Chicago, the New Age, but what would Frank Lloyd Wright say?
Oh Columbia!
--Sufjan Stevens, "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!"

Notes on the Chicago reading project launched earlier this summer:

So far I've read three, all relatively plot-free, which seems odd for a history project. First up was City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America, the ambitously titled volume by Donald L. Miller. We saw the PBS adaptation a few years ago, but somehow I thought the book might sink in better. Miller focuses mainly on the 19th century, bookending the Great Fire and the Great World's Fair as the two seminal events of the century that shaped the city (don't be fooled by that introduction about Joliet and Marquette in the 17th century; you'll never find out what happened in between). I found the fire narrative compelling and the fair story less so, although I guess the fair has captured the readers of Devil in the White City to good effect. Miller's narrative is as much a story of personalities as events, so some of them circle back and repeat themselves, which can be confusing. But it's certainly a good look at certain individuals, particularly wealthy movers and shakers. The middle and lower classes are generally profiled not individually but en masse, as downtrodden workers living in the shadow of the stockyards and the muck of cholera-ridden streets. Such descriptions strip much of the glamour things like the Fair were designed to highlight. And they bring home the notion that the class and segregation issues of today have been with us from the very beginning.

Class and segregation issues emerge again in a 20th century context in Studs Terkel's Division Street: America . Like the title says, it explores then-contemporary questions of division in 1967 (interestingly, the year I was born--albeit not in Chicago). All the classes are represented in Terkel's trademark interview style, and their responses are fascinating if oddly dated ("the race question" and offhand references to the John Birch Society, for example, thankfully are not a part of today's discourse). At 381 pages this book felt much longer, possibly because of its format; each subject talks repetitively about "I", "I," "I," until reading it starts to feel like a series of blind dates with successive narcissists--who never let you talk.

How did we get from the 19th century Chicago of Marshall Field, Jane Addams, and Daniel Burnham to the 20th century city of Daley, et al., and beyond? I can't fill in all the gaps just yet. But the third book, Fanny Butcher's Many Lives--One Love, helps complete some of the cultural and literary blanks. Butcher worked for the Tribune for almost 50 years as a reporter, society editor, and book reviewer. As a result, she apparently knew everyone, even Admiral Byrd, and she took notes. Her memoir is replete with odd anecdotes and depictions of the early 20th-century Chicago publishing and theater worlds. It was enough to get a jaded English major like me interested in her friends Willa Cather, Carl Sandburg, and--yes, Edna Ferber. No navel gazer, Butcher was so entrenched in describing others that she sometimes glossed over her own biography, so I found myself creating mental marginalia ("wait, now she's a widow?" "what do you mean, compulsory retirement?" and so on) and wishing I knew a bit more of her story. But Butcher was old school with a capital S; the book is about her world, not about her. Kind of refreshing, really.

So where does this leave me? I still have a few Chicago books left to read (and perhaps E. will share a review of American Pharaoh someday), so the project will continue, although perhaps with interruptions. Thanks to Miller, I feel like I have the city's 19th-century history under control, but the complexities of the 20th century need more attention. Considering that I moved here 10 years ago this month to embrace the city in all its complexities, frustrations, absurdity and beauty, that seems about right. Happy 10-year anniversary to us, Chicago! And thanks for not crushing me to a bloody pulp.