Cultural life
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The cultural life of any major city involves two sharply different activities. The first is the creative act of composing, writing, or producing an artistic work. The second consists of collecting, displaying, and performing the various artistic creations. Chicago has long been a leader in both categories.
The arts
From the 1890s through the 1920s, Chicago was a magnet for artistically ambitious and talented but often little-known writers, many of whom had fled the Midwest’s dusty country towns. Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, George Ade, and Opie Read produced a gritty form of urban literature rooted in the everyday lives of ordinary people, as did Chicago-born Henry Blake Fuller, Finley Peter Dunne, and I.K. Friedman. Their works, which often debuted in newspapers, expressed a sense of awe at the skyscrapers, factories, varied people, and hectic pace of urban life. Novelist Hamlin Garland, meanwhile, emphasized negative aspects of farm and small-town life in his works. Most of the first generation of writers had left by 1910, but the city attracted iconoclastic poets. Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee Masters helped Harriet Monroe launch the influential Poetry magazine.
The Great Depression of the 1930s reoriented another generation of writers away from awestruck downtown views. Such literary giants as James T. Farrell, Saul Bellow, and Nelson Algren set their stories of life’s struggles in their own ethnic working-class neighborhoods. The emergence of Richard Wright heralded the arrival of African Americans to the literary scene, which included young postwar talents such as novelist Willard Motley, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and playwright Lorraine Hansberry. These same ethnic, racial, and social class themes continued to dominate 20th-century Chicago literature in the works of Harry Mark Petrakis, Stuart Dybek, Cyrus Coulter, William Brashler, Leon Forrest, Sandra Cisneros, and Ana Castillo. Meanwhile, other Chicago writers have drawn upon the gritty personality of the Windy City as a backdrop. Sara Paretsky and Scott Turow helped to create a new Chicago mystery genre. Studs Terkel elevated the oral history of ordinary people to an art form, much as Mike Royko, who revived the newspaper column as urban literature, used common sense to deflate pompous politicians.
Theater in Chicago is also balanced between the lavish downtown venues and a tradition of low-budget experimentation among outlying groups that number more than 200. In the early 1970s, several small acting companies created storefront theaters in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the North Side. These include the Steppenwolf and Body Politic theaters, as well as the Organic Theatre, which was one of the first to showcase the plays of David Mamet. These off-Loop (often non-Equity) groups gained national acclaim for their productions and performers (many of whom later became famous in film and on television). Soon, actors who came out of the Chicago theater scene carried a certain cachet. The famed Second City, which for decades has been performing improvisational comedy in the Old Town neighborhood, spawned spin-off groups and inspired similar companies elsewhere. Meanwhile, dance has become increasingly important in Chicago, with the Hubbard Street Dance Company offering contemporary performances, the River North Chicago Dance Company producing hip-hop, house, and jazz dancing, Chicago Moving Company with modern dance, and the Muntu Dance Theater showcasing traditional and contemporary African American forms.
On any given day virtually all genres of music are performed somewhere in Chicago. There are specialized classical ensembles such as the Newberry Consort for Renaissance music, Music of the Baroque, and the Chicago Opera Theatre, which performs 20th-century and Baroque operas. The Old Town School of Folk Music (1957), on the far North Side, is the world’s largest permanent center for the study of both traditional and contemporary folk music. The many African Americans who moved to Chicago in the 20th century have had a dynamic impact on music. As the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, and other greats, the city has long been internationally known as a center for the blues, which can be heard in clubs throughout the city. Chicago has also played a critical role in the development of American jazz, through the work of such pioneers as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Jelly Roll Morton and, later, such innovative groups as the Jazz Ensemble of Chicago. Gospel music traces its roots to the city in the late 1920s, when Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the musician son of a Baptist preacher, combined blues with church music.
During the summer Chicagoans can hear music at two long-established outdoor music venues. Ravinia Festival (1903), in north suburban Highland Park, is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; it also features performances of popular music. The lakefront Grant Park area east of downtown has been the home of free classical concerts since 1935. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion, a striking outdoor performance space designed by Frank Gehry, opened at the north end of Grant Park in 2004. Grant Park is also the site of a lively series of city-sponsored festivals of blues, jazz, gospel, Latin American, and other specialized music as well as the Taste of Chicago, one of the largest outdoor food festivals in the country. Beginning in 2005, the city became the permanent home to the Lollapalooza festival.
Scores of world-class buildings are located in Chicago, noted for their architectural brilliance, including the Rookery and Monadnock Building by John Wellborn Root, Willis (Sears) Tower and Trump International Hotel & Tower by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Marina City by Bertrand Goldberg Associates, and Aqua and St. Regis towers by Jeanne Gang.
Cultural institutions
Many of Chicago’s arts groups and institutions may be found in clusters. Michigan Avenue might fairly be called the main cultural thoroughfare of Chicago, because most of the major institutions are located on or near it. South of the Loop and east of Michigan Avenue is the Museum Campus (created in the 1990s by relocating part of Lake Shore Drive), which joins the south end of Grant Park to the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum (1930), the John G. Shedd Aquarium (1930), and the Field Museum of Natural History (1893). Several blocks farther north, the Auditorium Theatre (1889) is the site of touring plays, popular concerts, and visiting orchestras and is the home of the Joffrey Ballet, which moved from New York City to Chicago in 1995. A few more blocks north is Symphony Center (formerly Orchestra Hall), home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its training ensemble, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, as well as a venue for other musical events. Across the street sits the Art Institute of Chicago, a world-class art museum and school dating to 1893 at its present site; it surveys world art and is notable for its large collection of French Impressionist paintings. Just to the north is the old Chicago Public Library (1897) building, since 1991 the Chicago Cultural Center; graced with marble and mosaic interiors and a large Tiffany stained glass dome, it provides a variety of spaces for performances and temporary art exhibits. The Cultural Center is on the edge of a burgeoning downtown theater district, with large venues for touring plays and musicals, more-intimate stages for smaller groups, and the Goodman Theatre, which was founded in the 1920s. East of North Michigan Avenue is the Museum of Contemporary Art (founded 1967), which collects works created after 1945. On the west side of the Loop, the Civic Opera House (1929) on Wacker Drive is the home of Chicago’s Lyric Opera.
Another notable cluster of cultural institutions is found in the Hyde Park community on the South Side near the University of Chicago campus. The Museum of Science and Industry opened in 1933 in the heavily restored Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. It houses a five-story Omnimax theater. The university’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (established 1931; formerly the Oriental Institute) contains a collection of artifacts from archaeological expeditions to the Middle East and East Asia. The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center (established 1961; formerly the DuSable Museum of African American History) is one of the country’s oldest museums devoted to the study of African American life and history. In addition, Robie House (1908–10), owned by the university, is one of the finest examples of Prairie-style architecture.
Chicago’s cultural life is by no means concentrated in a few places. Its voluminous libraries, located around the city, also make it a major research center. After the Great Fire of 1871 destroyed private collections in the city, a gift of books from donors in England was used to create the Chicago Public Library. Philanthropists also established the private Newberry (1887) and John Crerar (1894) libraries, the latter now a part of the University of Chicago. The varied collections of institutions of higher education also help make Chicago one of the country’s leading library centers.
There are other specialized institutions scattered throughout the city, including the Chicago History Museum (established 1856; formerly the Chicago Historical Society), which focuses on local and American history. Ethnic diversity and pride are reflected in the many small museums devoted to the art and history of various national groups. Several gallery districts have also developed north and west of the downtown area to showcase the work of artists who have found relatively inexpensive space in scattered neighborhoods.
Recreation
Tourists and Chicagoans alike are drawn as culture and amusement consumers to the varied and lively leisure life of the city. The slogan “Urbs in Horto” (“City in a Garden”), which has appeared on the official seal of the city since 1837, reflects not only an extensive system of city parks as well as backyard and rooftop gardening but also public institutions dedicated to nature education and recreation. Within the city the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences (1999) is located near the Lincoln Park Zoo (1868), one of the country’s few remaining zoos offering free admission, and the West Side’s Garfield Park contains one of the nation’s largest conservatories (1907). The more-open space of the suburbs is home to other nature retreats, including a second zoological park, the Brookfield Zoo (formally the Chicago Zoological Society). The more than 1,500-acre (600-hectare) Morton Arboretum (1922) in Lisle and the Chicago Botanic Garden (1972) in Glencoe are outstanding open-air museums. Added to these are the belts of county forest preserves.
“Wait till next year!” is the perennial cry of the ever-optimistic Chicago sports fan. The city has produced some championship professional teams over the years—notably the Bulls (men’s basketball) during the 1990s—but, more typically, teams find themselves out of contention at the end of the regular season; the Cubs and White Sox, two of the oldest franchises in Major League Baseball, have made only a handful of World Series appearances between them. Other professional teams include the Bears (football), Blackhawks (hockey), Fire (football [soccer]), and Sky (women’s basketball).
The park district offers many opportunities for nonprofessional athletics of all types, while many local residents find great pleasure as weekend sailors and power boaters on Lake Michigan. In addition, crowds of runners, walkers, and cyclists take advantage of the paths that wind their way through the city’s lakefront parkland. Two newer venues, Navy Pier and Millennium Park, have become the most popular lakefront draws for visitors and residents alike. Navy Pier, extensively renovated in the 1990s, boasts amusements, restaurants, theaters, and docking facilities for boat excursions. Millennium Park, built largely over railroad tracks at the northwestern corner of Grant Park and officially opened in 2004, includes fountains, eye-catching sculptures, gardens, a large outdoor concert facility designed by architect Frank Gehry, a restaurant, and an outdoor ice-skating rink.
Press and broadcasting
Chicago has always been one of the country’s great newspaper towns, but the once-numerous major metropolitan dailies have dwindled to only two: the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. Another daily, the Chicago Defender, is oriented primarily toward the city’s African American community, and Crain’s Chicago Business provides economic and financial news. In addition, there are dozens of daily and weekly non-English-language, neighborhood, and suburban newspapers, including the weekly La Raza, which serves a growing Hispanic population.
Chicago had a central role in the development of both radio and television broadcasting, and it has continued to be a leader in both mediums. The public television station WTTW was one of the country’s pioneers in educational programming. There are scores of radio and television stations in the region.