Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City (Chicago Visions and Revisions) Review

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Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City (Chicago Visions and Revisions) ReviewWrigley Field may be better-known, but the author has it right when he says of Chicago's Soldier Field "a stadium and its city." It turns out that far more than athletic events have been held in this massive facility. For example, it used to be the setting for the annual Chicagoland Music Festival which attracted both performers and spectators in Brobdingnagian proportions. (I remember in particular the massed accordions.) It has hosted memorable religious events, such as the Catholic Eucharistic Congress in 1925 and the Billy Graham Crusade of 1962. Some of the best photos are from the Chicago Park District, which justifiably prides itself on its special collections.Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City (Chicago Visions and Revisions) OverviewSports fans nationwide know Soldier Field as the home of the Chicago Bears. For decades its signature columns provided an iconic backdrop for gridiron matches. But few realize that the stadium has been much more than that. Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City explores how this amphitheater evolved from a public war memorial into a majestic arena that helped define Chicago.
Chicago Tribune staff writer Liam Ford led the reporting on the stadium's controversial 2003 renovation—and simultaneously found himself unearthing a dramatic history. As he tells it, the tale of Soldier Field truly is the story of Chicago, filled with political intrigue and civic pride. Designed by Holabird and Roche, Soldier Field arose through a serendipitous combination of local tax dollars, City Beautiful boosterism, and the machinations of Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson. The result was a stadium that stood at the center of Chicago's political, cultural, and sporting life for nearly sixty years before the arrival of Walter Payton and William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
Ford describes it all in the voice of a seasoned reporter: the high school football games, track and field contests, rodeos, and even NASCAR races. Photographs, including many from the Chicago Park District's own collections, capture these remarkable scenes: the swelling crowds at ethnic festivals, Catholic masses, and political rallies. Few remember that Soldier Field hosted Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr., Judy Garland and Johnny Cash—as well as Grateful Dead's final show. Now part of the city's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, Chicago's stadium on the lake continues to make dramatic history. Soldier Field captures this history in the making and will captivate armchair historians and sports fans alike.

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A Man of Salt and Trees: The Life of Joy Morton Review

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A Man of Salt and Trees: The Life of Joy Morton ReviewIf you have an interest in how Chicago got to where it is today, this is a great read. The author does a wonderful job of working with letters written by and to Morton family members to present the detailed life story of Joy Morton from his youth in Nebraska City to his life and death as one of Chicago's leading corporate citizens.
This story really starts in the pioneer days before the Civil War and winds its way all the way to the depression years. Joy Morton is the oldest boy in a remarkable family. His father, J. Sterling, is a frustrated politician and the moral compass in Joy's life. Although never successful with voters, J. Sterling does become the Sec of Agriculture in the Cleveland administration. He is also the "author" of Arbor Day.
Joy starts his business career after a modest education in Nebraska as a banker and works his way to Chicago to become the partner of Ezra Wheeler in the salt business. Joy is the junior partner but through grit and hard work ultimately takes over CEO responsibilities and buys out Wheeler's widow upon his death. He successfully builds what becomes Morton Salt Co. over the years (not to mention his role and interest in many other business interests and civic activities) and gradually turns his focus to building his legacy. Seeking to escape the noise and dirt of the city, he purchases property in Lisle, IL which becomes his Thornhill estate.
Joy's involvement in the day-to-day management of Morton Salt becomes minimal as he focuses his energies on developing his arboretum, which begins with property he acquires adjacent to Thornhill. He manages this development process the same way he managed Morton Salt, delegating key responsibilities to trusted friends, family members and professionals, but always overseeing the process. His focus is always long term with the idea of creating something that the public at large can enjoy.
Joy Morton was a man of vision and integrity that loved and respected his roots in Nebraska as well as his adopted City of Chicago. His involvement in the Chicago Plan Commission and his creation of the Morton Arboretum leave a lasting and interesting legacy for all Chicagoans.A Man of Salt and Trees: The Life of Joy Morton Overview"A Man of Salt and Trees" is the first full-length biography of Joy Morton (1855-1934), founder of The Morton Arboretum - an internationally acclaimed outdoor museum of woody plants - and Morton Salt - the brand that for over a century has been a household name in the United States. Joy Morton's story begins in the pre - Civil War Nebraska Territory and concludes in the midst of the Great Depression in Chicago, the city in which he lived for over a half century. Using the voluminous correspondence of the Morton family, Ballowe tells the story of the Nebraska farm boy who grew up to be a small town banker who became a leading citizen of Chicago and Illinois and a major figure in the nation's economic and technological development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Morton left his mark in several areas, from business and city planning to transportation and environmental preservation. He was a contributor to the development of Daniel H. Burnham and Edward Bennett's 1909 Plan of Chicago, which continues to affect the way Chicagoans protect the Lakefront and approach transportation and park issues throughout the region. During the last three decades of his life, Morton served on the Chicago Plan Commission. His interest in transportation led him to become an investor and a director in railroad transportation and a champion of inland waterway traffic. He also single-handedly financed early advancements of the teletype, a technology that advanced the economic and cultural development of the 20th century. Toward the end of his life, Morton funded the University of Chicago's explorations of Mississippian Indian culture in central Illinois and traveled throughout the world visiting ancient as well as modern cultures and gardens. The Morton Arboretum stands today as a natural expression of a desire Joy Morton had from childhood, when he learned from his father, the founder of Arbor Day, and his mother, a dedicated gardener, that a necessary complement to a good life is the cultivation and preservation of the environment. This is the first-ever biography of the man who founded Morton Salt and the Morton Arboretum.

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The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America Review

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The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America ReviewErik Larson does a bang-up job of conveying what life must have been like in the "Second City" as the 19th century drew to its fitful conclusion. Bristling at the constant reminder of New York City's superiority in so many areas, Chicago's city fathers rallied the troops and went all out in proving to New Yorkers, to the nation and to the world that Chicago was equal to the great challenge of mounting a World Exposition of truly monumental stature. Larson's descriptions of the Herculean effort put forth by numerous architects, builders, politicians, etc. lead the reader to a true appreciation of these "can do," spirited individuals.
Yet beneath the teeming activity and a short distance away from the gleaming white Pleasure Palaces of the Fair, there stood a building of a different sort entirely, inhabited by one of the most vicious, truly evil creatures the young nation ever produced. Larson does an adequate, but not great job of telling the darker story surrounding H H Holmes, the mesmeric Svengali whose brilliant blue eyes and engaging charm seduced at least a score (one estimate was up to 200, which the author disputes) unfortunate women. Unlike Jack the Ripper, to whom he was later likened, he didn't limit himself to female victims. Business partners who had outworn their usefulness and several children were amongst his prey, as well. He just had a penchant for murder.
The sections on the construction of the Columbia Exposition are filled with fascinating anecdotes, ranging from the origins of the sobriquet "windy city (derisively coined by Charles Anderson Dana, Editor of The New York Sun)" to the dramatic entrance of Annie Oakley, barreling in on horseback and blazing away with her two six-shooters in Buffalo Bill Cody's Western Show adjacent to the Fair Grounds. Larson also provides an interesting side story surrounding Patrick Predergast, a delusional political aspirant who turns assassin. He paints a compelling portrait of Fredrick Law Olmstead, American History's premier landscape architect who took up the almost impossible task of designing and overseeing the Exposition's parks and lagoons. The hero of the book, however, is Daniel Hudson Burnham, who was ultimately responsible for the lion's share of the planning, construction and smooth running of the entire enterprise. He had a little over two years from the time Congress selected Chicago from a list of candidate cities that included Saint Louis and New York, to the day of the Expo's official opening. That he got the job done within the alloted time is one of the great marvels in an age of marvels, especially given the myriad difficulties which he and his crew had to overcome.
The Holmes narractive appears a bit lackluster in comparison to the story of the Fair's construction. Larson acknowledges the difficulty he faced in recreating Holmes' vicious crimes via imaginary vignettes. He states in an afterword that he went back and read Capote's IN COLD BLOOD for the technique in which Capote so brilliantly engaged in his imaginative reconstruction of events. The only problem with this approach is that Capote had access to and the confidence of the two killers that are at the center of IN COLD BLOOD. Larson had only newspaper accounts from the period as well as a very unreliable journal that Holmes wrote after he was tried and sentenced to death (he was hanged several months after the trial). It would appear that Larson goes a bit too far out of his way to avoid the lurid and sensationalitic aspects of Holmes' killing spree. One has only to visit some of the numerous web sites devoted to Holmes to see that Larson is particularly reticent to discuss Holmes' sexual deviance. This is understandable, as Larson wants to be taken seriously as an historian, yet the facts are out there (most of them well documented) so it wouldn't have hurt to have included a bit more of the darker details. The book could also have used more illustrations. The Chicago Tribune, at the time the story first broke in 1894, included a detailed floor plan of the "Chamber of Horrors" Holmes built on the corner of Sixty-Third and Wallace in the Englewood section of Chicago. That illustration would have given the reader a better sense of the bizarre layout of the structure. More pictures of the Exposition would have also been helpful. Here again, there are several sites on the web devoted to the Columbia Exposition that have many pages of great photographs.
The books virtues far outweigh its shortcomings and I have no problem in recommending THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY to anyone interested in US History, Chicago Architecture, or just a well told story.
BEKThe Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America Overview

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