A fascinating history of Chicago's innovative and invaluable contributions to American literature and art from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century This remarkable cultural history celebrates the great Midwestern city of Chicago for its centrality to the modernist movement. Author Liesl Olson traces Chicago's cultural development from the 1893 World's Fair through mid-century, illuminating how Chicago writers revolutionized literary forms during the first half of the twentieth century, a period of sweeping aesthetic transformations all over the world. From Harriet Monroe, Carl Sandburg, and Ernest Hemingway to Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olson's enthralling study bridges the gap between two distinct and equally vital Chicago-based artistic "renaissance" moments: the primarily white renaissance of the early teens, and the creative ferment of Bronzeville. Stories of the famous and iconoclastic are interwoven with accounts of lesser-known yet influential figures in Chicago, many of whom were women. Olson argues for the importance of Chicago's editors, bookstore owners, tastemakers, and ordinary citizens who helped nurture Chicago's unique culture of artistic experimentation. Cover art by Lincoln Schatz
Baby Ruth, Milk Duds, Juicy Fruit, Cracker Jack, Milky Way, Tootsie Roll, Lemonheads--whatever your favorite candy may be, chances are it came from Chicago. For much of its history, the city churned out an astonishing one third of all candy produced in the United States. Some of the biggest names in the industry were based in Chicago: Curtiss, Brach, Tootsie Roll, Leaf, Wrigley, and Mars. Along with these giants were smaller, family-based companies with devoted followings, such as fundraising specialist World's Finest Chocolate and the Ferrara Pan Candy Company, maker of Red Hots and Jaw Breakers. At its peak, the Chicago candy industry boasted more than 100 companies employing some 25,000 Chicagoans. This fascinating photographic history travels through more than 150 years of the candy trade and explores its role in the growth and development of the city. Packed with vintage images of stores, factories, and advertisements, this mouth-watering book reveals how Chicago candy makers created strong bonds between people and their favorite treats.
Against the backdrop of a bustling and dynamic global city, cranes dot the sky, jack hammers demolish “solid as a rock” walls, and bulldozers move tons of bricks out of the way on The Near West Side of Chicago, now known as (The West Loop). The transformation of this area over time has been nothing less than captivating. Vacant parking lots, once home to vaudeville acts, became glossy 19-story apartments. Empty buildings that once housed cutlery stores, meat packing rooms, printing companies, and multi-level office buildings have been demolished- common brick by common brick. Some of these bakery supply buildings (or other businesses) have been re-purposed into opulent condos, luxury sofa stores, or restaurants with owner-chefs calling upstairs home.
What once was a manufacturing and wholesale warehouse area in the late 1890’s -1950’s, a fashionable place to live on Ashland Avenue for the “movers and shakers “of Chicago, and later Skid Row on Madison Street, is again where we want to live, work, and play. Corporate America has set up shop in The West Loop, and many of the Union headquarters have stayed put for decades. Meet the pioneers of then and now, learn about a variety of businesses that supplied products during war time, help protect us at the 911 Emergency Communications Center, train our policemen, and see the eye-catching architectural wonders still standing in The West Loop. Read these engaging and timeless stories by Chicago-based researcher Connie Fairbanks in a new 246-page book complete with a collection of more than 150 photos that capture the essence of this areas transformation and brings you back in time in this most dynamic part of the city.
Chicago has been called by many names. Nelson Algren declared it a "City on the Make." Carl Sandburg dubbed it the "City of Big Shoulders." Upton Sinclair christened it "The Jungle," while New Yorkers, naturally, pronounced it "the Second City."
At last there is a book for all of us, whatever we choose to call Chicago. In this magisterial biography, historian Dominic Pacyga traces the storied past of his hometown, from the explorations of Joliet and Marquette in 1673 to the new wave of urban pioneers today. The city's great industrialists, reformers, and politicians--and, indeed, the many not-so-great and downright notorious--animate this book, from Al Capone and Jane Addams to Mayor Richard J. Daley and President Barack Obama. But what distinguishes this book from the many others on the subject is its author's uncommon ability to illuminate the lives of Chicago's ordinary people. Raised on the city's South Side and employed for a time in the stockyards, Pacyga gives voice to the city's steelyard workers and kill floor operators, and maps the neighborhoods distinguished not by Louis Sullivan masterworks, but by bungalows and corner taverns.
Filled with the city's one-of-a-kind characters and all of its defining moments, Chicago: A Biography is as big and boisterous as its namesake--and as ambitious as the men and women who built it.
Many Chicagoans rose in protest over A. J. Liebling's tongue-in-cheek tour of their fair city in 1952. Liebling found much to admire in the Windy City's people and culture--its colorful language, its political sophistication, its sense of its own history and specialness, but Liebling offended that city's image of itself when he discussed its entertainments, its built landscapes, and its mental isolation from the world's affairs.
Liebling, a writer and editor for the New Yorker, lived in Chicago for nearly a year. While he found a home among its colorful inhabitants, he couldn't help comparing Chicago with some other cities he had seen and loved, notably Paris, London, and especially New York. His magazine columns brought down on him a storm of protests and denials from Chicago's defenders, and he gently and humorously answers their charges and acknowledges his errors in a foreword written especially for the book edition. Liebling describes the restaurants, saloons, and striptease joints; the newspapers, cocktail parties, and political wards; the university; and the defining event in Chicago's mythic past, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Illustrated by Steinberg, Chicago is a loving, if chiding, portrait of a great American metropolis.
Robert G. Athearn Award from the Western History Association In City Indian Rosalyn R. LaPier and David R. M. Beck tell the engaging story of American Indians who migrated to Chicago from across America to work and emerged as activists. From the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to the 1934 Century of Progress Fair, American Indians in Chicago voiced their opinions about political, social, educational, and racial issues.
City Indian focuses on the privileged members of the American Indian community in Chicago: doctors, nurses, business owners, teachers, and entertainers. During the Progressive Era more than any other time in the city's history, they could be found in the company of politicians and society leaders, at Chicago's major cultural venues and events, and in the press, speaking out. When Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson declared that Chicago public schools teach "America First," American Indian leaders publicly challenged him to include the true story of "First Americans."
As they struggled to reshape nostalgic perceptions of American Indians, these men and women developed new associations and organizations to help each other and to ultimately create a new place to call home in a modern American city.
City Indian focuses on the privileged members of the American Indian community in Chicago: doctors, nurses, business owners, teachers, and entertainers. During the Progressive Era more than any other time in the city's history, they could be found in the company of politicians and society leaders, at Chicago's major cultural venues and events, and in the press, speaking out. When Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson declared that Chicago public schools teach "America First," American Indian leaders publicly challenged him to include the true story of "First Americans."
As they struggled to reshape nostalgic perceptions of American Indians, these men and women developed new associations and organizations to help each other and to ultimately create a new place to call home in a modern American city.
"Gregory Pratt had a rare front-row seat to the passions, problems, peculiarities, hopes, disappointments, shenanigans, and pettiness in the drama and farce that was Lori Lightfoot's uneasy tenure on the fifth floor at City Hall. What he delivers on these pages takes us backstage to give us a powerful, incisive portrait of the woman, the details of her mayoralty, and the many players who shared the stage." --Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune reporter and author of A Chicago Tavern
Introduce babies and toddlers to iconic symbols of the Windy City with Nicole LaRue's quirky, modern illustrations.
This bright board book makes learning about Chicago as easy as 1, 2, 3! Covering everything from deep-dish pizza to sailboats, baseballs, monarch butterflies, and fishing poles Count On Chicago is the perfect gift for little Chicagoans and tiny tourists alike. This fresh and contemporary take on the Windy City will be a hit with little learners.
In chaotic bohemian Chicago of the 1920s, a powerful love affair is threatened by illness, a red scare and anti Semitic hatred. Confined to a TB sanitarium, Rhoda corresponds with Jerry, a left wing Jewish bookseller. Their letters reveal that the challenges and hatred they face are countered by their mutual love for each other, their love of literature, poetry and music and the left wing political causes they fight for. Their struggles come to life in the counter culture of Chicago's Dil Pickle Club, which is frequented by Rhoda, Jerry and their friends like poet Carl Sandburg, lawyer Clarence Darrow, labor leader Jack Jones, hobo and left wing debater Lizzie Davis and feminist Red Martha Biegler. The discovery of the letters nearly a century later in an abandoned trunk offers a message of hope by linking their past to the present.