White City/White Nation Reflection

I honestly enjoyed reading Killing Custer. It was nice to get Welch's objective research at the same time as his subjective viewpoints. When Professor Hass talked about Chicago in lecture and the World's Fair, I had a hard time making the initial connection between Custer and Chicago history. I realized that the title of this week's lectures says it all: White City/White Nation.

Custer was the embodiment of the American desire to fulfill Manifest Destiny, to overtake the country and 'utilize' the land in what they thought was a better fashion than how the Indians were utilizing it. The white race had power over the Indians because they outnumbered the Indians. Custer symbolized this ideal to the American people, who relished the idea of 'white' as virtuous, whether consciously or not. For example, I don't know if the architects of Chicago before the World's Fair purposely made the buildings white as a symbol of white power, but the fact is that what was conveyed by the white theme of a rising city was white power. American ideals were deeply affected by Custer and what he meant to Manifest Destiny.

And for anyone who's interested in Chicago during the Colombian Exposition of 1893, read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. It is about the architects of the fair intertwined with the story of a serial killer, and I thought it was a very interesting book.