Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter traces the complex interplay of race, geography, and cultural criticism that permeated the Renaissance as a whole. Beginning with the categorization of the neighborhood as the Black Belt ...
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This chapter traces the complex interplay of race, geography, and cultural criticism that permeated the Renaissance as a whole. Beginning with the categorization of the neighborhood as the Black Belt and ending with heralding itself as “Bronzeville,” the chapter examines the interaction of newly arrived migrants with previously settled African Americans that bloomed into an exciting community. It specifically analyzes two popular intersections in the South Side of Chicago—the “Stroll” district (the intersection of 35th and State Streets) during the early 1920s, and the intersection at 47th and South Parkway. This intersection, along with the Stroll, served as foundations and sources of work for famed African American musicians, artists, and writers, such as Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Brooks.Less
This chapter traces the complex interplay of race, geography, and cultural criticism that permeated the Renaissance as a whole. Beginning with the categorization of the neighborhood as the Black Belt and ending with heralding itself as “Bronzeville,” the chapter examines the interaction of newly arrived migrants with previously settled African Americans that bloomed into an exciting community. It specifically analyzes two popular intersections in the South Side of Chicago—the “Stroll” district (the intersection of 35th and State Streets) during the early 1920s, and the intersection at 47th and South Parkway. This intersection, along with the Stroll, served as foundations and sources of work for famed African American musicians, artists, and writers, such as Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Gwendolyn Brooks.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group that predate the fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. As pillars of the Bronzeville's community, ...
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This chapter focuses on the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group that predate the fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. As pillars of the Bronzeville's community, these institutions of art and literature generated a unique aesthetic consciousness/political ideology for which Chicago Black Renaissance would garner much fame. The chapter emphasizes how the artists and authors of both institutions evidenced a strong commitment to and conditioning by the streets and people of Bronzeville. The aesthetic formula characterized by these visual arts and literary groups collided in ways that always articulated a vital political and modern consciousness that sustained the Renaissance movement into the 1940s.Less
This chapter focuses on the South Side Community Art Center and the South Side Writers' Group that predate the fame of Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks. As pillars of the Bronzeville's community, these institutions of art and literature generated a unique aesthetic consciousness/political ideology for which Chicago Black Renaissance would garner much fame. The chapter emphasizes how the artists and authors of both institutions evidenced a strong commitment to and conditioning by the streets and people of Bronzeville. The aesthetic formula characterized by these visual arts and literary groups collided in ways that always articulated a vital political and modern consciousness that sustained the Renaissance movement into the 1940s.
Erik S. Gellman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter explores the early career of Chicago-born painter Charles White, and argues that the artistic production of young black artists became intricately intertwined with protest politics ...
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This chapter explores the early career of Chicago-born painter Charles White, and argues that the artistic production of young black artists became intricately intertwined with protest politics during the 1930s. As a young man, White educated himself in the history of African Americans by discovering books like The New Negro, the definitive collection of the Harlem Renaissance, and by joining the Arts Craft Guild, where White and his cohorts taught each other new painting techniques and held their own exhibitions. These painters developed as artists by identifying with the laboring people of Chicago and by pushing to expand the boundaries of American democracy. African American artists like White thus came to represent the vanguard of the cultural movement among workers in the 1930s, making Chicago's South Side the center of the black arts movement.Less
This chapter explores the early career of Chicago-born painter Charles White, and argues that the artistic production of young black artists became intricately intertwined with protest politics during the 1930s. As a young man, White educated himself in the history of African Americans by discovering books like The New Negro, the definitive collection of the Harlem Renaissance, and by joining the Arts Craft Guild, where White and his cohorts taught each other new painting techniques and held their own exhibitions. These painters developed as artists by identifying with the laboring people of Chicago and by pushing to expand the boundaries of American democracy. African American artists like White thus came to represent the vanguard of the cultural movement among workers in the 1930s, making Chicago's South Side the center of the black arts movement.
Seth Moglen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226012629
- eISBN:
- 9780226012933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226012933.003.0013
- Subject:
- Education, Philosophy and Theory of Education
This chapter discusses the university as a site for strategic pursuit of the ideals of education, justice, and democracy. It describes a democratic university–community collaboration effort—the South ...
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This chapter discusses the university as a site for strategic pursuit of the ideals of education, justice, and democracy. It describes a democratic university–community collaboration effort—the South Side Initiative launched by Lehigh University in 2007—which has sought to shift the relationship between a wealthy private research institution and the ethnically diverse, predominantly working-class South Side neighborhoods of the postindustrial city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the university is located.Less
This chapter discusses the university as a site for strategic pursuit of the ideals of education, justice, and democracy. It describes a democratic university–community collaboration effort—the South Side Initiative launched by Lehigh University in 2007—which has sought to shift the relationship between a wealthy private research institution and the ethnically diverse, predominantly working-class South Side neighborhoods of the postindustrial city of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the university is located.
Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037825
- eISBN:
- 9780252095108
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037825.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This book examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in ...
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This book examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Poverty stricken, segregated, and bursting at the seams with migrants, Bronzeville was the community that provided inspiration, training, and work for an entire generation of diversely talented African American authors and artists who came of age during the years between the two world wars. This book investigates the institutions and streetscapes of Black Chicago that fueled an entire literary and artistic movement. It argues that African American authors and artists—such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, painter Archibald Motley, and many others—viewed and presented black reality from a specific geographic vantage point: the view along the streets of Bronzeville. The book explores how the particular rhythms and scenes of daily life in Bronzeville locations, such as the State Street “Stroll” district or the bustling intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway, figured into the creative works and experiences of the artists and writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance.Less
This book examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Poverty stricken, segregated, and bursting at the seams with migrants, Bronzeville was the community that provided inspiration, training, and work for an entire generation of diversely talented African American authors and artists who came of age during the years between the two world wars. This book investigates the institutions and streetscapes of Black Chicago that fueled an entire literary and artistic movement. It argues that African American authors and artists—such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, painter Archibald Motley, and many others—viewed and presented black reality from a specific geographic vantage point: the view along the streets of Bronzeville. The book explores how the particular rhythms and scenes of daily life in Bronzeville locations, such as the State Street “Stroll” district or the bustling intersection of 47th Street and South Parkway, figured into the creative works and experiences of the artists and writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance.
Paul D. Numrich and Elfriede Wedam
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199386840
- eISBN:
- 9780199386871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199386840.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Chapter 5 brings together three very different area congregations in very different locations in the city of Chicago. New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church is situated in the middle of Chicago’s ...
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Chapter 5 brings together three very different area congregations in very different locations in the city of Chicago. New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church is situated in the middle of Chicago’s predominantly black South Side, a racially and culturally bounded area under great stress from the restructuring economy. Fourth Presbyterian Church stands on the famous Magnificent Mile of North Michigan Avenue but also within blocks of the now-demolished Cabrini-Green Homes public housing project. Much as these two area congregations differ, they share a common desire to create communities of resistance to the most deleterious aspects of the new metropolis. Congregation Ezra-Habonim is located in a Jewish enclave that emerged for religious as much as racial reasons. The three area congregations in this chapter fall along the entire urban impact continuum from weak to strong.Less
Chapter 5 brings together three very different area congregations in very different locations in the city of Chicago. New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church is situated in the middle of Chicago’s predominantly black South Side, a racially and culturally bounded area under great stress from the restructuring economy. Fourth Presbyterian Church stands on the famous Magnificent Mile of North Michigan Avenue but also within blocks of the now-demolished Cabrini-Green Homes public housing project. Much as these two area congregations differ, they share a common desire to create communities of resistance to the most deleterious aspects of the new metropolis. Congregation Ezra-Habonim is located in a Jewish enclave that emerged for religious as much as racial reasons. The three area congregations in this chapter fall along the entire urban impact continuum from weak to strong.
William Howland Kenney
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195092608
- eISBN:
- 9780199853168
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195092608.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This book offers a wide-ranging look at jazz in the Windy City, revealing how Chicago became the major centre for jazz in the 1920s, one of the most vital periods in the history of the music. It ...
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This book offers a wide-ranging look at jazz in the Windy City, revealing how Chicago became the major centre for jazz in the 1920s, one of the most vital periods in the history of the music. It describes how the migration of blacks from the South to Chicago before and after World War I set the stage for the development of jazz in Chicago, and how nightclubs and cabarets became the social setting for aficionados and musicians, black and white. In an examination of such well known greats as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, the book sheds new light on the musical and cultural context in which jazz developed. And it travels beyond the South Side of Chicago to examine the evolution of white jazz and the influence of the South Side school on young players. Drawing on the personal recollections of many who experienced the influence of the Jazz Age, as well as historical texts, the book presents a new interpretation of Chicago jazz that shows the influence of race, culture, and politics on its development.Less
This book offers a wide-ranging look at jazz in the Windy City, revealing how Chicago became the major centre for jazz in the 1920s, one of the most vital periods in the history of the music. It describes how the migration of blacks from the South to Chicago before and after World War I set the stage for the development of jazz in Chicago, and how nightclubs and cabarets became the social setting for aficionados and musicians, black and white. In an examination of such well known greats as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, the book sheds new light on the musical and cultural context in which jazz developed. And it travels beyond the South Side of Chicago to examine the evolution of white jazz and the influence of the South Side school on young players. Drawing on the personal recollections of many who experienced the influence of the Jazz Age, as well as historical texts, the book presents a new interpretation of Chicago jazz that shows the influence of race, culture, and politics on its development.
Elizabeth Schlabach
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter talks about how Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps the two most famous literary figures of the Black Chicago Renaissance, shared a common struggle to discern a new black ...
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This chapter talks about how Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps the two most famous literary figures of the Black Chicago Renaissance, shared a common struggle to discern a new black consciousness in the physical and metaphoric spaces of Chicago's South Side streets. The chapter analyzes the photographic 12 Million Black Voices of Wright and Edwin Rosskam, as well as Wright's last novel, The Outsider, to show how he depicted the confining realities of the kitchenette apartment along with the segregated, overcrowded city pavement of black neighborhoods. It compares Wright's attempt to define and defy these urban realities to poet Gwendolyn Brooks' Street in Bronzeville and Maud Martha that similarly elucidated the intense material deprivation of African Americans.Less
This chapter talks about how Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps the two most famous literary figures of the Black Chicago Renaissance, shared a common struggle to discern a new black consciousness in the physical and metaphoric spaces of Chicago's South Side streets. The chapter analyzes the photographic 12 Million Black Voices of Wright and Edwin Rosskam, as well as Wright's last novel, The Outsider, to show how he depicted the confining realities of the kitchenette apartment along with the segregated, overcrowded city pavement of black neighborhoods. It compares Wright's attempt to define and defy these urban realities to poet Gwendolyn Brooks' Street in Bronzeville and Maud Martha that similarly elucidated the intense material deprivation of African Americans.
Arna Bontemps
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037696
- eISBN:
- 9780252094958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037696.003.0019
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter discusses the rent strikes staged by Illinois Negroes with the help of Unemployed Councils in the early years of the Great Depression to resist evictions from the Chicago South Side. ...
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This chapter discusses the rent strikes staged by Illinois Negroes with the help of Unemployed Councils in the early years of the Great Depression to resist evictions from the Chicago South Side. Chicago suffered during the depression which began in 1929, and the ill effects of the crisis were graphically reflected in the housing situation. Finding rents hard to collect, many owners agreed to condemnation and demolition of rundown houses as the cheapest way out. This chapter examines the alliance between militant Negroes and neighborhood Unemployed Councils in 1930 to fight Negro evictions from the South Side, culminating in riots on August 3, 1931. It also considers a few bright spots with regards to the Negro housing picture in Illinois, citing the high rate of home ownership among Negroes in Chicago; the provisions made in the State Housing Act in 1933 for the creation of the Illinois State Housing Board; and the completion of the Ida B. Wells Homes, a project built expressly for the colored citizens of Chicago, in 1941.Less
This chapter discusses the rent strikes staged by Illinois Negroes with the help of Unemployed Councils in the early years of the Great Depression to resist evictions from the Chicago South Side. Chicago suffered during the depression which began in 1929, and the ill effects of the crisis were graphically reflected in the housing situation. Finding rents hard to collect, many owners agreed to condemnation and demolition of rundown houses as the cheapest way out. This chapter examines the alliance between militant Negroes and neighborhood Unemployed Councils in 1930 to fight Negro evictions from the South Side, culminating in riots on August 3, 1931. It also considers a few bright spots with regards to the Negro housing picture in Illinois, citing the high rate of home ownership among Negroes in Chicago; the provisions made in the State Housing Act in 1933 for the creation of the Illinois State Housing Board; and the completion of the Ida B. Wells Homes, a project built expressly for the colored citizens of Chicago, in 1941.
David T. Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037023
- eISBN:
- 9780252094392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037023.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter situates the black intellectual Horace Cayton into the vibrant community of Chicago's South Side during the Depression and World War II era. It details the research projects undertaken ...
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This chapter situates the black intellectual Horace Cayton into the vibrant community of Chicago's South Side during the Depression and World War II era. It details the research projects undertaken by Cayton in Chicago, including his labor scholarship and journalism, Cayton-Warner and WPA projects, and ultimately his crowning achievement: the coauthored 1945 Black Metropolis. In charting this flurry of activity, the chapter shows how Cayton never felt satisfied with his position in the black elite and the Chicago School of Sociology. To broaden his activities among working people and artists, Cayton managed the Parkway Community House that he fashioned into a central hub for the black arts movement. The programs, protest meetings, and cultural events at the Parkway House reflected the personality of Cayton, who crossed boundaries of class, race, and respectability.Less
This chapter situates the black intellectual Horace Cayton into the vibrant community of Chicago's South Side during the Depression and World War II era. It details the research projects undertaken by Cayton in Chicago, including his labor scholarship and journalism, Cayton-Warner and WPA projects, and ultimately his crowning achievement: the coauthored 1945 Black Metropolis. In charting this flurry of activity, the chapter shows how Cayton never felt satisfied with his position in the black elite and the Chicago School of Sociology. To broaden his activities among working people and artists, Cayton managed the Parkway Community House that he fashioned into a central hub for the black arts movement. The programs, protest meetings, and cultural events at the Parkway House reflected the personality of Cayton, who crossed boundaries of class, race, and respectability.
Charles Lester
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677382
- eISBN:
- 9781452947877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677382.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the development of jazz within the context of the Great Migration and the New Negro aesthetic by focusing on the political activism of black musicians in New Orleans and ...
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This chapter examines the development of jazz within the context of the Great Migration and the New Negro aesthetic by focusing on the political activism of black musicians in New Orleans and Chicago. Between 1915 and 1930, more than one million African Americans left the South for the urban North, an exodus that came to be known as the Great Migration. The net effect of this Great Migration was an explosion of African American culture and entrepreneurship concentrated in places like Chicago’s South Side and Harlem. The cabarets and theaters of Chicago’s black entertainment district, known as “the Stroll,” acted as incubators that nurtured jazz from its infancy to adolescence. Here the music matured into a distinct Chicago style that blended southern and northern influences, cultures, and personalities to create a national—and uniquely American—musical art form. This chapter shows that black musicians actively sought to “make the American dream work” through efforts ranging from fish fries and lawn parties to organizing efforts such as forming benevolent societies in New Orleans or unionization in Chicago.Less
This chapter examines the development of jazz within the context of the Great Migration and the New Negro aesthetic by focusing on the political activism of black musicians in New Orleans and Chicago. Between 1915 and 1930, more than one million African Americans left the South for the urban North, an exodus that came to be known as the Great Migration. The net effect of this Great Migration was an explosion of African American culture and entrepreneurship concentrated in places like Chicago’s South Side and Harlem. The cabarets and theaters of Chicago’s black entertainment district, known as “the Stroll,” acted as incubators that nurtured jazz from its infancy to adolescence. Here the music matured into a distinct Chicago style that blended southern and northern influences, cultures, and personalities to create a national—and uniquely American—musical art form. This chapter shows that black musicians actively sought to “make the American dream work” through efforts ranging from fish fries and lawn parties to organizing efforts such as forming benevolent societies in New Orleans or unionization in Chicago.
Edward O. Laumann, Stephen Ellingson, Jenna Mahay, Anthony Paik, and Yoosik Youm (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226470313
- eISBN:
- 9780226470337
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226470337.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
We think of the city as a place where anything goes. Take the sensational fantasies and lurid antics of single women on Sex and the City or young men on Queer as Folk, and you might imagine the city ...
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We think of the city as a place where anything goes. Take the sensational fantasies and lurid antics of single women on Sex and the City or young men on Queer as Folk, and you might imagine the city as some kind of sexual playground—a place where you can have any kind of sex you want, with whomever you like, anytime or anywhere you choose. But this book argues that this idea is a myth. Drawing on extensive surveys and interviews with Chicago adults, it shows that the city is—to the contrary—a place where sexual choices and options are constrained. From Wicker Park and Boys Town to the South Side and Pilsen, they observe that sexual behavior and partnering are significantly limited by such factors as which neighborhood you live in, your ethnicity, what your sexual preference might be, or the circle of friends to which you belong. In other words, the social and institutional networks that city dwellers occupy potentially limit their sexual options by making different types of sexual activities, relationships, or meeting places less accessible. To explain this idea of sex in the city, the book develops a theory of sexual marketplaces—the places where people look for sexual partners. It then uses this theory to consider a variety of questions about sexuality. Shedding new light on the city of Chicago, this work recasts our ideas about human sexual behavior.Less
We think of the city as a place where anything goes. Take the sensational fantasies and lurid antics of single women on Sex and the City or young men on Queer as Folk, and you might imagine the city as some kind of sexual playground—a place where you can have any kind of sex you want, with whomever you like, anytime or anywhere you choose. But this book argues that this idea is a myth. Drawing on extensive surveys and interviews with Chicago adults, it shows that the city is—to the contrary—a place where sexual choices and options are constrained. From Wicker Park and Boys Town to the South Side and Pilsen, they observe that sexual behavior and partnering are significantly limited by such factors as which neighborhood you live in, your ethnicity, what your sexual preference might be, or the circle of friends to which you belong. In other words, the social and institutional networks that city dwellers occupy potentially limit their sexual options by making different types of sexual activities, relationships, or meeting places less accessible. To explain this idea of sex in the city, the book develops a theory of sexual marketplaces—the places where people look for sexual partners. It then uses this theory to consider a variety of questions about sexuality. Shedding new light on the city of Chicago, this work recasts our ideas about human sexual behavior.
Steven Suskin
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195314076
- eISBN:
- 9780199852734
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314076.003.0017
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter examines the work of Jule Styne. It begins with an extended commentary of his career, but also gives data and song information. Styne was born in the slums of London, son of a ...
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This chapter examines the work of Jule Styne. It begins with an extended commentary of his career, but also gives data and song information. Styne was born in the slums of London, son of a butter-and-egg man (and sometime wrestler). The family moved to Chicago in 1912, where Styne had a short career as a piano prodigy; a drill-press accident desensitized a finger, and the preteen switched from the concert hall to the burlesque pit. By the mid-1920s Styne was leading his own band on the South Side of Chicago and writing occasional songs as well, including the 1926 pop hit Sunday (words and music by Ned Miller, Chester Cohn, Jules Stein—the composer’s real name—and Bennie Kruger).Less
This chapter examines the work of Jule Styne. It begins with an extended commentary of his career, but also gives data and song information. Styne was born in the slums of London, son of a butter-and-egg man (and sometime wrestler). The family moved to Chicago in 1912, where Styne had a short career as a piano prodigy; a drill-press accident desensitized a finger, and the preteen switched from the concert hall to the burlesque pit. By the mid-1920s Styne was leading his own band on the South Side of Chicago and writing occasional songs as well, including the 1926 pop hit Sunday (words and music by Ned Miller, Chester Cohn, Jules Stein—the composer’s real name—and Bennie Kruger).
Robert E. Weems and Jason P. Chambers (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041426
- eISBN:
- 9780252050022
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041426.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book examines the entrepreneurial experiences of and contributions by African American entrepreneurs in Chicago. Through a careful examination of black business activity in areas such as ...
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This book examines the entrepreneurial experiences of and contributions by African American entrepreneurs in Chicago. Through a careful examination of black business activity in areas such as finance, media, and the underground economy known as “Policy,” this work illuminates the manner in which blacks in Chicago built a network of competing and cooperative enterprises and a culture of entrepreneurship unique to the city. This network lay at the center of black business development in Chicago as it allowed blacks there greater opportunity to fund and build businesses reliant on other blacks rather than those whose interests lay outside the black community. Further, it examines how blacks’ business enterprises challenged and changed the economic and political culture of the city to help fashion black communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.
For much of the 20th century, Chicago was considered the single best demonstration of blacks’ entrepreneurial potential. From the time the city was founded by black entrepreneur Jean Baptiste DuSable and throughout the 20th century, business enterprises have been part black community life. From DuSable through black business titans like John H. Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, and Anthony Overton black entrepreneurs called the city home and built their empires there. How they did so and the impact of their success (and failure) is a key theme within this book. Additionally, this work analyzes how blacks in Chicago built their enterprises at the same time grappling with the major cultural, political, and economic shifts in America in the 19th and 20th century.Less
This book examines the entrepreneurial experiences of and contributions by African American entrepreneurs in Chicago. Through a careful examination of black business activity in areas such as finance, media, and the underground economy known as “Policy,” this work illuminates the manner in which blacks in Chicago built a network of competing and cooperative enterprises and a culture of entrepreneurship unique to the city. This network lay at the center of black business development in Chicago as it allowed blacks there greater opportunity to fund and build businesses reliant on other blacks rather than those whose interests lay outside the black community. Further, it examines how blacks’ business enterprises challenged and changed the economic and political culture of the city to help fashion black communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.
For much of the 20th century, Chicago was considered the single best demonstration of blacks’ entrepreneurial potential. From the time the city was founded by black entrepreneur Jean Baptiste DuSable and throughout the 20th century, business enterprises have been part black community life. From DuSable through black business titans like John H. Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, and Anthony Overton black entrepreneurs called the city home and built their empires there. How they did so and the impact of their success (and failure) is a key theme within this book. Additionally, this work analyzes how blacks in Chicago built their enterprises at the same time grappling with the major cultural, political, and economic shifts in America in the 19th and 20th century.
