Mother Chicago: Truant Dreams and Specters Over the Gilded Age

"I want you to go out and buy Mother Chicago. It is one of the most revelatory, provocative, frightening books I've ever read about Chicago." —Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune Chicago history as told by the relics of her forgotten people and places. The observed made real to exorcise the hauntings of do-gooders and social engineers.
Chicago was a city of wanderers, truants, and delinquents. It was home to the largest tuberculosis sanitarium in the country, as well as a dizzying number of public...