Chicago [history museums]

I woke this morning to a spectacular thunderstorm. The view of the lighting strikes of Lake Michigan was pretty impressive from the 10th floor. Odd, as rain, much less a storm, was not predicted. Fortunately, it passed through early in the morning and was completely over by the time I left for the Chicago Museum of History .

This museum did not make any of the recommendation lists, but I saw it while pursuing the map and thought it would be a useful stop. It turned out to be a very good use of the first part of my morning. Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for ramps, a wild relative of the onion. Inhabited by indigenous peoples for thousands of years (as detailed in previous blog posts), the area came under French control in the late 17th century when explorers and fur-traders arrived. They relinquished their claims after losing to Britain in the French and Indian war and, subsequently, the entire Great Lakes region was claimed by the U.S. after the American Revolution. Many French names remain around the city to remind us of their part in history - LaSalle, DePaul, DuSable are but a few.

In the 1830s, the Illinois-Michigan Canal was constructed to link Chicago to the Illinois-Mississippi river system, a major trade route to the Gulf of Mexico. This triggered a boom that transformed Chicago, and lasted until a nationwide depression in 1837. One group that did not benefit from the boom was the indigenous population. The Chicago Treaty of 1833 , following the Indian Removal Act of 1830 , forced the United Nations of Chippewas, Ottawas, and Potawatomies to relinquish their land claims in the area and move west to reservations in Iowa and Kansas. Some chose to remain in the area and joined tribes in Wisconsin and Canada. Many of their descendants now live in the midwest.

As part of the recovery from the 1837 depression , Chicago worked to make its river and harbor more accessible. The Illinois and Michigan Canal was finally opened in 1848 and, along with trade via Lake Michigan, the economy again began to grow. Chicago remained at the center of U.S. commercial shipping well into the 20th century. In 1900, the city opened the Sanitary and Ship Canal, which was much deeper than the aging, hand-dug Illinois and Michigan Canal and also designed to improve Chicago's water quality by sweeping the city's waste into the Des Plaines River (not a great ecological solution). The construction of the Port of Chicago in 1958 connected the city to the St. Lawrence Seaway which also facilitated international water trade to European destinations. By 1860, Chicago had become America's rail capital, connecting with the transcontinental line and creating a national system of trade and transportation.

Most early industry in Chicago relied on bringing in raw materials from other regions and processing them for distribution and export. Chicago’s central location was ideal for this paradigm.

A main industry in Chicago was meat packing , which also, conveniently, supplied glue and animal hair to the growing furniture industry . The meatpacking industry was not without its problems, including unsanitary practices and poor conditions for workers, and began to decline in the 1920s. In its heyday, however, it employed many of the immigrant population from Western, Central and Eastern Europe. These communities - initially Irish and German butchers, followed by Poles, Slavs, Lithuanians and Czechs - formed the basis for the extremely diverse ethnic populations that make up Chicago today.

Geography and transportation combined to make Chicago the world's largest lumber market during the second half of the nineteenth century. With the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, schooners carried timber from Michigan and Wisconsin down the South Branch of the Chicago River to the lumber yards, making Chicago a regional distribution center. The exhaustion of the forests of the Upper Great Lakes as well as the shift to new supply and distribution routes for southern pine forests, led to the decline of Chicago's lumber industry.

The iron and steel industries also grew, tapping raw materials from the surrounding regions, and at one point Chicago surpassed Pittsburgh as the nations largest steel producer. As in other areas, changing technology and foreign competition spelled the end for most of the mills by the 1980s.

An exception of turning imported raw materials into processed product was the brewing industry, which combined old-world knowledge with midwest grain to supply the seemingly endless thirst for beer. As in other cities, this brewing heyday lasted until Prohibition and the Great Depression.

Like other Midwestern cities, Chicago lost many of its major industries during the late 20th century. Meatpacking and furniture manufacturing, two of Chicago's largest employers, vanished, while other industries, such as steel and printing, shrank in scale. Many companies abandoned Chicago for the South or foreign countries in search of cheaper labor, materials, and production costs. However, new industries catering to communication, transportation and health care began to grow and provide new opportunities.

The museum also highlighted a number of events stemming from disaster or rooted in conflict that comprised defining moments in Chicago’s history.

The great fire of 1871 , feeding on wooden structures and dry tinder such as hay, burned more than 2,000 acres and destroyed nearly $200 million worth of property. At least 300 people died, while nearly 100,000 lost their homes. Chicago rebuilt and the motto “I will” was born.

The Haymarket affair grew out of workers seeking relief from poor industrial working conditions and pitted conventional labor unions against more radial anarchist and socialist ideas. During this conflict, a bombing occurred in Haymarket Square. Public opinion demonized the radical left and the police arrested eight prominent Chicago anarchists and charged them with conspiracy to commit murder. Although no evidence linked the defendants to the bomb thrower, whose identity remains a mystery, the defendants were prosecuted and convicted for their political statements and writings, many of which advocated the use of violence and dynamite as self-defense in struggles with the police. Seven of the defendants were condemned to death, the eighth received a sentence of 15 years. As a result of a direct appeal, Governor Richard Ogelsby commuted the sentences of two of the defendants to life in prison. Another committed suicide the day before his scheduled execution and four of defendants were hanged. In 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the surviving defendants.

In 1919, Chicago experienced one of the worst race riots in American history. It was precipitated when a black teenager drifted across an imaginary line in the water separating the races at the 29th Street Beach. A white man standing on the shore hurled a rock that struck the young man in the head, causing him to drown. When police arrested and fatally shot a black man in the large crowd that had gathered, fighting erupted. For three days, rioting raged across the South Side. Finally, the mayor called in the state militia to quell the violence. The riot left 38 dead, more than 500 injured, and millions of dollars in property damage. After the riot, the governor appointed a biracial Commission on Race Relations to investigate its causes. The commission identified labor tensions and overcrowding in the black neighborhoods on the South Side as major issues and recommended better job training for blacks and equal rights for all citizens to improve conditions. With additional support from within the the black community, the neighborhood flourished during the 1920s, becoming a national model of achievement.

The gangs of Chicago have become the stuff of legend. Al Capone, Johnny Torrio and George "Bugs" Moran capitalized on the black market opportunities afforded by Prohibition. They organized brutal gangs run like corporations, with interests in any sin fueled by human weakness, including bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, and racketeering.  This culminated in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the brutal slaying of of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang, headed by Moran, that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The perpetrators have never been conclusively identified, but former members of the Egan's Rats gang working for Capone are suspected of involvement; others have said that members of the Chicago Police Department who allegedly wanted revenge for the killing of a police officer's son played a part. The Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) formed to disrupt the crime syndicates. In 1931, Elliott Ness, of the Bureau of Prohibition, finally gathered sufficient evidence to convict Capone of the relatively minor charge of tax evasion. Sound familiar? The repeal of Prohibition removed much of the impetus fueling the gangs, giving the city some respite.

Democratic National Convention in 1968 provided a stage for groups protesting the Vietnam war. Large groups gathered outside the convention center, resulting in violent clashes with the police. Many thought that these incidents deliberately incited these incidents for the television cameras. In the end, the Democrats nominated Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie and remained committed to victory in Vietnam. However the images of the protests and the police response would define the city for decades to come.

Chicago's response to each crisis has shaped its identity. However, lingering racial divisions following the 1919 and 1968 riots fostered segregation that plagues the city. Likewise, Chicago's reputation for gangland violence continues, despite the bootlegger's demise.

Chicago is an evolving city of neighborhoods. The contours of the city have been shaped by successive waves of people from various parts of the U.S. and other nations. Many came to Chicago seeking new opportunities and a better life. They have formed strong communities, but have often been deeply divided by race, ethnicity, religion, and class, divisions reinforced by the Chicago River, which separates the city into North, South, and West Sides, and by the numerous rail lines, highways, and viaducts that create physical as well as psychological barriers. This has resulting in distinct communities that resemble small towns set within a larger metropolis. Chicago remains one of the most diverse cities in America, with all of the richness, as well as potential for conflict that confers.

After leaving the Chicago Museum of History, I drove the opposite direction to the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center . It is across the street from a major hospital complex and parking was actually in the hospital garage.

This is a small eclectic museum, housing several different exhibits. The entry room displays a number of interesting and compelling art pieces made by Black artists. The quality was high and the images compelling. One of the exhibition’s focused on the 1919 race riot described above. Many photos were displayed as well as additional information and commentary on the event. Apparently race relations that summer were particularly unsettled as it came to be called Red Summer because of incidents that occurred throughout the country. This was the first time I had seen Red Summer mentioned - it was not acknowledged in any of the other African American or civil rights museums I have visited on this trip.

They also had an exhibit about Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black Mayor. It was slightly creepy as the main attraction was a life size robot of Washington seated in a replica of his office. The audio was accompanied by small movements of the figure. Nevertheless, the information was interesting. Washington died at his desk from a massive coronary while still in office.

Another interesting exhibition was a film project, Equiano.Stories , that reimagines the historic childhood saga of Olaudah Equiano. The epic story is captured as a self-recorded, first-person account, within the format of Instagram Stories, using video, still images, and text.

I then headed back to my hotel for a short break before walking to an early dinner with friends from the Cook Co. Public Defender office. On the way, I stopped to view the Chagall mosaic, Four Seasons . It was easy to miss as it was obscured by some construction on the sidewalk above it. I had a very pleasant dinner with S. and B. At Gage Restaurant. And the one glass of wine meant that I would be finishing this blog in the morning.

Tomorrow I will finally make my way to the Art Institute of Chicago. In their infinite wisdom, and apparently to challenge assumptions, they are open on Monday, but closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.