Blog Entry #1 Invention, Innovation, and Industry in 19th Century Chicago

1) Chicago River

 I am a foreign student who came to Chicago a few weeks ago. It is the first time that I came to Chicago. The first impression of Chicago for me was that it is a metropolitan city. It is because there are many tall buildings and people of all races are living here. However, I got to know that Chicago in the past was not what it is now through reading a book named 『City of Big Shoulders』. I also watched a video about the history of Chicago named "City of the century". From these resources, I learned that Chicago was a very uncivilized area. I want to write down the history of Chicago's development from a foreigner's point of view.

2) Map of Chicago from 1733

 Before I talk about Chicago in the 19th century, let me write briefly about the beginnings of Chicago. Before the city of Chicago, it was just a strip of land called Chigagou by Native Americans. Chigagou was swampy, muddy, and windy. In the winter, Chigagou was so cold so that there were short growing seasons and soil was not fertile. In other words, it was an inhospitable place.

3) A Statue of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable

 The first permanent settler is Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable. He settled by the Chicago River, developing a prosperous trading post around 1779. With this man as a starting point, Chicago began to grow. Chicago grew further because of its sources of transportation such as the canals and trains. The train, in particular, expanded the geographical area(Spinney, 48). It helped Chicago to develop four representative businesses, which are the grain trade, the lumber business, the meatpacking industry, and the mail-order catalog business. These businesses contributed to various developments such as engineering, manufacturing, and commerce. They also contributed greatly to the increase in the population of Chicago.

 First of all, I am going to write about the grain trade, especially wheat. The reason why the wheat trade was so good is because of Cyrus Hall McCormick and the trains.

4) Cyrus Hall McCormick

 As a foreigner, I think the most important person in Chicago is McCormick. because McCormick's name appears here and there. Some examples are the McCormick Student Village which is the dorm I am living in, the McCormick Turbine Student Center, and also the CTA station as well. McCormick was an inventor of the reaper. He was from Virginia and he came to Chicago where he contributed to the farming industry by developing the mechanical reaper.

5) McCormick's reaper

 McCormick's reapers worked well on the large, flat wheat farms. They harvested wheat much more quickly than men could harvest by hand. McCormick guaranteed that they would cut at least one-and-a-half acres of wheat per hour(Spinney,52). Also, McCormick used advertising and money back guarantee to enable farmers to use the reaper.

 Trains were the second reason why the wheat trade was doing well. Wheat was valuable but hard to harvest and easily spoiled. Trains made it possible to transport this wheat quickly and inexpensively. Trains were available for farmers to get their reapers to Chicago so that wheat cultivation was easier.

6) Lumber District of Chicago

 Secondly, the lumber business was prosperous in Chicago. Lumber was needed to build railroads which created a demand for lumber(Sipneey,54). Transportation was the key to the rapid development of Chicago's lumber industry(Sipneey,55). The railroad allowed the lumber to be transported far away. Moreover, Chicago was developing at that time which meant houses, wharves, warehouses, stores, and sidewalks were being built so the need for lumber was great.

7) Employees working on a disassembly line at the Chicago Meat Packing Factory

 The third was the meatpacking industry. Railroad enabled the transport of livestock. Chicago had stockyards, so the meatpacking industry was able to thrive.

8) A builder's photo of one of the first refrigerator cars to come out of the Detroit plant of the American Car and Foundry Company (ACF), built in 1899 for the Swift Refrigerator Line.

 However, there was a problem. The meat spoiled in the summer and Americans preferred their beef fresh. The refrigerated railroad car was perfected by Gustavus F. Swift in the 1870s which solved the problem(Spinney,60).

9) Digging the Chicago Drainage Canal

 As the industry grew, there was a problem with water contamination. This was done by dumping the carcasses of livestock into Lake Michigan. The river needed a solution because people drank from it, so they constructed the Sanitary and Ship Canal which linked the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River. Thus, they reversed the flow of the river away from Lake Michigan.

10) Sears, Roebuck and Co. Mail-Order Catalog

 Lastly was the mail-order catalog business. This business helped both farmers and rural people. Before the mail-order catalog business, farmers were selling to a middle man and the middle man sold to consumers. Farmers thought that the middle man was exploiting them. The mail-order catalog business gave farmers the opportunity to sell directly to consumers. It was hard for the rural people living in the hinterlands of Chicago to buy things easily. Using the mail-order catalog business, rural people were able to order it easily.

11) Chicago Scenery

 Chicago's grain, lumber, meat, and mail-order businesses help explain how Chicago grew from a frontier town in 1850 to the nation's second largest city in the 1900s. These industries and the resulting inventions and innovations have allowed us to become Chicago today (Spinney,68).

Reference

-Chicago : City of the Century - From Mudhole to Metropolis

-City of Big Shoulders
-http://www.statuestorieschicago.com/statue-dusable.php

Images

1) a picture was taken by me
2) http://chigagou.com/
3) http://www.statuestorieschicago.com/statue-dusable.php

4) https://www.onthisday.com/people/cyrus-hall-mccormick

5) https://www.ilfbpartners.com/family/ag-innovators-mccormick-john-deere-part-illinois-history/attachment/mccormick-reaper/
6) https://www.flickr.com/photos/11734492@N00/27958371735/
7) https://51154787.weebly.com/the-swift-meatpacking-plant.html
8) https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/images/154/15487.jpg.htm
9) https://thisdayinwaterhistory.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/january-2-1900-chicago-sanitary-and-ship-canal-opening-2/
10) http://47575297.weebly.com/mail-order-catalog.html
11) a picture was taken by me