Chicago Before the Fire: An Economic History - Softcover

Cain, Louis P

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252088697 ISBN 13: 9780252088698

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2025

Synopsis

An advantageous location and entrepreneurial passion helped fuel Chicago’s transformation from a fur trading post to a thriving city. Louis P. Cain’s economic history places pre-1871 Chicago within the narrative of national expansion and examines infrastructure, finance, and other areas of city life. Business histories tell the story of fortunes made with essential products like meat and grain. Sketches of titans like William Ogden and Cyrus McCormick reveal how real estate, farm equipment, and other industries became engines of local growth. Cain also details public health improvements that made Lake Michigan safe as a water supply while census data informs a portrait of Chicago’s population and the lives of the free Blacks and Irish immigrants at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Panoramic and up to date, Chicago before the Fire looks at how an intersection of geography, vision, and investment built a great American city.

About this title

About the Author

Louis P. Cain is an adjunct professor of economics at Northwestern University and a professor emeritus at Loyola University Chicago. He is the coauthor of The Children of Eve: Population and Well-being in History.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252088697
• ISBN 13: 9780252088698
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304