Preview: Take a Walk on the Historic Side to See Logan Square’s History
Okay, it’s not quite Lou Reed but Logan Square is near where Nelson Algren wrote A Walk on the Wild Side. The 34th Logan Square Preservation House Walk is on […]
Review: Tall Towers as Tools of Profit and Racism, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934–1986, by Thomas Leslie
Thomas Leslie’s Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 is an impressive and important book that ranks with other works providing the deepest insights into what makes Chicago, Chicago: Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon, […]
Review: A Harrowing Novel of Resilience in the Face of Racism, Last Summer on State Street, by Toya Wolfe
Toya Wolfe’s debut novel Last Summer on State Street is a harrowing, poignant, and visceral evocation of life and death in the Robert Taylor public housing development in its final […]
Review: Against All Odds, The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History, by Edward Achorn
In a year or so, the 2024 Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago, marking the 27th time the city has played host to one or both of the major […]
Review: When Illinois Base Ball (sic) Was for Fun, Ballists, Dead Beats, and Muffins: Inside Early Baseball in Illinois, by Robert D. Sampson
In the handful of years after the Civil War, Illinoisans went crazy for baseball, a game that was then spelled as two words “base ball.” By 1868, however, an editor of […]
Review: Ignoring and Then Extracting Ghetto Gold, White Burgers, Black Cash, by Naa Oyo A. Kwate
Naa Oyo A. Kwate, the author of White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation, will be in conversation with Stacey Sutton on Thursday, April 27, at […]
Review: An Old Novel to Captivate Modern Readers: The Girls by Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber’s The Girls, a novel about three independent-minded South Side women yearning for vibrant lives, was originally published more than a century ago, but it’s written with such verve […]
Review: A Soldier in the Struggle: Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win, by Helen Shiller
Helen Shiller—a longtime radical activist and the new alderman in Chicago’s 46th ward—turned 40 on November 24, 1987. Two days later, she went to City Hall for an 11am meeting with […]
Review: Laughing at the Race with No Rules, Woman Without Shame, by Sandra Cisneros
In her new book of poetry Woman without Shame, Sandra Cisneros looks aging in the face and laughs. She laughs at the frenetic lusts and couplings of youth—at broken hearts and […]
Review: Henry Gerber, Father of the Gay Rights Movement—An Angel in Sodom, by Jim Elledge
As a title, An Angel in Sodom is evocative and a bit ambiguous. The subtitle of Jim Elledge’s book is much more direct: Henry Gerber and the Birth of the Gay […]
Feature: Michelle Obama’s South Shore Neighborhood Explored in CHF’s Cooler by the Lake Trolley Tour
Last spring, the Chicago Humanities Festival offered a bus tour of Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, and this September, offered a tour of the nearby South Shore neighborhood. South Shore is a mostly African […]
Essay: Walking Graceland Cemetery with—and Without—Adam Selzer’s New Book
Near the end of my hourlong walk around Graceland Cemetery the other day, I went past a stone obelisk, maybe 30 feet tall, and noticed this on the side: SANDRA […]