Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman

by Carl Smith

Overview

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Haymarket bombing of 1886, and the making and unmaking of the model town of Pullman—these remarkable events in what many considered the quintessential American city forced people across the country to confront the disorder that seemed inevitably to accompany urban growth and social change. In this book, Carl Smith explores the imaginative dimensions of these events as he traces the evolution of beliefs that increasingly linked city, disorder, and social reality in the minds of Americans. Studying a remarkable range of writings and illustrations, as well as protests, public gatherings, trials, hearings, and urban reform and construction efforts, Smith argues that these three events—and the public awareness of the them—not only informed one another, but collectively shaped how Americans saw, and continue to see, the city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226764252
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	09/15/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	407
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Carl Smith is the Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English and American Studies and professor of history at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments


1
Introduction


PART ONE
FIRE

2
The Great Conflagration


3
Trial by Fire


4
Social Restraint


5
The Fire and Cultural Memory



PART TWO
BOMB

6
From Resurrection to Insurrection


7
Plots and Counterplots


8
Words on Trial



PART THREE
STRIKE

9
Taming the Urban Beast


10
Putting Pullman in Its Place: The Search for a New Urban Order


11
Making Sense of the Age



Epilogue


Notes


Index


A gallery of photographs