The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 Worlds Fair

Download or read book The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 Worlds Fair written by Margaret Creighton and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A marvelous recounting of the 1901 World’s Fair. Every chapter sparkles.… The Buffalo-Niagara Falls extravaganza comes alive in these pages. Highly recommended!” —Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior The Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, dazzled with its new rainbow-colored electric lights. It showcased an array of wonders, like daredevils attempting to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, or the “Animal King” putting the smallest woman in the world and also terrifying animals on display. But the thrill-seeking spectators little suspected that an assassin walked the fairgrounds, waiting for President William McKinley to arrive. In Margaret Creighton’s hands, the result is “a persuasive case that the fair was a microcosm of some momentous facets of the United States, good and bad, at the onset of the American Century” (Howard Schneider, Wall Street Journal).