Chicago: References & Edit History

Additional Reading

General works

General works about Chicago include Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago, 3 vol. (1937–57, reissued 1957–75); and Donald L. Miller, City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (1996, reissued 2003), both of which cover the city’s history to 1893. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (1991), is essential to an understanding of Chicago’s early development. Rosemary K. Adams (ed.), A Wild Kind of Boldness: The Chicago History Reader (1998), is a general anthology.

City layout

Explorations of Chicago’s built environment can be found in Harold Mayer and Richard Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (1969, reissued 1973); and Daniel Bluestone, Constructing Chicago (1991), which detail the physical city through photographs and text. Homer Hoyt, One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago (1933, reissued 2000), is more general than the title suggests. The classic study of Chicago’s building innovation is Carl Condit, The Chicago School of Architecture (1964, reissued 1973). Two books by John Zukowsky (ed.), Chicago Architecture, 1872–1922: Birth of a Metropolis (1987, reissued 2000), and Chicago Architecture and Design 1923–1993: Reconfiguration of an American Metropolis (1993, reissued 2000), are monumental. The best sources for individual structures are Frank A. Randall, History of the Development of Building Construction in Chicago, 2nd ed. (1999); and Alice Sinkevitch (ed.), AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd ed. (2004). Though a bit dated, Chicago Dept. of Public Works, Chicago Public Works: A History (1973), is still useful.

People

Neighborhood social patterns are the focus of a pair of guidebooks, Dominic Pacyga and Ellen Skerrett, Chicago, City of Neighborhoods: Histories and Tours (1986); and Richard Lindberg, Ethnic Chicago (1993, reissued 1997). The most important histories of ethnicity and race include Melvin G. Holli and Peter d’A. Jones, Ethnic Chicago: A Multi-Cultural Portrait, 4th ed. (1995); Allan Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890–1920 (1967, reissued 1970); and James R. Grossman, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (1989, reissued 1991). Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (1983, reissued 1998), takes the story into the Daley years.

Other works of social history are also neighborhood-based. The lives of the working class are detailed in Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (1990); and in two books by Perry R. Duis, Challenging Chicago: Coping with Everyday Life, 1837–1920 (1998), and The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880–1920 (1983, reissued 1999). By contrast, Frederick Cople Jaher, The Urban Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles (1982); and James Gilbert, Perfect Cities: Chicago’s Utopias of 1893 (1991), deal principally with the elite.

Transportation

Informative works on the critical role of transportation in the creation of the city are Bruce Moffat, The “L”: The Development of Chicago’s Rapid Transit System, 1888–1932 (1995); and Paul Barrett, The Automobile and Urban Transit: The Formation of Public Policy, 1900–1930 (1983). Anne Durkin Keating, Building Chicago (1988, reissued 2002); and Michael Ebner, Creating Chicago’s North Shore (1988), demonstrate the importance of transportation in developing the city’s fringe and suburbs.

Government

The best studies of the city’s politics examine its chief executive. Douglas Bukowski, Big Bill Thompson, Chicago, and the Politics of Image (1998), illuminates the varying image of the chameleon-like mayor. Melvin Holli and Paul Green (eds.), The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition, 3rd ed. (2005), covers mainly the 20th century. Roger Biles, Big City Boss in Depression and War: Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago (1984), traces the career of one of the city’s most powerful mayors. Both Roger Biles, Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the Governing of Chicago (1995); and Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh (2001), recount the Daley years, as does the earlier and now-classic Mike Royko, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago (1961, reissued 1988). Gary Rivlin, Fire on the Prairie: Chicago’s Harold Washington and the Politics of Race (1992), details the city’s first African American mayor.

History

Extraordinary events often altered the city’s development. This was true during wartime, the subject of Theodore Karamanski, Rally ’Round the Flag: Chicago and the Civil War (1993); and Perry R. Duis and Scott LaFrance, We’ve Got a Job to Do: Chicagoans and World War II (1992). John E. Findling, Chicago’s Great World’s Fairs (1994), studies the city’s two expositions. Chicago’s most famous calamity is described in Ross Miller, The Great Chicago Fire (2000; originally published as American Apocalypse: The Great Fire and the Myth of Chicago, 1990). Carl Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman (1995), describes the impact of three remarkable events on Chicago and on urban social change.

Perry R. Duis Cathlyn Schallhorn

Article Contributors

Primary Contributors

Other Contributors

  • Diane Dillon
    Diane Dillon is Director of Scholarly and Undergraduate Programs at the Newberry Library. Her research fields include American art, architecture, and visual culture; world’s fairs; the history of cartography; and Chicago’s history and culture. She has co-curated exhibitions on the 1909 Plan of Chicago, the history of cartography, and the 1933-34 Century of Progress International Exposition. In 2010 and 2011 she co-directed NEH summer seminars focused on mapping and art in the Americas. She has also taught undergraduates and graduate students at George Mason, Rice, Northwestern, Roosevelt, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Dillon holds a Ph.D. in the history of art from Yale University.
  • Great Museums
  • Geoff Tompkinson
    For more than 30 years Geoff Tompkinson has traveled the world as a photographer. Working at different times in the fields of photojournalism, corporate, advertising, stock, 3D concepts and latterly timelapse and realtime motion clips, During his corporate period he worked on annual reports and corporate brochures for Glaxo, ICI, Zeneca, Fisons, Bibby, Inchcape, Ready Mixed Concrete, Genzyme, PHLS and many more. His timelapse and realtime footage regularly appears on television all over the world as well as in major Hollywood movies.

Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors

Article History

Type Description Contributor Date
Media added. Dec 20, 2024
Invalidated site: Maps of World - Chicago. May 06, 2024
Article thoroughly revised. Feb 07, 2024
Videos and links added. Nov 20, 2023
Link added. Mar 28, 2023
Video added. Mar 16, 2023
Links, video, and photo added. Mar 16, 2023
Updated for the 2023 mayoral election. Feb 27, 2023
Population data updated. Dec 17, 2021
Removed media. Sep 14, 2021
Changed “black” to “Black.” Aug 26, 2020
Rearranged media. Nov 14, 2019
In the discussion of the Century of Progress Exposition in the History section, changed "two-year run" to "run." Feb 01, 2019
Add new Web site: United States History - History of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Jan 15, 2019
Media added. May 25, 2017
Media added. May 12, 2017
Add new Web site: Mr.Nussbaum - Chicago, Illinois. Apr 04, 2017
Media added. Feb 01, 2017
Media added. Sep 28, 2016
Media added. Jun 09, 2016
Media added and revised. Jun 12, 2015
Photo of Rahm Emanuel added. Apr 09, 2015
Added Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2015 reelection. Apr 09, 2015
Media added. Feb 05, 2015
Media added. Jul 12, 2013
Media added. May 31, 2013
Media added. May 02, 2013
Add new Web site: CRW Flags - Flag of Chicago, Illinois (U.S.). Dec 16, 2012
Add new Web site: A View on Cities - Chicago, USA. Dec 16, 2012
Add new Web site: Maps of World - Chicago. Dec 16, 2012
Add new Web site: JewishEncyclopedia.com - Chicago, United States. Dec 16, 2012
Add new Web site: Jewish Virtual Library - Chicago, United States. Dec 16, 2012
Add new Web site: Lonely Planet - Chicago, United States. Dec 16, 2012
Media added. Nov 06, 2012
Added map depicting Chicago in 1812. Jun 20, 2012
Added a 1688 map by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli. Jun 08, 2012
Population data updated. Feb 14, 2012
Added image of the Union Stock Yards. Feb 02, 2012
Media added. Apr 08, 2011
Changed the number of stories in the Trump International Hotel and Tower from "91" to "98." In addition, the height of the Willis Tower was changed from "1,454 feet" to "1,450 feet." Nov 25, 2009
Video of Chicago in 1963 added. Aug 25, 2009
Geography section handled to change the name of Sears Tower to Willis Tower. Mention also added of Trump International Hotel and Tower. Jul 16, 2009
History section handled to change the name Sears Tower to Willis Tower. Jul 16, 2009
Added new Web site: Buzzle.com - History of Chicago. Jun 02, 2009
Added new Web site: National Geographic - Travel - Chicago. Apr 17, 2009
Added photographs. Apr 08, 2009
Added new Web site: How Stuff Works - Adventure - Chicago. Apr 06, 2009
Media added. Feb 26, 2009
Media added. Sep 16, 2008
Media revised. Aug 26, 2008
Added new Web site: How Stuff Works - Geography - Geography of Chicago. Jul 23, 2008
Article revised and updated. Mar 06, 2008
Added new Web site: Flags of The World - Chicago, Illinois (U.S.). Oct 24, 2007
Media added. Oct 09, 2007
Added new Web site: CRW Flags - Flag of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Sep 05, 2007
Article revised and updated and media added. Jul 02, 2007
Article thoroughly revised. Jun 07, 2007
Article revised and updated. Jun 07, 2007
Article thoroughly revised. Mar 01, 2007
Added new Web site: Chicago Chinatown. Jan 09, 2007
Article thoroughly revised. Jan 04, 2007
Bibliography revised. Jan 04, 2007
Added new Web site: The Official Site of the City of Chicago. Oct 17, 2006
Added new Web site: Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University - The Dramas of Haymarket. Aug 09, 2006
Added new Web site: Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory. Aug 04, 2006
Added new Web site: Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory. Aug 04, 2006
Added new Web site: The Official Site of the Chicago Historical Society. Jul 24, 2006
Article revised. Feb 16, 2001
Article added to new online database. Jul 20, 1998
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