In a burgeoning but pre-automobile America, a "White City" rose in the midst of Chicago as the backdrop for the 1893 World Fair. Nearby Herman Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, constructed a hotel/retail space nicknamed "the Castle," which housed torture devices and chambers of horror as wondrous, if revolting, as anything offered at the World's Fair (Larson 123). In Eric Larson's The Devil and the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, the author chronicles the exploits of the architect of the World's Fair, Daniel Hudson Burnham, juxtaposed with those of America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes. A physician who appeared to be a man of significant means, ingratiatingly charming, and able to exploit the massive droves of young and innocent visitors to the World's Fair; Holmes exerted enormous power over his victims. This analysis will explore the tactics and methods that gave Holmes such power over his victims, as well as showing why his capture took so long and what his story tells us about crime and urban life in late nineteenth century America.
Dr. H.H. Holmes used a variety of tactics to exert power over his victims. One of these was his method of exploiting young female employees, who he forced to take out life insurance policies he paid for but also received the benefit from. He told the woman who did his laundry, Strowers, that if she took out a $10,000 life insurance policy naming him as beneficiary he would pay her $6,000 (Larson 73). The woman could spend the money now and after a long life Holmes would make $4,000 he told her. She almost signed, but Holmes said to her "Don't be afraid of me," which "terrified her" (Larson 73). Another method was Larson's ability to have a captive audience in his hotel, where secret chambers and methods of killing like gas piped into a room were readily available to him and gave him full power over unsuspecting vi...