Chicago Stories

Our Lady of the Angels was an extremely tight knit, largely Italian parish in a vibrant community that flourished on Chicago’s West Side. But in 1958, tragedy struck when a fire broke out in the basement at Our Lady of the Angels and tore through parts of the building, trapping students and teachers in a terrifying inferno. The blaze killed 92 children and three nuns, shook a city’s faith, and stunned Chicago – and the nation – with sorrow. Now, 65 years later, survivors tell their story.

Chicago was growing by leaps and bounds throughout the 19th century. The frontier town quickly grew into the largest metropolis in the Midwest. But as Chicago’s profile and population grew, a hidden killer was taking lives. Sewage and waste was being dumped into the Chicago River and polluting Lake Michigan, the source of the city’s drinking water. Officials were left with no other option but to embark on a daring design to reshape part of the natural world – and reverse the flow of the Chicago River.

Railroad titan George Pullman’s name was once synonymous with luxury. His sleeping cars changed how some Americans rode the rails. But when his success didn’t trickle down to the people who built, operated, and staffed his cars, a rebellion ensued. While the first major strike ultimately failed, a group of Black workers later found success through organizing, paving the way for a Black middle class and a civil rights movement that forever changed the course of American history.

They called him The Boss. Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s mayor from 1955 to 1976, came into office at a time when American cities like Chicago were losing population and industry to the suburbs in a phenomenon known as white flight. Daley’s answer was to build. He pulled together a team of city planners to create his 1958 Plan for the Central City of Chicago and he used it as the blueprint to build a modern downtown. But Daley's vision for a modern Chicago came with a cost. Between 1948 and 1963, nearly 168,000 people were displaced in the city of Chicago. Old neighborhoods disappeared and newly constructed areas faced increasing racial pressures.

Jane Addams was an activist ahead of her time. Within the walls of Hull House on the Near West Side, she led a social movement and amassed an army of women to demand change, pushing boundaries and breaking barriers along the way. Ultimately, Jane Addams and the women of Hull House changed their community, their city, and the world.

Chicago famously has a sweet tooth, and why wouldn’t it? For much of the twentieth century, Chicago reigned supreme as the “Candy Capital of the World.” From Cracker Jack and M&Ms, to Snickers and Lemon Heads, many of the world’s most well-known sweets originated in the city. At its peak, 100 Chicago candy companies, including Wrigley, Mars, and Ferrara produced a third of all candy in the United States and employed more than 25,000 people. But however all-American this world of confection may appear, it was immigrants who came to Chicago in the nineteenth century who helped mold the industry.

Danny Sotomayor received what amounted to a death sentence in 1988 — he was diagnosed with AIDS. At the time, there was no cure, drugs designed to combat the disease were expensive and hard to come by, and people often died within weeks of the first failures of their immune systems. Twenty-nine-year-old Danny Sotomayor was terrified. Feeling the clock ticking on his life, the cartoonist set out to confront the AIDS crisis as only he knew how: by making a spectacle.

The catalogs of Sears, Roebuck, and Co., and Montgomery Ward were icons of Americana, beloved and eagerly anticipated. More than just a collection of necessities and Christmas wishes, the items within the many pages of those catalogs reflected the aspirations of American families, as well as the power of companies to shape how people shopped and what they bought. The rise and fall of these mail order giants is intertwined with the history of Chicago and the rest of America.