Any Chicago History Buffs Here?

Hello all,

Just joined Library Thing and am looking for kindred spirits who have an interest in Chicago history. Even more specifically, late nineteenth and early twentieth century Chicago. If I'm in the wrong place, could anyone make a suggestion on where to go? Now, that's not nice! I mean't what group. Of course, if there are others in this group interesterd in this topic, please let me know.

I have read just a little bit. Lost Chicago, mostly architecture and theater history in Chicago. What are you thinking of chicagobookbabe?

I haven't read it, but there's this interesting new book out now called Sin and the Second City. It's about (I've forgotten their names) these two sister from Kentuky who moved to Chicago and reinvented themselves as madams. They ran an elite prostitute house somewhere down by Prairie Street, I think... Anyway, sounds like interesting Chicago history...

I'm interested in the period covered by Chicago City of the Century; from the cities birth through the period right after the Fair. I'm working on a paper right now about how urbanization affected working women in Chicago. Remember Sister Carrie? Carrie Meeber is often critisized for her choices when she came to the city. My paper is going to explore what those choices might have been: from department store clerk to working in the stockyards to prostitution to actress. Dreiser could have given her more choices and it would have been an entirely different book.

Lost Chicago is such a sad book. So many great buildings gone.

yes, it's sad how we plow under our history.

Well, I can't say enough about how much I loved Devil in the White City, which is set during the 1893 (I think that's the correct date) World's Fair in Chicago. Lots about Chicago architecture, especially on the south side along the late (where I used to live!).

Chicago in Maps is also cool, if you like cartography. Historical maps of the city.

I recently read a book called Alchemy of Bones, which recounts the murderous exploits of a Chicago sausage baron. The subject of the book was a German immigrant who owned a sausage factory at Paulina and Diversey, where he killed his wife and made her into soap. The building still stands, but I believe it is now the Regal condominiums. The book is a very good read, mainly for the attention it gives to the legal system and media of the day.

Also, Murder City by Michael Lesy (of Wisconsin Death Trip fame) contains capsule run-downs of murders committed in Chicago in the 1920s. The book is written in a strange, matter of fact style -- much like a newspaper report -- so it lacks the narrative glue that most history books have. However, I personally found the style darkly charming.

Finally, a book about Chicago baseball -- Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy is to an extent about all of baseball in 1908, but it concentrates mainly on the converging paths of the Cubs and Sox as they marched to the World Series. You'll meet many of the same underworld types as in Sin in the Second City, but the baseball stories are fantastic.

While not technically history, there's a whole lot of Chicago's past in works like Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel's Chicago and Division Street America . Even a work like Greg Borzo's recent Chicago "L" or photo collections Gary Stochl's On City Streets or Nelson Algren's Chicago by Arthur Shay do much to reveal the life of the city.

Thought this 04/16/08 event which I recently entered for LTLocal would be very appropriate for this thread for those interested.

http://www.librarything.com/venue/21171/Barnes-%26-Noble-Booksellers---Vernon-Hi...

I have a neat book called Chicago and the American Century that lists what it considers the 20 most influence Chicagoans of the 20th century. I am new(er) to Chicago, so it was a good way to be briefly caught up on so much that has started in Chicago.

I also saw a beautiful 3-book history of Chicago from the University of Chicago from 1936 or so at my local Half-Price books, but I couldn't convince my fiance to spend $100 to buy it for me right now.

A good book about the 1893 worlds fair is 'grand illusions: chicago's worlds fair of 1893' by wim dewit...also a cheesey crime story called 'chicago loop' by paul theroux...lived in bucktown and wicker park many years ago

I'd love to get anyone's suggestions for Chicago history-related books.

There's also Chicago History magazine from the Chicago History Museum (formerly known as the Chicago Historical Society).

well I haven't them but by all accounts one of the best early histories are the three volumes by Bessie Louise Pierce:
A History of Chicago, Volume I: The Beginning of a City 1673-1848
Volume II: From Town to City 1848-1871
Volume III: The Rise of a Modern City, 1871-1893
recently reissued by U. of C Press

A nice volume is Ulrich Danckers' Early Chicago: A compendium of the early history of Chicago : to the year 1835 when the Indians left. Then there's the recent Encyclopedia of Chicago.

On the fair, albeit fiction, is an interesting volume called Fairground Fiction, detective stories of the World's Columbian Exposition. Also Marian Shaw's World's Fair Notes : a Woman Journalist Views Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition.

If you want to know why some of us won't shop at Macy's, read Lloyd Wendt's Give the Lady What She Wants: the Story of Marshall Field & Company.

A good crime story is The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey. Tough hard boiled private dick solves crimes in our beloved, and so familiar, Chicago. Goes to Kelly's which was the first bar I went into when I first came to Chicago.

For a historical mystery set in Chicago you might check out Frances McNamara's Death at the Fair. It takes place during the time of the World's Columbian Exposition. The protagonist is one of the first female graduate students at the University of Chicago. It's a great story and has lots of wonderful historical details. It's also the first in a projected series. Available on Amazon.

Also Constructing Chicago by Daniel Bluestone (Yale U.P.) might be interesting.