Chicago Made

From the lumberyards and meatpacking factories of the Southwest Side to the industrial suburbs that arose near Lake Calumet at the turn of the twentieth century, manufacturing districts shaped Chicago’s character and laid the groundwork for its transformation into a sprawling metropolis. Approaching Chicago’s story as a reflection of America’s industrial history between the Civil War and World War II, Chicago Made explores not only the well-documented workings of centrally located city factories but also the overlooked suburbanization of manufacturing and its profound effect on the metropolitan landscape.
Robert Lewis documents how manufacturers, attracted to greenfield sites on the city’s outskirts, began to build factory districts there with the help of an intricate network of railroad owners, real estate developers, financiers, and wholesalers. These immense networks of social ties, organizational memberships, and financial relationships were ultimately more consequential, Lewis demonstrates, than any individual achievement. Beyond simply giving Chicago businesses competitive advantages, they transformed the economic geography of the region. Tracing these transformations across seventy-five years, Chicago Made establishes a broad new foundation for our understanding of urban industrial America.

Robert Lewis is associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Manufacturing Montreal: The Making of an Industrial Landscape.

“Robert Lewis is a creative historian who, in this ambitious exploration of Chicago’s industrial geography between the Civil War and the Great Depression, tackles a very broad subject in an interesting way. He has done a monumental job of tracing the links between Chicago businesses during that period. This work adds considerably to our knowledge of Chicago’s history and urban history more generally.”

“Chicago Made is a singular achievement. It is an invaluable addition to the history of Chicago; the ‘city of broad shoulders’ now has a definitive study of its industrial sinews. Moreover, it is the best study of industrialization in any American city since Scranton’s history of Philadelphia textiles and Vernon and Hoover’s great survey of the New York metropolitan region. And, more than just good history, Chicago Made is a major theoretical contribution that bears close analysis by economists and geographers.”

"Lewis has created an excellent study of the very networks that made industrial Chicago possible. . . . This well organized, researched, and argued book throws much light on Chicago's development as an industrial giant."

"Well-written, concise, packed with elegant summaries of detailed information . . . Chicago Made is a masterful contribution to our understanding of American industrial districts and urban growth processes. . . . Innovative and informative."`