One hundred years after its publication, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” remains an iconic part of American literature. Yet despite the novel’s ongoing popularity, its readers may not know about its connections to Lake Forest. An ongoing exhibition is trying to change that.
Earlier this year, the History Center of Lake Forest Lake Bluff opened “Behind the Glamour: Inside (and Outside) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Lake Forest.” The exhibition highlights Fitzgerald’s ties to Lake Forest ahead of his writing “The Great Gatsby” in the early 1920s. Specifically, the displays showcase how one of the city’s natives was part of an inspiration for one of Gatsby’s central characters.
“We were trying to take a look at his experience in Lake Forest and the people he knew here,” History Center Deputy Director Laurie Stein said.
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While Fitzgerald grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, he made frequent trips to Lake Forest as he had a relative who subsequently introduced him to the community’s social scene in the 1910s. Those interactions served as an influence for his future writings as he described Lake Forest as one of the most glamorous places in the world in letters to his daughter, Stein said.
A major turning point in Fitzgerald’s life occurred in 1915 in St. Paul when he met Lake Forest native Ginevra King at a sledding party as she was visiting her roommate from an East Coast boarding school that she attended. Fitzgerald, by that time a student at Princeton University, was back in his hometown for winter vacation.
While King was only 16 at the time, the two saw each other occasionally in Lake Forest and other places and wrote many letters to one another, according to History Center officials. They met several times in Lake Forest, as well as New York and Princeton, but never on a formal date, as others always joined them.
Eventually, Fitzgerald realized King was not interested in marriage with him.
“He attributes that to his lack of income. However, it is far more likely the bigger concerns were his career path as a writer and his lack of propriety in public gatherings,” History Center Executive Director Carol Summerfield said. “He misbehaved badly, drank heavily, and could be rude.”
When “The Great Gatsby” is published in 1925, readers are told the story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy, with whom he had had a relationship before she married the wealthy Tom Buchanan. It is not an exact replica of the dynamic between Fitzgerald and King, but there is a resemblance.
“There are definitely a lot of parallels and similarities,” Stein said.
The exhibit also details how King was a member of the “Big Four,” a group of friends raised in Lake Forest who attended boarding school together. They were all part of socially prominent families where the local press would write about their social activities and their weddings.
“You could tell that this place made an impression on him. And so we were trying to give that effect a little bit in the exhibit as well,” Stein added. “What kind of impression did it make on him, and how did that translate into his work.”
A large portrait of King dominates the exhibit room, which also features clothing of the era, plus fireplace inserts and serving dishes. The overall goal is to give patrons the sense of walking into a salon or solarium of a home when an event such as a summer garden party is taking place.
Summerfield said the History Center approached local interior decorator Lynne Beyer for the project as her background meshed well given both her research and design skills.
Beyer said she enjoyed creating the look of the room.
“Just collaborating and learning more about F. Scott Fitzgerald was really fun,” she said.
The exhibit is set to run through Oct. 4, with Stein believing people are now intrigued with Fitzgerald’s ties to Lake Forest.
“We’ve had a great reception,” she said. “Seeing this story and its connection of this community to the larger literary landscape. Local people are interested in finding out more, and they’re proud of it. They are places in Lake Forest that are still here today that had an impact in this period that (Fitzgerald) might have visited. People are looking at that again.”
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance writer for Pioneer Press.