Chicago Stories

Jane Byrne never intended to get into politics. But after her life was turned upside down by a tragic accident, she volunteered for John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and eventually caught the attention of the powerful boss of Chicago Democratic machine politics, Richard J. Daley. She became his protégée and held various positions, working her way up in city government. But after Daley’s death, Byrne called out corruption where she saw it, lost her job, and turned against the machine that shaped her. Her 1979 mayoral campaign as an anti-machine underdog appealed to many Chicagoans, including those in the city’s most marginalized communities. Though Byrne ultimately had a mixed record in office, her journey to get to the fifth-floor office of City Hall ended with her becoming not only Chicago’s first female mayor, but also the first woman to become mayor of a major U.S. city.

In the heart of Chicago’s Loop, 90 years apart, two very different disasters took place. First, the deadliest building fire in U.S. history: the 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire. Caused by hasty construction, missing and faulty safety features, and a botched evacuation, the tragedy shocked the nation and gave rise to many safeguards still in place today. Then, the Great Loop Flood of 1992: a $2 billion disaster with zero casualties. As downtown buildings mysteriously flooded with water – and fish – from the Chicago River, the city searched for answers in a long-forgotten tunnel system.

You may not have heard of Albert Lasker, Eugene Kolkey, Carol H. Williams, or Tom Burrell, but you most certainly know their creations. They’re Chicago’s own “Mad Men” – the local executives who created iconic figures such as the Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger, Charlie the Tuna, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. In Chicago, advertising agencies created their own Midwestern style of advertising from which would emerge a spate of iconic characters, taglines, and jingles, and each of those has its own story.

Chicago was famously dubbed “Hog Butcher for the World” by Carl Sandburg in his iconic poem “Chicago.” The city was the center of America’s meatpacking industry for roughly a century, transforming the way livestock were sold, processed, transported, and eaten. Industrialist tycoons such as Philip Armour and Gustavus Swift created and then dominated an industry that changed Americans’ relationship to meat – and squeezed out massive profits at the same time. A century and a half after they first began processing “everything but the squeal” in Chicago, many of their abuses – an indifference to workers, health, the environment, or smaller business – are once again a part of the industry.

For decades, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in the South Chicago neighborhood was a cultural center for the community’s Mexican-American families. In that church, families celebrated baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and other major milestones. But after the United States entered the war in Vietnam, funerals for 12 parishioners would take place at Our Lady of Guadalupe – a loss greater than in any other parish in the country. Many of the family members and friends of the young men who died, as well as other veterans, still feel the impact of that tragedy today. But what emerges from a memorial to the young men in the church’s nearby parking lot is a story of love, resilience, and memory.

For generations, Black music has been one of the foundational sources for liberation, survival, salvation, and entertainment. Gospel music has been one of the most integral and sacred forms of that music. It birthed a generation of storytellers, influential musicians, and agents of social change, such as Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar, Kirk Franklin, and many others. The origins of gospel music lie in the transatlantic slave trade, as African musical traditions blended with new forms born out of the horrors of slavery. The rich lineage of gospel music began in earnest as a young man named Thomas Dorsey came to Chicago during the Great Migration. His own spiritual rebirth at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago created a form of music that married blues influences with religious themes. Dorsey’s legacy ushered in a generation of Black artists who broke new ground by turning their voices of joy and pain into something powerful.