Chicago City

Chicago (city), Illinois, United States. Chicago is the third-largest city in

the United States and one of the country's leading industrial, commercial,
financial, and transport centres. It extends some 47 km (29 mi) along the
south-western shore of Lake Michigan, occupying flatland traversed by two
short rivers: the Chicago River and the Calumet River. Both rivers have
been linked by canals with the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, establishing
Chicago as the connecting point in the waterway route between the
Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes-St Lawrence Seaway. The city's rapid
growth was due in large part to its location, with ready access to markets
and raw materials; it has the world's busiest airport, Chicago-O'Hare
International Airport. The population of Chicago in 1992 was estimated to
be 2,768,483 (3,005,072 in 1980). The immigrant heritage of Chicago's
population remains very strong, and there is hardly an ethnic group in
America not represented there. In 1990, German ancestry was claimed by
more people in Chicago (270,334) and in the metropolitan area (1,429,336),
than any other, and this was followed by Polish (261,899) and Irish
(237,113) ancestry in the city. Among the major minority groups, blacks
account for almost one in five in the metropolitan region as a whole, while
Hispanics represent approximately one in nine residents. Black presence in
the suburban zone has hardly altered in the recent past, whereas Hispanic
proportions outside the central city are growing.

II INDUSTRY AND LEISURE

Aided by an excellent distribution network, Chicago is America's most
important rail and haulage centre and is a significant port handling both
domestic and international trade. Great Lakes freighters and river barges
deliver bulk commodities such as iron ore, limestone, coal, chemicals, oil,
and grain. Some of this freight is destined for processing plants in the
heavily industrialized Calumet River area. Foreign vessels arrive via the St
Lawrence Seaway, bringing such products as cars, steel, fish, and alcoholic
beverages and carrying away machinery, farm equipment, hides, and
timber, as well as a variety of food products.

The Chicago metropolitan area has the highest number of manufacturing

employees in the United States. Chicago's largest employer is the electrical
goods industry, followed by the steel, machinery, fabricated metals, foods,
printing and publishing, chemicals, and transport equipment industries. It is
one of the nation's leading producers of steel, metal goods, confectionery,
surgical appliances, rail equipment, soap, paint, cosmetics, cans, industrial
machinery, printed materials, and sporting goods. Chicago houses the
headquarters of numerous corporations and is a major wholesale market for
grain, machine tools, food produce, fish, and flowers. The Chicago Board of
Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are among the world's largest
commodity markets. The city is a leading convention centre, with extensive
hotel facilities, including McCormick Place-on-the-Lake, a multi-purpose
exhibition complex on Lake Michigan. Chicago is divided into three sections
—the North (largely residential), West (mainly industrial), and South
(diversely residential) Sides. The centre, known locally as the Loop, shares
shops and entertainment facilities increasingly with the city's multiplying
suburbs.

Chicago has one of the world's most beautiful lakefronts. With the exception
of a few miles of industry on its southern extremity, virtually the entire
lakefront is devoted to recreational uses, with beaches, museums, harbours,
and parks, which include Grant Park opposite the city centre, Lincoln Park to
the north, and Jackson Park to the south.

The world's first skyscraper was constructed in Chicago, in 1885, spawning

the innovative Chicago School of architecture. Among the renowned
architects whose buildings have shaped the city's skyline are Louis Sullivan,
William Le Baron Jenney, Daniel H. Burnham, Frank Lloyd Wright, and
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The central part of the city has several of the
world's tallest buildings, including the Sears Tower, which at 110 storeys
high is the tallest in the United States. Construction of tall office buildings
continues.

Chicago is home to the Cubs baseball team at Wrigley Field; the White Sox
baseball team at Cominskey Park; the Bears American football team; the
Blackhawks ice hockey team; and Bulls basketball teams.

Chicago is a major centre of higher education, with numerous colleges and

universities. The prestigious University of Chicago (1890) was the site in
1942 of the world's first controlled nuclear chain reaction. Other schools of
higher learning include Northwestern University (1851), the Illinois Institute
of Technology (1940); Loyola University of Chicago (1870), De Paul
University (1898), and the Chicago State University (1867).

Chicago contains several distinguished museums. These include the Art

Institute of Chicago (1879), one of the country's largest art museums; the
Field Museum of Natural History (1893); and the Du Sable Museum of
African-American History. In Hyde Park are the Oriental Institute and the
Museum of Science and Industry (1893). In Lincoln Park are the Chicago
Academy of Sciences (1857) and the Chicago Historical Society (1856). Also
notable is the Museum of Contemporary Art. The Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, founded in 1891, is considered one of the world's finest.

III HISTORY
In 1673 the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet passed
through what is now the site of Chicago. They found a low, swampy area
that Native Americans, mainly Sauk, Mesquakie, and Potawatomi, called
“Checagou”, referring to the wild onion that once grew in marshlands along
Lake Michigan. About a century later, Jean-Baptiste Point du Sable, a Haitian
trader of African and French descent, established the first permanent
dwelling near the mouth of the Chicago River. By 1837, helped by harbour
improvements and the start of construction of the Illinois and Michigan
Canal, Chicago's population had reached 4,000. Growth was very rapid,
bolstered by the completion of the canal in 1848 and the coming of the
railways in the early 1850s. The consolidated Union Stock Yards opened in
1865 to handle the cattle, pigs, and sheep shipped by rail to Chicago for
slaughter and packing. The city was first predominantly a port and trading
centre for raw materials from the Midwest and finished goods from the East,
but it soon developed as a major national railway junction and an important
manufacturing centre.

Waves of immigrants from Europe, which included Poles, Jews, Russians,

Czechs, Lithuanians, Serbs, Italians, and Greeks, meant that Chicago
became a chequerboard of different ethnic communities. The generally low
paid jobs and sub-standard living conditions of immigrants were exposed in
the 1906 novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Southern blacks seeking better
opportunities migrated north after World War I.

During the second half of the 19th century, the city's large industrial worker
population campaigned actively for an eight-hour work day, better working
conditions, and better wages. Workers clashed with police on several
occasions, including the Haymarket Square Riot of May 4, 1886. Two
civilians and seven policemen were killed, and approximately 150 people
wounded. In nearby Pullman on June 27, 1894, workers of the Pullman
Company, manufacturer of sleeper trains, struck in response to unfair wage
practices and the living and working conditions of the company town. The
American Railway Union responded with a support strike. Workers and their
families were attacked by rail deputies, federal troops, and city police. At
least 30 people were killed and 100 wounded before the strike was broken
on July 17.

By 1890, due largely to its annexation of several suburbs, Chicago's

population had surpassed one million. Alternate periods of corruption and
reform characterized the city's political history for many years. In the
summer of 1919, race riots erupted throughout America, the worst
occurring in Chicago when a black youth swimming in Lake Michigan drifted
into an area reserved for whites and was stoned and drowned. Police
refused to arrest a white man whom black observers considered
responsible, and angry crowds gathered on the beach. Violence erupted and
continued throughout the city for 13 days, resulting in 38 dead, 537 injured,
and 1,000 black families left homeless. The shocked national reaction
helped launch efforts towards racial equality through volunteer
organizations and reform legislation. During the Prohibition era (1919-1933)
Chicago became notorious for its bootleggers and gangsters, such as Al
Capone, and for gang warfare, epitomized in the St Valentine's Day
Massacre of 1929. The city's physical expansion in the 20th century was
largely guided by the Burnham Plan of Chicago (1909), a design for the
city's future inspired by the world's Columbian Exposition. Population
continued to grow until it reached a peak of more than 3.6 million in 1950.
In recent decades extensive road building and slum clearance have been
undertaken to alleviate urban decay.1