The Changing City
Chicago grapples with modern life
The city of Chicago changed tremendously during the
first half of the twentieth century. On a daily basis, immigrants from
southern and eastern Europe, African-Americans from the American
South, and middle-class youths from the rural Midwest arrived in
Chicago, looking for work and a new way of life. They found jobs in
the city's factories and warehouses, in its downtown office buildings,
and even in its growing retail and entertainment industries. For some,
the work could be rewarding, but most were happiest when the closing
whistle blew. At week's end, with paychecks in hand, Chicagoans sought
relief from the monotonous routines of the work place by partaking in
hundreds of cheap amusements and leisure-time activities.
This new way of living, in which the vast majority of individuals
found personal fulfillment in leisure-time activities rather than in
their economic productivity, was described by many in the early
twentieth century as the "modern" style. Modern Chicagoans
defined themselves by the clothes they wore, the movies they had seen,
the dances they could dance, and the company they could keep. And
while they needed money to partake in these activities, what
specifically they did to earn money was not viewed by their peers as
especially important.
Wealthier Chicagoans likewise embraced the
modern way of living. As the city grew and fortunes increased,
up-and-coming families utilized new forms of commercial entertainment
to confirm their social status. In particular, they relied upon
department stores and restaurants to identify and explain the latest
and most appropriate fashions, foods, and decorations for every
occasion. Well-to-do women, freed of the duties of industrial labor or
homemaking, studied the new styles and worked assiduously to ensure
their family's conformity.
The city's growing number of middle-class families looked upon
the new consumer culture with a mixture of enthusiasm and concern.
Those who believed their family's respectability lay in its outward
appearance embraced the latest fashions and leisure activities.
Discount department stores, for instance, offered marked-down
knock-offs that helped budget-minded wives give their families the
appearance of wealth and sophistication.
By contrast, many middle-class families condemned unbridled
participation in the new consumer culture as vulgar gratification of
immoral and selfish material desires. Instead, they placed importance
on individual self-denial and preserved the family's honor through
vigilance against those who over-indulged in the vices of leisure and
consumption. Attacked as "old-fashioned Victorians" by their
detractors, these self-proclaimed "Progressives" lay the
groundwork for numerous reform movements during the period, including
Prohibition, anti-prostitution campaigns, and the Juvenile Protective
Association, which worked to "clean up" the growing
amusement industry.
No single place
better epitomized the potential chaos of the modern city than the
midday crush of streetcars and pedestrians at the corner of State and
Madison Streets, depicted here in the early 1910s.
Chicagoans of all different walks of life passed through the
intersection on a given day.
State and Madison acquired legendary status in the minds of
Chicagoans during the Jazz Age. Its mock-heroic nickname, "World's
Busiest Corner," attested to the mix of civic pride and social
unease caused by the intersection's congestion.
Sidewalk Mayhem
"Could anything be more
indicative of a slight but general insanity than the aspect of the
crowd on the streets of Chicago?"
Charles Horton Cooley,
sociologist, Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902.
Illustration: "Noon Hour on State Street, Chicago," postcard, V.O. Hammon: #1698 (n.d.), cropped.
Authored 1 Aug 98
Copyright
1998 by Scott A. Newman