Jane Byrne never intended to get into politics. But after her life was turned upside down by a tragic accident, she volunteered for John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and eventually caught the attention of the powerful boss of Chicago Democratic machine politics, Richard J. Daley. She became his protégée and held various positions, working her way up in city government. But after Daley’s death, Byrne called out corruption where she saw it, lost her job, and turned against the machine that shaped her. Her 1979 mayoral campaign as an anti-machine underdog appealed to many Chicagoans, including those in the city’s most marginalized communities. Though Byrne ultimately had a mixed record in office, her journey to get to the fifth-floor office of City Hall ended with her becoming not only Chicago’s first female mayor, but also the first woman to become mayor of a major U.S. city.
In the heart of Chicago’s Loop, 90 years apart, two very different disasters took place. First, the deadliest building fire in U.S. history: the 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire. Caused by hasty construction, missing and faulty safety features, and a botched evacuation, the tragedy shocked the nation and gave rise to many safeguards still in place today. Then, the Great Loop Flood of 1992: a $2 billion disaster with zero casualties. As downtown buildings mysteriously flooded with water – and fish – from the Chicago River, the city searched for answers in a long-forgotten tunnel system.
You may not have heard of Albert Lasker, Eugene Kolkey, Carol H. Williams, or Tom Burrell, but you most certainly know their creations. They’re Chicago’s own “Mad Men” – the local executives who created iconic figures such as the Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger, Charlie the Tuna, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. In Chicago, advertising agencies created their own Midwestern style of advertising from which would emerge a spate of iconic characters, taglines, and jingles, and each of those has its own story.
Chicago was famously dubbed “Hog Butcher for the World” by Carl Sandburg in his iconic poem “Chicago.” The city was the center of America’s meatpacking industry for roughly a century, transforming the way livestock were sold, processed, transported, and eaten. Industrialist tycoons such as Philip Armour and Gustavus Swift created and then dominated an industry that changed Americans’ relationship to meat – and squeezed out massive profits at the same time. A century and a half after they first began processing “everything but the squeal” in Chicago, many of their abuses – an indifference to workers, health, the environment, or smaller business – are once again a part of the industry.
For decades, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in the South Chicago neighborhood was a cultural center for the community’s Mexican-American families. In that church, families celebrated baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and other major milestones. But after the United States entered the war in Vietnam, funerals for 12 parishioners would take place at Our Lady of Guadalupe – a loss greater than in any other parish in the country. Many of the family members and friends of the young men who died, as well as other veterans, still feel the impact of that tragedy today. But what emerges from a memorial to the young men in the church’s nearby parking lot is a story of love, resilience, and memory.
For generations, Black music has been one of the foundational sources for liberation, survival, salvation, and entertainment. Gospel music has been one of the most integral and sacred forms of that music. It birthed a generation of storytellers, influential musicians, and agents of social change, such as Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar, Kirk Franklin, and many others. The origins of gospel music lie in the transatlantic slave trade, as African musical traditions blended with new forms born out of the horrors of slavery. The rich lineage of gospel music began in earnest as a young man named Thomas Dorsey came to Chicago during the Great Migration. His own spiritual rebirth at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago created a form of music that married blues influences with religious themes. Dorsey’s legacy ushered in a generation of Black artists who broke new ground by turning their voices of joy and pain into something powerful.
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were the quintessential picture of privilege. Both brilliant and wealthy, the two University of Chicago graduate students had bright futures. But under the glossy veneer lurked something much more sinister. In 1924, after several months of meticulous planning, Leopold and Loeb kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks – Loeb’s second cousin – all for the thrill of committing a “perfect” crime. The men wanted to put their self-professed superior intellect to the test. The kidnapping and murder were quickly dubbed the “Crime of the Century” and provoked a media frenzy. In the sensational sentencing hearing that followed, they were defended by none other than Clarence Darrow, the most famous lawyer in America. This is the story of a crime that is no less compelling today than when it first captivated a horrified nation one hundred years ago.
It’s the most notorious scandal in the history of professional baseball. Eight Chicago White Sox players conspired to throw the World Series in 1919. It was an event that ruined the reputations and careers of some of the greatest players of all time, including “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, and broke the heart of a nation. As the favored White Sox lost the series, word got out that the once-noble game of baseball had been compromised. At trial, the players were found not guilty – but they were later banned from professional baseball for life. The Black Sox Scandal is a story that forever changed America’s pastime.
Thrill-seeking Chicagoans have been lining up at local amusement parks for nearly a 150 years. From the early trolley parks of the nineteenth century, to the famous Ferris wheel of the World’s Fair, to the golden age of roller coasters, to the white-knuckle, gravity-defying rides of the modern age, the business of fun has always been central to Chicago. Beloved parks such as Riverview Park and Kiddieland, among others, served as a beacon for laughter, thrills, and childhood fun for a generation of Chicagoans.
There was a time, from the late 1940s through the 1960s, when the now-upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood served as the beating heart of Chicago’s huge Puerto Rican community, and the base of operations for a band of Puerto Rican revolutionaries known as the Young Lords. Led by a young man named José “Cha Cha” Jiménez, the activist group – which evolved from a social club to a street gang to a political force – banded together with the Black Panthers as the Rainbow Coalition to wage war against what they called Mayor Richard J. Daley’s “urban removal of the poor” and the area’s eventual gentrification.
The Playboy Bunny is one of the most recognized logos in the world. But the brand now synonymous with sex was launched in the conservative 1950s, an era when talking about sex was taboo. Twenty-seven-year-old Hugh Hefner saw an opportunity to test the limits of the First Amendment and bring sex into the mainstream. From his kitchen in Hyde Park, he launched Playboy, an aspirational lifestyle magazine aimed at young, single men that attempted to associate sex with sophistication. Hefner pushed boundaries and created controversy. He sparked debates about feminism and erotica, advocated for free speech, and was committed to tearing down the walls of segregation and social oppression, all while spearheading a sexual revolution.
In the days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, columns of smoke rose above Chicago’s West Side. The murder of a man who preached nonviolence in the face of struggle ignited grief and rage as uprisings spread in cities across the United States with violence, looting, and fires. On the West Side, the anguish was palpable as 11 people died, hundreds were injured, thousands were arrested, and approximately 200 buildings were destroyed.
During the Prohibition-era 1920s, a young man named Al Capone succeeded his mentor, Johnny Torrio, to run the Chicago Outfit. An Italian-American crime syndicate first established by “Big Jim” Colosimo at the turn of the century, the Outfit amassed an estimated $100 million in revenue – more than $1.5 billion today – through its nearly 200 brothels, illegal alcohol production and sales, gambling, and racketeering. For several years, the mob had a chokehold on Chicago politics, influencing elections through intimidation and violence and working in cahoots with the aldermen who ran the city’s political machine. This quintessentially Chicago story traces the powerful criminal enterprise from its inception through its 1920s heyday and to its gradual demise. At the center of it all, wearing a sleek fedora and a knowing smirk, was Capone – “Public Enemy No. 1” – and one of America’s most notorious gangsters.
Chicago’s secret is very much out in the open now: house music DJs headline clubs and festivals from London to Cape Town. But this electronic dance music was born behind closed doors at underground venues. In the early 1980s, a band of mostly Black, gay artists created house music in old warehouses. Led by such DJs as Frankie Knuckles, a group of artists created a mechanical, bass-heavy sound using drum machines and synthesizers. It became the soundtrack of safe spaces that were free from the racism and homophobia of the outside world.
