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Murder in the White City: Crime, Modernity, and Illusion at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

Abstract This article examines the murders associated with the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, commonly known as the White City murders, through the intersecting lenses of urban modernity, crime history, and nineteenth-century social control. Situating the crimes of H. H. Holmes within the physical, cultural, and bureaucratic landscape of the Chicago World’s Fair, this study argues that the exposition functioned not merely as a backdrop but as a facilitator of anonymity, mobility, and institutional failure. Drawing on primary sources including contemporary newspaper coverage, court transcripts from People v. Mudgett (1895), and Holmes’s own published confession, the article demonstrates how the architectural ideals and administrative structures of the White City masked systemic vulnerabilities that enabled serial violence. By linking true crime history to the mythology of American progress, this analysis challenges celebratory narratives of the World’s Columbian Exposit...
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Houston Civil War prisoner of war camp

  Abstract Hidden beneath the modern streets of downtown Houston lies the largely forgotten site of the oldest Civil War prisoner of war camp in Texas. Overshadowed by more infamous prisons such as Andersonville, the Houston prisoner of war compound played a significant yet overlooked role in the Confederate carceral system and the broader history of the American Civil War. This project examines the origins, operation, and legacy of the Houston prison, focusing particularly on the experiences of the 42nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry captured during the Battle of Galveston in 1863 Today, the former site of the Houston Civil War prisoner of war camp lies beneath a younger, though historically significant, structure: the Merchant and Manufacturers Building. Were it not for a Texas state historical marker placed in 1965, there would be no indication that a Civil War prison once stood in the heart of what is now one of the largest cities in the United States. The Houston prison was...
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From Darwin to the Genome: Eugenics, Social Darwinism, and the Politics of Scientific Authority in American Historiography

  Abstract This article examines the historiography of American eugenics by situating the movement within broader interpretations of social Darwinism, scientific authority, and social control. Beginning with early evolutionary thought and tracing scholarship from Richard Hofstadter through more recent legal, cultural, and regional studies, it argues that eugenics functioned not merely as a pseudoscience but as a durable social movement that shaped law, policy, and public discourse well into the twentieth century. By surveying major works on heredity, race, class, sexuality, and institutional power, this article demonstrates how historians have increasingly emphasized the political uses of science and the ethical consequences of its misuse. The persistence of eugenic reasoning in modern debates over genetics and public policy underscores the continued relevance of this historiography. From Darwin to the Genome: Eugenics, Social Darwinism, and the Politics of Scientific Authority i...
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