| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Timothy B. Spears. Chicago Dreaming: Midwesterners and the City, 1871–1919. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2005. Pp. xxiii, 322. $20.00.

Timothy B. Spear's lucid and interesting exploration of the impact of midwestern migrants on the literary tradition of Chicago is a major contribution to the city's cultural history. His book depicts a variety of Chicagoans with roots in the hinterland and how they tried to illustrate their urban experiences. The title refers to the dreams that prompted thousands of small-town and rural people to leave their homes and come to the city on the lake in the years between the Great Fire (1871) and the end of World War I (1919). It is an interesting investigation not only of the literary tradition but also of the development of Progressivism. Chicago became the destination where dreams were fulfilled, or so it seemed to the young midwesterners who flocked to the city. Not totally focused on fiction writers, Spears does a fascinating job of depicting rural and small-town migrants to what many referred to as "Suckerland." Spears discusses famous journalists and novelists such as Hamlin Garland, George Fuller, Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Upton Sinclair, and George Ade and cartoonist John McCutcheon among a whole list of lesser known Chicago writers many no longer much read or remembered. He includes John and Francis Glessner, two Ohio migrants who erected the famous Glessner House on Prairie Avenue and provided a place for artists and others to gather. Also included is the ubiquitous Jane Addams from Cedarville, Illinois, whose prolific writings shaped the social conscience of the Progressive era. All had the rural to urban migration experience in common and shed light both on Chicago's life during the period covered and on the passage from rural America to the city and its influence on their work.

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