Download or read book They Built Chicago written by Miles L. Berger and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book We Built This City Chicago written by Tamra B. Orr and published by Fox Chapel Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ·Reading Level: Grades 3-6 ·Includes historical and current pictures of Chicago, chronology of events in Chicago (spanning 1673 to today), suggested reading, glossary. ·Features maps of the land and city. ·Learn the history of the land where Chicago is now located, the World's Fair, the Winnebago Native American tribe, the influx of Germans that created the city, the Great Chicago Fire, the Chicago River and more than 550 parks, and interesting sights to see when visiting the windy city like Wrigley Field, the Willis Tower, and Shedd Aquarium.

Download or read book Constructing Chicago written by Daniel M. Bluestone and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the architectural history of nineteenth century Chicago, looks at Chicago's parks, churches, offices, and civic buildings, and looks at the image of Chicago they created

Download or read book A House for the Struggle written by E. James West and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Multiple Award-Winner! Winner of the 2023 Michael Nelson Prize of International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST) Recipient of the 2022 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award Winner of the 2023 American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Winner of the 2023 ULCC’s (Union League Club of Chicago) Outstanding Book on the History of Chicago Award Recipient of a 2023 Best of Illinois History Superior Achievement award from the Illinois State Historical Society Winner of the 2023 BAAS Book Prize (British Association for American Studies) Honorable Mention for the 2021-22 RSAP Book Prize (Research Society for American Periodicals) Buildings once symbolized Chicago's place as the business capital of Black America and a thriving hub for Black media. In this groundbreaking work, E. James West examines the city's Black press through its relationship with the built environment. As a house for the struggle, the buildings of publications like Ebony and the Chicago Defender embodied narratives of racial uplift and community resistance. As political hubs, gallery spaces, and public squares, they served as key sites in the ongoing Black quest for self-respect, independence, and civic identity. At the same time, factors ranging from discriminatory business practices to editorial and corporate ideology prescribed their location, use, and appearance, positioning Black press buildings as sites of both Black possibility and racial constraint. Engaging and innovative, A House for the Struggle reconsiders the Black press's place at the crossroads where aspiration collided with life in one of America's most segregated cities.

Download or read book The Third Coast written by Thomas L. Dyja and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Chicago Tribune‘s 2013 Heartland Prize A critically acclaimed history of Chicago at mid-century, featuring many of the incredible personalities that shaped American culture Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to-coast journey included a stop in Chicago, and this flow of people and commodities made it the crucible for American culture and innovation. In luminous prose, Chicago native Thomas Dyja re-creates the story of the city in its postwar prime and explains its profound impact on modern America—from Chess Records to Playboy, McDonald’s to the University of Chicago. Populated with an incredible cast of characters, including Mahalia Jackson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, Sun Ra, Simone de Beauvoir, Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn Brooks, Studs Turkel, and Mayor Richard J. Daley, The Third Coast recalls the prominence of the Windy City in all its grandeur.

Download or read book Fabulous Chicago written by Emmett Dedmon and published by Garrett County Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the best-selling history of an American city like no other -- and of the vibrant people who built it. The Yankees who came west to gamble fortunes on the Board of Trade, the Swifts and Amours, Fields and McCormicks, and the new immigrants who worked in their stockyards, stores and railroads -- together and at odds they built Chicago out of the prairie mud, and built it again when the Great Fire destroyed it. This is a story of political turmoil, of corruption, of social striving and reform: the Haymarket Massacre, the Pullman Strike, Jane Adams of Hull House, and the notorious Al Capone. The entrepreneurial giants, the gangsters and mayors of legend, the poets, like Sandburg and MacLeish, and architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright -- all belong to Chicago, and populate this incredible book. From the Everleigh Club brothel to the patriotic song of George F. Root, Fabulous Chicago is a history that is alive with the unbelievable spirit of one of the world's great cities.

Download or read book Chicago Skyscrapers 1871 1934 written by Thomas Leslie and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-05-15 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed tour, inside and out, of Chicago's distinctive towers from an earlier age For more than a century, Chicago's skyline has included some of the world's most distinctive and inspiring buildings. This history of the Windy City's skyscrapers begins in the key period of reconstruction after the Great Fire of 1871 and concludes in 1934 with the onset of the Great Depression, which brought architectural progress to a standstill. During this time, such iconic landmarks as the Chicago Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building, the Marshall Field and Company Building, the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Palmolive Building, the Masonic Temple, the City Opera, Merchandise Mart, and many others rose to impressive new heights, thanks to innovations in building methods and materials. Solid, earthbound edifices of iron, brick, and stone made way for towers of steel and plate glass, imparting a striking new look to Chicago's growing urban landscape. Thomas Leslie reveals the daily struggles, technical breakthroughs, and negotiations that produced these magnificent buildings. He also considers how the city's infamous political climate contributed to its architecture, as building and zoning codes were often disputed by shifting networks of rivals, labor unions, professional organizations, and municipal bodies. Featuring more than a hundred photographs and illustrations of the city's physically impressive and beautifully diverse architecture, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871–1934 highlights an exceptionally dynamic, energetic period of architectural progress in Chicago.

Download or read book The Welsh Who Built Chicago written by Dilys Rana and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Welsh settlers who made their way to the shores of Lake Michigan in America's heartland became key contributors to the growth and development of what was to become the country's second largest city: Chicago. From 1883 on - when there was little more than an Indian trading center on that spot and a population of only 350 - Chicago grew more rapidly than any other urban center on the planet. By 1893, a mere sixty years later, it had evolved into a vibrant, modern metropolis with over one million citizens.A strong and identifiable Welsh community developed within the city as a number of Welsh churches, active benevolent and cultural Welsh societies, and a plethora of Welsh events brought citizens of Wales together in unity and fellowship. Their crowning achievement was the grand spectacle of the largest Eisteddfod (traditional cultural and music festival) to be held outside Wales during the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The Cambrian Benevolent Society of Chicago alone - founded by and for Welsh citizens of the city in 1853 - boasted a membership of 2,000 at that time.The contributions of the Welsh to the city's growth have been largely overlooked, due maybe to their comparatively small numbers. But they were undoubtedly here, weaving unquestionably vital threads within the fabric of the young city. A selection of stories of their life journeys from the old country to the heart of a new America are revealed within the pages of The Welsh Who Built Chicago

Download or read book Human Built World written by Thomas P. Hughes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-05-13 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To most people, technology has been reduced to computers, consumer goods, and military weapons; we speak of "technological progress" in terms of RAM and CD-ROMs and the flatness of our television screens. In Human-Built World, thankfully, Thomas Hughes restores to technology the conceptual richness and depth it deserves by chronicling the ideas about technology expressed by influential Western thinkers who not only understood its multifaceted character but who also explored its creative potential. Hughes draws on an enormous range of literature, art, and architecture to explore what technology has brought to society and culture, and to explain how we might begin to develop an "ecotechnology" that works with, not against, ecological systems. From the "Creator" model of development of the sixteenth century to the "big science" of the 1940s and 1950s to the architecture of Frank Gehry, Hughes nimbly charts the myriad ways that technology has been woven into the social and cultural fabric of different eras and the promises and problems it has offered. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, optimistically hoped that technology could be combined with nature to create an Edenic environment; Lewis Mumford, two centuries later, warned of the increasing mechanization of American life. Such divergent views, Hughes shows, have existed side by side, demonstrating the fundamental idea that "in its variety, technology is full of contradictions, laden with human folly, saved by occasional benign deeds, and rich with unintended consequences." In Human-Built World, he offers the highly engaging history of these contradictions, follies, and consequences, a history that resurrects technology, rightfully, as more than gadgetry; it is in fact no less than an embodiment of human values.

Download or read book Chicago 1890 written by Joanna Merwood-Salisbury and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chicago's first skyscrapers are famous for projecting the city's modernity around the world. But what did they mean at home, to the Chicagoans who designed and built them, worked inside their walls, and gazed up at their façades? Answering this multifaceted question, Chicago 1890 reveals that early skyscrapers offered hotly debated solutions to the city's toughest problems and, in the process, fostered an urban culture that spread across the country. An ambitious reinterpretation of the works of Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, and John Wellborn Root, this volume uses their towering achievements as a lens through which to view late nineteenth-century urban history. Joanna Merwood-Salisbury sheds new light on many of Chicago's defining events--including violent building trade strikes, the Haymarket bombing, the World's Columbian Exposition, and Burnham's Plan of Chicago--by situating the Masonic Temple, the Monadnock Building, and the Reliance Building at the center of the city's cultural and political crosscurrents. While architects and property owners saw these pioneering structures as manifestations of a robust American identity, immigrant laborers and social reformers viewed them as symbols of capitalism's inequity. Illuminated by rich material from the period's popular press and professional journals, Merwood-Salisbury's chronicle of this contentious history reveals that the skyscraper's vaunted status was never as inevitable as today's skylines suggest.

Download or read book At Home in the Loop written by Lois Wille and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 1998-10 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lois Wille's illustrated account provides behind-the-scenes insight into how a small number of Chicago business leaders transformed the dangerous and seedy South Loop into an integrated and thriving community in the heart of the central city. The obstacles to the evolution of Dearborn Park were quite formidable, including a succession of six mayors, huge economic impediments, policy disputes engendered among people used to making their own corporate decisions, the wretched reputation of the South Loop, problems with the Chicago public school system, and public mistrust of a project supported by the wealthy, no matter how altruistic the goal. It took twenty years and millions of dollars, but it will pay off and in fact is paying off right now. With Dearborn Park, Chicago left a formula that other cities can use to turn fallow land into vibrant neighborhoods--without big government subsidies. As Wille explains, the realization of this vision requires shared investment and shared risk on the part of local businesses, financial institutions, and government. It links private and public influence and capital. Wille explains how these elements worked together to build a neighborhood in a blighted tract of Chicago's Loop. She also describes how key decisions affecting the public interest were made during a time of profound change in the city's political life: Dearborn Park was conceived during the final years of the most powerful political machine in America and had to adapt as that machine crumbled and city government was reshaped

Download or read book The Man Made City written by Gerald D. Suttles and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1990-03-21 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its extraordinary uniform street grid, its magnificent lake-side park, and innovative architecture and public sculpture, Chicago is one of the most planned cities of the modern era. Yet over the past few decades Chicago has come to epitomize some of the worst evils of urban decay: widespread graft and corruption, political stalemates, troubled race relations, and economic decline. Broad-shouldered boosterism can no longer disguise the city's failure to keep pace with others, its failure to attract new "sunrise" industries and world-class events. For Chicago, as for other rust-belt cities, new ways of planning and managing the urban environment are now much more than civic beautification; they are the means to survival. Gerald D. Suttles here offers an irreverent, highly critical guide to both the realities and myths of land-use planning and development in Chicago from 1976 through 1987.

Download or read book Living Landmarks of Chicago written by Theresa L. Goodrich and published by The Local Tourist. This book was released on 2021-04-21 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the man shipped home in a rum barrel to the most dangerous woman in America, Chicago history comes to life in these tantalizing tales. Living Landmarks of Chicago goes beyond the what, when, and where to tell the how and why of fifty Chicago landmarks. More than a book about architecture, these are stories of the people who made Chicago and many of its most popular tourist attractions what they are today. Each chapter is a vignette that introduces the landmark and brings it to life, and the book is organized chronologically to illustrate the development of the city's distinct personality. These fifty landmarks weave an interconnected tale of Chicago between 1836 and 1932 (and beyond). History lines Chicago’s sidewalks. Stroll down LaSalle or Dearborn or State and you’ll see skyscrapers that have been there for a century or more. It’s easy to scurry by, to dismiss the building itself, but a hunt for placards turns up landmarks every few feet, it seems. Here’s a Chicago landmark; there’s a National Historic landmark. They’re everywhere. Ironically, these skyscrapers keep the city grounded; they illustrate a past where visionaries took fanciful, impossible ideas and made them reality. Buildings sinking? Raise them. River polluting the lake and its precious drinking water? Reverse it. Overpopulation and urban sprawl making it challenging to get to work? Build up. From the bare to the ornate, from exposed beams to ornamented facades, the city’s architecture is unrestrainedly various yet provides a cohesive, beautiful skyline that illustrates the creativity of necessity, and the necessity of creativity. After a sound-bite history of the city’s origins, you’ll meet the oldest house in Chicago—or is it? Kinda. Sorta. Depends on who you ask. That’s Chicago. Nothing’s simple, and nothing can be taken for granted. The reason the city has a gorgeous skyline and a vibrant culture and a notorious reputation for graft is because of those who built it, envisioned it, manipulated it. Add Living Landmarks of Chicago to your cart and see what made Chicago so very...Chicago.

Download or read book Chicago s Mansions written by John Graf and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2004-12-01 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chicago is known throughout the world for its architecture. Although many people are familiar with the citys skyscrapers and public buildings, they often overlook or are unaware of Chicagos mansions that are located throughout the city. These mansions represent Chicagos past and its future, and it can even be said that they are the very embodiment of Chicago and its architecture. These fashionable residences were built to make a statement, and what better way to have done this than to employ the leading architects of the time to design them. These architects included men such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Hobson Richardson, Daniel Burnham, and John Wellborn Root. While the citys mansions are significant because of who built them, they are just as important because of who lived in them. Many of these mansions were built for Chicagos elite businessmen and captains of industry-men who represented old money, new money and big money. Just as important were the families of these men and the other residents who came to live in these mansions-for they left a legacy of their own that contributed to the citys history.

Download or read book The Rise Fall and Rebirth of Chicago the History and Legacy of America s Third Largest City written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Though it started as a 300 person settlement in 1832, Chicago's location near the Great Lakes and its access to the Mississippi River turned it into a major trading city overnight. The city became even more important when railroads were constructed to connect the country, making it the first major city in the "West" during the mid-19th century. By 1871, the original 300 person settlement was now home to about 300,000 people, and Chicago had become the first major city built by Americans rather than European colonial powers Thus, it had taken less than 40 years for the new settlement of 300 to become a city of nearly 300,000, but it only took two days in 1871 for much of it to be destroyed. On the night of October 8, 1871, a blaze in the southwestern section of Chicago began to burn out of control. The popular legend is that a cow in Mrs. Catherine O'Leary's barn had kicked over a lantern and started a fire. The story blaming the cow was a colorful fabrication, but the fire itself was very real, lasting almost two whole days and devouring several square miles of the city. The fire was so powerful that firefighters could not put it out, due to dry conditions, stiff winds, and the fact the city was mostly made of wood. Walking around Chicago today, it's easy to forget about its past as a rural frontier. That's due in no small part to the way Chicago responded to the Great Fire of 1871. Immediately after the fire, Chicago encouraged inhabitants and architects to build over the ruins, spurring creative architecture with elaborate designs. Architects descended upon the city for the opportunity to rebuild the area, and over the next few decades they had rebuilt Chicago with the country's most modern architecture and monuments. Chicago recovered well enough within 20 years to win the right to host the World's Fair in 1893, which was commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World. Covering nearly two square miles, the Fair's grounds created a city within a city, and Daniel Burnham was in the middle of it all. With several other noteworthy architects, including Louis Sullivan, Burnham designed the layout of the grounds and the construction of the buildings on the ground. During the late 19th century, "neoclassicism" was in vogue, and American architects designed buildings incorporating ancient Greek and Roman architecture. With its white colored buildings, the Fair stood out from the rest of Chicago, earning it the label "White City." Throughout 1893, it attracted millions of visitors, allowing Chicago to introduce itself to foreign visitors and reintroduce itself as a major American city. As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, it became apparent that Chicago's prominence had ended, and it moved ahead with the rest of the nation, a city among many. The 20th century brought new problems, not just for Chicago but for the entire nation. Labor, crime, and race relations rose to the forefront as major issues faced by cities throughout the nation, and how Chicago handled these issues shaped the city throughout the century, transforming the Windy City permanently.

Download or read book The Making of Chicago written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of Chicago's history and the great fire *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading The area that became Chicago caught the eye of European settlers as far back as the 17th century, when the French explorers Marquette and Jolliet found that waterways in the area connected the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes. The area became an outpost for the fur trade long before it was settled, and Fort Dearborn was built there in 1803. Throughout the 19th century, American settlers pushing across the Western frontier came into contact with diverse American tribes, producing a series of conflicts ranging from the Great Plains to the Southwest, from the Trail of Tears to the Pacific Northwest. Indian leaders like Geronimo became feared and dreaded men in America, and Sitting Bull's victory over George Custer's 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn was one of the nation's most traumatic military endeavors. The British attempt to maintain a barrier between America and Canada by propping up Native American tribes led to a controversial battle in the Illinois Territory at Fort Dearborn, a fort built along the Chicago River, shortly after the War of 1812 broke out. When the war came, the close proximity of British forces compelled American military officers in the area to attempt to evacuate the garrison at Fort Dearborn, but misunderstandings and a lack of time resulted in Potawatomi warriors ambushing the soldiers and several civilians before they could retreat back to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Though it started as a 300 person settlement in 1832, Chicago's location near the Great Lakes and its access to the Mississippi River turned it into a major trading city overnight. The city became even more important when railroads were constructed to connect the country, making it the first major city in the "West" during the mid-19th century. By 1871, the original 300 person settlement was now home to about 300,000 people, and Chicago had become the first major city built by Americans rather than European colonial powers Thus, it had taken less than 40 years for the new settlement of 300 to become a city of nearly 300,000, but it only took two days in 1871 for much of it to be destroyed. On the night of October 8, 1871, a blaze in the southwestern section of Chicago began to burn out of control. Walking around Chicago today, it's easy to forget about its past as a rural frontier. That's due in no small part to the way Chicago responded to the Great Fire of 1871. Immediately after the fire, Chicago encouraged inhabitants and architects to build over the ruins, spurring creative architecture with elaborate designs. Architects descended upon the city for the opportunity to rebuild the area, and over the next few decades they had rebuilt Chicago with the country's most modern architecture and monuments. Chicago recovered well enough within 20 years to win the right to host the World's Fair in 1893, which was commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World. Covering nearly two square miles, the Fair's grounds created a city within a city, and Daniel Burnham was in the middle of it all. With several other noteworthy architects, including Louis Sullivan, Burnham designed the layout of the grounds and the construction of the buildings on the ground. During the late 19th century, "neoclassicism" was in vogue, and American architects designed buildings incorporating ancient Greek and Roman architecture. With its white colored buildings, the Fair stood out from the rest of Chicago, earning it the label "White City." Throughout 1893, it attracted millions of visitors, allowing Chicago to introduce itself to foreign visitors and reintroduce itself as a major American city.

Download or read book The Sears Tower written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-21 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the building's construction and history written by those who worked on it *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "Chicago is a city of skyscrapers. New York is not. New York is a city that's a huge rock that has been carved out to make streets. [Gordon] Bunshaft was always jealous when he came to Chicago because he could stand and see the buildings. In New York, you can't do that. You have to be miles away to see the buildings." - Bruce Graham, architect Walking around Chicago today, it's easy to forget about its past as a rural frontier, and that's due in no small part to the way Chicago responded to the Great Fire of 1871. Immediately after the fire, Chicago encouraged inhabitants and architects to build over the ruins, spurring creative architecture with elaborate designs, and architects descended upon the city for the opportunity to rebuild the area. Over the next few decades, Chicago had been rebuilt with the country's most modern architecture and monuments, and the Windy City's skyscrapers reached over 20 stories by the early 20th century, but it wouldn't take long for the city to turn its early skyscrapers into things of the past. Burnham's 22 story high Masonic Temple Building, once the tallest building in the world, was demolished in favor of buildings that were twice as tall. The early skyscrapers that still stand look like antiques compared to Chicago's current skyline, because during the mid-20th century, architects built dozens of much taller buildings throughout Chicago, often constructing these enormous structures in less than a decade. In 1968, builders finished the John Hancock Center, the first building in Chicago to reach 100 stories, but Chicago's skyline gained its most iconic feature in 1973, the year the completed Sears Tower became the tallest building in the world. Though it's technically named the Willis Tower today, Chicago's landmark is still best known as the Sears Tower, and Sears got a lot of bang for its buck. The Sears Tower only took two years to build at a cost of about $150 million, and it is still the second tallest building in America, a fact Chicagoans sharply debate after the Sears Tower was judged to be shorter than New York City's new Freedom Tower. In 1969, Sears wanted to create a large office space for its employees in the city, and they commissioned the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to design and build the structure. The firm conceived of the now famous design, in which the first 50 stories of the structure were connected by what are essentially nine separate tube shaped buildings. After the 50th story, seven of the nine tubes rise up to the 90th floor. From there, only two tubes rise to the building's 108th floor. This design gives the Sears Tower the appearance of a large building at ground level that gradually tapers off into a thinner rectangle at the top. Naturally, the size and shape of the Sears Tower have made it an inviting target for daredevils who like to climb skyscrapers and other tall structures. In 1981, Dan Goodwin used suction cups to help him climb the building and avoid authorities who tried to stop him. For added effect, Goodwin was wearing a Spider-Man suit. Even more impressively, in 1999 Frenchman Alain Robert climbed the building with his bare hands and climbing shoes. Of course, people looking for a safer way to the top can ride elevators to an observation deck on the 103rd floor, and over a million people choose this option each year. The Sears Tower: The History of Chicago's Most Iconic Landmark chronicles the construction and history of the Windy City's most famous building. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Sears Tower like never before, in no time at all.