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

Meet H.H. The H's stand for "Henry Howard," but something like "Hideous Horrorshow " or "Hateful Hellspawn" might be more appropriate…because this guy is sort of like the great-grandpappy of Ted...

Burnham's the man with the plan. But don't dismiss him as being merely a planner: the guy has a can-do attitude that makes him pretty much world-famous by the time he dies in 1912.From being master...

Root, a small-town boy, was born in Lumpkin, Georgia in 1850…which is probably the cutest-sounding town to have born in.But the guy didn't live a small-town life. From the get-go, he was destined...

Olmsted's kind of a big deal...and by "kind of a big deal," we mean that this is the dude who's known as the Big Daddy of American landscape architecture. Still not impressed? This guy designed NYC...

Mayor of Chicago, Harrison's a champion of the labor unions. By the time fairground construction gets under way, he's sixty-eight and widowed twice. (This book also gives us some weird trivia surro...

Detective Frank Geyer is one of Philadelphia's top detectives. Let's just say the guy knows his way around a murder scene.He's hired by Carrie Pitezel to help find her missing children after he hus...

Millet is the fair's director of functions. This means he has a big part in choosing all the cool stuff on display at the exhibition. When things start looking grim for the fair, it's Millet who st...

Young Irish immigrant Patrick Prendergast is described by those who know him as a "hapless and sorry" human being (1.4.41). Oof. That's not how anyone wants to be described.He works at the Chicago...

Sullivan is among the nation's prominent architects—Burnham selects him to help design the fair's major buildings. At his own architectural firm, Sullivan would later hire and then fire future ar...

Codman's a member of Olmsted's architectural firm, a talented young landscape architect who quickly becomes one of Olmstead's most trusted confidants. He dies of appendicitis before construction of...

Sherman's basically the ruler of a blood empire that employs twenty-five thousand men, women, and children and slaughters fourteen million animals each year. (Yum?) In fact, nearly twenty percent o...

Margaret's the daughter of wealthy stockyard superintendent John Sherman. She's young, pretty, and blonde, and she makes excuses to see the handsome Burnham working on her father's new mansion. Bur...

Ellsworth is very good at his job. He's the exposition Board member who helps persuade Olmsted to join the venture. Ellsworth insists that what Chicago has in mind for the fair is even grander than...

Myrta is just Holmes' type: young, with blue eyes and a lush figure. Holmes had met her years prior in Minneapolis and writes to her, asking her to move to Chicago and marry him. To Myrta, the hand...

Pitezel's a carpenter who joined Holmes' construction of his hotel in November 1889. He's one of the few guys that Holmes actually trusts, so he keeps him employed. Pitezel is married to Carrie Can...

Carrie's the wife of Benjamin Pitezel, trusted confidant of Holmes. When her husband is found dead, she's unable to identify the body so sends her daughter Alice to the coroner's office instead (uh...

Alice, Nellie, and Howard are the three Pitezel children. They'd become household names after Detective Geyer's search for them becomes something of a national phenomenon. Alice is fifteen, Nellie...

Ned moves into Holmes' hotel with his wife Julia and their eight-year-old daughter Pearl in 1891. He works as a jeweler in Holmes' drugstore and initially admires Holmes as a "perfect example of wh...

Julia Conner moves into Holmes' hotel with her husband Ned and daughter Pearl. She takes an instant liking to the young and handsome doctor. In fact, she likes him a little too much.Ned becomes jea...

Pearl's the daughter of Ned and Julia Conner. Her father Ned works at the jewelry counter in Holmes' drugstore and her mother Julia falls in love with Holmes. Ned ends up leaving her in the care of...

Emeline Cigrand's a beautiful young woman who works as a stenographer in the Dwight, Illinois office of Dr. Keeley (of the famous Keeley cure for alcoholism). Benjamin Pitezel tells Holmes of her b...

Minnie and her sister Anna were orphaned and each sent to live with different relatives. Minnie went to Texas where her guardian-uncle was a successful businessman and owned big property. When he d...

Anna's the sister of Minnie, one of Holmes' wives. She's pretty suspicious that their relationship moves so quickly, so Holmes invites her to spend the summer in Chicago in order to allay suspicion...

Holmes meets Georgiana in a department store. He seduces her through his usual means and entices her to live a bigger, more glamorous life in Chicago. She believes Holmes' uncle has just died in Te...