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...