Report to the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Chicago (Classic Reprint)


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Excerpt from Report to the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Chicago You, Of course, are advised of the somewhat unsettled condition of the ownership of the lake frontage caused by extensive filling in from time to time of the submerged lands. Large areas of these submerged lands have been filled in and are now in process of being filled in and are taken possession of by private parties without authority of law, as the writer believes, and day by day, week by week, and month by month, these aggressive private interests advance further and further into and over the waters of the lake, appropri ating to their own uses the common heritage Of the people, the most valuable, attractive and artistic lake water frontage ever possessed by a free city. Between Grant Park and Twenty-second Street, between Forty-seventh Street and Fifty-first Street and between Fifty-third Street and Jackson Park this process of the extension of private dominion over the natural recreation beaches and playgrounds of the city goes steadily, rapidly and persistently for ward. These aggressive private interests never slumber; their paid agents and attorneys are ever on the alert to extend their jurisdiction lakeward, while in the meantime the public, inactive and slothful, its representatives ever chang ing by the change in political administration, sleeps on its rights and the peo ple's heritage pays the penalty. In connection with the work of the Special Committee on Bathing Beaches and Amusement Piers, the writer's attention was first directed to this subject, and as a member of such committee, and with the consent and approval of the chairman thereof, the writer, with a view of bringing some order, if pos sible, out of the general chaos that seemed to pertain relative to the lake front. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.




The United States Catalog


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Annual Report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States


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Excerpt from Annual Report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States: For the Fiscal Year, 1915 As previously stated, detailed mention is made of the several activities of the field stations and laboratories under separate appro prieto heads. Many activities of the Hygienic Laboratory also are thus given special mention, the facilities of this station having been freely made use of in the development of the field investigations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.







Soldier Field


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Sports fans nationwide know Soldier Field as the home of the Chicago Bears. For decades its signature columns provided an iconic backdrop for gridiron matches. But few realize that the stadium has been much more than that. Soldier Field: A Stadium and Its City explores how this amphitheater evolved from a public war memorial into a majestic arena that helped define Chicago. Chicago Tribune staff writer Liam Ford led the reporting on the stadium’s controversial 2003 renovation—and simultaneously found himself unearthing a dramatic history. As he tells it, the tale of Soldier Field truly is the story of Chicago, filled with political intrigue and civic pride. Designed by Holabird and Roche, Soldier Field arose through a serendipitous combination of local tax dollars, City Beautiful boosterism, and the machinations of Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson. The result was a stadium that stood at the center of Chicago’s political, cultural, and sporting life for nearly sixty years before the arrival of Walter Payton and William “The Refrigerator” Perry. Ford describes it all in the voice of a seasoned reporter: the high school football games, track and field contests, rodeos, and even NASCAR races. Photographs, including many from the Chicago Park District’s own collections, capture these remarkable scenes: the swelling crowds at ethnic festivals, Catholic masses, and political rallies. Few remember that Soldier Field hosted Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr., Judy Garland and Johnny Cash—as well as Grateful Dead’s final show. Soldier Field captures the dramatic history of Chicago’s stadium on the lake and will captivate sports fans and historians alike.










Smell Detectives


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What did nineteenth-century cities smell like? And how did odors matter in the formation of a modern environmental consciousness? Smell Detectives follows the nineteenth-century Americans who used their noses to make sense of the sanitary challenges caused by rapid urban and industrial growth. Melanie Kiechle examines nuisance complaints, medical writings, domestic advice, and myriad discussions of what constituted fresh air, and argues that nineteenth-century city dwellers, anxious about the air they breathed, attempted to create healthier cities by detecting and then mitigating the most menacing odors. Medical theories in the nineteenth century assumed that foul odors caused disease and that overcrowded cities—filled with new and stronger stinks—were synonymous with disease and danger. But the sources of offending odors proved difficult to pinpoint. The creation of city health boards introduced new conflicts between complaining citizens and the officials in charge of the air. Smell Detectives looks at the relationship between the construction of scientific expertise, on the one hand, and “common sense”—the olfactory experiences of common people—on the other. Although the rise of germ theory revolutionized medical knowledge and ultimately undid this form of sensory knowing, Smell Detectives recovers how city residents used their sense of smell and their health concerns about foul odors to understand, adjust to, and fight against urban environmental changes.




Corrupt Illinois


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Public funds spent on jets and horses. Shoeboxes stuffed with embezzled cash. Ghost payrolls and incarcerated ex-governors. Illinois' culture of "Where's mine?" and the public apathy it engenders has made our state and local politics a disgrace. In Corrupt Illinois, veteran political observers Thomas J. Gradel and Dick Simpson take aim at business-as-usual. Naming names, the authors lead readers through a gallery of rogues and rotten apples to illustrate how generations of chicanery have undermined faith in, and hope for, honest government. From there, they lay out how to implement institutional reforms that provide accountability and eradicate the favoritism, sweetheart deals, and conflicts of interest corroding our civic life. Corrupt Illinois lays out a blueprint to transform our politics from a pay-to-play–driven marketplace into what it should be: an instrument of public good.