[For this year’s
installment in my
annual Halloween series,
I’ll be AmericanStudying serial killers in American culture and history. Add
your boos and other thoughts in comments, please!]
On two reasons
to celebrate Erik Larson’s bestseller, and one important critique.
The
Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed
America (2003), Erik Larson’s gripping account of both the 1893 World’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago and a serial killing doctor who operated (grisly
pun very much intended) in the shadow of the fair, is one of the 21st
century’s most successful works of historical nonfiction to date (so much so
that it is being adapted
as a feature film, directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Leonardo
DiCaprio as the killer). Even if I weren’t a public scholar looking to connect
with mainstream audiences outside of academia, the striking success of Larson’s
book would be an inspiring example of how such broad audiences are interested
in historical stories, as long as they’re well-chosen and –told. Indeed, the nonfiction
bestseller list is as usual full of historical nonfiction—and while some of
it falls into the category of the distinctly propagandistic voices (O’Reilly
and Limbaugh et al) who helped prompt my first moves toward public scholarship,
much of it is being written by impressive public scholars and intellectuals like
Larson, David McCullough, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and many others.
Moreover, such
bestselling historical nonfiction doesn’t just engage readers on its own terms—it
also offers starting points for further historical awareness and engagement. I’ve
written
multiple times, in this
space as well as in my
first book, about the complexities and meanings of the Columbian
Exposition; I agree with Larson’s subtitle phrase that the fair changed (as
well as reflected) late 19th century America on many levels. And in
one key narrative choice, Larson makes the fair a central part of his book’s
focus: by featuring not only serial killer H.H. Holmes but also the Exposition’s
chief
architect Daniel H. Burnham as his two protagonists, Larson fully and
impressively intertwines the fair and its histories and contexts (such as the
development of Chicago, in which Burnham played a key role as well) with the
story of Holmes and his crimes. No one event or moment can explain an entire
period in American history and culture, of course—but we have to start
somewhere, and beginning with the Columbian Exposition offers American
audiences a number of key themes and questions that could prompt further
research into and analysis of Gilded Age America. Larson’s book offers a great
way into that process.
Yet Larson’s
focus on serial killer Holmes, while entirely understandable and of course
integral to the book’s popular appeal, also reflects a limit of much bestselling
historical nonfiction as well as of our true crime and horror narratives. That
is, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both Holmes and Burnham are white
men, as the majority of both our most celebrated historical figures and our
most infamous historical killers have occupied that over-emphasized demographic
category. I’m not suggesting that there aren’t still stories featuring such
figures that need better remembering in our collective narratives—there most
definitely are, and both Burnham’s and Holmes’s were such stories before Larson
told them. Yet to my mind the most interesting figures and stories linked to
the Columbian Exposition are those of others: Ida
B. Wells and the group of African Americans who wrote this
amazing pamphlet; Sophia
Hayden and the women who produced and operated the
Woman’s Building; Chief Simon Pokagon and
that amazingly revisionist pamphlet (which he distributed to visitors at the
fair). Perhaps Larson’s book can help lead audiences to those figures and
stories—but not necessarily, and at the very least we need more bestselling historical
nonfiction that starts with them. They might not be as sexy as a serial killing
doctor, but they’re just as closely tied to both the devils and the ideals that
the white city featured.
Next killer
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other American killers or scares you’d highlight?
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