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Full-text articles to support research in history and genealogy and lesson plans to support student learning.
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In a blend of history, memoir, and photography, the Pulitzer Prize winner paints a vivid portrait of this extraordinary American city.
Chicago was home to the country’s first skyscraper (a ten-story building built in 1884), and marks the start of the famed Route 66. It is also the birthplace of the remote control (Zenith) and the car radio (Motorola), and the first major American city to elect a woman (Jane Byrne) and...
Chicago was home to the country’s first skyscraper (a ten-story building built in 1884), and marks the start of the famed Route 66. It is also the birthplace of the remote control (Zenith) and the car radio (Motorola), and the first major American city to elect a woman (Jane Byrne) and...
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"The riveting untold story of the 1915 sinking of the SS Eastland, a Lake Michigan excursion boat, which rolled over while tied to its dock, within feet of one the busiest intersections in Chicago's famed Loop District. Horrified morning commuters watched it all unfold. The final death toll would not come for weeks but would be 835 people, including 21 entire families. The trial would make national headlines and cause public outrage; the effort to...
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A detailed historical account of the serial killer calls on never before examined primary documents to reveal how he managed to take advantage of the crowds drawn by the 1893 World's Fair to create his own castle of horrors.
Herman W. Mudgett, better known by his alias, H.H. Holmes, is considered America's first-- and most notorious-- serial killer. During the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, the basement of his house in Englewood, Illinois contained...
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This classic volume of reportage by the Pulitzer Prize—winning poet and journalist examines the racial tensions that erupted in the Red Summer of 1919.
In July of 1919, a black child swam past the invisible line of segregation at one of Chicago's public beaches. White men on the shore threw rocks at the boy until he was knocked unconscious and drowned. After police shrugged off demands for those white men to be arrested, riots broke out that would...
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Personal snapshots and historical footage provide a glimpse of a less complicated time as Chicagoans share humorous and touching stories from the 1920's, '30s and '40s in Chicago. Segments recall Riverview Park, Maxwell Street, the Aragon Ballroom and other local landmarks.
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"Tells the epic love story between young socalite Bertha Honoré and Potter Palmer, a self-made man 20 years her senior. Their passion for one another and the city they loved would inspire Chicago to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of The Great Fire to become the world class city it is today"--Container.
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More than 7,000 people living in the Chicago area and Michigan City, Indiana, eagerly anticipated Saturday morning, July 24, 1915. This particular Saturday was going to be anything but a routine summer day. Plans had been carefully made for it to be the social and entertainment event of the year, and for some, a lifetime. The fifth annual midsummer excursion and picnic had been organized by the employees of the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne...
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A vivid snapshot of America's journey from Victorian-era propriety to 20th-century modernity. Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history--and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago at the dawn of the 20th century, the Club welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons into a stately double mansion, and the Everleigh...