Chicago by Gaslight: A History of Chicago's Underworld, 1880-1920 Book

Chicago by Gaslight revises the picture of the glittering Chicago of impressive mansions and museums; it exposes the city's corrupt underbelly and the realities of life in an age which is often assumed to have been simpler and more moral than ours. Interspersed with major chapters on the Haymarket riot, the gamblers' wars, the notorious levee red-light district and instutionalized graft, are briefer chapters: the tragic predicament of a pregnant woman whose lover jilts her; the newspaper wars of the Annenberg brothers; a beach outing which becomes an ugly race riot; a serial killer, the extent of whose crimes is still unknown.