Memory Resurrected Research

Overall concept: How F. Scott Fitzgerald was inspired to create Great Gatsby in NYC.

Lanie is going to focus on the Locations: long island, minnesota, chicago, and the south. We will visit either the house he wrote it in, or was inspired by and use the tour guide as one of our interviews.

Stephanie is going to focus on the character development- daisy/zelda, him/nick/gatsby

I will go into depth about the ending murders that were based on the halls-mills case in NJ, which has been argued to be “the most fascinating unsolved homicide in the annals of American crime.”

We may or may not interview a professor from Rutgers who wrote about this crime and how much she knows about F. Scott Fitzgerald fascination also. But to be brief, the case involves an Episcopal priest and a member of his choir (with whom he was having an affair) and was found murdered on September 14, 1922, in New Jersey. The suspected murderers, the priest’s wife and her brothers, were acquitted in a 1926 trial. In the history of journalism, the case is largely remembered for the vast extent of newspaper coverage it received nationwide; This would make sense since Gatsby always received media coverage, so it would be a popular allusion/inspiration for Fitzgerald.