Chicago from 1776 to Present

Introduction

Chicago's history in the nineteenth century in many respects exemplifies the history of the United States in that period. Moreover events in nineteenth-century Chicago contributed to the nation's rise from an infant republic to a world power. In eighty years Chicago grew from a fort with a few homes around it to a metropolis of more than one million people. From an economy based on goods transfer and commerce in agriculture-related products, the city evolved into one of the largest manufacturing capacities in the world, a factor in America's wealth and power. That changing and growing economy provided employment to European immigrants flocking to the United States, and immigration in turn produced problems in Chicago that many cities shared. Finally, Chicago's advances in architecture and building technology spread throughout the country, and its 1893 triumph, the World's Columbian Exposition, both showcased American inventiveness and influenced urban planning throughout the United States in ensuing decades.

History of Demography in Chicago

Chicago's history illustrates the full impact of the dramatic social, demographic, and economic changes American society and economy underwent in the second half of the nineteenth century. Compared with other cities in the Midwest, Chicago was a latecomer, but its growth was breathtaking. Within a few years it rose from a small settlement along the frontier to the dominant metropolis of the American continent. Chicago's booming economy attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Europe and internal migrants from the American Northeast. Between 1880 and 1890 alone, Chicago's population doubled from 500,000 to over 1 million, making Chicago the second-largest city in the United States and the fifth-largest in the world. Between 1890 and 1900 almost 80 percent of Chicago's inhabitants were foreign-born or children of immigrants (Schuyler et al, pp. 37-148). Even for the United States, this was an unusually high proportion. The rise of Chicago went hand in hand with a growing degree of social disorder. Mass immigration and rapid social change, accompanied by several economic recessions caused social unrest. During the last third of the nineteenth century, Chicago became the site of the worst outbursts of urban violence in the United States.

Chicago's rise depended on three connected factors: location, investment, and immigration. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 with just 4,000 inhabitants. From the 1850s to the 1870s, Chicago emerged as a strategically located traffic hub, halfway between the seemingly unlimited raw materials and agricultural products of the West—in particular lumber, grain, and meat, which were processed in Chicago—and the markets on the East Coast and beyond. The Civil War proved a catalyst driving the rise of Chicago against its main rivals, the river cities Cincinnati and St. Louis. Both cities were too close to the military action and suffered from trade blockades caused by the war. Chicago became the main production and supply center for Union troops west of the Alleghenies. After the war, Chicago developed into the leading railroad hub of the American continent and a strongly expanding industrial center. In 1850, the ...