Description
Book SynopsisThe Great Chicago Fire in 1871 left tens of thousands without housing, food, fuel, or clothing. In the aftermath the mayor handed all relief duties to the commercial elite at the Chicago Relief and Aid Society. This was, as this study shows, a decision that ensured Chicago's physical rebuilding would be coupled with a rebuilding of the city's poor.
Trade ReviewStructuring Poverty in the Windy City is a very important contribution to our knowledge of American, urban, and Chicago history at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries with the socially contested development of poverty law. Chicago and the United States more generally sought to control poverty by defining the autonomy which paid work conveyed; the virtue of women who were wives, housewives, and mothers; and the isolation of the growing African American population. It tried to regulate, if not eliminate, various forms of poverty under a theory developed by social scientists, journalists and public officials. This book should be read by those who care about Chicago history, urban history, and American history but also those who want to understand the development of law, public administration, and public policy."" - Dick Simpson, coauthor of
Winning Elections in the 21st Century
