The
Ferris Wheel plays an important role in Chicagos history, as related by Eric Larson in
The Devil in the White City. The wheel not only fulfilled its intended
purpose to become a symbol of the 1893 Worlds Columbianbut also left a mark on American society
that outlasted the function of any single wheel. Larson shows how the individual wheel that
George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. designed was first feared, then accepted, and then embraced
by the people who attended the exposition or fair.
Ferriss ambition is
portrayed as a fitting match for that of Daniel Burnham, the man behind the fair. Only a few
years before, France had hosted the Exposition Universelle of 1889
commemorating the centennial of the beginning of the French Revolution. For that exposition,
Gustave Eiffel had designed a massive tower, which was built on the Paris fairgrounds. Ferris
intended to rival Eiffels and Frances accomplishments. Rather than ascending to the top in an
elevator, however, people would ride around the wheel in tiny cars. Fear of the structures
instability, the mechanisms failure, and being thrown out of the cars were among the popular
concerns that made the public hesitant to ride it.
After some of their fairs
leaders tested it and the brave early riders gave it glowing reviews, the public embraced the
wheel and, boosted by massive propaganda efforts, the wheel did achieve its symbolic function.
Larson shows how it came to be synonymous with the fair in the kind of advance nostalgia that
people were feeling by late summer. They saw the ultimate demolition of the wheel as a symbol of
the fairs end.
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