Conditions
The working conditions for the men were far less than ideal. Not only were the sites dangerous, but the ground was unstable, many storms came through and ruined progress and the whole operation was under a time crunch. This urgency cause huge problems for the workers:
“Now Burnham pushed them even harder. He… doubled the number of men working on the building. They worked at night, in rain, in stifling heat. In August alone the building took three lives. Elsewhere on the grounds four other men died and dozens more suffered all manner of fracture, burns, and lacerations. The fair, according to one later appraisal, was a more dangerous place to work than the coal mine” (Larson 178).