of that quest for potency.