AFTERWORD

Unlike Emily, my memories of Paris are all positive. It is a wonderful city, which I have visited more than once and hope to visit again in the future. It was on a trip with a friend a few years ago that I first had the idea that Emily Cabot might attend the 1900 Paris Exposition. I had wanted to use Bertha Palmer as a central character and the fact that the “Queen of Chicago” represented the United States at the 1900 Exposition provided an opportunity for a novel featuring her. The 2013 Art Institute of Chicago exhibit Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity also provided ideas and inspirations. Although that covered an earlier decade, it highlighted the importance of fashion to the City of Light. I also wanted to include a woman artist in one of the stories, as Emily has met women social workers and scientists in earlier books. Paris was the perfect setting to meet Mary Cassatt, an American artist whom I have always admired.

As always, the collections of the University of Chicago Library, both physical and electronic, were extremely helpful to me. I was able to consult some guidebooks for the 1900 Paris Exposition that were published at the time, as well as secondary works. Online, I discovered some wonderful resources on YouTube. There are actual films that were taken at the Exposition, showing the moving sidewalks and many other parts of the fairgrounds. I’m sorry I missed the 2014 Paris 1900 exhibit at the Petit Palais. However, I was able to find a French TV show about that exhibit on YouTube—Paris 1900: La Belle Époque, l’Exposition Universelle, l’Art Nouveau (https://youtu.be/8MZGusqwKPo). There are many other sources and images available that describe that exposition.

For Bertha Palmer’s life, Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs. Potter Palmer by Ishbel Ross (https://archive.org/details/silhouetteindiam000337mbp) was my primary source. And the Chicago Historical Society publication Bertha Honoré Palmer by Timothy A. Long was a source of images as well as biographical information. I also used a number of newspaper articles from the time as sources of anecdotes. The Renoir painting of the two young circus performers hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago now, and the story of how it traveled with Bertha Palmer on her journeys was told during one of the institute’s lectures that I attended.

As it turned out, Bertha was successful in her endeavor to get Honoré into politics. He was energetic and capable when he ran for alderman. At one point, his opponent circulated a report that Honoré had joined the waiter’s union. When Honoré heard that, he rushed down to his father’s hotel, donned the white coat of one of the waiters and called the press to take pictures saying he was proud to wear the uniform of such an honorable profession. He was successful and served two terms as an alderman before leaving the political life to work in the family business. He and Grace Greenway Brown were married in London in 1903. Their activities as depicted in this novel are entirely of my imagination.

Researching the House of Worth was very enjoyable, as I was able to study many wonderful photographs of the beautiful gowns they created. Most important for that aspect were The Opulent Era: Fashions of Worth, Doucet and Pingat by Elizabeth A. Coleman, and The House of Worth: Portrait of an Archive by Amy de la Haye and Valerie D. Mendes. Once I started researching the couturiers, I was happy to find that I could read some of their opinions in their own words—Jean-Philippe Worth published several works, including A Century of Fashion, and the flamboyant Poiret published an autobiography titled King of Fashion. The walk through the rooms of the House of Worth with the various types of fabrics, which I describe in the first chapter, is roughly based on descriptions from letters of Isabella Stewart Gardner, written some years before the time of this story. I have taken liberties with the dates of Poiret’s employment at the House of Worth. In reality, he worked there from 1901 to 1903, when he left to establish his own maison de couture.

There are many sources for information about Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and their gallery owner and agent M. Durand-Ruel. Most important for me was the biography Mary Cassatt: A Life by Nancy Mowll Mathews.

The topic of Americans in Paris around 1900 is fascinating. I found the works of Edith Wharton and Henry James particularly useful for their portrayals of Americans going to Europe and trying to buy culture, in order to bring it back to the United States. With the exception of the Palmers and Grace Greenway Brown, the Americans in Paris depicted in this book are all fictional.

When I needed a French police detective, I searched around for a model and learned that Georges Simenon’s fictional character Maigret had been inspired by a real policeman, Inspector Marcel Guillaume. Guillaume’s investigation of the fictional crimes in this story is another product of my imagination, rather than factual circumstances. For information about the structure of the French police I consulted The Police of France by Philip John Stead. Thank you to the Boston Athenaeum for getting that book so promptly on interlibrary loan for me.

This book was so much fun to research, as far as the visual aspect goes, that I created a Pinterest board that readers may find of interest: https://www.pinterest.com/fdmcnama/death-at-the-paris-exposition/. Another board was created by my publisher, Allium Press, and it can be found at: https://www.pinterest.com/alliumpress/death-at-the-paris-exposition/.

Many thanks to my writing group The Complete Unknowns, especially Anne Sharfman and Nancy Braun, for input on this book, and also to Ros Hoey, who once again was a beta reader for me. And, of course, the biggest thanks to my editor, Emily Victorson of Allium Press of Chicago.