Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West

Following the Civil War, gateway cities such as Chicago saw a rapid rise in population. Advanced factories attracted workers to Illinois all the way from Germany, Ireland, England, and Scandinavia. From the 1860s until the 1880s, Chicago boasted great diversity in the manufacturing industry. Midwestern factories met with little competition from the East and gained a foothold in these areas. Grain cars filled with wheat and corn would return to the East empty, thus earning no return on capital and costing a lot of money. Factories, like the lumber companies, were able to supply rails with much needed goods for those in the East.

The demand for iron and steel for the advancement of farming machinery, tools, wagons, and hardware increased, and mining operations in Michigan during the 1840s met this need. Yet another industry that Chicago could develop from its hinterland, the construction of smelters replaced the purchase of iron from Ohio and Pennsylvania. The need for coal to run the operations was in abundance by the 1860s when the rails rose to prominence. Chicago would now source cheap coal and iron ore from Michigan to create pig iron to sell to factories throughout the city. Farmers’ access to Chicago’s iron factories, combined with the agricultural agreeability of the prairies in the hinterland, made purchasing machinery such as the McCormick reaper—which became a necessity among farmers by the 1860s—easier and more efficient.

Purchasing goods from urban markets meant new ways of paying for those goods. Before the arrival of railroads, merchants in the frontier relied on operating both sides of the market, as merchant and consumer. Finding new markets where none existed was paramount to sustaining a merchant’s business. With winter freezing up trade routes and slowing farm production, it was necessary to pay in produce, wheat, or grains, rather than money. The cost to store these goods also created another form of income. Credit would also be a form of payment. If a relationship between a merchant in the frontier and one in the city could be established, it was possible to draw a check on the merchant’s bank account. Once purchased, goods needed to be stored in warehouses, locking up capital for months at a time. Living on credit between harvests paid the bills.

During the railroad boom, farmers could make shorter trips to area markets, destroying the horse team business. The availability of rail transport, and the existence of a reliable cash market in Chicago, meant that merchants did not have to invest nearly so much money in the warehouse facilities they formerly needed to hold the harvest until spring. The result was a striking reduction in the capital costs of doing business under the new system

In 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition, nicknamed the “White City,” housed exhibits from 36 countries and 46 states or soon-to-be states, showing their contributions to civilization. The fair represented urban life at its most “noble and civilized.” Despite the rise of protests among farmers and workers, the exposition reminded people that the 19th century was the greatest era of progress the world had seen (496). The fair reminded people from outside the city that the cultural worth of their rural, hinterland homes depended on the success of the city. People like American historian Henry Adams would spend months walking through the exhibits. Adams noticed that the fair represented one additional quality of trade: Despite its organized appearance, chaos and incoherence lay beneath the scene. “Chicago,” Adams said, “was the first expression of American thought as a unity; one must start there” (500).

The Great Fire of 1871 that destroyed much of the city and the businesses that took root there became the start of a great civilization, as reflected by early booster arguments. The destruction, argued townspeople, did more good than harm. Obsolete wooden structures destroyed by the fire could be replaced by modern structures with updated technology to prevent future fires. New ordinances imposing strict safety measures were established. The boom in construction increased property value which led architects to start building taller structures that could pull in more rent money. The exposition, argued architecture critic Montgomery Schuyler, secluded itself from the city and hid what the fire created. The fair underscored a paradox—it celebrated human idealism and beauty, but the city represented materialism and power.

The fire also changed Chicago’s geography. Wooden cottages surrounded the areas occupied by factories and warehouses. Many of the individuals who suffered most from the links between city and country—enduring cheap construction, occupational diseases, polluted air, and bad water—were those who worked the surrounding factories.

The development of the suburbs, with paved roads, water and sewage lines, and eventually electricity provided an ideal landscape for wealthy Chicagoans to enjoy urban comforts with the privacy and quietness of the rural hinterland. The suburban ideal was measured against the less civilized rural Wisconsin and the crime, violence, and vices plaguing Chicago. Trade publications about illegal gambling and sex work underscored the existence of both a market of corruption and moral freedom. Differences in city and country seemed most amplified by its vices. The city’s reputation for sin worried rural residents the most.

Young farm children, especially men, might be lured to the sins of the city, abandoning their farm homes and traditions. Publications often painted the family homestead as virtuous and moral, as opposed to the immoral dangers plaguing the city. These tactics did not address why rural children were leaving the country.

Increased technology helped improve country life, making farm work easier and closing the gap between rural and urban locations. Rhetoric began to popularize the countryside as a place where people could escape the sins of the city. Writers like Ignatius Donnelly and Henry Blake Fuller wrote pieces that depicted the future urban world as places that left people dehumanized and detached from everyone else.