Laying the Foundation

Windy City Historians Podcast very first series “Laying the Foundation” provides a chronological overview of Chicago history from the origins and early explorers up to the 1940s.

Episode 21 – The Third Star – part III

February 22, 2021 01:15:00

As we conclude this three-part mini-series on the Columbian Exposition of 1893, we talk about a few favorite exhibits and stories about the Fair, connections that exist still, and relevancy of the World’s Fair today. A major event for Chicago and honored by a star on the Chicago Flag the Fair brought Chicago and the United States to the world stage to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Christopher Columbus coming to America.

Join us as we speak with Paul Durica the Director of Exhibitions at the Newberry Library and historian and writer Jeff Nichols. And to complete this show, co-host Chris Lynch shares additional stories and connections with this World’s Fair culled from his research on the topic. Join us for a fascinating ride through Windy City history on this episode about the Chicago Columbian Exposition and World’s Fair of 1893.

  • Map of the Fair
  • Fair visitors on the Midway Plaisance
  • A belly dancer from the Streets of Cairo Exhibit
  • The dancer Little Egypt, stellar attraction at the World’s Columbian Exposition
  • The first electric moving-sidewalk
  • The Japanese pavilion
  • 1894 ruins of the Fair
  • A image of the destroyed Fair grounds after the 1894 fire

Links to Research and Historic Sources:

Episode 20 – The Third Star – part II

February 22, 2021 1:00:40

We continue our discussion of Chicago’s first World’s Fair to learn why carousels were risque, the Ferris Wheel encouraged voyeurism, Columbus was cool, and unfortunately racism was the norm. In addition, the 1893 World’s Fair was a launching pad for many new products, industries, and processes that were promoted, were popularized or invented as a result of the Fair, like the Post Card, Cracker Jacks, the Zipper, and many more.

In this second World’s Columbian Exposition episode, we talk with historian and Director of Exhibitions at the Newberry Library Paul Durica, to explore the various exhibits, tone, and tenor of the Fair and Chicago in 1893. Plus, additional snippets from our interview with historian Jeff Nichols.

This World’s Fair transformed a swampy patch of lakefront, which is now Jackson Park on Chicago’s south side, and remnant lagoons and three harbors still exist there today. Besides these physical remainders of the Fair, this historic exhibition also marked Chicago history through the gathering of many influential people and ideas from around the world. This Fair was the impetus for the sharing of world cultures and intermixing of peoples and traditions that still impacts us today. Join us on this episode for more fascinating stories surrounding the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893.

  • Ida B. Wells
  • Frederick Douglass
  • The Midway
  • The Liberal Arts Building
  • Turkish Village Exhibition
  • The Electricity Hall
  • Rickshaws on the Midway Plaisance
  • The Administration Building
  • The electrified Court of Honor of the White City

Links to Research and Historic Sources:

  • Museum of Science and Industry today
  • The building on the right as it was at the Columbian Exposition in 1893

Episode 19 – The Third Star – Part I

January 27, 2021 01:00:36

In 1893, Chicago is host to one of the most recognized and internationally famous world fairs, which honors the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in America. Granted it was a year later than planned, but it became known for the advancement and development of many companies and ideas. A specially built exposition landscape was created south of the then city limits in Jackson Park in what was the neighboring township of Hyde Park, which was annexed in 1891.

The White City as this world’s fair became know was the first major use of electricity, which lit the World’s Columbian Exposition buildings and grounds from May 1st until October 30, 1893. This Fair is legendary to Chicago history and commemorated by the third star in the Chicago Flag. With our previous episode we learned about the many things that occurred in Chicago in 1893 and here we dive into the Fair and interview historian and writer Jeff Nichols with some snippets from a future interview with historian Paul Durica. This is the first installment in a three part mini-series on the World’s Columbian Exposition and the White City. We hope you will enjoy it.

  • Balloon on the Midway Plaisance
  • Cover for Sheet Music from the Fair
  • Circus performers on the Midway Plaisance
  • The U.S. Government Building at the Fair
  • Columbian Exposition Ferris Wheel
  • The White City

Links to Research and Historic Sources:

Episode 18 – The Year 1893

October 29, 2020 01:00:43

For most historians if you mention Chicago and the year 1893, they will immediately think of the World’s Colombian Exposition. However, there was much more going on in Chicago during that year that still resonates today. Beyond the excitement surrounding the Fair, 1893 was pivotal for the many new contributions, innovations, and changes that impacted the city and beyond. Many Chicago institutions we know today are tied to or originated during that year. A short list would include the first Chicago Cubs stadium, the tamale, the hot dog, Wrigley chewing gum, and much more.

This monumental year holds many interesting stories well beyond the White City as a backdrop that was in direct contrast with Chicago’s work-a-day world, some would call “Gray City.” Join us in this episode for the extraordinary changes and important events of 1893, as we speak with historian and author Joe Gustaitis to set the scene for an upcoming episode focused on the Colombian Exposition and the White City.

  • author Findley Peter Dunne
  • author Henry Blake Fuller
  • author George Ade
  • Marshall Field
  • Busy State Street c.1893
  • Swami Vivekananda
  • Three successive buildings of the Marshall Field & Company Store on State Street
  • The very first World’s Parliament of Religions held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1893
  • West Side Grounds from 1906 World Series Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox

Links to Research and Historic Sources:

Episode 17 – The Haymarket

September 28, 2020 00:58:48

Why is May Day a holiday celebrated all over the world, but not in the United States? The answer is piece of Chicago history pointing to the events culminating at Haymarket Square on May 4th, 1886.

Episode 16: The Second Star – The Fire

August 23, 2020 59:44

There is one story well-known throughout the world about the Windy City and a cow kicking over a lantern that set the Great Chicago Fire in motion.  The fact that the story of Catherine O’Leary’s cow is totally false seems not to matter, as this wrong-headed legend continues to perpetuate itself with the general public.  As the newspaper editor Dutton Peabody says in the 1952 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” 
And so it is, a hundred and fifty years later, Mrs. O’Leary and her cow live on in popular culture. 

The events of the evening of October 8th, 1871 would be the culmination of a prolonged hot, dry summer in the Midwest, and when Chicago began to burn, there were fires burning in several other places as well.  However. Chicago and the legend of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow eclipsed the reporting of the other fires, and stuck in the popular imagination. 

The Great Chicago Fire became the second star on the flag of Chicago, a marked tragedy, as approximately one-third of the residents lost their homes and the more than 300 who lost their lives.  But the fire was also considered a beginning for Chicago, a reset, a blank slate — that would allow the city’s business leaders and architects to imagine a new and better Chicago to rise from the ashes like a great phoenix.

In this episode, the Windy City Historians interview William Pack, a historian and author of “The Essential Great Chicago Fire” (2015) to recount the events of that faithful Sunday night when smoke was spotted southwest of the city center, near the intersection of Jefferson and DeKoven Streets.  It is an illuminating story of mistakes, delays, human error, and heroism, and a transformative event for the young city on the prairie that became the “City on the Make” as later chronicled by Nelson Algren.  Two days after the fire co-owner and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune Joseph Medill wrote, “We have lost money, but we have saved life, health, vigor and industry.  Let the watchword henceforth be Chicago shall rise again!” In December of that year Medill would be elected mayor of the City of Chicago as a candidate of the “fireproof” party serving two terms from 1871 to 1873.

Links to Research and Historic Sources:

Episode 15: The Stockyards

July 30, 2020 59:58

In the Spring of 2020, one of the first cracks in the American economy with Covid-19 was the closing of several meatpacking plants in the United States.  The nature of the process with workers stationed in close proximity to one another, poorly ventilated spaces, and often arduous work conditions and practices became a breeding ground for the virus and created Covid hot-spots around the country.  Meanwhile, the White House exercising its executive authority via the Defense Production Act ordered slaughterhouses to remain open for fear of disrupting of the nation’s meat supply. 

This underbelly of the food chain is often overlooked, yet for more than a century Chicago was largely identified with wholesale slaughter and meat processing thanks to the Union Stock Yard & Transit Company, which opened on Christmas Day 1865.  Stockyards and the downstream processing operations would soon become a ubiquitous presence in the economy of the growing metropolis of Chicago, the commerce of the United States, and the world. 

  • Union Stock Yard from Sept. 1866–Chicago Illustrated
  • Mid-century postcard of the Stock Yards
  • The Stock Yards in 1941

The Union Stock Yard & Transit Company led Carl Sandburg to coin the dubious moniker for Chicago, “Hog Butcher to the World.”  Yet these operations provided an important testing ground for great ideas and smart solutions employing many great minds, including civil engineer Octave Chanute (1832-1910) and the architect Daniel Burnham (1846-1912).  The Stockyards were a prime tourist attraction in Chicago for the general public and people of note such as authors Rudyard Kipling, who was shocked by it, or Upton Sinclair, who based his novel “The Jungle” on the conditions and worker experiences there.  The Yards as locals referred to it spurred additional innovations — for instance the butchering disassembly line inspired Henry Ford to reverse the process to build automobiles which ultimately made them affordable to average Americans. 

The Union Stock Yard created huge fortunes and dynasties with names like Armour and Swift, often on the back of worker exploitation, which prompted strife and conflict and influenced the development of labor unions.  Great gusts blowing across the prairie turned small fires into great conflagrations on several occasions, and yet the Yards survived for more than a century before meeting its demise to the gradual shift of economic winds.  However in its heyday, the Yards was the place to be.  Join us in this episode to hear some more great Chicago history as we interview historian Dominic A. Pacyga, author of Slaughterhouse: Chicago’s Union Stock Yard and the World It Made. 

  • Image from the 1934 Stock Yard Fire
  • The Union Stock Yard Gate in 1879
  • Unloading hogs from Stock Cars in 1912
  • Christopher Lynch & Dominic Pacyga
  • Revolving Hog Wheel at the Armour Plant in 1912
  • Dominic Pacyga & Patrick McBriarty

Links to Research and Historic Documents

Episode 14: A Brewing City

June 25, 2020 1:09:38

Chicago has a long history of brewing and distilling; of taverns, pubs, and saloons; of alcohol distribution and consumption so we hope you will soak up this episode on the history of alcohol and its impact on the city. This episode of the Windy City Historians podcast is a historic concoction ranging across Chicago’s history to explore the interplay of sociability and society around beer, spirits, and brewing to create, support, and shape the development of this toddling town and vice versa.

We hope this will whet your appetite and briefly quench your thirst for history through a unique take on the City of Big Shoulders. In this episode co-hosts Christopher Lynch and Patrick McBriarty talk with Chicago historian Liz Garibay to discuss her research and fascinating stories of American and Chicago history as viewed through the lens of alcohol. Learn the true origin of PBR’s Blue Ribbon — it’s NOT from the World’s Colombian Exposition of 1893 — OR about the Lager Beer Riots of 1855 — as we serve up another interesting brew of Windy City history.

Cheers!

  • Beer for Chicago intercepted in Zion, IL during Prohibition
  • E. Josetti Brewing Co. of Chicago advertisement
  • Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee, WI
  • Serving Beer in a Tavern in Chicago
  • Chicago Harbor Mouth ca. 1900

Links to Research and Historic Documents

Episode 13: Early Chicago

May 26, 2020 00:55:40

In this episode of our “Laying the Foundation” series of the Windy City Historians we explore an often ignored and long forgotten era and complete our interview with Dr. Ann Durkin Keating. We tap into the history of Juliette Kinzie and the city’s early wheelers and dealers as it rises up out of the swampy prairie landscape along the Y-shaped Chicago River on far southwestern shore of Lake Michigan.

Episode 11: The First Star

January 31, 2020 59:49

Did you realize each of the four stars on the Chicago Flag represent important dates in Chicago history? The two blue stripes on the flag have a special meaning as well. In this Episode we will discuss the events running up to the Fort Dearborn Massacre which is represented by the first star on Chicago’s flag. We interview historian, professor, and author Ann Durkin Keating, Ph.D. about the events leading up to what she prefers to call the Battle of Fort Dearborn which occurred on Chicago’s lakefront on August 15, 1812.

This is the eleventh episode in our inaugural series we call “Laying the Foundation” and continues our chronological overview of Chicago history from its beginnings up to the 1930s. Since March 2019, we have released a new episode each month, usually on the last Friday of the month, to bring you a new slice of fascinating Chicago history. We hope you are enjoying the podcast and we could use your help to expand our audience. Please tell your friends, family, acquaintances, and even complete strangers about these amazing Chicago stories in audible form available only on the Windy City Historians Podcast. Join our Facebook group the Windy City Historians of over 8K members and discover more great Chicago history.

  • The first Chicago flag in 1917
  • George Catlin painting of Tenskwatawa the Shawnee Prophet, brother of Tecumseh
  • Stamp of the first Fort Dearborn
  • History and evolution grapic of the Chicago flag

Links to Research and History Documents