
Perhaps I’ve mentioned that one of the reasons writing historical fiction appeals to me is because of the research process. That might discourage others from writing this genre. Research isn’t for everyone. It can be lengthy and it can be is time-consuming. And sometimes you find out your research was wrong. My first manuscript has taken 10 years to complete and I’ve invested at least that many years finding out all I can about the post Civil War years. I take careful notes, but even then, I find out that I missed some detail (or had forgotten it) and my plot might come apart. It can happen to the best of historical writers, so I hope you won’t judge an author too harshly if you find out that maybe something made it into a book that wasn’t quite how it went. Because research is never-ending and we are always finding out new information, even when we’d thought we’d exhausted every resource. I’m not expecting that I will have ten years of research to benefit from for my next book.
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So what exactly is the point of this whole Palmer House post? Why bring it up? Why discredit anyone who wrote it differently? This is a fine line to walk. This is not in any way meant to be a nanny, nanny, boo, boo, I’m right, you’re wrong post. It isn’t meant to insinuate that a writer did not research enough/correctly. I know that’s not the case. Almost every historical fiction author I know takes great care to be sure they deliver accurate facts. It’s why we pay attention to those details and do our best to incorporate them so that the reader has an immersive experience. We care. We want to showcase history in an entertaining way, even prompting the reader to additionally research on his/her own. It is our job to pique the reader’s interest to want to know more.
But historical readers have very high expectations, as well they should. If they/we (I read historicals so I’ll include myself here) pick up on a detail we’re sure isn’t quite right we can have a tendency to then disregard the rest of that author’s work. Which is a mistake. Because we all will get something wrong. We try very hard not to. But it is inevitable. As a pre-published writer, sometimes my hill is even steeper. How do I write my story with the research I’ve acquired only to find out that maybe my research was inaccurate? Or that it was accurate and someone else’s wasn’t? To uncover facts that would really unravel an entire plot thread and would be very hard to stitch back up? And to then figure out how I might have managed to get it so very wrong? Or that someone else had? Credibility for a historical fiction author is essential. And I am not trying to throw anyone else under the bus to establish my own. So let me try to explain why (even though the internet says quite differently) I’ve decided to bring this subject up.
In the first chapter of my book, my main character recalls a particular incident that happens in the winter of 1870 at the Palmer House Hotel. The year before the Great Chicago Fire. When I first had the idea for this particular plot point, I’d consulted the volume I had been reading for research, A.T. Andreas’ The History of Chicago: from the earliest period to the present (published in 1884) to see if the Palmer House was even open yet. I read that it opened in September 1870 and continued on with developing my story. As I fleshed out this plotline, I often visited the Chronicling America newspaper archives through the Library of Congress. I scoured Chicago Tribune articles both in 1870 and 1871 to brainstorm more ideas for my book. And though I’d not paid particular attention to the details, I remember reading about a few different events that occurred at the Palmer House Hotel. I’d also recalled several first person accounts during the Great Fire expressing that they had stayed once again at the Palmer House while in Chicago. It wasn’t until a about a year ago that a friend brought to my attention that the Palmer House wasn’t open in 1870. That it hadn’t opened until 1871, only days before the Great Chicago Fire. What? How could that be? As my heart beat rapidly, I did a quick online search. She was right. That’s what every article online reported. But it couldn’t be. Would I really have forgotten such a critical detail just so I could pursue the storyline I had developed?
After reading every online article I could possibly find, and reviewing the same information over and over again, that the Palmer House had opened in September of 1871, a few days before the Great Fire, I pondered once again how I could have made such a mistake. This was a very important fact to get right for my story, or it would require a major overhaul. I combed through A.T. Andreas’ volumes again (not a light feat since all three volumes add up to 800+ pages) and read this in Volume 2:
“On State Street, the Palmer House, at the corner of Quincy Street, was burned, but so far as we could see to the south, the fire had not crossed to the east side of State Street. The foundations only had been built of the new Palmer House at the corner of Monroe and State…” (Bolded words mine for emphasis)
A. T. Andreas, The History of Chicago (from the earliest period to the present), Volume 2, 1884
Wait. What? There were 2 locations? A franchise? Since all I had been looking for in the beginning was whether it had been opened or not in 1870, and found that it was, it didn’t occur to me to read any further. It wasn’t information that I needed. It’s also why I had to skim through all of the volumes because it wasn’t something I had bookmarked. Why would I? This was a book published close to the time and had given me my answer. Like most people, I’d not figured on two locations and moved on. Which is another thing you should realize about historical fiction authors. Rabbit trails. Rabbit holes. We could go down so many. But if we want to ever get a book written, we have to refrain from that. We have to stick to the main trail of needed facts so we don’t spend precious time researching non-important details. Even though we kind of love that too, and those additional facts help enrich our stories.
Even though reading that information helped quell my fluttering heart for the tiniest of seconds, I still wasn’t satisfied. I prefer 2-3 sources to solidify my findings. Most historical authors follow this method. And my copy of Andreas’ volume was a public domain ebook on my Kindle. Could they have made a typo? Was it possible the 0 should have been a 1? And then what about the Tribune articles I’d remembered reading online? Had I been mistaken on the dates? I spent hours back on the Chronicling America site, where I clipped several articles that indicate the Palmer House Hotel was open in 1870. (See slideshow below, articles clipped from different dates of the Chicago Tribune in 1870 from Library of Congress: Chronicling America website).
So how is it so many people believe otherwise? My guess is that since both locations were on different corners of State Street, few people, me included, paid close attention to the actual cross street. And since the current Palmer House still resides on State and Monroe, where it was rebuilt, nobody realized it was a second location. I sure didn’t. And since the Palmer House website itself still asserts that it burned down days after opening before the Great Fire, who would refute the hotel’s own history information?
Even so, I was still uneasy that no matter what proof I offered, readers might think I’m unreliable. I’d even made the decision to call some experts to see if somehow I’d misinterpreted my own findings. Before doing that, I chose to give the internet one last try, and at long last found two articles that corroborated everything I’d recorded. You can read those articles here and here.
Let me reiterate, if you’ve read other works of fiction that say differently, that doesn’t mean the author did not do considerable research. There are some details that we do a quick search on because they will not bear greatly on our story, and therefore, we are not required to delve into every aspect. As I mentioned, I try to consult 2-3 articles before settling on a fact as true. And as I’ve pointed out, there are at least that many online posts that confirm the other. It just happened that this was a detail critical to my story, and so it was important for me to find out whether I’d understood it wrong. If you read in another published book (which you likely will, because I understand there to be a few out there) that the Palmer House Hotel burned down just after it opened, please don’t message the author and fact check them. They can’t correct that at this point. Just enjoy how that historical fiction author poured their heart into their story, guided by as much information as they could dig up. Cherish the opportunity to escape into another time period. And please, give us grace.
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