From the beginning we are introduced to Burnham and Root. They balanced each other out very well. Root was very innovative and strongly focused on how he wanted his ideas to look, and Burnham was the one that had to successfully make the ideas come true. I would describe Burnham’s main value as being his strength or reputation. Starting off he wasn’t the top dog, but he knew how to use personality and looks to get him and Root to where they needed to be. “his greatest strength lay in his ability to win clients and execute Root’s elegant designs…’his very bearing and looks were half the battle. He had only to assert the most commonplace thing and it sounded important and convincing’”(26).

We may not see Bloom as often as others in the book but I found him very interesting. It seemed he would fall into some major positions and kind of roll with it. One of the first times we see him he is being offered the position to go to Chicago and is looking for a way to get out of. He decides to say his salary needs to be higher than what the president was currently making, and at last he got it. I would say he values reputation and power. When speaking to others about the size of what he was currently building he could tell they weren’t very interested in hearing the number. Not knowing how many Russian soldiers stood in their standing army he said “’Look at it this way-its going to be big enough to hold the standing army of Russia’…Bloom felt no remorse”(160).

Looking at Holmes I would say he values and utilizes love and safety. He strives to make people feel loved and safe to make them more vulnerable. When we are first introduced to him he talked to Mrs. Holton to get a job and later on and made it seem like he was taking over the business to help her in this time of need while her husband was dying. When in reality he just wanted an easy target to get the best deal he could. “Immediately Holmes deployed his tools of seduction, his soothing voice and touch and frank blue gaze. He bought her flowers…”(163). This woman he was wooing he went on to become engaged to her, and she went missing. Some speculating that he had murdered her but didn’t bother to look into it. His charm made people overlook the questionable things people noticed about him.

https://www.engineeringthepast.com/1575-2/

The first planner I chose is Daniel Burnham. He is obviously integral to the story and the building of the World’s Fair, but he has many values and beliefs that are expressed throughout the story. I believe he valued his work and work ethic. I get the sense he worked long hours and put tremendous effort into the largest project of his career. “Burnham saw his family rarely now” (page 128). He valued commitment and followed through to the bitter end. Along with his strong work ethic I think he valued status and being prominent in the community. He had Madeira shipped on a vessel around the world. “He arranged recitals at his home and office and joined the best clubs and collected the best wines and was now leading the greatest nonmilitary campaign in the nation’s history” (page 210). Even though status was important to Burnham, he was a family man. He valued the time he spent with his family. His sons visited him on the job (page 158). And he missed his wife, which is very enduring “He kept a photograph of Margaret in his office. Every time he walked by it, he picked it up and stared at it with longing” (page 222).

The second planner I chose is Frederick Olmsted. He valued respect among the fine arts community for his work in landscape architecture. He was frustrated that he wasn’t receiving the praise and respect he deserved for his life’s passion. “Throughout his career he had struggled, with little success, to dispel the perception that landscape architecture was simply an ambitious sort of gardening..” (page 50). He accepted the task of the World’s Fair because he believed it would give him the notoriety and dignity he felt he deserved. “What landscape architecture needed, Olmsted believed, was greater visibility, which in turn would bring greater credibility” (page 51).

Finally Holmes. He also had many values and beliefs but they were very different from the men listed above. I think he valued having a certain charm that lent him the power to control people and their emotions. “He was always charming and cordial…” “He was the smoothest man I ever saw” (page 72). He also valued status but I believe for a different reason than Burnham. “He wanted to attain a position where he would be honored and respected. He wanted wealth” (page 64). I think he wanted these things to look “normal” from the outside and to be able to indulge in his dark fantasies. From everything I have read so far about Holmes, I think he believed in pushing boundaries. He wanted to see how far he could go without getting caught and he wanted to evaluate what he could get away with.

 

Daniel H. Burnham- the values and beliefs that stood out to me in Burnham would be that of reputation and status, both for himself and the city of Chicago. Even though he was a very accomplished architect within the City of Chicago with his own firm and innovative buildings he designed, the fact that he wasn’t able to get into one of the prestigious schools of the time and earn a degree made him an outsider. When he was named Director of Works for the World Fair, people did not think it was possible to complete it and have a successful fair with such a short amount of time. With this, he would do whatever it took to make sure that the fair was the greatest of all times and complete by dedication day. It did not matter how much money, lives or employees it took to accomplish this. “ Burnham in particular embodied this insecurity. Denied admission to Harvard and Yale and the “right” beginning, he had become a self-conscious connoisseur of fine things.” (210)

Frederick L. Olmsted- the values and beliefs that stood out to me in Olmsted would be that of environmentally conscientious, liked things natural along with being controlling with his work. He liked to use landscape to bring out the natural environment and beauty within an area and make sure that everything blended well together. His style was not flashy, as he did not like to have the landscaping calling attention to itself. He was a perfectionist and wanted to make sure he took the time to do things correctly and was very assertive in not letting anyone get in the way of his vision or even delegating tasks to others. “His frustration with Ulrich grew, his distrust depend. Later, in another note to John, he said, “Ulrich is unwittingly faithless to us. The difficulty is that he is ambitious of honors outside of his proper line; cares more to be extraordinarily active, industrious, zealous & generally useful, than to achieve fine results in L.A. [Landscape Architecture].” (224-225)

H.H Holmes- the values and beliefs that stood out to me in Holmes would be that of kindness and an entrepreneur. These of course were not used in a good way. He used kindness to manipulate people for his own selfish reasons whether it was a creditor, lover or family and friends. “Pitezel had exaggerated Emeline’s beauty, Holmes saw, but not by much. She was indeed lovely, with luminous blonde hair. Immediately Holmes deployed his tool of seduction, his soothing voice and touch and frank blue gaze. (162-163) Most of the businesses he started or items he sold where to solve a “problem” and he was able to sell most of these ideas to people for a quick profit. He did not think of anyone but himself and his urges. “With Emeline gone and neatly disposed of, he now was able to concentrate on his growing web of enterprises. He savored his scope: He owned a portion of a legitimate company that produced a machine for duplicate documents; he sold mail-order ointments and elixirs and by now had established his own alcohol-treatment company, the Silver Ash institute, his answer to Keeley’s gold cure; “(198)