City of Big Shoulders: A History of Chicago

- Blurb -

City of Big Shoulders links key events in Chicago's development, from its marshy origins in the 1600s to today's robust metropolis. Robert G. Spinney presents Chicago in terms of the people whose lives made the city-from the tycoons and the politicians to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants from all over the world.In this revised and updated second edition, Spinney sweeps his historian's gaze across the colorful and dramatic panorama of Chicago's explosive past. How did the pungent swamplands that the Native Americans called the wild-garlic place mushroom into one of the world's largest and most sophisticated cities? What is the real story behind the Great Chicago Fire? What aspects of American industry exploded with the bomb in Haymarket Square? Did the 1920s in Chicago roar as loudly as Hollywood would have us believe?A city of immigrants and entrepreneurs, Chicago is quintessentially American. Spinney brings those people to life and features the key moments and special places-from Fort Dearborn to Cabrini-Green, Marquette to Mayor Daley, the Union Stockyards to the Chicago Bulls-that make this incredible city one of the best places in the world.