Fitzgerald Exhibit Explores Lake Forest's Influence on His Books

By the History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff

It’s been 100 years since The Great Gatsby was published on April 10, 1925, but the work continues to be lauded as one of the finest American novels. The upcoming exhibition at the History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff covers the connection between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Lake Forest and its influence on his writing.

Fitzgerald (1896–1940) met a young socialite, Ginevra King (1898-1980), when she was visiting a friend in his hometown of St. Paul, Minn., in 1915, when he was 19 and she was 16. Mutually smitten, that introduction began a two-year pursuit, with hundreds of letters exchanged between them. While the Lake Forester proved to be an elusive match, King remained a muse throughout Fitzgerald’s career.

The legendary author F. Scott Fitzgerald enjoyed the glimpse he got into the young adult society life in Lake Forest.

Fitzgerald grew up in a comfortably middle-class family in St. Paul and attended a private high school out East, then Princeton University for three years, until he opted to avoid being expelled for failing grades by joining the U.S. Army. But scholars and biographers agree that his time in Lake Forest influenced his sense of what high society looked like in the early years of the 20th century.

The young Scott Fitzgerald knew a few young Lake Foresters through his Princeton connections, which eased his introductions into the social scene.  Gordon McCormick, son of Cyrus McCormick Jr. and grandson of the inventor of the revolutionary McCormick reaper, entered Princeton in 1913 alongside Fitzgerald and was a fellow member of the Triangle Club. Other Lake Forest Princetonians were Donald and James H. Douglas Jr., sons of the president of Quaker Oats. Fitzgerald stayed at the Douglas’ home during one of his visits to the area. He also had an older cousin who lived here as well, with whom he stayed on occasion.

Fitzgerald was keenly aware of how his socio-economic status created a barrier to a successful courtship of King. While he came from a relatively stable middle-class family, they didn’t own property, and there was no chance for him to inherit much from his father. Fitzgerald wasn’t just driven to be a novelist; he wanted to be a financially successful one, because he saw money as a barrier he could fix. However, his shortcomings included, from his college years on, heavy drinking and a complete inability to manage money.

Lake Forest's Ginevra King was a great love of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Young women were expected to “behave,” which meant no unchaperoned visits with the opposite sex and certainly no public drunkenness, which King adhered to, however reluctantly. Fitzgerald eventually embraced the wild nature of Zelda Sayre, whom he married in 1921. He loved her complete disregard for following societal expectations. As a couple, they were notorious for their general lack of politeness at parties, often asking wildly intrusive, private, or inappropriate questions of guests. They were regularly drunk and frequently removed from their hotel residences because of their outlandish behavior. But writers like John Dos Passos, while lamenting how rude they could be, also confessed that when Fitzgerald turned on the charm, he was irresistible, particularly to women.  

Fitzgerald enjoyed the glimpse he got into the young adult society life in Lake Forest with its summer parties, golf outings, and leisurely social gatherings on pavilions and in back gardens. He wrote frequently about such gatherings in his short stories and novels. Fitzgerald even referenced Lake Forest, like this one from the novel Tender is the Night (the main character, Nicole Diver, is believed to be extensively based on King).

“We were in Lake Forest – that’s a summer place near Chicago where we have a place – and she was out all day playing golf or tennis with boys. And some of them pretty gone on her at that.”

He published four novels in his lifetime: This Side of Paradise (1920), The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (1925), and Tender is the Night (1934). The Great Gatsby remains his most important work, although it only began to perform well after his death. Considered a literary masterpiece, the novel examines wealth and high society, belonging (or not), lost love, and pursuing the unachievable dream, all of which he experienced in Lake Forest.

Please come see the new exhibition Beyond the Glamour: Inside (and Outside) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Lake Forest, which runs April 4-Oct. 4 at the History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff. The opening day event begins at 2 p.m. on April 4. Check out the companion lecture series as well at lflbhistory.org.