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

Holmes, self-described as the devil, is “a murderer, one of the most prolific in history and harbinger of an American archetype, the urban serial killer” (80). Born into a New Hampshire Methodist family, Holmes’ fascination with death began with a collection of animal skulls and bones. After a spell as a teacher, he trained as a doctor at the University of Michigan, which specialized in dissection. After a stint as a salesman, during which Holmes devised an insurance fraud with a former lab mate, Holmes arrived in Chicago in 1886, adopting the pseudonym H. H. Holmes. Mysterious deaths and unpaid bills accompanied Holmes wherever he went. In addition to numerous aliases, Holmes had three wives simultaneously: Clara Lovering, Myrta Belknap, and Minnie Williams.

On arriving in Chicago, he set himself up at a drugstore in the Englewood district and promptly built what he called the World’s Fair Hotel on borrowed credit. The secret passageways and basement would assist him in his serial killing during the fair. At the time of his 1894 arrest for insurance fraud and incarceration at Philadelphia’s Moyamensing Prison, he was engaged to a fourth woman, Georgiana Yoke.