The Working Man's Reward: Chicago's Early Suburbs and the Roots of American Sprawl

Between the 1860s and 1920s, Chicago's working-class immigrants designed the American dream of home-ownership. They imagined homes as small businesses, homes that were simultaneously a consumer-oriented respite from work and a productive space that workers hoped to control. Stretching out of town along with Chicago's assembly-line factories, Chicago's early suburbs were remarkably socially and economically diverse. They were marketed by real estate developers and urban boosters with the elu...