Home to nearly three-million people today including seventy-seven different community areas, Chicago is the third largest city in the U.S. It sits on the shores of Lake Michigan, the fifth largest body of freshwater in the world and contains two hundred and thirty-seven square miles of land. It is a multicultural city with large populations of African Americans and Hispanic people. Chicago also hosts about forty million visitors every year (City of Chicago Facts and Statistics). 

       Chicago received its name from the Native Americans who first lived there. They called the Chicago River “Checagou,” which is very similar to today’s “Chicago” (Elson 37-39). These Native Americans were mostly from Miami, Saux, Faux, and Potawatomi tribes. Around 1780, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a man of African and European descent settled there, becoming the first non-Native American resident of Chicago. In 1803, the U.S. built Fort Dearborn on the Native American territory, and in 1830, the U.S. government sold plots of land to fund the building of the Illinois and Michigan canals. Around this time, more non-Native Americans began moving into the area. From 1834 to 1835, the U.S. forced the Native Americans to sell their land, uprooting and relocating over three thousand Native Americans (Chicago, A&E Networks). 

       When the population of Chicago reached four thousand people in 1837, it officially became a city. In 1848, the shipping canal was completed, the grain trade soared, and European immigrants flooded into the city to find work. By 1854, Chicago was the world’s largest grain port and had thirty-thousand residents. Railroads canvassed the city, further promoting grain and livestock trade. This trading center was particularly important during the Civil War for the war effort. After the war, many more people immigrated from Europe, particularly from Poland and Germany. Devastatingly, after a hot and dry summer, an enormous fire broke out in the city of Chicago in October of 1871 (Elson, 37-39). The fire, now known as the Great Chicago Fire, destroyed a third of Chicago and left around one hundred thousand people homeless (Chicago, A&E Networks). 

       Immigrants and the rise of factories and industry helped rebuild the city. In fact, by 1885, Chicago boasted the world’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building. In 1886, chaos erupted in Haymarket Square when a bomb was thrown at police officers who were trying to break up a worker’s rally. The bomb killed several police officers and civilians and police reacted to the bomb with gunfire, killing and injuring more people (Chicago, A&E Networks). 

       In 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair. The fair was a huge celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ journey to the New World. Hundreds of buildings were created in preparation for the event, which led to a reinvention of Chicago’s architecture and the fair brought an impressive twenty million visitors into the city (Chicago, A&E Networks). In 1894, wages declined in the Pullman Palace Car Company, leading to a national rail union boycott and in 1906 Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposed the unsafe practices of the meatpacking industry (Chicago, A&E Networks).

       During World War I, African American migrants from the South came to Chicago to work in the war industry. They settled mostly in the South Side area of Chicago (Chicago, A&E Networks). Then, in 1919, the largest race riot in Chicago’s history occurred. The riot was sparked by the stoning of a young African American man by whites at a segregated city beach. It lasted for eight days and resulted in the deaths of thirty-eight people and injuries to five hundred people. Additionally, many African American families were left homeless because they had lost their homes during the riots. This was the largest race riot of the era, but race relations continued to be tense, which was problematic for a city with such a diverse population (Elson, 37-39).

       The 1920s, or Roaring Twenties as they are commonly referred to, brought movies, writers, blues, and jazz. Jazz was heavily influenced by the growing African American population. By the 1930s, the city had a population of 3 million people, among them organized crime's Al Capone and gangster John Dillinger. Al Capone had organized the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in which he orchestrated the deaths of seven rival gang members. In a sad coda to the tumultuous 1960s, after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, riots broke out across the United States playing out with violence and destruction in Chicago (Elson, 37-39).

       In 1971, the Union Stock Yards closed, ending the era of meatpacking in Chicago (Elson, 37-39). Today the post-industrial city is a leader in finance and industry, and is home to a diverse population of immigrants most recently from Asia and Latin America. Chicago is also a large contributor to music, art, and film in the first decades of the 21st century (Chicago, A&E Networks).

SD

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