This
post is about the history of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The city
was founded by European Americans in the 19th century in 1832. The
Chicago area's recorded history begins with the arrival of French
explorers, missionaries and fur traders in the late 17th century. The
territory was claimed by the United States in the late 18th century, at
which time the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi. The area had been
inhabited for thousands of years by varying cultures of indigenous
peoples.
Four
historical events are commemorated by the four red stars on Chicago's
flag: The United States' Fort Dearborn, established at the mouth of the
Chicago River in 1803; the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed
much of the city; the World Columbian Exposition of 1893, by which
Chicago celebrated its recovery from the fire; and the Century of
Progress Worlds Fair of 1933–1934, which celebrated the city's
centennial.
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| Flag of Chicago |
Pre 1833
Native Americans
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| Fort Dearborn, sketched 1831, printed in 1865. |
At
the beginning of European recorded history, the Chicago area was
inhabited by a number of Algonquian peoples, including the Mascouten and
Miami. Trade links and seasonal hunting migrations linked these peoples
with their neighbors, the Potawatomi to the east, Fox to the north, and
the Illinois to the southwest. The name "Chicago" is the French version
of the Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa (" Stinky Onion"), named for the
plants common along the Chicago River. It is not related to Chief
Chicagou of the Michigamea people. During the mid-18th century, the
Chicago area was inhabited primarily by the Potawatomi, who displaced
the Miami, Sauk, and Fox tribes. They had previously controlled the area
and moved west under pressure from the Potawatomi and European
settlers.
French
Chicago's
location at a short portage (Chicago Portage) connecting the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi River system attracted the attention of many
French explorers, notably Louis Jolliet and Jean-Baptist-Point DuSable .
In 1696, French Jesuits built the Mission of the Guardian Angel to
Christianize the local Wea and Miami people. French and allied use of
the Chicago portage was mostly abandoned during the 1720s because of
continual Native American raids during the Fox Wars.
1770-1815
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| Jean Baptiste Point du Sable as depicted in 1884 |
The
first non-native permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point
du Sable, who built a farm at the mouth of the Chicago River in the
1780s. He left Chicago in 1800. In 1968, du Sable was honored at Pioneer
Court as the city's founder and featured as a symbol.
In
1795, following the Northwest Indian War, some Native Americans ceded
the area of Chicago to the United States for a military post in the
Treaty of Greenville. The US built Fort Dearborn in 1803 on the Chicago
River. It was destroyed by British forces during the War of 1812 in the
Battle of Fort Dearborn and most all the inhabitants were killed. The
fort had been ordered to evacuate. During the evacuation soldiers and
civilians were overtaken near what is today Prairie Avenue. After the
end of the war, the Potawatomi ceded the land to the United States in
the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. (Today, this treaty is commemorated in
Indian Boundary Park.) Fort Dearborn was rebuilt in 1818 and used until
1837. During the Black Hawk War of 1832, General Winfield Scott's troops
brought cholera with them from the East Coast, where an epidemic raged.
It spread among the refugees crowded at the fort, and the soldiers had
to dig a pit to bury the dead.
City of the Century
1830s
1830s
In
1829, the State of Illinois (est. 1818) legislature appointed
commissioners to locate a canal and layout the surrounding town. The
commissioners employed James Thompson to survey and plat the town of
Chicago, which at the time had a population of less than 100. Historians
regard the August 4, 1830 filing of the plat as the official
recognition of a municipality known as Chicago.
Yankee
entrepreneurs saw the potential of Chicago as a transportation hub in
the 1830s, and engaged in land speculation to obtain the choicest lots.
On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was incorporated with a
population of 350[10] On July 12, 1834, the Illinois from Sackets
Harbor, New York was the first commercial schooner to enter the harbor, a
sign of the Great Lakes trade that would benefit both Chicago and New
York state. Chicago was granted a city charter by the State of Illinois
in 1837; it was part of the larger Cook County. By 1840 the boom town
had a population of over 4,000.
Transportation hub
After
1830, the rich farmlands of northern Illinois attracted Yankee
settlers. Yankee real estate operators created a city overnight in the
1830s. To open the surrounding farmlands to trade, the Cook County
commissioners built roads south and west; the latter crossed the "dismal
Nine-mile Swamp," the Des Plaines River, and went southwest to Walker's
Grove, now the Village of Plainfield. The roads enabled hundreds of
wagons per day of farm produce to arrive, so the entrepreneurs built
grain elevators and docks to load ships bound for points east through
the Great Lakes. Produce was shipped through the Erie Canal and down the
Hudson River to New York City; the growth of the Midwest farms expanded
New York City as a port.
By
the 1850s, the construction of railroads made Chicago a major hub; over
30 lines entered the city. The main lines from the East ended in
Chicago, and those oriented to the West began in Chicago, so by 1860 the
city became the nation's trans-shipment and warehousing center.
Factories were created, most famously the harvester factory opened in
1847 by Cyrus Hall McCormick. It was a processing center for natural
resource commodities extracted in the West. The Wisconsin forests
supported the mill-work and lumber business; the Illinois hinterland
provided the wheat. Hundreds of thousands of hogs and cattle were
shipped to Chicago for slaughter, preserving in salt, and transport to
eastern markets. By 1870 refrigerated cars allowed the shipping of fresh
meat to eastern cities.
In
1848, the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal allowed shipping
from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River and the
Gulf of Mexico. The first rail line to Chicago, the Galena & Chicago
Union Railroad was completed the same year. Chicago would go on to
become the transportation hub of the United States with its road, rail,
water and later air connections. Chicago also became home to national
retailers offering catalog shopping such as Montgomery Ward and Sears,
Roebuck and Company, which used the transportation lines to ship all
over the nation.
Infrastructure
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| The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the world's first skyscraper. |
The
prairie bog nature of the area provided a fertile ground for
disease-carrying insects. In springtime Chicago was so muddy from the
high water that horses could scarecely move. Comical signs proclaiming
"Fastest route to China" or "No Bottom Here" were placed to warn people
of the mud.
Travelers
reported Chicago was the filthiest city in America. The city created a
massive sewer system. In the first phase, sewage pipes were laid across
the city above ground, to use gravity to move the waste. The city was
built in a low-lying area subject to flooding. In 1856 the city council
decided that the entire city should be elevated four to five feet by
using a newly available jacking-up process. In one instance, the 5-story
Brigg’s Hotel, weighing 22,000 tons, was lifted while it continued to
operate. Observing that such a thing could never have happened in
Europe, the British historian Paul Johnson cites this astounding feat as
a dramatic example of American determination and ingenuity: based on
the conviction that anything material is possible.
Population growth
In
1840, Chicago was the ninety-second most populous city in the United
States. Its population grew so rapidly that twenty years later, it was
the ninth most populous city in the country. In the pivotal year of
1848, Chicago saw the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, its
first steam locomotives, the introduction of steam-powered grain
elevators, the arrival of the telegraph, and the founding of the Chicago
Board of Trade. By 1870 Chicago had grown to become the nation's second
largest city, and one of the largest cities in the world. By 1857
Chicago was the largest city in what was then known as the Northwest. In
a period of twenty years Chicago grew from 4,000 people to over 90,000.
During
the election of April 23, 1875, the voters of Chicago chose to operate
under the Illinois Cities and Villages Act of 1872. Chicago still
operates under this act, in lieu of a charter. The Cities and Villages
Act has been revised several times since, and may be found in Chapter 65
of the Illinois Compiled Statutes.
Politics
Political history of Chicago
Chicago
surpassed St. Louis and Cincinnati as the major city in the West. It
gained political notice as the home of Stephen Douglas, the 1860
presidential nominee of the Northern Democrats. The 1860 Republican
National Convention in Chicago nominated home-state candidate Abraham
Lincoln.
Many
of the newcomers were Irish Catholic and German immigrants and their
descendants. Their neighborhood saloons, a center of male social life,
were criticized in the mid 1850s by the local Know-Nothing Party, which
reflected the stern morality of the Yankees. The new party was
anti-immigration and anti-liquor, and called for the purification of
politics by reducing the power of the saloonkeepers. In 1855, the Know
Nothings elected Levi Boone mayor, who banned Sunday sales of liquor and
beer. His aggressive law enforcement sparked the Lager Beer Riot of
April 1855, which erupted outside a courthouse where eight Germans were
being tried for liquor ordinance violations. After the American Civil
War, saloons became community centers only for local ethnic men, as
reformers saw them as places that incited riotous behavior and moral
decay.
Great Chicago Fire of 1871
1871 Great Chicago Fire
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| The Chicago Water Tower, one of the few surviving buildings after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. |
In
1871, most of the city burned in the Great Chicago Fire. The damage
from the fire was immense; 300 people died, 18,000 buildings were
destroyed and nearly 100,000 of the city's 300,000 residents were left
homeless. One of the factors contributing to the fire's spread was the
abundance of wood; the streets, sidewalks and many buildings were built
of wood. The fire led to the incorporation of stringent fire-safety
codes that included a strong preference for masonry construction.
The
soft, swampy ground near the lake proved unstable ground for tall
masonry buildings. While this was an early constraint, builders
developed the innovative use of steel framing for support and invented
the skyscraper in Chicago. The city became a leader in modern
architecture and set the model nationwide for achieving vertical city
densities.
Politics
and infighting stalled such plans, and developers and citizens began
immediate reconstruction on the existing Jeffersonian grid. The building
boom that followed saved the city's status as the transportation and
trade hub of the Midwest. Massive reconstruction using the newest
materials and methods catapulted Chicago into its status as a city on
par with New York. It was the birthplace of modern architecture in the
United States.
Newspapers
Late-19th-century
big city newspapers such as the Chicago Daily News - founded in 1875 by
Melville Stone - ushered in an era of news reporting that was, unlike
earlier periods, in tune with the particulars of community life in
specific cities. Vigorous competition between older and newer-style city
papers soon broke out, centered on civic activism and sensationalist
reporting of urban political issues and the numerous problems associated
with rapid urban growth. In Chicago competition was especially fierce
between the Chicago Times (Democratic), the Chicago Tribune,
(Republican) and the Daily News (independent), with the latter becoming
the city's most popular paper by the 1880s.
Haymarket Riot
Haymarket affair
The
deeply polarized attitudes of labor and business classes in Chicago
prompted a strike by workers lobbying for an eight-hour work day. A
peaceful demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket near the west side
was interrupted by a bomb thrown at police; seven police officers were
killed. A group of anarchists were tried for inciting the riot and
convicted; several were hanged and others were pardoned. The episode was
a watershed moment in the labor movement and its yearly celebration
would later morph into May Day.
Late 19th century growth
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| A bird's-eye view of Chicago in 1898. It became the second American city to reach a population of 1.6 million |
Between
1870 and 1900 Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7
million, the fastest-growing city ever at the time. Chicago's
flourishing economy brought huge numbers of new residents from Europe;
relatively few new arrivals came from Chicago's rural hinterland. The
growth in Chicago's manufacturing and retail sectors came to dominate
the Midwest and greatly influence the nation's economy. The Chicago
Union Stock Yards dominated the packing trade. Chicago became the
world's largest rail hub, and one of its busiest ports.
Migration and ethnicity
Although
originally settled by Yankees in the 1830s, the railroads, stockyards
and other heavy industry of the late 19th century attracted a variety of
skilled workers from Europe, especially Germans, English, Swedes and
Dutch, as well as Irish Catholics. From 1890-1914 migrations swelled,
attracting especially unskilled workers from Eastern and Southern
Europe, including Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Greeks,
Italians and Jews. World War I cut off immigrations from Europe, and
restrictions in the 1920s slowed the European influx to a trickle, apart
from refugees after World War II. During both world wars poor Americans
arrived from the South—whites from Appalachia and blacks from the
cotton fields due south. The near south side was the first Black area,
and it continued to expand, as did the black neighborhoods on the near
west side. These were segregated areas (few blacks were tolerated in
white neighborhoods), and after 1950 public housing high rises anchored
poor black neighborhoods south and west of the Loop.
Old stock in the suburbs
Old
stock Americans who relocated to Chicago after 1900 preferred the
outlying areas and suburbs, making Oak Park and Evanston enclaves of the
upper middle class. The lakefront north of the Loop saw construction of
high-rise luxury apartments starting in the 1910s, and continuing into
the 21st century. The high-rises had wealthy residents but few children,
since the city had an abysmal public school system, a large parochial
system of middling quality for the Catholics, and few upscale private
schools. The northern and western suburbs boasted some of the best
public schools in the nation. The suburban trend accelerated after 1945,
with middle class Chicagoans headed to the outlying areas of the city,
and then pouring into the Cook County and Dupage County suburbs. Jews
and Irish in particular rose sharply in status, leaving slums and
heading north. Well educated migrants from around the country moved to
the far suburbs. Beginning in the 1940s waves of Hispanic immigrants
began to arrive, with the largest numbers from Mexico and Puerto Rico,
as well as Cuba and (by the 1980s), other Hispanic lands. After 1965
large numbers of Asian immigrants came, the largest proportion were well
educated Indians and Chinese. By the 1970s gentrification began,
turning old inner city slums into upscale neighborhoods, which proved
attractive to singles and gays.
Polonia
Chicago's
Polonia sustained diverse political cultures, each with its own
newspaper. In 1920 the community had a choice of five daily papers -
from the Socialist Dziennik Ludowy [People's daily] (1907–25) to the
Polish Roman Catholic Union's Dziennik Zjednoczenia [Union daily]
(1921–39) - all of which supported workers' struggles for better working
conditions and were part of a broader program of cultural and
educational activities. The decision to subscribe to a particular paper
reaffirmed a particular ideology or institutional network based on
ethnicity and class, which lent itself to different alliances and
different strategies.
Blacks
Waves
of immigrants came from eastern Europe, especially in the 1880-1914
era. When the war cut off international movements, tens of thousands of
African Americans came north in the Great Migration. With new
populations competing for limited housing and jobs, especially on the
South Side, social tensions rose in the city. Postwar years were more
difficult. Black veterans looked for more respect for having served
their nation, and some whites resented it. In 1919 was the Chicago Race
Riot, in a summer when other major cities also suffered mass racial
violence. Much of the violence was led by members of Irish athletic
clubs, who had much political power in the city and defended their
"territory" against African Americans. As was typical in these
occurrences, more blacks than whites died in the violence.
Home ownership
Concentrating
the family resources to achieve home ownership was a common strategy in
the ethnic neighborhoods. It meant sacrificing current consumption, and
pulling children out of school as soon as they could earn a wage. By
1900, working-class ethnic immigrants owned homes at higher rates than
native-born people. After borrowing from friends and building
associations, immigrants kept boarders, grew market gardens, and even
opened home-based commercial laundries, eroding home-work distinctions,
while sending out women and children to work to repay loans. They sought
not middle class upward mobility but the security of home ownership.
Many social workers wanted them to pursue upward job mobility (which
required more education), but realtors asserted that houses were better
than a bank for a poor man. With hindsight, and considering uninsured
banks' precariousness, this appears to have been true. Chicago's workers
made immense sacrifices for home ownership, contributing to Chicago's
sprawling suburban geography and to modern myths about the American
dream. The Jewish community, by contrast, rented apartments and
maximized education and upward mobility for the next generation.
World's Columbian Exposition
The
constant lobbying by the city's boasting lobbyists and politicians
earned Chicago the nickname "Windy City" in the New York press, although
this etymology may be erroneous. The city adopted the nickname as its
own.
The
World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was constructed on former
marshland at the present location of Jackson Park along Lake Michigan in
Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The land was reclaimed according to a
design by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and the pavilions,
which followed a classical theme, were designed by committee of the
city's architects under the direction of Daniel Burnham.
The
Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered among the most
influential world's fairs in history, with a wide ranging impact in
art, architecture and design. The fair also featured the first, and
until recently, largest Ferris wheel ever built.
Twentieth century
Environment and planning
Lake
Michigan — the primary source of fresh water for the city — was already
highly polluted from the rapidly growing industries in and around
Chicago; a new way of procuring clean water was needed. The Chicago
Sanitary and Ship Canal was first proposed in 1885 by civil engineer
Lyman Edgar Cooley, who envisioned a deep waterway that would dilute and
divert the city's sewage by funneling water from Lake Michigan into a
canal, which would drain into the Mississippi River via the Illinois
River. Beyond presenting a solution for Chicago's sewage problem,
Cooley's proposal appealed to the economic need to link the Midwest with
America's central waterways to compete with East Coast shipping and
railroad industries. Strong regional support for the project led the
Illinois legislature to circumvent the federal government and complete
the canal with state funding. The opening in January 1900 met with
controversy and a lawsuit against Chicago's appropriation of water from
Lake Michigan. By the 1920s the lawsuit was divided between the states
of the Mississippi River Valley, who supported the development of deep
waterways linking the Great Lakes with the Mississippi, and the Great
Lakes states, which feared sinking water levels might harm shipping in
the lakes. In 1929 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in support of Chicago's
use of the canal to promote commerce, but ordered the city to
discontinue its use for sewage disposal.
Parks
Danish
immigrant Jens Jensen arrived in 1886 and soon became a highly
successful and celebrated landscape designer. Jensen's work was
characterized by a democratic approach to landscaping, informed by his
interest in social justice and conservationism and his rejection of
antidemocratic formalism. Among Jensen's creations were four Chicago
city parks, most famously Columbus Park. His work also included garden
design for some of the region's most influential millionaires.
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| Union Station in 1943 |
Advertising
Chicago,
along with New York, was the center of the nation's advertising
industry. Albert Lasker, known as the "father of modern advertising"
made Chicago his base 1898-1942. As head of the Lord and Thomas agency,
Lasker devised a copywriting technique that appealed directly to the
psychology of the consumer. Women seldom smoked cigarettes; he told them
if they smoked Lucky Strikes they could stay slender. Lasker's use of
radio, particularly with his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent
toothpaste, Kotex products, and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only
revolutionized the advertising industry but also significantly changed
popular culture.
Crime
By
1900, Progressive Era political and legal reformers initiated
far-ranging changes in the American criminal justice system, with
Chicago taking the lead.
Homicide
The
city became notorious worldwide for its murders, yet the courts failed
to convict the killers, more than three-fourths of whom went unpunished.
Even when the identity of killers was certain and the police made
arrests, jurors typically exonerated or acquitted them. A blend of
gender-, race-, and class-based notions of justice trumped the rule of
law, producing low homicide conviction rates during a period of soaring
violence.
During
the late 19th century and early 20th century, rates of domestic murder
tripled in Chicago. Domestic homicide was often a manifestation of
strains in gender relations induced by urban and industrial change. At
the core of such family murders were male attempts to preserve masculine
authority. Yet, there were nuances in the motives for the murder of
family members, and study of the patterns of domestic homicide among
ethnic groups reveals basic cultural differences. German immigrants
tended to murder over declining status and the failure to achieve
economic prosperity. In addition, they were likely to kill all members
of the family, and then commit suicide in the ultimate attempt at
maintaining control. Italian men killed family members to save a
gender-based ideal of respectability that entailed patriarchal control
over women and family reputation. African Americans, like the Germans,
often murdered in response to economic conditions but not over
desperation about the future. Like the Italians, the killers tended to
be young, but family honor was not usually at stake. Instead, black men
murdered to regain control of wives and lovers who resisted their
patriarchal "rights".
Chicago Crime Commission
Progressive
reformers in the business community created the Chicago Crime
Commission (CCC) in 1919 after an investigation into the robbery at a
factory showed the city's criminal justice system was deficient. The CCC
initially served as a watchdog of the justice system. However, after a
suggestion that the justice system begin collecting criminal records was
rejected, the CCC assumed a more active role in fighting crime. The
commission's role expanded even further after Frank J. Loesch became
president in 1928. Loesch recognized the need to eliminate the glamour
that Chicago's media typically attributed to criminals. Determined to
expose the horrors and violence of the crime world, Loesch drafted a
list of public enemies and turned Al Capone into a scapegoat for
society's evils.
The
1920s brought international notoriety to Chicago as bootleggers formed
powerful gangs and fought each other, and the law, to bring liquor to
speakeasies. The most notorious was Al Capone.
Unions
After
1900 Chicago was a heavily unionized city, apart from the factories
(which were non-union until the 1930s). The IWW was founded in Chicago
in June 1905 at a convention of two hundred socialists, anarchists, and
radical trade unionists from all over the United States. The Railroad
brotherhoods were strong, as were the crafts unions affiliated with the
American Federation of Labor. The AFL unions operated through the
Chicago Federation of Labor to minimize jurisdictional conflicts, which
caused many strikes as two unions battled to control a work site. The
unionized teamsters in Chicago enjoyed an unusually strong bargaining
position when they contended with employers around the city, or
supported another union in a specific strike. Their wagons could easily
be positioned to disrupt streetcars and block traffic. In addition,
their families and neighborhood supporters often surrounded the wagons
of nonunion teamsters and made strikebreaking a very unpleasant
endeavor. When the teamsters used their clout to engage in sympathy
strikes, employers decided to coordinate their antiunion efforts,
claiming that the teamsters held tyrannical power over commerce in their
control of the streets. The teamsters' strike in 1905 represented a
clash both over labor issues and the public nature of the streets. To
the employers, the streets were arteries for commerce, while to the
teamsters, they remained public spaces integral to their neighborhoods.
Skyscrapers
New
construction boomed in the 1920s, was suspended for years, then resumed
in the 1960s, with notable landmarks such as the Merchandise Mart and
art deco Chicago Board of Trade Building completed in 1930.
The
Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower, at 1451 feet became the
world's tallest building in 1974. It was designed by the famous Chicago
firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which designed many of the city's
famous buildings.
Century of Progress
The
Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of the
World's Fair held on the Near South Side lakefront from 1933 to 1934 to
celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological
innovation over the century since Chicago's founding. More than 40
million people visited the fair, which symbolized for many hope for
Chicago and the nation, then in the midst of the Great Depression.
Physics
On
December 2, 1942, the world's first controlled nuclear reaction was
conducted at the University of Chicago as part of the top secret
Manhattan Project.
Steel
In 1945, US Steel was Chicago's largest single employer, with 18,000 workers at the company's South Works in the.
White flight
Starting
in the 1950s, many upper- and middle-class citizens left the inner-city
of Chicago for the suburbs, and the city itself shrank by nearly
700,000, leaving many impoverished neighborhoods in their wake. The City
Council devised "Plan 21" to improve neighborhoods and focused on
creating "Suburbs within the city" near downtown and the lakefront. As a
result many poor were uprooted from newly created enclaves of Black,
Latino and poor in neighborhoods like Near North, Wicker Park, Lakeview,
Uptown, Cabrini–Green, West Town and Lincoln Park. Since the early
1990s, Chicago has seen a turnaround from the decline common to American
cities following World War II. Many formerly abandoned neighborhoods
are starting to show new life and the city's diversity has grown with
larger percentages of ethnic groups such as Asians, Mexicans and Puerto
Ricans. In the 1990s alone, Chicago gained 113,000 new inhabitants.
Since the 1920s the lakefront has been crowded with high rise apartment
buildings for middle classes who work in the city (few of them have
children, however). (The lakefront is warmer in winter and cooler in
summer.) Many decaying inner-city neighborhoods on the North and West
sides have been gentrified by young couples.
Daley machine
Mayor
Richard J. Daley served 1955-76, dominating the city's machine politics
by his control of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, which
selected party nominees, who were usually elected in the Democratic
stronghold. The violence-filled 1968 Democratic National Convention was
held in Chicago. Daley took credit for building four major expressways
focused on the Loop, and city-owned O'Hare Airport (which became the
world's busiest airport, displacing Midway Airport's prior claims).
Several neighborhoods near downtown and the lakefront were gentrified
and transformed into "suburbs within the city." In the Lincoln Park,
Lakeview, Wicker Park and Humboldt Park communities, the Young Lords
marched and held sit ins to protest the displacement of Latinos and the
poor. Major riots burned out sections of the black neighborhoods of the
South and West side, especially in 1968.
Recent mayors
In
1979 Jane Byrne, the city's first woman mayor, was elected, winning the
Democratic primary due to a city-wide outrage about the ineffective
snow removal across the city.
In
1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago.
Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, became mayor in 1989, and has
been repeatedly reelected.
One
new development under the younger Daley has sparked debate, the
destruction of the city's vast public housing projects. New projects
during Daley's administration have been making world headlines and have
made Chicago larger, environmentally friendlier, and more accessible.
With a new skyline to form in 2009, the city is growing faster with a
denser atmosphere and a more breathable one as well. The park district,
which is committed to the biodiversity recovery plan, is set to restore
damaged natural areas of the city as well as creating new ones,
including the creation of rooftop gardens on most flattop skyscrapers.
Chicago
earned the title of "City of the Year" in 2008 from GQ for
contributions in architecture and literature, its world of politics, and
the downtown's starring role in the Batman movie The Dark Knight. The
city was also rated as having the most balanced economy in the United
States due to its high level of diversification.
Public schools
Benjamin
C. Willis served as superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools
(1953–1966), presiding over a steady decline of both the quality of the
education and quantity of resources available. Willis believed
educational leadership was the province of professional educators, and
resisted community activists and politicians who wanted special favors.
His outlook isolated his administration and undermined his influence. In
the 1970s, efforts to desegregate schools through busing led to an
exodus of whites from the city.
Mayor
Washington maintained a distinctive strategy toward reform of public
schools. Rather than focus on integration (bringing whites and
minorities into the same schools), Washington favored measures to
strengthen local schools, especially in minority neighborhoods. He
called for more state support to urban schools in place of property
taxes and more power to local groups to influence curriculum and the
quality of teaching. In 1987 the teacher strike transformed educational
problems into a crisis. Washington created the Parent Community Council
from local groups and arranged for a summit with their representatives
and those of business, school administration, and teachers. His death in
1987 unraveled the deliberations for change that had been taking place.
The schools were so beset by violence, teacher shortages and inadequate
financing that few disagreed with the brutal verdict of U.S. Secretary
of Education William Bennett in 1987, "Chicago's public schools are the
worst in the nation."
In
the late 1990s, the realization that busing had become unrealistic
caused Chicago's political leaders and community activists to join
together in focusing attention and resources on improving neighborhood
schools. Mayor Richard M. Daley seized control of the school system in
1995 and promised drastic reforms. However, the legislature largely left
in place elected councils made up of parents and community members at
each of the district's nearly 600 schools. At struggling schools on
probation, Daley has stripped councils of power, but at others the
councils hire principals and oversee a significant portion of each
school's budget. Paul Vallas, a blunt-talking, bottom-line-driven
manager led the system from 1995 to 2001. Vallas presided over a $3
billion construction effort that built 71 schools and renovated 500. He
cut 2,000 nonteaching positions and stabilized the district's finances.
Given broad executive authority, Vallas ended automatic promotion from
grade to grade and greatly expanded summer school, policies that have
been copied across the country. Math and reading scores improved, with
about 40% of students at grade level in 2001, up from 30% in 1995. In
2001 Daley appointed Arne Duncan, age 36, to preside over a school
system with 435,000 students, 45,900 employees and a $3.5-billion annual
budget. Duncan worked to rejuvenate the schools: reducing staff,
consulting with turnaround specialists, shutting down the worst schools.
He called for a back-to-basics curriculum, set up dozens of charter
schools and experimented with performance pay. Test scores and
graduation rates rose on his watch, and the system's reputation
recovered. Critics admitted the efforts were great but said the results
were slim. In 2009 Duncan moved on to become the Secretary of Education
in President Obama's cabinet.
Reputation
Journalists,
novelists, architects, engineers, business tycoons, scientists, poets,
sports teams, criminals, and millions of laborers shaped Chicago's
national and international reputation. Images and representations are
important means by which the city is known and negotiated. During the
years of rapid urbanization 1890-1930 the numerous daily newspapers
presented the most important and pervasive word versions of the city.
Among the significant innovations of Chicago's newspapers in these years
that shaped the idea of the city was the emergence of the local color
columnist. Groeninger (2005) examines the role of columnists in Chicago
newspapers in creating a "city of the mind." After a review of the
literature on images of cities, the relationship of newspapers to modern
city life in the thought of Robert Park, and the world of Chicago's
newspapers at the turn-of-the-20th-century, detailed studies of a number
of the most important columnists of the era follow. George Ade's column
of the 1890s in the Daily News, "Stories of the Streets and of the
Town," presented a view of Chicago from the perspective of migrants from
the small towns of the Midwest. In the same decade Finley Peter Dunne's
column in the Evening Post, featuring the fictional Irish barkeeper,
Mr. Dooley, offered readers a literary version of the Irish
working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport. Ring Lardner's Tribune sports
column of the teens, "In the Wake of the News," satirized not only
Chicagoans obsession with sports, but also the middle-class culture of
opera, musical theater, and the newspaper itself. Several columns in the
black newspaper, The Whip, offered images of Bronzeville in the 1920s
that both reflected and helped shape the experience of African-Americans
on the South Side of Chicago. Ben Hecht's "1001 Afternoons in Chicago"
column in the Daily News expressed a new, anti-Victorian sensibility in
the post-war era, but his most enduring contributions to the image of
Chicago were on the stage and in the new medium of film. The columnists
who wrote about everyday life in the city were the most distinctive and
powerful newspaper voices in shaping the idea of Chicago and the civic
personality of the city itself.
Disasters
On
December 7, 1903 the "absolutely fireproof," five-week-old Iroquois
Theater was engulfed by fire in Chicago. The fire lasted less than
thirty minutes; however, 602 people died as a result of being burned,
asphyxiated, or trampled.
The
S.S. Eastland was a cruise ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On
24 July 1915—a perfectly calm, sunny day—the ship was taking on
passengers when it suddenly rolled over while tied to a dock in the
Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed. The
Eastland was top heavy with rescue gear that had been ordered by
Congress in the wake of the Titanic disaster.
On
December 1, 1958, the Our Lady of the Angels School Fire occurred at
the Our Lady of the Angels School in the Humboldt Park area of Chicago.
The fire killed 92 students and three nuns and led to fire safety
improvements for public and private schools in the United States.
A major environmental disaster came in July 1995, with 739 heat-related deaths after one week of record high heat and humidity.
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