12.2 Beliefs and Values of the Planners (and Holmes)

May 6, 2016 by petewcook Leave a Comment

Daniel Burnham, one of the drafters of the Columbian Exposition, had the belief that even though he did not have a very successful, or pleasing, academic and work background he would one day be successful at something if he could just set his mind to it and enjoy whatever it was. “He sought work in a field where he might be successful and took a job as a draftsman with the architectural firm of Loring & Jenney, (pg. 19 Larson).” Another example of Burnham wanting to continue becoming more successful was when he was building the mansion for John B. Sherman and was talking to Louis Sullivan. “He told Sullivan, in confidence, that he did not expect to remain satisfied doing just houses. “My idea,” he said , “is to work up a big business, handle big things, deal with big businessmen, and to build up a big organization, for you can’t handle big things unless you have an organization, (pg. 21 Larson)'”. Burnham did just that too as he and Root were the main drafters of the fair’s architectural features and he worked with big businessmen. He himself was the business genius of the company.

John Root, another drafter of the Columbian Exposition, had the value of aesthetics/beauty of design. He was born with this gift and Burnham always admired and pointed out that Root was the artistic genius of the firm and that he didn’t have any intentions of knowing or pursuing anything on the business side. “Burnham understood that Root was the firm’s artistic engine. He believed Root possessed a genius for envisioning a structure quickly, in it’s entirety… At the same time he knew Root had little interest in the business side of architecture and in sowing the relationships at the Chicago Club and Union League that eventually led to commissions… Root played the organ every Sunday morning at the First Presbyterian Church. He wrote Opera critiques for the Chicago Tribune. He read broadly in philosophy, science, art, and religion and was known throughout Chicago’s upper echelon for his ability to converse on almost any subject and to do so with great wit (pgs. 26-27 Larson)”. Root loved music, played music, he could see the buildings that he wanted to create in his head, he was very well self-educated in almost every subject, and had many artistic traits.

Dr. H.H. Holmes, the story’s antagonist, had fear and terror as a young boy when some of the older boys drug him into a doctor’s room with a skeleton in it, because they knew he was afraid of it. The boys thought that he would be extremely frightened, but in fact the opposite happened, he was thoroughly enthused and attracted to the skeleton and became very curious about it. “‘It was a wicked and dangerous thing to do to a child of tender years and health,’ he wrote, ‘but it proved an heroic method of treatment, destined ultimately to cure me of my fears, and to inculcate in me, first, a strong feeling of curiosity, and, later, a desire to learn, which resulted years afterwards in my adopting medicine as a profession’ (pg 39 Larson)”. This memory of how fear of skeletons turned into curiosity of the skeleton and human body, which later became his unhealthy obsession of dealing with bodies of people that he had murdered.

15.1 Reflection

May 6, 2016 by mylesk Leave a Comment

I have for the most part enjoyed this course and like the fact that it was a bit different than classes I have taken in the past. I feel that it is always hard to change the way we learn/teach as I went to school in the 90’s and it was very heavy with you learn the information, test on it, and then move on to the next. I know that it has not changed from that mindset and is in fact worse with the no child left behind testing that is now applied. School has become so regimented for everyone that it has lost a lot of the practicality and thinking that should go behind it. With that said when we do have opportunities to think and be creative the majority of us don’t know what to do and it is usually very hard. Then, we end up having to go back to the same old mindset so it is quite an inconvenience to change the way we think for 4 months and have to put in double the work because we are so use to having everything laid out and regimented.

I do not feel that school prepares you for the workforce, I say this because it has become so regimented and usually there is not a lot of thinking involved it is learn this concept, test, dump it because you have to learn the next concept. Too much information is being taught in such a short amount of time that the actuality of retaining everything is very small. From my experience you get a baseline understanding from school and each position you get you will have to learn the culture and the way that they do business.

I did enjoy the diversity of material that was gone over in this course. I was not sure what to expect with the name but I love history and figured I would give it a shot. From thinking about the way historians analyze, to water and then to the worlds fair. It was really great material and even as hard as it was for me ,as I am not a creative person, I do feel that I learned a lot more from this course and will actually remember it.

I don’t think it matters if this class is taught face-to-face or online. I think it should be known from the beginning that this class is taught differently, the assignments need to be more spread out, and more feedback and grade needs to be given throughout the course. I think the hard thing about “creative” learning is the subjectivity of it. We are told to voice our thoughts or opinions and use a medium we want to use to express the information and then we are graded by an instructor that has their own set of thoughts. I hope that in some way this may help going forward. Thanks for the interesting class, it really did make me step outside of my comfort zone and made me think about things differently.

11.2 First Reflection of the Fair

May 4, 2016 by petewcook Leave a Comment

Based on what I’ve read so far, to page 127, I think the most significant issue or tension in the United States in the 1880s and 1890s was the gap between the moral and the wicked in big cities, such as Chicago. Some of the other issues and tensions that were going on during that time were global economic depression, labor unions on the rise and union strikes, big business was on the rise, political corruption, and floods of new immigrants from over in Europe. I want to focus on the issue of declining morals in the big cities though. On page 12 in The Devil in the White City, Erick Larson says, “Everywhere one looked the boundary between the moral and the wicked seemed to be degrading. Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued in favor of divorce. Clarence Darrow advocated free love. A young woman named Borden killed her parents.” These are some examples of the changing times and how morals were declining and changing. There was also nightclubs, prostitution, bars, etc. which highlighted the changing times because before the 1880s and 1890s it was not very easy to find these kinds of services as they were fewer in number and weren’t really promoted. That period of time was filled with “turmoil and grief” as Larson said.

I think Larson has chosen to intertwine the story of the fair with that of Holmes because he wants to show the good and evil that occurred during the time when they were constructing the fair. Burnham represented the prosperity and good times of the fair, although he did overcome some tough obstacles. Dr. H.H. Holmes represented the evil during this time as you can see in this section from the novel, “It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.” This can be found on page 12 as well.

So we can see that there were many problems during this time such as promoting divorce, advocating free love, people murdering other people at a very high rate, prostitution, bars, nightclubs, and unsuspecting serial killers on the loose, which went unnoticed. As well it was fairly simple to find out why Larson intertwined two different characters/plots in order to achieve the distinction between the good and evil of the times.