The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City

by

Erik Larson

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Daniel Burnham Character Analysis

The Director of Works at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Burnham is a talented architect, as well as a shrewd organizer of other architects. He is instrumental in assembling an elite creative team to design the Fair, and encouraging the architects to work together and to pursue a grand, neoclassical style. While Burnham is ambitious — to the point where he largely gives up family life during the World’s Fair — he often defers to the judgments of others, such as his partner, John Root, and Olmsted, the landscape architect at the World’s Fair. Much like Chicago itself, Burnham is motivated by a sense of inferiority to the creative elite in the Eastern United States, and his rejection as a young man from Harvard and Yale haunts him throughout his life. By the end of his life, Burnham has earned honorary degrees from both Harvard and Yale, and is widely regarded as the greatest architect in the United States. He has asserted himself as a major force in the architecture, and in the process, Chicago has asserted itself as a major cultural force in the United States and the Western world.

Daniel Burnham Quotes in The Devil in the White City

The The Devil in the White City quotes below are all either spoken by Daniel Burnham or refer to Daniel Burnham. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Sanity and Insanity Theme Icon
).
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

The dome was too much — not too tall to be built, simply too proud for its context. It would diminish Hunt’s building and in so doing diminish Hunt and disrupt the harmony of the other structures on the Grand Court.

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham, Richard Morris Hunt, George B. Post
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

At Jackson Park, aggravation was endemic. Simple matters, Burnham found, often became imbroglios. Even Olmsted had become an irritant. He was brilliant and charming, but once fixed on a thing, he was as unyielding as a slab of Joliet limestone.

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 5 Quotes

If an engineer capable of besting Eiffel did not step forward soon, Burnham knew, there simply would not be enough time left to build anything worthy of the fair. Somehow [Burnham] needed to rouse the engineers of America.

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue, Chapter 1 Quotes

As Wright’s academic star rose, so too did Sullivan’s. Burnham’s fell from the sky. It became re rigueur among architecture critics and historians to argue that Burnham in his insecurity and slavish devotion to the classical yearnings of the eastern architects had indeed killed American architecture. But that view was too simplistic, as some architecture historians and critics have more recently acknowledged. The fair awakened America to beauty and as such was a necessary passage that laid the foundation for men like Frank Lloyd Wright …

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright
Page Number: 376
Explanation and Analysis:
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Daniel Burnham Quotes in The Devil in the White City

The The Devil in the White City quotes below are all either spoken by Daniel Burnham or refer to Daniel Burnham. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Sanity and Insanity Theme Icon
).
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

The dome was too much — not too tall to be built, simply too proud for its context. It would diminish Hunt’s building and in so doing diminish Hunt and disrupt the harmony of the other structures on the Grand Court.

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham, Richard Morris Hunt, George B. Post
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

At Jackson Park, aggravation was endemic. Simple matters, Burnham found, often became imbroglios. Even Olmsted had become an irritant. He was brilliant and charming, but once fixed on a thing, he was as unyielding as a slab of Joliet limestone.

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 5 Quotes

If an engineer capable of besting Eiffel did not step forward soon, Burnham knew, there simply would not be enough time left to build anything worthy of the fair. Somehow [Burnham] needed to rouse the engineers of America.

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue, Chapter 1 Quotes

As Wright’s academic star rose, so too did Sullivan’s. Burnham’s fell from the sky. It became re rigueur among architecture critics and historians to argue that Burnham in his insecurity and slavish devotion to the classical yearnings of the eastern architects had indeed killed American architecture. But that view was too simplistic, as some architecture historians and critics have more recently acknowledged. The fair awakened America to beauty and as such was a necessary passage that laid the foundation for men like Frank Lloyd Wright …

Related Characters: Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright
Page Number: 376
Explanation and Analysis: