A Road Scholar program by Barbara Geiger

Retrace the footsteps of the heroes and villain of The Devil in the White City, Eric Larson’s best-selling story of good and evil at the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893. What events led to the passionate endeavors of Daniel H. Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted to create a mini- new world to honor Columbus? And how does the riveting counter-point story of the nefarious Henry Holmes, just a few short miles away from the fair, reveal the darker side of the ‘Gay ’90s’? Through maps and illustrations Barbara Geiger will illuminate the places in which Holmes and Burnham lived, explore how the site evolved from a marshy mess to the site of the event of the century, and explain how the legacy of the Fair still lives on.

Barbara Geiger is currently on faculty at the College of Architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology. She earned her MA in Landscape Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she won an award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for her thesis. Geiger has taught numerous courses at the Chicago Botanic Garden and at the Newberry Library.

For more information contact Kathy Swan, Senior Program Leader, 847.925.6026.