The Devil in the White City Part One Q & A + Review

After the Civil War, America entered the dark yet prosperous time named the "Gilded Age". America showed a lot of economic growth in industrial output, wealth, and population due to immigrants, making America a top nation in economic power.
This growth spurt in money and hysteria is portrayed well in the novel by describing the troublesome of Burnham and his architect colleagues. The men are on a mission to create something grander than what Paris had done with their convention and the Eiffel Tower in order to give America pride. This great deal of growing nationalism in the American people contribute to the growing economic power of the nation itself.
The civil unrest and chaos is depicted in the scenes of the sad stories of the very lives/families of the architects of Root, Burnham, Hunt, and the others, despite their push to do America good. Larson also adds into the story of the foreshadowing of Holmes and Prendergast evil doings of the future and how they add onto the growing darkness of Chicago, The Fair, and America.
An uncontrollably high poor working class growing in America is also alluded in the parts of the book in which Holmes is starting to build his death trap/murderhouse/crematory thing; The abundance of workers Holmes can easily get and con off of, create an idea that America is growing in wealth, but also creating a massive poor working immigrant class that can cause political problems and events such as strikes.
Government ability to help Chicago and possibly the whole country is proven in the novel to be very poor. Officials such as police and businessmen are easily fooled by Holmes, showing a poor authority control on the people. The mention of the Holmes fear for Pinkertons also show how America is struggling to keep control over it's people. "Disappearances" of people in the city of Chicago by the doing of Holmes contributes to America's inability to help the general public in the time of the gilded age.

Questions:

1. What do the passages at the beginning of the book of a large amount of single women moving the a large booming city such as Chicago reveal about the changes America is undergoing in this time period?
2.   How can the various difficulties and struggles of the architects to create this perfect and grand fair also relate to the growing nation?
3. Why would the New Yorker architects be so conflicted in the decision to join in on the creation of the fair? Even when it is clearly the greatest thing America is yet to create as described by Burnham's words.