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...

"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...

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...

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...

Chronicles the events surrounding the fire at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago on December 30, 1903, explaining how the "absolutely fire-proof" building became a funeral pyre for hundreds of victims.

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.

The Great Fire of 1871 was only one engagement of Chicago's ceaseless war against cinder, flame and smoke. Hogan and Burkholder explore the history of forgotten fires and the heroes who fought them.

A study of Polish working class immigrants and the communitites they created for themselves in Chicago, communities that combined the cultural and historical traditions of both Eastern Europe and America.

"This entertaining collection of twenty-one stories of people and places in Chicago, from roughly the time of the Civil War to the1960s, is a potpourri of personalities, human foibles, heartbreak, and triumph."--