Wednesday, February 20, 2013

World Fair Tonight, at the Seminary Co-op


If you live in Hyde Park, be on the look out for local history! Joseph Di Cola and David Sone's recent book, Chicago's 1893 World's Fair (2012) will be discussed by the authors tonight, at 6 p.m., at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore, 5751 S. Woodlawn.
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Friday, January 4, 2013

Chicago Profile

First couple admires the skyline from the South Shore: this comes from the collection of White House Photos 2012 on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/8340807501/in/set-72157632418300447/lightbox
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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Every American Poet's Chicago Poem

Of course, no one gets out of a course on 20th Century American Poetry without reading Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," the poem first published in Poetry Magazine by Harriet Monroe in 1914.  Fewer know about Langston Hughes's 1964 poem "Chicago"... but there are other worthwhile poems about the city.  Jerome Rothenberg has understood the American poets' right to write about the "oldest / modern American city" as he puts it.  Even his title "The Chicago Poem" suggest that writing about the windy city (oops, no puns intended) may be a useful right of passage. See the full poem via the American Academy of Poets website: www.poets.org.
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Wednesday, November 7, 2012

To the young boy on the South Side

"Four more beers...four more beers" joked the man on Twitter somewhere in between Romney's concession of defeat and Obama's appearance on stage. But this victory for a second term for Barack Obama is a victory for the nation.  And his victory speech highlighted some of the best in patriotism.  What makes us good Americans is what makes us good human beings.  Yet that does not make us a superior nation, necessarily. And certainly not when the lack of cooperation between members of Congress has made almost 400 times more filibusters during the last four years than during the early 1960s, under the Johnson presidency (see #Armanpour on Twitter).

Still, the notion of hope as something that rises out of our inward being is perhaps a useful image for the nation at this point, and justifies also Obama's allusion to "the young boy on the South Side (of Chicago)" in his speech.

Links
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/07/barack-obama-speech-full-text



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Saturday, September 15, 2012

Back to School?

Will Chicago's 350,000 students be back to school on Monday, after a week of teacher's strikes?  Chances are good. Read more through the links below.

Links
Anon, "Chicago Forges Outline to End Teacher Strike," New York Times (September 15, 2012).
Motoko Rich, "National Schools Debate is on Display in Chicago," New York Times (September 11, 2012).
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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

#44's 51rst

As someone rather ironically noted, President Obama would appreciate some cash for his 51rst Birthday. What with campaign money being a key preoccupation, his Chicago backyard will be the place to be this coming weekend on August 12, when a fundraising belated birthday party will be held.

But my guess is that one of his greatest gifts this year has already happened.  Michelle's book, American Grown (2012) about the White House Kitchen Garden is certainly the best President's wife's publication that I've seen in my lifetime.  To see just how great a difference Mrs. Obama has made, try comparing her volume to Barbara Bush's Millie's Book (circa 1990). I certainly know which volume I'd rather see kids reading.

Links
Eddie Gehman Kohan, "President Obama Marks His 51st Birthday..." (August 4, 2012), http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.fr/2012/08/president-obama-marks-his-51st-birthday.html
"Michelle Obama launches White House Kitchen Garden book" The Telegraph (May 29, 2012), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/michelle-obama/9296716/Michelle-Obama-launches-White-House-Kitchen-Garden-book.html#
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Sunday, May 20, 2012

This Weekend in Chicago

While folks in France languish over another long holiday weekend in May, and in the US, talk turns to next weekend's Memorial Day holiday, in Chicago the heat is on.  NATO meetings have caused protests and for the first time in years, a French President is making an official visit to the city of Chicago.  On the go this Sunday will also be François Hollande's companion and First Lady, Valérie Trierweiler, visiting Gary Corner College and then the French Lycée of Chicago, before attending the evening's dinner for NATO members planned at the Art Institute.

Will President Obama see to it that President Hollande gets a taste of Manny's Cheesburgers and French fries?

Links:
Abdon M. Pallasch, "Obama, Hollande talk troops, Chicago Cheeseburgers" Chicago Sun-Times (May 18, 2012).
French Consulate in Chicago, "Présence française dans le Midwest" (www.consulfrance-chicago.org).
"Les premiers pas de Valérie Trierweiler à la Maison Blanche" Le Monde (May 20, 2012).
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Poetry from Chicago

A little corner to encourage you to read and listen to poetry from Chicago.

Hear Gwendolyn Brooks read "the mother" from A Street in Bronzeville (1945) and other poetry (Poetry Foundation's Essential American Poets selected by Donald Hall, in a recording made at the Library of Congress, January 19, 1961).


Chicago Architecture



2003. Skybridge, 1 N. Halstead Street, 39 stories.

1980. Xerox Center, 55 W. Monroe Street, 41 stories.

1975. Metropolitan Correctional Center, 71 W. Van Buren Street, 27 stories.

1973. Sears Tower, 223 S. Wacker Drive, 110 stories with a skydeck.

1972. Aon Center (Standard Oil Building), 200 E. Randolph Street.
CNA Plaza, 44 stories, 325 S. Wabash Avenue.

1970. John Hancock Center, 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 100 stories.

1969. Chase Tower (First National Bank Building, then Bank One Plaza), 10 S. Dearborn Street, 60 stories.

1968. Lake Point Tower, 505 N. Lake Shore Drive, 70 stories.

1964. Marina City, 300 N. State Street, 61 stories.

1925. Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Avenue, 36 stories.

1910. Robie House, 5757 S. Woodlawn Avenue.

1892. Masonic Temple, demolished in 1939.

1889. Monadnock Building, 53 W. Jackson Boulevard, 17 stories.

1888. The Rookery, 209 S. LaSalle Street.

1885. Home Insurance Building, 10 stories.

You can get more detailed information about these buildings and others through several websites devoted to Chicago's architecture:

—Chicago architectural Landmarks, by name of architect, on the City of Chicago web pages.
—a Global Architecture Encyclopedia,  http://www.glasssteelandstone.com.

Chicago goes to the Movies



2008. Chicago 10 by Brett Morgen. See trailer.

2007. And They Came to Chicago: The Italian American Legacy by Gia Marie Amelia. See clips from the website.

2006. Running Scared by Wayne Kramer. See trailer.
2003. Chicago, City of the Century by Austin Hoyt for PBS.

2002. Chicago by Rob Marshall. See trailer.

Road to Perdition by Sam Mendes. See trailer.

2000. High Fidelity by Stephen Frears. See trailer of this film based in Wicker Park.

What Women Want by Nancy Meyers. See trailer.

1998. Blues Brothers 2000 by John Landis. See trailer.

1997. My Best Friend's Wedding by P.J. Hogan. See trailer. See 2 minutes from film.

1996. Chain Reaction by Andrew Davis. See trailer.

1995. While You Were Sleeping by Jon Turteltaub. See trailer.

1993. The Fugitive by (?). See 2 minutes from film.

1989. When Harry Met Sally by Rob Reiner. See excerpt.

1987. The Untouchables by Brian De Palma. See trailer.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles by John Hughes. See excerpt.

1986. Ferris Bueller's Day Off by John Hughes. See trailer.

About Last Night by Edward Zwick. See excerpt.

The Color of Money by Martin Scorsese. See excerpts. See New York Times review (October 17, 1986).

Running Scared by Peter Hyams. See opening scene, with views of downtown Chicago.


1984. Sixteen Candles by John Hughes. See trailer.

The Natural by Barry Levinson used Wrigley Field as a backdrop. See trailer. See Robert Redford's batting practice scene.

1980. The Blues Brothers by John Landis. See trailer.




1964. Robin and the 7 Hoods by Gordon Douglas. See trailer.

1963. The Fugitive by (?). See trailer.

1959. The Untouchables by Alex March. See opening.

North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring the Ambassador East hotel. See trailer.

1938. In Old Chicago by Darryl F. Zanuck. See trailer. Reviewed in the New York Times (January 16, 1938).

1936. Chicago May Day by Maurice Bailen.

Peace Parade and Workers' Picnic by Maurice Bailen.

1934. Halsted Street by Conrad (Nelson) Friberg.

The Great Depression by Maurice Bailen.



Chicago in all things Literary: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Essays and Criticism



AL ASWANY, Alaa, Chicago, tr. Abdel Wahab,  New York: Harper, 2008.
ALGREN, Nelson, Chicago: City on the Make [1951], Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
BELLOW, Saul, The Adventures of Augie March, 1953.
—, Herzog, 1964.
—, Ravelstein, 2000.
BROOKS, Gwendolyn, Selected Poems [1963], New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
CISNEROS, Sandra, The House on Mango Street [1984], New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1991.
DREISER, Theodore, Sister Carrie [1900] , .
DYBEK, Stuart, The Coast of Chicago [1990], New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Picador, 2003.
—, Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, Stories, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
—, Streets in Their Own Ink (Poems), New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.
FULLER, Henry B., The Cliff Dwellers: A Novel, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893.
GUZMAN, Richard R. (ed.), Black Writing From Chicago: In the World, Not of It?, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006.
HUGHES, Langston, "Chicago," in Arnold Rampersad (ed.), The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, New York: Vintage, 1994, p.616-617.
KIPLING, Rudyard, "Chicago," chapter 5, American Notes (1891).
LIEBLING, A.J., Chicago, The Second City [1906], Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
MAMET, David, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, 1974.
—, "the Museum of Science and Industry Story," 5 Television Plays, 1975.
McQUADE, Molly (ed.), An Unsentimental Education: Writers and Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
NESS, Eliot, The Untouchables, 1947.
PARETSKY, Sara, Fire Sale, 2005.
—, Writing in an Age of Silence, London: Verso, 2007.
PYNCHON, Thomas, Against the Day (2006).
SANDBURG, Carl, Chicago Poems, 1916.
—, The Chicago Race Riots, July 1919, 1919.
SHERWIN, Byron L., The Cubs and the Kabbalist, Denton, Texas: West Oak Press, 2006.
SINCLAIR, Upton, The Jungle [1906], New York: American Library/Signet Classic, 2001; New York: Random House/Modern Libary, 2002.
WRIGHT, Richard, Native Son [1940], New York: Vintage, 2000.


Chicago's Reality (outside of Literature)


ADDAMS, Jane, My Friend, Julia Lathrop, New York: Macmillan Co., 1935.
ADLER, Jeffrey S., "'Halting the Slaughter of the Innocents,': the Civilizing Process and the Surge in violence in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago," in Social Science History 25.1 (2001) p.29-52.
BACHIN, Robin F., Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890-1919, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
BULMER, Martin, The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Social Research, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
CARSON, Mina, Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885-1930, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
CONDIT, Carl W., The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 1985-1925 [19 ??], Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1973.
CRONON, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, 1991.
DEEGAN, Mary Jo, "W.E.B. Du Bois and the Women of Hull-House, 1895-1899," American Sociologist 19.4 (Winter 1988), p.301-310.
DIAMOND, Andrew, "From Fighting Gangs to Black Nations: Race, Power, and the Other Civil Rights Movement in chicago's West Side Ghetto, 1957-1968" Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines 116 (Spring 2008) p.51-65.
DRAKE, St. Clair and CAYTON, Horace R., Black Metropolis, A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, [1945], Revised and Enlarged, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
DURKIN KEATING, Ann, Chicago Neighborhoods and Suburbs: A Historical Guide, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
DZUBACK, Mary Ann, Robert M. Hutchins: Portrait of an Educator, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
EBNER, Michael H., Creating Chicago's North Shore: a Suburban History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
GENET, Jean, "The Members of the Assembly," Esquire (November 1968) p.
GREEN, James, Death in the Haymarket.  A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America, New York: Pantheon Books, 2006. Read first chapter here.
HARRIS, Neil, The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
HOLLAND, Robert A.  Chicago In Maps: 1612-2002, Rizzoli, 2005.
HYRA, Derek S., The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
KUSCH, Frank, Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
MARCEL, Jean-Christophe, "Maurice Halbwachs à Chicago ou les ambiguités d'un rationalisme Durkheimien," Revue d'Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 1:1 (1999) p.47-68.
MATHE, Sylvie (ed.), Regards Croisés sur Chicago, Aix en Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence, 2004.
MEIS KNUPFUR, Anne, The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women's Activism, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
MULLEN, Bill V., review of A.M. Knupfer's The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women's Activism in Women And Social Movements in the United States 10.4 (December 2006).
OBAMA, Barack, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, [1995], Revised Edition, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004.
PACYGA, Dominic A.  Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 2003.
ROYKO, Mike, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, 1971.
ROWE, Mike, Chicago Blues: The City and the Music [1973], London: Perseus, 1975.
SAWISLAK, Karen, Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871-1874, Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1995.
SCHULTZ, Rima Lunin and HAST, Adele (eds), Women Building Chicago 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
SKLAR, Kathryn Kish, "Hull House in the 1890s: A Community of Women Reformers," Signs 10 (Summer 1985) p.658-77.
SMITH, Carl, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman, Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1994.
—, The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City, Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2006.
SOLZMAN, David M., The Chicago River: An Illustrated History and Guide to the River and Its Waterways [19 ??], Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 2006.
TERKEL, Studs, Division Street: America, 1967.
—, Chicago, 1987.
YELLEN, Samuel, American Labor Struggles [Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1936], 1969, 1974.

Chicago: Reference Works

GROSSMAN, James R., DURKIN KEATING, Ann, and REIFF, Janice L. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.




Chicago: Tourism


CANNING BLACKWELL, Elizabeth, Frommer's Chicago 2007, New York: Wiley Publishing, 2007.
HOLDEN, Greg, Literary Chicago: A Book Lover's Tour of the Windy City, Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 2001.



Latest publications

Sweet Home Chicago


Recently popularized in the movie The Blues Brothers, the song was first performed by Robert Johnson in the 1930s. It has been sung by many artists, including Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy.











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