From prairie mud to the Century of Progress.
In 1837 a New York writer reported from the new frontier town that "interesting women are in demand here." Within a century Chicago had risen from prairie mud, burned to the ground, rebuilt itself in stone and steel, and produced a cast of characters unlike any other American city: Stephen Douglas and the Rail Splitter, Long John Wentworth and Big Bill Thompson, Mrs. Potter Palmer and Jane Addams, Marshall Field and Samuel Insull, Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink, and Al Capone himself.
Fabulous Chicago is Emmett Dedmon's full, unvarnished history of the city, from that frontier town to the Century of Progress on the lakefront. Inside are the Haymarket bombing and the Pullman Strike, the White City of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and the openings of the University of Chicago, the Art Institute, and the Armour Institute. Mickey Finn pours drinks behind his bar, Mike McDonald runs the gambling rackets, and the Everleigh Sisters preside over the most famous brothel in America. Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, and Buffalo Bill all pass through.
From the frontier outpost where "interesting women were in demand" to the speakeasies of Prohibition, Fabulous Chicago captures the swagger, the corruption, the heartbreak, and the brilliance of a city built and rebuilt by the people who refused to leave it.
For readers of Chicago history, American urban history, the Gilded Age, and Prohibition-era America.
"Dedmon has a feeling for and sympathy with his adopted home town that few writers acquire. He has learned his multi-faceted subject through a decade or more in several branches of Chicago newspaper work."
"This lively history of the Midwest's great metropolis resembles Lloyd Morris' Incredible New York far more than it does E.J. Kahn's rather deprecatory Chicago , The Second City. This is social—and sociological—history at its best with no chip on its shoulder but plenty of facts up its sleeve."