Chicago: The Known City

Chicago is one of the key sites for understanding the industrial age. It’s one of the places where industrial capitalism was translated into urban form, culture, and life. Chicago has been well-studied; explorations of working-class culture and neighborhoods began with reformers and early social scientists studying the effects of industrialization in real time. Chicago is a city of working-class neighborhoods built by workers themselves. An important theme in Chicago’s working-class history relates to race relations, and that is reflected in so much scholarly research.