Chicago, Chicago-the American City that has been more often studied, praised, criticized, denounced, and admired than all others-here it is, in historic pictures and words that will evoke nostalgic memories and recollections and make its momentous past come alive again.
The people, places, and events that formed its history are all here, but here, too, are many others that have contributed to Chicago's reputation, for good or ill. Who can forget the fire of all fires that sprang up because of Mrs. O'Leary's cow and a nearby lantern? Or the audacity of Chicago's determined fight to hold the nation's Columbian Exposition in 1893, only twenty-two years after the devastation of the Great Fire? Sarah Bernhardt said in this era, "Chicago is the pulse of America, I adore it".
Here is Chicago of the 1920s: gang warfare, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and Al Capone; city planning on a stupendous scale, and a former cowboy named "Big Bill" Thompson in the mayor's chair; a melting pot that boiled with the assimilation of ethnic groups pouring into it from every country in Europe.
When the Great Depression came to Chicago, the spirited city celebrated its own existence with the brilliant Century of Progress fair, and, in spite of hard times, thirty-eight million people attended.
The scenes throughout are a stunning blend of public heroes, public faces and events, plus private citizens, their lives and their pursuits. Chicago's role as rail center and stockyard to the nation; its huge public housing projects; its subway system; its architectural giants and its literary giants; its extreme hospitality to the armed forces in World War II-all, and more, are in these pages about a wonderful town.