Rensselaer and its graduates continue to show up in popular media.

Set in Chicago circa 1893, Erik Larson’s bestseller The Devil in the White City intertwines the true tale of two men — the architect behind the legendary 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (also known as the World’s Fair), striving to secure America’s place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death.

It was at the World’s Fair where the Ferris wheel made its debut. Civil engineer George Ferris, Rensselaer Class of 1881 and Alumni Hall of Fame member, designed the great wheel. Ferris was the founder of G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.

“George W. Ferris invented the wheel specifically for the fair as an answer to France’s Eiffel Tower,” Larson writes. “The wheel was a wondrous feat of engineering: supported by two 140-foot steel towers and connected by a 45-foot axle, it was the largest single piece of forged steel ever made at the time. With a diameter of 250 feet and thirty-six cars holding sixty riders each, the Ferris wheel carried 1,450,000 paying customers over the course of the fair.”

The Devil in the White City, which The New York Times calls “a dynamic, enveloping book,” is published by Vintage Books.

Originally published in Rensselaer Magazine, Winter 2004

Published December 1, 2004