And Now a Word From the Ladies, Mr. Burnham

Every major city has its problems. But, Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century had more than its share - poverty, hunger, an exploding population of immigrants from abroad and newcomers from the East and South, industry gone mad and crime. When Daniel Burnham, Edward Bennett and the Commercial Club of Chicago designed the Plan of Chicago in 1909, their approach was that of the City Beautiful Movement - design an aesthetically pleasing and well-organized city and the ills would be cured. They weren't. (Consider this - Gary, Indiana was also a planned community.)

At the same time that Burnham et al were laying out parks and tree-lined boulevards, Jane Addams and other civic minded women were devising a city building plan that addressed the social, cultural and economic issues plaguing Chicago.

What Would Jane Say? City-Building Women and a Tale of Two Chicagos by Janice Metzger is a new book from Lake Claremont Press that addresses both these approaches by detailing what was created in Chicago and what wasn't and could have been.

After author Janice Metzger sets a detailed stage of Chicago at the turn of twentieth century the players and the movements, the problems and the reform efforts, the conflicts and the possibilities she takes readers into wonderful speculative chapters in the areas of transportation, law, housing, neighborhood development, immigration, labor, health, and education. What would Jane Addams and her peers say if they had been involved in the Plan of Chicago? Using painstaking research, historical detail, and a pinch of imagination, Metzger thinks she has a pretty good idea...

The book is due out later this month.