"Robert A. Slayton's Back of the Yards is one of the finest accounts I have ever read on an urban, working-class neighborhood in twentieth-century America. Its focus on family, politics, and worklife is penetrating and its conclusions reinforce an emerging scholarly picture of ordinary people exercising unique forms of power."—John Bodnar, author of The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America
The Back of the Yards neighborhood, located in back of the Union Stockyards and composed of Packingtown, Town of Lake, and New City, was the setting of Upton Sinclairs classic 1906 novel, The Jungle. Permeated by an unforgettable smell, Back of the Yards was a melting pot of immigrants, many who worked in the stockyards. In 1894, Mary McDowell started the University of Chicago Settlement House in Back of the Yards. She improved living conditions and in 1905 helped create Davis Square Park. The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council was founded in 1939 by Joseph Meegan, Saul Alinsky, and Bishop Bernard Sheil and is Americas oldest notforprofit communitybased organization. It consisted of 185 delegate organizations involving residents, business owners, churches, parks, schools, and social clubs that worked to advocate improvements. The council motto continues on as We the people will work out our own destiny. Relive the bustling activity and the lives of the people in the neighborhood through the historic images in Back of the Yards.
"Heart-wrenching moments of emotional struggle are presented with insight and compassion...a fascinating read that one will not soon forget." -US Review of Books Set during the Depression in the South Chicago neighborhood of Sinclair's The Jungle, Betty O'Leary's family struggles to scrape by in this harsh, foul-smelling, yet compassionate area. The youngest in her Irish Catholic family, Betty is overshadowed by her pretty sister, Maureen, and when tragedy threatens to shatter her world, Betty is sent away to stay with relatives. As grief and loss take its toll on family members, Betty eventually meets Phil, who offers hope for long-awaited happiness. But secrets begin to unravel, and depression gradually descends on Betty. Is a family history of asylums and madness the cause? And unlike her disturbed mother, will Betty ever find peace and fulfillment? The story gives voice to those struggling with emotional pain and shows how families can heal with love, courage, and promise. It tells of a unique neighborhood reflecting America's cultural changes and how one's childhood is forever present.
On the South Side to tour the Union Stock Yard, people got a firsthand look at Chicago's industrial prowess as they witnessed cattle, hogs, and sheep disassembled with breathtaking efficiency. At their height, the kill floors employed 50,000 workers and processed six hundred animals an hour, an astonishing spectacle of industrialized death. Pacyga chronicles the rise and fall of an industrial district that, for better or worse, served as the public face of Chicago for decades. He takes readers through the packinghouses as only an insider can, covering the rough and toxic life inside the plants and their lasting effects on the world outside. He shows how the yards shaped the surrounding neighborhoods; looks at the Yard's sometimes volatile role in the city's race and labor relations; and traces its decades of mechanized innovations.
An exploration of how the Windy City became a postwar Latinx metropolis in the face of white resistance. Though Chicago is often popularly defined by its Polish, Black, and Irish populations, Cook County is home to the third-largest Mexican-American population in the United States. The story of Mexican immigration and integration into the city is one of complex political struggles, deeply entwined with issues of housing and neighborhood control. In Making Mexican Chicago, Mike Amezcua explores how the Windy City became a Latinx metropolis in the second half of the twentieth century. In the decades after World War II, working-class Chicago neighborhoods like Pilsen and Little Village became sites of upheaval and renewal as Mexican Americans attempted to build new communities in the face of white resistance that cast them as perpetual aliens. Amezcua charts the diverse strategies used by Mexican Chicagoans to fight the forces of segregation, economic predation, and gentrification, focusing on how unlikely combinations of social conservatism and real estate market savvy paved new paths for Latinx assimilation. Making Mexican Chicago offers a powerful multiracial history of Chicago that sheds new light on the origins and endurance of urban inequality.
Bridget O'Rourke just wanted to blow off some steam. She never expected to be accused of murder. The rundown town of Baxter doesn't have a lot going for it, but there's always somewhere for single mother Bridget O'Rourke to cut loose and forget about her life. All she wanted was to put aside worried thoughts of her daughter, Charlie, and find a handsome stranger to spend the night with.She never expected to be accused of murder.Now Bridget is in deep trouble. She's just woken up in a dark hotel room with a strange man she can't seem to rouse, and is surrounded by money and guns.When the dead body is discovered with a bullet through its forehead, Officer Delia Mariola is one of the first on the scene. She knows the victim is connected to the mob, but something feels off - all signs point to a pick-up gone wrong. Which means that all signs point to Bridget.Suspenseful, thrilling and unpredictable, The Yards is a dark mystery with two unforgettable women at its core.Reviewers on The Yards:'A breathless suspenser that's also a painfully acute evocation of the wrong side of the tracks' Kirkus 'Another impressive effort from Carter' Publishers Weekly
Chronicles the experiences of immigrants in two iconic South Side Polish neighborhoods in Chicago to demonstrate how Poles created new communities in an attempt to preserve the customs of their homeland.
This important new book by Sylvia Washington adds a vital new dimension to our understanding of environmental history in the United States. Washington excavates and tells the stories of Chicago's poor, working class, and ethnic minority neighborhoods—such as Back of the Yards and Bronzeville—that suffered disproportionately negative environmental impacts and consequent pollution related health problems. This pioneering work will be essential reading not only for historians, but for urban planners, sociologists, citizen action groups and anyone interested in understanding the precursors to the contemporary environmental justice movement.
