READING GROUP QUESTIONS

READING GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR DEATH AT THE FAIR

1. Why was the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 such an important event for the city of Chicago? (The city was established in 1830? The Great Fire that burnt down most of the center of the city was in 1871)

2. What is the past relationship of Dr. Stephen Chapman and Marguerite Larrimer? Who was to blame for their broken engagement?

3. What does Marguerite Larrimer tell Emily in the hotel before she leaves for Kentucky? Is she lying? What kind of woman is she? What kind of man was her husband?

4. Why did Ida Wells and her fellow authors choose to write and distribute the pamphlet THE REASON WHY THE COLORED AMERICAN IS NOT IN THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION? Do you think their efforts were successful?

5. Why do Emily and Clara argue? Do you think this break will end their friendship? If so, why or why not?

6. In the end, what is the responsibility of the City Administration and Fitz in the murder of Larrimer? Do they deserve the blame?

7. Does Emily have to take the blame for the death of Teddy?

8. Who needs to take the blame for the death of the mayor?

READING GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR DEATH AT THE FAIR

1. What were Jane Addams and the other people at the settlement house trying to accomplish? Were they successful?

2. Why did the people of the neighborhood hate and fear the health inspectors who stayed at Hull House during the smallpox epidemic?

3. Why does Emily’s brother Alden try to find his father’s murderer by himself, without the police?

4. Why did the Hull House reformers want to limit the working day to 8 hours? Were they right?

5. What was wrong with the sweatshop system?

6. Why does Emily refuse Dr. Chapman’s proposal at the end of the book?

READING GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR DEATH AT PULLMAN

1. George Pullman repeatedly responded to all attempts at arbitration with the phrase “there is nothing to arbitrate”. Why did he say that? Was he right?

2. Was Emily right to sympathize with the strikers or should she have stayed neutral as Dr. Chapman and Detective Whitbread tried to tell her?

3. Do the types of practices described in the book justify the labor laws and regulations that were implemented in the twentieth century? How much regulation is too much? How little is too little?

4. Who won when the strike ended? Did Pullman win? Did the railroads?

5. At the end of the strike Eugene V. Debs went to prison and the A.R.U. was destroyed. But many more unions grew powerful in the twentieth century. Are unions necessary?