A FANTASTIC VINTAGE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH MEASURING
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BY CHICAGO LEGENDARY AFRICAN AMERICAN PULITZER PRIZE WINNING PHOTOGRAPHER JOHN H. WHITE. ONE OF THE GREATEST PHOTOJOURNALISTS ALIVE TODAY. JOHN AND GORDON PARKS ARE ON THE UPPER ECHELON OF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOJOURNALISTS.
1974 CHICAGO ILLINOIS DU SABLE MUSEUM COWBOY SMOKY WILLIAMS
John H. White is an American photojournalist, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982
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Interview with Hal Buell, Former Head of the Associated Press Photography Service <br><br>by Wayne Yang
Interview with Hal Buell, Former Head of the Associated Press Photography Service
by Wayne Yang
Recently, TakeGreatPictures.com contributor Wayne E. Yang sat down with Hal Buell, former Head of the Associated Press Photography Service, to discuss the future of photography, journalism as a medium, and Buell's book, Moments:The Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographs.
Published: July 3, 2006
Article rating: 10.00
Wayne Yang:
In Moments, you separate the great Pulitzer photos into technological eras. You were key to digitalization at the Associated Press, both on the archival side and in the way the service’s photography is distributed. Can you talk a little more about the importance of digitalization in photography these days? What’s your opinion on whether it has made photography better or worse?
Hal Buell:
Digital is just another tool. The essence of photography and the essence of picture journalism has not changed much since the camera and film were invented. What’s changed is the technology of making and distributing a picture. The impact of photojournalism has increased as more people see the pictures that photographers produce, and that was largely a technical issue, not a journalistic issue. [Civil War photographer Matthew] Brady faced the sheer problems of long exposures and having to process on dusty battlefields and so on. Compare that to the digital photographer who in a war situation can flash his pictures. Brady’s photos were never seen, in fact, except in his gallery, whereas now a photographer, thanks to digital, can make a picture in a battlefield and have it everywhere in the world before the battle is over—or shortly thereafter. What technology allows picture journalism to do is to deliver pictures in the timeframe that is unique to journalism. All journalism is really [about] speed of delivery, being au courant, being ‘today’s story today,’ and not ‘today’s story next week.’ What digital has allowed the photographer to do is to deliver those photos with faster and faster capability.
Even in Vietnam, pictures were lagging a day, or two days, or three days because the communications out of Vietnam were not very good, even though the journalists in Vietnam had greater access to the war and to journalistic activity than any photographers before or since have had. The journalism was incredible, but the technology for delivering those pictures was shaky at best. And as much as we had wonderful pictures and wonderful stories, how much different it would have been if we had had the digital capabilities we have now in the Vietnam era. But digital is nothing more than a tool.
Hal Buell pulitzer prize photographs
Yang:
You have seen a lot of evolution in picture taking during your time, but with all the different changes in technology that we have seen—you talked also about photography’s evolution since Matthew Bradydo you think the quality of images has suffered with this greater immediacy? It seems like people like Brady, or even more recently, the Vietnam era photographers, had more time to think about their picture taking, at least in terms of the distribution anyway.
Buell:
No, the editorial quality hasn’t suffered. What has suffered, since Vietnam, is access to the stories. In Vietnam, photographers had utter, complete access. A photographer could go out to the airport, and call his [own] shots. All he needed was the pilot of a helicopter to say “yeah, hop aboard, we’re going to Da Nang or we’re going to Cu Chi,” or wherever they were going, and the photographer went along. There was absolutely no restriction of any kindofficial or unofficial restriction on their coverage. Then in the Gulf War, which was the next big one, there was virtually no access to the story. And there is something in between in the current Iraq War, so the pictures from Iraq are better than the pictures from the Gulf. But they still don’t capture the essence of the war in the way that the pictures did from Vietnam. The time to make pictures is the same. I mean, things happen, and you have to make the picture, so the act of making the specific picture doesn’t change much. What changes is the ability to be where the action is and to be where the story is.
Yang:
Along those lines, it seems that information gatekeepers have become savvier about the power of a lot of the image making…
Buell:
Yes, I think that an appreciation for picture journalism has grown spectacularly because of the Vietnam coverageand also because the pictures are more relevant because they are more timely. You cannot take the time of delivery out of anything that has to with, certainly with daily picture journalism, and generally speaking with journalism. That’s why television has this immediacy, and newspapers have immediacy minus a couple of clicks, and magazines minus a couple of clicks, and books minus a couple of clicks. Today’s picture seen today, as I said earlier, is better than seeing today’s picture a week from now. At the time it took that much time to deliver a picture—the pictures were still very important, it’s just they have so much more impact when you have a picture in the same timeframe.
Yang:
In terms of that immediacy, there are some people that argue that those who capture still imagery need to be better at capturing other kinds of media, like audio and video. Where do you fall on that?
Buell:
Well, I believe that picture journalism in the still world is different than picture journalism in the video world. If you take the time to carefully analyze what you see on the screen of a news program, or even a documentary, what you actually see are still pictures. Yes, they move, but they have the essence of still pictures that are stitched together. So when a video photographer shoots a story, say, if you and I are in the same room, and he’s doing a story on this conversation we’re havinghe shoots a picture of you, which is a mug shot, talking. And he shoots a picture of me, which is a mug shot, talking. And maybe he inserts a picture that we’re talking about. And he takes bits and pieces of that picture. But when he puts it all together, it’s a series of pictures. A still photographer really looks for the essence of the story in one, or two, or three pictures, unless he has a luxury of doing a book or extensive photo essay. But basically a still photographer shooting our conversation would have both of us in the picture with maybe a picture on the wall or on the table, so it would all be in one frame as opposed to separate shots. And I believe that the discipline, what I would call the mechanical discipline, to put all that material together, is different in stills as it is in video, and it’s very hard to do both.
Yang:
Have they moved closer in any way? In terms of the mindset, one of the things that digital allows the photographer to do is to shoot a little more loose. Obviously, when you go back to the time when photojournalists were using plates—in your book, you talk about the Iwo Jima photos, for instance, and during that era how you literally had maybe half a dozen plates at most during certain assignments. You obviously had to be incredibly disciplined about waiting for those perfect moments. Do you think the mindset has changed, then, in that way, where the still photographer is becoming a little bit more like the video photographer?
Buell:
I don’t think so. I think the digital era, and even 36-exposure rolls of film, and the Life magazine era, and the early days of 35mm photography, and daily picture journalism, the freedom of getting out of the 4x5 mentality has allowed the still photographer to experiment more. He still is looking for that one great picture, but because he has more shots available, he can do it this way and that way, and he can experiment. He can use a wide lens, he can use a long lens, he can use a medium lens. He can do the closeup. He can work up, down, sideways. So he has an opportunity to be a little, it’s like if you were writing, you would write stream of conscious, if you just write it out, but then you go back and you edit it down. What did Mark Twain say, “sorry my remarks are so long tonight, I didn’t have time to prepare?” So it is now with the still photographers [too]. He can now shoot 20 pictures, but there’s still the essence of one or two that tells the story. But he has an opportunity to make those one of two much better than in the days when he was limited to four or five plates. It is a freer kind of an atmosphere, which leads in the end to better pictures. Sometimes experiments work. So if you have the chance to experiment, you should.
Yang:
I guess in many ways the professional mindset hasn’t changed, but one of the issues that seems to be troubling a lot of—at least younger photographersis the idea that all of a sudden more people are in the game.
Buell:
That’s a different issue.
Yang:
Along those lines, you were talking about war photography, for instance. Obviously, soldiers have been taking pictures since they’ve had access to cameras, but it seems like in this particular war, and maybe I’m wrong about it being new, but there’s a lot more immediacy to their sharing of images, and they’re self-publishing in ways that they haven’t in the past.
Buell:
The trouble with participatory journalism, and this is where you get into some pretty fierce arguments, you’re right, is that—I have to speak from what I believe to be the way journalists should operate, which may not be in favor right now. I do not believe that journalism gives anyone the right to express a point of view, that is the journalist’s point of view. That’s not the purpose of journalism. The purpose of journalism is to relate factually what happened, or to show factually and as honestly and as fairly as possible what happened, and let the reader make up his mind. I do not believe the ethic or the professional training is available to people in participatory journalism. Those who practice participatory journalism on a regular basis tend to tell the story they want to tell, as opposed to the story that is there to tell. Those can be two very different things.
Now, that does not rule out the occasion when someone is on the scene and has a camera and something happens that makes for a great picture. That’s the serendipity factor, and I exclude that from this conversation. I’m talking about the participatory journalist who does it on a regular basis. That’s someone who has a lot of spin, in my mind, and I think that I would rather go with the trained, ethical journalistalthough there are many cases where a trained, ethical journalist can go put spin on a story also. That’s why the idea of what a journalist is is so very, very important.
Yang:
What do you think of embedded journalists?
Buell:
I don’t have any heavy quarrel with the embedded journalists if the embedded journalist is the kind of journalist I just described. There is a fear, a belief in some quarters that if a journalist is embedded with a certain unit in the military, that somehow he or she develops some kind of affection or some kind of loyalty to the people that they are covering. Well, you could say that about a writer who covers a beat, who covers city hall, who covers a police beat. They develop friendships and contacts also. The journalist that I’m speaking about, this ideal journalist is one who is able, because of his training, to seek out the essence of the story and photograph it, whether it is supportive or detrimental to the people that he is covering. And I think there are examples of that out of Iraq. There are a lot of photographers who were embedded and who did marvelous jobs of what I call very good journalism. On the other hand, photographers who were not embedded, who were racing from place to place and point to point, spending a lot of time racing up and down the highway, sometimes clicking and getting wonderful and meaningful pictures but sometimes not also putting themselves in considerable dangerthat’s not the way to go either. You’ve got to come out with a story. The idea is not to get killed; the idea is to get a story.
Yang:
One of the things your book tackles well is the myth of serendipity. A lot of people seem to have the fallacy in their minds that a lot of the great photos are mostly about serendipity. You happen to be in a particular location, so that enabled you to make a great photo.
Buell:
The wise guys say, “yeah, f16 at 200 and be there.” You know, that’s a smartass, meaningless remark. And I won’t say that some pictures aren’t made that way. But you also come to realize when you look at the pictures that are made, that over and over again you see the same photographers making the really wonderful pictures. And there’s more than “f16 at 200 and being there.” It can be very risky, and it can be very time consuming, and it can be very unproductive. So the photographer has a lot to worry about besides just being there. He has to know what to do once he’s there. We talked about that earlier, the difference between video, and how that’s done, and how stills are done. The photographer has to bring together his experience and his knowledge of the story, the risks that are involved. He has to put all that into the equation, so there’s a lot more than being there. I mean, if that’s all you had to do, a lot more people would be doing it.
Yang:
What would you say to those journalists who— I think, in this era of 24/7 (in terms of clips like we saw from CNN in North Korea, the photographs from Abu Ghraib, and so on), there’s a feeling among some younger photojournalists that they can’t be everywhere. To compete against this kind of mass-grouping of people throughout the world waiting with their cell phones to capture an image, that are devaluing the picture-taking that they do.
Buell:
That’s sour grapes. When you look at the pictures that have been made by the so-called amateursyou know of all the Pulitzers, the only one that was made by a true amateur was the Virginia Schau picture of the truck hanging off the bridge. All the other “amateurs” were really people who were advanced amateurs and skilled photographers who chose to work at something else, but they still enjoyed making pictures. So it wasn’t that they weren’t photographers. They were photographers. They just didn’t spend their life working at it. That’s different. Never at any time in history was there anyone who could be everywhere. “I can’t be everywhere.” Of course, you can’t. No one can be everywhere. You’ve got to pick and choose, pal. That’s what life’s about.
Yang:
You’ve said thatto shift gears a little bit, you’ve said that pairing a good photographer with a good writer is like putting hand in hand, and I’m guessing you’re talking at least partially about your experience in the book Moments as well. You explained that this was because photographers and writers see things differently. Why do you think it’s so difficult to be good at both kinds of seeing?
Buell:
Well, I don’t know that it’s so difficult. It’s just that people don’t choose to do it. And in my experience, I have found that, generally speaking, it’s easier to find a photographer who is a fairly decent writer, than a writer who is a fairly decent photographer. Now I can come right back at you and give you 10 examples of writers who are pretty good photographers: Mal Browne, who made the Burning Monk [photo], Peter Arnett, who made marvelous pictures in Vietnam, who’s a great reporter, and I mean there are many reporters who are able to use cameras very effectively. But when you look across the spectrum of journalists, I mean when you take the whole batch, as opposed to those singular exceptions, it is my experience that photographers who can write are easier to find than writers who can photograph. Now, having said that, I suppose the emails will flood in, and I’ll be criticized, but nevertheless, that’s true in my experience.
Yang:
Is there any reason why you think that happens to be the case?
Buell:
Well, because a writer sees something happen, and then creates the way to tell it, so he has to master the vocabulary and the grammar. Now photography has a grammar also, but the photographer has a lot less control over the way the picture looks than the writer has over the way the story reads. So a really talented writer can take a nothing story and make it sing, because he knows how to use the language. It’s a lot harder to make a mundane situation and make it into a sparkling picture, though good photographers will make it a better picture than mundane photographers or poor photographers. It’s a case of level, not of brilliance. A good photographer can make an ordinary scene a little more interesting. A writer can take an ordinary story and make it a lot more interesting, because he has control over the expression, as opposed to the photographer who has some control, but nevertheless is still stuck with what’s there.
Yang:
So in some senses too, it’s almost commercial demand in the sense, writers more often have something to say, even when there isn’t something to say, whereas…
Buell:
Well, no, I don’t think writers have more to say than photographers. I think writers have the ability to say more; there’s a difference there. Not that the writer is so insightful and brilliant, it’s just that because he uses words, he can choose between five words to say what he wants to say. The photographer has to deal with what’s in front of him. And the writer can stitch those words together in a more entertaining, exciting, elaborate, meaningful way sometimes than a photographer, that’s all.
Yang:
You mentioned Mal Browne and Peter Arnett as two people who think have talent in both. Are there any other names that come to mind?
Buell:
Well, Eddie Adams could write pretty well. Horst Faas could write pretty well. Just off the top of my head, there was a guy named John Wheeler who worked for the AP, who was a writer, who was a pretty fair photographer.
Yang:
Was there something about the fact that they were such excellent photojournalists that enabled them to be so good on the writing front as well?
Buell:
No, I don’t think so. I think that some people have an innate visual insight that others don’t have, and given a little practice tend to exploit it a little better than people who don’t have it. They don’t work at it professionally, and they don’t examine all lenses and films and digital and zooms, and all the little specificities that photographers use, but they nevertheless have a basic insight into what makes a picture. It’s just a gift. That’s true of photographers, but photographers, like the writer who learns to use the words, the photographer who has basic instinct and instinctive talent learns to use the tools of the photographer to make his pictures better.
Yang:
Dirk Halstead talks about how the rise of photo services like Corbis are viewed as a threat by a lot of photojournalists these days. In the whole, I don’t want to use the word ‘scandal,’ but the fuss about Corbis and SygmaCorbis itself said there was much less demand for hard news than soft news, it’s all about lifestyle and celebrities, pictures that have much more of a global interest: this is in their words. And some younger photojournalists have talked about how they have to finance more “worthy projects” on their own. Where do you think photojournalists should be turning for venues…?
Buell:
First of all, it’s not that the demand for celebrity, which is what you’re talking about, has put down other kinds of news photography. It’s that the demand for celebrity photography has increased. It hasn’t reduced the other demand. People are celebrity nuts these days, and I don’t know if that’s a fad or a trend, but there it is, and there’s the truth of it. And it’s easier for a photographer to make a living shooting celebrities, although it’s very competitive, than it is for a photographer to make a living getting news assignments. And the reason is that most news assignments now are covered by newspapers and wire services who can have wide areas of distribution and who can defray the costs. It’s very difficult for a photographer to go out to Iraq on his or her own, although many have done it, by making arrangements with different publications—they manage to do it, but it’s extremely difficult to do it. There’s no question about that. It’s costly to equip yourself now, it’s very costly.
Yang:
Along those lines, some people argue that some photojournalists have tried to compensate by trying to make their photographs more commercial, not necessarily focusing on the news orientation. One of the examples that was thrown out were the photographs taken of the most recent Tour de France of Lance Armstrong. There were people that argued that some of the photographs were more appropriate for posters than they were for their photojournalistic value.
Buell:
I would have to see the specific example that drew that observation, but I will tell you that one of the aspects of what makes a good picture is a poster quality, which I would describe, rather than as a poster quality, the need for simplicity and composition and image, so that the picture communicates very quickly and very easily. Now, I don’t know how that relates to the specific image that you are talking about. Can you describe the picture?
Yang:
There’s one in particular where Armstrong is in a very steep lean, and he’s out in front with a couple other cyclists right behind him. And there’s emphasis on color. Personally, I don’t think I saw a difference from other historical cycling photos.
Buell:
Sounds like to me it was a picture of Armstrong winning the race.
Yang:
So you don’t think of it as any kind of trend?
Buell:
No, no, I don’t think so. If a picture is made and has a poster quality and someone sells it as a poster, well, god bless him, he made an extra buck. And there are people who will shoot pictures, particularly of celebrities, that are meant to be posters. That’s part of the celebrity world, I mean the celebrity world is phony, come on. Everybody’s got their own agenda including the actors and actresses, the producers and all the rest of them, to put these things together. And a lot of the media, celebrity publications, certain newspapers, particularly the tabloids, buy into that, and play into that. Okay, that’s what they do. And then look at all the entertainment programs, the celebrity programs on TV now. It’s a new market.
Yang:
You’ve just touched upon, I guess, simplicity is one factor that can make more photos memorable. One thing you talk a lot about in Moments is the iconic power of some of the great photographs. If I’m quoting you correctly from the book, you say a still photograph captures a moment in time. You’ve also talked about the way that photographs elevate moments into historical importance. A couple of the photographs you seem to like to point out are the Eddie Adams photo of the Vietnamese officer and the Joe Rosenthal photo of Iwo Jima, and there are a lot of people who feel that those two images changed sentiment surrounding their particular wars. Can you talk about what it is about still photography, especially as audio and video have become more competitive, what is it about still photography that seems to retain that kind of power?
Buell:
The problem with video, it’s fleeting, it goes by very quickly. I like to say “it goes in one eye and out the other.” It just goes by quickly. Whereas a still photo, even when it’s used on television, it’s there for X amount of time, whether it be five seconds or ten seconds, it’s a lot longer than the video image that is there, the video image is 1/24 of a second, and it’s on to the next thing. While video has an impact of its own, for reasons I’ll try to describe, it does not last in the mind. Now having said that, there’s nothing more dramatic than having a plane fly into the Twin Towers. But some of those still pictures are pretty good too.
Historically speaking, the still photo stops the event, and it gives the individual viewer the time to look at it and study it and see not only the scene, but the pictures within the picture. You take Eddie Adams’ picture, and when you look at the footage, a man comes up, shoots a man, falls, and it is gone. If you look at Eddie’s picture, you see the pistol, the expression on the man’s face, you see the expression on the face of the shooter, you see the wince of the guards in the background, you see the straight line of the pistol being held out, which is almost bullet-like in its impact, so that, because you see and have the time to see all the elements, you see more than you see in the video image. Now, if the video image is played over and over and over, sometimes you get to see it in some better detail. Even then, it doesn’t have that frozen power that the still image has. And your memory works in still pictures if you think about it, rather than a motion picture.
I have a theory, and I have tried it out on neurologists…sometimes they agree and sometimes they say, “Maybe you’re right,” so I can’t say this 100 per cent. But…when you read a story in a paper or a magazine or a book, you read one word at a time, and the word delivers its message along with the other words one at a time. Your brain may be doing other things, too, simultaneously…enjoying a breeze perhaps, a perfume of flowers…whatever. The brain can handle this…especially the one word at a time. But when you look at a still picture you see it all at once. The brain has to work harder to capture all that information and pass it all into your being. The breeze and the perfume get less attention…the brain focuses on the image. The picture for that reason sticks longer in your mind. There is more focus of the intelligence on the picture. The still picture lasts longer.
The great icons also tend to be on stories of memorable impact, so that in addition to the inherent power of the picture, you have the inherent power of the event. The reason Joe Rosenthal’s picture was so great was, yes, incredible photography, but also because it came at a time when people were thinking other thoughts about the war. Despite what we say about the Greatest Generation and that wonderful time in World War II, people were getting a little fed up with the war by the Winter of 1945. People understood what was going on in Europe, because we were talking of datelines in Rome and Paris and London, and even Berlin and cities and locations that were part of our own history. In Asia, we talked about Saipan and Eniwetok and Bougainville, places that you couldn’t find on a map, and along comes Iwoand the casualties were staggering, and along comes Iwo Jima, another place on the ocean, you can’t find it on the map, and all these people are being killed, and people are saying stop already. Stop. And along comes this picture that says victory; it says American boys doing the job; it’s working together, all those ideals. It’s the way Americans see themselves. Think about how much that picture had going for it. Think of all that, and of course—and plus it was beautiful photography. You couldn’t make it any better. So, you put all that together, and Eddie’s picture and so did Nick Ut, and Malcolm Browne and “the Burning Monk,” the sheer horror of it, brought the Vietnam War on the front pages. Up until that time, it wasn’t exactly a back alley war, but it wasn’t a major thing. That picture put it on the front pages: it stayed there for ten years. So this is a very visceral impact that photography has, that still photography, that other forms of photography, and other forms of communication do not have.
Yang:
You’ve mentioned some of the photos that, I guess, you would rank in that category of having that iconic power. Any other ones that stand out? Would you include the Abu Ghraib ones in that category?
Buell:
Yes, Abu Ghraib has an impact for a different reason, but it has the same impact. It is not good photography, it’s bad photography. Remember when I was talking about the Iwo Jima picture? Its meaning, its impact, its translation, was of American ideals that American believed in themselves. It was a reinforcement of that time and attitudes. Abu Ghraib was just the opposite. It was exactly what Americans do not see in themselves. They don’t see Americans as doing things like that, but it’s the complete flip side, which means it has just as much impact, because it’s a negative picture as opposed to a positive picture. It doesn’t reduce the impact, because it challenges your basic ideals of yourself. And I think that accounts for its, frankly, what I think will be a lasting value. The My Lai pictures from Vietnam were the same thing. We don’t see ourselves that way. And all of a sudden there it is. It has a very jolting, jerking of the reins kind of an impact on the viewer.
Yang:
Your book collects a lot of the great Pulitzer Prize winners. You just mentioned the photo of, the name of the photographer escapes my name right now, the little girl running from…
Buell:
Yeah, Nick Ut [Huynh Cong Út].
Yang:
Yes, the Nick Ut photo. Any other photographs you would put in that category of “turning points?” And why would you include them?
Buell:
Of course, the photos of the Trade Towers being struck. There’s a case there of the classic combination of event in graphic, spectacular, indelible photography, that always will be iconic. An icon is more than a picture of a specific event. An icon sums up what went on before and after. On that same story was Tom Franklin’s photo of the fireman raising the flag. There’s an interesting concept there. The flag was raised and this takes nothing away from an incredible photograph, but there was an instant comparison to Iwo Jima, and all the strengths of the Iwo Jima picture came to support the same idea that Tom Franklin’s picture had: we will rise, we will prevail, we will overcome, you’re not going to put us down, we’re going to get this flag up, we’re going to be Americans… So across the generations, one picture supports another picture, and a lot of icons have that kind of power, they relate back.
Or in the case of the Hindenburg explodingthere were several pictures in that period, Jesse Owens winning the four medals at the Olympics, Joe Louis knocking out Max Schmeling , and the Hindenburg, which was the most dramatic of the pictures. They were all spectacular photos, they were also all anti-Nazi, and they combined together to fortify the anti-Nazi feelings that were on the build in the United States at the time, and therefore became icons themselves, particularly Jesse Owens and particularly the Hindenburg.
Yang:
You talk a lot about your admiration for the Hindenburg photos. It seems like even if [Murray Becker] had had a digital camera, I’m not sure if he could have captured the moment or moments betterwith the technology he had, and to get off all those photos…
Buell:
Oh, yeah, remarkable. Murray Becker did a remarkable job. He made four pictures in 46 seconds on a Speed Graphic. Really incredible, professional. That’s a mastery of mechanics. It’s just like an artist who knows exactly how to mix his paints, which is a mechanical thing. But he uses that mechanical thing to create a beautiful painting. Murray used his mastery of the mechanics to get these pictures, it was just stupendous.
Yang:
You use this wonderful poetic phrase to talk about what makes photos iconic. You said, in many ways they capture what came before, and what will come after. Otherwise, you’ve said in your book Moments that there are no hard and fast rules on what makes a photograph a Pulitzer, or I guess, by extension an iconic photo, except that they capture a universal moment. Besides this concept of capturing the before and after, can you talk about what makes a photograph universal in your eyes?
Buell:
Well, I think the essence of it is simplicity. Most of the iconic pictures are extremely simple photographs. They’re not complicated, they communicate their message instantly, even though, as I had said before there are pictures within the picture, the overall image is communicated instantly. What the still image allows is for someone to see more than that first blast of image, the first impact of image, than the cold water in the face effect that a really strong picture has, and allows you to see more, if you look at it you see more. If you look at the Hindenburg, there are people hanging on the roof, people falling down, the boiling fire of the explosion, and tilted angle. There are all sorts of things that communicate to the first blast, and then the details of it. But the icons, generally speaking, have this very strong overall power. Now that’s not true of the Abu Ghraib thing, and I don’t know if we dignify those as being icons. They’re certainly lasting. And they certainly have a before and after effect. “Icon” tends to be very positive, and those pictures are not positive.
Yang:
Yet at the same time, very obviously, a lot of the photographs that we remember seem to be borne of violence, and, paraphrasing you, I think you said that, unfortunately, it seems history is written more in blood than in moments of beauty. And looking through the photographs, some of the photographs have this quality where you can’t turn away, even though they’re so horrific, what’s depicted in them is so horrific.
Buell:
It’s a voyeuristic kind of a thing.
Yang:
Right. Why do you think so many of the, and I guess you’re somewhat loathe to use the word “iconic” for those kinds of photos, but let’s say “memorable” photos, why is it that so many of them are borne of violence?
Buell:
Well, because violence is very dramatic. I like to tell the story, people say, well, why does news seem too often to have this kind of a negative, violent, harsh, whatever you want to call it. Well, let me tell you a story.
It takes me three minutes to get to the train. I leave for work in the morning, and I walk to the train station. And I come home at night, and my wife says, “Well, what kind of a day did you have?” “Well, I went down and I went to the train station, bought my Times, and I went up on the track, and I saw Joe, and I said, ‘hi, how are the wife and kids,’ then I walked down and got on the platform, and the train came in, and a guy fell down between the train tracks, he run over and cut in two, and he got boxed up, and a couple of us went and got into a taxi and they took us down.” That’s not how you tell that story. “What kind of a day did you have?” “Damn! It was great ! A guy got killed on the platform this morning when I was getting to work this morning!” That’s because it’s different, it’s unusual, it rises out of the routine. And all too often, it’s the violence that rises up out of the routine.
Sometimes something will happen in which you will say, “you know I went down to the train station this morning, there was the cutest little girl, she had nice long curls, and she carried a dolly, and she smiled, and it was a pleasant moment.” That happens, and that’s what we call a feature picture, don’t we? That kind of a thing, like the [Bill Beal photo of a] cop talking to the boy that won the Pulitzer Prize? A marvelous vignette. You just don’t see so many of those. You just don’t. And I can’t explain it to you. Let me say this to you, when I was running the AP photo service, I think many times people would bring an issue to me, I used to kid the staff and myself too, “you think I go into my pocket and I have a little book and go to page 23 and it tells me what to do in this set of circumstances?” And the marvelous part of all this is that it is unpredictable, sometimes it’s not describable, sometimes it’s just interesting, because you look at it and say, “wow.” “That’s really interesting.” Well, why is it interesting? You begin to intellectualize it, like you and are doing now. And that’s fine and dandy, and it’s helpful, and it’s useful. But there’s this visceral thing about photography. There’s an electric excitement to photography that you don’t get in many other things.
Yang:
Do you think it’s because it’s difficult to recognize those kinds of vignettes, that otherwise seem like everyday moments? When you’re photographing violence the importance of the story in many ways seems obvious.
Buell:
Do you know John White in Chicago? John White is a Pulitzer Prize winner. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection of vignettes. And he just has an eye for that kind of thing. Some photographers have that, and some don’t. Many don’t. It’s a much more difficult kind of journalism to practice on a day to day basis, a lot of times you just stumble into it. Talk about serendipity, that’s where serendipity becomes the governing factor as just one of several factors. But John has a great feel for that, he’s a marvelous photographer. And a very sensitive fellow, and just a beautiful human being. And it shows in his photography, his personality comes through in his photography. There’s no way you can tell people how to do that, that’s something that’s in their heart and soul. It’s something that comes out in their pictures. Those are things that, you can’t define them, you can’t write them down. If you could, we’d all be doing them.
Yang:
You noted that Eddie Adams wasn’t particularly happy about the fact, maybe this is exaggerating his sentiment, but he didn’t like the fact that he was known mostly for that one photo of the execution in Vietnam. Dorothea Lange likewise complained that she hated the fact that she was known solely, or largely, for Migrant Mother. Why do you think it is, maybe the answer is too obvious, but why is it that we often remember just one single image from even a lot of the great photographers?
Buell:
Well, it’s because they are icons, because they have captured attention. Eddie is most proud of his pictures that he calls “Boat of No Smiles,” in which he did a photo story on Vietnamese who were at sea. They couldn’t land their boat anywhere and become citizens of another country; they were trying to escape Vietnam some time after the war. And actually those pictures changed the immigration laws. The Vietnamese were allowed to come into the U.S. in larger numbers.
The pictures are marvelous. Eddie was a great photographer. But the pictures had all the talent that Eddie brought to the scene, plus he felt that they did good. He did stories on a little boy who lived in a bubble, he did stories on kids who suffered from different diseases that were very compelling and made very compelling pictures, and he felt, he would rather have been known for that than for the execution photo, simply because he felt the execution photo didn’t tell the whole story.
That morning the deputy of Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the police chief who did the executingwas killed along with his wife and children by the Viet Cong, and the police chief was just not in the mood to think of the niceties. He caught the Viet Cong, and he executed him on the spot. As he walked away, he looked at Eddie and said, “these people killed many of my people and your people too,” and he just kept walking, with the guy dead on the street. Loan was highly respected, by both the Americans and the Vietnamese, he was a man of some intellectual abilities, and a reasonably fair guy, and Eddie felt that he had been unduly persecuted, because he took that picture. One of the problems with photography is that you can’t get all of that into a picture. I don’t know that if you had written a story that day that you would have gotten all that into a story either. Anyway, that’s why Eddie felt the way he did about that photograph.
“Take pictures with the camera of your heart.”
“I’m faithful to my purpose, my mission, my assignment, my work, my dreams. I stay focused on what I’m doing and what’s important. And I keep in flight—I spread my wings and do it.”
Chicago is a city of hard work and hard working people, blue and white collar. Chicago artists are known for their hard work, prolific output, and search for excellence. The list of legendary artists is long. Many are long dead. Some, like Paul Natkin, Shelley Howard, Victor Skrebneski, and Linda Matlow are still producing work.
From June through October 1973 and briefly during the spring of 1974, John H. White, a 28-year-old photographer with the Chicago Daily News, worked for the federal government photographing Chicago, especially the city`s African American community. White took his photographs for the Environmental Protection Agency`s (EPA) DOCUMERICA project. As White reflected recently, he saw his assignment as "an opportunity to capture a slice of life, to capture history." His photographs portray the difficult circumstances faced by many of Chicago`s African American residents in the early 1970s, but they also catch the "spirit, love, zeal, pride, and hopes of the community."
Today, John White is a staff photographer with the Chicago Sun-Times. He has won hundreds of awards, and his work has been exhibited and published widely. In 1982 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.
John White: Portrait of Black Chicago
Part One
The captions are John White`s own, written some time after he took his photographs. In some cases White used virtually the same caption for several images.
"Sunrise on Lake Michigan with Chicago shown in the background. The city has provided a climate for developing black resources and is considered the black business capital of the United States. There were 8,747 black owned businesses which grossed more than $332 million in 1970 according to the Census. In 1972 black owned financial institutions in Chicago had assets of $254.9 million."
"Black sidewalk salesmen arranging their fresh fruits and vegetables on Chicago`s South Side. Many of the city`s black businessmen started small and grew by working hard. Today Chicago is believed to be the black business capital of the United States. Black Enterprise Magazine reported in 1973 that the city had 14 of the top 100 black owned businesses in the country, one more than New York City."
"Black products was one of the themes at the annual Black Expo held in Chicago. Also present were black education, talent, a voter registration drive and other aspects of black consciousness. The aim is to make blacks aware of their heritage and capabilities and help them towards a better life."
"Empty housing in the ghetto on Chicago`s South Side. Structures such as this have been systematically vacated as a result of fires, vandalism, or failure by owners to provide basic tenant services. Then the vacated buildings, often substantially salvageable, are razed and replaced with high-rise apartments which appeal to few members of the black community and almost none of the area`s previous residents."
Chicago ghetto on the South Side. Although the percentage of Chicago blacks making $7,000 or more jumped from 26% to 58% between 1960 and 1970, a large percentage still remained unemployed. The black unemployment rate is generally assumed to be twice that of the national unemployment rate published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
John White: Portrait of Black Chicago
John White: Portrait of Black Chicago
Part Two
The captions are John White`s own, written some time after he took his photographs. In some cases White used virtually the same caption for several images.
"Black youths play basketball at Stateway Gardens` high-rise housing project on Chicago`s South Side. The complex has eight buildings with 1,633 two and three bedroom apartments housing 6,825 persons. They were built under the U.S. Housing Acts of 1949 and 1968. They are managed by the Chicago Housing Authority which is responsible for 41,500 public housing dwellings." May 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13710)
"Black youngsters cool off with fire hydrant water on Chicago`s South Side in the Woodlawn community. The kids don`t go to the city beaches and use the fire hydrants to cool off instead. It`s a tradition in the community, comprised of very low income people. The area has high crime and fire records. From 1960 to 1970 the percentage of Chicago blacks with income of $7,000 or more jumped from 26% to 58%." June 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13684)
"Young woman soliciting funds for a Chicago organization in a shopping center parking lot. She is one of the nearly 1.2 million black people who make up over a third of the population of Chicago. It is one of the many black faces in this project that portray life in all its seasons. The photos are portraits that reflect pride, love, beauty, hope, struggle, joy, hate, frustration, discontent, worship, and faith. She is a member of her race who is proud of her heritage." August 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13682)
"Minority youngsters who have gathered to have their picture taken on Chicago`s South Side during a talent show. Blacks make up over one third of the 3.6 million population in the city. Chicago census figures for 1970 show a significant gap in economic security between blacks and whites. Only 35% of black families earned $10,000 to $25,000 compared to 60% of white families. Of families earning less than $8,000 a total of 50% were black compared to 21% white." August 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13683)
"A student at the Westinghouse Industrial Vocation School on Chicago`s West Side. She is one of the nearly 1.2 million black people who make up over a third of the population of Chicago. It is one of the many black faces in this project that portray life in all its seasons. The photos are portraits that reflect pride, love, beauty, hope, struggle, joy, hate, frustration, discontent, worship, and faith. She is a member of her race who is proud of her heritage." May 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13691)
"A black man. One of the nearly 1.2 million black people who make up over a third of Chicago`s population. It is one of the many black faces in this project that portray life in all its seasons. The photos are portraits that reflect pride, love, beauty, hope, struggle, joy, hate, frustration, discontent, worship, and faith. In short, portraits of individual human beings who are proud of their heritage." June 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13697)
"A black man painting a store front on South Wabash Street. One of the nearly 1.2 million people of his race who make up over a third of Chicago`s population. It is one of the many black faces in this project that portray life in all its seasons. In short, they are portraits of human beings who feel they are individuals and are proud of their heritage. Their faces mirror pride, love, beauty, hope, struggle, joy, hate, frustration, discontent, worship, and faith." July 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13702)
Part Three
The captions are John White`s own, written some time after he took his photographs. In some cases White used virtually the same caption for several images.
"Religious fervor is mirrored on the face of a Black Muslim woman, one of some 10,000 listening to Elijah Muhammad deliver his annual Savior`s Day message in Chicago. The city is headquarters for the Black Muslims. Their $75 million dollar empire includes a mosque, newspaper, university, restaurants, real estate, bank, and variety of retail stores. Muhammad died February 25, 1975." March 1974 (NWDNS-412-DA-13792)
" `The Fruit of Islam,` a special group of bodyguards for Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad, sits at the bottom of the platform while he delivers his annual Savior`s Day message in Chicago. The city is headquarters for the Black Muslims. Their $75 million dollar empire includes a mosque, newspaper, university, restaurants, real estate, bank, and variety of retail stores. Muhammad died February 25, 1975." March 1974 (NWDNS-412-DA-13794)
"The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks on a radio broadcast from the headquarters of Operation PUSH, [People United to Save Humanity] at its annual convention. One of the aims of the organization is to open the world of business to small black owned businesses. Rev. Jackson is credited for helping to make Chicago the black banking capital in the country. He helped persuade white companies to stop taking profits they earned from black consumers to the white suburbs." July 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13800)
"Artist Ron Blackburn painting an outdoor wall mural at the corner of 33rd and Giles Streets in Chicago. He is one of many black artists painting such art. They feel it is a means of sharing art with the people of the ghetto who don`t go to the city`s museums." October 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13776)
"Artist who was helping with a wall painting on 33rd and Giles Street in South Side Chicago. He is one of many black artists painting outdoor murals in Chicago. They feel it is a means of sharing art with ghetto people who don`t go to the established museums." October 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13695)
"Black bongo player performs at the International Amphitheater in Chicago as part of the annual PUSH [People United to Save Humanity] `Black Expo` in the fall of 1973. The annual event showcases black talent, educational opportunities, stars, art, and products to provide blacks with an awareness of their heritage and capabilities, and help them towards a better life." October 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13860)
"Black soul singer Isaac Hayes performs at the International Amphitheater in Chicago as part of the annual PUSH [People United to Save Humanity] `Black Expo` in the fall of 1973. The annual event showcases black talent, educational opportunities, stars, art, and products to provide blacks with an awareness of their heritage and capabilities, and help them towards a better life." October 1973 (NWDNS-412-DA-13855)
IT IS WINTER IN NEW ORLEANS, and my mother is dying. As I sit at her bedside, on the verge of being overcome with grief, I try to distract myself with work. I’ve been asked to write about the great Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John H. White: his pictures, his legacy, and his famously unique spirit.
My mother has dementia. She and I are alone, except for her cat curled up asleep at her side. But thinking about John White makes me feel like I have company. In this dark moment, my memories of him, like the images he captured with his camera, feel like a gift.
I remember the night he touched my life. The Eddie Adams Workshop is an institution in the world of photojournalism: four days for professionals and students to meet, learn, and bond. John White, with his perfect Afro framing his ageless face and smiling eyes, has always been involved, or at least in my fading memory he always has been.
I was first invited to the workshop in the 1990s, when images were made on film and digital cameras were slightly smaller than a Smart car. At the time, I was an eager 20-something photo intern at the Los Angeles Times. John White was there, as was Gordon Parks, the legendary black photographer and filmmaker, both in the role of professional instructors. I was one of 100 young photographers hoping to learn from them.
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A crowd of 10,000 cheers Elijah Muhammad at his annual Savior’s Day Message in Chicago, 1974.
I recall other young photographers of color, but as far as I can remember, I was the only black participant apart from faculty members like White and Parks. Even then, this was becoming a familiar experience. I’d find myself thinking: I must do more. I must be the best.
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White, of course, came up in an even less diverse era. A preacher’s son from Lexington, North Carolina, he was born in 1945, when the idea of a black photojournalist barely existed. A teacher once told him he’d grow up to be a garbage man. As the story goes, White’s father told him it was fine to be a garbage man “as long as he was the one driving the truck.” He was taught to work hard and take pride in that work, whatever it was.
There was such violence, fear, and crime, but the exposure of images became a light that only photography could create.”
I’d heard of White before the Eddie Adams workshop. I knew he worked for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he’d won the Pulitzer for feature photography in 1982. I also knew he’d won his Prize for a collection of pictures taken over the course of a year, a rarity among photographers, who are usually honored for a single image or a photo essay or story, which involve a collection of related images. Indeed, John White is the only photojournalist in the last 100 years who has won a Pulitzer in either of the photography categories with a portfolio of one year’s work. He is also one of only six black photojournalists who have won individual Prizes.
White’s winning portfolio captures his powerful and consistent vision: simple, straightforward images; beautiful use of light; muscular composition; and subversive, meaningful moments. It contains images of daily life in Chicago, from the whimsical—a dinosaur skeleton having its teeth brushed and a penguin frolicking—to a touching and sweet image of two little girls playing a single violin. Young ballerinas leap and float. A National Guard citizen-soldier trains hard. A child plays in a dilapidated hallway at the notorious Cabrini-Green public housing complex.
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Girls play in the flow of a fire hydrant in the Woodlawn Community on Chicago’s South Side, 1973.
One cold autumn night, on a bus back to the Eddie Adams farm after a trip to town, I spied an empty seat next to White and grabbed it. We quickly fell into a hushed, intimate conversation, and he asked me a question I’ll never forget: “Are you a black photographer or a photographer who happens to be black?”
I remember tears welling in my eyes, and hoping that he couldn’t tell. Even back then, it was a question I asked myself often, an exercise in the emotional complexity of being black in America. I don’t recall what I said, or whether I said anything at all.
White’s question reminded me of the “double-consciousness” that W. E. B. Du Bois describes in The Souls of Black Folk. Being black in America, Du Bois writes, means living with a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
When I was an intern at the Times, there was only one black photographer on staff and a few photo editors of color. I sometimes felt that my race was more important than my skills. Shortly after I started there, a white reporter asked me to work with her on a story involving black teenagers in south LA. I gladly agreed and shared some of my ideas, but she told me she wasn’t looking for ideas. I want you to come with me because I know you’ll be able to calm these kids down, she said, more or less. So I went along and calmed the kids down so that she could talk to them. I made a couple decent frames, but on that story, my dreadlocks and persona were what mattered.
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Abandoned housing pockmarks Chicago’s South Side; buildings are left vacant after fires, vandalism, or owners’ failure to provide basic services, 1973.
Is John White a black photographer or a photographer who happens to be black? The answer is complicated. I can only imagine looking at a newspaper today and experiencing as powerful a body of work as White’s, with an earnest visual stream of consciousness that is tightly edited and that explores a city and its people through various moods that span what it means to be alive. As then-Sun-Times Executive Vice President and Editor Ralph Otwell wrote in his 1982 letter accompanying White’s Pulitzer portfolio, his work was “as big as life itself.”
In one of White’s pictures, we travel beneath Chicago and walk the line with a worker in a subway tunnel, in awe at what men and women have created to move us to and fro. His photograph of a preemie struggling to live forces me to stare, silently offer a prayer of thanks, and then smile as I think about my little Papi at day care.
We go to jail and watch a nun minister to a captive flock. I think and feel. Those of us who believe in a higher power sense the presence of God within the picture of a baptism in the churning waters of Lake Michigan. I continue to feel.
This is life. John White reminds us that we are alive.
But there’s something else in these pictures, too, something troubling. We take a journey through the gritty, graffiti-covered world of Cabrini-Green. We feel the pressure of poverty; the history of redlining in Chicago is evident, the plight of black folk clear. Though we don’t see gangs, we feel their presence. We walk the beat with cops, and feel the intensity of their assignment, as well as concern for the young people they arrest. Yet even here, the strength of the spirit cannot be denied. Amid the poverty, there is pride—even joy.
“Photography took the handcuffs off of that place,” White told me recently. “The children could smile again, play again because of the power of journalism. There was such violence, fear, and crime, but the exposure of images became a light that only photography could create.”
One of these photos has become iconic. It captures children smiling and playing in front of a monolithic tower at Cabrini-Green. Though the building looms over him, the boy at the center of the frame is larger than life. His joy is infectious, impossible to ignore. Young black men are often viewed as threats, but this boy is palpably innocent. White chose to celebrate a black child. I believe this was an artistic decision, not a political one, but it carries a deeper social meaning.
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I imagine White must have felt an added responsibility as a black photographer in Cabrini. Not to right a wrong, but to do right by the people he was photographing, as opposed to just making a good picture. In my own life, it’s moments like these when I’ve felt like a black photographer, rather than a photographer who happens to be black. You look at this world with a historical perspective, and try to give a voice to the voiceless. It’s not just an assignment or a job. It’s a sacred responsibility.
It hurts to admit that John White’s Pulitzer is much larger than the pictures for which he won. It cannot be separated from the social implications of his being black, in a field where concerns about the lack of diversity are as pressing now as ever. Take the city I call home, New Orleans, which is more than 60 percent black, with a growing Latino community and a substantial Asian population. Yet the photo staffs of our mainstream newspapers and wire services do not begin to reflect the community’s diversity.
John White didn’t dwell on the negative. When the Sun-Times laid him off in 2013, along with the rest of its photo staff, he responded with grace. “I light candles, I don’t curse the darkness,” he told The New York Times. “Even now, my colleagues are cursing the darkness. I’m lighting the candles. And I give wings to dreams, I ain’t breaking no wings. I’m not clipping any wings. Make a difference in the world. One light. One day. One image.”
My mother died on a Saturday in January. It was automatic to think of White as I mourned her. He is a deeply spiritual man, and something I read recently has taken me deeper into my meditation on his importance in my life.
“I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do dwell,” Du Bois wrote in his essay “Credo.” “I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite development.”
Am I a black photographer or a photographer who happens to be black? I can answer White’s question now. Within my double-consciousness, I am both.
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IN 1997, the Los Angeles Times assigned photographer Clarence Williams to document the lives of children growing up with drug-addicted parents. Williams spent days and nights with addicts and their kids, capturing images of a mother shooting up heroin near her 3-year-old daughter and the son of a speed addict digging through a dumpster for clothes.
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An image from Williams’s Pulitzer-winning series.
One afternoon, Williams was hanging out with a female speed addict. She liked to get high and clean frenetically, “like a crazy person,” Williams recalls. In a drug-induced fugue, she deposited her infant daughter on a blanket on the floor and started vacuuming. Through his camera lens, Williams saw the baby grab for the vacuum cleaner cord and bring it to her mouth. “I had no desire to take a picture of a child electrocuting herself,” he says. He put down his camera and picked up the baby. “I believe there are times when we’re in the world and we have a journalist’s hat on, and there are times when you have to take the journalist’s hat off and put on your human hat. That was a time when I had to put on my human hat.”
ohn H. White (*1945) is a renowned American photojournalist. His photography documents everyday lives and political events in American cities, particularly Chicago. He was a staff photographer on the Chicago Sun-Times for 35 years, and won a Pulitzer prize in 1982. Our exhibition concentrates on photographs depicting life for families living in Chicago housing projects in the 1980s.
The controversial dissolution of the Sun-Times photography department earlier this year stirred up much debate regarding the significance of photojournalism. We are therefore particularly pleased to present this exhibition of works by one of the world’s most influential photojournalists as a testament to the enduring importance of this occupation.
A couple months back, Donald Winslow, the editor of the National Press Photographers Association's News Photographer magazine, emailed me asking if I would be able to photograph a "renowned" Chicago photographer for the April 2012 issue.
My first thought was, "I hope he means John H. White."
Several weeks later, he confirmed, that indeed, he was looking for me to hang out with John a bit for a cover story honoring John on the 30th anniversary of his Pulitzer Prize.
After running the idea past my photo chief, I was given the green light.
Before I go on about my time with John, I want to first give some context.
Back in 1986, shortly after graduating from Ripon College, I was trying to break into the world of newspaper photography.
At the time, I had absolutely no experience and not a soul was responding to the resumes that I had sent out to almost every newspaper in the Midwest.
Then one day, Erv Gebhard of the Milwaukee Journal called and asked if I would like to come up to Wisconsin and show him my work.
I tightened up my portfolio of ill-composed sports photos shot from the stands, artsy silhouettes and reflections and a photo story on public sculpture in Chicago that didn't have one human in it and headed north.
After looking at my work, Gebhard kindly said that I had a good eye, but, that I needed to get some experience. He said that I should either get a job at a small paper or go back to school and take some photo classes.
As I headed out the door, he told me to give John H. White a call. He said John taught a photojournalism class at Chicago's Columbia College and his tutelage might be exactly what I needed to get on the right track.
The next morning, I called John to inquire about how I would go about taking his class. After discussing my photo background or lack thereof, John told me that I would first have to take Photo I and Darkroom I before I could enroll in his class.
Halfway through those introductory classes at Columbia, I was offered a part time job at The Daily Calumet, a community newspaper that covered Chicago's southeast side and south suburbs.
I promptly stopped going to school and began learning my craft on the job.
In hindsight, I wonder what trajectory my career would have taken if I had hung around Columbia long enough to be taught my John.
But when I really think about it, I have been taught by John everday of the past 26 years.
Working in the same city as John, seeing his images in the Sun-Times and occasionally shooting side by side with him has improved my skills as a photographer, however, more importantly, watching his work ethic, the way he treats his fellow man and his uplifting presence has shown me a golden example of how to live life.
The photos that I am sharing here are from three visits with John right before and on Easter.
The whole time was magical, although, photographing John at the Sun-Times' office was extremely awkward.
The high point of the assignment, and maybe of my entire career, was Easter morning.
I arrived at John's South side residence before dawn.
I was awestruck and humbled as I entered his home and witnessed his life's work covering the walls.
John is a private man and I felt extremely honored to be allowed into his world.
As John finished getting ready, I walked around, mouth agape, soaking in the experience.
In short time we were off to the lakefront where John tries to begin each day at sunrise, where in his words he "recharges his batteries" and spends a "moment with God".
After documenting John's ritual of half prayer half photography, I took a break to stand with John, arm around his shoulder and his around mine, facing the rising sun, soaking in this glorious scene.
John then took time to pray for me, my family and to thank God for letting us share this time together.
I didn't want that moment to end.
John likes to say that he sometimes is given "assignments from God". Well, I can honestly say that my time spent with John H. White was a gift.
I can never give back to John everything that he has given me, but, I definitely can pay it forward and try to live my life like John lives his.
God bless you John H. White.
Keep in flight!
Whether you know it or not, there's a good chance you've admired the work of John White. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-journalist who's captured iconic images of Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali, just to name a few.
He spent decades with the Chicago Sun-Times – until the paper laid off all of its photography staff in 2013.
White is set to talk about his work at Middlebury College on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., and he joined VPR by phone from Chicago to talk about his career.
On getting into photography
"I actually was chewing bubblegum in school, which you don't do. And it was Bazooka bubble gum and in the bubblegum wrapper said for 50 cents and ten wrappers, you can get a camera. So, my grandmother gave me 50 cents. I ordered that camera, and it was my first camera, when I was 13 years old.
"My father is a minister, and so everywhere we would go, people would take photographs of the preacher family and things like that, and I always had this sense of what people were looking at, and watching people ... This thing of observing people. It was simpler for me to click a shutter and capture a moment.
At this point, John White holds a camera up to the microphone and snaps a picture, creating that unmistakable sound of a lens shutter.
"Oh yes, I have my Nikon, and then I have the camera of my heart. The absence of a camera would be ... I mean, it's an extension and it's an extension of my ... I have to have the camera because I look at myself as a visual servant."
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Credit John H. White / Courtesy Middlebury College
Muhammad Ali, 1978, Deer Lake, Pennsylvania.
On being a "visual servant to God"
"The camera is sort of a conduit between the heart beat of humanity. I know that when I capture a moment, that every individual on earth can read that, can understand the language of that. And so I can communicate with everybody.
"I remember an interview President Obama did last year, and a student asked, 'Mr. President, if you had any power in the world, what would that power be?' And he said, 'To speak all the languages of the world.' And I can't wait to have a conversation with the president and say, 'Mr. President, I do that every day.' ... And somebody young, old rich, poor, educated, uneducated, can read the language of photography."
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Credit John H. White / Courtesy Middlebury College
Aim of Fame.
On choosing a favorite photograph
"I just love photographs. And they change. There are some that mean much to me because of what it meant to the people. And in my Pulitzer Prize portfolio, there's a picture of a dinosaur, at the museum, being maintained. And I attended a kindergarten graduation. And this little boy was the top speaker there and I was so proud of him and I went up to him I said, 'I'm very proud of you, and you're going to do great. So what you want to be when you grow up?' And he said, 'Mister, I want to be like the man and take pictures of dinosaurs.'
"And so that touched me, because he saw my photograph and did a study on my work and he wanted to be like John White, so to speak. So that, to me, is just as important as covering the pope, or any major event. It's the one-on-one, heart-to-heart, eye-to-eye, with ordinary people."
"I'm the conduit"
"The pictures take themselves ... I'm just sort of the mirror. I'm the the conduit. I remember, one meaningful moment for instance is [Nelson] Mandela being in this house for the first time after being released from prison in Soweto. And I saw him, you know, I'm in the kitchen and he's coming out of the bedroom, with his jacket, putting it on, and I just saw that smile, this gentle giant, this kindness, and I took the picture.
Nelson-Mandela-John-White-courtesy-Middlebury.jpg
Credit John H. White / Courtesy Middlebury College
Nelson Mandela returns home to Soweto, February 15, 1990.
"I captured that moment. But, in moments like that, it's not me. You know, I'm there, I sense the spirit of connectedness. And so, I don't take the picture, the spirit takes it, so to speak."
On the role of photojournalists in a world awash with smartphones
"You know, I think it's true that there are a lot of photographers. But quality photographs, quality moments – a lot of photographs out there, but not a lot of moments. Not a lot of intimate moments.
pure-joy-john-h-white-courtesy-middlebury.JPG
Credit John H. White / Courtesy Middlebury College
Pure Joy.
"I mean, you when I was coming to the studio, I saw two people standing, getting ready to take a selfie. And I said, 'May I take the picture for you?' And they were going to take it against this wall that, the window that was overpowering the light, which wouldn't work. Anyway, I took two images with their phone, and they just really loved it.
"So I think that people are clickers. You know, they click. And there's no soul to it, there's no feeling to it. It's content, which is cool. You look at the magazines and newspapers that are doing great things, and there's moments there. There's moments there, and those will always be. And you can't do that with a clicker."
” Photo: Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune
John H. White is a Chicago legend. He started work at the former Chicago Daily News and moved to the Chicago Sun Times in 1978. In 1973-74 the Environmental Protection Agency asked Mr. White to photograph Chicago’s African American life for its DOCUMERICA project.
Mr. White was selected as one of fifty African American photographers for the book, “Songs of My People”, documenting African American life. Mr. White taught at Northwestern and Columbia College. John H. White received the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism in 1982 for consistent excellence in a wide range of topics. He also won three National Headliner Awards, was awarded the Chicago Press Photographer Association Photographer of the Year five times, and was the first photographer inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame. He also received the Chicago Medal of Merit.
Mr. White is an artist, teacher, mentor, deeply spiritual man, and one of the nicest people in the news business you will ever meet. I had the opportunity to meet Mr. White at a photography seminar held at Calumet Photo. We discussed the reportage of violence in Chicago for a few minutes. His lecture was informative, but you could feel there was an element of love in what he was saying. He is a man who truly loves his craft.
The Chicago Sun Times saw fit to reward John H. White’s long career with them by laying him off with all their other photographers. John H. White will not disappear, whine, or complain. Mr. White has something missing in too many people, artists and non-artists alike. Mr. White has a work ethic. It is part and parcel of his moral code. Mr. White will continue to produce excellence. We will continue to benefit from his work.
Another great photographer, Gordon Parks, described freedom as, “Not allowing anyone to set boundaries, cutting loose the imagination, and then making the new horizons.” John H. White is now free to pursue an even higher plane of artistic creation.
John H. White: Driver
Here's what we learned from John H. White:
That although great photography is the result of skill and circumstance, strength of character plays a part, too. "When I was nine years old, a teacher told us what we would probably grow up to be," John H. White says, "and because I was slow in math, she said I'd end up working on a garbage truck. All the other kids laughed. I went home crying, and my dad asked me what was wrong. When I told him, he got all six of us kids together and said, 'I'll never tell you what to be in life, but I will tell you to be your best and look for the best in others.' Then he said to me, 'And Johnny, if you work on a garbage truck, fine...just be sure you're the one driving the truck.' I may have been very young, but it was a turning point."
That he's been a photojournalist for over 30 years, and is currently a staff photographer at the Chicago Sun-Times, the paper he joined in 1978. In 1982, he received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography and has won three first place National Headliner Awards. He was the first photographer inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and has been the Chicago Press Photographer Association's Photographer of the Year a record five times. In 1999, he received the city's highest honor, the Chicago Medal of Merit.
That after all his years as a photojournalist, he still strives to have "the rookie's spirit and the pro's eye." The spirit comes naturally: "I believe in embracing each gift we get, and I get one each day." The eye is guided by a sense of responsibility: "The camera is this great tool, this wonderful passport, that allows me to go out there and be the eyes for others."
That he got his first camera at 13 and his first assignment at fourteen. "Our church had burned down," John has said, "and my father had me take pictures after that and during the whole construction stage. Maybe that's why I do picture stories now, because I started that way."
That for the entire year of 2001, John pursued a long dreamed-of self-assignment: to take one photo each day of a moment that meant something special to him. For the project, he used the Lite-Touch camera he always carries with him. "I'm never without that little camera. It's been my third eye. I use it as a visual notebook, and I've always wanted to do that every day for a year—to take out that notebook and record a special moment."
That the project was challenging, but not really difficult. Challenging because "my favorite thing to do is stories, I love stories, and to capture only one moment each day was a challenge. Yet it was simple because it was a moment that captured me." He ended up with 365 slices of life; one year and all those precious memories captured in a total of less than five seconds. Some were images of things he saw on the job, but most were taken during private and personal moments. (The last four photos you see here are from the self-assignment.)
That the project, which John calls "Glimpses of My Journey," was inspired by and dedicated to his mother, Ruby Mae Leverett White, and it was made all the more poignant by her death in March of 2001. "For one month, in October of 2000, I practiced for the assignment, and the very first frame, on October 1st, was of my mother, and it was taken at her birthplace. When I showed her the proof sheet from that month of practice, she saw a photo of a tree I'd made, which to me just showed off some fall color, but she said that it was a picture of how nature represents aging. Then she saw a picture of children at Halloween, and she talked about what that picture would mean to the children years from now and what it would mean to generations to come."
That practicing for a month was a good idea. "I made a couple of mistakes that I couldn't make on the project. One of the mistakes was on the third or fourth day of the month's practice. I was on the 50th floor of a high rise in Chicago taking photographs on a balcony, and a tiny bird landed on the balcony. I took pictures of the people there and then I realized I couldn't do that. I'd taken two frames of them, trying to make them feel good, using the camera devoted to the project. Making that mistake was good for me because I learned that if you're limited to one frame a day, you've got to have discipline."
That his assignments for the newspaper range from sports to spot news. "I cover everything," John says. "As in life: birth to death and all the things in between. And I like that. I don't want to be limited to doing just one thing."
That he's not without ambition. "When I'm out shooting and people ask me where the pictures are going to be, I say, ’I shoot for page one.' "
That he lives by three words: faith, focus, flight. "I'm faithful to my purpose, my mission, my assignment, my work, my dreams. I stay focused on what I'm doing and what's important. And I keep in flight—I spread my wings and do it."
And that when John says good-bye to you, his parting words are "Keep in flight."
In the Bag
For John's news photography the camera is the D1. For his projects away from the paper it's an F5, F100 or his treasured F4. And, of course, his constant companion and visual notebook is a Lite-Touch point and shoot.
"The lens I use every day is the 35-70mm Zoom-Nikkor," John says. His 70-210mm zoom, the 105mm and the 300mm also get a share of the work, but if he were to be limited to one lens it would be a 35mm—"it's the one most comfortable to my eye."
John H. White (born 1945 in Lexington, North Carolina) is an American photojournalist, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Photo career
3 Notes
4 External links
Early life
When John H. White was nine years old, a teacher told him that he would grow up to work on a garbage truck because he was slow in math. At home, his father told him to grow up to be his best, to look for the best in others, and if he were to work on a garbage truck, fine—just be sure he's the driver. White has said that this was a turning point in his life.[2]
Photo career
White's father also played a pivotal role in his photography. At age 14, White's church burned down and his father asked him to take photos of the destruction and reconstruction. White now credits this first assignment with his focus on photo stories.
After working for the Chicago Daily News, White joined the staff of the Chicago Sun Times in 1978 and worked there until May 2013.[3] White also teaches photojournalism at Columbia College Chicago, and formerly taught at Northwestern University. In 1973 and 1974 White worked for the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA project photographing Chicago and its African American community. White's photographs show the difficulties facing residents as well as their spirit and pride.
Street scene on 47th Street
White was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism in 1982 for his "consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects." He was selected as a photographer for the 1990 project Songs of My People.[4] White has also won three National Headliner Awards, was the first photographer inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, was awarded the Chicago Press Photographer Association's Photographer of the Year award five times, and, in 1999, received the Chicago Medal of Merit.
Hal Buell, the former head of the Associated Press Photography Service, noted that White is one of the best photographers at capturing the everyday vignette.[5] White has published a book about Cardinal Bernardin, but he has yet to publish a book of his work outside the religious realm.
White has said that he lives by three words: faith, focus, flight. "I'm faithful to my purpose, my mission, my assignment, my work, my dreams. I stay focused on what I'm doing and what's important. And I keep in flight—I spread my wings and do it."[6]
The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album.
The Feature Photography prize was inaugurated in 1968 when the single Pulitzer Prize for Photography was replaced by the Feature prize and "Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography", renamed for "Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography" in 2000.
Winners and citations
One Feature Photography Pulitzer has been awarded annually from 1968 without exception.[1]
1968: Toshio Sakai, United Press International, "for his Vietnam War combat photograph, 'Dreams of Better Times'."
1969: Moneta Sleet Jr. of Ebony, "for his photograph of Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow and child, taken at Dr. King's funeral."
1970: Dallas Kinney, Palm Beach Post (Florida), "for his portfolio of pictures of Florida migrant workers, 'Migration to Misery'."
1971: Jack Dykinga, Chicago Sun-Times, "for his dramatic and sensitive photographs at the Lincoln and Dixon State Schools for the Retarded in Illinois."
1972: David Hume Kennerly, United Press International, "for his dramatic photographs of the Vietnam War in 1971."
1973: Brian Lanker, Topeka Capital-Journal, "for his sequence on child birth, as exemplified by his photograph, 'Moment of Life'."
1974: Slava Veder, Associated Press, "for his picture Burst of Joy, which illustrated the return of an American prisoner of war from captivity in North Vietnam."
1975: Matthew Lewis, Washington Post, "for his photographs in color and black and white."
1976: Photographic staff of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, "for a comprehensive pictorial report on busing in Louisville's schools."
1977: Robin Hood, Chattanooga News-Free Press, "for his photograph of a disabled veteran and his child at an Armed Forces Day parade."
1978: J. Ross Baughman, Associated Press, "for three photographs from guerrilla areas in Rhodesia."
1979: Staff photographers of the Boston Herald American, "for photographic coverage of the blizzard of 1978."
1980: Erwin H. Hagler, Dallas Times Herald, "for a series on the Western cowboy."
1981: Taro Yamasaki, Detroit Free Press, "for his photographs of Jackson State Prison, Michigan."
1982: John H. White, Chicago Sun-Times, "for consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects."
1983: James B. Dickman, Dallas Times Herald, "for his telling photographs of life and death in El Salvador."
1984: Anthony Suau, The Denver Post, "for a series of photographs which depict the tragic effects of starvation in Ethiopia and for a single photograph of a woman at her husband's gravesite on Memorial Day."
1985: Stan Grossfeld, Boston Globe, "for his series of photographs of the famine in Ethiopia and for his pictures of illegal aliens on the U.S.-Mexico border."
1986: Tom Gralish, The Philadelphia Inquirer, "for his series of photographs of Philadelphia's homeless."
1987: David C. Peterson, Des Moines Register, "for his photographs depicting the shattered dreams of American farmers."
1988: Michel du Cille, Miami Herald, "for photographs portraying the decay and subsequent rehabilitation of a housing project overrun by the drug crack."
1989: Manny Crisostomo, Detroit Free Press, "for his series of photographs depicting student life at Southwestern High School in Detroit."
1990: David C. Turnley, Detroit Free Press, "for photographs of the political uprisings in China and Eastern Europe."
1991: William Snyder, The Dallas Morning News, "for his photographs of ill and orphaned children living in subhuman conditions in Romania."
1992: John Kaplan, Block Newspapers, Toledo, Ohio, "for his photographs depicting the diverse lifestyles of seven 21-year-olds across the United States."
1993: Staff of Associated Press, "for its portfolio of images drawn from the 1992 presidential campaign."
1994: Kevin Carter, a free-lance photographer, "for a picture first published in The New York Times of a starving Sudanese girl who collapsed on her way to a feeding center while a vulture waited nearby."
1995: Staff of Associated Press, "for its portfolio of photographs chronicling the horror and devastation in Rwanda."[2]
1996: Stephanie Welsh, "a free-lancer, for her shocking sequence of photos, published by Newhouse News Service, of a female genital cutting rite in Kenya."[3]
1997: Alexander Zemlianichenko, Associated Press, "for his photograph of Russian President Boris Yeltsin dancing at a rock concert during his campaign for re-election. This was originally nominated in the Spot News Photography section, but was moved by the board to Feature Photography."[4]
1998: Clarence Williams, Los Angeles Times, "for his powerful images documenting the plight of young children with parents addicted to alcohol and drugs."[5]
1999: Staff of Associated Press, "for its striking collection of photographs of the key players and events stemming from President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky and the ensuing impeachment hearings."[6]
2000: Carol Guzy, Michael Williamson and Lucian Perkins, Washington Post, "for their intimate and poignant images depicting the plight of the Kosovo refugees."[7]
2001: Matt Rainey, Star-Ledger (New Jersey), "for his emotional photographs that illustrate the care and recovery of two students critically burned in a dormitory fire at Seton Hall University."[8]
2002: The New York Times staff, "for its photographs chronicling the pain and the perseverance of people enduring protracted conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan."[9]
2003: Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times, "for his memorable portrayal of how undocumented Central American youths, often facing deadly danger, travel north to the United States."[10]
2004: Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times, "for her cohesive, behind-the-scenes look at the effects of civil war in Liberia, with special attention to innocent citizens caught in the conflict."[11]
2005: Deanne Fitzmaurice, San Francisco Chronicle, "for her sensitive photo essay on an Oakland hospital's effort to mend an Iraqi boy nearly killed by an explosion."[12]
2006: Todd Heisler of Rocky Mountain News, "for his haunting, behind-the-scenes look at funerals for Colorado Marines who return from Iraq in caskets."[13]
2007: Renée C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee, "for her intimate portrayal of a single mother and her young son as he loses his battle with cancer."[14]
2008: Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor, "for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent's terminal illness."[15]
2009: Damon Winter of The New York Times, "for his memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple facets of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign."[16]
2010: Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post, "for his intimate portrait of a teenager who joins the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq, poignantly searching for meaning and manhood."[17]
2011: Barbara Davidson of Los Angeles Times, "For her intimate story of innocent victims trapped in the city’s crossfire of deadly gang violence."[18][19][20]
2012: Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post "for his compassionate chronicle of an honorably discharged veteran, home from Iraq and struggling with a severe case of post-traumatic stress, images that enable viewers to better grasp a national issue".[21][22][23]
2013: Javier Manzano "for his extraordinary picture, distributed by Agence France-Presse, of two Syrian rebel soldiers tensely guarding their position as beams of light stream through bullet holes in a nearby metal wall".[24]
2014: Josh Haner of The New York Times, "for his stirring portraits of the painful rehabilitation of a man badly injured in the Boston Marathon bombings".[25][26]
2015: Daniel Berehulak, freelance photographer, The New York Times "for his gripping, courageous photographs of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa."[27][28][29]
2016: Jessica Rinaldi of The Boston Globe "for the raw and revealing photographic story of a boy who strives to find his footing after abuse by those he trusted."[30]
2017: E. Jason Wambsgans of Chicago Tribune "for a superb portrayal of a 10-year-old boy and his mother striving to put the boy’s life back together after he survived a shooting in Chicago."[31][32][33]
2018: Danish Siddiqui of Reuters "for shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar."[34][35]
2019: Lorenzo Tugnoli of The Washington Post "for brilliant photo storytelling of the tragic famine in Yemen, shown through images in which beauty and composure are intertwined with devastation. (Moved by the jury from Breaking News Photography, where it was originally entered.)"[36]
2020: Associated Press photographers Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan and Channi Anand "for striking images captured during a communications blackout in Kashmir depicting life in the contested territory as India stripped it of its semi-autonomy."[37]
The Pulitzer Prize (/ˈpʊlɪtsər/[1]) is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher and is administered by Columbia University.[2] Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award (raised from $10,000 in 2017).[3] The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.[4][5]
Contents
1 Entry and prize consideration
1.1 Difference between entrants and nominated finalists
2 History
3 Recipients
4 Categories
4.1 Changes to categories
5 Board
6 Controversies
7 Criticism and studies
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Citations
9.2 General sources
10 External links
Entry and prize consideration
The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically consider all applicable works in the media, but only those that have specifically been entered. (There is a $75 entry fee, for each desired entry category.) Entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance for being literary or musical. Works can also be entered only in a maximum of two categories, regardless of their properties.[6]
Each year, 102 jurors are selected by the Pulitzer Prize Board to serve on 20 separate juries for the 21 award categories; one jury makes recommendations for both photography awards. Most juries consist of five members, except for those for Public Service, Investigative Reporting, Explanatory Reporting, Feature Writing and Commentary categories, which have seven members; however, all book juries have at least three members.[2] For each award category, a jury makes three nominations. The board selects the winner by majority vote from the nominations or bypasses the nominations and selects a different entry following a 75 percent majority vote. The board can also vote to issue no award. The board and journalism jurors are not paid for their work; however, the jurors in letters, music, and drama receive a $2,000 honorarium for the year, and each chair receives $2,500.[2]
Difference between entrants and nominated finalists
Anyone whose work has been submitted is called an entrant. The jury selects a group of nominated finalists and announces them, together with the winner for each category. However, some journalists and authors who were only submitted, but not nominated as finalists, still claim to be Pulitzer nominees in promotional material.
The Pulitzer board has cautioned entrants against claiming to be nominees. The Pulitzer Prize website's Frequently Asked Questions section describes their policy as follows: "Nominated Finalists are selected by the Nominating Juries for each category as finalists in the competition. The Pulitzer Prize Board generally selects the Pulitzer Prize Winners from the three nominated finalists in each category. The names of nominated finalists have been announced only since 1980. Work that has been submitted for Prize consideration but not chosen as either a nominated finalist or a winner is termed an entry or submission. No information on entrants is provided. Since 1980, when we began to announce nominated finalists, we have used the term 'nominee' for entrants who became finalists. We discourage someone saying he or she was 'nominated' for a Pulitzer simply because an entry was sent to us."[7]
Bill Dedman of NBC News, the recipient of the 1989 investigative reporting prize, pointed out in 2012 that financial journalist Betty Liu was described as "Pulitzer Prize–Nominated" in her Bloomberg Television advertising and the jacket of her book, while National Review writer Jonah Goldberg made similar claims of "Pulitzer nomination" to promote his books. Dedman wrote, "To call that submission a Pulitzer 'nomination' is like saying that Adam Sandler is an Oscar nominee if Columbia Pictures enters That's My Boy in the Academy Awards. Many readers realize that the Oscars don't work that way—the studios don't pick the nominees. It's just a way of slipping 'Academy Awards' into a bio. The Pulitzers also don't work that way, but fewer people know that."[8]
Nominally, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is awarded only to news organizations, not individuals. In rare instances, contributors to the entry are singled out in the citation in a manner analogous to individual winners.[9][10] Journalism awards may be awarded to individuals or newspapers or newspaper staffs; infrequently, staff Prize citations also distinguish the work of prominent contributors.[11]
History
The Pulitzer Prize certificate of Mihajlo Pupin, which used a recycled Columbia diploma
Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer gave money in his will to Columbia University to launch a journalism school and establish the Pulitzer Prize. It allocated $250,000 to the prize and scholarships.[12] He specified "four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one in education, and four traveling scholarships."[2] After his death on October 29, 1911, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded June 4, 1917 (they are now announced in April). The Chicago Tribune under the control of Colonel Robert R. McCormick felt that the Pulitzer Prize was nothing more than a 'mutual admiration society' and not to be taken seriously; the paper refused to compete for the prize during McCormick's tenure up until 1961.[13][14] Until 1975, the prizes were overseen by the trustees of Columbia University.
Recipients
Main category: Pulitzer Prize winners
Main article: List of multiple Pulitzer Prize winners
Categories
Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prizes (medal).png
Joseph Pulitzer
Columbia UniversityPulitzers by yearWinners
Journalism
Reporting
Breaking NewsInvestigativeExplanatoryLocalNationalInternationalAudio
Writing
FeatureEditorial
Photography
Breaking NewsFeature
Other
CommentaryCriticismEditorial CartooningPublic Service
Former
Beat ReportingCorrespondencePhotographyReporting
LettersDramaMusic
Biography / AutobiographyFictionGeneral NonfictionHistoryPoetryDramaMusic
Special Citations and Awards
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Awards are made in categories relating to journalism, arts, letters and fiction. Reports and photographs by United States–based newspapers, magazines and news organizations (including news websites) that "[publish] regularly"[15] are eligible for the journalism prize. Beginning in 2007, "an assortment of online elements will be permitted in all journalism categories except for the competition's two photography categories, which will continue to restrict entries to still images."[16] In December 2008, it was announced that for the first time content published in online-only news sources would be considered.[17]
Although certain winners with magazine affiliations (most notably Moneta Sleet, Jr.) were allowed to enter the competition due to eligible partnerships or concurrent publication of their work in newspapers, the Pulitzer Prize Advisory Board and the Pulitzer Prize Board historically resisted the admission of magazines into the competition, resulting in the formation of the National Magazine Awards at the Columbia Journalism School in 1966.
In 2015, magazines were allowed to enter for the first time in two categories (Investigative Reporting and Feature Writing). By 2016, this provision had expanded to three additional categories (International Reporting, Criticism and Editorial Cartooning).[18] That year, Kathryn Schulz (Feature Writing) and Emily Nussbaum (Criticism) of The New Yorker became the first magazine affiliates to receive the prize under the expanded eligibility criterion.[19]
In October 2016, magazine eligibility was extended to all journalism categories.[20] Hitherto confined to the local reporting of breaking news, the Breaking News Reporting category was expanded to encompass all domestic breaking news events in 2017.[21]
Definitions of Pulitzer Prize categories as presented in the December 2017 Plan of Award:[22]
Public Service – for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper, magazine or news site through the use of its journalistic resources, including the use of stories, editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics, videos, databases, multimedia or interactive presentations or other visual material. Often thought of as the grand prize, and mentioned first in listings of the journalism prizes, the Public Service award is only given to the winning news organization. Alone among the Pulitzer Prizes, it is awarded in the form of a gold medal.
Breaking News Reporting – for a distinguished example of local, state or national reporting of breaking news that, as quickly as possible, captures events accurately as they occur, and, as time passes, illuminates, provides context and expands upon the initial coverage.
Investigative Reporting – for a distinguished example of investigative reporting, using any available journalistic tool.
Explanatory Reporting – for a distinguished example of explanatory reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation, using any available journalistic tool.
Local Reporting – for a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise, using any available journalistic tool.[16]
National Reporting – for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs, using any available journalistic tool.
International Reporting – for a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, using any available journalistic tool.
Feature Writing – for distinguished feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision, using any available journalistic tool.
Commentary – for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool.
Criticism – for distinguished criticism, using any available journalistic tool.
Editorial Writing – for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, using any available journalistic tool.
Editorial Cartooning – for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect, published as a still drawing, animation or both.
Breaking News Photography, previously called Spot News Photography – for a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs.
Feature Photography – for a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs.
There are six categories in letters and drama:
Fiction – for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.
Drama – for a distinguished play by an American playwright, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life.
History – for a distinguished and appropriately documented book on the history of the United States.
Biography or Autobiography – for a distinguished biography, autobiography or memoir by an American author.
Poetry – for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American poet.
General Non-Fiction – for a distinguished and appropriately documented book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category.
In 2020, the Audio Reporting category was added. The first prize in this category was awarded to "The Out Crowd", an episode of the public radio program This American Life. In the second year, the Pulitzer was awarded for the NPR podcast No Compromise.[citation needed]
There is one prize given for music:
Pulitzer Prize for Music – for distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year.
There have been dozens of Special Citations and Awards: more than ten each in Arts, Journalism, and Letters, and five for Pulitzer Prize service, most recently to Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. in 1987.
In addition to the prizes, Pulitzer Travelling Fellowships are awarded to four outstanding students of the Graduate School of Journalism as selected by the faculty.
Changes to categories
Over the years, awards have been discontinued either because the field of the award has been expanded to encompass other areas; the award has been renamed because the common terminology changed; or the award has become obsolete, such as the prizes for telegraphic reporting.
An example of a writing field that has been expanded was the former Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (awarded 1918–1947), which has been changed to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which also includes short stories, novellas, novelettes, and poetry, as well as novels.
The Chicago Sun-Times is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the Chicago Tribune. The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the Chicago Sun and the Chicago Daily Times. Journalists at the paper have received eight Pulitzer prizes, mostly in the 1970s; one recipient was film critic Roger Ebert (1975), who worked at the paper from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ownership of the paper has changed hands numerous times, including twice in the late 2010s.
Contents
1 History
1.1 The 1940s, 1950s and 1960s
1.2 The 1970s
1.3 The 1980s
1.4 The 1990s
1.5 The 2000s
1.6 The 2010s
1.7 The 2020s
2 Awards and notable stories
3 Staff
4 Early Edition
5 Gallery
5.1 Logos
6 References
7 External links
History
The Chicago Sun-Times claims to be the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city. That claim is based on the 1844 founding of the Chicago Daily Journal,[4] which was also the first newspaper to publish the rumor, now believed false, that a cow owned by Catherine O'Leary was responsible for the Chicago fire.[5] The Evening Journal, whose West Side building at 17–19 S. Canal was undamaged, gave the Chicago Tribune a temporary home until it could rebuild.[6] Though the assets of the Journal were sold to the Chicago Daily News in 1929, its last owner Samuel Emory Thomason also immediately launched the tabloid Chicago Daily Illustrated Times.[4]
The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the Chicago Sun, founded by Marshall Field III on December 4, 1941, and the Chicago Daily Times (which had dropped the "Illustrated" from its title). The newspaper was owned by Field Enterprises, controlled by the Marshall Field family, which acquired the afternoon Chicago Daily News in 1959 and launched WFLD television in 1966. When the Daily News ended its run in 1978, much of its staff, including Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mike Royko, were moved to the Sun-Times. During the Field period, the newspaper had a populist, progressive character that leaned Democratic but was independent of the city's Democratic establishment. Although the graphic style was urban tabloid, the paper was well regarded for journalistic quality and did not rely on sensational front-page stories. It typically ran articles from The Washington Post/Los Angeles Times wire service.
The 1940s, 1950s and 1960s
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Among the most prominent members of the newspaper's staff was cartoonist Jacob Burck, who was hired by the Chicago Times in 1938, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1941 and continued with the paper after it became the Sun-Times, drawing nearly 10,000 cartoons over a 44-year career.
The advice column "Ask Ann Landers" debuted in 1943. Ann Landers was the pseudonym of staff writer Ruth Crowley, who answered readers' letters until 1955. Eppie Lederer, sister of "Dear Abby" columnist Abigail van Buren, assumed the role thereafter as Ann Landers.
"Kup's Column", written by Irv Kupcinet, also made its first appearance in 1943.
Jack Olsen joined the Sun-Times as editor-in-chief in 1954, before moving on to Time and Sports Illustrated magazines and authoring true-crime books. Hired as literary editor in 1955 was Hoke Norris, who also covered the civil-rights movement for the Sun-Times.
Jerome Holtzman became a member of the Chicago Sun sports department after first being a copy boy for the Daily News in the 1940s. He and Edgar Munzel, another longtime sportswriter for the paper, both would end up honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Famed for his World War II exploits, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin made the Sun-Times his home base in 1962. The following year, Mauldin drew one of his most renowned illustrations, depicting a mourning statue of Abraham Lincoln after the November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Two years out of college, Roger Ebert became a staff writer in 1966, and a year later was named Sun-Times's film critic. He continued in this role for the remainder of his life.
The 1970s
In 1975, a new sports editor at the Sun-Times, Lewis Grizzard, spiked some columns written by sportswriter Lacy J. Banks and took away a column Banks had been writing, prompting Banks to tell a friend at the Chicago Defender that Grizzard was a racist.[7] After the friend wrote a story about it, Grizzard fired Banks. With that, the editorial employees union intervened, a federal arbitrator ruled for Banks, and 13 months later he got his job back.[7]
A 25-part series on the Mirage Tavern, a saloon on Wells Street bought and operated by the Sun-Times in 1977, exposed a pattern of civic corruption and bribery, as city officials were investigated and photographed without their knowledge. The articles received considerable publicity and acclaim, but a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize met resistance from some who believed the Mirage series represented a form of entrapment.[citation needed]
In March 1978, the venerable afternoon publication the Chicago Daily News, sister paper of the Sun-Times, went out of business. The two newspapers shared the same ownership and office building. James F. Hoge, Jr., editor and publisher of the Daily News, assumed the same positions at the Sun-Times, which also retained a number of the Daily News's editorial personnel.[citation needed]
The 1980s
In 1980, the Sun-Times hired syndicated TV columnist Gary Deeb away from the rival Chicago Tribune.[8] Deeb then left the Sun-Times in the spring of 1983 to try his hand at TV. He joined Chicago's WLS-TV in September 1983.[9]
In July 1981, prominent Sun-Times investigative reporter Pam Zekman, who had been part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team with the Chicago Tribune in 1976, announced she was leaving the Sun-Times to join WBBM-TV in Chicago in August 1981 as chief of its new investigative unit. "Salary wasn't a factor," she told the Tribune. "The station showed a commitment to investigative journalism. It was something I wanted to try."[10]
Pete Souza left the Sun-Times in 1983 to become official White House photographer for President Ronald Reagan until his second term's end in 1989. Souza returned to that position to be the official photographer for President Barack Obama.[11][12]
Baseball writer Jerome Holtzman defected from the Sun-Times to the Tribune in late 1981, while Mike Downey also left Sun-Times sports in September 1981 to be a columnist at the Detroit Free Press.[citation needed]
In January 1984, noted Sun-Times business reporter James Warren quit to join the rival Chicago Tribune. He became the Tribune's Washington bureau chief and later its managing editor for features.[citation needed]
In 1984, Field Enterprises co-owners, half-brothers Marshall Field V and Ted Field, sold the paper to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and the paper's style changed abruptly to mirror that of its suitemate, the New York Post. Its front pages tended more to the sensational, while its political stance shifted markedly to the right. This was in the era that the Chicago Tribune had begun softening its traditionally staunchly Republican editorial line, blurring the city's clear division between the two newspapers' politics. This shift was made all but official when Mike Royko defected to the Tribune.[13]
Roger Ebert later reflected on the incident with disdain, stating in his blog,[14]
On the first day of Murdoch's ownership, he walked into the newsroom and we all gathered around and he recited the usual blather and rolled up his shirtsleeves and started to lay out a new front page. Well, he was a real newspaperman, give him that. He threw out every meticulous detail of the beautiful design, ordered up big, garish headlines, and gave big play to a story about a North Shore rabbi accused of holding a sex slave. The story turned out to be fatally flawed, but so what? It sold papers. Well, actually, it didn't sell papers. There were hundreds of cancellations. Soon our precious page 3 was defaced by a daily Wingo girl, a pinup in a bikini promoting a cash giveaway. The Sun-Times, which had been placing above the Tribune in lists of the 10 best U.S. newspapers, never took that great step it was poised for.
Murdoch sold the paper in 1986 (to buy its former sister television station WFLD to launch the Fox network) for $145 million in cash in a leveraged buyout to an investor group led by the paper's publisher, Robert E. Page, and the New York investment firm Adler & Shaykin.[15]
In 1984, Roger Simon, who had been a Sun-Times columnist for a decade, quit to join The Baltimore Sun, where he worked until 1995.[16][17] Simon quit the paper because of Murdoch's purchase of it.[17][18] Beginning in October 1984, Simon's columns from Baltimore began appearing in the rival Chicago Tribune.[19]
In December 1986, the Sun-Times hired high-profile gossip columnist Michael Sneed away from the rival Chicago Tribune, where she had been co-authoring the Tribune's own "Inc." gossip column with Kathy O'Malley. On December 3, 1986, O'Malley led off the Tribune's "Inc." column with the heading "The Last to Know Dept." and writing, "Dontcha just hate it when you write a gossip column and people think you know all the news about what's going on and your partner gets a new job and your column still has her name on it on the very same day that her new employer announces that she's going to work for him? Yeah, INC. just hates it when that happens."[20]
In February 1987, the popular syndicated advice column "Ask Ann Landers" (commonly known as the "Ann Landers" column and written at that point by Eppie Lederer) left the Sun-Times after 31 years to jump to the rival Chicago Tribune, effective March 15, 1987.[21] The move sparked a nationwide hunt for a new advice columnist for the Sun-Times. After more than 12,000 responses from people aged 4 to 85, the paper ultimately hired two: Jeffrey Zaslow, then a 28-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter, and Diane Crowley, a 47-year-old lawyer, teacher and daughter of Ruth Crowley, who had been the original Ann Landers columnist from 1943 until 1955.[22] Crowley left to return to the practice of law in 1993 and the paper decided not to renew Zaslow's contract in 2001.[23]
By the summer of 1988, Page and Adler & Shaykin managing partner Leonard P. Shaykin had developed a conflict, and in August 1988, Page resigned as publisher and president and sold his interest in the paper to his fellow investors.[24]
The 1990s
In mid-1991, veteran crime reporter Art Petacque, who had won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, left the paper. Almost ten years later, Dennis Britton, who had been the paper's editor at the time of Petacque's retirement, told the Chicago Reader that Petacque's departure, which was described at the time as a retirement, was involuntary. "I had problems with some of the ways Art pursued his job," Britton told the Reader.[25]
In September 1992, Bill Zwecker joined the Sun-Times as a gossip columnist from the troubled Lerner Newspapers suburban weekly newspaper chain, where he had written the "VIPeople" column.[26]
In September 1992, Sun-Times sports clerk Peter Anding was arrested in the Sun-Times' newsroom and held without bond after confessing to using his position to set up sexual encounters for male high school athletes.[27] Anding was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and possession of child pornography. In September 1993, Anding pleaded guilty to arranging and videotaping sexual encounters with several teenage boys and fondling others. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.[28]
In 1993, the Sun-Times fired photographer Bob Black without severance for dozens of unauthorized uses of the company's Federal Express account and outside photo lab, going back more than three years and costing the company more than $1,400.[29] In February 1994, however, Black rejoined the paper's payroll after an arbitrator agreed with the paper's union that dismissal was too severe a penalty.[30] At the same time, the arbitrator declined to award Black back pay.[citation needed]
In 1993, longtime Sun-Times reporter Larry Weintraub retired after 35 years at the paper.[31] Weintraub had been best known for his "Weintraub's World" column, in which he worked a job and wrote about the experience.[31] Weintraub died in 2001 at age 69.[31]
In February 1994, the Adler & Shaykin investor group sold the Sun-Times to Hollinger Inc. for about $180 million.[32] Hollinger was controlled, indirectly, by Canadian-born businessman Conrad Black. After Black and his associate David Radler were indicted for skimming money from Hollinger International, through retaining noncompete payments from the sale of Hollinger newspapers, they were removed from the board, and Hollinger International was renamed the Sun-Times Media Group.[citation needed]
In 1994, noted reporter M.W. Newman retired from the Sun-Times around the age of 77.[33] Newman, who died of lung cancer in 2001, had been with the Sun-Times since the Chicago Daily News closed in 1978 and had focused his efforts on urban reporting.[33] Among other things, Newman had been known for coining the term "Big John" to describe the John Hancock Center and the expression "Fortress Illini" for the concrete structures and plazas at the University of Illinois at Chicago.[33]
On March 23, 1995, the Sun-Times announced that beginning April 2, 1995, veteran Sports Illustrated writer Rick Telander would join the paper and write four columns a week.[34][35]
On March 24, 1995, the Sun-Times published an editorial by Mark Hornung, then the Sun-Times' editorial page editor, that plagiarized a Washington Post editorial that had appeared in that paper the day before.[36] Hornung attributed the plagiarism to writer's block, deadline pressures and the demands of other duties.[37] He resigned as editorial page editor, but remained with the paper, shifting to its business side and working first as director of distribution and then as vice president of circulation.[38] In 2002, Hornung became president and publisher of Midwest Suburban Publishing, which was a company owned by then-Sun Times parent company Hollinger International.[39] In June 2004, Hollinger International placed Hornung on administrative leave just two weeks after Hollinger revealed that the paper's sales figures had been inflated for several years.[40] Hornung resigned from the company four days later.[41]
On May 17, 1995, the Sun-Times' food section published a bogus letter from a reader[42] named "Olga Fokyercelf" that Chicago Tribune columnist (and former Sun-Times columnist) Mike Royko called "an imaginative prank" in a column.[43] In that same column, Royko criticized the paper's food writer, who edited the readers' column at the time, Olivia Wu, for not following better quality control. The Wall Street Journal then criticized Royko with an article of its own, titled, "Has a Curmudgeon Turned Into a Bully? Some Now Think So...Picking on a Food Writer."[44] Although the Sun-Times began hiring a freelancer to edit the space and look for double entendres,[45] another one made it into the same column on July 26, 1995, when the section published a letter from a "Phil McCraken."[46] "This one was a little more subtle," a reporter outside the food department told the Chicago Reader.[45]
Chuck Neubauer in the former Chicago Sun-Times newsroom, 1998
In 1998, the Sun-Times demoted longtime TV critic Lon Grahnke, shifting him to covering education.[47] Grahnke, who died in 2006 at age 56 of Alzheimer's disease, remained with the paper until 2001, when he retired following an extended medical leave.[48]
The 2000s
In 2000, the Sun-Times new editors, Michael Cooke and John Cruickshank, tapped longtime staff reporter Mark Brown, who had considered himself an investigative reporter, to write a column that would anchor page two of the paper.[49]
In 2000, longtime investigative reporter Charles Nicodemus retired from the paper at age 69 and[50]died in 2008 at age 77.[51]
In 2001, Sun-Times investigative reporter Chuck Neubauer quit the paper to join the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau.[52] Neubauer and Brown had initiated the investigation into U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski that uncovered a variety of misdeeds that ultimately had led to Rostenkowski's indictment, conviction and imprisonment.[53]
In April 2001, Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey quit to join the administration of then-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley as Daley's deputy mayoral chief of staff, responsible for downtown planning, rewriting the city's zoning code and affordable housing issues.[54]
In April 2001, longtime Sun-Times horse-racing writer Dave Feldman died at age 85 while still on the payroll.[55][56]
In 2002, with Kuczmarski & Associates, the Chicago Sun-Times co-founded the Chicago Innovation Awards.[citation needed]
In May 2002, Sun-Times editors Joycelyn Winnecke and Bill Adee, who were then husband and wife, both quit on the same day to join the rival Chicago Tribune. Winnecke had been the Sun-Times managing editor, and she left for a new post, associate managing editor for national news, while Adee, who had been the Sun-Times sports editor for nine years, became the Tribune's sports editor/news.[57]
In October 2003, famed Sun-Times gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet began including the name of his longtime assistant of nearly 34 years, Stella Foster, as the coauthor of his column. After Kupcinet died the following month at age 91, the Sun-Times kept Foster on and gave her the sole byline on the column, which became known as "Stella's Column." Foster retired from the newspaper in 2012.[citation needed]
In 2004, the Sun-Times was censured by the Audit Bureau of Circulations for misrepresenting its circulation figures.[58]
In February 2004, longtime Sun-Times political columnist Steve Neal died at his home in Hinsdale, Illinois, at age 54, of an apparent suicide.[59][60][61]
In August 2004, longtime Chicago broadcast journalist Carol Marin began writing regular columns in the Sun-Times, mostly on political issues.[62]
In March 2005, the Chicago Tribune hired away television critic Phil Rosenthal to become its media columnist.[63] He eventually was replaced as TV critic by Doug Elfman.[citation needed]
On September 28, 2005, Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member Neil Steinberg was arrested in his home in Northbrook, Illinois and charged with domestic battery and with interfering with the reporting of domestic battery.[64] With that, Steinberg, who had been at the Sun-Times since 1987, entered a treatment facility for alcohol abuse.[64] On November 23, 2005, Cook County prosecutors dropped the charges against Steinberg after his wife said she no longer feared for her safety.[65] On November 28, 2005, Steinberg returned to the Sun-Times' pages after going through a 28-day rehabilitation program at a nearby hospital, and he gave readers his version of the events that led to his arrest: "I got drunk and slapped my wife during an argument."[66] Steinberg also reported that he and his wife were "on the mend," and that he was working toward sobriety.[66]
In the spring of 2006, a variety of longtime Sun-Times writers and columnists took buyouts, including sports columnist Ron Rapoport, sports reporter Joe Goddard, society and gardening columnist Mary Cameron Frey, book editor Henry Kisor, page designer Roy Moody and photographer Bob Black.[67] Classical music critic Wynne Delacoma also took a buyout, and left the paper later.[67]
In August 2006, the Sun-Times fired longtime Chicago Cubs beat writer Mike Kiley.[68] Then-Sun-Times sports editor Stu Courtney told the Tribune that the dismissal of Kiley, who had joined the Sun-Times from the Tribune in 1996, was a "personnel matter I can't comment on." The Tribune's Teddy Greenstein called Kiley "a fierce competitor."[68]
In February 2007, noted Sun-Times columnist Debra Pickett quit upon returning from maternity leave.[69] The reasons for her departure were differences with her editors over where her column appeared and the sorts of assignments being handed to her.[70]
On July 10, 2007, newly appointed Editorial Page Editor Cheryl Reed announced: "We [the Chicago Sun-Times editorial page] are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the Chicago Tribune—that Republican, George Bush—touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue."[71]
In January 2008, the Sun-Times underwent two rounds of layoffs. In its first round, the Sun-Times fired editorial board members Michael Gillis, Michelle Stevens and Lloyd Sachs, along with Sunday editor Marcia Frellick and assistant managing editor Avis Weathersbee.[72]
On February 4, 2008, Editorial Page Editor Cheryl Reed resigned saying in a front-page Chicago Tribune story that she was "deeply troubled" that the paper's presidential primary endorsements of Barack Obama and John McCain were subjected to "wholesale rewrites" by editorial board outsiders.[73] Cyrus Freidheim Jr., in his role as Sun-Times publisher, issued a statement reassuring staff that the endorsements didn't change and that the rewrites only "deepened and strengthened the messages."[73]
Later that month, the Sun-Times underwent more staff reductions, laying off columnist Esther Cepeda, religion reporter Susan Hogan/Albach, TV critic Doug Elfman, real estate editor Sally Duros,[74] and onetime editor Garry Steckles, while giving buyouts to assistant city editors Robert C. Herguth and Nancy Moffett, environmental reporter Jim Ritter, copy editors Chris Whitehead and Bob Mutter, editorial columnist Steve Huntley (who remained with the paper as a freelance columnist), and special Barack Obama correspondent Jennifer Hunter.[75] Also taking a buyout was longtime health and technology reporter Howard Wolinsky.[76] Two other staffers, business editor Dan Miller and deputy metro editor Phyllis Gilchrist, resigned.[75] Reporter Kara Spak initially was reported to have been laid off, but she wound up staying with the paper.[citation needed]
In August 2008, high-profile sports columnist Jay Mariotti resigned from the Sun-Times after concluding that the future of sports journalism was online.[77][78][79]
In October 2008, the Sun-Times gave buyouts to noted TV/radio writer Robert Feder (a blogger with Time Out Chicago and then an independent writer on Chicago media) and longtime auto writer Dan Jedlicka.[80] The paper also laid off two members of its editorial board: Teresa Puente and Deborah Douglas.[80]
In November 2008, the Sun-Times dropped its "Quick Takes" column, which Sun-Times columnist Zay N. Smith had written since 1995.[81] Smith wrote the column from home, and the Sun-Times discontinued the column and informed Smith that it needed him back in the newsroom as a general assignment reporter.[81] The paper's union complained, noting that Smith had permanent physical disabilities that made it difficult for him to be mobile.[81] Smith later left the paper.[citation needed]
In March 2009, sports columnist Greg Couch left the Sun-Times after 12 years to join AOL Sports.[82]
On March 31, 2009, the newspaper filed for bankruptcy protection.[83]
On October 9, 2009 the Sun Times unions agreed to concessions paving the way for Jim Tyree to buy the newspaper and its 50 suburban newspapers. Of the $25 million purchase price, $5 million was in cash, with the other $20 million to help pay off past debts.[84]
In November 2009, Sun-Times sports editor Stu Courtney quit to join the rival Chicago Tribune's Chicago Breaking Sports website.[85]
In December 2009, the Sun-Times hired sports columnist Rick Morrissey away from the rival Chicago Tribune.[86]
The 2010s
In April 2010, longtime Sun-Times pop music critic Jim DeRogatis resigned from the paper to join the faculty of Columbia College Chicago and to begin blogging at Vocalo.org.[87]
In June 2010, the Sun-Times laid off a group of editorial employees, including longtime sports media columnist Jim O'Donnell and features writer Delia O'Hara.[88]
In October 2010, the Sun-Times laid off longtime sports columnist Carol Slezak, who by that point had shifted to feature reporting.[89]
At the end of June 2010, longtime Sun-Times sportswriter Len Ziehm, who covered many sports but largely focused on golf, retired after 41 years at the paper.[90][91]
Sun-Times Media group chairman James C. Tyree died under sudden circumstances in March 2011. Jeremy Halbreich, chief executive, said that Tyree's will be greatly missed and that his death will make no changes in the media company's strategy.[92]
Also in March 2011, the Sun-Times laid off six editorial reporters and writers: high school sports reporter Steve Tucker, reporter Misha Davenport, general assignment reporter Cheryl Jackson, media and marketing columnist Lewis Lazare, feature writer Celeste Busk and sportswriter John Jackson.[93][94]
In May 2011, the Sun-Times laid off real estate writer Bill Cunniff, features reporter Jeff Johnson and gaming writer John Grochowski, along with graphic designer Char Searl.[95]
In June 2011, the Sun-Times fired longtime TV critic Paige Wiser after she admitted to fabricating portions of a review of a Glee Live! In Concert! performance.[96] She admitted to attending much of the concert but leaving early to tend to her children. The paper eventually tapped longtime travel writer Lori Rackl to replace Wiser as TV critic.[97]
The Sun-Times announced in July 2011 that it would close its printing plant on Ashland Avenue in Chicago—eliminating 400 printing jobs—and would outsource the printing of the newspaper to the rival Chicago Tribune.[98] The move was estimated to save $10 million a year. The Sun-Times already had been distributed by the Tribune since 2007.[98]
In August 2011, the Sun-Times laid off three more reporters and writers: sportswriter Mike Mulligan, "Quick Hits" sports columnist Elliott Harris and photographer Keith Hale.[99]
In September 2011, the Sun-Times fired longtime restaurant reviewer (and freelancer) Pat Bruno.[100][101]
In October 2011, the Sun-Times discontinued the longtime comic strip Drabble (syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association), which the paper had run since the strip's inception in 1979. The comic strip was the victim of a reduced page size.[102]
At the end of May 2013, the publication's photography department was dissolved as part of a restructuring that involves the use of freelance photographers and non-photographer journalists to provide visual content.[103] Under the terms of a settlement with the paper's union, the Sun-Times reinstated four of those photographers as multimedia journalists in March 2014: Rich Chapman, Brian Jackson, Al Podgorski and Michael Schmidt.[104]
In March 2014, pop culture reporter Dave Hoekstra left the Sun-Times in a buyout after 29 years with the paper.[104] Concurrent with Hoekstra's departure, the company also laid off two Sun-Times editorial assistants, two editors at the SouthtownStar, a community editor at the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana and a weekend editor/designer at the company's west suburban newspaper group.[citation needed]
In March 2016, Shia Kapos signed on to bring her Taking Names column to the Sun-Times. She had been writing the gossip column since 2007 for Crain's Business.[105]
On July 13, 2017, it was reported that a consortium consisting of private investors and the Chicago Federation of Labor led by businessman and former Chicago alderman Edwin Eisendrath through his company ST Acquisition Holdings, had acquired the paper and its parent company, Sun-Times Media Group, from then-owner Wrapports, beating out Chicago-based publishing company Tronc (formerly Tribune Publishing Company) for ownership.[106][107]
In March 2019, a new ownership group took over and took control of the Sun-Times from the previous union ownership. The group, Sun-Times Investment Holdings LLC, is backed by prominent Chicago investors Michael Sacks and Rocky Wirtz.[1]
The 2020s
In September 2021, the Sun-Times and Chicago Public Media, owners of the city's NPR affiliate WBEZ, announced that they had signed a non-binding agreement to allow Chicago Public Media to acquire the paper.[108]
Awards and notable stories
Journalists at the Sun-Times have won eight Pulitzer Prizes.
1970: Tom Fitzpatrick, General Reporting[109]
1971: Jack Dykinga, Feature Photography[110]
1973: Ron Powers, Criticism[111]
1974: Art Petacque, Hugh Hough, General Reporting[112]
1975: Roger Ebert, Criticism[113]
1982: John H. White, Feature Photography[114]
1989: Jack Higgins, Editorial Cartooning[115]
2011: Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim, Local Reporting[116]
Doug Moench was nominated for a Chicago Newspaper Guild Award in 1972 for his stream-of-consciousness story on violence in the Chicago subway system. In 1978, the newspaper conducted the Mirage Tavern investigation, in which undercover reporters operated a bar and caught city officials taking bribes on camera.[117]
In January 2004, after a six-month investigation written by Tim Novak and Steve Warmbir, the paper broke the story of the Hired Truck Program scandal. After a Sun-Times article by Michael Sneed erroneously identified the perpetrator of the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech massacre as an unnamed Chinese national, the People's Republic of China criticized the Chicago Sun-Times for publishing what it called "irresponsible reports."[118] The newspaper later silently withdrew the story without making any apologies or excuses.[citation needed]
Staff
The Sun-Times' best-known writer was film critic Roger Ebert, who died in April, 2013.[119] Chicago columnist Mike Royko, previously of the defunct Chicago Daily News, came to the paper in 1978 but left for the Chicago Tribune in 1984 when the Sun-Times was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Irv Kupcinet's daily column was a fixture from 1943 until his death in 2003. It was also the home base of famed cartoonist Bill Mauldin from 1962–91, as well as advice columnist Ann Landers and the Washington veteran Robert Novak for many years. Lisa Myers, the Senior Investigative Correspondent for NBC News, was the publication's Washington correspondent from 1977 to 1979.[120] Author Charles Dickinson worked as a copy editor for the publication from 1983-1989.[citation needed]
The newspaper gave a start in journalism to columnist Bob Greene, while other notable writers such as Mary Mitchell, Richard Roeper, Gary Houston, Michael Sneed, Mark Brown, Neil Steinberg, sportswriters Rick Telander and Rick Morrissey, theater critic Hedy Weiss, Carol Marin, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Frank Main and Mark Konkol, and technology expert Andy Ihnatko have written for the Sun-Times. As of October 2013, Lynn Sweet is the Washington Bureau Chief and Pulitzer Prize-winner Jack Higgins is the publication's editorial cartoonist.[121][122][123]
John Cruickshank became the publisher in 2003 after David Radler, and on September 19, 2007, announced he was resigning to head the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news division.[124][125]
On May 30, 2013, the Sun-Times laid off the vast majority of its photography staff as part of a change in its structure, opting instead to use photos and video shot by reporters, as well as content from freelancers, instead. Two staff photographers remained after the restructure: Rich Hein was named Photo Editor and Jessica Koscielniak, who was hired in January 2013, became the newspapers' only multimedia reporter.[citation needed] Among those photographers who were laid off was Pulitzer Prize winning photographer John White.[126] In an official statement, the newspaper explained: "The Sun-Times business is changing rapidly and our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities with video and other multimedia elements."[103]
Early Edition
The paper was featured in the CBS show Early Edition, where the lead character mysteriously receives each Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day before it is actually published.[citation needed]
Gallery
Former Chicago Sun-Times headquarters, located in the River North Point building at 350 North Orleans Street
Former Chicago Sun-Times headquarters, demolished in 2004 to make way for the Trump Tower
Former Chicago Sun-Times headquarters with Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower
Former Sun Times and Daily News headquarters
Viewed from Michigan Avenue Bridge with 330 North Wabash
Logos
2003
2007
2011
2015
2016–2018
2019
The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.[1]
Contents
1 History
1.1 Independent newspaper
1.2 Knight Newspapers and Field Enterprises
2 Pulitzer Prizes
3 References
4 Further reading
5 External links
History
Daily News Building
The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing on December 23. Byron Andrews, fresh out of Hobart College, was one of the first reporters. The paper aimed for a mass readership in contrast to its primary competitor, the Chicago Tribune, which appealed to the city's elites. The Daily News was Chicago's first penny paper, and the city's most widely read newspaper in the late nineteenth century.[2] Victor Lawson bought the Chicago Daily News in 1876 and became its business manager. Stone remained involved as an editor and later bought back an ownership stake, but Lawson took over full ownership again in 1888.[3]
Independent newspaper
During his long tenure at the Daily News, Victor Lawson pioneered many areas of reporting, opening one of the first foreign bureaus among U.S. newspapers in 1898. In 1912, the Daily News became one of a cooperative of four newspapers, including the New York Globe, The Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Bulletin, to form the Associated Newspapers syndicate. In 1922, Lawson started one of the first columns devoted to radio. He also introduced many innovations to business operations including advances in newspaper promotion, classified advertising, and syndication of news stories, serials, and comics.[4]
Editor A. B. Blair 1915
Victor Lawson died in August 1925, leaving no instructions in his will regarding the disposition of the Daily News. Walter A. Strong, who was Lawson's business manager, spent the rest of the year raising the capital he needed to buy the Daily News. The Chicago Daily News Corporation, of which Strong was the major stockholder, bought the newspaper for $13.5 million – the highest price paid for a newspaper up to that time.[5] Strong was the president and publisher of the Chicago Daily News Corporation from December 1925 until his death in May 1931.
As Lawson's business manager, Strong partnered with the Fair Department Store to create a new radio station. Strong asked Judith C. Waller to run the new station. When Waller protested that she didn't know anything about running a station. Strong replied "neither do I, but come down and we'll find out."[6] Waller was hired in February 1922 and went on to have a long and distinguished career in broadcasting. What would become WMAQ had its inaugural broadcast April 12, 1922.
That same year, the rival Chicago Tribune began to experiment with radio news at Westinghouse-owned KYW. In 1924 the Tribune briefly took over station WJAZ, changing its call letters to WGN, then purchased station WDAP outright and permanently transferred the WGN call letters to this second station.[7]
The Daily News would eventually take full ownership of the station and absorb shared band rival WQJ, which was jointly owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and the Rainbo Gardens ballroom.[8][9] WMAQ would pioneer many firsts in radio—one of them the first complete Chicago Cubs season broadcast on radio in 1925, hosted by sportswriter-turned-sportscaster Hal Totten.[10] In April 1930, WMAQ was organized as a subsidiary corporation with Walter Strong as its chairman of the board, and Judith Waller as vice president and station manager.[11]
On August 2, 1929, it was announced that the Chicago Daily Journal was consolidating with the Daily News, and the Journal published its final issue on August 21.[12]
By the late 1920s, it was apparent to Walter Strong that his newspaper and broadcast operations needed more space. He acquired the air rights over the railroad tracks that ran along the west side of the Chicago River. He commissioned architects Holabird & Root to design a modern building over the tracks that would have newspaper production facilities and radio studios. The 26-floor Chicago Daily News Building opened in 1929. It featured a large plaza with a fountain dedicated to Strong's mentor, Victor Lawson, and a mural by John W. Norton depicting the newspaper production process.[13] The Art Deco structure became a Chicago landmark, and stands today under the name Riverside Plaza.
In 1930, the radio station obtained a license for an experimental television station, W9XAP, but had already begun transmitting from it just prior to its being granted.[14][15] Working with Sears Roebuck stores by providing them with the receivers, those present at the stores were able to see Bill Hay, (the announcer for Amos 'n' Andy), present a variety show from the Daily News Building, on August 27, 1930.[16][17] Ulises Armand Sanabria was the television pioneer behind this and other early Chicago television experiments. In 1931 The Daily News sold WMAQ to NBC.[18]
In its heyday as an independent newspaper from the 1930s to 1950s the Daily News was widely syndicated and boasted a first-class foreign news service.[19] It became known for its distinctive, aggressive writing style which 1920s editor Henry Justin Smith likened to a daily novel. This style became the hallmark of the newspaper: "For generations", as Wayne Klatt puts it in Chicago Journalism: A History, "newspeople had been encouraged to write on the order of Charles Dickens, but the Daily News was instructing its staff to present facts in cogent short paragraphs, which forced rivals to do the same."[20] In the 1950s, city editor Clement Quirk Lane (whose son John would become Walter Cronkite's executive producer) issued a memo to the staff that has become something of a memorial of the paper's house style, a copy of which can be found on Lane's entry.
Knight Newspapers and Field Enterprises
Sun-Times and Daily News headquarters
After a long period of ownership by Knight Newspapers (later Knight Ridder), the paper was acquired in 1959 by Field Enterprises, owned by heirs of the former owner of the Marshall Field and Company department store chain. Field already owned the morning Chicago Sun-Times, and the Daily News moved into the Sun-Times' building on North Wabash Avenue. A few years later Mike Royko became the paper's lead columnist, and quickly rose to local and national prominence. However, the Field years were mostly a period of decline for the newspaper, partly due to management decisions but also due to demographic changes; the circulation of afternoon dailies generally declined with the rise of television, and downtown newspapers suffered as readers moved to the suburbs.
In 1977 the Daily News was redesigned and added features intended to increase its appeal to younger readers, but the changes did not reverse the paper's continuing decline in circulation. The Chicago Daily News published its last edition on Saturday, March 4, 1978.[1]
As reported in The Wall Street Journal, later in 1978, Lloyd H Weston, president, editor and publisher of Addison Leader Newspapers, Inc., a group of weekly tabloids in the west and northwest suburbs—obtained rights to the Chicago Daily News trademark. Under a new corporation, CDN Publishing Co., Inc., based in DuPage County, Weston published a number of special editions of the Chicago Daily News, including one celebrating the Chicago Auto Show.
The following year, a Rosemont-based group headed by former Illinois governor Richard B. Ogilvie contracted to purchase CDN Publishing, with the expressed intention of publishing the Chicago Daily News as a weekend edition beginning that August. Weston hosted a party celebrating the signing of the contract with Ogilvie at the iconic Pump Room in the Ambassador Chicago Hotel. The gala was attended by hundreds of the city's well-known names in politics, publishing. broadcasting and advertising.
The next day, Ogilvie reneged on the deal. The check he signed as payment to Weston bounced. And his corporation filed for federal bankruptcy protection.
Weston's last edition of the Chicago Daily News featured extensive photo coverage of the October 4, 1979, visit to Chicago of Pope John Paul II.
In 1984, Weston sold his rights to the Chicago Daily News trademark to Rupert Murdoch, who, at the time, was owner and publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times.
The headquarters of the Daily News and Sun-Times was located at 401 North Wabash before the building was demolished. It is now the site of Trump International Hotel and Tower.
Pulitzer Prizes
The Chicago Daily News was awarded the Pulitzer Prize thirteen times.
1925 Reporting
1929 Correspondence
1933 Correspondence
1938 Editorial Cartooning
1943 Reporting
1947 Editorial Cartooning
1950 Meritorious Public Service
1951 International Reporting
1957 Meritorious Public Service
1963 Meritorious Public Service
1969 Editorial Cartooning
1970 National Reporting
1972 Commentary
The Chicago Sun-Times laid off its entire full-time photography staff Thursday, including a Pulitzer Prize winner, in a move that the newspaper's management said resulted from a need to shift toward more online video.
The union representing many of the laid-off photographers plans to file a bad-faith bargaining charge with the National Labor Relations Board, a union leader said.
The Sun-Times Media company didn't immediately comment on how many jobs were affected, but the national Newspaper Guild issued a statement saying 28 employees lost their jobs. The layoffs included photographers and editors at the Sun-Times' sister publications in the suburbs.
"I'm still in shock. I'm not angry right now. Maybe I will be later," said Steve Buyansky, a laid-off photo editor for three of the group's suburban newspapers.
Buyansky said about 30 photographers and photo editors were called to a mandatory meeting Thursday morning where Sun-Times editor Jim Kirk "talked for about 20 seconds" telling them the layoffs were a tough decision.
Buyansky said Pulitzer Prize-winning Sun-Times photographer John H White was in the room and was among those who were laid off. "It's sad," said Buyansky, speaking from the Billy Goat tavern, a long-time watering hole for Chicago journalists, where about 10 laid-off photographers congregated after the meeting. "The Sun-Times had an amazing photo staff."
White took a well-known photo of now-imprisoned governor Rod Blagojevich leaving his home through a back alley, one day after he was arrested on federal corruption charges. The photo caught Blagojevich as he passed a bright yellow sign warning about rats.
"It captured everything that Rod Blagojevich and the state of Illinois exudes. It's a great photo because there's such great humor in it," said laid-off Sun-Times photo assignment editor Dom Najolia, who marked his 33rd year at the paper earlier this month.
Chicago is one of few US cities to still have competing newspapers. The Sun-Times, a tabloid, competes with the Chicago Tribune.
Chicago Newspaper Guild executive director Craig Rosenbaum said an unfair labor practice charge will be filed in reaction to the company's announcement. The union is negotiating a new contract and the company told the union at the bargaining table recently that no layoffs of photographers were planned, Rosenbaum said.
Sun-Times Media released a statement Thursday to the Associated Press confirming the move: "Today, the Chicago Sun-Times has had to make the very difficult decision to eliminate the position of full-time photographer, as part of a multimedia staffing restructure." The statement noted that the "business is changing rapidly" and audiences are "seeking more video content with their news."
Like most major newspapers, the Sun-Times has been hard hit by the technological shift that has cause more people to rely on their personal computers and mobile devices to stay informed. As more readers have embraced digital alternatives, so have advertisers in a move that has been steadily siphoning away newspaper publishers' biggest source of revenue.
The Chicago Sun-Times ended September 2012 with a paid circulation of 263,292, according to the most recent statement filed with the Alliance for Audited Media. That contrasted with circulation of about 341,448 at the same time in 2006. Including satellite editions that operate under other names, the Sun-Times' circulation totaled 432,451 in September 2012.
White, John H. (Chicago photographer). (b. Lexington, NC, 1945; active Chicago, IL, 2013)
Bibliography and Exhibitions
MONOGRAPHS AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
Kennedy, Eugene and JOHN H. WHITE (photos).
This Man Bernardin.
Chicago: Loyola Press, 1996.
xi, 180 pp., maps, portraits. Biography. 4to (29 cm.), cloth, d.j.
WHITE, JOHN H. (Photos).
The Final Journey of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, 1928-1996.
Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997.
74 pp. Text by White, Raymond E. Goedert, and other close colleagues. Newly published photographs that chronicle the last months of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin's life and ministry. Includes Monsignor Kenneth Velo's Funeral Mass homily. 4to (29 cm.).
GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
ATLANTA (GA). Atlanta College of Art Gallery.
Songs of My People: African Americans: A Self-Portrait.
June 26-August 9, 1991; Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1992.
xiii, 209 pp. exhibit. cat. of 150 works by over 50 African American photographers; intro. by Gordon Parks. Eric Easter, D. Michael Cheers, and Dudley M. Brooks, eds. This was a photographic project initiated by the editors, not the usual historical compilation. Included: Jules Allen, Howard Bingham, Bob Black, D. Michael Cheers, Michel DuCille, James V. Evers, Roland L. Freeman, Ronald L. Griemans, C.W. Griffin, Keith Hadley, Durell Hall, Jr., Chester Higgins, Jason Miccolo Johnson, David C. Lee, Matthew Lewis, Kirk McKoy, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ozier Muhammad, Marilyn Nance, Eli Reed, Morris Richardson II, Jeffery Allan Salter, Coreen Simpson Lester Sloan, D. Stevens, Bruce Talamon, Dixie D. Vereen, John H. White, Keith Williams, et al. [Traveled to Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1992; Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, Philadelphia, April-May 1992; California Afro-American Museum, May 1992 -- at which eight photographs by D Stevens and others related to the Los Angeles riots of 1992 were added. A second small tour of 60 photographs traveled to: Museum of the City of New York; the DuSable Museum, Chicago; the Uffizi, Florence, Italy, and other international venues.] [Reviews: Renee Lucas Wayne, "An African-American Self-Portrait in Photos," Philadelphia Daily News, April 17, 1992; Shauna Snow, "Redressing the Balance - Photography: 'Songs of My People' is Designed to Contribute Toward Understanding ... and Healing the City." Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1992; Charles Hagen. "Review/Photography: 'Songs of My People,' A Black Self-Portrait." NYT, October 9, 1992; "Unfinished Songs: Three Exhibitions at Philadelphia's Afro-American Museum" The Crisis, October, 1992; long description, but with many names of photographers misspelled.] Note: the photographs from the exhibition were donated to the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri. 4to (30.5 x 25.4 cm.; 12 x 10.2 in.), black pictorial boards, pictorial dust jacket. First ed.
Chicago (IL). Negro Digest.
The Art Scene.
Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., Inc., 1970.
Unattrib. article. In: Negro Digest Vol. 19, no. 3 (January 1970):80-82, cover illus. photo of sculpture by Ramon Price. In a rare burst of enthusiasm for the visual arts, this issue devoted over two pages to mention of the Studio Museum show "14 Black Artists from Boston" and mention of two exhibitions at he South Side Community Art Center: a solo show by Garrett Whyte and a group exhibition "Black Expressions 1969" with photos of two of the winners Ramon Price (sculpture), John H. White (photography), jurors Leroy Winbush, Lerone Bennett, Jr. and Harold Bradley, plus photos of others attending the opening Richard Hunt and Clarence Tolbert.
CHICAGO (IL). South Side Community Art Center.
Black Expressions 1969.
1969.
Group exhibition and competition open to Chicago-area artists. Prizewinners included: Jeff Donaldson (painting), Ramon Price (sculpture), John White (photography), and Barbara Jones (printmaking). The award-winning works became the property of the South Side Center. [Mention with photos in: Negro Digest Vol. 19, no. 3 (April 1970):81-2.]
CHICAGO (IL). South Side Community Art Center.
Through the Eyes of Blackness.
1973.
Group photo exhibition by four Chicago photojournalists. Featured Howard Simmons, John H. White (Daily News), Ovie Carter (Chicago Tribune), and Bob Black (Sun-Times.) Organized by Howard Simmons.
EASTER, ERIC, D. MICHAEL CHEERS and DUDLEY M. BROOKS, eds.
Songs of My People: African Americans: A Self-Portrait.
New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1992.
208 pp., 152 photographic illus. Introduction by Gordon Parks. Essays by Sylvester Monroe, Paula Giddings, Nelson George and Joyce Ladner. Includes photographs by Michelle Agins, Jules Allen, Anthony Barboza, Conrad Barclay, Howard Bingham, Bob Black, Geary G. Broadnax, Dudley Brooks, Ron Caesar, D. Michael Cheers, George Chinsee, Jacques Chinet, Roland L. Freeman, Vince Frye, Mark Gail, T. Ortega Gaines, C.W. Griffin, Keith Hadley, Durell Hall, Jr., Craig Herndon, Chester Higgins, Fred Hutcherson, Jason Miccolo Johnson, David Lee, Matthew Lewis, Roy Lewis, Kirk McKoy, Odell Mitchell, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ozier Muhammad, Marilyn Nance, Eli Reed, Jeffery Allan Salter, Coreen Simpson, Lester Sloan, D. Stevens, Bruce Talamon, Dixie D. Vereen, Kenneth Walker, Riccardo Watson, John H. White, Keith Williams, Pat West, and other leading Black photojournalists. [The exhibition traveled to 23 U.S. cities and 7 countries in Europe. 4to, cloth, d.j. First ed.
GATES, HENRY LOUIS and EVELYN BROOKS HIGGINBOTHAM, eds.
African American National Biography.
2009.
Originally published in 8 volumes, the set has grown to 12 vollumes with the addition of 1000 new entries. Also available as online database of biographies, accessible only to paid subscribers (well-endowed institutions and research libraries.) As per update of February 2, 2009, the following artists were included in the 8-volume set, plus addenda. A very poor showing for such an important reference work. Hopefully there are many more artists in the new entries: Jesse Aaron, Julien Abele (architect), John H. Adams, Jr., Ron Adams, Salimah Ali, James Latimer Allen, Charles H. Alston, Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, William E. Artis, Herman "Kofi" Bailey, Walter T. Bailey (architect), James Presley Ball, Edward M. Bannister, Anthony Barboza, Ernie Barnes, Richmond Barthé, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cornelius Marion Battey, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Arthur Bedou, Mary A. Bell, Cuesta Ray Benberry, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Howard Bingham, Alpha Blackburn, Robert H. Blackburn, Walter Scott Blackburn, Melvin R. Bolden, David Bustill Bowser, Wallace Branch, Barbara Brandon, Grafton Tyler Brown, Richard Lonsdale Brown, Barbara Bullock, Selma Hortense Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs, John Bush, Elmer Simms Campbell, Elizabeth Catlett, David C. Chandler, Jr., Raven Chanticleer, Ed Clark, Allen Eugene Cole, Robert H. Colescott, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest T. Crichlow, Michael Cummings, Dave the Potter [David Drake], Griffith J. Davis, Thomas Day, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Thornton Dial, Sr., Joseph Eldridge Dodd, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Sam Doyle, David Clyde Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, Ed Dwight (listed as military, not as artist); Mel Edwards, Minnie Jones Evans, William McNight Farrow, Elton Fax, Daniel Freeman, Meta Warrick Fuller, Reginald Gammon, King Daniel Ganaway, the Goodridge Brothers, Rex Goreleigh, Tyree Guyton, James Hampton, Della Brown Taylor (Hardman), Edwin Augustus Harleston, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Lyle Ashton Harris, Bessie Harvey, Isaac Scott Hathaway, Palmer Hayden, Nestor Hernandez, George Joseph Herriman, Varnette Honeywood, Walter Hood, Richard L. Hunster, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Bill Hutson, Joshua Johnson, Sargent Claude Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Ann Keesee, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Samella Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Jules Lion, Edward Love, Estella Conwill Majozo, Ellen Littlejohn, Kerry James Marshall, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Richard Mayhew, Carolyn Mazloomi, Aaron Vincent McGruder, Robert H. McNeill, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald H. Motley, Jr., Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Mr. Imagination (Gregory Warmack), Lorraine O'Grady, Jackie Ormes, Joe Overstreet, Carl Owens, Gordon Parks, Sr., Gordon Parks, Jr., C. Edgar Patience, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Margaret Smith Piper, Rose Piper, Horace Pippin, William Sidney Pittman, Stephanie Pogue, Prentiss Herman Polk (as Prentice), James Amos Porter, Harriet Powers, Elizabeth Prophet, Martin Puryear, Patrick Henry Reason, Michael Richards, Arthur Rose, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, Joyce J. Scott, Addison Scurlock, George Scurlock, Willie Brown Seals, Charles Sebree, Joe Selby, Lorna Simpson, Norma Merrick Sklarek, Clarissa Sligh, Albert Alexander Smith, Damballah Smith, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Maurice B. Sorrell, Simon Sparrow, Rozzell Sykes, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, J.J. Thomas, Robert Louis (Bob) Thompson, Mildred Jean Thompson, Dox Thrash, William Tolliver, Bill Traylor, Leo F. Twiggs, James Augustus Joseph Vanderzee, Kara Walker, William Onikwa Wallace, Laura Wheeler Waring, Augustus Washington, James W. Washington, Jr., Carrie Mae Weems, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, John H. White, Jack Whitten, Carla Williams, Daniel S. Williams, Paul Revere Williams (architect), Deborah Willis, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, John Woodrow Wilson, Ernest C. Withers, Beulah Ecton Woodard, Hale Aspacio Woodruff.
RUBIN, CYMA and ERIC NEWTON, eds.
Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs.
Arlington, VA; Freedom Forum, 2000.
208 pp., 85 b&w and 37 color illus., brief biogs. of photographers. Includes: Moneta J. Sleet, Jr., Matthew Lewis, John H. White, Michel DuCille (1986 and 1988), Clarence J. Williams, III. Covers 1942-1999. [Reprinted by Norton with update thru 2001.] Also a traveling exhibition with same title. 4to (11.9 x 9 in.), wraps. First ed.
WILLIS, DEBORAH, ed.
Black Photographers: 1940-1988, An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography.
New York: Garland, 1989.
483 pp., over 350 illus. The most comprehensive list of Black photographers to date, with brief biographical entries on many artists and a few bibliographical entries on approximately half of the hundreds of names. Photographers included in Willis's earlier book, Black Photographers 1840-1940, receive only a brief notation here. An indispensable reference work. Artists discussed include: Salimah Ali, Omobowale Ayorinde, J. Edward Bailey, III, Anthony Barboza, Donnamarie Barnes, Vanessa Barnes Hillian, Fay D. Bellamy, Lisa Bellamy, Dawoud Bey, Hart Leroy Bibbs, Bonnie Brisset, Barbara Brown, Lisa Brown, Millie Burns, Muriel Agatha Fortune Bush, Cynthia D. Cole, Juanita Cole, Cary Beth Cryor, Tere L. Cuesta, Fikisha Cumbo, Phyllis Cunningham, Pat Davis, Carmen DeJesus, Lydia Ann Douglas, Barbara Dumetz, Joan Eda, Sharon Farmer, Phoebe Farris, Valeria "Mikki" Ferrill, Collette V. Fournier, Roland L. Freeman, Rennie George, Bernadette F. B. Gibson, Anthony Gleaton, Dorothy Gloster, Lydia Hale-Hammond, Gail Adelle Hansberry, Inge Hardison, Teenie Harris, Madeleine Hill, Zebonia Hood, Vera Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Michelle M. Jeffries, Brent Jones, Brian V. Jones, Julia Jones, Kenneth G. Jones, Marvin T. Jones, Leah Jaynes Karp, Irene C. Kellogg, Lucius King, Romulo Lachatanere, Allie Sharon Larkin, George Larkins, Archy La Salle, Abe C. Lavalais, Joyce Lee, Sa'Longo J.R. Lee, Carl E. Lewis, Harvey James Lewis, Matthew Lewis, Roy Lewis, Fern Logan, Edie Lynch, Peter Magubane, Jimmie Mannas, Louise Martin, Mickey Mathis, Carroll T. Maynard, Rhashidah Elaine McNeill, Marlene Montoute, Michelle Morgan, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Marilyn Nance, Yvonne Payne, Patricia Phipps, Ellen Queen, Phillda Ragland, Arkili-Casundria Ramsess, Odetta Rogers, Veronica Saddler, Lloyd Saunders, Cheryl Shackelton, Victoria Simmons, Coreen Simpson, Lorna Simpson, Clarissa T. Sligh, Ming Smith, Toni Smith, Charlynn Spencer Pyne, Jo Moore Stewart, Celeste P. Stokes, Elisabeth Sunday, Elaine Tomlin, Sandra Turner-Bond, Jacqueline La Vetta Van Sertima, Dixie Vereen, William Onikwa Wallace, Sharon Watson-Mauro, Carrie Mae Weems, Dolores West, Judith C. White, Elizabeth "Tex" Williams, Lucy Williams, Pat Ward Williams, Deborah Willis, Carol R. Wilson, Jonni Mae Wingard, Ernest Withers, and many, many others. Not all listed in this description, but all individual photographers are cross-listed. Large stout 4to, pictorial boards, no d.j. (as issued). First ed.
Chicago (/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ (listen) shih-KAH-goh, locally also /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/ shih-KAW-goh;[6] Miami-Illinois: Shikaakwa; Ojibwe: Zhigaagong) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the third-most populous in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census,[7] it is also the most populous city in the Midwest. As the seat of Cook County, the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, the 39th-largest city in the world as of 2018.
On the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century.[8][9] The Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless,[10] but Chicago's population continued to grow.[9] Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture, such as the Chicago School, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.[11][12]
Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the financial center of the U.S. Midwest. It has the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone.[13] O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports.[14] The region is the nation's railroad hub.[15] The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018.[16] Chicago's economy is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.[13]
Chicago is a major tourist destination. Chicago's culture has contributed much to the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, and music (particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel,[17] and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Chicago area also hosts the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago, among other institutions of learning. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.
Etymology and nicknames
Main article: Nicknames of Chicago
See also: Windy City (nickname)
The name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir.[18] Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew profusely in the area.[19] According to his diary of late September 1687:
... when we arrived at the said place called "Chicagou" which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region.[19]
The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.[20]
History
Main article: History of Chicago
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Chicago history.
Beginnings
Traditional Potawatomi regalia on display at the Field Museum of Natural History
In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.[21]
An artist's rendering of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
Home Insurance Building (1885)
Court of Honor at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893
The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".[22][23][24]
In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt.[25]
After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.[26][27][28]
19th century
The location and course of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (completed 1848)
0:50
State and Madison Streets, once known as the busiest intersection in the world (1897)
On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200.[28] Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837,[29] and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.[30]
As the site of the Chicago Portage,[31] the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.[32][33][34][35]
A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy.[36] The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.[37]
In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery.[38] These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.
To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system.[39] The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings.[40] While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.
The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.[41][42][43]
In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time.[44][45][46] Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact,[47] and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction.[48][49] During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.[50][51]
The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side.[52] The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.
Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes, and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).[53][54]
Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889.[55] Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.[56]
During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.[57]
The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.[58]
In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals.[59][60] In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones.[61] This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history.[62][63] The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.[64][65]
20th and 21st centuries
Men outside a soup kitchen during the Great Depression (1931)
1900 to 1939
Aerial motion film photography of Chicago in 1914 as filmed by A. Roy Knabenshue
During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903.[66] This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music.[67] Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, also occurred.[68]
The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the Gangster Era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era.[69] Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.[70]
Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.[71]
The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat.[72]
From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago.[72] Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.
In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair.[73] The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.[74]
1940 to 1979
Boy from Chicago, 1941
The Chicago Picasso (1967) inspired a new era in urban public art.
During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945.[citation needed]
Protesters in Grant Park outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention
The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.[75]
On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.[76]
Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.[77]
By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt.[78] While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods.[79] Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.[80]
Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police.[81] Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure.[82] In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.[83]
1980 to present
In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after.[84] Washington was succeeded by 6th ward Alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.
Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.[85][86]
In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m3) of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power.[87] The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.[87]
On February 23, 2011, former Illinois Congressman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won the mayoral election.[88] Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015.[89] Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ Mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019.[90] All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the City Clerk was Anna Valencia and City Treasurer, Melissa Conyears-Ervin.[91]
On May 15th, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as the 57th Mayor of Chicago.
Geography
Main article: Geography of Chicago
Chicago skyline at sunset in October 2020, from near Fullerton Avenue looking south
Topography
Downtown and the North Side with beaches lining the waterfront
A satellite image of Chicago
Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.[92][93]
Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.[94]
When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks.[95] The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is 579 ft (176.5 m) above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat,[96] the lowest points are along the lake shore at 578 ft (176.2 m), while the highest point, at 672 ft (205 m), is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.[97]
While the Chicago Loop is the central business district, Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across 26 miles (42 km) of the waterfront.[98] Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront.
An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs, though different organizations have slightly different definitions.[99][100][101]
Communities
See also: Community areas in Chicago and Neighborhoods in Chicago
Community areas of Chicago
Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides.[102] The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes.[103] The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront.[104] The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.[105]
In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.[106][107]
Streetscape
Main article: Roads and expressways in Chicago
Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south.[108] Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction, about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction. The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.[109]
In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States.[110] Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world.[111] Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.[112]
Architecture
Further information: Architecture of Chicago, List of tallest buildings in Chicago, and List of Chicago Landmarks
The Chicago Building (1904–05) is a prime example of the Chicago School, displaying both variations of the Chicago window.
The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era,[51] which would then be followed by many other cities around the world.[113] Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.[114]
Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country.[115] The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.[116][117]
The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (as of 9 September 2013), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River.[118] Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.[119]
Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture.[120] Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.[121][122]
A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.[123]
Monuments and public art
Replica of Daniel Chester French's Statue of The Republic at the site of the World's Columbian Exposition
Main article: List of public art in Chicago
Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust.[124] A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.[citation needed]
Climate
Main article: Climate of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Climate chart (explanation)
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
2.1 3218
1.9 3622
2.7 4731
3.6 5942
4.1 7052
4.1 8062
4 8568
4 8366
3.3 7558
3.2 6346
3.4 4935
2.6 3523
█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
█ Precipitation totals in inches
Metric conversion
The Chicago River during the January 2014 cold wave
The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfa), and experiences four distinct seasons.[125][126][127] Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is 75.9 °F (24.4 °C), with afternoon temperatures peaking at 85.0 °F (29.4 °C). In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least 90 °F (32 °C) on as many as 23 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy. Blizzards do occur, such as in winter 2011.[128] There are many sunny but cold days. The normal winter high from December through March is about 36 °F (2 °C). January and February are the coldest months. A polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of −27 °F (−33 °C), which was set on January 20, 1985.[129][130][131] Measurable snowfall can continue through the first or second week of April.[132]
Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of 55.7 °F (13.2 °C) in June to 61.7 °F (16.5 °C) in July.[133] They can reach nearly 80 °F (27 °C), such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.[134]
According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of 105 °F (41 °C) was recorded on July 24, 1934.[135] Midway Airport reached 109 °F (43 °C) one day prior and recorded a heat index of 125 °F (52 °C) during the 1995 heatwave.[136] The lowest official temperature of −27 °F (−33 °C) was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport.[133][136] Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes.[137]
Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake.[138] Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.[139]
Climate data for Chicago (Midway Airport), 1991–2020 normals,[a] extremes 1928–present
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °F (°C) 67
(19) 75
(24) 86
(30) 92
(33) 102
(39) 107
(42) 109
(43) 104
(40) 102
(39) 94
(34) 81
(27) 72
(22) 109
(43)
Mean maximum °F (°C) 53.4
(11.9) 57.9
(14.4) 72.0
(22.2) 81.5
(27.5) 89.2
(31.8) 93.9
(34.4) 96.0
(35.6) 94.2
(34.6) 90.8
(32.7) 82.8
(28.2) 68.0
(20.0) 57.5
(14.2) 97.1
(36.2)
Average high °F (°C) 32.8
(0.4) 36.8
(2.7) 47.9
(8.8) 60.0
(15.6) 71.5
(21.9) 81.2
(27.3) 85.2
(29.6) 83.1
(28.4) 76.5
(24.7) 63.7
(17.6) 49.6
(9.8) 37.7
(3.2) 60.5
(15.8)
Daily mean °F (°C) 26.2
(−3.2) 29.9
(−1.2) 39.9
(4.4) 50.9
(10.5) 61.9
(16.6) 71.9
(22.2) 76.7
(24.8) 75.0
(23.9) 67.8
(19.9) 55.3
(12.9) 42.4
(5.8) 31.5
(−0.3) 52.4
(11.3)
Average low °F (°C) 19.5
(−6.9) 22.9
(−5.1) 32.0
(0.0) 41.7
(5.4) 52.4
(11.3) 62.7
(17.1) 68.1
(20.1) 66.9
(19.4) 59.2
(15.1) 46.8
(8.2) 35.2
(1.8) 25.3
(−3.7) 44.4
(6.9)
Mean minimum °F (°C) −3
(−19) 3.4
(−15.9) 14.1
(−9.9) 28.2
(−2.1) 39.1
(3.9) 49.3
(9.6) 58.6
(14.8) 57.6
(14.2) 45.0
(7.2) 31.8
(−0.1) 19.7
(−6.8) 5.3
(−14.8) −6.5
(−21.4)
Record low °F (°C) −25
(−32) −20
(−29) −7
(−22) 10
(−12) 28
(−2) 35
(2) 46
(8) 43
(6) 29
(−2) 20
(−7) −3
(−19) −20
(−29) −25
(−32)
Average precipitation inches (mm) 2.30
(58) 2.12
(54) 2.66
(68) 4.15
(105) 4.75
(121) 4.53
(115) 4.02
(102) 4.10
(104) 3.33
(85) 3.86
(98) 2.73
(69) 2.33
(59) 40.88
(1,038)
Average snowfall inches (cm) 12.5
(32) 10.1
(26) 5.7
(14) 1.0
(2.5) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.1
(0.25) 1.5
(3.8) 7.9
(20) 38.8
(99)
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) 11.5 9.4 11.1 12.0 12.4 11.1 10.0 9.3 8.4 10.8 10.2 10.8 127.0
Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) 8.9 6.4 3.9 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 1.6 6.3 28.2
Average ultraviolet index 1 2 4 6 7 9 9 8 6 4 2 1 5
Source 1: NOAA[140][133][136], WRCC[141]
Source 2: Weather Atlas (UV)[142]
Climate data for Chicago (O'Hare Int'l Airport), 1991–2020 normals,[a] extremes 1871–present[b]
Sunshine data for Chicago
Time zone
As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana.
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of Chicago
Historical population
Census Pop. Note %±
1840 4,470 —
1850 29,963 570.3%
1860 112,172 274.4%
1870 298,977 166.5%
1880 503,185 68.3%
1890 1,099,850 118.6%
1900 1,698,575 54.4%
1910 2,185,283 28.7%
1920 2,701,705 23.6%
1930 3,376,438 25.0%
1940 3,396,808 0.6%
1950 3,620,962 6.6%
1960 3,550,404 −1.9%
1970 3,366,957 −5.2%
1980 3,005,072 −10.7%
1990 2,783,726 −7.4%
2000 2,896,016 4.0%
2010 2,695,598 −6.9%
2020 2,746,388 1.9%
2021 (est.) 2,696,555 −1.8%
United States Census Bureau[148]
2010–2020[7]
During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world,[149] and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million,[150] and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.
From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Russians, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs.[151][152] To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.[151] Chicago has a significant Bosnian population, many of whom arrived in the 1990s and 2000s.[153]
In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side.[151] A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition.[151] Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. In 1990, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constituted the largest black majority region in the entire United States.[151]
Most of Chicago's foreign-born population were born in Mexico, Poland and India.[154]
Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.[155]
The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and after a decrease in 2010, it rose again for the 2020 census.[156]
According to U.S. census estimates as of July 2019, Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the population.[157][158][159][160]
Racial composition 2020[161] 2010[162] 1990[160] 1970[160] 1940[160]
White (non-Hispanic) 31.4% 31.7% 37.9% 59.0%[c] 91.2%
Hispanic or Latino 29.8% 28.9% 19.6% 7.4%[c] 0.5%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 28.7% 32.3% 39.1% 32.7% 8.2%
Asian (non-Hispanic) 6.9% 5.4% 3.7% 0.9% 0.1%
Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 2.6% 1.3% n/a n/a n/a
Ethnic origins in Chicago
Map of racial distribution in Chicago, 2010 U.S. census. Each dot is 25 people: ⬤ White ⬤ Black ⬤ Asian ⬤ Hispanic ⬤ Other
Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2018, the Chicago Department of Health, estimated 7.5% of the adult population, approximately 146,000 Chicagoans, were LGBTQ.[163] In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT.[164][165] Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority of them in Chicago.[166][167]
Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.[168]
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line.[169] In 2018, Chicago ranked seventh globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.[170]
According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:[171]
Ireland (137,799)
Poland (134,032)
Germany (120,328)
Italy (77,967)
China (66,978)
American (37,118)
UK (36,145)
recent African (32,727)
India (25,000)
Russia (19,771)
Arab (17,598)
European (15,753)
Sweden (15,151)
Japan (15,142)
Greece (15,129)
France (except Basque) (11,410)
Ukraine (11,104)
West Indian (except Hispanic groups) (10,349)
Persons identifying themselves in "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.[171]
Religion
Religion in Chicago (2014)[172][173]
Protestantism (35%)
Roman Catholicism (34%)
Eastern Orthodoxy (1%)
Jehovah's Witness (1%)
No religion (22%)
Judaism (3%)
Islam (2%)
Buddhism (1%)
Hinduism (1%)
According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity is the most prevalently practiced religion in Chicago (71%),[173] with the city being the fourth-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston.[173] Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branches (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each.[172] Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).[172]
Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships.[174] Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East.[175] In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian denomination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).[172]
Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has at least 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population, making it the second largest religion.[176][172] A 2020 study estimated the total Jewish population of the Chicago metropolitan area, both religious and irreligious, at 319,600.[177]
The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago.[178] Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama[179] and Pope John Paul II in 1979.[180]
Economy
Main article: Economy of Chicago
See also: List of companies in the Chicago metropolitan area
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
The Chicago Board of Trade Building
Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates.[181] The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification.[182] The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation.[183] Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.
Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States.[184] The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower.[185] Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners.
The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers.[186] Illinois is home to 66 Fortune 1000 companies, including those in Chicago.[187] The city of Chicago also hosts 12 Fortune Global 500 companies and 17 Financial Times 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001,[188] McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance.[189] For six consecutive years from 2013 through 2018, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.[190] However, three Fortune 500 companies left Chicago in 2022, leaving the city with 35, still second to New York City.[191]
Manufacturing, printing, publishing, and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, and Quaker Oats.[citation needed] Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.[citation needed]
Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs,[192] while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907.[193] Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.
Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world.[194] Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.[195]
Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation and reached $15 in 2021.[196][197]
Culture and contemporary life
Further information: Culture of Chicago, List of people from Chicago, and List of museums and cultural institutions in Chicago
The National Hellenic Museum in Greektown is one of several ethnic museums comprising the Chicago Cultural Alliance.
Andy's Jazz Club in River North, a staple of the Chicago jazz scene since the 1950s
The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south.[198] The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and La Villita along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown;[199] Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.[200]
Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.[citation needed]
Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.[citation needed]
Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.[201] North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.[202]
The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities,[203] and the Museum of Science and Industry. The 6-mile (9.7 km) long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.[citation needed]
The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.[citation needed]
The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like The Blues Brothers and television programs like the Saturday Night Live skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.[204]
Entertainment and the arts
See also: Theater in Chicago, Visual arts of Chicago, and Music of Chicago
The Chicago Theatre
The spire of the Copernicus Center is modeled on the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
Jay Pritzker Pavilion at night
Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).[citation needed]
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world.[205] Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located 25 miles (40 km) north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago.[citation needed] The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956,[206] and presents operas in Lithuanian.
The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.[citation needed]
Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival.[citation needed] Lollapalooza originated in Chicago in 1991 and at first travelled to many cities, but as of 2005 its home has been Chicago.[207] A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".[208]
Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.[209]
Tourism
Main article: Tourism in Chicago
Ferries offer sightseeing tours and water-taxi transportation along the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.
Aerial view of Navy Pier at night
Magnificent Mile hosts numerous upscale stores and landmarks, including the Chicago Water Tower.
In 2014, Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors.[210] These visitors contributed more than US$13.7 billion to Chicago's economy.[210] Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.[211] Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is 3,000 ft (910 m) long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel. The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists.[212]
Museums
Among the city's museums are the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.[citation needed]
Cuisine
See also: Culture of Chicago § Food and drink, Chicago farmers' markets, and List of Michelin starred restaurants in Chicago
Chicago-style deep-dish pizza
A Polish market in Chicago
Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno.[213] The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city.[214] Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.[215]
The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun.[216] Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.[217][218][219]
A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.[220]
Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun.[221] The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community.[222] The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side.[223] Chicago-style barbecue features hardwood smoked rib tips and hot links which were traditionally cooked in an aquarium smoker, a Chicago invention.[224] Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.[225]
One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, Robb Report named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".[226]
Literature
Further information: Chicago literature
Carl Sandburg's most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for the World / Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat / Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler, / Stormy, Husky, Brawling, City of the Big Shoulders."
Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the Encyclopedia of Chicago, Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to "capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago.[227] Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time,[228] and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie.[229] Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check.
At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature.[230] These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s.
What would become the influential Poetry magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the Chicago Tribune. The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery.[231] T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by Poetry. Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago.[232] In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the poetry slam.[233]
Sports
Main article: Sports in Chicago
Top: Soldier Field; Bottom: Wrigley Field
Top: United Center; Bottom: Guaranteed Rate Field
The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once, in 1906.[citation needed]
The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city;[234] they have played in Chicago since 1871.[235] They had the dubious honor of having the longest championship drought in American professional sports, failing to win a World Series between 1908 and 2016. The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901.
The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field.
The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world.[236] During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons.[237][238]
The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.[citation needed]
Major league professional teams in Chicago (ranked by attendance)
Club League Sport Venue Attendance Founded Championships
Chicago Bears NFL Football Soldier Field 61,142 1919 9 Championships (1 Super Bowl)
Chicago Cubs MLB Baseball Wrigley Field 41,649 1870 3 World Series
Chicago White Sox MLB Baseball Guaranteed Rate Field 40,615 1900 3 World Series
Chicago Blackhawks NHL Ice hockey United Center 21,653 1926 6 Stanley Cups
Chicago Bulls NBA Basketball 20,776 1966 6 NBA Championships
Chicago Fire MLS Soccer Soldier Field 17,383 1997 1 MLS Cup, 1 Supporters Shield
Chicago Sky WNBA Basketball Wintrust Arena 10,387 2006 1 WNBA Championships
Chicago Half Marathon on Lake Shore Drive on the South Side
Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.[citation needed]
The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.[239]
The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.[240]
Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Missouri Valley Conference); and the UIC Flames (Horizon League).[241]
Chicago has also entered into esports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL.[citation needed]
Parks and greenspace
Main articles: Parks in Chicago, Chicago Boulevard System, and Cook County Forest Preserves
Portage Park on the Northwest Side
Washington Square Park on the Near North Side
When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas.[242] Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers 1,200 acres (490 ha) and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.[243]
There is a historic boulevard system,[244] a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks.[245] The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869.[246] A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century.[245] The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets.[247] The Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.[248][249]
With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system.[250] In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.[citation needed]
The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts,[251] including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield.[252] Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly 400 acres (160 ha). The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.[253]
Law and government
Government
Main article: Government of Chicago
Daley Plaza with Picasso statue, City Hall in background. At right, the Daley Plaza Building contains the state law courts.
The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Brandon Johnson. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city.[254] The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.[255]
The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney.
Politics
Main article: Political history of Chicago
Presidential election results in Chicago[256]
Year Democratic Republican Others
2020 82.5% 944,735 15.8% 181,234 1.6% 18,772
2016 82.9% 912,945 12.3% 135,320 4.8% 53,262
During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations.[257] For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.[citation needed]
Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 17 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.[citation needed]
Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities.[258] During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.[259]
The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.[260]
Crime
Main articles: Crime in Chicago and Timeline of organized crime in Chicago
Chicago Police Department SUV, 2011
Chicago's crime rate in 2020 was 3,926 per 100,000 people.[261] Chicago experienced major rises in violent crime in the 1920s, in the late 1960s, and in the 2020s.[262][263] Chicago's biggest criminal justice challenges have changed little over the last 50 years, and statistically reside with homicide, armed robbery, gang violence, and aggravated battery. Chicago has attracted attention for a high murder rate and perceived crime rate compared to other major cities like New York and Los Angeles. However, while it has a large absolute number of crimes due to its size, Chicago is not among the top-25 most violent cities in the United States.[264][265]
Murder rates in Chicago vary greatly depending on the neighborhood in question.[266] The neighborhoods of Englewood on the South Side, and Austin on the West side, for example, have homicide rates that are ten times higher than other parts of the city.[267] Chicago has an estimated population of over 100,000 active gang members from nearly 60 factions.[268][269] According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories",[270] and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities.[271] Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime.[270] In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people;[272] the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.[273]
Chicago has a long history of public corruption that regularly draws the attention of federal law enforcement and federal prosecutors.[274] From 2012 to 2019, 33 Chicago aldermen were convicted on corruption charges, roughly one third of those elected in the time period. A report from the Office of the Legislative Inspector General noted that over half of Chicago's elected alderman took illegal campaign contributions in 2013.[275] Most corruption cases in Chicago are prosecuted by the US Attorney's office, as legal jurisdiction makes most offenses punishable as a federal crime.[276]
Education
Main article: Chicago Public Schools
When it was opened in 1991, the central Harold Washington Library appeared in Guinness World Records as the largest municipal public library building in the world.
Schools and libraries
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools,[277] designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses.[278] Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.[279]
Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests.[280] The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S.[281] On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues.[282] According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).[283]
Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools,[284] and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others. A number of private schools are completely secular. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.[285]
The Chicago Public Library system operates 3 regional libraries and 77 neighbourhood branches, including the central library.[286]
Colleges and universities
For a more comprehensive list, see List of colleges and universities in Chicago.
The University of Chicago, as seen from the Midway Plaisance
Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by U.S. News & World Report.[citation needed] Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.[287]
William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901.[288] His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.[citation needed]
Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.[citation needed]
Media
Further information: Media in Chicago and Chicago International Film Festival
WGN began in the early days of radio and developed into a multi-platform broadcaster, including a cable television super-station.
Chicago was home of The Oprah Winfrey Show from 1986 until 2011 and other Harpo Production operations until 2015.
Television
The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles and a major media hub.[289] Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which was owned from its inception by Tribune Broadcasting (now owned by the Nexstar Media Group since 2019), is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. WGN America eventually became NewsNation in 2021.
Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Steve Harvey Show, The Rosie Show, The Jerry Springer Show, The Phil Donahue Show, The Jenny Jones Show, and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017[290]): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as Sneak Previews, The Frugal Gourmet, Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The McLaughlin Group.
As of 2018, Windy City Live is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, Judge Mathis also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, Newsy began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.[citation needed]
Newspapers
Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as Chicago, the Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News), Draugas (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the Chicago Reader, the SouthtownStar, the Chicago Defender, the Daily Herald, Newcity,[291][292] StreetWise and the Windy City Times. The entertainment and cultural magazine Time Out Chicago and GRAB magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine Chicago Innerview. In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, The Onion, as well as its sister pop-culture publication, The A.V. Club.[293]
Movies and filming
Main articles: List of movies set in Chicago and List of television shows set in Chicago
Radio
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Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.[citation needed]
Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's This American Life and NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!.[citation needed]
Infrastructure
Transportation
Further information: Transportation in Chicago
Aerial photo of the Jane Byrne Interchange (2022) after reconstruction, initially opened in the 1960s
Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.[294]
The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.[295]
Expressways
Further information: Roads and expressways in Chicago
Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson.
The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.[296]
Transit systems
Chicago Union Station, opened in 1925, is the third-busiest passenger rail terminal in the United States.
The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the City of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs outside of the Chicago city limits. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the Chicago "L" or just "L" (short for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway and O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24‑hour service which makes Chicago one of a handful of cities around the world (and one of two in the United States, the other being New York City) to offer rail service 24 hours a day, every day of the year, within the city's limits.
Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and throughout the Chicago suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend and Chicago.
Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. A 2005 study found that one quarter of commuters used public transit.[297]
Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).
Passenger rail
Amtrak train on the Empire Builder route departs Chicago from Union Station.
Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station.[298] Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation.[299] The services terminate in the San Francisco area, Washington, D.C., New York City, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. Future services will terminate at Rockford and Moline. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed.
Bicycle and scooter sharing systems
In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations[300] It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation.[301] As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.[302]
In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15.[303] The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft.[304] Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters.[305] The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.[306]
Freight rail
Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry.[307] All five Class I railroads meet in Chicago. As of 2002, severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days).[308] According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040.[309] CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.[310]
Airports
Further information: Transportation in Chicago § Airports
O'Hare International Airport
Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations,[311] on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic.[312] Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago.[313] The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline.
Port authority
Main article: Port of Chicago
The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[314]
Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes 100 acres (0.40 km2) of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over 780,000 square meters (8,400,000 square feet) of storage.
Lake Calumet terminal: located at the union of the Grand Calumet River and Little Calumet River 6 miles (9.7 km) inland from Lake Michigan. Includes three transit sheds totaling over 29,000 square meters (310,000 square feet) adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3,000 linear feet) of ship and barge berthing.
Grain (14 million bushels) and bulk liquid (800,000 barrels) storage facilities along Lake Calumet.
The Illinois International Port district also operates Foreign trade zone No. 22, which extends 60 miles (97 km) from Chicago's city limits.
Utilities
Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.[315][316][317]
Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.
Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills.[318] Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.[319]
Health systems
Prentice Women's Hospital on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Downtown Campus
The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by U.S. News & World Report for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.[320]
Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by U.S. News & World Report for 2017–18;[321] the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by U.S. News & World Report;[322] the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).[323]
In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.
The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.
Sister cities
Main article: List of sister cities of Chicago
See also
Chicago area water quality
Chicago Wilderness
Gentrification of Chicago
List of cities with the most skyscrapers
List of people from Chicago
List of fiction set in Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in Central Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in North Side Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in West Side Chicago
USS Chicago, 4 ships
Chicago History
"It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago. She outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them." - Mark Twain, 1883
Chicago was only 46 years old when Mark Twain wrote those words, but it had already grown more than 100-fold, from a small trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River into one of the nation?s largest cities, and it wasn?t about to stop. Over the next 20 years, it would quadruple in population, amazing the rest of the world with its ability to repeatedly reinvent itself.
And it still hasn?t stopped.
Chicago continues to be a place that many people from diverse backgrounds call home. Before it was a city, it was the home to numerous indigenous peoples, a legacy which continues to frame our relationship with the city, the land, and the environment.
Today, Chicago has become a global city, a thriving center of international trade and commerce, and a place where people of every nationality and background come to pursue the American dream.
Indigenous Chicago
Chicago is the traditional homelands of Hooc?k (Winnebago/Ho?Chunk), Jiwere (Otoe), Nutachi (Missouria), and Baxoje (Iowas); Kiash Matchitiwuk (Menominee); Meshkwahkîha (Meskwaki); Asâkîwaki (Sauk); Myaamiaki (Miami), Waayaahtanwaki (Wea), and Peeyankih?iaki (Piankashaw); Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo); Inoka (Illini Confederacy); Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe), Odawak (Odawa), and Bodéwadmik (Potawatomi). Seated atop a continental divide, the Chicago region is located at the intersection of several great waterways, leading the area to become the site of travel and healing for many Tribes.
The City understands that Tribes are sovereign Nations and should have the first voice in acknowledging their historical and contemporary presence on this land. If your Tribe would like to see changes, please reach out to us for comments.
Early Chicago
Chicago?s first permanent non-indigenous resident was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a free black man from Haiti whose father was a French sailor and whose mother was an African slave, he came here in the 1770s via the Mississippi River from New Orleans with his Native American wife, and their home stood at the mouth of the Chicago River. In 1803, the U.S. government built Fort Dearborn at what is now the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive (look for the bronze markers in the pavement). It was destroyed in 1812 following the Battle of Fort Dearborn, rebuilt in 1816, and permanently demolished in 1857.
A Trading Center
Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago was ideally situated to take advantage of the trading possibilities created by the nation?s westward expansion. The completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 created a water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, but the canal was soon rendered obsolete by railroads. Today, 50 percent of U.S. rail freight continues to pass through Chicago, even as the city has become the nation?s busiest aviation center, thanks to O?Hare and Midway International airports.
The Great Fire of 1871
As Chicago grew, its residents took heroic measures to keep pace. In the 1850s, they raised many of the streets five to eight feet to install a sewer system ? and then raised the buildings, as well. Unfortunately, the buildings, streets and sidewalks were made of wood, and most of them burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Chicago Fire Department training academy at 558 W. DeKoven St. is on the site of the O?Leary property where the fire began. The Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station at Michigan and Chicago avenues are among the few buildings to have survived the fire.
"The White City"
Chicago rebuilt quickly. Much of the debris was dumped into Lake Michigan as landfill, forming the underpinnings for what is now Grant Park, Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago. Only 22 years later, Chicago celebrated its comeback by holding the World?s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with its memorable ?White City.? One of the Exposition buildings was rebuilt to become the Museum of Science and Industry. Chicago refused to be discouraged even by the Great Depression. In 1933 and 1934, the city held an equally successful Century of Progress Exposition on Northerly Island.
Hull House
In the half-century following the Great Fire, waves of immigrants came to Chicago to take jobs in the factories and meatpacking plants. Many poor workers and their families found help in settlement houses operated by Jane Addams and her followers. Her Hull House Museum is located at 800 S. Halsted St.
Chicago Firsts
Throughout their city?s history, Chicagoans have demonstrated their ingenuity in matters large and small:
The nation?s first skyscraper, the 10-story, steel-framed Home Insurance Building, was built in 1884 at LaSalle and Adams streets and demolished in 1931.
When residents were threatened by waterborne illnesses from sewage flowing into Lake Michigan, they reversed the Chicago River in 1900 to make it flow toward the Mississippi.
Start of the "Historic Route 66" which begins at Grant Park on Adams Street in the front of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Chicago was the birthplace of:
the refrigerated rail car (Swift)
mail-order retailing (Sears and Montgomery Ward)
the car radio (Motorola)
the TV remote control (Zenith)
The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, ushering in the Atomic Age, took place at the University of Chicago in 1942. The spot is marked by a Henry Moore sculpture on Ellis Avenue between 56th and 57th streets.
The 1,451-foot Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower), completed in 1974, was the the tallest building in the world from 1974 to 1998.
Chicago has played a central role in American economic, cultural and political history. Since the 1850s Chicago has been one of the dominant metropolises in the Midwestern United States, and has been the largest city in the Midwest since the 1880 census. The area's recorded history begins with the arrival of French explorers, missionaries and fur traders in the late 17th century and their interaction with the local Pottawatomie Native Americans. Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was the first permanent non-indigenous settler in the area, having a house at the mouth of the Chicago River in the late 18th century. There were small settlements and a U.S. Army fort, but the soldiers and settlers were all driven off in 1812. The modern city was incorporated in 1837 by Northern businessmen and grew rapidly from real estate speculation and the realization that it had a commanding position in the emerging inland transportation network, based on lake traffic and railroads, controlling access from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River basin.
Despite a fire in 1871 that destroyed the Central Business District, the city grew exponentially, becoming the nation's rail center and the dominant Midwestern center for manufacturing, commerce, finance, higher education, religion, broadcasting, sports, jazz, and high culture. The city was a magnet for European immigrants?at first Germans, Irish and Scandinavians, then from the 1890s to 1914, Jews, Czechs, Poles and Italians. They were all absorbed in the city's powerful ward-based political machines. Many joined militant labor unions, and Chicago became notorious for its violent strikes, but respected for its high wages.
Large numbers of African Americans migrated from the South starting in the World War I era as part of the Great Migration. Mexicans started arriving after 1910, and Puerto Ricans after 1945. The Cook County suburbs grew rapidly after 1945, but the Democratic party machine kept both the city and suburbs under control, especially under mayor Richard J. Daley, who was chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. Deindustrialization after 1970 closed the stockyards and most of the steel mills and factories, but the city retained its role as a financial and transportation hub. Increasingly it emphasized its service roles in medicine, higher education, and tourism. The city formed the political base for leaders such as Stephen A. Douglas in the 1850s, Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s, and Barack Obama in recent years.
Pre-1830
Early native settlements
At its first appearance in records by explorers, the Chicago area was inhabited by a number of Algonquian peoples, including the Mascouten and Miami. The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir.[1] Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called "chicagoua", grew abundantly in the area.[2] According to his diary of late September 1687:
when we arrived at the said place called Chicagou which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region.[2]
The tribe was part of the Miami Confederacy, which included the Illini and Kickapoo. In 1671, Potawatomi guides first took the French trader Nicolas Perrot to the Miami villages near the site of present-day Chicago.[3] Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix would write in 1721 that the Miami had a settlement in what is now Chicago around 1670. Chicago's location at a short canoe portage (the Chicago Portage) connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River system attracted the attention of many French explorers, notably Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. The Jesuit Relations indicate that by this time, the Iroquois tribes of New York had driven the Algonquian tribes entirely out of Lower Michigan and as far as this portage, during the later Beaver Wars.[4]
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who traversed the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers south of Chicago in the winter of 1681?82, identified the Des Plaines River as the western boundary of the Miami. In 1683, La Salle built Fort St. Louis on the Illinois River. Almost two thousand Miami, including Weas and Piankeshaws, left the Chicago area to gather on the opposite shore at the Grand Village of the Illinois, seeking French protection from the Iroquois. In 1696, French Jesuits led by Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme built the Mission of the Guardian Angel to Christianize the local Wea and Miami people.[5] Shortly thereafter, Augustin le Gardeur de Courtemanche visited the settlement on behalf of the French government, seeking peace between the Miami and Iroquois. Miami chief Chichikatalo accompanied de Courtemanche to Montreal.[4]
The Algonquian tribes began to retake the lost territory in the ensuing decades, and in 1701, the Iroquois formally abandoned their claim to their "hunting grounds" as far as the portage to England in the Nanfan Treaty, which was finally ratified in 1726. This was largely a political maneuver of little practicality, as the English then had no presence in the region whatsoever, the French and their Algonquian allies being the dominant force in the area. A writer in 1718 noted at the Was had a village in Chicago, but had recently fled due to concerns about approaching Ojibwes and Pottawatomis. The Iroquois and Meskwaki probably drove out all Miami from the Chicago area by the end of the 1720s. The Pottawatomi assumed control of the area, but probably did not have any major settlements in Chicago. French and allied use of the Chicago portage was mostly abandoned during the 1720s because of continual Native American raids during the Fox Wars.[6]
There was also a Michigamea chief named Chicago who may have lived in the region. In the 1680s, the Illinois River was called the Chicago River.[7]
Retrospective map showing how Chicago may have appeared in 1812 (right is north, published in 1884)
Retrospective map showing how Chicago may have appeared in 1812 (right is north, published in 1884)
Chicago in 1820
Chicago in 1820
First non-native settlements
Fort Dearborn depicted as in 1831, sketched 1850s although the accuracy of the sketch was debated soon after it appeared.
The first settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a free black man,[8] who built a farm at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1790.[8][9] He left Chicago in 1800. In 1968, Point du Sable was honored at Pioneer Court as the city's founder and featured as a symbol.
In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, some Native Americans ceded the area of Chicago to the United States for a military post in the Treaty of Greenville. The US built Fort Dearborn in 1803 on the Chicago River. It was destroyed by Indian forces during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, and many of the inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner.[10] The fort had been ordered to evacuate. During the evacuation soldiers and civilians were overtaken near what is today Prairie Avenue. After the end of the war, the Potawatomi ceded the land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. (Today, this treaty is commemorated in Indian Boundary Park.) Fort Dearborn was rebuilt in 1818 and used until 1837.[11]:?25?
Growth of the city
1821 Survey of Chicago
Thompson's plat, the first official map of what would become the City of Chicago
Chicago in 1830, as depicted in 1884
Chicago in 1831, as depicted in 1893 by Rudolf Cronau
Chicago in 1832, as depicted in 1892
Chicago in 1836
Extensions to city limits through 1884
In 1829, the Illinois legislature appointed commissioners to locate a canal and lay out the surrounding town. The commissioners employed James Thompson to survey and plat the town of Chicago, which at the time had a population of less than 100. Historians regard the August 4, 1830, filing of the plat as the official recognition of a location known as Chicago.[4]
Yankee entrepreneurs saw the potential of Chicago as a transportation hub in the 1830s and engaged in land speculation to obtain the choicest lots. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was incorporated with a population of 350.[12] On July 12, 1834, the Illinois from Sackets Harbor, New York, was the first commercial schooner to enter the harbor, a sign of the Great Lakes trade that would benefit both Chicago and New York state.[11]:?29? Chicago was granted a city charter by the State of Illinois on March 4, 1837;[13] it was part of the larger Cook County. By 1840 the boom town had a population of over 4,000.
After 1830, the rich farmlands of northern Illinois attracted Yankee settlers. Yankee real estate operators created a city overnight in the 1830s.[14] To open the surrounding farmlands to trade, the Cook County commissioners built roads south and west. The latter crossed the "dismal Nine-mile Swamp," the Des Plaines River, and went southwest to Walker's Grove, now the Village of Plainfield. The roads enabled hundreds of wagons per day of farm produce to arrive and so the entrepreneurs built grain elevators and docks to load ships bound for points east through the Great Lakes. Produce was shipped through the Erie Canal and down the Hudson River to New York City; the growth of the Midwest farms expanded New York City as a port.
In 1837, Chicago held its first mayoral election and elected William B. Ogden as its inaugural mayor.
Emergence as a transportation hub
Further information: Transportation in Chicago
1853 Bird's eye view of Chicago
1857 Bird's eye view of Chicago
In 1848, the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The first rail line to Chicago, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, was completed the same year. Chicago would go on to become the transportation hub of the United States, with its road, rail, water, and later air connections. Chicago also became home to national retailers offering catalog shopping such as Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck and Company, which used the transportation lines to ship all over the nation.
By the 1850s, the construction of railroads made Chicago a major hub and over 30 lines entered the city. The main lines from the East ended in Chicago, and those oriented to the West began in Chicago and so by 1860, the city had become the nation's trans-shipment and warehousing center. Factories were created, most famously the harvester factory that was opened in 1847 by Cyrus Hall McCormick. It was a processing center for natural resource commodities extracted in the West. The Wisconsin forests supported the millwork and lumber business; the Illinois hinterland provided the wheat. Hundreds of thousands of hogs and cattle were shipped to Chicago for slaughter, preserved in salt, and transported to eastern markets. By 1870, refrigerated cars allowed the shipping of fresh meat to cities in the East.[15]
The prairie bog nature of the area provided a fertile ground for disease-carrying insects. In springtime, Chicago was so muddy from the high water that horses could scarcely move. Comical signs proclaiming "Fastest route to China" or "No Bottom Here" were placed to warn people of the mud.
Travelers reported Chicago was the filthiest city in America. The city created a massive sewer system. In the first phase, sewage pipes were laid across the city above ground and used gravity to move the waste. The city was built in a low-lying area subject to flooding. In 1856, the city council decided that the entire city should be elevated four to five feet by using a newly available jacking-up process. In one instance, the five-story Brigg's Hotel, weighing 22,000 tons, was lifted while it continued to operate. Observing that such a thing could never have happened in Europe, the British historian Paul Johnson cites the astounding feat as a dramatic example of American determination and ingenuity based on the conviction that anything material is possible.[16]
Immigration and population in 19th century
Portrait of John Jones, a prominent early African-American businessman in Chicago
Portrait of Mary Jane Richardson Jones, 1865
Husband and wife John and Mary Jones were among the most prominent early African-American citizens of Chicago.
A bird's-eye view of Chicago in 1898. It became the second American city to reach a population of 1.6 million.
0:29
Chicago - State St at Madison Street, 1897
Although originally settled by Yankees in the 1830s, the city in the 1840s had many Irish Catholics come as a result of the Great Famine. Later in the century, the railroads, stockyards, and other heavy industry of the late 19th century attracted a variety of skilled workers from Europe, especially Germans, English, Swedes, Norwegians, and Dutch.[17] A small African-American community formed, led by activist leaders like John Jones and Mary Richardson Jones, who established Chicago as a stop on the Underground Railroad.[18]
In 1840, Chicago was the 92nd city in the United States by population. Its population grew so rapidly that 20 years later, it was the ninth city. In the pivotal year of 1848, Chicago saw the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, its first steam locomotives, the introduction of steam-powered grain elevators, the arrival of the telegraph, and the founding of the Chicago Board of Trade.[19] By 1857, Chicago was the largest city in what was then called the Northwest. In 20 years, Chicago grew from 4,000 people to over 90,000. Chicago surpassed St. Louis and Cincinnati as the major city in the West and gained political notice as the home of Stephen Douglas, the 1860 presidential nominee of the Northern Democrats. The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated the home-state candidate Abraham Lincoln. The city's government and voluntary societies gave generous support to soldiers during the American Civil War.[20]
Many of the newcomers were Irish Catholic and German immigrants. Their neighborhood saloons, a center of male social life, were attacked in the mid-1850s by the local Know-Nothing Party, which drew its strength from evangelical Protestants. The new party was anti-immigration and anti-liquor and called for the purification of politics by reducing the power of the saloonkeepers. In 1855, the Know-Nothings elected Levi Boone mayor, who banned Sunday sales of liquor and beer. His aggressive law enforcement sparked the Lager Beer Riot of April 1855, which erupted outside a courthouse in which eight Germans were being tried for liquor ordinance violations. After 1865, saloons became community centers only for local ethnic men, as reformers saw them as places that incited riotous behavior and moral decay.[21] Salons were also sources of musical entertainment. Francis O'Neill, an Irish immigrant who later became police chief, published compendiums of Irish music that were largely collected from other newcomers playing in saloons.[22]
By 1870, Chicago had grown to become the nation's second-largest city and one of the largest cities in the world. Between 1870 and 1900, Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7 million and was the fastest-growing city in world history. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe, especially Jews, Poles, and Italians, along with many smaller groups. Many businesspeople and professionals arrived from the eastern states. Relatively few new arrivals came from Chicago's rural hinterland. The exponential growth put increasing pollution on the environment, as hazards to public health impacted everyone.[23]
Gilded Age
Further information: Architecture of Chicago and Chicago railroad strike of 1877
The Chicago Water Tower, one of the few surviving buildings after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
A residential building in Chicago's Lincoln Park in 1885, when the city had dirt roads
Most of the city burned in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. The damage from the fire was immense since 300 people died, 18,000 buildings were destroyed, and nearly 100,000 of the city's 300,000 residents were left homeless. Several key factors exacerbated the spread of the fire. Most of Chicago's buildings and sidewalks were then constructed of wood. Also, the lack of attention to proper waste disposal practices, which was sometimes deliberate to favor certain industries, left an abundance of flammable pollutants in the Chicago River along which the fire spread from the south to the north.[24][25][circular reference][26] The fire led to the incorporation of stringent fire-safety codes, which included a strong preference for masonry construction.[27]
The Danish immigrant Jens Jensen arrived in 1886 and soon became a successful and celebrated landscape designer. Jensen's work was characterized by a democratic approach to landscaping, which was informed by his interest in social justice and conservation, and a rejection of antidemocratic formalism. Among Jensen's creations were four Chicago city parks, most famously Columbus Park. His work also included garden design for some of the region's most influential millionaires.
The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was constructed on former wetlands at the present location of Jackson Park along Lake Michigan in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The land was reclaimed according to a design by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The temporary pavilions, which followed a classical theme, were designed by a committee of the city's architects under the direction of Daniel Burnham. It was called the "White City" for the appearance of its buildings.[28]
The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors; is considered among the most influential world's fairs in history; and affected art, architecture, and design throughout the nation.[29] The classical architectural style contributed to a revival of Beaux Arts architecture that borrowed from historical styles, but Chicago was also developing the original skyscraper and organic forms based in new technologies. The fair featured the first and until recently the largest Ferris wheel ever built.
The soft, swampy ground near the lake proved unstable ground for tall masonry buildings. That was an early constraint, but builders developed the innovative use of steel framing for support and invented the skyscraper in Chicago, which became a leader in modern architecture and set the model nationwide for achieving vertical city densities.[30]
Developers and citizens began immediate reconstruction on the existing Jeffersonian grid. The building boom that followed saved the city's status as the transportation and trade hub of the Midwest. Massive reconstruction using the newest materials and methods catapulted Chicago into its status as a city on par with New York and became the birthplace of modern architecture in the United States.[31]
Rise of industry and commerce
Further information: Economy of Chicago
1893 Bird's eye view of Chicago
The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the world's first skyscraper.
Chicago became the center of the nation's advertising industry after New York City. Albert Lasker, known as the "father of modern advertising," made Chicago his base from 1898 to 1942. As head of the Lord and Thomas agency, Lasker devised a copywriting technique that appealed directly to the psychology of the consumer. Women, who seldom smoked cigarettes, were told that if they smoked Lucky Strikes, they could stay slender. Lasker's use of radio, particularly with his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent toothpaste, Kotex products, and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only revolutionized the advertising industry but also significantly changed popular culture.[32]
Gambling
In Chicago, like other rapidly growing industrial centers with large immigrant working-class neighborhoods, gambling was a major issue. The city's elite upper-class had private clubs and closely-supervised horse racing tracks. The middle-class reformers like Jane Addams focused on the workers, who discovered freedom and independence in gambling that were a world apart from their closely-supervised factory jobs and gambled to validate risk-taking aspect of masculinity, betting heavily on dice, card games, policy, and cock fights. By the 1850s, hundreds of saloons had offered gambling opportunities, including off-track betting on the horses.[33][34] The historian Mark Holler argues that organized crime provided upward mobility to ambitious ethnics. The high-income, high-visibility vice lords, and racketeers built their careers and profits in ghetto neighborhoods and often branched into local politics to protect their domains.[35] For example, in 1868 to 1888, Michael C. McDonald, "The Gambler King of Clark Street," kept numerous Democratic machine politicians in his city on expense account to protect his gambling empire and to keep the goo-goo reformers at bay.[36]
In large cities, illegal businesses like gambling and prostitution were typically contained in the geographically-segregated red light districts. The businessowners made regularly-scheduled payments to police and politicians, which they treated as licensing expenses. The informal rates became standardized. For example, in Chicago, they ranged from $20 a month for a cheap brothel to $1000 a month for luxurious operations in Chicago. Reform elements never accepted the segregated vice districts and wanted them all destroyed, but in large cities, the political machine was powerful enough to keep the reformers at bay. Finally, around 1900 to 1910, the reformers grew politically strong enough to shut down the system of vice segregation, and the survivors went underground.[37]
20th century
All Star Tournament, 18 Inch Balke Line, Chicago, May 7?14, 1906
Detail of lobby columns at the Ford Center for Performing Arts
Merchants' Hotel on left, looking North from State and Washington Streets, before 1868
Birds-eye view of Chicago in 1916
Loop street scene in 1900; colorized photograph
Chicago's manufacturing and retail sectors, fostered by the expansion of railroads throughout the upper Midwest and East, grew rapidly and came to dominate the Midwest and greatly influence the nation's economy.[38] The Chicago Union Stock Yards dominated the packing trade. Chicago became the world's largest rail hub, and one of its busiest ports by shipping traffic on the Great Lakes. Commodity resources, such as lumber, iron and coal, were brought to Chicago and Ohio for processing, with products shipped both East and West to support new growth.[39]
Lake Michigan?the primary source of fresh water for the city?became polluted from the rapidly growing industries in and around Chicago; a new way of procuring clean water was needed. In 1885 the civil engineer Lyman Edgar Cooley proposed the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. He envisioned a deep waterway that would dilute and divert the city's sewage by funneling water from Lake Michigan into a canal, which would drain into the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. Beyond presenting a solution for Chicago's sewage problem, Cooley's proposal appealed to the economic need to link the Midwest with America's central waterways to compete with East Coast shipping and railroad industries.
Strong regional support for the project led the Illinois legislature to circumvent the federal government and complete the canal with state funding. The opening in January 1900 met with controversy and a lawsuit against Chicago's appropriation of water from Lake Michigan. By the 1920s the lawsuit was divided between the states of the Mississippi River Valley, who supported the development of deep waterways linking the Great Lakes with the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes states, which feared sinking water levels might harm shipping in the lakes. In 1929 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in support of Chicago's use of the canal to promote commerce, but ordered the city to discontinue its use for sewage disposal.[40]
New construction boomed in the 1920s, with notable landmarks such as the Merchandise Mart and art deco Chicago Board of Trade Building completed in 1930. The Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression and diversion of resources into World War II led to the suspension for years of new construction.
The Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of the World's Fair held on the Near South Side lakefront from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial.[41][42] The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding. More than 40 million people visited the fair, which symbolized for many hope for Chicago and the nation, then in the midst of the Great Depression.[43]
The demographics of the city were changing in the early 20th century as black southern families migrated out of the south, but while cities like Chicago empathized with the condition of impoverished white children, black children were mostly excluded from the private and religious institutions that provided homes for such children. Those that did take in black dependent children were overcrowded and underfunded because of institutional racism. Between 1899 and 1945 many of the city's black children found themselves in the juvenile court system. The 1899 Juvenile Court Act, supported by Progressive reformers, created a class of dependants for orphans and other children lacking "proper parental care or guardianship" but the court's designations of "delinquency" and "dependency" were racialized[when defined as?] so black children were far more likely to be labeled as delinquents.[44][fact or opinion?]
Politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Further information: Political history of Chicago
Nicely dressed Jewish men and boys standing on a sidewalk in Chicago, 1903
Theodore Roosevelt in Chicago, 1915
Map of downtown Chicago in 1917.
During the election of April 23, 1875, the voters of Chicago chose to operate under the Illinois Cities and Villages Act of 1872. Chicago still operates under this act, in lieu of a charter. The Cities and Villages Act has been revised several times since, and may be found in Chapter 65 of the Illinois Compiled Statutes.
Late-19th-century big city newspapers such as the Chicago Daily News - founded in 1875 by Melville Stone - ushered in an era of news reporting that was, unlike earlier periods, in tune with the particulars of community life in specific cities. Vigorous competition between older and newer-style city papers soon broke out, centered on civic activism and sensationalist reporting of urban political issues and the numerous problems associated with rapid urban growth. Competition was especially fierce between the Chicago Times (Democratic), the Chicago Tribune (Republican), and the Daily News (independent), with the latter becoming the city's most popular paper by the 1880s.[45] The city's boasting lobbyists and politicians earned Chicago the nickname "Windy City" in the New York press. The city adopted the nickname as its own.
Violence and crime
Polarized attitudes of labor and business in Chicago prompted a strike by workers' lobbying for an eight-hour work day, later named the Haymarket affair. A peaceful demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket near the west side was interrupted by a bomb thrown at police; seven police officers were killed. Widespread violence broke out. A group of anarchists were tried for inciting the riot and convicted. Several were hanged and others were pardoned. The episode was a watershed moment in the labor movement, and its history was commemorated in the annual May Day celebrations.[46]
By 1900, Progressive Era political and legal reformers initiated far-ranging changes in the American criminal justice system, with Chicago taking the lead.[47]
The city became notorious worldwide for its rate of murders in the early 20th century, yet the courts failed to convict the killers. More than three-fourths of cases were not closed. Even when the police made arrests in cases where killers' identities were known, jurors typically exonerated or acquitted them. A blend of gender-, race-, and class-based notions of justice trumped the rule of law, producing low homicide conviction rates during a period of soaring violence.[48]
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rates of domestic murder tripled in Chicago. Domestic homicide was often a manifestation of strains in gender relations induced by urban and industrial change. At the core of such family murders were male attempts to preserve masculine authority. Yet, there were nuances in the motives for the murder of family members, and study of the patterns of domestic homicide among different ethnic groups reveals basic cultural differences. German male immigrants tended to murder over declining status and the failure to achieve economic prosperity. Italian men killed family members to save a gender-based ideal of respectability that entailed patriarchal control over women and family reputation. African American men, like the Germans, often murdered in response to economic conditions but not over desperation about the future. Like the Italians, the killers tended to be young, but family honor was not usually at stake. Instead, black men murdered to regain control of wives and lovers who resisted their patriarchal "rights".[49]
Progressive reformers in the business community created the Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) in 1919 after an investigation into a robbery at a factory showed the city's criminal justice system was deficient. The CCC initially served as a watchdog of the justice system. After its suggestion that the city's justice system begin collecting criminal records was rejected, the CCC assumed a more active role in fighting crime. The commission's role expanded further after Frank J. Loesch became president in 1928. Loesch recognized the need to eliminate the glamor that Chicago's media typically attributed to criminals. Determined to expose the violence of the crime world, Loesch drafted a list of "public enemies"; among them was Al Capone, whom he made a scapegoat for widespread social problems.[50]
After the passage of Prohibition, the 1920s brought international notoriety to Chicago. Bootleggers and smugglers bringing in liquor from Canada formed powerful gangs. They competed with each other for lucrative profits, and to evade the police, to bring liquor to speakeasies and private clients. The most notorious was Al Capone.[51][52]
Immigration and migration in the 20th century
Further information: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
From 1890 to 1914, migrations swelled, attracting to the city of mostly unskilled Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Greeks, Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Slovaks. World War I cut off immigration from Europe, which brought hundreds of thousands of southern blacks and whites into Northern cities to fill in the labor shortages. The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted populations from southern and eastern Europe, apart from refugees after World War II. The heavy annual turnover of ethnic populations ended, and the groups stabilized, each favoring specific neighborhoods.[53][54]
While whites from rural areas arrived and generally settled in the suburban parts of the city, large numbers of blacks from the South arrived as well.[55] The near South Side of the city became the first Black residential area, as it had the oldest, less expensive housing. Although restricted by segregation and competing ethnic groups such as the Irish, gradually continued black migration caused this community to expand, as well as the black neighborhoods on the near West Side. These were de facto segregated areas (few blacks were tolerated in ethnic white neighborhoods); the Irish and ethnic groups who had been longer in the city began to move to outer areas and the suburbs. After World War II, the city built public housing for working-class families to upgrade residential quality. The high-rise design of such public housing proved a problem when industrial jobs left the city and poor families became concentrated in the facilities. After 1950, public housing high rises anchored poor black neighborhoods south and west of the Loop.
"Old stock" Americans who relocated to Chicago after 1900 preferred the outlying areas and suburbs, with their commutes eased by train lines, making Oak Park and Evanston enclaves of the upper middle class. In the 1910s, high-rise luxury apartments were constructed along the lakefront north of the Loop, continuing into the 21st century. They attracted wealthy residents but few families with children, as wealthier families moved to suburbs for the schools. There were problems in the public school system; mostly Catholic students attended schools in the large parochial system, which was of middling quality.[56] There were a few private schools. The Latin School, Francis Parker and later The Bateman School, all centrally located served those who could afford to pay.
The northern and western suburbs developed some of the best public schools in the nation, which were strongly supported by their wealthier residents. The suburban trend accelerated after 1945, with the construction of highways and train lines that made commuting easier. Middle-class Chicagoans headed to the outlying areas of the city, and then into the Cook County and Dupage County suburbs. As ethnic Jews and Irish rose in economic class, they left the city and headed north. Well-educated migrants from around the country moved to the far suburbs.
Chicago's Polonia sustained diverse political cultures in the early twentieth century, each with its own newspaper. In 1920 the community had a choice of five daily papers ? from the Socialist Dziennik Ludowy (People's Daily; 1907?1925) to the Polish Roman Catholic Union's Dziennik Zjednoczenia (Union Daily; 1921?1939). The decision to subscribe to a particular paper reaffirmed a particular ideology or institutional network based on ethnicity and class, which lent itself to different alliances and different strategies.[57]
In 1926, the city hosted the 28th International Eucharistic Congress, a major event for the Catholic community of Chicago.
As the First World War cut off immigration, tens of thousands of African Americans came north in the Great Migration out of the rural South. With new populations competing for limited housing and jobs, especially on the South Side, social tensions rose in the city. Postwar years were more difficult. Black veterans looked for more respect for having served their nation, and some whites resented it.
In 1919, the Chicago race riot erupted, in what became known as "Red Summer", when other major cities also suffered mass racial violence based in competition for jobs and housing as the country tried to absorb veterans in the postwar years. During the riot, thirty-eight people died (23 black and 15 white) and over five hundred were injured. Much of the violence against blacks in Chicago was led by members of ethnic Irish athletic clubs, who had much political power in the city and defended their "territory" against African Americans. As was typical in these occurrences, more blacks than whites died in the violence.
Concentrating the family resources to achieve home ownership was a common strategy in the ethnic European neighborhoods. It meant sacrificing current consumption, and pulling children out of school as soon as they could earn a wage. By 1900, working-class ethnic immigrants owned homes at higher rates than native-born people. After borrowing from friends and building associations, immigrants kept boarders, grew market gardens, and opened home-based commercial laundries, eroding home-work distinctions, while sending out women and children to work to repay loans. They sought not middle-class upward mobility but the security of home ownership. Many social workers wanted them to pursue upward job mobility (which required more education), but realtors asserted that houses were better than a bank for a poor man. With hindsight, and considering uninsured banks' precariousness, this appears to have been true. Chicago's workers made immense sacrifices for home ownership, contributing to Chicago's sprawling suburban geography and to modern myths about the American dream. The Jewish community, by contrast, rented apartments and maximized education and upward mobility for the next generation.[58]
Beginning in the 1940s, waves of Hispanic immigrants began to arrive. The largest numbers were from Mexico and Puerto Rico, as well as Cuba during Fidel Castro's rise. During the 1980s, Hispanic immigrants were more likely to be from Central and South America.
After 1965 and the change in US immigration laws, numerous Asian immigrants came; the largest proportion were well-educated Indians and Chinese, who generally settled directly in the suburbs. By the 1970s gentrification began in the city, in some cases with people renovating housing in old inner city neighborhoods, and attracting singles and gay people.
State Street c. 1907
State Street c. 1907
International Ballooning Contest, Aero Park, Chicago, July 4, 1908
International Ballooning Contest, Aero Park, Chicago, July 4, 1908
Bird's eye view of Chicago in 1938
Bird's eye view of Chicago in 1938
Oak Street Beach, 1925
Oak Street Beach, 1925
1930s
Main article: Chicago in the 1930s
Labor unions
Chicago skyline from Northerly Island Taken sometime in 1941
After 1900 Chicago was a heavily unionized city, apart from the factories (which were non-union until the 1930s). The Industrial Workers of the World was founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of 200 socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States. The Railroad brotherhoods were strong, as were the crafts unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The AFL unions operated through the Chicago Federation of Labor to minimize jurisdictional conflicts, which caused many strikes as two unions battled to control a work site.
The unionized teamsters in Chicago enjoyed an unusually strong bargaining position when they contended with employers around the city, or supported another union in a specific strike. Their wagons could easily be positioned to disrupt streetcars and block traffic. In addition, their families and neighborhood supporters often surrounded and attacked the wagons of nonunion teamsters who were strikebreaking. When the teamsters used their clout to engage in sympathy strikes, employers decided to coordinate their antiunion efforts, claiming that the teamsters held too much power over commerce in their control of the streets. The teamsters' strike in 1905 represented a clash both over labor issues and the public nature of the streets. To the employers, the streets were arteries for commerce, while to the teamsters, they remained public spaces integral to their neighborhoods.[59]
World War II
On December 2, 1942, the world's first controlled nuclear reaction was conducted at the University of Chicago as part of the top secret Manhattan Project.
During World War II, the steel mills in the city of Chicago alone accounted for 20% of all steel production in the United States and 10% of global production. The city produced more steel than the United Kingdom during the war, and surpassed Nazi Germany's output in 1943 (after barely missing in 1942).
The city's diversified industrial base made it second only to Detroit in the value?$24 billion?of war goods produced. Over 1,400 companies produced everything from field rations to parachutes to torpedoes, while new aircraft plants employed 100,000 in the construction of engines, aluminum sheeting, bombsights, and other components. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace as the 1910 - 1930 period, as hundreds of thousands of black Americans arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.[60]
Postwar
Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe (in particular displaced persons from Eastern Europe) created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing tracts on Chicago's Northwest and Southwest sides. The city was extensively photographed during the postwar years by street photographers such as Richard Nickel and Vivian Maier.
In the 1950s, the postwar desire for new and improved housing, aided by new highways and commuter train lines, caused many middle and higher income Americans to begin to move from the inner-city of Chicago to the suburbs. Changes in industry after 1950, with restructuring of the stockyards and steel industries, led to massive job losses in the city for working-class people. The city population shrank by nearly 700,000. The City Council devised "Plan 21" to improve neighborhoods and focused on creating "Suburbs within the city" near downtown and the lakefront. It built public housing to try to improve housing standards in the city. As a result, many poor were uprooted from newly created enclaves of Black, Latino, and poor people in neighborhoods such as Near North, Wicker Park, Lakeview, Uptown, Cabrini?Green, West Town and Lincoln Park. The passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s also affected Chicago and other northern cities. In the 1960s and the 1970s, many middle- and upper-class Americans continued to move from the city for better housing and schools in the suburbs.
Office building resumed in the 1960s. When completed in 1974, the Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower, was at 1451 feet the world's tallest building. It was designed by the famous Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed many of the city's other famous buildings.
House in Chicago's inner city, 1974. Photo by Danny Lyon.
House in Chicago's inner city, 1974. Photo by Danny Lyon.
Chicago Picasso, a 1967 sculpture in Daley Plaza. Pablo Picasso refused the $100,000 fee and donated it to the people of Chicago.
Chicago Picasso, a 1967 sculpture in Daley Plaza. Pablo Picasso refused the $100,000 fee and donated it to the people of Chicago.
Mayor Richard J. Daley served 1955?1976, dominating the city's machine politics by his control of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, which selected party nominees, who were usually elected in the Democratic stronghold. Daley took credit for building four major expressways focused on the Loop, and city-owned O'Hare Airport (which became the world's busiest airport, displacing Midway Airport's prior claims). Several neighborhoods near downtown and the lakefront were gentrified and transformed into "suburbs within the city".[61] He held office during the unrest of the 1960s, some of which was provoked by the police department's discriminatory practices. In the Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Wicker Park and Humboldt Park communities, the Young Lords under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez marched and held sit ins to protest the displacement of Latinos and the poor. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, major riots of despair resulted in the burning down of sections of the black neighborhoods of the South and West sides. Protests against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago, resulted in street violence, with televised broadcasts of the Chicago police's beating of unarmed protesters.[62]
In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first woman mayor, was elected, winning the Democratic primary due to a citywide outrage about the ineffective snow removal across the city.[63] In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, became mayor in 1989, and was repeatedly reelected until he declined to seek re-election in 2011. He sparked debate by demolishing many of the city's vast public housing projects, which had deteriorated and were holding too many poor and dysfunctional families. Concepts for new affordable and public housing have changed to include many new features to make them more viable: smaller scale, environmental designs for public safety, mixed-rate housing, etc. New projects during Daley's administration have been designed to be environmentally sound, more accessible and better for their occupants.
21st century
In September 2008, Chicago accepted a $2.52 billion bid on a 99-year lease of Midway International Airport to a group of private investors, but the deal fell through due to the collapse of credit markets during the 2008?2012 global recession[64][65] In 2008, as Chicago struggled to close a growing budget deficit, the city agreed to a 75-year, $1.16 billion deal to lease its parking meter system to an operating company created by Morgan Stanley. Daley said the "agreement is very good news for the taxpayers of Chicago because it will provide more than $1 billion in net proceeds that can be used during this very difficult economy." The agreement quadrupled rates, in the first year alone, while the hours which people have to pay for parking were broadened from 9 a.m. ? 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. ? 9 p.m., and from Monday through Saturday to every day of the week. Additionally, the city agreed to compensate the new owners for loss of revenue any time any road with parking meters is closed by the city for anything from maintenance work to street festivals.[66][67] In three years, the proceeds from the lease were all but spent. In his annual budget address on October 21, 2009, Daley projected a deficit for 2009 of more than $520 million. Daley proposed a 2010 budget totaling $6.14 billion, including spending $370 million from the $1.15 billion proceeds from the parking meter lease.[68] In his annual budget address on October 13, 2010, Daley projected a deficit for 2010 of $655 million, the largest in city history.[69] Daley proposed a 2011 budget totaling $6.15 billion, including spending all but $76 million of what remained of the parking meter lease proceeds, and received a standing ovation from aldermen.[70][71]
In 2011, Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor of Chicago.[72] Chicago earned the title of "City of the Year" in 2008 from GQ for contributions in architecture and literature, its world of politics, and the downtown's starring role in the Batman movie The Dark Knight.[73] The city was rated by Moody's as having the most balanced economy in the United States due to its high level of diversification.[74]
Flag
Four historical events are commemorated by the four red stars on Chicago's flag: The United States' Fort Dearborn, established at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1803; the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed much of the city; the World Columbian Exposition of 1893, by which Chicago celebrated its recovery from the fire; and the Century of Progress World's Fair of 1933?1934, which celebrated the city's centennial. The flag's two blue stripes symbolize the north and south branches of the Chicago River, which flows through the city's downtown. The three white stripes represent the North, West and South sides of the city, Lake Michigan being the east side.
Major disasters
Main article: Timeline of Chicago history
The most famous and serious disaster was the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
On December 30, 1903, the "absolutely fireproof", five-week-old Iroquois Theater was engulfed by fire. The fire lasted less than thirty minutes; 602 people died as a result of being burned, asphyxiated, or trampled.[75]
The S.S. Eastland was a cruise ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915?a calm, sunny day?the ship was taking on passengers when it rolled over while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed. An investigation found that the Eastland had become too heavy with rescue gear that had been ordered by Congress in the wake of the Titanic disaster.[76]
On December 1, 1958, the Our Lady of the Angels School Fire occurred in the Humboldt Park area. The fire killed 92 students and three nuns; in response, fire safety improvements were made to public and private schools across the United States.[77]
April 13, 1992, billions of dollars in damage was caused by the Chicago Flood, when a hole was accidentally drilled into the long-abandoned (and mostly forgotten) Chicago Tunnel system, which was still connected to the basements of numerous buildings in the Loop. It flooded the central business district with 250 million US gallons (950,000 m3) of water from the Chicago River.[78][79]
A major environmental disaster occurred in July 1995, when a week of record high heat and humidity caused 739 heat-related deaths, mostly among isolated elderly poor and others without air conditioning.[80]
See also
American urban history
Bibliography of Chicago history
Chicago in the 1930s
Ethnic groups in Chicago; the larger groups have articles such as Poles in Chicago and History of African Americans in Chicago
History of education in Chicago
Political history of Chicago
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
Timeline of Chicago history
Before the 19th century
As interpreted from the 1670 translation of the de Soto narrative into French by Pierre Richelet, the Chucagua River, was believed to be the Mississippi. La Salle named Checagou, the transliterated from Spanish, as the gateway to the River of de Soto.
Site of Chicagou on the lake, in Guillaume de L'Isle's map (Paris, 1718)
1673: French-Canadian explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, on their way to Québec, pass through the area that will become Chicago.
1677: Father Claude Allouez arrived to try to convert the natives to Christianity
1682: French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, passes through Chicago en route to the mouth of the Mississippi River.
1696: Jesuit missionary Francois Pinet founds the Mission of the Guardian Angel. It is abandoned four years later.
1705: Conflicts develop between French traders and the Fox tribe of Native Americans.
1719: The Comanche Indian Tribe settle in the Great Plains and in the Midwest of the United States.
1754: The Illinois Country becomes part of New France, days later The French and Indian War begins with the war against the British.
1763: The Illinois Country falls to British Troops after the defeat of New France.
1775: The Revolutionary War begins with America declaring independence from Britain.
1778: The Illinois Campaign is born under the command of George Rogers Clark to lead the fight against major British outposts scattered across the country.
1780s: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable establishes Chicago's first permanent settlement near the mouth of the Chicago River.
1795: Six square miles (16 km2) of land at the mouth of the Chicago River are reserved by the Treaty of Greenville for use by the United States.
1796: Kittahawa, du Sable's Potawatomi Indian wife, delivers Eulalia Point du Sable, Chicago's first recorded birth.
19th century
1800s?1840s
1803: The United States Army orders the construction of Fort Dearborn by Major John Whistler. It is built near the mouth of the Chicago River.
1812
June 17, Jean La Lime is killed by John Kinzie, making him the first recorded murder victim in Chicago.
August 15, the Battle of Fort Dearborn.
1816: The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri. Ft. Dearborn is rebuilt.
1818: December 3, Illinois joins the Union and becomes a state.
1820 Chicago
1821 Survey of Chicago
1830
August 4, Chicago is surveyed and platted for the first time by James Thompson.
Population: "Less than 100".[1]
1833: Chicago incorporated as a town.[1]
1837
Chicago incorporated as a city.[1]
C.D. Peacock jewelers was founded. It is the oldest Chicago business still operating today.
Chicago receives its first charter.[2]
Rush Medical College is founded two days before the city was chartered. It is the first medical school in the state of Illinois which is still operating.
The remaining 450 Potawatomi left Chicago.
1840
July 10, Chicago's first legally executed criminal, John Stone was hanged for rape and murder.
Population: 4,470.[3]
1844: Lake Park designated.[4]
1847: June 10, The first issue of the Chicago Tribune is published.
1848
Chicago Board of Trade opens on April 3 by 82 local businessmen.
Illinois and Michigan Canal opens and traffic begins moving faster.
Galena and Chicago Union Railroad enters operation becoming the first railroad in Chicago
1849
Wauconda is founded.
Merchants' Hotel on left, looking North from State and Washington Streets, before 1868
Chicago in 1830, as depicted in 1884
Chicago in 1832, as depicted in 1892
Chicago in 1836
1893 Bird's eye view of Chicago
Fort Dearborn depicted as in 1831, sketched 1850s although the accuracy of the sketch was debated soon after it appeared.
1850s?1890s
1850: Population: 29,963.[3]
1851: Chicago's first institution of higher education, Northwestern University, is founded.
1852: Mercy Hospital becomes the first hospital in Illinois.
1853
October: State Convention of the Colored Citizens held in city.[5]
Union Park named.[4]
1854: A cholera epidemic took the lives of 5.5% of the population of Chicago.[6]
1855
Chicago Theological Seminary founded.[1]
April 21, Lager Beer riot.
Population: 80,000.[4]
1856: Chicago Historical Society founded.
1857
Iwan Ries & Co. Chicago's oldest family-owned business opens, still in operation today, the oldest family-owned tobacco shop.
Mathias A. Klein & Sons (Klein Tools Inc.), still family owned and run today by fifth and sixth generation Klein's.
Cook County Hospital opens.[1]
Hyde Park House built.[4]
1859: McCormick Theological Seminary relocated.[1]
1860
September 8, the Lady Elgin Disaster.
Population: 112,172.[3]
Daprato Statuary Company (Currently Daprato Rigali Studios) founded by the Daprato brothers, Italian immigrants from Barga.
1865
Corporal punishment was abandoned in schools.[4]
Population: 178,492.[4]
1866: School of the Art Institute of Chicago founded.
1867
Construction began on the Water Tower designed by architect W. W. Boyington.
Chicago Academy of Music founded.[4]
1868
Rand McNally is formed as a railway guide company.
Lincoln Park Zoo founded.[4]
1869
Chicago Water Tower built.
The first Illinois woman suffrage convention was held in Chicago
The Chicago Club is established.
Washington Square Park being developed.[4]
1870
St. Ignatius College founded, later Loyola University
Population: 298,977.[3]
1871: October 8 ? 10, the Great Chicago Fire.[4][7]
1872
Montgomery Ward in business.
Establishment of the first Black fire company in the city.
The original library, inside the old water tower on the site that is now the Rookery Building.
This former water tower was the site of the original public library, exterior view
1873: Chicago Public Library established.[4]
1875: Holy Name Cathedral dedicated.[4]
1877: Railroad strike.[8]
Art Institute of Chicago As seen from Michigan Ave
1878
Art Institute of Chicago established.
Conservator newspaper begins publication.[9][10]
1879: Art Institute of Chicago founded.[1]
1880: Polish National Alliance headquartered in city.
1881: Unsightly beggar ordinance effected.[11]
Home Insurance Building
Field Museum in Chicago
1885: Home Insurance Building building was the first skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to 1931. Originally ten stories and 138 ft (42.1 m) tall, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884[12][13] Two floors were added in 1891, bringing its now finished height to 180 feet (54.9 meters). It was the first tall building to be supported both inside and outside by a fireproof structural steel frame, though it also included reinforced concrete. A landmark lost to history and is considered the world's first skyscraper.
Chicago Water Tower and Chicago Avenue Pumping Station, circa 1886
1886
May 4, the Haymarket riot.[14]
Chicago Evening Post published (until 1932).[1]
1887: Newberry Library established.
1888: Dearborn Observatory rebuilt.
1889
Hull House founded.[1][15]
Auditorium Building completed.[1]
Auditorium Theatre opened.
1890: The University of Chicago is founded by John D. Rockefeller.
1891
Chicago Symphony Orchestra founded by Theodore Thomas.[1]
Provident Hospital founded.[1]
1892
June 6, The Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, Chicago's first 'L' line, went into operation.
Masonic Temple for two years, the tallest building in Chicago.
Streetcar tunnels in Chicago (under the Chicago River) in use until 1906.[1]
1893
May 1 ? October 30, The World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair); World's Parliament of Religions held.[16][1]
October 28, Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr. was assassinated by Patrick Eugene Prendergast.[17]
Sears, Roebuck and Company in business.
First Ferris wheel built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.
Art Institute of Chicago building opens.[1]
Monadnock Building completed.[1]
Universal Peace Congress held.[18]
Chicago Civic Federation founded.[17]
1894
May 11 ? August 2, the Pullman Strike.[14][1]
?enské Listy women's magazine begins publication.[19][20]
Field Museum of Natural History established.[1]
1895: Marquette Building completed.[1]
1896
1896 Democratic National Convention held; Bryan delivers Cross of Gold speech.[21]
Campaign "to improve municipal service and politics" begun in 1896.[1]
Abeny beauty shop[22] and Tonnesen Sisters photo studio[23] in business.
1897
March 12, The Chicago Elevator Protective Association of Chicago was formed. Later, on July 15, 1901, to become the International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 2.
The Union Loop Elevated is completed.
National union of meat packers formed.[1]
1898: National peace jubilee was held.[1]
1899
Cook County juvenile court established.[24]
Municipal Art League established.[1]
Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building constructed.
Chicago-Sanitary-and-Ship-Canal, during construction
Chicago USA. Map of the business portion of Chicago. 1905 Source The New International Encyclopædia, v. 4, 1905, between pp. 610?11.
1900
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opens;[25] the Chicago River is completely reversed.
Municipal Reference Library active (approximate date).[26]
Labor strike of machinists.[8]
Population: 1,698,575.[1]
20th century
Construction of the Chicago Drainage Canal, 1900s
1900s?1940s
See also: Chicago in the 1930s
1902: Meatpacking strike.[8]
1903
December 30, Iroquois Theater Fire
City Club of Chicago formed.
1905
The Industrial Workers of the World was founded in June[27]
Teamsters' strike.[1]
Chicago Defender newspaper begins publication.[28]
City Hall rebuilding completed.[1]
Chicago Federal Building completed.[1]
1906
Municipal court established.[24]
The Chicago White Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs in the only all-Chicago World Series.
Sinclair's fictional The Jungle published.[14]
Chicago Tunnel Company operated a 2 ft. narrow-gauge railway freight tunnel network (until 1959).[1]
1907: Adolph Kroch opens a bookstore which will evolve into Kroch's and Brentano's
1908
The Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the second year in a row
Binga Bank in business.[29]
1909: Burnham's Plan of Chicago presented.[14]
1910: Population: 2,185,283.[1][30]
July 1: Comiskey Park opened (originally called White Sox Park).
December 22: Chicago Union Stock Yards fire (1910)
1911: Chicago and North Western Railway Terminal completed.[1]
1912:
Harriet Monroe starts Poetry, which will soon make Chicago a magnet for modern poets.
1913
Great Lakes Storm of 1913
Wabash Avenue YMCA opens.[31]
1914: Alpha Suffrage Club active.[32]
April 23: Wrigley Field opened (originally called Weeghman Park).
All Star Tournament, 18 Inch Balke Line, Chicago, May 7?14, 1906
Jewish men and boys standing on a sidewalk in Chicago, 1903
Theodore Roosevelt in Chicago, 1915
During construction, 1915 (Chicago Daily News)
1915
July 24, the SS Eastland Disaster.[1]
Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium founded.[30]
1916
Rebuilding of the American Fort
Navy Pier built. [30]
1918
Micheaux Film and Book Company in business.[33]
The Spanish flu killed over 8,500 people in Chicago between September and November 1918.
1919
July 27, the Chicago race riot of 1919.
Real estate broker Archibald Teller opened the first Fannie May candy store.
1920: Population: 2,701,705.[30]
1921
Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre built, (later the Chicago Theatre).
Field Museum of Natural History relocates to Chicago Park District.[30]
Street-widening and street-opening projects underway.[30]
Medill School of Journalism opens.[30]
1922: Chicago Council on Global Affairs established.[34]
1924
Murder trial and conviction of Leopold and Loeb.
October 9: Soldier Field opened.
1925
Goodman Theatre established.
Chicago railway station opened.[30]
The Tribune Tower was completed on Michigan Avenue. The building's large Gothic entrance contains pieces of stone from other famous buildings: Westminster Abbey, Cologne Cathedral, the Alamo, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid, and the Arc de Triomphe.
1926
Nederlander Theatre opened.
Granada Theatre opened.
1927: Originally called the Chicago Municipal Airport, Chicago Midway International Airport opened. It was renamed in 1949 to honor the Battle of Midway in World War II.
July 28: 27 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the Favorite Boat Disaster.
1929
February 14, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.[21][35]
Oscar De Priest becomes U.S. representative for Illinois's 1st congressional district.[36][37]
Civic Opera Building & Civic Opera House opened.
1930
March 6: 50,000 gather for International Unemployment Day, capping 10 days of protest against Great Depression conditions.
May 12, Adler Planetarium opened, through a gift from local merchant Max Adler. It was the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere.[38]
April 6, Twinkies are in Invented in Schiller Park.
May 30, Shedd Aquarium opens.
The Merchandise Mart was built for Marshall Field & Co. The $32 million, 4.2 million square foot (390,000 m2) building was the world's largest commercial building. It was sold it to Joseph P. Kennedy in 1945.
1933
Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) opened.
March 6: Mayor Anton Cermak was killed while riding in a car with President-elect Roosevelt. The assassin was thought to have been aiming for Roosevelt.
1933?34: Century of Progress World's Fair.
1934
May 19: Chicago Union Stock Yards fire (1934)
July 1: Brookfield Zoo opened.
July 22: John Dillinger was shot by the FBI in the alley next to the Biograph Theater.[21]
1935
January 19: Coopers Inc. sells the world's first briefs.
Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago is awarded the very first Heisman Trophy
1937: Labor strike of steelworkers.[8]
1938: Community Factbook begins publication.[39]
1944: Premiere of Williams' play The Glass Menagerie.
1945: Ebony magazine begins publication.[40]
1946: Construction of Thatcher Homes begins.
1948: Chicago Daily Sun and Times newspaper begins publication.[9]
1950s?1990s
1950: Chess Records in business.[41]
1954: Johnson Products Company in business.
1955: The first McDonald's franchise restaurant, owned by Ray Kroc, opened in the suburb of Des Plaines.
1958
December 1, Our Lady of the Angels School Fire.
The last streetcar ran in the city. At one time, Chicago had the largest streetcar system in the world.
1959: Second City comedy troupe active.
1960
September 26: Nixon-Kennedy televised presidential debate held.[21]
The first of the Playboy Clubs, featuring bunnies, opened in Chicago.
1963 ? Donald Rumsfeld became U.S. representative for Illinois's 13th congressional district.[42]
1965?66 ? The Chicago Freedom Movement, centering on the topic of open housing, paves the way for the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
1966
July 13?14: Chicago student nurse massacre
1967
January 26 ? 27, Major snowstorm deposits 23 inches of snow, closing the city for several days.[2]
August 1: maiden voyage of UAC TurboTrain.
1968:
February 7: Mickelberry Sausage Company plant explosion kills nine and injured 70.
August 26 ? 29, 1968 Democratic National Convention and its accompanying anti-Vietnam War protests.
1969
October: Weathermen's antiwar demonstration.[43]
December 4: Black Panther Fred Hampton assassinated.
The Chicago 8 trial opens.
The 100-floor John Hancock Center was built.
1970
Soul Train television program begins broadcasting.
Casa Aztlán (organization) founded.[44]
1971: Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center founded.[45]
1972: Vietnam Veterans Against the War headquartered in Chicago.
1973: Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world for the next 25 years, was completed.
1974: Steppenwolf Theatre Company founded.
1977: Chicago Marathon begins.[41]
1978: First BBS goes online on February 16.
1979
Heavy snowstorm and city's slow response lead to upset of incumbent mayor.
May 25, the American Airlines Flight 191 crashes.
Chicago's first female mayor, Jane M. Byrne, takes office.
Woodstock Institute headquartered in city.[46]
1981: Hill Street Blues television show premieres on January 15.
1982
September ? October: Chicago Tylenol murders
1983
Harold Washington became the first African American mayor.[47]
Ordinance banning handguns takes effect.[35][48]
1984
The Chicago Cubs reach the postseason for the first time since 1945
The Nike shoe Air Jordan is made for superstar basketball player of the Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan.
Heartland Institute headquartered in city.[49]
1986
Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions, Inc. in business.
The Chicago Bears win Super Bowl XX
Presidential Towers complex completed
1988
Lights are installed in Wrigley Field
Christian Peacemaker Teams headquartered in city.[49]
1990: Population: 2,783,726.[3]
1991: May 28, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Sony proudly revealed that it was working with Nintendo to create a version of the Super NES with an in-built CD drive. The two Japanese companies had been working together in secret on the project, tentatively titled the Nintendo PlayStation, since 1989 and with the hype about CD-ROM reaching fever pitch, Sony?s announcement should have been a highlight of the trade show. Eventually leads to betrayal of the company Nintendo to Sony into Leading to the beginning of PlayStation Counsel.[50]
1992: April 13, the Chicago Flood.
1995
The Chicago Heat Wave of 1995.
Your Radio Playhouse begins broadcasting.
Kroch's and Brentano's, once the largest privately owned bookstore chain in the US, closes.
1996
Chicago hosts the 1996 Democratic National Convention, sparking protests such as the one whereby Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn and 10 others were arrested by the Federal Protective Service.[51]
City website online (approximate date).[52][53]
1998: The Chicago Bulls won their sixth NBA championship in eight years.
21st century
2001:
9/11
Chicago International Speedway is opened.
Boeing moves its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago
A video game company called Bungie Launches Halo that would give Rise to Microsoft's Xbox counsels.
2002: Lakeview Polar Bear Club founded (now known as the Chicago Polar Bear Club).
2003
Meigs Field closed after having large X-shaped gouges dug into the runway surface by bulldozers in the middle of the night.
Chicago Film Archives founded.
February 17: 2003 E2 nightclub stampede
June 29: 2003 Chicago balcony collapse
2004: Millennium Park opens.[54]
2005
The Chicago White Sox win their first World Series in 88 years.
Regional Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning established.[55]
2006
May 1, the 2006 U.S. immigration reform protests draw over 400,000.
Cloud Gate artwork installed in Millennium Park.
2008: November 4, US President-elect Barack Obama makes his victory speech in Grant Park.
In 2009, an Amtrak Lake Shore Limited train backing into Chicago Union Station
Chicago Theater in 2011
2010
June 28: US supreme court case McDonald v. City of Chicago decided; overturns city handgun ban.[48]
Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup.
City of Chicago Data Portal launched.[3]
2011
February 2: 900 cars abandoned on Lake Shore Drive due to Blizzard.
March 30: Last of Cabrini Green towers torn down.
Rahm Emanuel becomes mayor.
Population: 8,707,120; metro 17,504,753.[56]
2012
38th G8 summit and 2012 Chicago Summit are to take place in Chicago.
The first of an ongoing franchise of NBC Chicago-set dramas, Chicago Fire, makes its world premiere on WMAQ
2013
Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup scoring 2 goals in 17 seconds to defeat the Boston Bruins
Robin Kelly becomes U.S. representative for Illinois's 2nd congressional district.
2014:
January: Chiberia
August: Archer Daniels Midland completes its headquarters move from Decatur to the Loop.
November 2: Wallenda performs high-wire stunt.[57]
2015
606 linear park opens.
Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup yet again for the third time in six years, establishing a "puck dynasty" nationwide and arguably becoming the best team in the NHL.
Video of the murder of Laquan McDonald is released by court order, and protests ensue.
2016:
June 16: McDonald's announces it will move its headquarters from Oak Brook to the West Loop by 2018.
ConAgra completes its headquarters move from Omaha to the Merchandise Mart.
November 2: Cubs win the world series.
Navy Pier in 2017
2017
January 21: Women's protest against U.S. president Trump.[58]
City approves public high school "post-graduation plan" graduation requirement (to be effected 2020).[59]
2018: Walgreens announces the move of its headquarters from Deerfield, including 2,000 jobs, to the Old Chicago Main Post Office.
14th Street Coach Yard and Willis Tower, October 2018
2019
May 20: Lori Lightfoot becomes the first female African-American mayor of Chicago.
2020
March 16: First Chicago death due to the COVID-19 pandemic; Governor J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot issue a stay at home order. Over 7,700 people in Chicago died in the pandemic.
May 28 ? June 1: George Floyd protests in Chicago
2022
May ? July: 2022-2023 abortion protests
2023
May 15: Brandon Johnson becomes mayor.
See also
History of Chicago
List of mayors of Chicago
National Register of Historic Places listings in Chicago
A John White photograph can make time stand still for a moment, but its impact can last a lifetime.
"People need to understand who we are, where we are. We're here for this time, this short time," he said. "We leave. What we leave is forever."
White has not only chronicled history, he's made it.
In 1982, while at the Chicago Sun-Times, White won the Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism. It was the first Pulitzer ever awarded for a collection of photographs.
His work embodied life in Chicago, often focusing on the Black experience. The joy of a baptism at the 31st Street Beach, the terror of a gas explosion at Cabrini-Green, the beauty of young ballet students in a quest for perfection.
"Pictures are my friends," White said. "They speak to me. They have a language of their own and they're living moments."
Williams: "When you look through that camera lens, what are you looking for?"
White: "I like pictures. I love pictures. But it's the connection to the human spirit. The most important thing is humanity."
That humanity is what stand out to Richard Cahan. He was the pictures editor at the Sun-Times from 1983 to 1999 and worked with White all that time.
"He sees things that other people don't see," Cahan said. "He takes a look at a fire scene or a demonstration and he knows exactly where to go and he puts himself in that position and he takes photographs that other people don't take. There are people that go to those assignments and they go 'I never even saw this,' and there John was."
White was born in 1945 in North Carolina, a difficult time and place.
"And to grow up in the South and see the things these eyes saw, that hurts now," he said.
john-white.jpg
John H. White on assignment.
But he always maintained his belief in the good.
Williams: "Where does that world view come from in you?"
White: "My father was a minister who said make a friend a day and my mother never knew a stranger."
Williams: "How were you able to maintain that as a child in the South seeing what you saw?"
White: "Faith. My faith in God. My faith in humanity. My faith in hope, never losing hope. And believing and then knowing I have a responsibility to be an ambassador of love."
White said he learned about love and more from two of his favorite subjects. One was Muhammad Ali.
"He was so smart," White said. "People don't realize what a genius he was."
Williams: "What made Muhammad Ali so great in your mind?"
White: "The humanity. He was more than a boxer. He was a good soul, a good person."
The other was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
"His life enriches me now," White said. "It continues to enrich me. The examples I saw and the things he did, the way he lived, the way he suffered, the way he died. Cardinal Bernardin was one of the most influential people in my life."
baptism-in-lake-michigan.jpg
A baptism in Lake Michigan
JOHN H. WHITE
And White hopes to enrich the photographers that will follow him. He's taught at Chicago's Columbia College for the last 45 years.
He said it keeps him sharp.
"I'm the oldest student in the class," White said.
Williams: "You're still learning."
White: "Without a doubt."
White said he'll keep on learning and finding beauty and believing in the good.
"I'm the most blessed photographer on earth," he said. "I just want to be God's picture taker."
It is winter in New Orleans, and my mother is dying. As I sit at her bedside, on the verge of being overcome with grief, I try to distract myself with work. I’ve been asked to write about the great Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John H. White: his pictures, his legacy, and his famously unique spirit.
My mother has dementia. She and I are alone, except for her cat curled up asleep at her side. But thinking about John White makes me feel like I have company. In this dark moment, my memories of him, like the images he captured with his camera, feel like a gift.
I remember the night he touched my life. The Eddie Adams Workshop is an institution in the world of photojournalism: four days for professionals and students to meet, learn, and bond. John White, with his perfect Afro framing his ageless face and smiling eyes, has always been involved, or at least in my fading memory he always has been.
I was first invited to the workshop in the 1990s, when images were made on film and digital cameras were slightly smaller than a Smart car. At the time, I was an eager 20-something photo intern at the Los Angeles Times. John White was there, as was Gordon Parks, the legendary black photographer and filmmaker, both in the role of professional instructors. I was one of 100 young photographers hoping to learn from them.
Williams-Ali.jpg
A crowd of 10,000 cheers Elijah Muhammad at his annual Savior’s Day Message in Chicago, 1974.
I recall other young photographers of color, but as far as I can remember, I was the only black participant apart from faculty members like White and Parks. Even then, this was becoming a familiar experience. I’d find myself thinking: I must do more. I must be the best.
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White, of course, came up in an even less diverse era. A preacher’s son from Lexington, North Carolina, he was born in 1945, when the idea of a black photojournalist barely existed. A teacher once told him he’d grow up to be a garbage man. As the story goes, White’s father told him it was fine to be a garbage man “as long as he was the one driving the truck.” He was taught to work hard and take pride in that work, whatever it was.
There was such violence, fear, and crime, but the exposure of images became a light that only photography could create.”
I’d heard of White before the Eddie Adams workshop. I knew he worked for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he’d won the Pulitzer for feature photography in 1982. I also knew he’d won his Prize for a collection of pictures taken over the course of a year, a rarity among photographers, who are usually honored for a single image or a photo essay or story, which involve a collection of related images. Indeed, John White is the only photojournalist in the last 100 years who has won a Pulitzer in either of the photography categories with a portfolio of one year’s work. He is also one of only six black photojournalists who have won individual Prizes.
White’s winning portfolio captures his powerful and consistent vision: simple, straightforward images; beautiful use of light; muscular composition; and subversive, meaningful moments. It contains images of daily life in Chicago, from the whimsical—a dinosaur skeleton having its teeth brushed and a penguin frolicking—to a touching and sweet image of two little girls playing a single violin. Young ballerinas leap and float. A National Guard citizen-soldier trains hard. A child plays in a dilapidated hallway at the notorious Cabrini-Green public housing complex.
Williams-fountain.jpg
Girls play in the flow of a fire hydrant in the Woodlawn Community on Chicago’s South Side, 1973.
One cold autumn night, on a bus back to the Eddie Adams farm after a trip to town, I spied an empty seat next to White and grabbed it. We quickly fell into a hushed, intimate conversation, and he asked me a question I’ll never forget: “Are you a black photographer or a photographer who happens to be black?”
I remember tears welling in my eyes, and hoping that he couldn’t tell. Even back then, it was a question I asked myself often, an exercise in the emotional complexity of being black in America. I don’t recall what I said, or whether I said anything at all.
White’s question reminded me of the “double-consciousness” that W. E. B. Du Bois describes in The Souls of Black Folk. Being black in America, Du Bois writes, means living with a “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
When I was an intern at the Times, there was only one black photographer on staff and a few photo editors of color. I sometimes felt that my race was more important than my skills. Shortly after I started there, a white reporter asked me to work with her on a story involving black teenagers in south LA. I gladly agreed and shared some of my ideas, but she told me she wasn’t looking for ideas. I want you to come with me because I know you’ll be able to calm these kids down, she said, more or less. So I went along and calmed the kids down so that she could talk to them. I made a couple decent frames, but on that story, my dreadlocks and persona were what mattered.
Williams-tall.jpg
Abandoned housing pockmarks Chicago’s South Side; buildings are left vacant after fires, vandalism, or owners’ failure to provide basic services, 1973.
Is John White a black photographer or a photographer who happens to be black? The answer is complicated. I can only imagine looking at a newspaper today and experiencing as powerful a body of work as White’s, with an earnest visual stream of consciousness that is tightly edited and that explores a city and its people through various moods that span what it means to be alive. As then-Sun-Times Executive Vice President and Editor Ralph Otwell wrote in his 1982 letter accompanying White’s Pulitzer portfolio, his work was “as big as life itself.”
In one of White’s pictures, we travel beneath Chicago and walk the line with a worker in a subway tunnel, in awe at what men and women have created to move us to and fro. His photograph of a preemie struggling to live forces me to stare, silently offer a prayer of thanks, and then smile as I think about my little Papi at day care.
We go to jail and watch a nun minister to a captive flock. I think and feel. Those of us who believe in a higher power sense the presence of God within the picture of a baptism in the churning waters of Lake Michigan. I continue to feel.
This is life. John White reminds us that we are alive.
But there’s something else in these pictures, too, something troubling. We take a journey through the gritty, graffiti-covered world of Cabrini-Green. We feel the pressure of poverty; the history of redlining in Chicago is evident, the plight of black folk clear. Though we don’t see gangs, we feel their presence. We walk the beat with cops, and feel the intensity of their assignment, as well as concern for the young people they arrest. Yet even here, the strength of the spirit cannot be denied. Amid the poverty, there is pride—even joy.
“Photography took the handcuffs off of that place,” White told me recently. “The children could smile again, play again because of the power of journalism. There was such violence, fear, and crime, but the exposure of images became a light that only photography could create.”
One of these photos has become iconic. It captures children smiling and playing in front of a monolithic tower at Cabrini-Green. Though the building looms over him, the boy at the center of the frame is larger than life. His joy is infectious, impossible to ignore. Young black men are often viewed as threats, but this boy is palpably innocent. White chose to celebrate a black child. I believe this was an artistic decision, not a political one, but it carries a deeper social meaning.
Williams-housing.jpg
I imagine White must have felt an added responsibility as a black photographer in Cabrini. Not to right a wrong, but to do right by the people he was photographing, as opposed to just making a good picture. In my own life, it’s moments like these when I’ve felt like a black photographer, rather than a photographer who happens to be black. You look at this world with a historical perspective, and try to give a voice to the voiceless. It’s not just an assignment or a job. It’s a sacred responsibility.
It hurts to admit that John White’s Pulitzer is much larger than the pictures for which he won. It cannot be separated from the social implications of his being black, in a field where concerns about the lack of diversity are as pressing now as ever. Take the city I call home, New Orleans, which is more than 60 percent black, with a growing Latino community and a substantial Asian population. Yet the photo staffs of our mainstream newspapers and wire services do not begin to reflect the community’s diversity.
John White didn’t dwell on the negative. When the Sun-Times laid him off in 2013, along with the rest of its photo staff, he responded with grace. “I light candles, I don’t curse the darkness,” he told The New York Times. “Even now, my colleagues are cursing the darkness. I’m lighting the candles. And I give wings to dreams, I ain’t breaking no wings. I’m not clipping any wings. Make a difference in the world. One light. One day. One image.”
My mother died on a Saturday in January. It was automatic to think of White as I mourned her. He is a deeply spiritual man, and something I read recently has taken me deeper into my meditation on his importance in my life.
“I believe in God, who made of one blood all nations that on earth do dwell,” Du Bois wrote in his essay “Credo.” “I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite development.”
Am I a black photographer or a photographer who happens to be black? I can answer White’s question now. Within my double-consciousness, I am both.
Williams-sidebar.jpg
In 1997, the Los Angeles Times assigned photographer Clarence Williams to document the lives of children growing up with drug-addicted parents. Williams spent days and nights with addicts and their kids, capturing images of a mother shooting up heroin near her 3-year-old daughter and the son of a speed addict digging through a dumpster for clothes.
Williams-pulitzer.jpg
An image from Williams’s Pulitzer-winning series.
One afternoon, Williams was hanging out with a female speed addict. She liked to get high and clean frenetically, “like a crazy person,” Williams recalls. In a drug-induced fugue, she deposited her infant daughter on a blanket on the floor and started vacuuming. Through his camera lens, Williams saw the baby grab for the vacuum cleaner cord and bring it to her mouth. “I had no desire to take a picture of a child electrocuting herself,” he says. He put down his camera and picked up the baby. “I believe there are times when we’re in the world and we have a journalist’s hat on, and there are times when you have to take the journalist’s hat off and put on your human hat. That was a time when I had to put on my human hat.”
While everybody else was stunned and upset that The Chicago Sun-Times had fired its entire photography staff, I couldn’t stop thinking of one man. They did that to John White? The Chairman of the Board? That’s like the Bulls getting rid of Michael Jordan.
For a hot minute, my South Side Chicago roots took over — I was ready to roll down.
DESCRIPTIONM. Spencer Green/Associated Press John H. White at a June 6 protest in front of The Chicago Sun Times’s headquarters.
John was the photographer I looked up to when I was an intern at The Chicago Daily News, where he was working in the early 1970s. My godfather, John Tweedle, told me to look him up. John looked out for me, encouraged me and nudged my career. I watched him on the streets, in the darkroom and even stood by his side as he carefully put together the portfolio that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
When I visited him, he was not letting the firing change how he felt about himself, or his fellow photographers, one bit.
“A job’s not a job because of labor law,” he said. “It’s just something you love. It’s something you do because it gives you a mission, a life, a purpose, and you do it for the service of others.”
All he had wanted to hear from the executives who let him go was two words that never came: thank you. But even then, he did not respond with anger.
“I light candles, I don’t curse the darkness,” he said. “Even now, my colleagues are cursing the darkness. I’m lighting the candles. And I give wings to dreams, I ain’t breaking no wings. I’m not clipping any wings. Make a difference in the world. One light. One day. One image.”
John taught me how to fly.
I had been taking pictures since high school, but when I got to The Daily News, I was a copy-girl intern. But I also tried to copy John the minute I saw him walk through the newsroom after an assignment. I would sneak away and go back toward the darkroom — his chapel away from church — and watch him unload his cameras and ask him about his day.
I even tried to walk like he walked. I had seen a lot of photographers on assignment, but to find John White, you had to look in the shadows. He was never where you could see him. He was always where he could be, like he was hovering over in a corner. Like he could see everything in a room. He had this look. He kept his camera low-key. And all of a sudden, he’d pick it up and find the real subject. The one you hadn’t seen before.
He didn’t do this for prizes, though he won a lot of them. He did it for “consistent excellence.” And for as long as he had been taking pictures, it never got boring or predictable.
“I’ve got the same set of eyes, nothing’s changed,” he said. “Every day, a baby is born. Every day, someone dies. Every single day. And we capture everything in between. You think of this thing called life and how it’s preserved. It’s preserved through vision, through photographs.”
DESCRIPTIONJohn H. White “Ice House.”
You’ve probably figured out by now that John thought about bigger things. He was a religious man, born on a Sunday into a family of preachers in North Carolina. When he tells one and all to “keep in flight,” it’s as much spiritual advice as it is professional. He takes that advice himself, even after the slight of seeing one of his pictures published in his old paper with only “Sun-Times Library” as the credit line.
“I can’t get caught up in those things,” he said. “You got to look at the big picture, because I know the true photo editor.”
Like a good storyteller — or a preacher — he taught with examples from his life, often talking about moments with his father in North Carolina. He remembered one night walking through a wooded patch with his father, who reached out and grabbed a firefly.
“Look at my hand,” his father said as he gently squeezed the insect. “And look what he’s doing. He’s making a light. He can’t contain his light. God gives us light and we can’t contain this light. Be like the lightning bug. Don’t let anyone contain your light.”
I was still an intern when, despite protests from some of the other staff photographers, I was sent out to cover how children were dealing with a teachers strike. I went out to Cabrini-Green, passed by a dentist’s office and saw a boy sitting in the chair. I went in and asked if I could photograph the dentist, and he agreed.
Nothing much was happening.
I thought it was going to be a boring picture. All of a sudden, the dentist yanked a tooth from the kid’s mouth. He didn’t tell me he was going to do this. The kid’s eyes crossed and his mouth was open. The paper ran it with “He’d Rather Be in School” as the caption. That shot helped the other photographers accept me.
“Everybody remembers that picture, a billion-dollar picture,” John said. “People realized then that she’s doing what we did, she’s spreading her wings and trying to fly, and you know, it’s like you were that lightning bug. You didn’t let them contain you and keep you down.”
I swear I didn’t even know what the Pulitzer was when I watched him assemble the portfolio that would earn him journalism’s highest prize. I stood beside him in the darkroom as he printed (with a towel slung over his left shoulder). I watched him put paper, make careful measurements and lay out a story. He showed me how to tell a story.
Years later, John and I both covered Pope John Paul II’s Mass in Central Park. I showed off my computer and my new digital camera. I was proud of where he had helped me get. But not as proud as he was.
“It’s like your child,” he told me. “And they got a touchdown. You know what I mean? And it wasn’t a Hail Mary touchdown, you know what I mean? It was from one end of the line to the other. You know? It required a lot, but you got the touchdown. This is the journey. You go through storms, rain and hurricanes, and forces of evil. You know. But you keepin’ the fight.”
John, I was just doing what you taught me: staying in flight and sharing the light.
John White holds a unique place in African-American journalistic history. Not only is he part of the tiny percentage of African Americans who have found employment as photographers in America's fourth estatealso known as print journalismhe has enjoyed a renowned 40-year career and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
While working at the Chicago Daily News in 1973, White got the unique assignment to work for the federal government and, more specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a program called DOCUMERICA. Modeled after the successful WPA project of the 1930s and 1940s, photographers in DOCUMERICA were to capture scenes of environmental blight (though it eventually opened up to a broader canvas). The result, from photographers all over the country, represents a rich tapestry of American life in the 1970s. According to White, this assignment represented "an opportunity to capture a slice of life, to capture history."
White focused on the African-American community in Chicago, at that time a place steeped in segregation. In his series of photographs, he presents the rich and varied lives on the city's South Side, from the faces of the distressed and dignified to the lives of the deeply religious, from Jesse Jackson's controversial pulpit to hard working brothers trying to make a buck. It is John White's vision of a city, of a community, and of a place that few outside his community knew well.
John White continues to capture images of the city for the Chicago Sun-Times. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including induction into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.
Sunrise in Chicago, March 1973
At the time, Chicago was considered the black business capital of the United States. There were 8,747 black-owned businesses which grossed more than $332 million. In 2010, there are 64,839 black-owned businesses in the city.
Empty ghetto housing, May 1973
Fires, vandalism, and failure to provide basic tenant services are just some of the reasons that housing was vacated in black areas. Though the housing may have been salvageable, they were replaced with high-rise apartments.
Fruit stand on the South Side, June 1973
Many of the black businesses in Chicago began small and grew by sheer hard work and determination. In 1973, Chicago had 14 of the top 100 black-owned businesses in the country.
Kids play basketball at Stateway Gardens, May 1973
Stateway Gardens was just one of many high-rise housing projects. The complex had eight buildings with more than 1600 apartments housing 6,825 people. It was built in 1955 for $22 million. Gang violence and staggering crime rates led to demolition of the complex, which began in 1996 and was completed in 2006.
Student at Westinghouse Industrial Vocational School, May 1973
According to John White, this woman is “one of the many black faces in this project that portray life in all its seasons. She is a member of her race who is proud of her heritage.”
A black man, June 1973
This man is one of nearly 1.2 million black people who make up more than one-third of Chicago’s population. For John White, his photos “are portraits that reflect pride, love, beauty, hope, struggle, joy, hate, frustration, discontent, worship, and faith. In short, portraits of individual human beings who are proud of their heritage.”
Religious Fervor, March 1974
“Religious fervor is mirrored on the face of a Black Muslim woman, one of some 10,000 listening to Elijah Muhammad deliver his annual Savior’s Day message in Chicago.” Original caption by John White.
Fruit of Islam, March 1974
Special bodyguards, known as the “Fruit of Islam,” sit at attention, below the stage where Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad delivers his annual Savior’s Day message.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, July 1973
The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks from his pulpit to members of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) at its annual convention. One of the goals of PUSH is to propel small black-owned businesses.
Isaac Hayes, October 1973
Soul singer Isaac Hayes playing at the PUSH convention. The annual event showcased black talent in business, entertainment, and the arts in an effort to provide opportunities.
John White holds a unique place in African-American journalistic history. Not only is he part of the tiny percentage of African Americans who have found employment as photographers in America's fourth estatealso known as print journalismhe has enjoyed a renowned 40-year career and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
While working at the Chicago Daily News in 1973, White got the unique assignment to work for the federal government and, more specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a program called DOCUMERICA. Modeled after the successful WPA project of the 1930s and 1940s, photographers in DOCUMERICA were to capture scenes of environmental blight (though it eventually opened up to a broader canvas). The result, from photographers all over the country, represents a rich tapestry of American life in the 1970s. According to White, this assignment represented "an opportunity to capture a slice of life, to capture history."
White focused on the African-American community in Chicago, at that time a place steeped in segregation. In his series of photographs, he presents the rich and varied lives on the city's South Side, from the faces of the distressed and dignified to the lives of the deeply religious, from Jesse Jackson's controversial pulpit to hard working brothers trying to make a buck. It is John White's vision of a city, of a community, and of a place that few outside his community knew well.
John White continues to capture images of the city for the Chicago Sun-Times. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including induction into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.
Sunrise in Chicago, March 1973
At the time, Chicago was considered the black business capital of the United States. There were 8,747 black-owned businesses which grossed more than $332 million. In 2010, there are 64,839 black-owned businesses in the city.
Empty ghetto housing, May 1973
Fires, vandalism, and failure to provide basic tenant services are just some of the reasons that housing was vacated in black areas. Though the housing may have been salvageable, they were replaced with high-rise apartments.
Fruit stand on the South Side, June 1973
Many of the black businesses in Chicago began small and grew by sheer hard work and determination. In 1973, Chicago had 14 of the top 100 black-owned businesses in the country.
Kids play basketball at Stateway Gardens, May 1973
Stateway Gardens was just one of many high-rise housing projects. The complex had eight buildings with more than 1600 apartments housing 6,825 people. It was built in 1955 for $22 million. Gang violence and staggering crime rates led to demolition of the complex, which began in 1996 and was completed in 2006.
Student at Westinghouse Industrial Vocational School, May 1973
According to John White, this woman is “one of the many black faces in this project that portray life in all its seasons. She is a member of her race who is proud of her heritage.”
A black man, June 1973
This man is one of nearly 1.2 million black people who make up more than one-third of Chicago’s population. For John White, his photos “are portraits that reflect pride, love, beauty, hope, struggle, joy, hate, frustration, discontent, worship, and faith. In short, portraits of individual human beings who are proud of their heritage.”
Religious Fervor, March 1974
“Religious fervor is mirrored on the face of a Black Muslim woman, one of some 10,000 listening to Elijah Muhammad deliver his annual Savior’s Day message in Chicago.” Original caption by John White.
Fruit of Islam, March 1974
Special bodyguards, known as the “Fruit of Islam,” sit at attention, below the stage where Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad delivers his annual Savior’s Day message.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, July 1973
The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks from his pulpit to members of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) at its annual convention. One of the goals of PUSH is to propel small black-owned businesses.
Isaac Hayes, October 1973
Soul singer Isaac Hayes playing at the PUSH convention. The annual event showcased black talent in business, entertainment, and the arts in an effort to provide opportunities.
ohn H. White bought his first camera for fifty cents and ten bubble gum wrappers. Later, as a staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times, White toured the world, often facing danger to capture historical moments. As a teacher at Chicago’s Columbia College, he has shared his experience with aspiring photojournal-ists. In nearly thirty years as a photojournalism he has earned over three hundred awards, including the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
Father Taught Him About Life
Born March 18, 1945, in Lexington, North Carolina, White was the son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister who often moved the family from city to city in order to teach his children life lessons about the world around them. White remembers another kind of lesson when he was in the second grade; his father took him and his brothers out of school so they could “see a great man.” He took them to a railroad station in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where, on the back of a train car, stood President Dwight Eisenhower. Another time, White’s father took his children to the site of a fatal car crash to teach them the consequences of violating the laws of man and nature. “He taught us about life, about love and respect for humankind which literally saved my life,” White said in an interview. “I think if I hadn’t had that sense of love for people instilled in me from early on, I would have taken a bad road in life.”
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A slow student, White cried once when told by a teacher that he’d grow up to be nothing more than a garbage man. His father comforted him by telling him that it was okay to be a garbage man—as long as he was the one driving the truck. White learned that the goal, no matter what one pursues, is to strive to be the best. Although he bought his first camera at the age of 13 for 50 cents and ten bubblegum wrappers, the idea to become a professional photographer didn’t occur to White until much later. As a commercial art student at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, he decided that photography was the “best and simplest means of expression for me ...” and he pursued it passionately.
Although a stint in the Marine Corps gave him the opportunity to work as a photographer, White had a tough time finding work back in civilian life. Employers weren’t even talking to blacks then, let alone hiring them, White remembered. But he landed a job at the Chicago Daily News in 1969, and stayed in Chicago. After the Daily News stopped publishing, White moved to the Chicago Sun-Times, in 1978.
Getting the Shot, No Matter What
Not only a full-time photojournalist for a major Chicago daily, White also was a photo teacher and head of the photojournalism department at Chicago’s Columbia College. He was known for giving his students a taste of what real life as a photojournalist was like. He regularly
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At a Glance…
B orn March 18,1945, in Lexington, NC Education: Associate of Applied Science degree in commercial art and advertising design, Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte, NC, 1966,
Career: Photographer, Chicago Daily News, 1969-78; Chicago Sun-Times, 1978-; artist in residence, teacher, Columbia College, 1978-; Photojournalism Department of Columbia College, dept head, 1988-. Exhibitions; My People: A Portrait of Afro-American Culture, Rockefeller Center, New York City, 1991; The Soul of Photojournalism, Comenius University, Slovakia, 1993; John H. White: Portrait of Black Chicago, National Archives Exhibit, 1997; Witness to History, 55 Years of Pulitzer Prize Photos, Bunkamura Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 1998.
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Member: President, Chicago Press Photographers Association, 1977-78.
Awards: Photographer of the Year, Chicago Press Photographers Association, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1986; Marshall Field Award, from Chicago Sun-Times, 1976; National Headliner Award, 1979, 1990, 1999; World Press Photo Competition, 1979; honorable mention, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, 1979; Pulitzer Prize Award, feature photography, 1982; Outstanding Photojournafist Award, Chicago Association of Black Journalists, 1981, 1982, 1984; first place, general news, Chicago Press Photographers Assn., 1986; Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, National Press Photographers Assm, 1989; National Press Award, 1991; inducted, Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, 1993; National Press Photographers Assn. Award of Excellence in General News Photography, 1994; Chicago Medal of Merit, 1999; Studs Terkel Award, 1999.
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Addresses: Business —Chicago Sun-Times, 401 N. Wabash Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
put them through what he called a “quick-draw drill.” Two students stand back to back, when White says “Go,” the students walk away from each other, and when he says “Draw,” they spin around and shoot. The goal is not only to get the first shot, but to get it in focus. Photojournalists on the street rarely get a second chance. “You’d better have what it takes to drive through traffic jams or rush hour, past the radar cop, know [shortcuts] that might cut travel time,” he would tell his students, “then get there, set up for the best shot, take it, get back, and print a picture by deadline.” As a photojournalism White had to practice what he taught and follow the action no matter how dangerous, and has admitted to being frightened. He excelled at this, and earned over 300 awards for it, including the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. While in South Africa with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a gun was held in his face by a police officer who’d just shot some people and was enforcing the law there against documenting police activity.
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Capturing the action at just the right moment was what White was good at. On Halloween morning 1998, White was radioed by his editor at Chicago Sun-Times to investigate a suspicious report he heard on the fire radio—some senior citizens were being evacuated from a building because of a ruptured gas main. The area of the incident was blocked off, so White had to take side streets—he later declined to give away his secret route. He arrived, jumped out of the car with two cameras loaded and set for the proper time of day and exposure. Moments later, an explosion shot up the side of the building, and he captured it on film. White called the shot a crisis demanding “everything you know” with no time to think about it. “Somebody made a statement that Sammy Sosa, for instance, can see a baseball at 100 miles an hour,” White told the News Photographer. “You see everything in an instant. You’re comprehending things all in an instant. Our lives, our work, our profession is about capturing an instant that’s forever. So we see more than just a fireball, more than just a building, more than just a person—you see all those things. I don’t know how you do that, but it’s done.”
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Last Days of a Cardinal
White first met and photographed Joseph Cardinal Bernardin at an airport in 1979, while both were awaiting the arrival of Pope John Paul II. White was struck by the Catholic cardinal’s presence, and felt an immediate connection with him, despite their obvious differences. “There I was,” he told the New Catholic Explorer, “a black photojournalism the Protestant son of a Protestant minister, the brother of three Protestant ministers, and I felt Cardinal Bernardina luminous spirit when we met.” White followed Bernardin more closely after Bernardin was named Archbishop of Chicago in 1982, and the two became friends. He photographed Bernardin often for the Chicago Sun-Times over the next 14 years, documenting his initial mass in Chicago’s Grant park, his acquittal from charges of sexual misconduct, and his struggle with cancer.
White’s first book, a visual diary of Bernardin, was published in 1996. This Man Bernardin proved a critical success for White, and a record-breaking bestseller for its publisher, Loyola Press. White called the photographic memoir “an assignment from God” in the New Catholic Explorer. The follow up, The Final Journey of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, was published in 1997. In it, White documented the Cardinal’s last days struggling with cancer, and those who mourned him after he died. The cardinal invited White into his hospital room after his cancer surgery, telling others, “John is my friend.” White treasured his years covering the cardinal. In the New Catholic Explorer, he called the task “a privilege—a front-row seat to his life, and an opportunity to be exposed to his life and to the people he shepherds.”
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White considers his camera his passport to the world. He toured Russia, South Africa, Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and Asia on assignment. He also was involved in photo conferences all over the world. He was one of the few Vatican-approved photographers to cover Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit to Mexico. White also was one of 200 photographers to participate in the “Day in the Life of America” campaign, the largest photographic project in American history, in 1986. His photos of Nelson Mandela, who was released after 27 years in a South African prison, garnered White numerous awards in 1996. On a trip to former Yugoslavia with Reverend Jesse Jackson in 1999, White documented the momentous release of three captured United States soldiers. “A photographer can be the eyes for the world,” White told the New Catholic Explorer. “It’s a privilege and a tremendous responsibility.”
It’s hard not to read John H. White’s DOCUMERICA series as a love letter to Black Chicago. Whether capturing protesters or checkers players, concerts or chores, White’s work feels animated by a wonder and curiosity for the great breadth of stories and characters he encountered while exploring his adopted home city — “life”, as he put it in the captions to several of his images, “in all its seasons”.
While still in his twenties, White (b. 1945) was contracted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of DOCUMERICA, a project that sought to produce a visual record of the nation and its people with a particular — but not an exclusive — focus on ecology. The program made use of local photographers around the country and generally provided little in the way of guidelines or restrictions on subject matter; collectively, White and the rest of the DOCUMERICA cohort produced over 20,000 images, often using the openness of their assignment to create a body of work that shines not just with environmental urgency but with artistic vision too.
In its ambition to present as capacious an account of contemporary American life as possible, DOCUMERICA was a spiritual successor to the Farm Security Administration’s Great Depression-era photography, which project director Gifford Hampshire cited as a major source of inspiration. Indeed, White is often spoken of alongside Gordon Parks, whose photographs for the FSA and the Office of War Information constitute crucial documents of Black American life in the mid-twentieth century.
Originally from Lexington, North Carolina, White was interested in photography from a young age. In an interview with NPR, he recounted buying his first camera at the age of thirteen with ten Bazooka bubble gum wrappers and fifty cents from his grandmother; his father later gave him his first “assignment”, that of documenting the ruins of their church in the wake of a fire. The numerous accolades White has received over the course of his career include the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 1982, making him one of only a few Black photographers to have been so recognized. Extraordinarily, the committee awarded him the prize not for a single photograph or series, as is typical, but for “consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects”. Clarence Williams, who studied photography under White before also winning the Pulitzer, characterized his former mentor’s photographs of Chicago as “an earnest visual stream of consciousness that is tightly edited and that explores a city and its people through various moods that span what it means to be alive.”
It is notable that even White’s snapshots of joy and play are often paired with captions (composed by the photographer himself) that frame the scene within larger economic realities: elevated unemployment rates, wage discrimination, and the difficulties Black business owners faced opening and keeping afloat their stores amid racial prejudice from white clientele. In several of his photographs, children in the foreground are dwarfed by the looming husks of abandoned housing blocks behind them — largely salvageable buildings that White notes “have been systematically vacated as a result of fires, vandalism or failure by the owners to provide basic tenant services” before being “razed and replaced with highrise apartments which appeal to few members of the Black community”. By placing these subjects within the framing of an EPA-funded project, White and the directors of DOCUMERICA drew an implicit connection between suburbanization and divestment from cities, on the one hand, and environmental racism on the other — analysis that rings with enduring resonance today.
But by far the dominant impression that White’s portraits of Black Chicago exude is of life and liveliness. Genuine care for his subjects comes through in the way his experimentation with angles monumentalizes the workers he photographed. White’s DOCUMERICA work exhibits a talent for picking out moments of individual emotion amid crowds — whether the tears of a woman listening to a speech by Elijah Muhammad or the rapt concentration of a little boy executing drill team moves at a talent show. Yet in interviews White generally frames himself as a humble conduit, someone who captures more than he composes. “I don't really take pictures”, he said at one point. “Moments come when pictures take themselves.”
While everybody else was stunned and upset that The Chicago Sun-Times had fired its entire photography staff, I couldn’t stop thinking of one man. They did that to John White? The Chairman of the Board? That’s like the Bulls getting rid of Michael Jordan.
For a hot minute, my South Side Chicago roots took over — I was ready to roll down.
DESCRIPTIONM. Spencer Green/Associated Press John H. White at a June 6 protest in front of The Chicago Sun Times’s headquarters.
John was the photographer I looked up to when I was an intern at The Chicago Daily News, where he was working in the early 1970s. My godfather, John Tweedle, told me to look him up. John looked out for me, encouraged me and nudged my career. I watched him on the streets, in the darkroom and even stood by his side as he carefully put together the portfolio that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
When I visited him, he was not letting the firing change how he felt about himself, or his fellow photographers, one bit.
“A job’s not a job because of labor law,” he said. “It’s just something you love. It’s something you do because it gives you a mission, a life, a purpose, and you do it for the service of others.”
All he had wanted to hear from the executives who let him go was two words that never came: thank you. But even then, he did not respond with anger.
“I light candles, I don’t curse the darkness,” he said. “Even now, my colleagues are cursing the darkness. I’m lighting the candles. And I give wings to dreams, I ain’t breaking no wings. I’m not clipping any wings. Make a difference in the world. One light. One day. One image.”
John taught me how to fly.
I had been taking pictures since high school, but when I got to The Daily News, I was a copy-girl intern. But I also tried to copy John the minute I saw him walk through the newsroom after an assignment. I would sneak away and go back toward the darkroom — his chapel away from church — and watch him unload his cameras and ask him about his day.
I even tried to walk like he walked. I had seen a lot of photographers on assignment, but to find John White, you had to look in the shadows. He was never where you could see him. He was always where he could be, like he was hovering over in a corner. Like he could see everything in a room. He had this look. He kept his camera low-key. And all of a sudden, he’d pick it up and find the real subject. The one you hadn’t seen before.
He didn’t do this for prizes, though he won a lot of them. He did it for “consistent excellence.” And for as long as he had been taking pictures, it never got boring or predictable.
“I’ve got the same set of eyes, nothing’s changed,” he said. “Every day, a baby is born. Every day, someone dies. Every single day. And we capture everything in between. You think of this thing called life and how it’s preserved. It’s preserved through vision, through photographs.”
DESCRIPTIONJohn H. White “Ice House.”
You’ve probably figured out by now that John thought about bigger things. He was a religious man, born on a Sunday into a family of preachers in North Carolina. When he tells one and all to “keep in flight,” it’s as much spiritual advice as it is professional. He takes that advice himself, even after the slight of seeing one of his pictures published in his old paper with only “Sun-Times Library” as the credit line.
“I can’t get caught up in those things,” he said. “You got to look at the big picture, because I know the true photo editor.”
Like a good storyteller — or a preacher — he taught with examples from his life, often talking about moments with his father in North Carolina. He remembered one night walking through a wooded patch with his father, who reached out and grabbed a firefly.
“Look at my hand,” his father said as he gently squeezed the insect. “And look what he’s doing. He’s making a light. He can’t contain his light. God gives us light and we can’t contain this light. Be like the lightning bug. Don’t let anyone contain your light.”
I was still an intern when, despite protests from some of the other staff photographers, I was sent out to cover how children were dealing with a teachers strike. I went out to Cabrini-Green, passed by a dentist’s office and saw a boy sitting in the chair. I went in and asked if I could photograph the dentist, and he agreed.
Nothing much was happening.
I thought it was going to be a boring picture. All of a sudden, the dentist yanked a tooth from the kid’s mouth. He didn’t tell me he was going to do this. The kid’s eyes crossed and his mouth was open. The paper ran it with “He’d Rather Be in School” as the caption. That shot helped the other photographers accept me.
“Everybody remembers that picture, a billion-dollar picture,” John said. “People realized then that she’s doing what we did, she’s spreading her wings and trying to fly, and you know, it’s like you were that lightning bug. You didn’t let them contain you and keep you down.”
I swear I didn’t even know what the Pulitzer was when I watched him assemble the portfolio that would earn him journalism’s highest prize. I stood beside him in the darkroom as he printed (with a towel slung over his left shoulder). I watched him put paper, make careful measurements and lay out a story. He showed me how to tell a story.
Years later, John and I both covered Pope John Paul II’s Mass in Central Park. I showed off my computer and my new digital camera. I was proud of where he had helped me get. But not as proud as he was.
“It’s like your child,” he told me. “And they got a touchdown. You know what I mean? And it wasn’t a Hail Mary touchdown, you know what I mean? It was from one end of the line to the other. You know? It required a lot, but you got the touchdown. This is the journey. You go through storms, rain and hurricanes, and forces of evil. You know. But you keepin’ the fight.”
John, I was just doing what you taught me: staying in flight and sharing the light.
John H. White (*1945) is a renowned American photojournalist. His photography documents the everyday lives and political events in American cities, particularly Chicago. He was a staff photographer on the Chicago Sun-Times for 35 years, and won a Pulitzer prize in 1982.
Our exhibition concentrates on photographs depicting life for families living in Chicago housing projects in the 1980s. The controversial dissolution of the Sun-Times photography department earlier this year stirred up much debate regarding the significance of photojournalism.
We are therefore particularly pleased to present this exhibition of works by one of the world’s most influential photojournalists as a testament to the enduring importance of this occupation.
John H. White (born 1945 in Lexington, North Carolina) is an American photojournalist, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. When John H. White was nine years old, a teacher told him that he would grow up to work on a garbage truck because he was slow in math. At home, his father told him to grow up to be his best, to look for the best in others, and if he were to work on a garbage truck, fine—just be sure he's the driver. White has said that this was a turning point in his life. White's father also played a pivotal role in his photography. At age 14, White's church burned down and his father asked him to take photos of the destruction and reconstruction. White now credits this first assignment with his focus on photo stories.
After working for the Chicago Daily News, White joined the staff of the Chicago Sun Times in 1978 and worked there until May 2013. White also teaches photojournalism at Columbia College Chicago, and formerly taught at Northwestern University. In 1973 and 1974 White worked for the Environmental Protection Agency`s DOCUMERICA project photographing Chicago and its African American community. White's photographs show the difficulties facing residents as well as their spirit and pride.
White was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism in 1982 for his "consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects." He was selected as a photographer for the 1990 project Songs of My People. White has also won three National Headliner Awards, was the first photographer inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, was awarded the Chicago Press Photographer Association's Photographer of the Year award five times, and, in 1999, received the Chicago Medal of Merit. Hal Buell, the former head of the Associated Press Photography Service, noted that White is one of the best photographers at capturing the everyday vignette. White has published a book about Cardinal Bernardin, but he has yet to publish a book of his work outside the religious realm.
White has said that he lives by three words: faith, focus, flight. "I'm faithful to my purpose, my mission, my assignment, my work, my dreams. I stay focused on what I'm doing and what's important. And I keep in flight—I spread my wings and do it."
John H. White
One of Central Piedmont’s most famous alumni is photographer John White. He graduated from Central Piedmont in 1966 with an applied sciences degree and a focus in art-photography. Throughout his career, John White went on to receive numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his work as a photographer at the Chicago Sun-Times, which documented life of African-American communities in Chicago’s Southside neighborhood. John White was the first (and perhaps the only) community college graduate in history to win a Pulitzer Prize.
To celebrate this momentous achievement, Central Piedmont invited John White to the campus, where he was honored with the Richard Hagemeyer Educational Advancement Award and Mayor John Belk declared June 11, 1982 as “John White Day.”
"John White Day" Archival Materials
A studio portrait taken by the CPCC Media Production Department of John White holding his camera.
A handwritten document with details about the ceremony honoring John White.
A North Carolina National Bank invitation to the reception honoring John White.
The itinerary for the Hagemeyer Award Ceremony held on June 11, 1982.
John White standing beside CPCC’s “Meet John White” sign.
John White and his son.
John White and his family at the ceremony.
John White and Mike Myers at an event honoring Mr. White and his family, where Mr. Myers presented him with the Hagemeyer Award.
A personal message from John White to E. Fay Foster written on the title page of The Final Journey of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (1997).
A photo of John White with Joseph Cardinal Bernardin in The Final Journey of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (1997).
OUR MISSION
The mission of the Chicago Alliance of African-American Photographers is:
To photographically document the culture, society, and history of African-Americans, its communities, residents and their ethnic exchange in the Greater Chicago area and throughout the world.
To promote the work of professional and amateur photographers through sponsored exhibitions, publications, lectures and education in the field of photography, and its related genre.
To Use our photographic images and expertise to inform the public and our community about the importance of photography as an informative and creative medium of expression.
CAAAP is open to all commercial, fine art, freelance,
and newspaper photographers interested in supporting these efforts.
OUR BEGINNINGS
The Chicago Alliance of African-American Photographers (CAAAP) founded on March 8, 1999, by seven photographers; Leslie Adkins, Bob Black, Martha Brock, Milbert O. Brown Jr., Terry Harris, Brent Jones and Lee Landry. Their initial goal was to document Chicago's African-American communities at the turn of the 21st Century. The primary objectives of the organization grew to unify Chicago based professional African-American photographers, and promote the art of photography through exhibitions, lectures and educational programs.
The membership of the Chicago Alliance of African-American Photographers is composed of commercial, fine art, freelance, documentary, newspaper photojournalists, and amateur photographers. Their talents cover the full spectrum of photography from street artists and news, to studio photography. Although many of our members are established professionals, some are hobbyists. However, all of our members share a passion for the art of photography, and it's power to inform, educate and record history. Our membership has included three Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalists, and a former Chicago Tribune photojournalist named Ovie Carter, who won the 1975 Pulitzer for International Reporting. Milbert O. Brown Jr. and Ovie Carter were members of the Chicago Tribune's 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning team for Explanatory Reporting. The Chicago Sun-Times' John H. White, won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. The original project, "The Journey: The Next 100 Years", was a photographic project documenting the culture and lifestyles of Greater Chicago's African-American communities at the beginning of a new millennium. Over 50 African-American photographers from Chicago produced compelling black and white images of the first year of the 'new' century. In 2001, The Journey: The Next 100 Years; was a featured photographic exhibition that opened concurrently at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, and the 'legendary,' community-based institution: The South Side Community Art Center in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Over the next twenty-four months, the exhibit traveled throughout the Chicago metropolitan area where these powerful images exhibited at public libraries, art galleries, universities, and museums.
Over the ensuing years, CAAAP members and their photographs were featured in local, national, and international publications, including the Chicago Defender, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times, Black Enterprise Magazine, and Ebony/Jet Magazines. Members have participated in educational lectures and exhibits at Loyola University, Northwestern University, University of Illinois – Chicago and Roosevelt University. Our members have also made appearances on local media, radio, and television, and interviewed in Vibe Magazine, and The New York Times. In 2006, CAAAP produced and published a book of the project "The Journey: The Next 100 Years"; featuring over 300 images by 70 CAAAP members from 2000 through 2005.
In 2006, with funding provided from the Chicago Tribune Foundation, assistance from Roosevelt University, and the Chicago History Museum, CAAAP produced and published a book of the project “The Journey: The Next 100 Years”; featuring over 300 images, produced by 70 CAAAP members from 2000 through 2005.