Chicago: A Biography Book

Introduction: Writing an Urban Biography

1:  Location, Location, Location!

The French — Point de Sable and the Coming of the Americans — The Yankees, the Canal, and the Railroads — Ethnic Diversity — Lake Street That Great Street

2: Emporium of the West

Early Industry — Growth Problems — The Threat of War — The Civil War — The Wartime Economy — The Industrial New Age —- The New Relationship between Workers and Owners

3: The Era of Urban Chaos

A Wooden Immigrant City on the Prairie — The Great Chicago Fire — The Clash between Labor and Capital — The Capital of Radicalism — Haymarket — The Loop: A Dark Vision of the Future — The Levee

4: Reacting to Chaos: Pullman, the West Side, and the Loop

The West Side: The Communal Response — The Elite Response: George Pullman — The Middle-Class Reform Response: Jane Addams — The Loop: An Architectural Response — The Columbian Exposition — Paradise Lost: The Pullman Strike

5: The Progressive and Not So Progressive City

The Continued Clash of Social Classes — Chicago’s Progressive Politics — The Progressive Accomplishment — Green Spaces for the Poor and Great Plans — The Problem of Housing the Poor — Big Bill Thompson and the End of Progressivism

6: The Immigrant Capital and World War I

Immigrant City —- World War I — Poison, Hysteria, Politics, and Ethnic Conflict — World War I and the Labor Movement — The Great Migration — 1919: Annus Mirabilis

7: Twentieth-Century Metropolis

The Attack on Immigrants — The Bungalow and the New Ethnic Metropolis  — Black Metropolis — Popular Culture — The Automobile — Gangland

8: Years of Crises: Depression and War

Unemployment — Anton Cermak and the Birth of the Democratic Machine — Kelly-Nash: A New Democratic Day — The Urge to Organize: Neighborhoods — The Urge to Organize: Labor — World War II: Emporium of the United Nations

9: Chicago after the War: Changing Times

The Postwar Democrats — The Problem of Race — Englewood: Angeline Jackson’s Neighborhood — Ted Swigon’s Back of the Yards: A Shifting Landscape — Reaction to Change — Arguing over Urban Renewal — Violence: The Murder of Alvin Palmer — Postwar Suburbs — Deindustrialization: The Stockyards

10: Daley’s City

Building the Modern City: Public Housing and Expressways — Daley’s Prime — Black Chicago — 1968: The Whole World Is Watching

11: Apocalypse “Now” or Regeneration?

The Tragedy of Michael Bilandic — Deindustrialization: Phase Two — Seeds of a New Loop — Jane Byrne and the Politics of Angst — 1983: It’s Harold! — The Second Daley — Shifts in the Economy and Immigration — Still the City of Immigrants —- A City Transformed? Race and Class in the Global City

Conclusion: Transforming Chicago and America

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index