Pat McBriarty

Episode 31 – Muddy Ground

August 1, 2025 59:05

In the Twentieth Century, Chicago’s Midway Airport had a sign that read “Crossroads of the World,” and during its heyday Midway literally was the aviation center of the world.  From a historical perspective the same has been true for Chicago reaching back a century earlier as a critical hub of the railroads, during the Industrial Age as a center for trade and manufacturing, and for centuries before a meeting place for uncounted generations of Native Americans.  

The geographic reality was that where the Chicago river and estuaries of the Chicago region meet the southwest corner of Lake Michigan attracted indigenous peoples, Potawatomi, Miami, Anishinaabeg, Ho-Chunk, or Sauk and assuredly others portaging the divide, arriving by canoe or on foot.  Sometimes they stayed for a while or moved with the migration of the game and seasonal changes. Hence this place called Chicago despite the low lying, swampy, muddy, and unattractive ground due to it’s elemental location and convenient waterways has continued for centuries to be a key to the continent.

This juxtaposition has spawned innumerable books on Chicago. In this episode we talk with author and Associate Professor of History John William Nelson Ph.D. about his recently published book Muddy Ground; Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent. This exhaustive history underpinned by impressive research re-enforces the basic fact that geography frequently dictates the destiny of an area and out of this meeting place and important key transportation link to the continent this muddy ground eventually gave rise to a mighty city.  Dr. Nelson’s book brings important new insights and a fresh perspective on the Canon of portage history for Chicago to offer the reader a fresh perspective of the region and its importance for Native Americans and foundational story of Chicago’s origin and settlement.

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Special Episode – Champlain’s Dream

September 15, 2024

In this special episode of the Windy City Historians we revisit our discussion of Jean Nicolet in late historian John Swenson’s last interview.

Episode 28 – WWI & Chicago Transformed

July 6, 2022 1:24:45

Hear from author Joe Gustaitis as we discuss how World War I transformed Chicago from a strongly German city into a modern metropolis.

Episode 27 – The Great Migration

March 30, 2022 00:58:10

In American history, we were taught that pioneers and homesteaders moved from east to west settling the continent in the greater pursuit of “Manifest Destiny” — killing and obfuscating the First Nations peoples’ way of life.  However, another American pattern often overlooked is the migration from south to the north.  Starting less than a century after a Black man of Haitian decent named Jean Baptiste Point DeSable became Chicago’s first non-indigenous settler; African Americans in large numbers began leaving southern States and moving to the north, which historians now call “The Great Migration”. 

Their motives were that of people everywhere seeking jobs, opportunity, and a better life. Northern States offered jobs and a relief from the weight of Jim Crow. For many Chicago had became a beacon of hope as Black-owned newspapers and in particular the “Chicago Defender”, distributed by Pullman Porters, gave hope to generations of former slaves, farmers, and sharecroppers. 

Beginning as early as the 1880s and then from approximately 1910 to the 1970, rural southern Blacks by the thousands made their way north throughout these decades. And, just as the journey changed them, their music, culture, and customs changed Chicago. 

Northern cities, and Chicago in particular, were not always welcoming, as decent  housing was scarce as restrictive covenants and red-lining forced African Americans to live in “The Black Belt”. This tightly constrained strip of blocks on the city’s south side, initially between 22nd and 31st Streets, later extending south to 39th and eventually to 95th Street and roughly sandwiched between the railroad tracks of the Rock Island on the west and Illinois Central to the east.  But even with forced segregation, many black businesses thrived, and a sense of place was established creating Bronzeville and its famous “Stroll”.

Join the Windy City Historians as we delve into the Great Migration with Dr. Charles Brahnam, author and professor, and the perfect guide to take us on a journey into the Great Migration. A trip populated by famous brave and fearless black Chicagoans such as Ida B. Wells, Oscar DePriest, and Robert S. Abbott and into a better understand of this massive cultural shift for the nation and Chicago in particular.

King Oliver Jazz Band

Links to Research and Historic Sources:

Episode 26 – 1909

January 28, 2022 1:29:00

In 1909 Chicago changed dramatically both physically and intellectually. Having grown through fits and starts via annexation and experiencing the most rapid population growth of any city in history, to that point, the Chicago City Council approved a new street and address system in 1908. The new address system took effect in 1909 and employed the Philadelphia and furlong systems to renumber, rename, and rationalize street names and addresses across the city.

1909 also ushered in a momentous intellectual shift in perceptions of what Chicago was and could be. Authored by architects Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett The Plan of Chicago offered an idyllic and revolutionary vision for Windy City that still resonate. Join us in this episode as we interview cartographer, historian, and geographer Dennis McClendon to delve into these concrete and esoteric plans that forever changed the physicality and vision of Chicago. Plans and improvements that are still relevant and reverberate acros Chicago’s streets, city planning, development and architecture to this day.

  • Edward Brennan in 1926
  • Excerpt from the Street Renaming Directory of 1909
  • Bird’s eye view rendering from The Plan of Chicago
  • Map of the central business district from The Plan of Chicago
  • Daniel Burnham & Edward Bennett

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