“ When the contentions of the Pullman employees were taken up by the American Railway Union the strike immediately extended to tremendous proportions. Union men throughout the country refused to handle Pullman cars, and since Pullman cars are almost invariably attached to mail trains the transportation of the United States mail was thus obstructed. Chicago, as the greatest railway centre of the country and the home of the strike, was naturally the seat of the most serious complications. ”

“ The business district was largely rebuilt within a year, and within three there were hardly scars of the calamity. Wood was barred from a large area (and subsequently from the entire city) , and a new Chicago of brick and stone, larger, finer and wealthier, had taken the place of the old. Business and population showed no set-back in their progress. The solidity and permanence of this prosperity were confirmed during the financial panic of 1873, when Chicago banks alone, among those of the large cities of the country, continued steadily to pay out current funds. ”

“ In November 1904 the people of Illinois adopted a constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature of the state to provide a complete new system of local government for Chicago, but the old system continued and is here described, the new charter, from which so much had been hoped, being rejected by the voters of the city by an overwhelming majority in September 1907. A common council chosen by wards and renewed in half each year controls the budget, police, liquor licences, city contracts and the granting of franchises ”

“ The neighbourhood park, usually located near a school, is almost all-inclusive in its provision for all comers, from babyhood to maturity, and is open all day. There are sand gardens and wading ponds and swings and day nurseries, gymnasiums, athletic fields, swimming pools and baths, reading-rooms—generally with branches of the city library—lunch counters, civic club rooms, frequent music, assembly halls for theatricals, lectures, concerts, or meetings, penny savings banks, and in the winter skating ponds. ”

“ Chicago’s position in the labour world has made it the home of several socialist and anarchistic periodicals.
Industry and Commerce.—Chicago’s situation at the head of the most south-western of the Great Lakes has given it great importance in trade and industry. The development of its extraordinary railway facilities was a recognition of its supreme advantages as the easiest outlet for the products of the Middle West, on whose wealth its prosperity is founded. The growth of its trade has been marvellous. ”

“ This industry is remarkable for the extraordinary division of labour in its processes. In the preparation of a bullock more than thirty specialties are involved, and some twenty different rates of pay. This system enabled the packing companies, until checked by the development of labour unions, to save money not only by paying low wages for crude labour and high for skilled, but to develop wonderful expertness in every line, and so “speed up” the workmen to a remarkable pace. [17] No more interesting field can be found for the study of the qualities of foreign races. ”

“ The council was once all important, but as early as the charter of 1851 it began to lose power to the mayor, whose directive and executive powers have steadily increased, beginning first in the financial department. Administration was once performed entirely by boards as in other American cities: every specific problem or demand for municipal activity was met by an appeal to the state legislature for special legislation and the creation of a board. ”

“ There are also a number of notable private art collections in the city. In 1894 the Chicago Public School Art Society was founded to secure the placing of good works of art in the public schools. Picture collections are also exchanged among the neighbourhood-park homes.
Music in Chicago owes much to the German element of the population. Especially noteworthy among musical organizations are the Apollo Musical Club (1872) and The Theodore Thomas orchestra, which has disputed with the Boston Orchestra the claim to artistic primacy in the United States. ”

“ Chicago has been a storm centre of labour troubles, some of them of a specially spectacular character. There were great strikes in the packing industry in 1886, 1894 and 1904. But more noteworthy are the railway strike of 1894 and the unsuccessful teamsters’ strike of 1905. ”

“ Following the gradual development of New York state laws on behalf of children was enacted the Illinois Juvenile Court Law, which came into force on the 1st of July 1899 and was largely the result of Chicago’s interest in juvenile reform. Much philanthropic work centres in the West Side with its heterogeneous population. A famous institution is Hull House, a social settlement of women, which aims to be a social, charitable, and educational neighbourhood centre. ”

“ The Illinois Steel Company has the largest rolling mills in the world. The McCormick Harvesting Machine Company is the largest concern in the world manufacturing agricultural implements. Pullman in southern Chicago, in the sparsely settled outskirts of the city, is a model little “labour town,” planned and constructed with regard for both appearances and conveniences by the Pullman Palace Car Company, which has its works here. The town consists mainly of workmen’s cottages. ”

“ The growth of Chicago has been remarkable even for American cities. Any resident of four-score years living in 1900 had seen it grow from a settlement of fourteen houses, a frontier military post among the Indians, to a great metropolis, fifth in size among the cities of the world. ”

“ The Art Institute of Chicago contains valuable collections of paintings, reproductions of bronzes and sculpture, architectural casts, and other objects of art. Connected with it is the largest and most comprehensive art school of the county—including newspaper illustration and a normal school for the training of teachers of drawing in the public schools. ”

“ Beginning with 1892 steam railways began the elevation (or depression) of their main tracks, of which there were in 1904 some 838 m. within the city. Another great improvement was begun in 1901 by a private telephone company. This is an elaborate system of freight subways, more than 65 m. of which, underlying the entire business district, had been constructed before 1909. It is the only subway system in the world that seeks to clear the streets by the lessening of trucking, in place of devoting itself to the transportation of passengers. ”

“ Most of the population are dependent upon the car works. The Pullman Company owns and operates dining and sleeping cars on practically all the railways of the country. In addition to its own cars it builds ordinary passenger and freight cars on contract.
Meat-packing is the greatest local industry and is that for which Chicago is best known. ”

“ In 1895–1897 bold attempts to secure a 50-year extension of franchises were defeated by Governor John P. Altgeld (1847–1902) , by the formation of a Municipal Voters’ League, and by a representative committee of 100 sent from Chicago to attend the legislature at Springfield. The transit service of the city had for years been antiquated and inadequate. At the mayor’s elections in 1897, 1899, 1901 and 1903 the victory lay with the opponents of the companies, and in 1905 the successful party stood for immediate municipal acquisition of all roads. ”

“ There is also a memorial to G. B. Armstrong (1822–1871) , a citizen of Chicago, who founded the railway mail service of the United States. A city art commission approves all works of art before they become the property of the city, and at the request of the mayor acts in various ways for the city’s aesthetic betterment. The Architectural Club labours for the same end. A Municipal Art League (organized in 1899) has done good work in arousing civic pride ”

“ The city, like the state, has power to regulate the price of gas sold by private companies. The elevation of the railway tracks within the city was begun in 1892; at the close of 1908 the railway companies had accepted ordinances of the City Council for the elevation of 192.77 m. of main tracks and 947.91 m. of all tracks, and the construction of 724 subways, at an estimated cost of $65,000,000; at that time the railway companies had completed the elevation of 133.83 m. of main tracks and 776 m. of all tracks, and had constructed 567 subways, at a total expense of $52,500,000. ”

“ The congestion of the streets—considerably lessened since the freight-subways have reduced the amount of heavy trucking—is proportionately great, and their din and crush is characteristic of the city. The residential districts, on the other hand, are unevenly and loosely spread; many areas well within the city are only sparsely settled. A belt of “bad lands”—occupied by factories, shanties, &c.—partially surrounds the best business district. The smoke resulting from the use of soft coal has given a drab and dingy colour-tone to the buildings. ”

“ Since 1900 relief has been given by state law in some matters, such as for the park system. The water system has been operated by the city since 1851, and has been financially very successful from the beginning: rates are far lower than in the other great cities of the country, and a handsome net revenue accrues to the treasury. ”

“ Education and Charity.—The school board is appointed by the mayor. Since 1904 a merit system has been applied in the advancement of teachers; civil service rules cover the rest of the employees. Kindergartens were maintained without legal sanction in connexion with the public schools for several years, and for more than twenty-five years as private schools, before their legal establishment as a part of the system in 1899. Free evening schools, very practical in their courses, are utilized mainly by foreigners. ”

“ Hospitals, infirmaries, dispensaries, asylums, shelters and homes for the defective, destitute, orphaned, aged, erring, friendless and incurably diseased; various relief societies, and associations that sift the good from the bad among the mendicant, the economically inefficient, and the viciously pauper, represent the charity work of the city. ”

“ No person could be proved to have thrown the bomb, or to have been directly implicated in its throwing; but on the ground that they were morally conspirators and accomplices in the killing, because they had repeatedly and publicly advocated such acts against the servants of government, seven anarchists were condemned to death. ”

“ On the 8th of October a fire broke out near the lumber district on the West Side. Two-thirds of the city’s buildings were wood, and the summer had been excessively dry, while to make conditions worse a high and veering wind fanned the flames. ”

“ The grain elevators are among the sights of Chicago. They are enormous storehouses into which the grain is elevated from ships and cars, sorted into grades and reloaded for shipment; all the work is done by machinery. Their capacity in 1904 was 65,140,000 bu. [13] In the same quinquennial period, 1900–1904, the average yearly receipts of lumber aggregated 1,807,066,000 ft., [14] and of shingles, 410,711 thousand ”

“ But many other cities have later passed her (until in 1904, though the second largest of the country, she ranked only thirty-second in her holdings of park area per capita among American cities of 100,000 population) . In 1908 the acreage of the municipal parks was 3179 acres, and there were 61.4 m. of boulevards. After 1900 another period of ambitious development began. The improvement of old and the creation of new “internal” parks, i.e. within the cordon of those older parks and boulevards that once girdled the city but have been surrounded in its later growth ”

“ The small extent of the business quarter adds to the effect of its tall structures. The Auditorium (1889; cost, $3,500,000) , a huge building containing a hotel and a theatre (5000 seats) , is one of the most massive commercial structures of the country. The Masonic Temple (cost, $3,000,000) is the tallest in the city (302 ft.) . In 1909 there were some 475 structures ten or more storeys high. Not a few are noteworthy, whether for size—as the Monadnock office building of 16 storeys, with some 6000 occupants, and the new Northwestern Railway station ”

“ Periodical literature contains a vast amount of information on Chicago’s progress and conditions that is elsewhere unobtainable; exact references may be obtained in Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature.
↑ In 1889 the total area (land and water) was increased from 43.8 to 169.9 sq. m.; in 1890 the land area was 163.49 sq. m. ↑ About 15 ft. in elevation; hence the possibility of the drainage canal. ↑ Among the last are many swing and “jack-knife” bridges, bascules, and a lift-bridge that can be lifted bodily 155 ft. above the channel. Steam, compressed air and electricity are used as power. ”