Jane Addams vintage original photo Hull House Woman Suffrage Votes for Women

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176278959939 Jane Addams vintage original photo Hull House Woman Suffrage Votes for Women. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL 6 1/2 X 8 1/2 INCH PHOTO FROM 1927 FEATURING JANE ADDAMS Laura Jane Addams was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, philosopher, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage in the United States.



Laura Jane Addams[1] (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker,[2][3] sociologist,[4] public administrator,[5][6] philosopher,[7][8] and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage in the United States.[9] Addams co-founded Chicago's Hull House, one of America's most famous settlement houses, providing extensive social services to poor, largely immigrant families. In 1910, Addams was awarded an honorary master of arts degree from Yale University, becoming the first woman to receive an honorary degree from the school.[10] In 1920, she was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).[11] An advocate for world peace, and recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States, in 1931 Addams became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[12] She was a radical pragmatist and arguably the first woman "public philosopher" in the United States.[13] In the Progressive Era, when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent reformers.[14] She helped America address and focus on issues that were of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, local public health, and world peace. In her essay "Utilization of Women in City Government", Addams noted the connection between the workings of government and the household, stating that many departments of government, such as sanitation and the schooling of children, could be traced back to traditional women's roles in the private sphere.[15] When Addams died in 1935, she was the best-known female public figure in the United States.[16] Early life Jane Addams as a young woman, undated studio portrait by Cox, Chicago Birthplace of Jane Addams in Cedarville, Illinois. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), in the public domain. Born in Cedarville, Illinois,[17] Jane Addams was the youngest of eight children born into a prosperous northern Illinois family of English-American descent which traced back to colonial Pennsylvania.[18]In 1863, when Addams was two years old, her mother, Sarah Addams (née Weber), died while pregnant with her ninth child. Thereafter Addams was cared for mostly by her older sisters. By the time Addams was eight, four of her siblings had died: three in infancy and one was at age 16.[19] [18][20][21] Addams spent her childhood playing outdoors, reading indoors, and attending Sunday school. When she was four she contracted tuberculosis of the spine, known as Potts's disease, which caused a curvature in her spine and lifelong health problems. This made it complicated as a child to function with the other children, considering she had a limp and could not run as well.[22] As a child, she thought she was ugly and later remembered wanting not to embarrass her father, when he was dressed in his Sunday best, by walking down the street with him.[23] Jane Addams adored her father, John H. Addams, when she was a child, as she made clear in the stories in her memoir, Twenty Years at Hull House (1910).[24] He was a founding member of the Illinois Republican Party, served as an Illinois State Senator (1855–70), and supported his friend Abraham Lincoln in his candidacies for senator (1854) and the presidency (1860). He kept a letter from Lincoln in his desk, and Addams loved to look at it as a child.[25] Her father was an agricultural businessman with large timber, cattle, and agricultural holdings; flour and timber mills and a wool factory. He was the president of The Second National Bank of Freeport. He remarried in 1868 when Addams was eight years old. His second wife was Anna Hosteler Haldeman, the widow of a miller in Freeport.[24] During her childhood, Addams had big dreams of doing something useful in the world. As a voracious reader, she became interested in the poor from her reading of Charles Dickens. Inspired by his works and by her own mother's kindness to the Cedarville poor, Addams decided to become a doctor so that she could live and work among the poor. Addams's father encouraged her to pursue higher education but close to home. She was eager to attend the new college for women, Smith College in Massachusetts; but her father required her to attend nearby Rockford Female Seminary (now Rockford University), in Rockford, Illinois.[17] Her experience as Rockford put her in a first wave of U.S. women to receive a college education. She excelled in this all women environment. She edited the college newspaper, was the valedictorian, participated in the debate club and led the class of 1881. Addams recognized that she and others who were engaged in post secondary education would have new opportunities and challenges. She expressed this in Bread Givers (1880), a speech she gave her junior year. [26] She noted the "change which has taken place ... in the ambition and aspirations of women."[27] In the process of developing their intellect and direct labor, something new was emerging. Educated women of her generation wished "not to be a man nor like a man" but claim "the same right to independent thought and action." Each young woman was gaining "a new confidence in her possibilities, and a fresher hope in her progress".[28] At 20, Addams recognized a changing cultural environment and was learning the skills at Rockford to lead the future settlement movement. [29] Whilst at Rockford, her readings of Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Leo Tolstoy and others became significant influences.[30] After graduating from Rockford in 1881,[17] with a collegiate certificate and membership in Phi Beta Kappa, she still hoped to attend Smith to earn a proper B.A. That summer, her father died unexpectedly from a sudden case of appendicitis. Each child inherited roughly $50,000 (equivalent to $1.52 million in 2016). That fall, Addams, her sister Alice, Alice's husband Harry, and their stepmother, Anna Haldeman Addams, moved to Philadelphia so that the three young people could pursue medical educations. Harry was already trained in medicine and did further studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Jane and Alice completed their first year of medical school at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania,[17] but Jane's health problems, a spinal operation[17] and a nervous breakdown prevented her from completing the degree. She was filled with sadness at her failure. Her stepmother Anna was also ill, so the entire family canceled their plans to stay two years and returned to Cedarville.[31] The following fall, her brother-in-law Harry performed surgery on her back, to straighten it. He then advised that she not pursue studies but, instead, travel. In August 1883, she set off for a two-year tour of Europe with her stepmother, traveling some of the time with friends and family who joined them. Addams decided that she did not have to become a doctor to be able to help the poor.[32] Upon her return home in June 1887, she lived with her stepmother in Cedarville and spent winters with her in Baltimore. Addams, still filled with vague ambition, sank into depression, unsure of her future and feeling useless leading the conventional life expected of a well-to-do young woman. She wrote long letters to her friend from Rockford Seminary, Ellen Gates Starr, mostly about Christianity and books but sometimes about her despair.[33] Her nephew was James Weber Linn (1876–1939) who taught English at the University of Chicago and served in the Illinois General Assembly. Linn also wrote books and newspaper articles.[34] Settlement house Meanwhile, Addams gathered inspiration from what she read. Fascinated by the early Christians and Tolstoy's book My Religion, she was baptized a Christian in the Cedarville Presbyterian Church in the summer of 1886.[35] Reading Giuseppe Mazzini's Duties of Man, she began to be inspired by the idea of democracy as a social ideal. Yet she felt confused about her role as a woman. John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women made her question the social pressures on a woman to marry and devote her life to family.[36] In the summer of 1887, Addams read in a magazine about the new idea of starting a settlement house. She decided to visit the world's first, Toynbee Hall, in London. She and several friends, including Ellen Gates Starr, traveled in Europe from December 1887 through the summer of 1888. After watching a bullfight in Madrid, fascinated by what she saw as an exotic tradition, Addams condemned this fascination and her inability to feel outraged at the suffering of the horses and bulls. At first, Addams told no one about her dream to start a settlement house; but, she felt increasingly guilty for not acting on her dream.[37] Believing that sharing her dream might help her to act on it, she told Ellen Gates Starr. Starr loved the idea and agreed to join Addams in starting a settlement house.[38] Addams and another friend traveled to London without Starr, who was busy.[39] Visiting Toynbee Hall, Addams was enchanted. She described it as "a community of University men who live there, have their recreation clubs and society all among the poor people, yet, in the same style in which they would live in their own circle. It is so free of 'professional doing good,' so unaffectedly sincere and so productive of good results in its classes and libraries seems perfectly ideal." Addams's dream of the classes mingling socially to mutual benefit, as they had in early Christian circles seemed embodied in the new type of institution.[40] The settlement house as Addams discovered was a space within which unexpected cultural connections could be made and where the narrow boundaries of culture, class, and education could be expanded. They doubled as community arts centers and social service facilities. They laid the foundations for American civil society, a neutral space within which different communities and ideologies could learn from each other and seek common grounds for collective action. The role of the settlement house was an "unending effort to make culture and 'the issue of things' go together." The unending effort was the story of her own life, a struggle to reinvigorate her own culture by reconnecting with diversity and conflict of the immigrant communities in America's cities and with the necessities of social reform.[41] Hull House Main article: Hull House Main entrance to Hull House. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p.128 A Doorway in Hull House Court. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p.149 Jane Addams, 1915 In 1889[42] Addams and her college friend and paramour Ellen Gates Starr[43] co-founded Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago. The run-down mansion had been built by Charles Hull in 1856 and needed repairs and upgrading. Addams at first paid for all of the capital expenses (repairing the roof of the porch, repainting the rooms, buying furniture) and most of the operating costs. However gifts from individuals supported the House beginning in its first year and Addams was able to reduce the proportion of her contributions, although the annual budget grew rapidly. A number of wealthy women became important long-term donors to the House, including Helen Culver, who managed her first cousin Charles Hull's estate, and who eventually allowed the contributors to use the house rent-free. Other contributors were Louise DeKoven Bowen, Mary Rozet Smith, Mary Wilmarth, and others.[44][45] Addams and Starr were the first two occupants of the house, which would later become the residence of about 25 women. At its height,[46] Hull House was visited each week by some 2,000 people. Hull House was a center for research, empirical analysis, study, and debate, as well as a pragmatic center for living in and establishing good relations with the neighborhood. Among the aims of Hull House was to give privileged, educated young people contact with the real life of the majority of the population.[16] Residents of Hull House conducted investigations on housing, midwifery, fatigue, tuberculosis, typhoid, garbage collection, cocaine, and truancy. The core Hull House residents were well-educated women bound together by their commitment to labour unions, the National Consumers League and the suffrage movement.[16] Dr. Harriett Alleyne Rice joined Hull House to provide medical treatment for poor families.[47] Its facilities included a night school for adults, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, a gym, a girls' club, a bathhouse, a book bindery, a music school, a drama group and a theater, apartments, a library, meeting rooms for discussion, clubs, an employment bureau, and a lunchroom.[48] Her adult night school was a forerunner of the continuing education classes offered by many universities today. In addition to making available social services and cultural events for the largely immigrant population of the neighborhood, Hull House afforded an opportunity for young social workers to acquire training. Eventually, Hull House became a 13-building settlement complex, which included a playground and a summer camp (known as Bowen Country Club). One aspect of the Hull House that was very important to Jane Addams was the Art Program. The art program at Hull House allowed Addams to challenge the system of industrialized education, which "fitted" the individual to a specific job or position. She wanted the house to provide a space, time and tools to encourage people to think independently. She saw art as the key to unlocking the diversity of the city through collective interaction, mutual self-discovery, recreation and the imagination. Art was integral to her vision of community, disrupting fixed ideas and stimulating the diversity and interaction on which a healthy society depends, based on a continual rewriting of cultural identities through variation and interculturalism.[48] With funding from Edward Butler, Addams opened an art exhibition and studio space as one of the first additions to Hull House. On the first floor of the new addition there was a branch of the Chicago Public Library, and the second was the Butler Art Gallery, which featured recreations of famous artwork as well as the work of local artists. Studio space within the art gallery provided both Hull House residents and the entire community with the opportunity to take art classes or to come in and hone their craft whenever they liked. As Hull House grew, and the relationship with the neighborhood deepened, that opportunity became less of a comfort to the poor and more of an outlet of expression and exchange of different cultures and diverse communities. Art and culture was becoming a bigger and more important part of the lives of immigrants within the 19th ward, and soon children caught on to the trend. These working-class children were offered instruction in all forms and levels of art. Places such as the Butler Art Gallery or the Bowen Country Club often hosted these classes, but more informal lessons would often be taught outdoors. Addams, with the help of Ellen Gates Starr, founded the Chicago Public School Art Society (CPSAS) in response to the positive reaction the art classes for children caused. The CPSAS provided public schools with reproductions of world-renowned pieces of art, hired artists to teach children how to create art, and also took the students on field trips to Chicago's many art museums.[49] Near west side neighborhood Polk street opposite Hull House. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p.95 South Halsted street opposite Hull House. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House. (1910), p. 96 The Hull House neighborhood was a mix of European ethnic groups that had immigrated to Chicago around the start of the 20th century. That mix was the ground where Hull House's inner social and philanthropic elitists tested their theories and challenged the establishment. The ethnic mix is recorded by the Bethlehem-Howard Neighborhood Center: "Germans and Jews resided south of that inner core (south of Twelfth Street) ... The Greek delta formed by Harrison, Halsted Street, and Blue Island Streets served as a buffer to the Irish residing to the north and the French Canadians to the northwest."[50] Italians resided within the inner core of the Hull House Neighborhood ... from the river on the east end, on out to the western ends of what came to be known as Little Italy.[51] Greeks and Jews, along with the remnants of other immigrant groups, began their exodus from the neighborhood in the early 20th century. Only Italians continued as an intact and thriving community through the Great Depression, World War II, and well beyond the ultimate demise of Hull House proper in 1963.[52] Hull House became America's best known settlement house. Addams used it to generate system-directed change, on the principle that to keep families safe, community and societal conditions had to be improved.[53] The neighborhood was controlled by local political bosses. Ethics Starr and Addams developed three "ethical principles" for social settlements: "to teach by example, to practice cooperation, and to practice social democracy, that is, egalitarian, or democratic, social relations across class lines."[54] Thus Hull House offered a comprehensive program of civic, cultural, recreational, and educational activities and attracted admiring visitors from all over the world, including William Lyon Mackenzie King, a graduate student from Harvard University who later became prime minister of Canada. In the 1890s Julia Lathrop, Florence Kelley, and other residents of the house made it a world center of social reform activity. Hull House used the latest methodology (pioneering in statistical mapping) to study overcrowding, truancy, typhoid fever, cocaine, children's reading, newsboys, infant mortality, and midwifery. Starting with efforts to improve the immediate neighborhood, the Hull House group became involved in city and statewide campaigns for better housing, improvements in public welfare, stricter child-labor laws, and protection of working women. Addams brought in prominent visitors from around the world and had close links with leading Chicago intellectuals and philanthropists. In 1912, she helped start the new Progressive Party and supported the presidential campaign of Theodore Roosevelt. "Addams' philosophy combined feminist sensibilities with an unwavering commitment to social improvement through cooperative efforts. Although she sympathized with feminists, socialists, and pacifists, Addams refused to be labeled. This refusal was pragmatic rather than ideological."[55] Emphasis on children In the Hull House Music School. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p. 383 In a Tenement House, Sick Mother and Children. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p. 164 Hull House stressed the importance of the role of children in the Americanization process of new immigrants. This philosophy also fostered the play movement and the research and service fields of leisure, youth, and human services. Addams argued in The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909) that play and recreation programs are needed because cities are destroying the spirit of youth. Hull House featured multiple programs in art and drama, kindergarten classes, boys' and girls' clubs, language classes, reading groups, college extension courses, along with public baths, a gymnasium, a labor museum and playground, all within a free-speech atmosphere. They were all designed to foster democratic cooperation, collective action and downplay individualism. She helped pass the first model tenement code and the first factory laws. Along with her colleagues from Hull House, in 1901 Jane Addams founded what would become the Juvenile Protective Association. JPA provided the first probation officers for the first Juvenile Court in the United States until this became a government function. From 1907 until the 1940s, JPA engaged in many studies examining such subjects as racism, child labor and exploitation, drug abuse and prostitution in Chicago and their effects on child development. Through the years, their mission has now become improving the social and emotional well being and functioning of vulnerable children so they can reach their fullest potential at home, in school, and in their communities.[56] Documenting social illnesses Addams and her colleagues documented the communal geography of typhoid fever and reported that poor workers were bearing the brunt of the illness. She identified the political corruption and business avarice that caused the city bureaucracy to ignore health, sanitation, and building codes. Linking environmental justice and municipal reform, she eventually defeated the bosses and fostered a more equitable distribution of city services and modernized inspection practices.[57] Addams spoke of the "undoubted powers of public recreation to bring together the classes of a community in the keeping them apart."[58] Addams worked with the Chicago Board of Health and served as the first vice-president of the Playground Association of America. Emphasis on prostitution In 1912, Addams published A New Conscience and Ancient Evil, about prostitution. This book was extremely popular. Addams believed that prostitution was a result of kidnapping only.[59] Her book later inspired Stella Wynne Herron's 1916 short story Shoes, which Lois Weber adapted into a groundbreaking 1916 film of the same name.[60] Feminine ideals Addams and her colleagues originally intended Hull House as a transmission device to bring the values of the college-educated high culture to the masses, including the Efficiency Movement, a major movement in industrial nations in the early 20th century that sought to identify and eliminate waste in the economy and society, and to develop and implement best practices.[61] However, over time, the focus changed from bringing art and culture to the neighborhood (as evidenced in the construction of the Butler Building) to responding to the needs of the community by providing childcare, educational opportunities, and large meeting spaces. Hull House became more than a proving ground for the new generation of college-educated, professional women: it also became part of the community in which it was founded, and its development reveals a shared history.[62] Addams called on women, especially middle class women with leisure time and energy as well as rich philanthropists, to exercise their civic duty to become involved in municipal affairs as a matter of "civic housekeeping". Addams thereby enlarged the concept of civic duty to include roles for women beyond motherhood (which involved child rearing). Women's lives revolved around "responsibility, care, and obligation", which represented the source of women's power.[63] This notion provided the foundation for the municipal or civil housekeeping role that Addams defined and gave added weight to the women's suffrage movement that Addams supported. Addams argued that women, as opposed to men, were trained in the delicate matters of human welfare and needed to build upon their traditional roles of housekeeping to be civic housekeepers. Enlarged housekeeping duties involved reform efforts regarding poisonous sewage, impure milk (which often carried tuberculosis), smoke-laden air, and unsafe factory conditions. Addams led the "garbage wars"; in 1894 she became the first woman appointed as sanitary inspector of Chicago's 19th Ward. With the help of the Hull House Women's Club, within a year over 1,000 health department violations were reported to city council and garbage collection reduced death and disease.[64] Addams had long discussions with philosopher John Dewey in which they redefined democracy in terms of pragmatism and civic activism, with an emphasis more on duty and less on rights.[65] The two leading perspectives that distinguished Addams and her coalition from the modernizers more concerned with efficiency were the need to extend to social and economic life the democratic structures and practices that had been limited to the political sphere, as in Addams's programmatic support of trade unions and second, their call for a new social ethic to supplant the individualist outlook as being no longer adequate in modern society.[66] Addams's construction of womanhood involved daughterhood, sexuality, wifehood, and motherhood. In both of her autobiographical volumes, Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) and The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House (1930), Addams's gender constructions parallel the Progressive-Era ideology she championed. In A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil (1912) she dissected the social pathology of sex slavery, prostitution and other sexual behaviors among working class women in American industrial centers from 1890–1910. Addams's autobiographical persona manifests her ideology and supports her popularized public activist persona as the "Mother of Social Work", in the sense that she represents herself as a celibate matron who served the suffering immigrant masses through Hull House, as if they were her own children. Although not a mother herself, Addams became the "mother to the nation", identified with motherhood in the sense of protective care of her people.[67] Teaching Jane Addams, 1906, by George de Forest Brush (1855–1941), National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Addams kept up her heavy schedule of public lectures around the country, especially at college campuses.[68] In addition, she offered college courses through the Extension Division of the University of Chicago.[69] She declined offers from the university to become directly affiliated with it, including an offer from Albion Small, chair of the Department of Sociology, of a graduate faculty position. She declined in order to maintain her independent role outside of academia. Her goal was to teach adults not enrolled in formal academic institutions, because of their poverty and/or lack of credentials. Furthermore, she wanted no university controls over her political activism.[70] Addams was appointed to serve on the Chicago Board of Education.[71] Addams was a charter member of the American Sociological Society, founded in 1905. She gave papers to it in 1912, 1915, and 1919. She was the most prominent woman member during her lifetime. Relationships Generally, Addams was close to a wide set of other women and was very good at eliciting their involvement from different classes in Hull House's programs. Nevertheless, throughout her life Addams did have romantic relationships with a few of these women, including Mary Rozet Smith and Ellen Starr. Her relationships offered her the time and energy to pursue her social work while being supported emotionally and romantically. From her exclusively romantic relationships with women, she would most likely be described as a lesbian in contemporary terms, similar to many leading figures in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom of the time.[72] Her first romantic partner was Ellen Starr, with whom she founded Hull House, who she met when both were students at Rockford Female Seminary. In 1889, the two visited Toynbee Hall together and started their settlement house project, purchasing a house in Chicago.[73] Her second romantic partner was Mary Rozet Smith, who was wealthy and supported Addams's work at Hull House, and with whom she shared a house.[74] Historian Lilian Faderman wrote that Jane was in love and she addressed Mary as "My Ever Dear", "Darling" and "Dearest One", and concluded that they shared the intimacy of a married couple. They remained together until 1934, when Mary died of pneumonia, after 40 years together.[75] It was said that, "Mary Smith became and always remained the highest and clearest note in the music that was Jane Addams' personal life".[76] Together they owned a summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine. When apart, they would write to each other at least once a day – sometimes twice. Addams would write to Smith, "I miss you dreadfully and am yours 'til death".[77] The letters also show that the women saw themselves as a married couple: "There is reason in the habit of married folks keeping together", Addams wrote to Smith.[78] Religion and religious motives Addams's religious beliefs were shaped by her wide reading and life experience.[79] She saw her settlement work as part of the "social Christian" movement.[80] Addams learned about social Christianity from the co-founders of Toynbee Hall, Samuel and Henrietta Barnett. The Barnetts held a great interest in converting others to Christianity, but they believed that Christians should be more engaged with the world and, in the words of one of the leaders of the social Christian movement in England, W. H. Fremantle, "imbue all human relations with the spirit of Christ's self-renouncing love". According to Christie and Gauvreau (2001), while the Christian settlement houses sought to Christianize, Jane Addams "had come to epitomize the force of secular humanism." Her image was, however, "reinvented" by the Christian churches.[81] According to Joslin (2004), "The new humanism, as [Addams] interprets it comes from a secular, and not a religious, pattern of belief".[82] According to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, "Some social settlements were linked to religious institutions. Others, like Hull-House [co-founded by Addams], were secular."[83] Hilda Satt Polacheck, a former resident of Hull House, stated that Addams firmly believed in religious freedom and bringing people of all faiths into the social, secular fold of Hull House. The one exception, she notes, was the annual Christmas Party, although Addams left the religious side to the church.[84] Politics Jane Addams [left] & Mary Rozet Smith, 1923 (Jane Addams Collection/Swarthmore College Peace Collection.) Peace movement Delegation to the Women's Suffrage Legislature Jane Addams (left) and Miss Elizabeth Burke of the University of Chicago, 1911 In 1898, Addams joined the Anti-Imperialist League, in opposition to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines. A staunch supporter of the Progressive Party, she nominated Theodore Roosevelt for the presidency during the Party Convention, held in Chicago in August 1912.[85] She signed up on the party platform, even though it called for building more battleships. She went on to speak and campaign extensively for Roosevelt's 1912 presidential campaign. In January 1915, she became involved in the Woman's Peace Party and was elected national chairman.[17][86] Addams was invited by European women peace activists to preside over the International Congress of Women in The Hague, April 28–30, 1915,[17] and was chosen to head the commission to find an end to the war. This included meeting ten leaders in neutral countries as well as those at war to discuss mediation. This was the first significant international effort against the war. Addams, along with co-delegates Emily Balch and Alice Hamilton, documented their experiences of this venture, published as a book, Women at The Hague (University of Illinois).[87] In her journal, Balch recorded her impression of Jane Addams (April 1915): Miss Addams shines, so respectful of everyone's views, so eager to understand and sympathize, so patient of anarchy and even ego, yet always there, strong, wise and in the lead. No 'managing', no keeping dark and bringing things subtly to pass, just a radiating wisdom and power of judgement.[86] Addams was elected president of the International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace, established to continue the work of the Hague Congress, at a conference in 1919 in Zurich, Switzerland. The International Committee developed into the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).[17][88] Addams continued as president, a position that entailed frequent travel to Europe and Asia. International Congress of Women in 1915. left to right:1. Lucy Thoumaian – Armenia, 2. Leopoldine Kulka, 3. Laura Hughes – Canada, 4. Rosika Schwimmer – Hungary, 5. Anita Augspurg – Germany, 6. Jane Addams – USA, 7. Eugenie Hanner, 8. Aletta Jacobs – Netherlands, 9. Chrystal Macmillan – UK, 10. Rosa Genoni – Italy, 11. Anna Kleman – Sweden, 12. Thora Daugaard – Denmark, 13. Louise Keilhau – Norway In 1917, she also became a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation USA (American branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation founded in 1919) and was a member of the Fellowship Council until 1933.[89] When the US joined the war in 1917, Addams started to be strongly criticized. She faced increasingly harsh rebukes and criticism as a pacifist. Her 1915 speech on pacifism at Carnegie Hall received negative coverage by newspapers such as The New York Times, which branded her as unpatriotic.[90][91] Later, during her travels, she spent time meeting with a wide variety of diplomats and civic leaders and reiterating her Victorian belief in women's special mission to preserve peace. Recognition of these efforts came with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Addams in 1931.[92] As the first U.S. woman to win the prize, Addams was applauded for her "expression of an essentially American democracy."[93] She donated her share of the prize money to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.[17] Pacifism Addams was a major synthesizing figure in the domestic and international peace movements, serving as both a figurehead and leading theoretician; she was influenced especially by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy and by the pragmatism of philosophers John Dewey and George Herbert Mead.[94] Her books, particularly Newer Ideals of Peace and Peace and Bread in Time of War, and her peace activism informed early feminist theories and perspectives on peace and war.[95]She envisioned democracy, social justice and peace as mutually reinforcing; they all had to advance together to achieve any one. Addams became an anti-war activist from 1899, as part of the anti-imperialist movement that followed the Spanish–American War. Her book Newer Ideals of Peace[96] (1907) reshaped the peace movement worldwide to include ideals of social justice. She recruited social justice reformers like Alice Hamilton, Lillian Wald, Florence Kelley, and Emily Greene Balch to join her in the new international women's peace movement after 1914. Addams's work came to fruition after World War I, when major institutional bodies began to link peace with social justice and probe the underlying causes of war and conflict.[97] In 1899 and 1907, world leaders sought peace by convening an innovative and influential peace conference at The Hague. These conferences produced Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. A 1914 conference was canceled due to World War I. The void was filled by an unofficial conference convened by Women at the Hague. At the time, both the US and The Netherlands were neutral. Jane Addams chaired this pathbreaking International Congress of Women at the Hague, which included almost 1,200 participants from 12 warring and neutral countries.[98] Their goal was to develop a framework to end the violence of war. Both national and international political systems excluded women's voices. The women delegates argued that the exclusion of women from policy discourse and decisions around war and peace resulted in flawed policy. The delegates adopted a series of resolutions addressing these problems and called for extending the franchise and women's meaningful inclusion in formal international peace processes at war's end.[99][100] Following the conference, Addams and a congressional delegation traveled throughout Europe meeting with leaders, citizen groups, and wounded soldiers from both sides. Her leadership during the conference and her travels to the capitals of the war-torn regions were cited in nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.[101] Addams was opposed to U.S. interventionism and expansionism and ultimately was against those who sought American dominance abroad.[102] In 1915, she gave a speech at Carnegie Hall and was booed offstage for opposing U.S. intervention into World War I.[103] Addams damned war as a cataclysm that undermined human kindness, solidarity, and civic friendship, and caused families across the world to struggle. In turn, her views were denounced by patriotic groups and newspapers during World War I (1917–18). Oswald Garrison Villard came to her defense when she suggested that armies gave liquor to soldiers just before major ground attacks. "Take the case of Jane Addams for one. With what abuse did not the [New York] Times cover her, one of the noblest of our women, because she told the simple truth that the Allied troops were often given liquor or drugs before charging across No Man's Land. Yet when the facts came out at the hands of Sir Philip Gibbs and others not one word of apology was ever forthcoming."[104] Even after the war, the WILPF's program of peace and disarmament was characterized by opponents as radical, Communist-influenced, unpatriotic, and unfeminine. Young veterans in the American Legion, supported by some members of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the League of Women Voters, were ill-prepared to confront the older, better-educated, more financially secure and nationally famous women of the WILPF. Nevertheless, the DAR could and did expel Addams from membership in their organization.[105] The Legion's efforts to portray the WILPF members as dangerously naive females resonated with working class audiences, but President Calvin Coolidge and the middle classes supported Addams and her WILPF efforts in the 1920s to prohibit poison gas and outlaw war. After 1920, however, she was widely regarded as the greatest woman of the Progressive Era.[106] In 1931, the award of the Nobel Peace prize earned her near-unanimous acclaim.[107] Jane Addams was also a philosopher of peace.[108][109][110] Peace theorists often distinguish between negative and positive peace.[111][112][113][114] Negative peace deals with the absence of violence or war. Positive peace is more complicated. It deals with the kind of society we aspire to, and can take into account concepts like justice, cooperation, the quality of relationships, freedom, order and harmony. Jane Addams's philosophy of peace is a type of positive peace. Patricia Shields and Joseph Soeters (2017) have summarized her ideas of peace using the term Peaceweaving.[115] They use weaving as a metaphor because it denotes connection. Fibers come together to form a cloth, which is both flexible and strong. Further, weaving is an activity in which men and women have historically engaged. Addams's peaceweaving is a process which builds "the fabric of peace by emphasizing relationships. Peaceweaving builds these relationships by working on practical problems, engaging people widely with sympathetic understanding while recognizing that progress is measured by the welfare of the vulnerable" [116] Eugenics Addams supported eugenics and was vice president of the American Social Hygiene Association, which advocated eugenics in an effort to improve the social 'hygiene' of American society.[117][118] She was a close friend of noted eugenicists David Starr Jordan and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and was an avid proponent of the ideas of G. Stanley Hall. Addams belief in eugenics was tied to her desire to eliminate what she perceived to be 'social ills': Certainly allied to this new understanding of child life and a part of the same movement is the new science of eugenics with its recently appointed university professors. Its organized societies publish an ever-increasing mass of information as to that which constitutes the inheritance of well-born children. When this new science makes clear to the public that those diseases which are a direct outcome of the social evil are clearly responsible for race deterioration, effective indignation may at last be aroused, both against preventable infant mortality for which these diseases are responsible, and against the ghastly fact that the survivors among these afflicted children infect their contemporaries and hand on the evil heritage to another generation. [119][120] Prohibition While "no record is available of any speech she ever made on behalf of the eighteenth amendment",[121] she nonetheless supported prohibition on the basis that alcohol "was of course a leading lure and a necessary element in houses of prostitution, both from a financial and a social standpoint." She repeated the claim that "professional houses of prostitution could not sustain themselves without the 'vehicle of alcohol.'"[122] Death Jane Addams Burial Site While Addams was often troubled by health problems in her youth and throughout her life, her health began to take a more serious decline after she suffered a heart attack in 1926.[123] She died on May 21, 1935, at the age of 74, in Chicago and is buried in her hometown of Cedarville, Illinois.[123] Legacy See also: History of social work Addams is honored in the 'Famous Americans Series', postal Issues of 1940 A wall-mounted quote by Jane Addams in The American Adventure (Epcot) in the World Showcase pavilion of Walt Disney World's Epcot Addams in 1914 Jane Addams is buried at Cedarville Cemetery, Cedarville, Illinois.[124] Hull House and the Peace Movement are widely recognized as the key tangible pillars of Addams's legacy. While her life focused on the development of individuals, her ideas continue to influence social, political and economic reform in the United States, as well as internationally. Addams and Starr's creation of the settlement house, Hull House, impacted the community, immigrant residents, and social work. Willard Motley, a resident artist of Hull House, extracting from Addams' central theory on symbolic interactionism, used the neighborhood and its people to write his 1948 best seller, Knock on Any Door.[125] His novel later became a well known court-room film in 1949. This book and film brought attention to how a resident lived an everyday life inside a settlement house and his relationship with Jane Addams. Addams's role as reformer enabled her to petition the establishment at and alter the social and physical geography of her Chicago neighborhood. Although contemporary academic sociologists defined her engagement as "social work", Addams's efforts differed significantly from activities typically labeled as "social work" during that time period. Before Addams's powerful influence on the profession, social work was largely informed by a "friendly visitor" model in which typically wealthy women of high public stature visited impoverished individuals and, through systematic assessment and intervention, aimed to improve the lives of the poor. Addams rejected the friendly visitor model in favor of a model of social reform/social theory-building, thereby introducing the now-central tenets of social justice and reform to the field of social work.[126] Addams worked with other reform groups toward goals including the first juvenile court law, tenement-house regulation, an eight-hour working day for women, factory inspection, and workers' compensation. She advocated research aimed at determining the causes of poverty and crime, and she supported women's suffrage. She was a strong advocate of justice for immigrants, African Americans, and minority groups by becoming a chartered member of the NAACP. Among the projects that the members of Hull House opened were the Immigrants' Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the United States, and a juvenile psychopathic clinic. Addams's influential writings and speeches, on behalf of the formation of the League of Nations and as a peace advocate, influenced the later shape of the United Nations. Jane Addams also sponsored the work of Neva Boyd, who founded the Recreational Training School at Hull House, a one-year educational program in group games, gymnastics, dancing, dramatic arts, play theory, and social problems. At Hull House, Neva Boyd ran movement and recreational groups for children, using games and improvisation to teach language skills, problem-solving, self-confidence and social skills. During the Great Depression, Boyd worked with the Recreational Project in the Works Progress Administration, (WPA) as The Chicago Training School for Playground Workers, which subsequently became the foundation for the Recreational Therapy and Educational Drama movements in the U.S. One of her best known disciples, Viola Spolin taught in the Recreational Theater Program at Hull House during the WPA era. Spolin went on to be a pioneer in the improvisational theater movement in the US and the inventor of Theater Games. The main legacy left by Jane Addams includes her involvement in the creation of the Hull House, impacting communities and the whole social structure, reaching out to colleges and universities in hopes of bettering the educational system, and passing on her knowledge to others through speeches and books. She paved the way for women by publishing several books and co-winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 with Starr. The Jane Addams Papers Project, originally housed at Smith College, was relocated to Ramapo College in 2015. This growing digital archive actively engages students and the world with the work and correspondence of Jane Addams.[127] The Addams neighborhood and elementary school in Long Beach, California are named for her. Sociology Steps to Hull House. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p. 447 Jane Addams was intimately involved with the founding of sociology as a field in the United States.[128][129][130][131] Hull House enabled Addams to befriend and become a colleague to early members of the Chicago School of Sociology. She actively contributed to the sociology academic literature, publishing five articles in the American Journal of Sociology between 1896 and 1914.[132][133][134][135][136] Her influence, through her work in applied sociology, impacted the thought and direction of the Chicago School of Sociology's members.[129] In 1893, she co-authored the compilation of essays written by Hull House residents and workers titled, Hull-House Maps and Papers. These ideas helped shape and define the interests and methodologies of the Chicago School. She worked with American philosopher George Herbert Mead and John Dewey[137] on social reform issues, including promoting women's rights, ending child labor, and mediating during the 1910 Garment Workers' Strike. This strike in particular bent thoughts of protests because it dealt with women workers, ethnicity, and working conditions. All of these subjects were key items that Addams wanted to see in society. Entrance to Hull House Courtyard. Source Addams: Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), p. 426 The University of Chicago Sociology department was established in 1892, three years after Hull House was established (1889). Members of Hull House welcomed the first group of professors, who soon were "intimately involved with Hull House" and assiduously engaged with applied social reform and philanthropy".[138] In 1893, for example, faculty (Vincent, Small and Bennis) worked with Jane Addams and fellow Hull House resident Florence Kelley to pass legislation "banning sweat shops and employment of children" [139] Albion Small, chair of the Chicago Department of Sociology and founder of the American Journal of Sociology, called for a sociology that was active "in the work of perfecting and applying plans and devices for social improvement and amelioration", which took place in the "vast sociological laboratory" that was 19th-century Chicago.[140] Although untenured, women residents of Hull House taught classes in the Chicago Sociology Department. During and after World War I, the focus of the Chicago Sociology Department shifted away from social activism toward a more positivist orientation. Social activism was also associated with Communism and a "weaker" woman's work orientation. In response to this change, women sociologists in the department "were moved inmasse out of sociology and into social work" in 1920.[141] The contributions of Jane Addams and other Hull House residents were buried in history.[142] Mary Jo Deegan, in her 1988 book Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892–1918 was the first person to recover Addams influence on Sociology.[143] Deegan's work has led to recognition of Addams's place in sociology. In a 2001 address, for example, Joe Feagin, then president of the American Sociology Association, identified Addams as a "key founder" and he called for sociology to again claim its activist roots and commitment to social justice.[144] Remembrances On December 10, 2007, Illinois celebrated the first annual Jane Addams Day.[145][146] Jane Addams Day was initiated by a dedicated school teacher from Dongola, Illinois, assisted by the Illinois Division of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).[147] Chicago activist Jan Lisa Huttner traveled throughout Illinois as Director of International Relations for AAUW-Illinois to help publicize the date, and later gave annual presentations about Jane Addams Day in costume as Jane Addams. In 2010, Huttner appeared as Jane Addams at a 150th Birthday Party sponsored by Rockford University (Jane Addams' alma mater), and in 2011, she appeared as Jane Addams at an event sponsored by the Chicago Park District.[148] There is a Jane Addams Memorial Park located near Navy Pier in Chicago. A six-piece sculptural grouping honoring Addams by Louise Bourgeois called "Helping Hands" was originally installed in 1993 at Addams Memorial Park. However, they were "relocated to Chicago Women's Park and Gardens" in 2011 after being vandalized.[149] The Jane Addams memorial sculpture was Chicago's first major artwork to honor an important woman.[150] In 2007, the state of Illinois renamed the Northwest Tollway as the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway.[151] Hull House buildings were mostly demolished for the establishment of the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1963, or relocated. The Hull residence itself and a related building are preserved as a museum and monument to Jane Addams.[152] The Jane Addams College of Social Work is a professional school at the University of Illinois at Chicago.[153] Jane Addams Business Careers Center is a high school in Cleveland, Ohio.[154] Jane Addams High School For Academic Careers is a high school in The Bronx, NY.[155] Jane Addams House is a residence hall built in 1936 at Connecticut College. In 1973, Jane Addams was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[156] In 2008 Jane Addams was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.[157] Addams was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2012.[158] Also, in 2012 she was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display which celebrates LGBT history and people.[159] In 2014, Jane Addams was one of the first 20 honorees awarded a 3-foot x 3-foot bronze plaque on San Francisco's Rainbow Honor Walk (www.rainbowhonorwalk.org) paying tribute to LGBT heroes and heroines.[160][161][162]In 2015, Addams was named by Equality Forum as one of their 31 Icons of the 2015 LGBT History Month.[163] Works by Jane Addams Books Democracy and Social Ethics, The Macmillan Company, 1902. Newer Ideals of Peace, The Macmillan Company, 1907. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets, University of Illinois Press, 1909. Twenty Years at Hull House, The Macmillan company, 1910. The Long Road of Woman's Memory, The Macmillan Company, 1916. Peace and Bread in Time of War, The Macmillan Company, 1922. A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, The Macmillan Company, 1923. The Second Twenty Years at Hull House, The Macmillan Company, 1930. The Excellent Becomes the Permanent, The Macmillan Company, 1932. My Friend Julia Lathrop, The Macmillan Company, 1935. See also Biography portal LGBT portal Jane Addams Burial Site Jane Addams School for Democracy Jane Addams Middle School Jane Addams Children's Book Award John H. Addams Homestead List of American philosophers List of female Nobel laureates List of peace activists List of suffragists and suffragettes List of women's rights activists John Dewey Florence Kelley Flora Dunlap Mary Treglia Elizabeth Harrison (educator) Community practice social work Stanton Street Settlement Progressive Party (United States, 1912) American philosophy International Fellowship of Reconciliation Addams (crater) Women's legal right to vote was established in the United States over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920 with the passing of the 19th Amendment. The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, passed a resolution in favor of women's suffrage despite opposition from some of its organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme.[2] By the time of the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, however, suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of the movement's activities. The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869 when two competing organizations were formed, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the other by Lucy Stone and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. After years of rivalry, they merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was the largest women's organization at that time, was established in 1873 and also pursued women's suffrage, giving a huge boost to the movement.[3][4] Hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that women had a constitutional right to vote, suffragists made several attempts to vote in the early 1870s and then filed lawsuits when they were turned away. Anthony actually succeeded in voting in 1872 but was arrested for that act and found guilty in a widely publicized trial that gave the movement fresh momentum. After the Supreme Court ruled against them in the 1875 case Minor v. Happersett, suffragists began the decades-long campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would enfranchise women. Much of the movement's energy, however, went toward working for suffrage on a state-by-state basis. These efforts included pursuing officeholding rights separately in an effort to bolster their argument in favor of voting rights.[2] The first state to grant women the right to vote had been Wyoming, in 1869, followed by Utah in 1870, Colorado in 1893, Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon and Arizona in 1912, Montana in 1914, North Dakota, New York, and Rhode Island in 1917, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Michigan in 1918.[5] In 1916 Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a group focused on the passage of a national suffrage amendment. Over 200 NWP supporters, the Silent Sentinels, were arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House, some of whom went on hunger strike and endured forced feeding after being sent to prison. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the two-million-member NAWSA also made a national suffrage amendment its top priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920.[6] It states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." National history For a chronological guide, see Timeline of women's suffrage in the United States. See also: Women's suffrage in states of the United States Early voting activity Lydia Taft (1712–1778), a wealthy widow, was allowed to vote in town meetings in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756.[7] No other women in the colonial era are known to have voted.[8] The New Jersey constitution of 1776 enfranchised all adult inhabitants who owned a specified amount of property. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as "he or she", and women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluded women from voting in that state.[9] Kentucky passed the first statewide woman suffrage law in the antebellum era (since New Jersey revoked their woman suffrage rights in 1807) in 1838 – allowing voting by any widow or feme sole (legally, the head of household) over 21 who resided in and owned property subject to taxation for the new county "common school" system.[10] This partial suffrage rights for women was not expressed as for whites only.[11] Emergence of the women's rights movement Margaret Fuller The demand for women's suffrage[12] emerged as part of the broader movement for women's rights. In the UK in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a pioneering book called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.[13] In Boston in 1838 Sarah Grimké published The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women, which was widely circulated.[14] In 1845 Margaret Fuller published Woman in the Nineteenth Century, a key document in American feminism that first appeared in serial form in 1839 in The Dial, a transcendentalist journal that Fuller edited.[15] The very truths you are now contending for, will, in fifty years, be so completely imbedded in public opinion that no one need say one word in their defense; whilst at the same time new forms of truth will arise to test the faithfulness of the pioneer minds of that age, and so on eternally. —Angela Grimké, 1851, in a letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton[16] Significant barriers had to be overcome, however, before a campaign for women's suffrage could develop significant strength. One barrier was strong opposition to women's involvement in public affairs, a practice that was not fully accepted even among reform activists. Only after fierce debate were women accepted as members of the American Anti-Slavery Society at its convention of 1839, and the organization split at its next convention when women were appointed to committees.[17] Opposition was especially strong against the idea of women speaking to audiences of both men and women. Frances Wright, a Scottish woman, was subjected to sharp criticism for delivering public lectures in the U.S. in 1826 and 1827. When the Grimké sisters, who had been born into a slave-holding family in South Carolina, spoke against slavery throughout the northeast in the mid-1830s, the ministers of the Congregational Church, a major force in that region, published a statement condemning their actions. Despite the disapproval, in 1838 Angelina Grimké spoke against slavery before the Massachusetts legislature, the first woman in the U.S. to speak before a legislative body.[18] Other women began to give public speeches, especially in opposition to slavery and in support of women's rights. Early female speakers included Ernestine Rose, a Jewish immigrant from Poland; Lucretia Mott, a Quaker minister and abolitionist; and Abby Kelley Foster, a Quaker abolitionist.[19] Toward the end of the 1840s Lucy Stone launched her career as a public speaker, soon becoming the most famous female lecturer.[20] Supporting both the abolitionist and women's rights movements, Stone played a major role in reducing the prejudice against women speaking in public.[21] Opposition remained strong, however. A regional women's rights convention in Ohio in 1851 was disrupted by male opponents. Sojourner Truth, who delivered her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" at the convention, directly addressed some of this opposition in her speech.[22] The National Women's Rights Convention in 1852 was also disrupted, and mob action at the 1853 convention came close to violence.[23] The World's Temperance Convention in New York City in 1853 bogged down for three days in a dispute about whether women would be allowed to speak there.[24] Susan B. Anthony, a leader of the suffrage movement, later said, "No advanced step taken by women has been so bitterly contested as that of speaking in public. For nothing which they have attempted, not even to secure the suffrage, have they been so abused, condemned and antagonized."[25] Laws that sharply restricted the independent activity of married women also created barriers to the campaign for women's suffrage. According to William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, an authoritative commentary on the English common law on which the American legal system is modeled, "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage",[26] referring to the legal doctrine of coverture that was introduced to England by the Normans in the Middle Ages. In 1862 the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court denied a divorce to a woman whose husband had horsewhipped her, saying, "The law gives the husband power to use such a degree of force necessary to make the wife behave and know her place."[27] Married women in many states could not legally sign contracts, which made it difficult for them to arrange for convention halls, printed materials and other things needed by the suffrage movement.[28] Restrictions like these were overcome in part by the passage of married women's property laws in several states, supported in some cases by wealthy fathers who did not want their daughters' inheritance to fall under the complete control of their husbands. Sentiment in favor of women's rights was strong within the radical wing of the abolitionist movement. William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society, said "I doubt whether a more important movement has been launched touching the destiny of the race, than this in regard to the equality of the sexes".[29] The abolitionist movement, however, attracted only about one per cent of the population at that time, and radical abolitionists were only one part of that movement.[30] Early backing for women's suffrage The New York State Constitutional Convention of 1846 received petitions in support of women's suffrage from residents of at least three counties.[31] Several members of the radical wing of the abolitionist movement supported suffrage. In 1846, Samuel J. May, a Unitarian minister and radical abolitionist, vigorously supported women's suffrage in a sermon that was later circulated as the first in a series of women's rights tracts.[32] In 1846, the Liberty League, an offshoot of the abolitionist Liberty Party, petitioned Congress to enfranchise women.[33] A convention of the Liberty Party in Rochester, New York in May 1848 approved a resolution calling for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, including women as well as men."[34] Gerrit Smith, its candidate for president, delivered a speech shortly afterwards at the National Liberty Convention in Buffalo, New York that elaborated on his party's call for women's suffrage. Lucretia Mott was suggested as the party's vice-presidential candidate—the first time that a woman had been proposed for federal executive office in the U.S.—and she received five votes from delegates at that convention.[35] Early women's rights conventions Women's suffrage was not a major topic within the women's rights movement at that point. Many of its activists were aligned with the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement, which believed that activists should avoid political activity and focus instead on convincing others of their views with "moral suasion".[36] Many were Quakers whose traditions barred both men and women from participation in secular political activity.[37] A series of women's rights conventions did much to alter these attitudes. Seneca Falls convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton The first women's rights convention was the Seneca Falls Convention, a regional event held on July 19 and 20, 1848, in Seneca Falls in the Finger Lakes region of New York.[2] Five women called the convention, four of whom were Quaker social activists, including the well-known Lucretia Mott. The fifth was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had discussed the need to organize for women's rights with Mott several years earlier.[38] Stanton, who came from a family that was deeply involved in politics, became a major force in convincing the women's movement that political pressure was crucial to its goals, and that the right to vote was a key weapon.[39] An estimated 300 women and men attended this two-day event, which was widely noted in the press.[40] The only resolution that was not adopted unanimously by the convention was the one demanding women's right to vote, which was introduced by Stanton. When her husband, a well-known social reformer, learned that she intended to introduce this resolution, he refused to attend the convention and accused her of acting in a way that would turn the proceedings into a farce. Lucretia Mott, the main speaker, was also disturbed by the proposal. The resolution was adopted only after Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist leader and a former slave, gave it his strong support.[41] The convention's Declaration of Sentiments, which was written primarily by Stanton, expressed an intent to build a women's rights movement, and it included a list of grievances, the first two of which protested the lack of women's suffrage.[42] The grievances which were aimed at the United States government "demanded government reform and changes in male roles and behaviors that promoted inequality for women."[43] This convention was followed two weeks later by the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848, which featured many of the same speakers and likewise voted to support women's suffrage. It was the first women's rights convention to be chaired by a woman, a step that was considered to be radical at the time.[44] That meeting was followed by the Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850, the first women's rights convention to be organized on a statewide basis, which also endorsed women's suffrage.[45] National conventions The first in a series of National Women's Rights Conventions was held in Worcester, Massachusetts on October 23–24, 1850, at the initiative of Lucy Stone and Paulina Wright Davis.[46] National conventions were held afterwards almost every year through 1860, when the Civil War (1861–1865) interrupted the practice.[47] Suffrage was a preeminent goal of these conventions, no longer the controversial issue it had been at Seneca Falls only two years earlier.[48] At the first national convention Stone gave a speech that included a call to petition state legislatures for the right of suffrage.[49] Reports of this convention reached Britain, prompting Harriet Taylor, soon to be married to philosopher John Stuart Mill, to write an essay called "The Enfranchisement of Women," which was published in the Westminster Review. Heralding the women's movement in the U.S., Taylor's essay helped to initiate a similar movement in Britain. Her essay was reprinted as a women's rights tract in the U.S. and was sold for decades.[50][51] Lucy Stone Wendell Phillips, a prominent abolitionist and women's rights advocate, delivered a speech at the second national convention in 1851 called "Shall Women Have the Right to Vote?" Describing women's suffrage as the cornerstone of the women's movement, it was later circulated as a women's rights tract.[52] Several of the women who played leading roles in the national conventions, especially Stone, Anthony and Stanton, were also leaders in establishing women's suffrage organizations after the Civil War.[53] They also included the demand for suffrage as part of their activities during the 1850s. In 1852 Stanton advocated women's suffrage in a speech at the New York State Temperance Convention.[54] In 1853 Stone became the first woman to appeal for women's suffrage before a body of lawmakers when she addressed the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention.[55] In 1854 Anthony organized a petition campaign in New York State that included the demand for suffrage. It culminated in a women's rights convention in the state capitol and a speech by Stanton before the state legislature.[56] In 1857 Stone refused to pay taxes on the grounds that women were taxed without being able to vote on tax laws. The constable sold her household goods at auction until enough money had been raised to pay her tax bill.[57] The women's rights movement was loosely structured during this period, with few state organizations and no national organization other than a coordinating committee that arranged the annual national conventions.[58] Much of the organizational work for these conventions was performed by Stone, the most visible leader of the movement during this period.[59] At the national convention in 1852, a proposal was made to form a national women's rights organization, but the idea was dropped after fears were voiced that such a move would create cumbersome machinery and lead to internal divisions.[60] Anthony–Stanton collaboration Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met in 1851 and soon became close friends and co-workers.[2] Their decades-long collaboration was pivotal for the suffrage movement and contributed significantly to the broader struggle for women's rights, which Stanton called "the greatest revolution the world has ever known or ever will know."[61] They had complementary skills: Anthony excelled at organizing while Stanton had an aptitude for intellectual matters and writing. Stanton, who was homebound with several children during this period, wrote speeches that Anthony delivered to meetings that she herself organized.[62] Together they developed a sophisticated movement in New York State,[63] but their work at this time dealt with women's issues in general, not specifically suffrage. Anthony, who eventually became the person most closely associated in the public mind with women's suffrage,[64] later said "I wasn't ready to vote, didn't want to vote, but I did want equal pay for equal work."[65] In the period just before the Civil War, Anthony gave priority to anti-slavery work over her work for the women's movement.[66] Women's Loyal National League Over Anthony's objections, leaders of the movement agreed to suspend women's rights activities during the Civil War in order to focus on the abolition of slavery.[67] In 1863 Anthony and Stanton organized the Women's Loyal National League, the first national women's political organization in the U.S.[68] It collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery in the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time.[69] Susan B. Anthony Although it was not a suffrage organization, the League made it clear that it stood for political equality for women,[70] and it indirectly advanced that cause in several ways. Stanton reminded the public that petitioning was the only political tool available to women at a time when only men were allowed to vote.[71] The League's impressive petition drive demonstrated the value of formal organization to the women's movement, which had traditionally resisted organizational structures,[72] and it marked a continuation of the shift of women's activism from moral suasion to political action.[69] Its 5000 members constituted a widespread network of women activists who gained experience that helped create a pool of talent for future forms of social activism, including suffrage.[73] American Equal Rights Association The Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention, the first since the Civil War, was held in 1866, helping the women's rights movement regain the momentum it had lost during the war.[74] The convention voted to transform itself into the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for the equal rights of all citizens, especially the right of suffrage.[75] In addition to Anthony and Stanton, who organized the convention, the leadership of the new organization included such prominent abolitionist and women's rights activists as Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone and Frederick Douglass. Its drive for universal suffrage, however, was resisted by some abolitionist leaders and their allies in the Republican Party, who wanted women to postpone their campaign for suffrage until it had first been achieved for male African Americans. Horace Greeley, a prominent newspaper editor, told Anthony and Stanton, "This is a critical period for the Republican Party and the life of our Nation... I conjure you to remember that this is 'the negro's hour,' and your first duty now is to go through the State and plead his claims."[76] They and others, including Lucy Stone, refused to postpone their demands, however, and continued to push for universal suffrage. In April 1867 Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell opened the AERA campaign in Kansas in support of referendums in that state that would enfranchise both African Americans and women.[77] Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist leader who opposed mixing those two causes, surprised and angered AERA workers by blocking the funding that the AERA had expected for their campaign.[78] After an internal struggle, Kansas Republicans decided to support suffrage for black men only and formed an "Anti-Female Suffrage Committee" to oppose the AERA's efforts.[79] By the end of summer the AERA campaign had almost collapsed, and its finances were exhausted. Anthony and Stanton were harshly criticized by Stone and other AERA members for accepting help during the last days of the campaign from George Francis Train, a wealthy businessman who supported women's rights. Train antagonized many activists by attacking the Republican Party, which had won the loyalty of many reform activists, and openly disparaging the integrity and intelligence of African Americans.[80] After the Kansas campaign, the AERA increasingly divided into two wings, both advocating universal suffrage but with different approaches. One wing, whose leading figure was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first, if necessary, and wanted to maintain close ties with the Republican Party and the abolitionist movement. The other, whose leading figures were Anthony and Stanton, insisted that women and black men be enfranchised at the same time and worked toward a politically independent women's movement that would no longer be dependent on abolitionists for financial and other resources. The acrimonious annual meeting of the AERA in May 1869 signaled the effective demise of the organization, in the aftermath of which two competing woman suffrage organizations were created.[81] New England Woman Suffrage Association Petition from the citizens of Massachusetts in support of woman suffrage Partly as a result of the developing split in the women's movement, in 1868 the New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA), the first major political organization in the U.S. with women's suffrage as its goal, was formed.[82] The planners for the NEWSA's founding convention worked to attract Republican support and seated leading Republican politicians, including a U.S. senator, on the speaker's platform.[83] Amid increasing confidence that the Fifteenth Amendment, which would in effect enfranchise black men, was assured of passage, Lucy Stone, a future president of the NEWSA, showed her preference for enfranchising both women and African Americans by unexpectedly introducing a resolution calling for the Republican Party to "drop its watchword of 'Manhood Suffrage'"[84] and to support universal suffrage instead. Despite opposition by Frederick Douglass and others, Stone convinced the meeting to approve the resolution.[85] Two months later, however, when the Fifteenth Amendment was in danger of becoming stalled in Congress, Stone backed away from that position and declared that "Woman must wait for the Negro."[86] The Fifteenth Amendment In May 1869, two days after the final AERA annual meeting, Anthony, Stanton and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). In November 1869, Lucy Stone, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Blackwell and others, many of whom had helped to create the New England Woman Suffrage Association a year earlier, formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The hostile rivalry between these two organizations created a partisan atmosphere that endured for decades, affecting even professional historians of the women's movement.[87] Frederick Douglass The immediate cause for the split was the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a reconstruction amendment that would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of race. The original language of the amendment included a clause banning voting discrimination on the basis of sex, but was later removed.[2] Stanton and Anthony opposed its passage unless it was accompanied by another amendment that would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of sex.[88] They said that by effectively enfranchising all men while excluding all women, the amendment would create an "aristocracy of sex" by giving constitutional authority to the idea that men were superior to women.[89] Male power and privilege was at the root of society's ills, Stanton argued, and nothing should be done to strengthen it.[90] Anthony and Stanton also warned that black men, who would gain voting power under the amendment, were overwhelmingly opposed to women's suffrage.[91] They were not alone in being unsure of black male support for women's suffrage. Frederick Douglass, a strong supporter of women's suffrage, said, "The race to which I belong have not generally taken the right ground on this question."[92] Douglass, however, strongly supported the amendment, saying it was a matter of life and death for former slaves. Lucy Stone, who became the AWSA's most prominent leader, supported the amendment but said she believed that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men.[93] The AWSA and most AERA members also supported the amendment.[94] Both wings of the movement were strongly associated with opposition to slavery, but their leaders sometimes expressed views that reflected the racial attitudes of that era. Stanton, for example, believed that a long process of education would be needed before what she called the "lower orders" of former slaves and immigrant workers would be able to participate meaningfully as voters.[90] In an article in The Revolution, Stanton wrote, "American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish the lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters ... demand that women too shall be represented in government."[95] In another article she made a similar statement while personifying those four ethnic groups as "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung".[96] Lucy Stone called a suffrage meeting in New Jersey to consider the question, "Shall women alone be omitted in the reconstruction? Shall [they] ... be ranked politically below the most ignorant and degraded men?"[97] Henry Blackwell, Stone's husband and an AWSA officer, published an open letter to Southern legislatures assuring them that if they allowed both blacks and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and "the black race would gravitate by the law of nature toward the tropics."[98] The AWSA aimed for close ties with the Republican Party, hoping that the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment would lead to a Republican push for women's suffrage.[99] The NWSA, while determined to be politically independent, was critical of the Republicans. Anthony and Stanton wrote a letter to the 1868 Democratic National Convention that criticized Republican sponsorship of the Fourteenth Amendment (which granted citizenship to black men but for the first time introduced the word "male" into the Constitution), saying, "While the dominant party has with one hand lifted up two million black men and crowned them with the honor and dignity of citizenship, with the other it has dethroned fifteen million white women—their own mothers and sisters, their own wives and daughters—and cast them under the heel of the lowest orders of manhood."[100][101] They urged liberal Democrats to convince their party, which did not have a clear direction at that point, to embrace universal suffrage.[102] The two organizations had other differences as well. Although each campaigned for suffrage at both the state and national levels, the NWSA tended to work more at the national level and the AWSA more at the state level.[103] The NWSA initially worked on a wider range of issues than the AWSA, including divorce reform and equal pay for women. The NWSA was led by women only while the AWSA included both men and women among its leadership.[104] Events soon removed much of the basis for the split in the movement. In 1870 debate about the Fifteenth Amendment was made irrelevant when that amendment was officially ratified. In 1872 disgust with corruption in government led to a mass defection of abolitionists and other social reformers from the Republicans to the short-lived Liberal Republican Party.[105] The rivalry between the two women's groups was so bitter, however, that a merger proved to be impossible until 1890. New Departure In 1869 Francis and Virginia Minor, husband and wife suffragists from Missouri, outlined a strategy that came to be known as the New Departure, which engaged the suffrage movement for several years.[106] Arguing that the U.S. Constitution implicitly enfranchised women, this strategy relied heavily on Section 1 of the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment,[107] which reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Votes for Women pennant In 1871 the NWSA officially adopted the New Departure strategy, encouraging women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if denied that right.[2] Soon hundreds of women tried to vote in dozens of localities. In some cases, actions like these preceded the New Departure strategy: in 1868 in Vineland, New Jersey, a center for radical spiritualists, nearly 200 women placed their ballots into a separate box and attempted to have them counted, but without success. The AWSA did not officially adopt the New Departure strategy, but Lucy Stone, its leader, attempted to vote in her home town in New Jersey.[108] In one court case resulting from a lawsuit brought by women who had been prevented from voting, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that women did not have an implicit right to vote, declaring that, "The fact that the practical working of the assumed right would be destructive of civilization is decisive that the right does not exist."[109] In 1871 Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker, was invited to speak before a committee of Congress, the first woman to do so.[2] Although she had little previous connection to the women's movement, she presented a modified version of the New Departure strategy. Instead of asking the courts to declare that women had the right to vote, she asked Congress itself to declare that the Constitution implicitly enfranchised women. The committee rejected her suggestion.[110] The NWSA at first reacted enthusiastically to Woodhull's sudden appearance on the scene. Stanton in particular welcomed Woodhull's proposal to assemble a broad-based reform party that would support women's suffrage. Anthony opposed that idea, wanting the NWSA to remain politically independent. The NWSA soon had reason to regret its association with Woodhull. In 1872 she published details of a purported adulterous affair between Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, president of the AWSA, and Elizabeth Tilton, wife of a leading NWSA member.[111] Beecher's subsequent trial was reported in newspapers across the country, resulting in what one scholar has called "political theater" that badly damaged the reputation of the suffrage movement.[112] The Supreme Court in 1875 put an end to the New Departure strategy by ruling in Minor v. Happersett that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone".[113] The NWSA decided to pursue the far more difficult strategy of campaigning for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee voting rights for women.[114] United States v. Susan B. Anthony In a case that generated national controversy, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for violating the Enforcement Act of 1870 by casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election. At the trial, the judge directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. When he asked Anthony, who had not been permitted to speak during the trial, if she had anything to say, she responded with what one historian has called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage".[107] She called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights", saying, "... you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored."[115] The judge sentenced Anthony to pay a fine of $100, she responded, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty", and she never did.[107] However the judge did not order her to be imprisoned until she paid the fine, for Anthony could have appealed her case.[113] On August 18, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump posthumously pardoned Anthony on the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.[116][117] History of Woman Suffrage Main article: History of Woman Suffrage In 1876 Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage began working on the History of Woman Suffrage. Originally envisioned as a modest publication that would be produced quickly, the history evolved into a six-volume work of more than 5700 pages written over a period of 41 years. Its last two volumes were published in 1920, long after the deaths of the project's originators, by Ida Husted Harper, who also assisted with the fourth volume. Written by leaders of one wing of the divided women's movement (Lucy Stone, their main rival, refused to have anything to do with the project), the History of Woman Suffrage preserves an enormous amount of material that might have been lost forever, but it does not give a balanced view of events where their rivals are concerned. Because it was for years the main source of documentation about the suffrage movement, historians have had to uncover other sources to provide a more balanced view.[118] Introduction of the women's suffrage amendment In 1878 Senator Aaron A. Sargent, a friend of Susan B. Anthony, introduced into Congress a women's suffrage amendment. More than forty years later it would become the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution with no changes to its wording. Its text is identical to that of the Fifteenth Amendment except that it prohibits the denial of suffrage because of sex rather than "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".[119] Although a machine politician on most issues, Sargent was a consistent supporter of women's rights who spoke at suffrage conventions and promoted suffrage through the legislative process.[120] It Doesn't Unsex Her–a women's suffrage postcard from 1915 Early female candidates for national office Calling attention to the irony of being legally entitled to run for office while denied the right to vote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton declared herself a candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1866, the first woman to do so.[121] In 1872 Victoria Woodhull formed her own party and declared herself to be its candidate for President of the U.S. even though she was ineligible because she was not yet 35 years old.[122] In 1884 Belva Ann Lockwood, the first female lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, became the first woman to conduct a viable campaign for president.[123] She was nominated, without her advance knowledge, by a California group called the Equal Rights Party. Lockwood advocated women's suffrage and other reforms during a coast-to-coast campaign that received respectful coverage from at least some major periodicals. She financed her campaign partly by charging admission to her speeches. Neither the AWSA nor the NWSA, both of whom had already endorsed the Republican candidate for president, supported Lockwood's candidacy.[124] Apart from runs for national office, many women were elected or appointed to hold certain offices across the country prior to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.[2] Many states constitutions contained language that was gender neutral as to the issue of officeholding. Women took advantage of this by running for office as a way to make headway in gaining the right to vote.[2] Much of women's fight to gain officeholding rights and voting rights took place separately and were understood to be completely different rights by much of the population.[2] Initial successes An act of the Territory of Wyoming enfranchised women on December 10, 1869, which is commemorated as Wyoming Day in the state. Women were enfranchised in frontier Wyoming Territory in 1869 and in Utah in 1870.[125][126] Because Utah held two elections before Wyoming, Utah became the first place in the nation where women legally cast ballots after the launch of the suffrage movement. The short-lived Populist Party endorsed women's suffrage, contributing to the enfranchisement of women in Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in 1896.[127] In some localities, women gained various forms of partial suffrage, such as voting for school boards.[128] According to a 2018 study in The Journal of Politics, states with large suffrage movements and competitive political environments were more likely to extend voting rights to women; this is one reason why Western states were quicker to adopt women's suffrage than states in the East.[129] In the late 1870s, the suffrage movement received a major boost when the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest women's organization in the country, decided to campaign for suffrage and created a Franchise Department to support that effort. Frances Willard, its pro-suffrage leader, urged WCTU members to pursue the right to vote as a means of protecting their families from alcohol and other vices.[130] In 1886 the WCTU submitted to Congress petitions with 200,000 signatures in support of a national suffrage amendment.[131] In 1885 the Grange, a large farmers' organization, officially endorsed women's suffrage.[132] In 1890 the American Federation of Labor, a large labor alliance, endorsed women's suffrage and subsequently collected 270,000 names on petitions supporting that goal.[133] 1890–1919 Merger of rival suffrage organizations The AWSA, which was especially strong in New England, was initially the larger of the two rival suffrage organizations, but it declined in strength during the 1880s.[134] Stanton and Anthony, the leading figures in the competing NWSA, were more widely known as leaders of the women's suffrage movement during this period and were more influential in setting its direction.[135] They sometimes used daring tactics. Anthony, for example, interrupted the official ceremonies of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to present the NWSA's Declaration of Rights for Women. The AWSA declined any involvement in the action.[136] Susan B. Anthony in 1900 Over time, the NWSA moved into closer alignment with the AWSA, placing less emphasis on confrontational actions and more on respectability, and no longer promoting a wide range of reforms.[137] The NWSA's hopes for a federal suffrage amendment were frustrated when the Senate voted against it in 1887, after which the NWSA put more energy into campaigning at the state level, as the AWSA was already doing.[138] Work at the state level, however, also had its frustrations. Between 1870 and 1910, the suffrage movement conducted 480 campaigns in 33 states just to have the issue of women's suffrage brought before the voters, and those campaigns resulted in only 17 instances of the issue actually being placed on the ballot.[139] These efforts led to women's suffrage in two states, Colorado and Idaho. Alice Stone Blackwell, daughter of AWSA leaders Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, was a major influence in bringing the rival suffrage leaders together, proposing a joint meeting in 1887 to discuss a merger. Anthony and Stone favored the idea, but opposition from several NWSA veterans delayed the move. In 1890 the two organizations merged as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).[140] Stanton was president of the new organization, and Stone was chair of its executive committee, but Anthony, who had the title of vice president, was its leader in practice, becoming president herself in 1892 when Stanton retired.[141] National American Woman Suffrage Association Although Anthony was the leading force in the newly merged organization, it did not always follow her lead. In 1893 the NAWSA voted over Anthony's objection to alternate the site of its annual conventions between Washington and various other parts of the country. Anthony's pre-merger NWSA had always held its conventions in Washington to help maintain focus on a national suffrage amendment. Arguing against this decision, she said she feared, accurately as it turned out, that the NAWSA would engage in suffrage work at the state level at the expense of national work.[142] Stanton, elderly but still very much a radical, did not fit comfortably into the new organization, which was becoming more conservative. In 1895 she published The Woman's Bible, a controversial best-seller that attacked the use of the Bible to relegate women to an inferior status. The NAWSA voted to disavow any connection with the book despite Anthony's objection that such a move was unnecessary and hurtful. Stanton afterwards grew increasingly alienated from the suffrage movement.[143] Carrie Chapman Catt The suffrage movement declined in vigor during the years immediately after the 1890 merger.[144] When Carrie Chapman Catt was appointed head of the NAWSA's Organization Committee in 1895, it was unclear how many local chapters the organization had or who their officers were. Catt began revitalizing the organization, establishing a plan of work with clear goals for every state every year. Anthony was impressed and arranged for Catt to succeed her when she retired from the presidency of the NAWSA in 1900. In her new post Catt continued her effort to transform the unwieldy organization into one that would be better prepared to lead a major suffrage campaign.[145] Catt noted the rapidly growing women's club movement, which was taking up some of the slack left by the decline of the temperance movement. Local women's clubs at first were mostly reading groups focused on literature, but they increasingly evolved into civic improvement organizations of middle-class women meeting in each other's homes weekly. Their national organization was the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890. The clubs avoided controversial issues that would divide the membership, especially religion and prohibition. In the South and East, suffrage was also highly divisive, while there was little resistance to it among clubwomen in the West. In the Midwest, clubwomen had first avoided the suffrage issue out of caution, but after 1900 increasingly came to support it.[146] Catt implemented what was known as the "society plan," a successful effort to recruit wealthy members of the women's club movement whose time, money and experience could help build the suffrage movement.[147] By 1914 women's suffrage was endorsed by the national General Federation of Women's Clubs.[148] Catt resigned her position after four years, partly because of her husband's declining health and partly to help organize the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, which was created in Germany, Berlin in 1904 with Catt as president.[149] In 1904 Anna Howard Shaw, another Anthony protégée, was elected president of the NAWSA. Shaw was an energetic worker and a talented orator but not an effective administrator. Between 1910 and 1916 the NAWSA's national board experienced a constant turmoil that endangered the existence of the organization.[150] Although its membership and finances were at all-time highs, the NAWSA decided to replace Shaw by bringing Catt back once again as president in 1915. Authorized by the NAWSA to name her own executive board, which previously had been elected by the organization's annual convention, Catt quickly converted the loosely structured organization into one that was highly centralized.[151] MacKenzie v. Hare Section 3 of the Expatriation Act of 1907 provided for loss of citizenship by American women who married aliens.[152] The Supreme Court of the United States first considered the Expatriation Act of 1907 in the 1915 case MacKenzie v. Hare.[153] The plaintiff, a suffragist named Ethel MacKenzie, was living in California, which since 1911 had extended the franchise to women. However, she had been denied voter registration by the respondent in his capacity as a Commissioner of the San Francisco Board of Election on the grounds of her marriage to a Scottish man.[154] MacKenzie contended that the Expatriation Act of 1907 "if intended to apply to her, is beyond the authority of Congress", as neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor any other part of the Constitution gave Congress the power to "denationalize a citizen without his concurrence". However, Justice Joseph McKenna, writing the majority opinion, stated that while "[i]t may be conceded that a change of citizenship cannot be arbitrarily imposed, that is, imposed without the concurrence of the citizen", but "[t]he law in controversy does not have that feature. It deals with a condition voluntarily entered into, with notice of the consequences." Justice James Clark McReynolds, in a concurring opinion, stated that the case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.[155] Opposition to women's suffrage Brewers and distillers, typically rooted in the German American community, opposed women's suffrage, fearing—not without justification—that women voters would favor the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.[156] During the 1896 election, woman suffrage and prohibition stood together, and this was brought to the attention of those who opposed both woman suffrage and prohibition. In order to disrupt the campaign's success, a day before the election, the Liquor Dealers' League gathered some businessmen to help undermine the effort. Rumors said that these businessmen were going to make sure all the "bad women" in Oakland, California acted rowdy in order to hurt their reputation and in turn, this would lessen the women's chances of getting the woman's suffrage amendment passed.[157] German Lutherans and German Catholics typically opposed prohibition and woman suffrage; they favored paternalistic families with the husband deciding the family position on public affairs.[158][159] Their opposition to women's suffrage was subsequently used as an argument in favor of suffrage when German Americans became pariahs during World War I.[160] Defeat could lead to allegations of fraud. After the defeat of the referendum for women's suffrage in Michigan in 1912, the governor accused the brewers of complicity in widespread electoral fraud that resulted in its defeat. Evidence of vote stealing was also strong during referendums in Nebraska and Iowa.[161] Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Some other businesses, such as southern cotton mills, opposed suffrage because they feared that women voters would support the drive to eliminate child labor.[162] Political machines, such as Tammany Hall in New York City, opposed it because they feared that the addition of female voters would dilute the control they had established over groups of male voters. By the time of the New York State referendum on women's suffrage in 1917, however, some wives and daughters of Tammany Hall leaders were working for suffrage, leading it to take a neutral position that was crucial to the referendum's passage.[163][164] Although the Catholic Church did not take an official position on suffrage, very few of its leaders supported it, and some of its leaders, such as Cardinal Gibbons, made their opposition clear.[165][166] The New York Times after first supporting suffrage reversed itself and issued stern warnings. A 1912 editorial predicted that with suffrage women would make impossible demands, such as, "serving as soldiers and sailors, police patrolmen or firemen...and would serve on juries and elect themselves to executive offices and judgeships." It blamed a lack of masculinity for the failure of men to fight back, warning women would get the vote "if the men are not firm and wise enough and, it may as well be said, masculine enough to prevent them.".[167] Women against suffrage Anti-suffrage forces, initially called the "remonstrants", organized as early as 1870 when the Woman's Anti-Suffrage Association of Washington was formed.[168] Widely known as the "antis", they eventually created organizations in some twenty states. In 1911 the National Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage was created. It claimed 350,000 members and opposed women's suffrage, feminism, and socialism. It argued that woman suffrage "would reduce the special protections and routes of influence available to women, destroy the family, and increase the number of socialist-leaning voters."[169] Middle and upper class anti-suffrage women were conservatives with several motivations. Society women in particular had personal access to powerful politicians, and were reluctant to surrender that advantage. Most often the antis believed that politics was dirty and that women's involvement would surrender the moral high ground that women had claimed, and that partisanship would disrupt local club work for civic betterment, as represented by the General Federation of Women's Clubs.[170] The best organized movement was the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NYSAOWS). Its credo, as set down by its president Josephine Jewell Dodge, was: We believe in every possible advancement to women. We believe that this advancement should be along those legitimate lines of work and endeavor for which she is best fitted and for which she has now unlimited opportunities. We believe this advancement will be better achieved through strictly non-partisan effort and without the limitations of the ballot. We believe in Progress, not in Politics for women.[171] The NYSAOWS New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage used grass roots mobilization techniques they had learned from watching the suffragists to defeat the 1915 referendum. They were very similar to the suffragists themselves, but used a counter-crusading style warning of the evils that suffrage would bring to women. They rejected leadership by men and stressed the importance of independent women in philanthropy and social betterment. NYSAOWS was narrowly defeated in New York in 1916 and the state voted to give women the vote. The organization moved to Washington to oppose the federal constitutional amendment for suffrage, becoming the "National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage" (NAOWS), where it was taken over by men, and assumed a much harsher rhetorical tone, especially in attacking "red radicalism". After 1919 the antis adjusted smoothly to enfranchisement and became active in party affairs, especially in the Republican Party.[172] Southern strategy Vote for the Woman Suffrage Amendment, 1915 A promotional map of the woman's suffrage movement in the U.S. and Canada by 1917. The U.S. states and Canadian provinces that had adopted suffrage are colored white (or dotted and crosses, in case of partial suffrage) and the others black. The Constitution required 34 states (three-fourths of the 45 states in 1900) to ratify an amendment, and unless the rest of the country was unanimous there had to be support from at least some of the 11 ex-Confederate states for the Amendment to succeed. The South was the most conservative region and always gave the least support for suffrage. There was little or no suffrage activity in the region until the late nineteenth century.[173] Aileen S. Kraditor identifies four distinctly Southern characteristics that contributed to the South's reticence. First, Southern white men held to traditional values regarding women's public roles. Second, the Solid South was tightly controlled by the Democratic Party, so playing the two parties against each other was not a feasible strategy. Third, strong support for states' rights meant there was automatic opposition to a federal constitutional amendment. Fourth, Jim Crow attitudes meant that expansion of the vote to women, which would have included black women, was strongly opposed.[174] Three more western territories became states by 1912, helping the pro-Amendment numbers, that now required 36 states out of 48. In the end, Tennessee was the critical 36th state to ratify on August 18, 1920.[175] Mildred Rutherford, president of the Georgia United Daughters of the Confederacy and leader of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage made clear the opposition of elite white women to suffrage in a 1914 speech to the state legislature: The women who are working for this measure are striking at the principle for which their fathers fought during the Civil War. Woman's suffrage comes from the North and the West and from women who do not believe in state's rights and who wish to see negro women using the ballot. I do not believe the state of Georgia has sunk so low that her good men can not legislate for women. If this time ever comes then it will be time for women to claim the ballot.[176] Elna Green points out that, "Suffrage rhetoric claimed that enfranchised women would outlaw child labor, pass minimum-wage and maximum-hours laws for women workers, and establish health and safety standards for factory workers." The threat of these reforms united planters, textile mill owners, railroad magnates, city machine bosses, and the liquor interest in a formidable combine against suffrage.[177] "The Awakening": "Votes for Women" in 1915 Puck Magazine Henry Browne Blackwell, an officer of the AWSA before the merger and a prominent figure in the movement afterwards, urged the suffrage movement to follow a strategy of convincing southern political leaders that they could ensure white supremacy in their region without violating the Fifteenth Amendment by enfranchising educated women, who would predominantly be white. Shortly after Blackwell presented his proposal to the Mississippi delegation to the U.S. Congress, his plan was given serious consideration by the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, whose main purpose was to find legal ways of further curtailing the political power of African Americans. Although the convention adopted other measures instead, the fact that Blackwell's ideas were taken seriously drew the interest of many suffragists.[178] Blackwell's ally in this effort was Laura Clay, who convinced the NAWSA to launch a state-by-state campaign in the South based on Blackwell's strategy. Clay was one of several southern NAWSA members who opposed the idea of a national women's suffrage amendment on the grounds that it would impinge on states' rights. (A generation later Clay campaigned against the pending national amendment during the final battle for its ratification.) Amid predictions by some proponents of this strategy that the South would lead the way in the enfranchisement of women, suffrage organizations were established throughout the region. Anthony, Catt and Blackwell campaigned for suffrage in the South in 1895, with the latter two calling for suffrage only for educated women. With Anthony's reluctant cooperation, the NAWSA maneuvered to accommodate the politics of white supremacy in that region. Anthony asked her old friend Frederick Douglass, a former slave, not to attend the NAWSA convention in Atlanta in 1895, the first to be held in a southern city. Black NAWSA members were excluded from 1903 convention in the southern city of New Orleans, which marked the peak of this strategy's influence.[179] The leaders of the Southern movement were privileged upper-class belles with a strong position in high society and in church affairs. They tried to use their upscale connections to convince powerful men that suffrage was a good idea to purify society. They also argued that giving white women the vote would more than counterbalance giving the vote to the smaller number of black women.[180] No southern state enfranchised women as a result of this strategy, however, and most southern suffrage societies that were established during this period lapsed into inactivity. The NAWSA leadership afterwards said it would not adopt policies that "advocated the exclusion of any race or class from the right of suffrage."[181] Nonetheless, NAWSA reflected its white membership's viewpoint by minimizing the role of black suffragists. Anti-black racism The woman's suffrage movement, led in the nineteenth century by stalwart women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had its genesis in the abolitionist movement, but by the dawn of the twentieth century, Anthony's goal of universal suffrage was eclipsed by a near-universal racism in the United States.[182][183] While earlier suffragists had believed the two issues could be linked, the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment forced a division between African American rights and suffrage for women by prioritizing voting rights for black men over universal suffrage for all men and women.[184] In 1903, the NAWSA officially adopted a platform of states' rights that was intended to mollify and bring Southern U.S. suffrage groups into the fold. The statement's signers included Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw. Ida B. Wells-Barnett marched with her state delegation despite being told to march with other blacks in another section. With the prevalence of segregation throughout the country, and within organizations such as the NAWSA, blacks had formed their own activist groups to fight for their equal rights. Many were college educated and resented their exclusion from political power. The fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 also fell in 1913, giving them even further incentive to march in the suffrage parade.[185] Nellie Quander of Alpha Kappa Alpha—the nation's oldest black sorority—asked for a place in the college women's section for the women of Howard.[186] While there were two letters discussing the matter the letter on February 17, 1913, discusses the desire for the women of Howard to be given a desirable place in the march as well as mentions correspondence and requests from AKA sorority member, leader of the suffrage parade, vice president of the NAWSA, and appointer of both Paul & Burns as the organizer of the parade, Jane Addams.[187] These letters were follow up discussions to the one began by Paul and initiated by Elise Hill when Hill went down to Howard University at the request of Paul to recruit the Howard women.[188][189] The Howard University group included "Artist, one—Mrs. May Howard Jackson; college women, six—Mrs. Mary Church  Terrell, Mrs. Daniel Murray, Miss Georgia Simpson, Miss Charlotte Steward, Miss Harriet Shadd, Miss Bertha McNiel ; teacher,  one—Miss Caddie Park; musician, one—  Mrs. Harriett G. Marshall; professional  women, two— Dr. Amanda V. Gray, Dr. Eva  Ross. Illinois delegation—Mrs. Ida Wells  Barnett; Michigan—Mrs. McCoy, of Detroit,  who carried the banner; Howard University, group of twenty-five girls in caps and gowns;  home makers—Mrs. Duffield, who carried  New York banner, Mrs. M. D. Butler, Mrs.  Carrie W. Clifford." One trained nurse, whose name could not  be ascertained, marched, and an old mammy  was brought down by the Delaware delegation.[190] But the Virginia-born Gardener tried to persuade Paul that including blacks would be a bad idea because the Southern delegations were threatening to pull out of the march. Paul had attempted to keep news about black marchers out of the press, but when the Howard group announced they intended to participate, the public became aware of the conflict.[191] A newspaper account indicated that Paul told some black suffragists that the NAWSA believed in equal rights for "colored women", but that some Southern women were likely to object to their presence. A source in the organization insisted that the official stance was to "permit negroes to march if they cared to".[191] In a 1974 oral history interview, Paul recalled the "hurdle" of Terrell's plan to march, which upset the Southern delegations. She said the situation was resolved when a Quaker leading the men's section proposed the men march between the Southern groups and the Howard University group.[192] While in Paul's memory, a compromise was reached to order the parade as southern women, then the men's section, and finally the Negro women's section, reports in the NAACP paper, The Crisis, depict events unfolding quite differently, with black women protesting the plan to segregate them.[193] What is clear is that some groups attempted, on the day of the parade, to segregate their delegations.[194] For example, a last-minute instruction by the chair of the state delegation section, Genevieve Stone, caused additional uproar when she asked the Illinois delegation's sole black member, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, to march with the segregated black group at the back of the parade. Some historians claim Paul made the request, though this seems unlikely after the official NAWSA decision.[191][194] Wells-Barnett eventually rejoined the Illinois delegation as the procession moved down the avenue. In the end, black women marched in several state delegations, including New York and Michigan. Some joined in with their co-workers in the professional groups. There were also black men driving many of the floats.[195] The spectators did not treat the black participants any differently.[195] New Woman Official program of the Woman Suffrage Procession of 1913. In the actual march, the woman on horseback was Inez Milholland.[196] The concept of the New Woman emerged in the late nineteenth century to characterize the increasingly independent activity of women, especially the younger generation. According to one scholar, "The New Woman became associated with the rise of feminism and the campaign for women’s suffrage, as well as with the rise of consumerism, mass culture, and freer expressions of sexuality that defined the first decades of the 20th century."[197] The move of women into public spaces was expressed in many ways. In the late 1890s, riding bicycles was a newly popular activity that increased women's mobility even as it signaled rejection of traditional teachings about women's weakness and fragility. Susan B. Anthony said bicycles had "done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world".[198] Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that "Woman is riding to suffrage on the bicycle.[199] 1:28 Film of suffragettes marching from Newark, New Jersey to Washington, DC in 1913. Activists campaigned for suffrage in ways that were still considered by many to be "unladylike," such as marching in parades and giving street corner speeches on soap boxes. In New York in 1912, suffragists organized a twelve-day, 170-mile "Hike to Albany" to deliver suffrage petitions to the new governor. In 1913 the suffragist "Army of the Hudson" marched 250 miles from New York to Washington in sixteen days, gaining national publicity.[200] New suffrage organizations College Equal Suffrage League When Maud Wood Park attended the NAWSA convention in 1900, she found herself to be virtually the only young person there. After returning to Boston, she formed the College Equal Suffrage League with the assistance of fellow Radcliffe alumnae Inez Haynes Irwin and affiliated it with the NAWSA. Largely through Park's efforts, similar groups were organized on campuses in 30 states, leading to the formation of the National College Equal Suffrage League in 1908.[201][202] Women suffragists demonstrating for the right to vote in 1913 Equality League of Self-Supporting Women The dramatic tactics of the militant wing of the British suffrage movement began to influence the movement in the U.S. Harriet Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, returned to the U.S. after several years in England, where she had associated with suffrage groups still in the early phases of militancy. In 1907 she founded the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, later called the Women's Political Union, whose membership was based on working women, both professional and industrial. The Equality League initiated the practice of holding suffrage parades and organized the first open air suffrage rallies in thirty years.[203] As many as 25,000 people marched in these parades[204] National Council of Women Voters The National Council of Women Voters (NCWV) was founded in 1911 to represent women in states where women's suffrage had been achieved. Initially those states were Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Washington. Some other states, including California, followed soon after. Emma Smith Devoe served as the NCWV's president throughout its nine-year life. She had been president of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association during the successful suffrage campaign in that state in 1910. Operating as a political pressure group, the NCWV worked for laws of interest to women in the states where women could vote. As suffrage was achieved in additional states, the NCWV was increasingly able to use its political power to promote passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.[205] After its passage, the NCWV and the NAWSA combined to form the League of Women Voters.[206] National Woman's Party Work toward a national suffrage amendment had been sharply curtailed in favor of state suffrage campaigns after the two rival suffrage organizations merged in 1890 to form the NAWSA. Interest in a national suffrage amendment was revived primarily by Alice Paul.[138] In 1910, she returned to the U.S. from England, where she had been part of the militant wing of the suffrage movement. Paul had been jailed there and had endured forced feedings after going on a hunger strike. In January 1913 she arrived in Washington as chair of the Congressional Committee of the NAWSA, charged with reviving the drive for a constitutional amendment that would enfranchise women. She and her coworker Lucy Burns organized a suffrage parade in Washington on the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration as president. Opponents of the march turned the event into a near riot, which ended only when a cavalry unit of the army was brought in to restore order. Public outrage over the incident, which cost the chief of police his job, brought publicity to the movement and gave it fresh momentum.[207] In 1914 Paul and her followers began referring to the proposed suffrage amendment as the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment,"[208] a name that was widely adopted.[209] Paul argued that because the Democrats would not act to enfranchise women even though they controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, the suffrage movement should work for the defeat of all Democratic candidates regardless of an individual candidate's position on suffrage. She and Burns formed a separate lobbying group called the Congressional Union to act on this approach. Strongly disagreeing, the NAWSA in 1913 withdrew support from Paul's group and continued its practice of supporting any candidate who supported suffrage, regardless of political party.[210] In 1916 Blatch merged her Women's Political Union into Paul's Congressional Union.[211] Alice Paul In 1916 Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP).[212] Once again the women's movement had split, but the result this time was something like a division of labor. The NAWSA burnished its image of respectability and engaged in highly organized lobbying at both the national and state levels. The smaller NWP also engaged in lobbying but became increasingly known for activities that were dramatic and confrontational, most often in the national capital.[213] One form of protest was the watchfires, which involved burning copies of President Wilson's speeches, often outside the White House or in the nearby Lafayette Park. The NWP continued to hold watchfires even as the war began, drawing criticism from the public and even other suffrage groups for being unpatriotic.[214] Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference The leaders of the NAWSA's Southern Strategy began to find their own voice by 1913 when Kate Gordon of Louisiana and Laura Clay of Kentucky formed the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference (SSWSC). The suffragists of the SSWSC chose to work within the Jim Crow customs of their states and spoke openly about how the enfranchisement of white women would enhance the socio-economic and political work inherent to white supremacy.[215] To clarify how their political ideology fit within the increasingly rigid status quo of segregation, they published a newspaper New Southern Citizen with the motto: "Make the Southern States White." The SSWSC became increasingly at odds with NAWSA and its primary focus on achieving a federal amendment. Most southern suffragists however disagreed and continued to work in affiliation with the NAWSA. Gordon actively campaigned against the Nineteenth Amendment since, in theory, it would also enfranchise African-American women.[216] This would, as Laura Clay stated in a debate with Kentucky Equal Rights Association president Madeline McDowell Breckinridge,[217] raise the spectre of Reconstruction Era interventions and bring increased federal scrutiny of elections in the South. Suffrage periodicals Stanton and Anthony launched a sixteen-page weekly newspaper called The Revolution in 1868. It focused primarily on women's rights, especially suffrage, but it also covered politics, the labor movement and other topics. Its energetic and broad-ranging style gave it a lasting influence, but its debts mounted when it did not receive the funding they had expected, and they had to transfer the paper to other hands after only twenty-nine months.[218] Their organization, the NWSA, afterwards depended on other periodicals, such as The National Citizen and Ballot Box, edited by Matilda Joslyn Gage, and The Woman's Tribune, edited by Clara Bewick Colby, to represent its viewpoint.[219] In 1870, shortly after the formation of the AWSA, Lucy Stone launched an eight-page weekly newspaper called the Woman's Journal to advocate for women's rights, especially suffrage. Better financed and less radical than The Revolution, it had a much longer life. By the 1880s it had become an unofficial voice of the suffrage movement as a whole.[220] In 1916 the NAWSA purchased the Woman's Journal and spent a significant amount of money to enhance it. It was renamed Woman Citizen and declared to be the official organ of the NAWSA.[221] Alice Paul began publishing a newspaper called The Suffragist in 1913 when she was still part of the NAWSA. Editor of the eight-page weekly was Rheta Childe Dorr, an experienced journalist.[222] Turn of the tide New Zealand enfranchised women in 1893, the first country to do so on a nationwide basis. In the U.S. women gained the franchise in the states of Washington in 1910; in California in 1911; in Oregon, Kansas and Arizona in 1912; and in Illinois in 1913.[223] Some states allowed women to vote in school elections, municipal elections, or for members of the Electoral College. Some territories, like Washington, Utah, and Wyoming, allowed women to vote before they became states.[224] As women voted in an increasing number of states, Congressmen from those states swung to support a national suffrage amendment, and paid more attention to issues such as child labor. The status of women's suffrage before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920   Full suffrage   Presidential suffrage (vote only for president)   Primary suffrage (vote only in primary elections)   Municipal suffrage (vote only in city elections)   School, bond, or tax suffrage (vote only in special elections)   Municipal suffrage in some cities   Primary suffrage in some cities   No suffrage The reform campaigns of the Progressive Era strengthened the suffrage movement. Beginning around 1900, this broad movement began at the grassroots level with such goals as combating corruption in government, eliminating child labor, and protecting workers and consumers. Many of its participants saw women's suffrage as yet another progressive goal, and they believed that the addition of women to the electorate would help their movement achieve its other goals. In 1912 the Progressive Party, formed by Theodore Roosevelt, endorsed women's suffrage.[225] The socialist movement supported women's suffrage in some areas.[226] By 1916 suffrage for women had become a major national issue, and the NAWSA had become the nation's largest voluntary organization, with two million members.[227] In 1916 the conventions of both the Democratic and Republican parties endorsed women's suffrage, but only on a state-by-state basis, with the implication that the various states might implement suffrage in different ways or (in some cases) not at all. Having expected more, Catt called an emergency NAWSA convention and proposed what became known as the "Winning Plan".[228] For several years the NAWSA had focused on achieving suffrage on a state-by-state basis, partly to accommodate members from southern states who opposed the idea of a national suffrage amendment, considering it an infringement on states' rights.[229] In a strategic shift, the 1916 convention approved Catt's proposal to make a national amendment the priority for the entire organization. It authorized the executive board to specify a plan of work toward this goal for each state and to take over that work if the state organization refused to comply.[230] In 1917 Catt received a bequest of $900,000 from Mrs. Frank (Miriam) Leslie to be used for the women's suffrage movement. Catt formed the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission to dispense the funds, most of which supported the activities of the NAWSA at a crucial time for the suffrage movement.[231] "Kaiser Wilson" banner held by an NWP member picketing the White House In January 1917 the NWP stationed pickets at the White House, which had never before been picketed, with banners demanding women's suffrage.[232] Tension escalated in June as a Russian delegation drove up to the White House and NPW members unfurled a banner that read, "We, the women of America, tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million American women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement".[233] In August another banner referred to "Kaiser Wilson" and compared the plight of the German people with that of American women.[234] Some of the onlookers, including crowds of drunken men in town for the Second inauguration of Woodrow Wilson,[235] reacted violently, tearing the banners from the picketers' hands. The police, whose actions had previously been restrained, began arresting the picketers for blocking the sidewalk. Eventually over 200 were arrested, about half of whom were sent to prison.[236] In October Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months in prison. When she and other suffragist prisoners began a hunger strike, prison authorities force-fed them. The negative publicity created by this harsh practice increased the pressure on the administration, which capitulated and released all the prisoners.[237] The entry of the U.S. into World War I in April 1917 had a significant impact on the suffrage movement. To replace men who had gone into the military, women moved into workplaces that did not traditionally hire women, such as steel mills and oil refineries. The NAWSA cooperated with the war effort, with Catt and Shaw serving on the Women's Committee for the Council of National Defense. The NWP, by contrast, took no steps to cooperate with the war effort.[238] Jeannette Rankin, elected in 1916 by Montana as the first woman in Congress, was one of fifty members of Congress to vote against the declaration of war.[239] In November 1917 a referendum to enfranchise women in New York – at that time the most populous state in the country – passed by a substantial margin.[240] In September 1918, President Wilson spoke before the Senate, calling for approval of the suffrage amendment as a war measure, saying "We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?"[241] In the 1918 elections, despite the threat of Spanish flu, three additional states (Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Michigan) passed ballot initiatives to enfranchise women, and two incumbent senators (John W. Weeks of Massachusetts and Willard Saulsbury Jr. of Delaware) lost re-election campaigns due to their opposition to suffrage.[242] By the end of 1919, women effectively could vote for president in states with 326 electoral votes out of a total of 531.[243] Political leaders who became convinced of the inevitability of women's suffrage began to pressure local and national legislators to support it so that their respective party could claim credit for it in future elections.[244] The war served as a catalyst for suffrage extension in several countries, with women gaining the vote after years of campaigning partly in recognition of their support for the war effort, which further increased the pressure for suffrage in the U.S.[245] About half of the women in Britain had become enfranchised by January 1918, as had women in most Canadian provinces, with Quebec the major exception.[246] Nineteenth Amendment Main article: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution A chorus of disreputable men supports an anti-suffrage woman in this 1915 cartoon from Puck magazine. The caption "I did not raise my girl to be a voter" parodies the antiwar song "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier". US Stamp from 1970 celebrating 50 years of woman suffrage World War I had a profound impact on woman suffrage across the belligerents. Women played a major role on the home fronts and many countries recognized their sacrifices with the vote during or shortly after the war, including the U.S., Britain, Canada (except Quebec), Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Sweden; and Ireland introduced universal suffrage with independence. France almost did so but stopped short.[247] Despite their eventual success, groups like the National Woman's Party that continued militant protests during wartime were criticized by other suffrage groups and the public, who viewed it as unpatriotic.[248] On January 12, 1915, a suffrage bill was brought before the House of Representatives but was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174, (Democrats 170–85 against, Republicans 81–34 for, Progressives 6–0 for).[249] President Woodrow Wilson held off until he was sure the Democratic Party was supportive; the 1917 referendum in New York State in favor of suffrage proved decisive for him. When another bill was brought before the House in January 1918, Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the bill.[250] Behn argues that: The National American Woman Suffrage Association, not the National Woman's Party, was decisive in Wilson's conversion to the cause of the federal amendment because its approach mirrored his own conservative vision of the appropriate method of reform: win a broad consensus, develop a legitimate rationale, and make the issue politically valuable. Additionally, I contend that Wilson did have a significant role to play in the successful congressional passage and national ratification of the 19th Amendment.[251] The Amendment passed by two-thirds of the House, with only one vote to spare. The vote was then carried into the Senate. Again President Wilson made an appeal, but on September 30, 1918, the amendment fell two votes short of the two-thirds necessary for passage, 53–31 (Republicans 27–10 for, Democrats 26–21 for).[252] On February 10, 1919, it was again voted upon, and then it was lost by only one vote, 54–30 (Republicans 30–12 for, Democrats 24–18 for).[253] There was considerable anxiety among politicians of both parties to have the amendment passed and made effective before the general elections of 1920, so the President called a special session of Congress, and a bill, introducing the amendment, was brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it was passed, 304 to 89, (Republicans 200-19 for, Democrats 102-69 for, Union Labor 1-0 for, Prohibitionist 1-0 for),[254] 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate, and after a long discussion it was passed, with 56 ayes and 25 nays (Republicans 36-8 for, Democrats 20-17 for).[255] Within a few days, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan ratified the amendment, their legislatures being then in session. Other states followed suit at a regular pace, until the amendment had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 36 state legislatures. After Washington on March 22, 1920, ratification languished for months. Finally, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee narrowly ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, making it the law throughout the United States.[256] Thus the 1920 election became the first United States presidential election in which women were permitted to vote in every state. To get the word male in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign...During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into State constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses. Millions of dollars were raised, mainly in small sums, and expended with economic care. Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could. —Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.[257][258] Three other states, Connecticut, Vermont and Delaware, passed the amendment by 1923. They were eventually followed by others in the south. Nearly twenty years later Maryland ratified the amendment in 1941. After another ten years, in 1952, Virginia ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, followed by Alabama in 1953.[259] After another 16 years Florida and South Carolina passed the necessary votes to ratify in 1969, followed two years later by Georgia,[260] Louisiana and North Carolina.[259] Mississippi did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1984, sixty four years after the law was enacted nationally.[261] Effects of the Nineteenth Amendment In the United States After ratification, Alice Paul warned that "women are not yet fully free" and that women "can expect nothing from the politicians...until they stand as a unit in a party of their own", saying that discrimination still exists "on the statute books which will not be removed by the ratification".[262] Paul charged that the amendment passed only because "it at last became more expedient for those in control of the Government to aid suffrage than to oppose it".[262] Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, and the American Labor Party teach other women how to vote, 1936. Politicians responded to the newly enlarged electorate by emphasizing issues of special interest to women, especially prohibition, child health, public schools, and world peace.[263] Women did respond to these issues, but in terms of general voting they had the same outlook and the same voting behavior as men.[264] The suffrage organization NAWSA became the League of Women Voters and Alice Paul's National Woman's Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women's movement in 1972 (but it was not ratified and never took effect). The main surge of women voting came in 1928, when the big-city machines realized they needed the support of women to elect Al Smith, while rural drys mobilized women to support Prohibition and vote for Republican Herbert Hoover. Catholic women were reluctant to vote in the early 1920s, but they registered in very large numbers for the 1928 election—the first in which Catholicism was a major issue.[265] A few women were elected to office, but none became especially prominent during this time period. Overall, the women's rights movement declined noticeably during the 1920s. Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment did not in actual practice provide suffrage to all women in the United States.[266] Women's rights to a public identity were restricted by the common law practice of coverture.[267] As women were not citizens in their own right and married women were required to assume the citizenship and residency requirements of their spouses, many women upon marriage had no voting rights.[268][266] The Naturalization Act of 1790 granted any free white, who met character and residency policies, the right to become a citizen and the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to those born in the United States, including African-Americans.[269] Rulings by the Supreme Court allowed racial limitations to naturalization of people who were neither black nor white.[269][270] This meant that Latinos, Asians, and Eastern Europeans, among other groups, were at various times barred from becoming citizens.[271][272] Exclusions based on race also applied to Native American women living on reservations, until the passage in 1924 of the Indian Citizenship Act.[273] As a result, if an American woman married someone who was ineligible for naturalization, until passage of the Cable Act of 1922 and various amendments, she lost her citizenship.[274] As the US Constitution grants states the ability to determine who is eligible to vote in elections,[275] until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislative variations among the states, led to extremely different civil rights for women within the federal system depending upon their residency.[276] Restrictions on literacy, moral character, and ability to pay poll taxes were used to legally exclude women from voting.[277] Large numbers of African American women, as well as men, continued to be denied suffrage in the southern states.[278] Latinos and non-English speaking women were routinely excluded by literacy requirements in the northern states,[279] and many poor women, regardless of race, had no ability to pay poll taxes.[280] As married women's wages and legal access to money were controlled by their husbands, many married women had no ability to pay poll taxes.[281] In 1940, US women were granted their own legal status as citizens and provisions were made for women who had previously lost their citizenship through marriage to regain it.[282] Native American women The early women's suffrage movement had drawn inspiration from the political egalitarianism of Iroquois society. Native American women and men were nominally granted the right to vote in 1924 with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act. Even so, until the 1950s, some states barred Native Americans from voting unless they had adopted the culture and language of American society, relinquished their tribal memberships, or moved to urban areas. Universal suffrage was not guaranteed in practice until the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Voters in Indian country continue to face certain barriers to political participation.[283][284][285][286][287][288][289] In U.S. territories At the time the 19th Amendment was passed, both Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were unincorporated territories of the United States.[290] Suffragists believed that women in the Virgin Islands had been enfranchised when the Danish extended suffrage in 1915, as at that time the Danish West Indies were their possession. Similarly, as Puerto Ricans were confirmed to be U. S. citizens in 1917, it was assumed that suffrage had been extended there as well with the passage of the 19th Amendment.[291] Upon questioning its applicability in Puerto Rico, Governor Arthur Yager received clarification from the Bureau of Insular Affairs that passage or ratification in the states would not grant women's suffrage in Puerto Rico, because of the island's unincorporated status.[292] In 1921, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified that constitutional rights did not extend to residents in the two territories as they were defined in Puerto Rico by the Organic Act of 1900 and in the Virgin Islands by the Danish Colonial Law of 1906.[291] Suffragists and their supporters unsuccessfully introduced enfranchisement bills to the insular legislature in Puerto Rico in 1919, 1921, and 1923.[293] In 1924, Milagros Benet de Mewton sued the electoral board for refusing to allow her to register.[294][295] Her case argued that as a U.S. citizen, she should be allowed to vote in accordance with the U.S. Constitution,[296] because territorial law was not allowed to contravene U.S. law. The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ruled that the electoral law was not discriminatory because Puerto Ricans were not allowed to vote for federal electors,[297] and that the territory, like U.S. states, retained the right to define who was eligible to vote.[298] Another failed bill, in 1927, led Benet and women involved in the Pan-American Women's Association to press the US Congress to enfranchise Puerto Rican women.[299][300] When in 1928, the bill passed out of committee and was scheduled for a vote the U. S. House of Representatives, the Puerto Rican legislature realized that if they did not extend suffrage the federal government would. They passed a limited suffrage bill on April 16, 1929, limiting voting rights to literate women.[301] Universal suffrage was finally achieved in Puerto Rico in 1936, when a bill submitted by the Socialist Party the previous year, gained approval in the insular legislature.[302] In the US Virgin Islands, voting was restricted to men who were literate and owned property. Teachers like Edith L. Williams and Mildred V. Anduze pressed for women to gain the vote.[303] In 1935 the Saint Thomas Teachers' Association filed a lawsuit challenging the applicability of the 19th amendment to Virgin Islanders. In November 1935, the court ruled that the Danish Colonial Law was unconstitutional as it conflicted with the 19th Amendment[304] and that it had not been the intent to limit the franchise to men. To test the law, Williams attempted to register to vote and encouraged other teachers to do so, but their applications were refused. Williams, Eulalie Stevens and Anna M. Vessup, all literate, property owners, petitioned the court to open elections to qualified women.[305] Judge Albert Levitt ruled in favor of the women on December 27, which led to mobilization to register to vote in Saint Croix and Saint John.[304] Though Guam was acquired by the United States at the same time as Puerto Rico, the 19th Amendment was not extended by the US Congress to Guamanians until 1968.[306][307] Congress also extended it to the Northern Mariana Islands in 1976 under the Marianas Covenant.[308] Though the US Congress has not verified the applicability of the Nineteenth Amendment to American Samoa the territorial constitution implies its applicability in the jurisdiction.[308] Changes in the voting population Although restricting access to the polls because of sex was made unconstitutional in 1920, women did not turn out to the polls in the same numbers as men until 1980. A term commonly used that represents the push for equal representation in government is known as Mirror Representation. The amount of representation of sex in government should match the portion of that specific sex in the population. From 1980 until the present, women have voted in elections in at least the same percentage as have men, and often more. This difference in voting turnout and preferences between men and women is known as the voting gender gap. The voting gender gap has impacted political elections and, consequently, the way candidates campaign for office. Changes in representation and government programs After women gained the right to vote, the presence of women in Congress gradually increased since 1920, with an especially steady increase from 1981.[citation needed] Today, women increasingly pursue politics as a career.[citation needed] At the state and national level, women have brought attention to gender-sensitive topics, gender equality, and children's rights. Women's participation rate is higher at local levels of government.[citation needed] In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman vice presidential candidate to be nominated by a major party. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential candidate to be nominated by a major party. In 2019, 25 out of 100 senators were women, and 102 out of 435 representatives were women.[309] This resembles the global average; around the world, in 2018, just under a quarter of national-level parliament representatives were women.[310] In 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris became the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history after assuming office alongside President Joe Biden. Notable legislation Immediately following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, many legislators feared a powerful women's bloc would emerge as a result of female enfranchisement. The Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which expanded maternity care during the 1920s, was one of the first laws passed appealing to the female vote.[311] Title IX is a federal civil rights law that was passed in 1972 as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or other education program that receives federal money. Socio-economic effects A paper by John R. Lott and Lawrence W. Kenny, published by the Journal of Political Economy, found that women generally voted along more liberal political philosophies than men. The paper concluded that women's voting appeared to be more risk-averse than men and favored candidates or policies that supported wealth transfer, social insurance, progressive taxation, and larger government.[312] A 2020 study found that "exposure to suffrage during childhood led to large increases in educational attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially blacks and Southern whites. We also find that suffrage led to higher earnings alongside education gains, although not for Southern blacks."[313] These improvements are largely driven by suffrage-induced growth in education spending.[313] "Queering the suffrage movement" During the celebration of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution’s centennial, "Queering the suffrage movement" has become an effort actively underway in suffrage scholarly circles.[314][315] Wendy Rouse writes, "Scholars have already begun ‘queering’ the history of the suffrage movement by deconstructing the dominant narrative that has focused on the stories of elite, white, upper-class suffragists.”[314] Susan Ware says, "To speak of 'queering the suffrage movement' is to identify it as a space where women felt free to express a wide range of gender non-conforming behaviors, including but not limited to sexual expression, in both public and private settings."[315] Suffragists challenged gendered dress and behavior publicly, e.g., Annie Tinker (1884–1924) and Dr. Margaret ‘Mike’ Chung (1889–1959); they also challenged gender norms privately in bi- or homosexual relationships, e.g., African-American activist, writer and organizer for the Congressional Union (later the National Woman's Party), Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875–1935).[314] “Boston Marriage” partners (women involved in intimate longterm relationships with other women) included Carrie Chapman Catt with Mary Garrett Hay, Jane Addams with Mary Rozet Smith, Gail Laughlin with Dr. Mary Austin Sperry.[314] Other known suffragist couples are Susan B. Anthony with Emily Gross, and National American Woman Suffrage Association president Dr. Anna Howard-Shaw with Susan B. Anthony's niece, Lucy Anthony;[316] Alice Stone Blackwell was "betrothed" to Kitty Barry.[315] Many leaders of the National Woman's Party co-habitated with other women involved in feminist politics: Alma Lutz and Marguerite Smith, Jeanette Marks and Mary Wooley, and Mabel Vernon and Consuelo Reyes.[317] There are also the significant same sex relationships of NAWSA first and second vice presidents Jane Addams and Sophonisba Breckenridge, respectively,[318] and the chronic close female friendships of Alice Paul.[319] "Outing" historic feminists is not the aim of "queering the suffrage movement," but identifying a broad range of gender identities within the suffrage movement attests to the diversity of those contributing to the cause.[315] See also Wikisource has original text related to this article: Women's suffrage in the United States African-American women's suffrage movement Anti-suffragism Art in the women's suffrage movement in the United States California Proposition 4 (1911) League of Women Voters List of suffragists and suffragettes List of women's rights activists List of women's rights conventions in the United States Music and women's suffrage in the United States Native Americans and women's suffrage in the United States National American Woman Suffrage Association Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution Portrait Monument Silent Sentinels Suffrage Suffrage Hikes Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting) Timeline of women's suffrage Timeline of women's suffrage in the United States Women's suffrage in states of the United States Women in United States juries References Hull House was a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located on the Near West Side of Chicago, Hull House, named after the original house's first owner Charles Jerald Hull, opened to serve recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had expanded to 13 buildings. In 1912, the Hull House complex was completed with the addition of a summer camp, the Bowen Country Club.[2][3][4] With its innovative social, educational, and artistic programs, Hull House became the standard bearer for the movement; by 1920, it grew to approximately 500 settlement houses nationally.[5] The Hull mansion and several subsequent acquisitions were continuously renovated to accommodate the changing demands of the association. In the mid-1960s, most of the Hull House buildings were demolished for the construction of the University of Illinois Chicago. The original building and one additional building (which has been moved 200 yards (182.9 m))[6] survive today. On June 23, 1965, it was designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark.[7] On October 15, 1966, the day that the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was enacted, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. On June 12, 1974, the surviving Hull mansion was designated as a Chicago Landmark.[8] Hull mansion was one of the first four structures to be listed on both the Chicago Registered Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places list (along with Chicago Pile-1, Robie House & Lorado Taft Midway Studios).[9] After The Hull House Association moved from the original buildings complex in the 1960s, it continued to provide social services in multiple locations throughout Chicago. It finally ceased operations in January 2012. The Hull mansion and a related dining hall, the only remaining survivors on the Hull House complex, are now maintained as a history museum. Mission Addams followed the example of Toynbee Hall, which was founded in 1884 in the East End of London as a center for social reform. She described Toynbee Hall as "a community of university men" who, while living there, held their recreational clubs and social gatherings at the settlement house among the poor people and in the same style they would in their own circle.[10] Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889.[11] In the 19th century a women's movement began to promote education and autonomy, and to break into traditionally male-dominated occupations for women. Organizations led by women, bonded by sisterhood, were formed for social reform, including settlement houses such as Hull House, situated in working class and poor neighborhoods. To develop "new roles for women, the first generation of New Women wove the traditional ways of their mothers into the heart of their brave new world. The social activists, often single, were led by educated New Women.[12] Hull House became, at its inception in 1889, "a community of university women" whose main purpose was to provide social and educational opportunities for working class people (many of them recent European immigrants) in the surrounding neighborhood. The "residents" (volunteers at Hull were given this title) held classes in literature, history, art, domestic activities (such as sewing), and many other subjects. Prominent scholars and social reformers such as John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois lectured at Hull House. [13] [14] [15] [16] In addition, Hull House held concerts that were free to everyone, offered free lectures on current issues, and operated clubs for both children and adults. In 1892, Addams published her thoughts on what has been described as "the three R's" of the settlement house movement: residence, research, and reform. These involved "close cooperation with the neighborhood people, scientific study of the causes of poverty and dependence, communication of these facts to the public, and persistent pressure for [legislative and social] reform..."[17] Hull House conducted careful studies of the Near West Side, Chicago community, which became known as "The Hull House Neighborhood". These studies enabled the Hull House residents to confront the establishment, eventually partnering with them in the design and implementation of programs intended to enhance and improve the opportunities for success by the largely immigrant population.[18] According to Christie and Gauvreau (2001), while the Christian settlement houses sought to Christianize, Jane Addams, "had come to epitomize the force of secular humanism." Her image was, however, "reinvented" by the Christian churches.[19] According to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, "Some social settlements were linked to religious institutions. Others, like Hull-House [co-founded by Addams], were secular."[20] Hull House neighborhood One of the first newspaper articles ever written about Hull House[21] quotes the following invitation sent to the residents of the Hull House neighborhood. It begins with: "Mio Carissimo Amico"...and is signed, Le Signorine, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr. That invitation to the community, written during the first year of Hull House's existence, suggests that the inner core of what Addams labeled "The Hull House Neighborhood" was overwhelmingly Italian at that time. "10,000 Italians lived between the river and Halsted Street."[22] Hull House community workshop poster, 1938 By all accounts, the greater Hull House neighborhood (Chicago's Near West Side) was a mix of various ethnic groups that had immigrated to Chicago. There was no discrimination of race, language, creed, or tradition for those who entered the doors of the Hull House. Every person was treated with respect. The Bethlehem-Howard Neighborhood Center records substantiate that, "Germans and Jews resided south of that inner core (south of twelfth street)…The Greek delta formed by Harrison, Halsted and Blue Island Streets served as a buffer to the Irish residing to the south and the Canadian–French to the northwest. From the river on the east end, on out to the western ends of what came to be known as "Little Italy", from Roosevelt Road on the south to the Harrison Street delta on the north, became the port-of-call for Italians who continued to immigrate to Chicago from the shores of southern Italy until a quota system was implemented in 1924 for most Southern Europeans.[3] The Greektown and Maxwell Street residents, along with the remnants of other immigrant groups living on the outer fringes of the Hull House Neighborhood, disappeared long before the physical demise of Hull House. The exodus of most ethnic groups began shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. Their businesses, e.g. Greektown and Maxwell Street, however, remained. Italian Americans were the only immigrant group that endured as a vibrant on-going community. That community came to be known as "Little Italy". Taylor Street's Little Italy, the inner core of Addams' "Hull House Neighborhood", remained as the laboratory upon which the social and philanthropic groups of Hull House elitists had tested their theories and formulated their challenges to the establishment.[2] The synergy between Taylor Street's Little Italy and the Hull House complex; i.e., the settlement house and its summer camp, the Bowen Country Club, is well documented.[2] Dr. Alice Hamilton, an early member of that elite Hull House hierarchy, wrote in her autobiography, "Those Italian women knew what a baby needed, far better than my Ann Arbor professors did."[23] The ancillary literature between, among and about members of Hull House's inner sanctum of sociologists and philanthropists is littered with such comments, reinforcing the relationship that existed between Taylor Street's Little Italy and Hull House. A review of the ethnic composition of those who registered for and utilized the services provided by the Hull House complex, during its 74 years as a tenant of the near-west side, suggests an ethnic bias. Of the 257 known WWII veterans who were alumni of the Bowen Country Club, "virtually all had a vowel at the end of their names...denoting their Italian heritage."[2] A historic picture, "Meet the Hull House Kids," was taken on a summer day in 1924 by Wallace K. Kirkland Sr., Hull House Director. He later became a top photographer with Life. The twenty Hull House Kids were erroneously described as young boys, of Irish ancestry, posing in the Dante School yard on Forquer Street (now Arthington Street). It circulated the world as a "poster child" of sorts for the Hull House social experiment. On April 5, 1987, over a half century later, the Chicago Sun-Times refuted the contention that the Hull House Boys were of Irish ancestry. In doing so, the Sun-Times article listed the names of each of the young boys.[24] All twenty boys were first-generation Italian-Americans, all with vowels at the end of their names. "They grew up to be lawyers and mechanics, sewer workers and dump truck drivers, a candy shop owner, a boxer and a mob boss." Because of the immigrants' loneliness for their homeland, Addams started hosting ethnic evenings at Hull House. This would include ethnic food, dancing, music, and maybe a short lecture on a topic of interest. Some of the themed evenings were Italian, Greek, German, Polish, etc. Ellen Gates Starr described one Italian evening as having the room packed full with people. One of the ladies who attended "recited a patriotic poem with great spirit" and everyone was moved by it.[25] Accomplishments Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in 2006. The museum is located in and preserves the first building from which the Addams settlement took its name, Hull House, and one related structure. Additional settlement facilities. which over-time grew up around the house, were removed in the 1960s. Throughout the first two decades, along with thousands of immigrants from the surrounding area, Hull House attracted many female residents who later became prominent and influential reformers at various levels.[5] At the beginning, Addams and Starr volunteered as on-call doctors when the real doctors either didn't show up or weren't available. They acted as midwives, saved babies from neglect, prepared the dead for burial, nursed the sick, and sheltered domestic violence victims. For example, one Italian bride had lost her wedding ring and in turn was beaten by her husband for a week. She sought shelter at the settlement and it was granted to her. Also, a baby born with a cleft palate was unwanted by his mother so he was kept at the Hull House for six weeks after an operation. In another case, a woman was about to give birth to an illegitimate baby, so none of the Irish matrons would touch it. Addams and Starr stepped in and delivered this helpless little one. Finally, a female Italian immigrant was so thrilled about fresh roses at one of the Hull House receptions that she insisted they had come from Italy. She had never seen anything as beautiful in America despite the fact that she lived within ten blocks of a florist shop. Her limited view of America came from the untidy street she lived on and the long struggle to adapt to American ways.[26] The settlement was also gradually drawn into advocating for legislative reforms at the municipal, state and federal levels, addressing issues such as child labor, women's suffrage, healthcare reform and immigration policy. Some claim that the work of the Hull House marked the beginning of what we know today as "Social Welfare".[27] At the neighborhood level, Hull House established the city's first public playground, bathhouse, and public gymnasium (in 1893), pursued educational and political reform, and investigated housing, working, and sanitation issues.[5] The playground opened on May Day in 1893, located on Polk Street. Families dressed in party attire and came to join the celebration that day. Addams had studied child behavior and painfully concluded that "children robbed of childhood were likely to become dull, sullen men and women working mindless jobs, or criminals for whom the adventure of crime became the only way to break out of the bleakness of their lives" [28] Addams' thinking regarding the importance of childhood play opportunities contributed to a national conversation about the need for playgrounds and a movement that started the Playground Association of America [29] Also, one volunteer, Jenny Dow, started a kindergarten class for children left at the settlement while their mothers worked in the sweatshops. Within three weeks, Dow had 24 registered kindergartners and 70 on a waiting list.[30] At the municipal level, their pursuit of legal reforms led to the first juvenile court in the United States, and their work influenced urban planning and the transition to a branch library system.[5] At the state level Hull House influenced legislation on child labor laws, occupational safety and health provisions, compulsory education, immigrant rights, and pension laws.[5] These experiences translated to success at the federal level, working with the settlement house network to champion national child labor laws, women's suffrage, a children's bureau, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, and other elements of the Progressive agenda during the first two decades of the twentieth century.[5] Jane Addams and many other Hull House residents such as Florence Kelley and Julia Lathrop inspired and stimulated social reforms. Hull House residents generated action. What is less well known, is that Hull House also generated a unique philosophy often described as feminist pragmatism. Philosophy is generally associated with academia. Plato, is known for establishing the academy (387 BCE), which was a forerunner of universities. Men dominated this world of thought --philosophy. Hull House offered an alternative location where women could debate, reflect, ponder and make sense of urban life through the prism of feminine experience. According to Maurice Hamington [31] Hull House was an incubator of ideas where feminist pragmatism was jump started. The Hull House philosophy, contrasted sharply with the approach of Plato. He used geometry and math as a spring board to a theory of Forms, which were "ideal, eternal, unchanging and pleasingly independence of earthly visible things.[32] Addams, on the other hand, was not interested in abstract truth. She wanted her philosophic approach to incorporate the messy world of lived experience - with emphasis on the under explored world of women's experience.[33] Rather than focusing on fixed individual characteristics (virtues), her social ethics engaged the individual in broader society and focused on a social responsibility and participatory democracy.[34] [35] In 1897, Alice Hamilton after graduating from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine joined Hull House and founded one of the first child welfare and outpatient pediatric clinic.[36] Teachings Hull House Smith Hall along Halsted St., 1910 Women's Club building, 1905 Children in line on a retaining wall at Hull House, 1908 Later, the settlement branched out and offered services to ameliorate some of the effects of poverty. A public dispensary provided nutritious food for the sick as well as a daycare center and public baths. Among the courses Hull House offered was a bookbinding course, which was timely — given the employment opportunities in the growing printing trade.[37] Hull House was well known for its success in aiding American assimilation, especially with immigrant youth.[38] Hull House became the center of the movement to promote hand workmanship as a moral regenerative force.[39] Under the direction of Laura Dainty Pelham their theater group performed the Chicago premiers of several plays by John Galsworthy, Henrik Ibsen, and George Bernard Shaw, and was given credit for founding the American Little Theatre Movement.[40] The success of Hull House led Paul Kellogg to refer to the group as the "Great Ladies of Halsted Street".[41] The objective of Hull House, as stated in its charter, was: "To provide a center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago."[42] The building and museum Starr, 1914 Addams, 1915 Hull House was located in Chicago, Illinois, and took its name from the Italianate mansion built by real estate magnate Charles Jerald Hull (1820–1889) at 800 South Halsted Street in 1856. The building was located in what had once been a fashionable part of town, but by 1889, when Addams was searching for a location for her experiment, it had descended into squalor. This was partly due to the rapid and overwhelming influx of immigrants into the Near West Side neighborhood. Charles Hull granted his former home to his niece Helen Culver, who in turn granted it to Addams on a 25-year rent-free lease. By 1907, Addams had acquired 13 buildings surrounding Hull's mansion. Between 1889 and 1935, Addams and Ellen Gates Starr continuously redeveloped the building.[6] In 1912, the Bowen Country Club summer camp was added to complete the Hull House complex.[citation needed] The facility remained at the original location until it was purchased in 1963 by what was then called the University of Illinois-Circle Campus.[43] The development of University of Illinois-Circle Campus required the demolition of most of the Hull House buildings[6] and the 1967 restoration to the original building by Frazier, Raftery, Orr and Fairbank removed Addams's third floor addition. In addition to the mansion, of the dozen additional buildings only the craftsman style dining hall (built in 1905 and designed by Pond & Pond) survives and it was moved 200 yards (182.9 m) from its original site to be next to the mansion.[6][44] The haunting of Hull House Addams noted that upon moving in, the building had a "half-skeptical reputation for a haunted attic."[45] Over the years, numerous stories of ghosts and hauntings have surrounded Hull House, making it a stop on many of the "ghosts in Chicago" tours. Charles Hull's wife had died in the house in 1860 and is sometimes thought to haunt it.[46] Other candidates for resident ghosts include the many people who died there of natural causes in the 1870s when it was used as a home for the aged by the Little Sisters of the Poor.[46] In 1913, another Hull House ghost story began circulating. According to this legend, after a man claimed that he would rather have the Devil in his house than a picture of The Virgin Mary, his child was born with pointed ears, horns, scale-covered skin, and a tail. The mother was said to have taken the baby to Hull House, where Addams was said to have attempted to have it baptized and wound up locking it in the attic.[47] While initially annoyed about the story, which had no basis in fact, Addams became fascinated by the effect the episode had on old women in the neighborhood and used the episode as a basis for her book The Long Road of Woman's Memory.[48] While a great many erroneous stories have circulated about the building, Addams is known to have spoken to several friends about one of the front bedrooms on the second floor being haunted – she and a friend once thought they saw a "woman in white" ghost there, and the same ghost was later seen by a group of girls when the room was used as a dressing room for the adjacent theater. Though Addams called it "haunted," she seems to have been more amused than frightened by it.[46] Theater Addams felt that the community benefits from theater plays and thus established an amateur theater in the Hull House in 1899.[49] "The neighborhood Greeks performed the classic plays of antiquity in their own language and the children of European immigrants produced Shakespeare" as well as others.[50] Early one December, the Greeks performed Odysseus in Chicago. The auditorium was filled with a multi-ethnic crowd and packed too close for comfort. The audience was very eager and gave the performers "rapt attention."[51] They watched neighbors and co-workers execute this primitive play, but it was very powerful, plausible, and personal. The actors seemed to pay "tribute to a noble ancestry" and plea for the respect of the audience.[51] Indeed, they did gain this respect because it was said that not even trained college students could give the same play with as much zeal and patriotism.[51] America's improvisational theatre scene has its roots in Hull House, as Viola Spolin, noted improvisational techniques instructor, taught classes and developed her techniques at Hull House.[52] In 1963, when road tours of Broadway productions became common, the Hull House Theater in the Jane Addams Center at 3212 North Broadway fostered the development of Chicago Theater companies for the rest of the century.[49] Founder Robert Sickinger created an environment to nourish young talent with professionalism.[53] 1930s to 2012 Addams was head resident until her death in 1935. Hull House continued to serve the community surrounding the Halsted location until it was displaced by the urban branch campus of the University of Illinois in the 1960s. Until 2012, the social service center role was performed throughout the city at various locations under an umbrella organization, the Jane Addams Hull House Association.[5] The original Hull House building itself is a museum, part of the College of Architecture and the Arts at the University of Illinois Chicago, and is open to the public. The Jane Addams Hull House Association was one of Chicago's largest nonprofit social welfare organizations. Its mission was to improve social conditions for underserved people and communities by providing creative, innovative programs and by advocating for related public policy reforms. The Association had more than 50 programs at over 40 sites throughout Chicago and served approximately 60,000 individuals, families, and community members every year.[54] The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is part of the College of Architecture and the Arts at the University of Illinois Chicago and serves as a memorial to Addams and other resident social reformers, whose work influenced the lives of their immigrant neighbors, as well as national and international public policy. The museum and its programs connect the work of Hull House residents to important contemporary social issues. The Museum's collection includes over 1,100 artifacts related to Hull House history and over 100 oral interviews conducted with people who have shared their stories about Hull House and the surrounding neighborhood.[55] Hull House Association closure Because of its heavy reliance on public support—as much as 85 percent of its revenue came from such sources—Hull House Association had essentially become an arm of government, unlike anything Ms. Addams might recognize today.[56] When Clarence Wood, then the head of Chicago's Human Relations Commission, took over in 2000, he promised to move toward more private fundraising. But that effort appears to have failed to bring in more than a few million dollars in any given year, accounting for less than 10 percent of the agency's funding in most of the last decade, according to financial statements filed with the IRS and the Illinois attorney general's office.[57] On January 19, 2012, it was announced that Jane Addams Hull House Association would close in the spring of 2012 and file for bankruptcy due to financial difficulties, after almost 122 years.[58] On Friday, January 27, 2012, Hull House closed unexpectedly and all employees received their final paychecks.[59] Employees learned at time of closing that they would not receive severance pay or earned vacation pay or healthcare coverage.[60] Union officials said that the agency closed while owing employees more than $27,000 in unpaid expense reimbursement claims.[61] The University of Illinois Chicago's Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (unaffiliated with the agency), however, remains open.[62] Workers and residents Founders and workers, sorted by surname Edith Abbott, resident social worker Grace Abbott, resident social worker Jane Addams, cofounder with Ellen Gates Starr Ethel Percy Andrus, volunteer Enella Benedict, founder and director for the Art School Neva Boyd, founded the Recreational Training School Sophonisba Breckinridge, social scientist Charlotte E. Carr, head resident 1937-1942 Cornelia De Bey, worker Dorothy Detzer, social, peace, relief and juvenille activist Emily Edwards (de Cantabrana), art teacher Julia I. Felsenthal, social worker Alice Hamilton, artist, worker, and resident Florence Kelley, established a Bureau of Women's Labor there Julia Lathrop, children's rights activist and civil service reformer Dorothy Loeb, artist, teacher, and resident Mary McDowell, teacher and social reformer Ernest Carroll Moore, teacher, late founder and first provost of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Willard Motley, a founder of Hull House Magazine Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, trade union activist, resident Frances Perkins, labor rights advocate, later Secretary of Labor Adena Miller Rich, head resident 1935 to 1937 Pauline Gibling Schindler, taught piano Charles Phineas Schwartz, legal counsel, trustee, and vice president Eleanor Clarke Slagle, established a workroom for handicapped people, later founder of occupational therapy Ida Mott Smith, aide to Jane Addams, and her husband Robert Morss Lovett were residents from 1921 to 1937[63] Viola Spolin, teacher, Recreational Training School Ellen Gates Starr, cofounder with Jane Addams Alzina Stevens, labor leader and social reformer Rachelle Yarros, opened the country's second birth control clinic, married Victor Yarros, both of whom were residents Residents or non-resident clients Henry Standing Bear, resident Benny Goodman, joined the boys club band[64] Gerard Swope, resident who married resident Mary Hill, later worked for General Electric Company (1922–1939)[65] Chicago (/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ i shih-KAH-goh, locally also /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/ shih-KAW-goh;[6] Miami-Illinois: Shikaakwa; Ojibwe: Zhigaagong) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the third-most populous in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census,[7] it is also the most populous city in the Midwest. As the seat of Cook County, the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century.[8][9] In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless,[10] but Chicago's population continued to grow.[9] Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture, such as the Chicago School, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.[11][12] Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It has the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone.[13] O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports by passenger traffic,[14] and the region is also the nation's railroad hub.[15] The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018.[16] Chicago's economy is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.[13] Chicago is a major tourist destination. Chicago's culture has contributed much to the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, and music (particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel,[17] and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Chicago area also hosts the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago, among other institutions of learning. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams. Etymology and nicknames Main article: Nicknames of Chicago See also: Windy City (nickname) and List of Chicago placename etymologies The name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir.[18] Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew profusely in the area.[19] According to his diary of late September 1687: ... when we arrived at the said place called "Chicagou" which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region.[19] The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders.[20] History Main article: History of Chicago For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Chicago history. Beginnings Traditional Potawatomi regalia on display at the Field Museum of Natural History In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, a Native American tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.[21] An artist's rendering of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 Home Insurance Building (1885) Court of Honor at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 The first known permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".[22][23][24] In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the US for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt.[25] After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.[26][27][28] 19th century The location and course of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (completed 1848) 0:50 State and Madison Streets, once known as the busiest intersection in the world (1897) On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200.[28] Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837,[29] and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.[30] As the site of the Chicago Portage,[31] the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.[32][33][34][35] A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy.[36] The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.[37] In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery.[38] These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for US president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War. To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system.[39] The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings.[40] While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source. The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.[41][42][43] In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time.[44][45][46] Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact,[47] and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction.[48][49] During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.[50][51] The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side.[52] The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes, and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).[53][54] Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889.[55] Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.[56] During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.[57] The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.[58] In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals.[59][60] In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones.[61] This system for telling time spread throughout the continent. In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history.[62][63] The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.[64][65] 20th and 21st centuries Men outside a soup kitchen during the Great Depression (1931) 1900 to 1939 Aerial motion film photography of Chicago in 1914 as filmed by A. Roy Knabenshue During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903.[66] This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music.[67] Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919, also occurred.[68] The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the gangster era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era.[69] Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.[70] Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.[71] The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat.[72] From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago.[72] Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief, these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side. In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair.[73] The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.[74] 1940 to 1979 Boy from Chicago, 1941 The Chicago Picasso (1967) inspired a new era in urban public art. During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945.[citation needed] Protesters in Grant Park outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.[75] On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.[76] Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.[77] By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt.[78] While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods.[79] Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.[80] Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police.[81] Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure.[82] In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.[83] 1980 to present In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after.[84] Washington was succeeded by 6th ward alderman Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election. Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.[85][86] In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m3) of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power.[87] The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.[87] On February 23, 2011, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House Chief of Staff and member of the House of Representatives, won the mayoral election.[88] Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015.[89] Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019.[90] All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the city clerk was Anna Valencia and the city treasurer was Melissa Conyears-Ervin.[91] On May 15, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as the 57th mayor of Chicago. Geography Main article: Geography of Chicago Chicago skyline at sunset in October 2020, from near Fullerton Avenue looking south Topography Downtown and the North Side with beaches lining the waterfront A satellite image of Chicago Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago metropolitan area, situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region. The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city.[92][93] Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.[94] When Chicago was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks.[95] The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is 579 ft (176.5 m) above sea level. While measurements vary somewhat,[96] the lowest points are along the lake shore at 578 ft (176.2 m), while the highest point, at 672 ft (205 m), is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side.[97] Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park. There are 24 public beaches across 26 miles (42 km) of the waterfront.[98] Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront. An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs, though different organizations have slightly different definitions.[99][100][101] Communities See also: Community areas in Chicago and Neighborhoods in Chicago Community areas of Chicago Major sections of the city include the central business district, called The Loop, and the North, South, and West Sides.[102] The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes.[103] The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront.[104] The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.[105] In the late-1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 informally defined neighborhoods.[106][107] Streetscape Main article: Roads and expressways in Chicago Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plot, which was bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, North Avenue on the north, Wood Street on the west, and 22nd Street on the south.[108] Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and sixteen in the other direction, about one street per 200 meters in one direction and one street per 100 meters in the other direction. The grid's regularity provided an efficient means of developing new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Native American trails, also cross the city (Elston, Milwaukee, Ogden, Lincoln, etc.). Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.[109] In 2016, Chicago was ranked the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States.[110] Many of the city's residential streets have a wide patch of grass or trees between the street and the sidewalk itself. This helps to keep pedestrians on the sidewalk further away from the street traffic. Chicago's Western Avenue is the longest continuous urban street in the world.[111] Other notable streets include Michigan Avenue, State Street, Oak, Rush, Clark Street, and Belmont Avenue. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's boulevards and parkways.[112] Architecture Main article: Architecture of Chicago Further information: List of tallest buildings in Chicago and List of Chicago Landmarks The Chicago Building (1904–05) is a prime example of the Chicago School, displaying both variations of the Chicago window. The destruction caused by the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in the city as Chicago ushered in the skyscraper era,[51] which would then be followed by many other cities around the world.[113] Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and densest.[114] Some of the United States' tallest towers are located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) is the second tallest building in the Western Hemisphere after One World Trade Center, and Trump International Hotel and Tower is the third tallest in the country.[115] The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe. Many other architects have left their impression on the Chicago skyline such as Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Charles B. Atwood, John Root, and Helmut Jahn.[116][117] The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, currently listed as 44th-largest (as of 9 September 2013), had its own zip code until 2008, and stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River.[118] Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower, also a building with its own zip code), Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as some areas on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Northwest Indiana area are clustered.[119] Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, two movements in architecture.[120] Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found throughout Chicago. Large swaths of the city's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by brick bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. The Chicago suburb of Oak Park was home to famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.[121][122] A popular tourist activity is to take an architecture boat tour along the Chicago River.[123] Monuments and public art Replica of Daniel Chester French's Statue of The Republic at the site of the World's Columbian Exposition Main article: List of public art in Chicago Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art with donors establishing funding for such art as far back as Benjamin Ferguson's 1905 trust.[124] A number of Chicago's public art works are by modern figurative artists. Among these are Chagall's Four Seasons; the Chicago Picasso; Miro's Chicago; Calder's Flamingo; Oldenburg's Batcolumn; Moore's Large Interior Form, 1953-54, Man Enters the Cosmos and Nuclear Energy; Dubuffet's Monument with Standing Beast, Abakanowicz's Agora; and, Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate which has become an icon of the city. Some events which shaped the city's history have also been memorialized by art works, including the Great Northern Migration (Saar) and the centennial of statehood for Illinois. Finally, two fountains near the Loop also function as monumental works of art: Plensa's Crown Fountain as well as Burnham and Bennett's Buckingham Fountain.[citation needed] Climate Main article: Climate of Chicago Chicago, Illinois Climate chart (explanation) J F M A M J J A S O N D   2.1  3218   1.9  3622   2.7  4731   3.6  5942   4.1  7052   4.1  8062   4  8568   4  8366   3.3  7558   3.2  6346   3.4  4935   2.6  3523 █ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F █ Precipitation totals in inches Metric conversion The Chicago River during the January 2014 cold wave The city lies within the typical hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfa), and experiences four distinct seasons.[125][126][127] Summers are hot and humid, with frequent heat waves. The July daily average temperature is 75.4 °F (24.1 °C), with afternoon temperatures peaking at 84.5 °F (29.2 °C). In a normal summer, temperatures reach at least 90 °F (32 °C) on 17 days, with lakefront locations staying cooler when winds blow off the lake. Winters are relatively cold and snowy. Blizzards do occur, such as in winter 2011.[128] There are many sunny but cold days. The normal winter high from December through March is about 36 °F (2 °C). January and February are the coldest months. A polar vortex in January 2019 nearly broke the city's cold record of −27 °F (−33 °C), which was set on January 20, 1985.[129][130][131] Measurable snowfall can continue through the first or second week of April.[132] Spring and autumn are mild, short seasons, typically with low humidity. Dew point temperatures in the summer range from an average of 55.8 °F (13.2 °C) in June to 61.7 °F (16.5 °C) in July.[133] They can reach nearly 80 °F (27 °C), such as during the July 2019 heat wave. The city lies within USDA plant hardiness zone 6a, transitioning to 5b in the suburbs.[134] According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of 105 °F (41 °C) was recorded on July 24, 1934.[135] Midway Airport reached 109 °F (43 °C) one day prior and recorded a heat index of 125 °F (52 °C) during the 1995 heatwave.[136] The lowest official temperature of −27 °F (−33 °C) was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport.[133][136] Most of the city's rainfall is brought by thunderstorms, averaging 38 a year. The region is prone to severe thunderstorms during the spring and summer which can produce large hail, damaging winds, and occasionally tornadoes.[137] Like other major cities, Chicago experiences an urban heat island, making the city and its suburbs milder than surrounding rural areas, especially at night and in winter. The proximity to Lake Michigan tends to keep the Chicago lakefront somewhat cooler in summer and less brutally cold in winter than inland parts of the city and suburbs away from the lake.[138] Northeast winds from wintertime cyclones departing south of the region sometimes bring the city lake-effect snow.[139] Climate data for Chicago (Midway Airport), 1991–2020 normals,[a] extremes 1928–present Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °F (°C) 67 (19) 75 (24) 86 (30) 92 (33) 102 (39) 107 (42) 109 (43) 104 (40) 102 (39) 94 (34) 81 (27) 72 (22) 109 (43) Mean maximum °F (°C) 53.4 (11.9) 57.9 (14.4) 72.0 (22.2) 81.5 (27.5) 89.2 (31.8) 93.9 (34.4) 96.0 (35.6) 94.2 (34.6) 90.8 (32.7) 82.8 (28.2) 68.0 (20.0) 57.5 (14.2) 97.1 (36.2) Average high °F (°C) 32.8 (0.4) 36.8 (2.7) 47.9 (8.8) 60.0 (15.6) 71.5 (21.9) 81.2 (27.3) 85.2 (29.6) 83.1 (28.4) 76.5 (24.7) 63.7 (17.6) 49.6 (9.8) 37.7 (3.2) 60.5 (15.8) Daily mean °F (°C) 26.2 (−3.2) 29.9 (−1.2) 39.9 (4.4) 50.9 (10.5) 61.9 (16.6) 71.9 (22.2) 76.7 (24.8) 75.0 (23.9) 67.8 (19.9) 55.3 (12.9) 42.4 (5.8) 31.5 (−0.3) 52.4 (11.3) Average low °F (°C) 19.5 (−6.9) 22.9 (−5.1) 32.0 (0.0) 41.7 (5.4) 52.4 (11.3) 62.7 (17.1) 68.1 (20.1) 66.9 (19.4) 59.2 (15.1) 46.8 (8.2) 35.2 (1.8) 25.3 (−3.7) 44.4 (6.9) Mean minimum °F (°C) −3 (−19) 3.4 (−15.9) 14.1 (−9.9) 28.2 (−2.1) 39.1 (3.9) 49.3 (9.6) 58.6 (14.8) 57.6 (14.2) 45.0 (7.2) 31.8 (−0.1) 19.7 (−6.8) 5.3 (−14.8) −6.5 (−21.4) Record low °F (°C) −25 (−32) −20 (−29) −7 (−22) 10 (−12) 28 (−2) 35 (2) 46 (8) 43 (6) 29 (−2) 20 (−7) −3 (−19) −20 (−29) −25 (−32) Average precipitation inches (mm) 2.30 (58) 2.12 (54) 2.66 (68) 4.15 (105) 4.75 (121) 4.53 (115) 4.02 (102) 4.10 (104) 3.33 (85) 3.86 (98) 2.73 (69) 2.33 (59) 40.88 (1,038) Average snowfall inches (cm) 12.5 (32) 10.1 (26) 5.7 (14) 1.0 (2.5) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.1 (0.25) 1.5 (3.8) 7.9 (20) 38.8 (99) Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) 11.5 9.4 11.1 12.0 12.4 11.1 10.0 9.3 8.4 10.8 10.2 10.8 127.0 Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) 8.9 6.4 3.9 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 1.6 6.3 28.2 Average ultraviolet index 1 2 4 6 7 9 9 8 6 4 2 1 5 Source 1: NOAA[140][133][136], WRCC[141] Source 2: Weather Atlas (UV)[142] Climate data for Chicago (O'Hare Int'l Airport), 1991–2020 normals,[a] extremes 1871–present[b] Sunshine data for Chicago Time zone As in the rest of the state of Illinois, Chicago forms part of the Central Time Zone. The border with the Eastern Time Zone is located a short distance to the east, used in Michigan and certain parts of Indiana. Demographics Main article: Demographics of Chicago Historical population Census Pop. Note %± 1840 4,470 — 1850 29,963 570.3% 1860 112,172 274.4% 1870 298,977 166.5% 1880 503,185 68.3% 1890 1,099,850 118.6% 1900 1,698,575 54.4% 1910 2,185,283 28.7% 1920 2,701,705 23.6% 1930 3,376,438 25.0% 1940 3,396,808 0.6% 1950 3,620,962 6.6% 1960 3,550,404 −1.9% 1970 3,366,957 −5.2% 1980 3,005,072 −10.7% 1990 2,783,726 −7.4% 2000 2,896,016 4.0% 2010 2,695,598 −6.9% 2020 2,746,388 1.9% 2021 (est.) 2,696,555 −1.8% United States Census Bureau[148] 2010–2020[7] During its first hundred years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, fewer than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4,000. In the forty years from 1850 to 1890, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world,[149] and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million,[150] and reached its highest ever recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census. From the last two decades of the 19th century, Chicago was the destination of waves of immigrants from Ireland, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Jews, Russians, Poles, Greeks, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Romanians, Turkish, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins and Czechs.[151][152] To these ethnic groups, the basis of the city's industrial working class, were added an additional influx of African Americans from the American South—with Chicago's black population doubling between 1910 and 1920 and doubling again between 1920 and 1930.[151] Chicago has a significant Bosnian population, many of whom arrived in the 1990s and 2000s.[153] In the 1920s and 1930s, the great majority of African Americans moving to Chicago settled in a so‑called "Black Belt" on the city's South Side.[151] A large number of blacks also settled on the West Side. By 1930, two-thirds of Chicago's black population lived in sections of the city which were 90% black in racial composition.[151] Chicago's South Side emerged as United States second-largest urban black concentration, following New York's Harlem. In 1990, Chicago's South Side and the adjoining south suburbs constituted the largest black majority region in the entire United States.[151] Most of Chicago's foreign-born population were born in Mexico, Poland and India.[154] Chicago's population declined in the latter half of the 20th century, from over 3.6 million in 1950 down to under 2.7 million by 2010. By the time of the official census count in 1990, it was overtaken by Los Angeles as the United States' second largest city.[155] The city has seen a rise in population for the 2000 census and after a decrease in 2010, it rose again for the 2020 census.[156] According to U.S. census estimates as of July 2019, Chicago's largest racial or ethnic group is non-Hispanic White at 32.8% of the population, Blacks at 30.1% and the Hispanic population at 29.0% of the population.[157][158][159][160] Racial composition 2020[161] 2010[162] 1990[160] 1970[160] 1940[160] White (non-Hispanic) 31.4% 31.7% 37.9% 59.0%[c] 91.2% Hispanic or Latino 29.8% 28.9% 19.6% 7.4%[c] 0.5% Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 28.7% 32.3% 39.1% 32.7% 8.2% Asian (non-Hispanic) 6.9% 5.4% 3.7% 0.9% 0.1% Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 2.6% 1.3% n/a n/a n/a Ethnic origins in Chicago Map of racial distribution in Chicago, 2010 U.S. census. Each dot is 25 people: ⬤ White ⬤ Black ⬤ Asian ⬤ Hispanic ⬤ Other Chicago has the third-largest LGBT population in the United States. In 2018, the Chicago Department of Health, estimated 7.5% of the adult population, approximately 146,000 Chicagoans, were LGBTQ.[163] In 2015, roughly 4% of the population identified as LGBT.[164][165] Since the 2013 legalization of same-sex marriage in Illinois, over 10,000 same-sex couples have wed in Cook County, a majority of them in Chicago.[166][167] Chicago became a "de jure" sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance.[168] According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data estimates for 2008–2012, the median income for a household in the city was $47,408, and the median income for a family was $54,188. Male full-time workers had a median income of $47,074 versus $42,063 for females. About 18.3% of families and 22.1% of the population lived below the poverty line.[169] In 2018, Chicago ranked seventh globally for the highest number of ultra-high-net-worth residents with roughly 3,300 residents worth more than $30 million.[170] According to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the ancestral groups having 10,000 or more persons in Chicago were:[171] Ireland (137,799) Poland (134,032) Germany (120,328) Italy (77,967) China (66,978) American (37,118) UK (36,145) recent African (32,727) India (25,000) Russia (19,771) Arab (17,598) European (15,753) Sweden (15,151) Japan (15,142) Greece (15,129) France (except Basque) (11,410) Ukraine (11,104) West Indian (except Hispanic groups) (10,349) Persons identifying themselves in "Other groups" were classified at 1.72 million, and unclassified or not reported were approximately 153,000.[171] Religion Religion in Chicago (2014)[172][173]   Protestantism (35%)   Roman Catholicism (34%)   Eastern Orthodoxy (1%)   Jehovah's Witness (1%)   No religion (22%)   Judaism (3%)   Islam (2%)   Buddhism (1%)   Hinduism (1%) According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, Christianity is the most prevalently practiced religion in Chicago (71%),[173] with the city being the fourth-most religious metropolis in the United States after Dallas, Atlanta and Houston.[173] Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are the largest branches (34% and 35% respectively), followed by Eastern Orthodoxy and Jehovah's Witnesses with 1% each.[172] Chicago also has a sizable non-Christian population. Non-Christian groups include Irreligious (22%), Judaism (3%), Islam (2%), Buddhism (1%) and Hinduism (1%).[172] Chicago is the headquarters of several religious denominations, including the Evangelical Covenant Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is the seat of several dioceses. The Fourth Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian congregations in the United States based on memberships.[174] Since the 20th century Chicago has also been the headquarters of the Assyrian Church of the East.[175] In 2014 the Catholic Church was the largest individual Christian denomination (34%), with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago being the largest Catholic jurisdiction. Evangelical Protestantism form the largest theological Protestant branch (16%), followed by Mainline Protestants (11%), and historically Black churches (8%). Among denominational Protestant branches, Baptists formed the largest group in Chicago (10%); followed by Nondenominational (5%); Lutherans (4%); and Pentecostals (3%).[172] Non-Christian faiths accounted for 7% of the religious population in 2014. Judaism has at least 261,000 adherents which is 3% of the population, making it the second largest religion.[176][172] A 2020 study estimated the total Jewish population of the Chicago metropolitan area, both religious and irreligious, at 319,600.[177] The first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993 were held in Chicago.[178] Many international religious leaders have visited Chicago, including Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama[179] and Pope John Paul II in 1979.[180] Economy Main article: Economy of Chicago See also: List of companies in the Chicago metropolitan area Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago The Chicago Board of Trade Building Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $670.5 billion according to September 2017 estimates.[181] The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification.[182] The Chicago metropolitan area has the third-largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation.[183] Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry. Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second-largest central business district in the United States.[184] The city is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Bank's Seventh District. The city has major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), by Chicago's CME Group. In 2017, Chicago exchanges traded 4.7 billion derivatives with a face value of over one quadrillion dollars. Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower.[185] Academically, Chicago has been influential through the Chicago school of economics, which fielded some 12 Nobel Prize winners. The city and its surrounding metropolitan area contain the third-largest labor pool in the United States with about 4.63 million workers.[186] Illinois is home to 66 Fortune 1000 companies, including those in Chicago.[187] The city of Chicago also hosts 12 Fortune Global 500 companies and 17 Financial Times 500 companies. The city claims three Dow 30 companies: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001,[188] McDonald's and Walgreens Boots Alliance.[189] For six consecutive years from 2013 through 2018, Chicago was ranked the nation's top metropolitan area for corporate relocations.[190] However, three Fortune 500 companies left Chicago in 2022, leaving the city with 35, still second to New York City.[191] Manufacturing, printing, publishing, and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare division of General Electric. Prominent food companies based in Chicago include the world headquarters of Conagra, Ferrara Candy Company, Kraft Heinz, McDonald's, Mondelez International, and Quaker Oats.[citation needed] Chicago has been a hub of the retail sector since its early development, with Montgomery Ward, Sears, and Marshall Field's. Today the Chicago metropolitan area is the headquarters of several retailers, including Walgreens, Sears, Ace Hardware, Claire's, ULTA Beauty and Crate & Barrel.[citation needed] Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, with the Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs,[192] while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907.[193] Chicago was also the site of the Schwinn Bicycle Company. Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third-largest in the world.[194] Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.[195] Chicago's minimum wage for non-tipped employees is one of the highest in the nation and reached $15 in 2021.[196][197] Culture and contemporary life Main article: Culture of Chicago Further information: List of people from Chicago The National Hellenic Museum in Greektown is one of several ethnic museums comprising the Chicago Cultural Alliance. Andy's Jazz Club in River North, a staple of the Chicago jazz scene since the 1950s The city's waterfront location and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over a third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south.[198] The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican American neighborhoods, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and La Villita along 26th Street; the Puerto Rican enclave of Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood; Greektown, along South Halsted Street, immediately west of downtown;[199] Little Italy, along Taylor Street; Chinatown in Armour Square; Polish Patches in West Town; Little Seoul in Albany Park around Lawrence Avenue; Little Vietnam near Broadway in Uptown; and the Desi area, along Devon Avenue in West Ridge.[200] Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, governmental and commercial institutions and the site of Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions, such as the CBOT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight-block by five-block area of city streets that is encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used by locals to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.[citation needed] Lincoln Park contains the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North Gallery District features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City.[citation needed] Lakeview is home to Boystown, the city's large LGBT nightlife and culture center. The Chicago Pride Parade, held the last Sunday in June, is one of the world's largest with over a million people in attendance.[201] North Halsted Street is the main thoroughfare of Boystown.[202] The South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park is the home of former US President Barack Obama. It also contains the University of Chicago, ranked one of the world's top ten universities,[203] and the Museum of Science and Industry. The 6-mile (9.7 km) long Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is the site of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the University of Chicago. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which travels through Bronzeville to Washington Park. Ford Motor Company has an automobile assembly plant on the South Side in Hegewisch, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are also on the South Side.[citation needed] The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants in any U.S. city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the University of Illinois at Chicago and was once home to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios, the site of which has been rebuilt as the global headquarters of McDonald's.[citation needed] The city's distinctive accent, made famous by its use in classic films like The Blues Brothers and television programs like the Saturday Night Live skit "Bill Swerski's Superfans", is an advanced form of Inland Northern American English. This dialect can also be found in other cities bordering the Great Lakes such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Rochester, New York, and most prominently features a rearrangement of certain vowel sounds, such as the short 'a' sound as in "cat", which can sound more like "kyet" to outsiders. The accent remains well associated with the city.[204] Entertainment and the arts Further information: Theater in Chicago, Visual arts of Chicago, and Music of Chicago See also: List of theaters in Chicago The Chicago Theatre The spire of the Copernicus Center is modeled on the Royal Castle in Warsaw. Jay Pritzker Pavilion at night Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Goodman Theatre in the Loop; the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater in Lincoln Park; and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier. Broadway In Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at five theaters: the Nederlander Theatre, CIBC Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area. Chicago's theater community spawned modern improvisational theater, and includes the prominent groups The Second City and I.O. (formerly ImprovOlympic).[citation needed] The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) performs at Symphony Center, and is recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world.[205] Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Festival, located 25 miles (40 km) north of Chicago, is the summer home of the CSO, and is a favorite destination for many Chicagoans. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago.[citation needed] The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956,[206] and presents operas in Lithuanian. The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago has several other contemporary and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Chicago Dance Crash.[citation needed] Other live-music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music (a popular form of electronic dance music) and industrial music, and is the site of an influential hip hop scene. In the 1980s and 90s, the city was the global center for house and industrial music, two forms of music created in Chicago, as well as being popular for alternative rock, punk, and new wave. The city has been a center for rave culture, since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts, such as Lollapalooza and the Pitchfork Music Festival.[citation needed] Lollapalooza originated in Chicago in 1991 and at first travelled to many cities, but as of 2005 its home has been Chicago.[207] A 2007 report on the Chicago music industry by the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center ranked Chicago third among metropolitan U.S. areas in "size of music industry" and fourth among all U.S. cities in "number of concerts and performances".[208] Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century, it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Henry Darger is one of the most celebrated figures of outsider art.[209] Tourism Main article: Tourism in Chicago See also: List of beaches in Chicago Ferries offer sightseeing tours and water-taxi transportation along the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Aerial view of Navy Pier at night Magnificent Mile hosts numerous upscale stores and landmarks, including the Chicago Water Tower. In 2014, Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors.[210] These visitors contributed more than US$13.7 billion to Chicago's economy.[210] Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.[211] Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is 3,000 ft (910 m) long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel. The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists.[212] Museums Further information: List of museums and cultural institutions in Chicago Among the city's museums are the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.[citation needed] Cuisine See also: Culture of Chicago § Food and drink, Chicago farmers' markets, and List of Michelin starred restaurants in Chicago Chicago-style deep-dish pizza A Polish market in Chicago Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties that reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza; this style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno.[213] The Chicago-style thin crust is also popular in the city.[214] Certain Chicago pizza favorites include Lou Malnati's and Giordano's.[215] The Chicago-style hot dog, typically an all-beef hot dog, is loaded with an array of toppings that often includes pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt on a poppy seed bun.[216] Enthusiasts of the Chicago-style hot dog frown upon the use of ketchup as a garnish, but may prefer to add giardiniera.[217][218][219] A distinctly Chicago sandwich, the Italian beef sandwich is thinly sliced beef simmered in au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo—an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. The Maxwell Street Polish is a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa—on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.[220] Chicken Vesuvio is roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. The Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito is a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. The mother-in-law is a tamale topped with chili and served on a hot dog bun.[221] The tradition of serving the Greek dish saganaki while aflame has its origins in Chicago's Greek community.[222] The appetizer, which consists of a square of fried cheese, is doused with Metaxa and flambéed table-side.[223] Chicago-style barbecue features hardwood smoked rib tips and hot links which were traditionally cooked in an aquarium smoker, a Chicago invention.[224] Annual festivals feature various Chicago signature dishes, such as Taste of Chicago and the Chicago Food Truck Festival.[225] One of the world's most decorated restaurants and a recipient of three Michelin stars, Alinea is located in Chicago. Well-known chefs who have had restaurants in Chicago include: Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, Robb Report named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination".[226] Literature Further information: Chicago literature Carl Sandburg's most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for the World / Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat / Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler, / Stormy, Husky, Brawling, City of the Big Shoulders." Chicago literature finds its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. In the Encyclopedia of Chicago, Northwestern University Professor Bill Savage describes Chicago fiction as prose which tries to "capture the essence of the city, its spaces and its people". The challenge for early writers was that Chicago was a frontier outpost that transformed into a global metropolis in the span of two generations. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe the urban social, political, and economic conditions of Chicago.[227] Nonetheless, Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time,[228] and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie.[229] Much notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check. At least three short periods in the history of Chicago have had a lasting influence on American literature.[230] These include from the time of the Great Chicago Fire to about 1900, what became known as the Chicago Literary Renaissance in the 1910s and early 1920s, and the period of the Great Depression through the 1940s. What would become the influential Poetry magazine was founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, who was working as an art critic for the Chicago Tribune. The magazine discovered such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks, James Merrill, and John Ashbery.[231] T. S. Eliot's first professionally published poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", was first published by Poetry. Contributors have included Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and Carl Sandburg, among others. The magazine was instrumental in launching the Imagist and Objectivist poetic movements. From the 1950s through 1970s, American poetry continued to evolve in Chicago.[232] In the 1980s, a modern form of poetry performance began in Chicago, the poetry slam.[233] Sports Main article: Sports in Chicago Top: Soldier Field; Bottom: Wrigley Field Top: United Center; Bottom: Guaranteed Rate Field The city has two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League play in Wrigley Field on the North Side; and the Chicago White Sox of the American League play in Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side. The two teams have faced each other in a World Series only once, in 1906.[citation needed] The Cubs are the oldest Major League Baseball team to have never changed their city;[234] they have played in Chicago since 1871.[235] They had the dubious honor of having the longest championship drought in American professional sports, failing to win a World Series between 1908 and 2016. The White Sox have played on the South Side continuously since 1901. They have won three World Series titles (1906, 1917, 2005) and six American League pennants, including the first in 1901. The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including the 1985 Super Bowl XX. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field. The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world.[236] During the 1990s, with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls won six NBA championships in eight seasons.[237][238] The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL) began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cups, including in 2010, 2013, and 2015. Both the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center.[citation needed] Major league professional teams in Chicago (ranked by attendance) Club League Sport Venue Attendance Founded Championships Chicago Bears NFL Football Soldier Field 61,142 1919 9 Championships (1 Super Bowl) Chicago Cubs MLB Baseball Wrigley Field 41,649 1870 3 World Series Chicago White Sox MLB Baseball Guaranteed Rate Field 40,615 1900 3 World Series Chicago Blackhawks NHL Ice hockey United Center 21,653 1926 6 Stanley Cups Chicago Bulls NBA Basketball 20,776 1966 6 NBA Championships Chicago Fire MLS Soccer Soldier Field 17,383 1997 1 MLS Cup, 1 Supporters Shield Chicago Sky WNBA Basketball Wintrust Arena 10,387 2006 1 WNBA Championships Chicago Half Marathon on Lake Shore Drive on the South Side Chicago Fire FC is a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) and plays at Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups, since their founding in 1997. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field.[citation needed] The Chicago Sky is a professional basketball team playing in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). They play home games at the Wintrust Arena. The team was founded before the 2006 WNBA season began.[239] The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of six World Marathon Majors.[240] Five area colleges play in Division I conferences: two from major conferences—the DePaul Blue Demons (Big East Conference) and the Northwestern Wildcats (Big Ten Conference)—and three from other D1 conferences—the Chicago State Cougars (Western Athletic Conference); the Loyola Ramblers (Atlantic 10 Conference); and the UIC Flames (Missouri Valley Conference).[241] Chicago has also entered into esports with the creation of the Chicago Huntsmen, a professional Call of Duty team that participates within the CDL.[citation needed] Parks and greenspace Main articles: Parks in Chicago, Chicago Boulevard System, and Cook County Forest Preserves Portage Park on the Northwest Side Washington Square Park on the Near North Side When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, a Latin phrase which means "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks with over 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of municipal parkland. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas.[242] Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers 1,200 acres (490 ha) and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it third in the number of visitors after Central Park in New York City, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C.[243] There is a historic boulevard system,[244] a network of wide, tree-lined boulevards which connect a number of Chicago parks.[245] The boulevards and the parks were authorized by the Illinois legislature in 1869.[246] A number of Chicago neighborhoods emerged along these roadways in the 19th century.[245] The building of the boulevard system continued intermittently until 1942. It includes nineteen boulevards, eight parks, and six squares, along twenty-six miles of interconnected streets.[247] The Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.[248][249] With berths for more than 6,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system.[250] In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park, which is in the northwestern corner of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.[citation needed] The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts,[251] including both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield.[252] Washington Park is also one of the city's biggest parks; covering nearly 400 acres (160 ha). The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago.[253] Law and government Government Main article: Government of Chicago Daley Plaza with Picasso statue, City Hall in background. At right, the Daley Plaza Building contains the state law courts. The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The current mayor is Brandon Johnson. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. As well as the mayor, Chicago's clerk and treasurer are also elected citywide. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city.[254] The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget.[255] The Chicago Police Department provides law enforcement and the Chicago Fire Department provides fire suppression and emergency medical services for the city and its residents. Civil and criminal law cases are heard in the Cook County Circuit Court of the State of Illinois court system, or in the Northern District of Illinois, in the federal system. In the state court, the public prosecutor is the Illinois state's attorney; in the Federal court it is the United States attorney. Politics Main article: Political history of Chicago Presidential election results in Chicago[256] Year Democratic Republican Others 2020 82.5% 944,735 15.8% 181,234 1.6% 18,772 2016 82.9% 912,945 12.3% 135,320 4.8% 53,262 During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations.[257] For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States; with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. Even before then, it was not unheard of for Republican presidential candidates to win handily in downstate Illinois, only to lose statewide due to large Democratic margins in Chicago. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding.[citation needed] Chicago contains less than 25% of the state's population, but it is split between eight of Illinois' 17 districts in the United States House of Representatives. All eight of the city's representatives are Democrats; only two Republicans have represented a significant portion of the city since 1973, for one term each: Robert P. Hanrahan from 1973 to 1975, and Michael Patrick Flanagan from 1995 to 1997.[citation needed] Machine politics persisted in Chicago after the decline of similar machines in other large U.S. cities.[258] During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington (in office 1983–1987). From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of its longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U.S. House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs as needed.[259] The city is home of former United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama; Barack Obama was formerly a state legislator representing Chicago and later a US senator. The Obamas' residence is located near the University of Chicago in Kenwood on the city's south side.[260] Crime Main articles: Crime in Chicago and Timeline of organized crime in Chicago Chicago Police Department SUV, 2011 Chicago's crime rate in 2020 was 3,926 per 100,000 people.[261] Chicago experienced major rises in violent crime in the 1920s, in the late 1960s, and in the 2020s.[262][263] Chicago's biggest criminal justice challenges have changed little over the last 50 years, and statistically reside with homicide, armed robbery, gang violence, and aggravated battery. Chicago has attracted attention for a high murder rate and perceived crime rate compared to other major cities like New York and Los Angeles. However, while it has a large absolute number of crimes due to its size, Chicago is not among the top-25 most violent cities in the United States.[264][265] Murder rates in Chicago vary greatly depending on the neighborhood in question.[266] The neighborhoods of Englewood on the South Side, and Austin on the West side, for example, have homicide rates that are ten times higher than other parts of the city.[267] Chicago has an estimated population of over 100,000 active gang members from nearly 60 factions.[268][269] According to reports in 2013, "most of Chicago's violent crime comes from gangs trying to maintain control of drug-selling territories",[270] and is specifically related to the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is active in several American cities.[271] Violent crime rates vary significantly by area of the city, with more economically developed areas having low rates, but other sections have much higher rates of crime.[270] In 2013, the violent crime rate was 910 per 100,000 people;[272] the murder rate was 10.4 – while high crime districts saw 38.9, low crime districts saw 2.5 murders per 100,000.[273] Chicago has a long history of public corruption that regularly draws the attention of federal law enforcement and federal prosecutors.[274] From 2012 to 2019, 33 Chicago aldermen were convicted on corruption charges, roughly one third of those elected in the time period. A report from the Office of the Legislative Inspector General noted that over half of Chicago's elected alderman took illegal campaign contributions in 2013.[275] Most corruption cases in Chicago are prosecuted by the US Attorney's office, as legal jurisdiction makes most offenses punishable as a federal crime.[276] Education Main article: Chicago Public Schools When it was opened in 1991, the central Harold Washington Library appeared in Guinness World Records as the largest municipal public library building in the world. Schools and libraries Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are eleven selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools,[277] designed to meet the needs of Chicago's most academically advanced students. These schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses.[278] Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.[279] Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests.[280] The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,545 students (2013–2014 20th Day Enrollment), is the third-largest in the U.S.[281] On September 10, 2012, teachers for the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike for the first time since 1987 over pay, resources and other issues.[282] According to data compiled in 2014, Chicago's "choice system", where students who test or apply and may attend one of a number of public high schools (there are about 130), sorts students of different achievement levels into different schools (high performing, middle performing, and low performing schools).[283] Chicago has a network of Lutheran schools,[284] and several private schools are run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates Catholic schools, that include Jesuit preparatory schools and others. A number of private schools are completely secular. There are also the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts and the public Chicago High School for the Arts, a high school focused on five categories (visual arts, theatre, musical theatre, dance, and music) of the arts.[285] The Chicago Public Library system operates 3 regional libraries and 77 neighbourhood branches, including the central library.[286] Colleges and universities For a more comprehensive list, see List of colleges and universities in Chicago. The University of Chicago, as seen from the Midway Plaisance Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by U.S. News & World Report.[citation needed] Highly regarded universities in Chicago and the surrounding area are: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; DePaul University; Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; East–West University; National Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Robert Morris University Illinois; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Rush University; and Shimer College.[287] William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901.[288] His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.[citation needed] Chicago also has a high concentration of post-baccalaureate institutions, graduate schools, seminaries, and theological schools, such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Erikson Institute, The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, the Catholic Theological Union, the Moody Bible Institute, the John Marshall Law School and the University of Chicago Divinity School.[citation needed] Media Further information: Media in Chicago and Chicago International Film Festival WGN began in the early days of radio and developed into a multi-platform broadcaster, including a cable television super-station. Chicago was home of The Oprah Winfrey Show from 1986 until 2011 and other Harpo Production operations until 2015. Television The Chicago metropolitan area is a major media hub and the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles.[289] Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM 2, WLS 7, WMAQ 5 and WFLD 32, respectively). Former CW affiliate WGN-TV 9, which was owned from its inception by Tribune Broadcasting (now owned by the Nexstar Media Group since 2019), is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. WGN America eventually became NewsNation in 2021. Chicago has also been the home of several prominent talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Steve Harvey Show, The Rosie Show, The Jerry Springer Show, The Phil Donahue Show, The Jenny Jones Show, and more. The city also has one PBS member station (its second: WYCC 20, removed its affiliation with PBS in 2017[290]): WTTW 11, producer of shows such as Sneak Previews, The Frugal Gourmet, Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The McLaughlin Group. As of 2018, Windy City Live is Chicago's only daytime talk show, which is hosted by Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini at ABC7 Studios with a live weekday audience. Since 1999, Judge Mathis also films his syndicated arbitration-based reality court show at the NBC Tower. Beginning in January 2019, Newsy began producing 12 of its 14 hours of live news programming per day from its new facility in Chicago.[citation needed] Newspapers Two major daily newspapers are published in Chicago: the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, with the Tribune having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as Chicago, the Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News), Draugas (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the Chicago Reader, the SouthtownStar, the Chicago Defender, the Daily Herald, Newcity,[291][292] StreetWise and the Windy City Times. The entertainment and cultural magazine Time Out Chicago and GRAB magazine are also published in the city, as well as local music magazine Chicago Innerview. In addition, Chicago is the home of satirical national news outlet, The Onion, as well as its sister pop-culture publication, The A.V. Club.[293] Movies and filming Main articles: List of movies set in Chicago and List of television shows set in Chicago Radio This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Chicago has five 50,000 watt AM radio stations: the CBS Radio-owned WBBM and WSCR; the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WGN; the Cumulus Media-owned WLS; and the ESPN Radio-owned WMVP. Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.[citation needed] Chicago Public Radio produces nationally aired programs such as PRI's This American Life and NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!.[citation needed] Infrastructure Transportation Further information: Transportation in Chicago Aerial photo of the Jane Byrne Interchange (2022) after reconstruction, initially opened in the 1960s Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third-largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.[294] The city of Chicago has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 26.5 percent of Chicago households were without a car, and increased slightly to 27.5 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Chicago averaged 1.12 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.[295] Parking Chicago has many parking garages to accommodate for commuters and local residents. Some of the larger garages downtown include Grant Park Garage, East Monroe Street Garage, and Millennium Park Garage. [296][297][298] Chicago since 2009 has relinquished rights to its public street parking.[299] In 2008, as Chicago struggled to close a growing budget deficit, the city agreed to a 75-year, $1.16 billion deal to lease its parking meter system to an operating company created by Morgan Stanley, called Chicago Parking Meters LLC. Daley said the "agreement is very good news for the taxpayers of Chicago because it will provide more than $1 billion in net proceeds that can be used during this very difficult economy."[300] The rights of the parking ticket lease end in 2081, and since 2022 have already recouped over $1.5 billion in revenue for Chicago Parking Meters LLC investors.[301] Expressways Further information: Roads and expressways in Chicago Seven mainline and four auxiliary interstate highways (55, 57, 65 (only in Indiana), 80 (also in Indiana), 88, 90 (also in Indiana), 94 (also in Indiana), 190, 290, 294, and 355) run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. The Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways are the busiest state maintained routes in the entire state of Illinois.[302] Transit systems Chicago Union Station, opened in 1925, is the third-busiest passenger rail terminal in the United States. The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the City of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs outside of the Chicago city limits. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the Chicago "L" or just "L" (short for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway and O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24‑hour service which makes Chicago one of a handful of cities around the world (and one of two in the United States, the other being New York City) to offer rail service 24 hours a day, every day of the year, within the city's limits. Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and throughout the Chicago suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend and Chicago. Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. A 2005 study found that one quarter of commuters used public transit.[303] Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America). Passenger rail Amtrak train on the Empire Builder route departs Chicago from Union Station. Amtrak long distance and commuter rail services originate from Union Station.[304] Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation.[305] The services terminate in the San Francisco area, Washington, D.C., New York City, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. Future services will terminate at Rockford and Moline. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was never completed. Bicycle and scooter sharing systems In July 2013, the bicycle-sharing system Divvy was launched with 750 bikes and 75 docking stations[306] It is operated by Lyft for the Chicago Department of Transportation.[307] As of July 2019, Divvy operated 5800 bicycles at 608 stations, covering almost all of the city, excluding Pullman, Rosedale, Beverly, Belmont Cragin and Edison Park.[308] In May 2019, The City of Chicago announced its Chicago's Electric Shared Scooter Pilot Program, scheduled to run from June 15 to October 15.[309] The program started on June 15 with 10 different scooter companies, including scooter sharing market leaders Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft.[310] Each company was allowed to bring 250 electric scooters, although both Bird and Lime claimed that they experienced a higher demand for their scooters.[311] The program ended on October 15, with nearly 800,000 rides taken.[312] Freight rail Chicago is the largest hub in the railroad industry.[313] All five Class I railroads meet in Chicago. As of 2002, severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days).[314] According to U.S. Department of Transportation, the volume of imported and exported goods transported via rail to, from, or through Chicago is forecast to increase nearly 150 percent between 2010 and 2040.[315] CREATE, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program, comprises about 70 programs, including crossovers, overpasses and underpasses, that intend to significantly improve the speed of freight movements in the Chicago area.[316] Airports Further information: Transportation in Chicago § Airports O'Hare International Airport Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport measured by airline operations,[317] on the far Northwest Side, and Midway International Airport on the Southwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second-busiest by total passenger traffic.[318] Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, can serve as alternative Chicago area airports, however they do not offer as many commercial flights as O'Hare and Midway. In recent years the state of Illinois has been leaning towards building an entirely new airport in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago.[319] The City of Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's third-largest airline. Port authority Main article: Port of Chicago The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[320] Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes 100 acres (0.40 km2) of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over 780,000 square meters (8,400,000 square feet) of storage. Lake Calumet terminal: located at the union of the Grand Calumet River and Little Calumet River 6 miles (9.7 km) inland from Lake Michigan. Includes three transit sheds totaling over 29,000 square meters (310,000 square feet) adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3,000 linear feet) of ship and barge berthing. Grain (14 million bushels) and bulk liquid (800,000 barrels) storage facilities along Lake Calumet. The Illinois International Port district also operates Foreign trade zone No. 22, which extends 60 miles (97 km) from Chicago's city limits. Utilities Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city began installing wind turbines on government buildings to promote renewable energy.[321][322][323] Natural gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago. Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert recyclable refuse from landfills.[324] Because of low participation in the blue bag programs, the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling like other cities. This proved successful and blue bins were rolled out across the city.[325] Health systems Prentice Women's Hospital on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Downtown Campus The Illinois Medical District is on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, ranked as the second best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by U.S. News & World Report for 2014–16, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.[326] Two of the country's premier academic medical centers reside in Chicago, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by U.S. News & World Report for 2017–18;[327] the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly named the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by U.S. News & World Report;[328] the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the second largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).[329] In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove. The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago. Sister cities Main article: List of sister cities of Chicago See also Chicago area water quality Chicago Wilderness Gentrification of Chicago Index of Illinois-related articles Illinois (/ˌɪlɪˈnɔɪ/ i IL-in-OY) is a state in the Midwestern United States. The Great Lakes are to its northeast and the Mississippi River to its west.[b] Its largest metropolitan areas are Chicago and the Metro East region of Greater St. Louis. Other metropolitan areas include Peoria and Rockford, as well as Springfield, its capital, and Champaign-Urbana, home to the main campus of the state's flagship university. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area. Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural hubs in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Additionally, the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash rivers form parts of the state's boundaries. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been among the world's ten busiest airports for decades. Illinois has long been considered a microcosm of the United States and a bellwether in American culture, exemplified by the phrase Will it play in Peoria?.[6] What is now Illinois was inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous cultures, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi River in the 17th century in the region they called Illinois Country, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in southwestern Lake Michigan.[7] The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.[8] By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center.[9] The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans, particularly in Chicago, who founded the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.[10][11] Chicago became a leading cultural, economic, and population center and is today one of the world's major commercial centers; its metropolitan area, informally referred to as Chicagoland, holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents. Two World Heritage Sites are in Illinois; Cahokia Mounds, and part of the Wright architecture site. Major centers of learning include the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University. A wide variety of protected areas seek to conserve Illinois' natural and cultural resources. Historically, three U.S. presidents have been elected while residents of Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama; additionally, Ronald Reagan was born and raised in the state. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan Land of Lincoln, which has been displayed on its license plates since 1954.[12][13] The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Etymology See also: Illinois Confederation and List of counties in Illinois "Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers' name for the Illinois Native Americans, a name that was spelled in many different ways in the early records.[14] American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant 'man' or 'men' in the Miami-Illinois language, with the original iliniwek transformed via French into Illinois.[15][16] This etymology is not supported by the Illinois language,[citation needed] as the word for "man" is ireniwa, and plural of "man" is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also been said to mean 'tribe of superior men',[17] which is a false etymology. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa 'he speaks the regular way'. This was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe· (pluralized as ilinwe·k). The French borrowed these forms, spelling the /we/ ending as -ois, a transliteration of that sound in the French of that time. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, when French colonists had settled in the western area. The Illinois's name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms.[18][19] History Main article: History of Illinois Pre-European Mississippian copper plate found at the Saddle Site in Union County, Illinois American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and Urban Center of the Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. They built an urban complex of more than 100 platform and burial mounds, a 50-acre (20 ha) plaza larger than 35 football fields,[20] and a woodhenge of sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. Monks Mound, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north of the Valley of Mexico. It is 100 ft (30 m) high, 951 ft (290 m) long, 836 ft (255 m) wide, and covers 13.8 acres (5.6 ha).[21] It contains about 814,000 cu yd (622,000 m3) of earth.[22] It was topped by a structure thought to have measured about 105 ft (32 m) in length and 48 ft (15 m) in width, covered an area 5,000 sq ft (460 m2), and been as much as 50 ft (15 m) high, making its peak 150 ft (46 m) above the level of the plaza. The finely crafted ornaments and tools recovered by archaeologists at Cahokia include elaborate ceramics, finely sculptured stonework, carefully embossed and engraved copper and mica sheets, and one funeral blanket for an important chief fashioned from 20,000 shell beads. These artifacts indicate that Cahokia was truly an urban center, with clustered housing, markets, and specialists in toolmaking, hide dressing, potting, jewelry making, shell engraving, weaving and salt making.[23] The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to Suzanne Austin Alchon, "At one site in the central Illinois River valley, one third of all adults died as a result of violent injuries."[24] The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance.[25] As the Illini declined during the Beaver Wars era, members of the Algonquian-speaking Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes including the Fox (Meskwaki), Iowa, Kickapoo, Mascouten, Piankeshaw, Shawnee, Wea, and Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) came into the area from the east and north around the Great Lakes.[26][27] European exploration and settlement prior to 1800 Main articles: New France; Louisiana (New France); Canada (New France); Illinois Country; French and Indian War; Treaty of Paris (1763); Province of Quebec (1763–1791); Indian Reserve (1763); American Revolutionary War; Western theater of the American Revolutionary War; Illinois County, Virginia; Treaty of Paris (1783); Northwest Ordinance; and Northwest Territory Illinois in 1718, approximate modern state area highlighted, from Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississipi by Guillaume de L'Isle[28] French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. Marquette soon after founded a mission at the Grand Village of the Illinois in Illinois Country. In 1680, French explorers under René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti constructed a fort at the site of present-day Peoria, and in 1682, a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. French Empire Canadiens came south to settle particularly along the Mississippi River, and Illinois was part of first New France, and then of La Louisiane until 1763, when it passed to the British with their defeat of France in the Seven Years' War. The small French settlements continued, although many French migrated west to Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, Missouri, to evade British rule.[29] A few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but few British or American settlers moved there, as the Crown made it part of the territory reserved for Indians west of the Appalachians, and then part of the British Province of Quebec. In 1778, George Rogers Clark claimed Illinois County for Virginia. In a compromise, Virginia (and other states that made various claims) ceded the area to the new United States in the 1780s and it became part of the Northwest Territory, administered by the federal government and later organized as states.[29] 19th century Main articles: Indiana Territory, Organic act § List of organic acts, Illinois Territory, Admission to the Union, and List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union See also: History of Chicago and History of Nauvoo, Illinois Prior to statehood The bell donated by King Louis XV in 1741 to the French mission at Kaskaskia. It was later called the "Liberty Bell of the West", after it was rung to celebrate U.S. victory in the Revolution The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia, an early French settlement. During the discussions leading up to Illinois's admission to the Union, the proposed northern boundary of the state was moved twice.[30] The original provisions of the Northwest Ordinance had specified a boundary that would have been tangent to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Such a boundary would have left Illinois with no shoreline on Lake Michigan at all. However, as Indiana had successfully been granted a 10 mi (16 km) northern extension of its boundary to provide it with a usable lakefront, the original bill for Illinois statehood, submitted to Congress on January 23, 1818, stipulated a northern border at the same latitude as Indiana's, which is defined as 10 miles north of the southernmost extremity of Lake Michigan. However, the Illinois delegate, Nathaniel Pope, wanted more, and lobbied to have the boundary moved further north. The final bill passed by Congress included an amendment to shift the border to 42° 30' north, which is approximately 51 mi (82 km) north of the Indiana northern border. This shift added 8,500 sq mi (22,000 km2) to the state, including the lead mining region near Galena. More importantly, it added nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and the Chicago River. Pope and others envisioned a canal that would connect the Chicago and Illinois rivers and thus connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. The State of Illinois prior to the Civil War In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The southern portion of Illinois Territory was admitted as the state of Illinois, and the rest was joined to Michigan Territory. Old State Capitol: Abraham Lincoln and other area legislators were instrumental in moving the state capitol to centrally located Springfield in 1839. In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, headquartered in a small building rented by the state. In 1819, Vandalia became the capital, and over the next 18 years, three separate buildings were built to serve successively as the capitol building. In 1837, the state legislators representing Sangamon County, under the leadership of state representative Abraham Lincoln, succeeded in having the capital moved to Springfield,[31] where a fifth capitol building was constructed. A sixth capitol building was erected in 1867, which continues to serve as the Illinois capitol today. Though it was ostensibly a "free state", there was nonetheless slavery in Illinois. The ethnic French had owned black slaves since the 1720s, and American settlers had already brought slaves into the area from Kentucky. Slavery was nominally banned by the Northwest Ordinance, but that was not enforced for those already holding slaves. When Illinois became a state in 1818, the Ordinance no longer applied, and about 900 slaves were held in the state. As the southern part of the state, later known as "Egypt" or "Little Egypt",[32][33] was largely settled by migrants from the South, the section was hostile to free blacks. Settlers were allowed to bring slaves with them for labor, but, in 1822, state residents voted against making slavery legal. Still, most residents opposed allowing free blacks as permanent residents. Some settlers brought in slaves seasonally or as house servants.[34] The Illinois Constitution of 1848 was written with a provision for exclusionary laws to be passed. In 1853, John A. Logan helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in the state.[35] The winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow";[36] a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north, and this may have contributed to its name, "Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.[37] In 1832, the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox (Meskwaki), and Kickapoo Indian tribes. It represents the end of Indian resistance to white settlement in the Chicago region.[38] The Indians had been forced to leave their homes and move to Iowa in 1831; when they attempted to return, they were attacked and eventually defeated by U.S. militia. The survivors were forced back to Iowa.[39] By 1839, the Latter Day Saints had founded a utopian city called Nauvoo, formerly called Commerce. Located in Hancock County along the Mississippi River, Nauvoo flourished and, by 1844, briefly surpassed Chicago for the position of the state's largest city.[40][41] But in that same year, the Latter Day Saint movement founder, Joseph Smith, was killed in the Carthage Jail, about 30 miles away from Nauvoo. Following a succession crisis, Brigham Young led most Latter Day Saints out of Illinois in a mass exodus to present-day Utah; after close to six years of rapid development, Nauvoo quickly declined afterward. After it was established in 1833, Chicago gained prominence as a Great Lakes port, and then as an Illinois and Michigan Canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois's largest city.[29] With the tremendous growth of mines and factories in the state in the 19th century, Illinois was the ground for the formation of labor unions in the United States. In 1847, after lobbying by Dorothea L. Dix, Illinois became one of the first states to establish a system of state-supported treatment of mental illness and disabilities, replacing local almshouses. Dix came into this effort after having met J. O. King, a Jacksonville, Illinois businessman, who invited her to Illinois, where he had been working to build an asylum for the insane. With the lobbying expertise of Dix, plans for the Jacksonville State Hospital (now known as the Jacksonville Developmental Center) were signed into law on March 1, 1847.[42] Civil War and after Main article: Illinois in the American Civil War Union troops embarking at Cairo on January 10, 1862 During the American Civil War, Illinois ranked fourth in soldiers who served (more than 250,000) in the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments, which were numbered from the 7th to the 156th regiments. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also gathered, as well as two light artillery regiments.[43] The town of Cairo, at the southern tip of the state at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, served as a strategically important supply base and training center for the Union army. For several months, both General Grant and Admiral Foote had headquarters in Cairo. During the Civil War, and more so afterwards, Chicago's population skyrocketed, which increased its prominence. The Pullman Strike and Haymarket Riot, in particular, greatly influenced the development of the American labor movement. From Sunday, October 8, 1871, until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned in downtown Chicago, destroying four sq mi (10 km2).[44] 20th century Police and protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Rising waters in Alton in 1993. At the turn of the 20th century, Illinois had a population of nearly 5 million. Many people from other parts of the country were attracted to the state by employment caused by the expanding industrial base. Whites were 98% of the state's population.[45] Bolstered by continued immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and by the African-American Great Migration from the South, Illinois grew and emerged as one of the most important states in the union. By the end of the century, the population had reached 12.4 million. The Century of Progress World's fair was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in Marion County and Crawford County led to a boom in 1937, and by 1939, Illinois ranked fourth in U.S. oil production. Illinois manufactured 6.1 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking seventh among the 48 states.[46] Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The seaway and the Illinois Waterway connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1960, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines (which still exists as a museum, with a working McDonald's across the street). Illinois had a prominent role in the emergence of the nuclear age. In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the University of Chicago conducted the first sustained nuclear chain reaction. In 1957, Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, activated the first experimental nuclear power generating system in the United States. By 1960, the first privately financed nuclear plant in the United States, Dresden 1, was dedicated near Morris. In 1967, Fermilab, a national nuclear research facility near Batavia, opened a particle accelerator, which was the world's largest for over 40 years. With eleven plants currently operating, Illinois leads all states in the amount of electricity generated from nuclear power.[47][48] In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the nation to adopt the recommendation of the American Law Institute and pass a comprehensive criminal code revision that repealed the law against sodomy. The code also abrogated common law crimes and established an age of consent of 18.[49] The state's fourth constitution was adopted in 1970, replacing the 1870 document.[50] The first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign to benefit American farmers, in 1985. The worst upper Mississippi River flood of the century, the Great Flood of 1993, inundated many towns and thousands of acres of farmland.[29] 21st century A COVID-19 safety message in the Chicago Loop Illinois entered the 21st century under Republican Governor George Ryan. Near the end of his term in January 2003, following a string of high-profile exonerations, Ryan commuted all death sentences in the state.[51] The 2002 election brought Democrat Rod Blagojevich to the governor's mansion. It also brought future president Barack Obama into a committee leadership position in the Illinois Senate, where he drafted the Health Care Justice Act, a forerunner of Obamacare.[52] Obama's election to the presidency in Blagojevich's second term set off a chain of events culminating in the Blagojevich's impeachment, trial, and subsequent criminal conviction and imprisonment, making Blagojevich the second consecutive Illinois governor to be convicted on federal corruption charges.[53] Blagojevich's replacement Pat Quinn was defeated by Republican Bruce Rauner in the 2014 election. Disagreements between the governor and legislature over budgetary policy led to the Illinois Budget Impasse, a 793-day period stretching from 2015 to 2018 in which the state had no budget and struggled to pay its bills.[54] On August 28, 2017, Rauner signed a bill into law that prohibited state and local police from arresting anyone solely due to their immigration status or due to federal detainers.[55][56] Some fellow Republicans criticized Rauner for his action, claiming the bill made Illinois a sanctuary state.[57] In the 2018 election, Rauner was replaced by J.B. Pritzker, returning the state government to a Democratic trifecta.[58] In January 2020 the state legalized marijuana.[59] On March 9, 2020, Pritzker issued a disaster proclamation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He ended the state of emergency in May 2023.[60] Geology Main article: Geology of Illinois During the early part of the Paleozoic Era, the area that would one day become Illinois was submerged beneath a shallow sea and located near the Equator. Diverse marine life lived at this time, including trilobites, brachiopods, and crinoids. Changing environmental conditions led to the formation of large coal swamps in the Carboniferous. Illinois was above sea level for at least part of the Mesozoic, but by its end was again submerged by the Western Interior Seaway. This receded by the Eocene Epoch. During the Pleistocene Epoch, vast ice sheets covered much of Illinois, with only the Driftless Area remaining exposed. These glaciers carved the basin of Lake Michigan and left behind traces of ancient glacial lakes and moraines.[61] Geography Main article: Geography of Illinois Further information: List of ecoregions in Illinois Illinois is located in the Midwest region of the United States and is one of the eight states in the Great Lakes region of North America (which also includes Ontario, Canada). Boundaries Illinois's eastern border with Indiana consists of a north–south line at 87° 31′ 30″ west longitude in Lake Michigan at the north, to the Wabash River in the south above Post Vincennes. The Wabash River continues as the eastern/southeastern border with Indiana until the Wabash enters the Ohio River. This marks the beginning of Illinois's southern border with Kentucky, which runs along the northern shoreline of the Ohio River.[62] Most of the western border with Missouri and Iowa is the Mississippi River; Kaskaskia is an exclave of Illinois, lying west of the Mississippi and reachable only from Missouri. The state's northern border with Wisconsin is fixed at 42° 30′ north latitude. The northeastern border of Illinois lies in Lake Michigan, within which Illinois shares a water boundary with the state of Michigan, as well as Wisconsin and Indiana.[26] Topography Charles Mound, the highest natural point in Illinois at 1,235 feet (376 m) above sea level, is located in the Driftless Area in the northwestern part of the state. Though Illinois lies entirely in the Interior Plains, it does have some minor variation in its elevation. In extreme northwestern Illinois, the Driftless Area, a region of unglaciated and therefore higher and more rugged topography, occupies a small part of the state. Southern Illinois includes the hilly areas around the Shawnee National Forest. Charles Mound, located in the Driftless region, has the state's highest natural elevation above sea level at 1,235 ft (376 m). Other highlands include the Shawnee Hills in the south, and there is varying topography along its rivers; the Illinois River bisects the state northeast to southwest. The floodplain on the Mississippi River from Alton to the Kaskaskia River is known as the American Bottom. Divisions At 279 feet (85 m) above sea level,[63] the lowest elevation point in the state is located near Cairo and the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Illinois has three major geographical divisions. Northern Illinois is dominated by Chicago metropolitan area, or Chicagoland, which is the city of Chicago and its suburbs, and the adjoining exurban area into which the metropolis is expanding. As defined by the federal government, the Chicago metro area includes several counties in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and has a population of over 9.8 million. Chicago itself is a cosmopolitan city, densely populated, industrialized, the transportation hub of the nation, and settled by a wide variety of ethnic groups. The city of Rockford, Illinois's third-largest city and center of the state's fourth largest metropolitan area, sits along Interstates 39 and 90 some 75 mi (121 km) northwest of Chicago. The Quad Cities region, located along the Mississippi River in northern Illinois, had a population of 381,342 in 2011. The midsection of Illinois is the second major division, called Central Illinois. Historically prairie, it is now mainly agricultural and known as the Heart of Illinois. It is characterized by small towns and medium–small cities. The western section (west of the Illinois River) was originally part of the Military Tract of 1812 and forms the conspicuous western bulge of the state. Agriculture, particularly corn and soybeans, as well as educational institutions and manufacturing centers, figure prominently in Central Illinois. Cities include Peoria; Springfield, the state capital; Quincy; Decatur; Bloomington-Normal; and Champaign-Urbana.[26] The third division is Southern Illinois, comprising the area south of U.S. Route 50, including Little Egypt, near the juncture of the Mississippi River and Ohio River. Southern Illinois is the site of the ancient city of Cahokia, as well as the site of the first state capital at Kaskaskia, which today is separated from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River.[26][64] This region has a somewhat warmer winter climate, different variety of crops (including some cotton farming in the past), more rugged topography (due to the area remaining unglaciated during the Illinoian Stage, unlike most of the rest of the state), as well as small-scale oil deposits and coal mining. The Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, such as East St. Louis, are located in this region, and collectively, they are known as the Metro-East. The other somewhat significant concentration of population in Southern Illinois is the Carbondale-Marion-Herrin, Illinois Combined Statistical Area centered on Carbondale and Marion, a two-county area that is home to 123,272 residents.[26] A portion of southeastern Illinois is part of the extended Evansville, Indiana, Metro Area, locally referred to as the Tri-State with Indiana and Kentucky. Seven Illinois counties are in the area. In addition to these three, largely latitudinally defined divisions, all of the region outside the Chicago metropolitan area is often called "downstate" Illinois. This term is flexible, but is generally meant to mean everything outside the influence of the Chicago area. Thus, some cities in Northern Illinois, such as DeKalb, which is west of Chicago, and Rockford—which is actually north of Chicago—are sometimes incorrectly considered to be 'downstate'. Climate Main article: Climate of Illinois See also: St. Louis tornado history Köppen climate types of Illinois Illinois has a climate that varies widely throughout the year. Because of its nearly 400-mile distance between its northernmost and southernmost extremes, as well as its mid-continental situation, most of Illinois has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfa), with hot, humid summers and cold winters. The southern part of the state, from about Carbondale southward, has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen Cfa), with more moderate winters. Average yearly precipitation for Illinois varies from just over 48 in (1,219 mm) at the southern tip to around 35 in (889 mm) in the northern portion of the state. Normal annual snowfall exceeds 38 in (965 mm) in the Chicago area, while the southern portion of the state normally receives less than 14 in (356 mm).[65] The all-time high temperature was 117 °F (47 °C), recorded on July 14, 1954, at East St. Louis, and the all-time low temperature was −38 °F (−39 °C), recorded on January 31, 2019, during the January 2019 North American cold wave at a weather station near Mount Carroll,[66][67] and confirmed on March 5, 2019.[68] This followed the previous record of −36 °F (−38 °C) recorded on January 5, 1999, near Congerville.[68] Prior to the Mount Carroll record, a temperature of −37 °F (−38 °C) was recorded on January 15, 2009, at Rochelle, but at a weather station not subjected to the same quality control as official records.[69][70] Illinois averages approximately 51 days of thunderstorm activity a year, which ranks somewhat above average in the number of thunderstorm days for the United States. Illinois is vulnerable to tornadoes, with an average of 35 occurring annually, which puts much of the state at around five tornadoes per 10,000 sq mi (30,000 km2) annually.[71] While tornadoes are no more powerful in Illinois than other states, some of Tornado Alley's deadliest tornadoes on record have occurred in the state. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 killed 695 people in three states; 613 of the victims died in Illinois.[72] Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures For Various Illinois Cities (°F) City January February March April May June July August September October November December Cairo[73] 43/25 48/29 59/37 70/46 78/57 86/67 90/71 88/69 81/61 71/49 57/39 46/30 Chicago[74] 31/16 36/21 47/31 59/42 70/52 81/61 85/65 83/65 75/57 64/45 48/34 36/22 Edwardsville[75] 36/19 42/24 52/34 64/45 75/55 84/64 89/69 86/66 79/58 68/46 53/35 41/25 Moline[76] 30/12 36/18 48/29 62/39 73/50 83/60 86/64 84/62 76/53 64/42 48/30 34/18 Peoria[77] 31/14 37/20 49/30 62/40 73/51 82/60 86/65 84/63 77/54 64/42 49/31 36/20 Rockford[78] 27/11 33/16 46/27 59/37 71/48 80/58 83/63 81/61 74/52 62/40 46/29 32/17 Springfield[79] 33/17 39/22 51/32 63/42 74/53 83/62 86/66 84/64 78/55 67/44 51/34 38/23 Urban areas This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2022) See also: Illinois statistical areas and List of municipalities in Illinois Chicago is the largest city in the state and the third-most populous city in the United States, with its 2020 population of 2,746,388. The U.S. Census Bureau currently lists seven other cities with populations of over 100,000 within Illinois. Based upon the U.S. Census Bureau's official 2010 population:[80] Aurora, a Chicago satellite town that eclipsed Rockford for the title of second-most populous city in Illinois; its 2010 population was 197,899. Rockford, at 152,871, is the third-largest city in the state, and is the largest city in the state not located within the Chicago suburbs. Joliet, located in metropolitan Chicago, is the fourth-largest city in the state, with a population of 147,433. Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, is fifth with 141,853. Naperville and Aurora share a boundary along Illinois Route 59. Springfield, the state's capital, comes in as sixth-most populous with 117,352 residents. Peoria, which decades ago was the second-most populous city in the state, is seventh with 115,007. The eighth-largest and final city in the 100,000 club is Elgin, a northwest suburb of Chicago, with a 2010 population of 108,188. The most populated city in the state south of Springfield is Belleville, with 44,478 people at the 2010 census. It is located in the Illinois portion of Greater St. Louis (often called the Metro-East area), which has a rapidly growing population of over 700,000. Other major urban areas include the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area, which has a combined population of almost 230,000 people, the Illinois portion of the Quad Cities area with about 215,000 people, and the Bloomington-Normal area with a combined population of over 165,000.    Largest cities or towns in Illinois 2020 U.S. census[81] Rank Name County Pop. Chicago Chicago Aurora Aurora 1 Chicago Cook 2,746,388 Joliet Joliet Naperville Naperville 2 Aurora Kane 180,542 3 Joliet Will 150,362 4 Naperville DuPage 149,540 5 Rockford Winnebago 148,655 6 Elgin Kane, Cook 114,797 7 Springfield Sangamon 114,394 8 Peoria Peoria 113,150 9 Waukegan Lake 89,321 10 Champaign Champaign 88,302 Demographics Illinois 2020 Population Density Map Ethnic origins in Illinois Historical population Census Pop. Note %± 1800 2,458 — 1810 12,282 399.7% 1820 55,211 349.5% 1830 157,445 185.2% 1840 476,183 202.4% 1850 851,470 78.8% 1860 1,711,951 101.1% 1870 2,539,891 48.4% 1880 3,077,871 21.2% 1890 3,826,352 24.3% 1900 4,821,550 26.0% 1910 5,638,591 16.9% 1920 6,485,280 15.0% 1930 7,630,654 17.7% 1940 7,897,241 3.5% 1950 8,712,176 10.3% 1960 10,081,158 15.7% 1970 11,113,976 10.2% 1980 11,426,518 2.8% 1990 11,430,602 0.0% 2000 12,419,293 8.6% 2010 12,830,632 3.3% 2020 12,812,508 −0.1% Source: 1910–2020) Map of counties in Illinois by racial plurality, per the 2020 U.S. census Non-Hispanic White The United States Census Bureau found that the population of Illinois was 12,812,508 in the 2020 United States census, moving from the fifth-largest state to the sixth-largest state (losing out to Pennsylvania). Illinois' population slightly declined in 2020 from the 2010 United States census by just over 18,000 residents and the overall population was quite higher than recent census estimates.[82] Illinois is the most populous state in the Midwest region. Chicago, the third-most populous city in the United States, is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area or Chicagoland, as this area is nicknamed. Although the Chicago metropolitan area comprises only 9% of the land area of the state, it contains 65% of the state's residents. The losses of population anticipated from the 2020 census results do not arise from the Chicago metro area; rather the declines are from the Downstate counties.[83] According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 9,212 homeless people in Illinois.[84][85] Ethnic composition as of the 2020 census  Race and ethnicity[86] Alone Total White (non-Hispanic) 58.3%   61.3%   Hispanic or Latino[c] — 18.2%   African American (non-Hispanic) 13.9%   15.0%   Asian 5.8%   6.7%   Native American 0.1%   1.1%   Pacific Islander 0.02%   0.1%   Other 0.4%   1.1%   Illinois Racial Breakdown of Population  Racial composition 1990[87] 2000[88] 2010[89] White 78.3% 73.5% 71.5% Black 14.8% 15.1% 14.5% Asian 2.5% 3.4% 4.6% Native 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander — — — Other race 4.2% 5.8% 6.7% Two or more races — 1.9% 2.3% 2019 American Community Survey Racial Makeup of Illinois (2019)[90]   White alone (71.37%)   Black alone (14.13%)   Native American alone (0.26%)   Asian Alone (5.67%)   Pacific Islander Alone (0.04%)   Some other race alone (5.76%)   Two or more races (2.78%) Racial/Ethnic Makeup of Illinois excluding Hispanics from racial categories (2019)[90] NH=Non-Hispanic   White NH (60.69%)   Black NH (13.88%)   Native American NH (0.10%)   Asian NH (5.60%)   Pacific Islander NH (0.02%)   Other NH (0.17%)   Two or more races NH (2.03%)   Hispanic Any Race (17.49%) Racial Makeup of Hispanics in Illinois (2019)[90]   White alone (61.05%)   Black alone (1.40%)   Native American alone (0.89%)   Asian Alone (0.36%)   Pacific Islander Alone (0.07%)   Other race alone (31.96%)   Two or more races (4.28%) According to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, Illinois's population was 71.4% White (60.7% Non-Hispanic White), 5.6% Asian, 0.2% Some Other Race, 13.9% Black or African American, 0.1% Native Americans and Alaskan Native, 0.1% Pacific Islander and 2.0% from two or more races.[90] The White population continues to remain the largest racial category in Illinois as Hispanics primarily identify as White (61.1%) with others identifying as Some Other Race (32.0%), Multiracial (4.3%), Black (1.4%), American Indian and Alaskan Native (0.2%), Asian (0.1%), and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (0.1%).[90] By ethnicity, 17.5% of the total population is Hispanic-Latino (of any race) and 82.5% is Non-Hispanic (of any race). If treated as a separate category, Hispanics are the largest minority group in Illinois.[90] The state's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic white, has declined from 83.5% in 1970[91] to 60.90% in 2018.[92] As of 2011, 49.4% of Illinois's population younger than age 1 were minorities (Note: Children born to white Hispanics or to a sole full or partial minority parent are counted as minorities).[93] At the 2007 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 1,768,518 foreign-born inhabitants of the state or 13.8% of the population, with 48.4% from Latin America, 24.6% from Asia, 22.8% from Europe, 2.9% from Africa, 1.2% from Canada, and 0.2% from Oceania. Of the foreign-born population, 43.7% were naturalized U.S. citizens, and 56.3% were not U.S. citizens.[94] In 2007, 6.9% of Illinois's population was reported as being under age 5, 24.9% under age 18 and 12.1% were age 65 and over. Females made up approximately 50.7% of the population.[95] According to the 2007 estimates, 21.1% of the population had German ancestry, 13.3% had Irish ancestry, 8% had British ancestry, 7.9% had Polish ancestry, 6.4% had Italian ancestry, 4.6% listed themselves as American, 2.4% had Swedish ancestry, 2.2% had French ancestry, other than Basque, 1.6% had Dutch ancestry, and 1.4% had Norwegian ancestry.[94] Illinois also has large numbers of African Americans and Latinos (mostly Mexicans and Puerto Ricans). Chicago, along the shores of Lake Michigan, is the nation's third largest city. In 2000, 23.3% of Illinois's population lived in the city of Chicago, 43.3% in Cook County, and 65.6% in the counties of the Chicago metropolitan area: Will, DuPage, Kane, Lake, and McHenry counties, as well as Cook County. The remaining population lives in the smaller cities and rural areas that dot the state's plains. As of 2000, the state's center of population was at 41.278216°N 88.380238°W, located in Grundy County, northeast of the village of Mazon.[26][29][64][96] Birth data Births do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by ethnicity and by race. Live Births by Single Race/Ethnicity of Mother Race 2013[97] 2014[98] 2015[99] 2016[100] 2017[101] 2018[102] 2019[103] 2020[104] 2021[105] White: 119,157 (75.9%) 119,995 (75.7%) 119,630 (75.6%) ... ... ... ... ... ... Non-hispanic White 85,866 (54.7%) 86,227 (54.4%) 85,424 (54.0%) 82,318 (53.3%) 78,925 (52.8%) 77,244 (53.3%) 74,434 (53.1%) 70,550 (52.9%) 71,482 (54.1%) Black 27,692 (17.6%) 28,160 (17.8%) 28,059 (17.7%) 25,619 (16.6%) 25,685 (17.2%) 24,482 (16.9%) 23,258 (16.6%) 22,293 (16.7%) 20,779 (15.7%) Asian 9,848 (6.3%) 10,174 (6.4%) 10,222 (6.5%) 10,015 (6.5%) 9,650 (6.5%) 9,452 (6.5%) 9,169 (6.5%) 8,505 (6.4%) 8,338 (6.3%) American Indian 234 (0.1%) 227 (0.1%) 205 (0.1%) 110 (0.0%) 133 (0.1%) 129 (0.1%) 119 (0.1%) 79 (>0.1%) 86 (>0.1%) Hispanic (of any race) 33,454 (21.3%) 33,803 (21.3%) 33,902 (21.4%) 32,635 (21.1%) 31,428 (21.0%) 30,362 (21.0%) 30,097 (21.5%) 28,808 (21.6%) 28,546 (21.6%) Total Illinois 156,931 (100%) 158,556 (100%) 158,116 (100%) 154,445 (100%) 149,390 (100%) 144,815 (100%) 140,128 (100%) 133,298 (100%) 132,189 (100%) Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one Hispanic group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. Languages Main article: Languages of Illinois The official language of Illinois is English,[106] although between 1923 and 1969, state law gave official status to "the American language". Nearly 80% of people in Illinois speak English natively, and most of the rest speak it fluently as a second language.[107] A number of dialects of American English are spoken, ranging from Inland Northern American English and African-American English around Chicago, to Midland American English in Central Illinois, to Southern American English in the far south. Over 20% of Illinoians speak a language other than English at home, of which Spanish is by far the most widespread, at more than 12% of the total population.[108] A sizeable number of Polish speakers is present in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Illinois Country French has mostly gone extinct in Illinois, although it is still celebrated in the French Colonial Historic District. Religion Religion in Illinois (2014)[109][110]   Protestantism (43%)   Roman Catholicism (28%)   No religion (22%)   Judaism (2%)   Islam (1%)   Buddhism (1%)   Hinduism (1%)   Other religion (1%)   No response given/Unknown (1%) Christianity Roman Catholics constitute the single largest religious denomination in Illinois; they are heavily concentrated in and around Chicago and account for nearly 30% of the state's population.[111] However, taken together as a group, the various Protestant denominations comprise a greater percentage of the state's population than do Catholics. In 2010, Catholics in Illinois numbered 3,648,907. The largest Protestant denominations were the United Methodist Church with 314,461 members and the Southern Baptist Convention with 283,519. Illinois has one of the largest concentrations of Missouri Synod Lutherans in the United States. The Baháʼí House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois Illinois played an important role in the early Latter Day Saint movement, with Nauvoo becoming a gathering place for Mormons in the early 1840s. Nauvoo was the location of the succession crisis, which led to the separation of the Mormon movement into several Latter Day Saint sects. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest of the sects to emerge from the Mormon schism, has more than 55,000 adherents in Illinois today.[112] Other Abrahamic religious communities A significant number of adherents of other Abrahamic faiths can be found in Illinois. Largely concentrated in the Chicago metropolitan area, followers of the Muslim, Baháʼí, and Jewish religions all call the state home.[113] Muslims constituted the largest non-Christian group, with 359,264 adherents.[114] Illinois has the largest concentration of Muslims by state in the country, with 2,800 Muslims per 100,000 citizens.[115] The largest and oldest surviving Baháʼí House of Worship in the world is located on the shores of Lake Michigan in Wilmette, Illinois, one of eight continental Baháʼí House of Worship.[116] It serves as a space for people of all backgrounds and religions to gather, meditate, reflect, and pray, expressing the Baháʼí principle of the oneness of religions.[117] The Chicago area has a very large Jewish community, particularly in the suburbs of Skokie, Buffalo Grove, Highland Park, and surrounding suburbs. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was the Windy City's first Jewish mayor. Other religions Chicago is also home to a very large population of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists.[113] Economy Main article: Economy of Illinois See also: List of Illinois locations by per capita income The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago at the heart of Chicago's financial center Illinois counties by GDP (2021) As of 2022, the gross state product for Illinois reached US$1.0 trillion.[118] As of February 2019, the unemployment rate in Illinois reached 4.2%.[119] Illinois's minimum wage will rise to $15 per hour by 2025, making it one of the highest in the nation.[120] Agriculture Main article: Agriculture in Illinois Illinois's major agricultural outputs are corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, dairy products, and wheat. In most years, Illinois is either the first or second state for the highest production of soybeans, with a harvest of 427.7 million bushels (11.64 million metric tons) in 2008, after Iowa's production of 444.82 million bushels (12.11 million metric tons).[121] Illinois ranks second in U.S. corn production with more than 1.5 billion bushels produced annually.[122] With a production capacity of 1.5 billion gallons per year, Illinois is a top producer of ethanol, ranking third in the United States in 2011.[123] Illinois is a leader in food manufacturing and meat processing.[124] Although Chicago may no longer be "Hog Butcher for the World", the Chicago area remains a global center for food manufacture and meat processing,[124] with many plants, processing houses, and distribution facilities concentrated in the area of the former Union Stock Yards.[125] Illinois also produces wine, and the state is home to two American viticultural areas. In the area of The Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Byway, peaches and apples are grown. The German immigrants from agricultural backgrounds who settled in Illinois in the mid- to late 19th century are in part responsible for the profusion of fruit orchards in that area of Illinois.[126] Illinois's universities are actively researching alternative agricultural products as alternative crops. Manufacturing Illinois is one of the nation's manufacturing leaders, boasting annual value added productivity by manufacturing of over $107 billion in 2006. As of 2011, Illinois is ranked as the 4th-most productive manufacturing state in the country, behind California, Texas, and Ohio.[127] About three-quarters of the state's manufacturers are located in the Northeastern Opportunity Return Region, with 38 percent of Illinois's approximately 18,900 manufacturing plants located in Cook County. As of 2006, the leading manufacturing industries in Illinois, based upon value-added, were chemical manufacturing ($18.3 billion), machinery manufacturing ($13.4 billion), food manufacturing ($12.9 billion), fabricated metal products ($11.5 billion), transportation equipment ($7.4 billion), plastics and rubber products ($7.0 billion), and computer and electronic products ($6.1 billion).[128] Services By the early 2000s, Illinois's economy had moved toward a dependence on high-value-added services, such as financial trading, higher education, law, logistics, and medicine. In some cases, these services clustered around institutions that hearkened back to Illinois's earlier economies. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trading exchange for global derivatives, had begun its life as an agricultural futures market. Other important non-manufacturing industries include publishing, tourism, and energy production and distribution. Investments Venture capitalists funded a total of approximately $62 billion in the U.S. economy in 2016. Of this amount, Illinois-based companies received approximately $1.1 billion. Similarly, in FY 2016, the federal government spent $461 billion on contracts in the U.S. Of this amount, Illinois-based companies received approximately $8.7 billion.[citation needed] Energy See also: List of power stations in Illinois and Solar power in Illinois Illinois is a net importer of fuels for energy, despite large coal resources and some minor oil production. Illinois exports electricity, ranking fifth among states in electricity production and seventh in electricity consumption.[129] Coal The coal industry of Illinois has its origins in the middle 19th century, when entrepreneurs such as Jacob Loose discovered coal in locations such as Sangamon County. Jacob Bunn contributed to the development of the Illinois coal industry, and was a founder and owner of the Western Coal & Mining Company of Illinois. About 68% of Illinois has coal-bearing strata of the Pennsylvanian geologic period. According to the Illinois State Geological Survey, 211 billion tons of bituminous coal are estimated to lie under the surface, having a total heating value greater than the estimated oil deposits in the Arabian Peninsula.[130] However, this coal has a high sulfur content, which causes acid rain, unless special equipment is used to reduce sulfu
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