01/30/2017
In the tradition and style of Erik Larsen, Creighton explores the intersecting lives of common and elite people as they came together at the 1901 World’s Fair in Buffalo, N.Y., where President McKinley was assassinated. Though McKinley’s assassination is a major focus, Creighton presents many other fascinating people who were also present, from animal tamers and barrel riders over the Niagara Falls to the man who tried to protect the president and many others. Reader Beaulieu moves deliberately through the narration, with intentional pauses and hesitations when the prose demands it and a bit more pitch and vigor in the more intense scenes. Her straightforward style of delivery coupled with Creighton’s keen scene setting and mix of characters serves listeners well in this fascinating slice of history. A Norton hardcover. (Oct.)
The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World's Fair
Narrated by Callie Beaulieu
Margaret CreightonUnabridged — 9 hours, 22 minutes
The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World's Fair
Narrated by Callie Beaulieu
Margaret CreightonUnabridged — 9 hours, 22 minutes
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Overview
Editorial Reviews
★ 08/22/2016
The 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., is primarily remembered for being the site of President William McKinley’s assassination by anarchist Leon Czolgosz, but there were many other notable moments during its five-month existence. In this engrossing study, Creighton (Colors of Courage), a professor of history at Bates College, chronicles the ups and downs of the colorful, fanciful, beleaguered fair, showing how it reflected the changing attitudes, social dynamics, cultural conflicts, and technological advances of the early 20th century. “They staged a spectacle of development,” he writes, “where, at every turn, they taught fairgoers about which sort of humans had advanced, and which had not.” It’s easy to read the story presented and see racism, sexism, and American-centric arrogance as defining that era, but Creighton skillfully maintains objectivity, showing the good and the bad, the fair’s pageantry as well as its seedy underbelly. Creighton sheds light on McKinley’s assassination, the midway’s tawdry animal acts, stunts involving barrels over Niagara Falls, and the Exposition’s final moments, skillfully depicting the “Rainbow City” where “the rich and powerful, the poor and the desperate, the human and the animal, and the natural world, in all its fragile fury, met in dynamic alchemy.” Agent: Jennifer Lyons, Jennifer Lyons Literary. (Oct.)
"A delightful read."
"Lively."
"Lively."
"A propulsive, edge-of-your-seat ride."
"While perhaps not quite as well known as the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, was equally full of drama and intrigue…The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City is the compelling story of an event that sparked technological advances and spurred new perspectives on social equality and race."
"Utterly electrifying prose."
"An extraordinary portrait of the event… great storytelling and painterly in its color and detail."
"Absolutely first-rate."
"Creighton shines."
"Required reading."
"Wonderfully informative, evocative, illuminating."
12/01/2016
The 1901 World's Fair, which was held in Buffalo (then the eighth largest city in the United States) was an amazing showcase of everything considered modern at the time. Promoters hoped to bring millions of people to the city with the expo, the show of colors and electric lights, and Niagara Falls. No one could have anticipated that a stalker would assassinate President McKinley, that a 61-year-old woman would ride a barrel over the falls, or the many ways the event would change history. Creighton (history, Bates Coll.; Colors of Courage: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle) has done a thorough job of researching the events and scandals, large and small, surrounding the 1901 World's Fair. Callie Beaulieu offers an engaging reading. VERDICT The book offers interesting and unexpected insights into the turn of the 20th century in America. ["An excellent and entertaining history for all readers": LJ 9/1/16 review of the Norton hc."]—Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence
09/01/2016
The 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, came on the heels of Chicago's White City of 1893, an event Buffalo promoters hoped to surpass. Creighton (Colors of Courage) demonstrates the spectacular ways in which they failed to achieve that goal. While the author draws on memoirs and secondary sources, she primarily brings the story to life through the press accounts of the day. Newspapers made much of President William McKinley and his wife attending the fair, although things quickly unraveled when the president was shot by self-styled anarchist Fred Nieman. Jumbo II, an ornery elephant made famous by showman Frank Bostock, was to be publicly electrocuted, and his death would establish the amazing power of electricity. Bostock's other star feature, Chiquita, aka the Cuban Doll, owing to her small stature, attempted to wrest herself from Bostock's control by eloping. To add to the general mayhem, 60-year-old Annie Taylor rode a barrel over Niagara Falls, barely surviving. VERDICT By turns tragic and amusing, Creighton's work effectively makes the case that, instead of exhibiting how far white men had come in civilizing the West, the 1901 World's Fair subverted that narrative. An excellent and entertaining history for all readers.—Barrie Olmstead, Sacramento P.L.
2016-07-31
How scandals undermined the success of a world’s fair that ushered in a new century.In May 1901, the Pan-American Exposition opened in Buffalo, New York, with the ambitious goal of elevating the city to the prominence of Chicago, host of the dazzling 1893 World’s Fair. The Queen City of the Lakes, as Buffalo was known, reinvented itself as the Rainbow City, for the fair’s multicolored design and illumination. Despite attracting millions of visitors—although fewer than hoped for—the event ultimately failed its backers’ goal; it became, instead, infamous as the site of President William McKinley’s assassination. In a lively, well-researched history, Creighton (History/Bates Coll.; The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg’s Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War’s Defining Battle, 2005, etc.) juxtaposes that momentous national event with three other scandals that beset the fair: a plan (that ultimately failed) to publicly electrocute Jumbo II, a performing elephant; a woman’s daring stunt of riding in a barrel over Niagara Falls; and the personal and professional travails of Alice Cenda, a midget called Chiquita, under contract with the shady animal trainer Frank Bostock. The scandals connect to a theme of exploitation: of workers by capitalists, which motivated Leon Czolgosz, McKinley’s assassin; of animals by unscrupulous trainers; of vulnerable sideshow performers by impresarios; and of hopeful entertainers by a culture that rewarded sensationalism, as represented by Annie Taylor, the 63-year-old who plummeted down the falls. Drawing on newspaper reports, contemporary records, and memoirs (although one schoolteacher’s banal record of her many visits to the exposition could well have been dropped), the author creates a richly detailed narrative. She reveals, for example, that at an exposition boasting its “grand illumination,” the surgeons operating on McKinley worked under an eight-watt bulb. Ultimately, the author’s choice of events that “offered a rebuttal to the grand Exposition” seems arbitrary, and setting them in the context of a president’s murder trivializes them. An entertaining history that could have more potently exemplified power and oppression in turn-of-the-century America.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171332631 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HighBridge Company |
| Publication date: | 10/18/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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