Danger
The fair construction workers risked their lives on a daily basis on order to create Chicago 's grand opening to the world. According to Larson, the first death of a worker happened in December 1891: a man named Mueller died of a fractured skull. The details of the fracture are not given, but a number of possible accidents could have cause such an injury: smashed by timber planks or scraps, hit with hammer or other tool, falling from the high construction site or even coming down with a crumbling, poorly built structure. Many other deaths followed the first; two more fractured skulls and one new cause of death, electric shock. Seven men died working for the exhibition between January and April 1893 alone. The working conditions were horrendously dangerous:
“Each morning, hundreds of men climbed to [the Liberal Arts Building's] dense line that from a distance resembled a column of ant” (218).
The objective of the fair's planning architects was to create an awesome display of buildings and skyscrapers, but no one remembers the workers who had to climb up the unfinished structures and handle the beams hundreds of feet above the ground in order to accomplish this goal.