Urbanization in Chicago
"Urbanization, industrialization, technological innovations, immigration from Europe, and African American migration from southern states, among other processes, transformed Illinois from a primarily small town and rural agrarian, Protestant state, into a national economic powerhouse, a diverse and multicultural society, and a leader in technological change."1 Out of all major U.S. cities, Chicago may be the best example of the Gilded Age, both in its glory and its vileness. Its population, for example, took an incredible jump, from being just under 300,000 residents in 1870 to an impressive 1.7 million just three decades later which pushed it into the top five largest cities in the world, only 60 years after it was founded.
During the reconstruction of the city after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Chicago became the originator of the skyscraper with the creation of The Home Insurance Building in 1885, and a breeding ground for innovative architecture. Along with advancing modern architecture, Chicago was also a large player in the new energy industry in America. Harold Platt, in Electric City, "concludes that the spread and delivery of electricity throughout the Chicago area signaled the development of the United States as an energy-intensive society."2 In another book, Platt turns his attention to Chicago's efforts in making industrial cities more sanitary, "he examines how urban residents' ideas about the need for a more sanitary city that would provide environmental justice combined with new technology and the growth of technological expertise to environmentally transform industrial cities."3
Just like New York City, Chicago also had its fair share of social issues, with a majority of those issues having to do with poor European immigrants living in overcrowded slums, who made up a large portion of the huge population surge that Chicago was a recipient of. These immigrants, who lived on the West and South sides of the city, were subject to enervating work for incredibly low wages in the city's stockyards, factories, and railroads. The unfair working conditions immigrants faced led to an outroar for change, making Chicago the home of some of the most significant contributions in the labor movement.
Unlike New York City, the tenements in Chicago were not like the ones that were made famous by Jacob Riis. New York City tenement buildings were six to seven story high apartment complexes, and were built right next other similar structures, "Chicago's sprawling growth and decentralized employment magnets such as the stockyards and the steel mills meant that low-income housing districts were scattered, not concentrated as in lower Manhattan."4 With Chicago's slums not being as concentrated and claustrophbic as New York City's were, one would think they would be closer to our current society's standards of public health, but that assumtion would be incredibly foolish, "Nevertheless, an exploding population of poor migrants, occupying hastily built and shoddily modified dwellings, gave the city large districts of crowded and unsanitary rental structures targeted by reformers as a danger to public health and morals."5
Chicago's push towards tenement reform was due to "fear of epidemics and the specter of 'New York conditions'".6 Chicago's health department was given the authority after 1880 to inspect and approve the construction plans for future tenement buildings, but the growth of the city's population became too much to monitor. The tenement problem in Chicago, similarly to New York City, was a directly correlated with rapid urbanization in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Being an immigrant during this period was not an enjoyable experience, that is obvious, but the technological advancements that came out of Chicago and rapid urbanization outweigh the issues with tenement housing.
Footnotes
[1] Maureen A. Flanagan. “Illinois in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: The State of the Field at the Bicentennial.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-) 111, no. 1–2 (2018): 79–99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jillistathistsoc.111.1-2.0079?seq=12
[2] Maureen A. Flanagan. “Illinois in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: The State of the Field at the Bicentennial.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-) 111, no. 1–2 (2018): 79–99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jillistathistsoc.111.1-2.0079?seq=12
[3] Maureen A. Flanagan. “Illinois in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: The State of the Field at the Bicentennial.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-) 111, no. 1–2 (2018): 79–99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jillistathistsoc.111.1-2.0079?seq=12
[4] Binford, Henry C. Tenements. Accessed April 16, 2023. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1240.html.
[5] Binford, Henry C. Tenements. Accessed April 16, 2023. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1240.html.
[6] Binford, Henry C. Tenements. Accessed April 16, 2023. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1240.html.
[7] Ref.: Traffic Jam Chicago, Illinois. c.1910. https://jstor.org/stable/community.13715232.
[8] The Chicago Building of The Home Insurance Co. of New York. Illinois Chicago, 1885. [Boston: L. Prang & Co] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010634573/.