What Chicago was like during the 40s

In researching for a book, I am wondering if any one has either a good website (preferable) or book or other source of information regarding the culture and social climate of Chicago in the Forties.
Where did people like Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf play, for instance, and were soldiers on leave ever present at these venues? How did the South and North sides differ demographically at this point in time?
Things like that.
Anybody have any ideas?

The academic answer. (Also here.) That will answer the demography question especially well.

The historical answer.

The real story.

My gut level answer: somebody could have done almost anything, I'm sure some (white) GIs made a trip down to Bronzeville back then, but color lines were crossed a lot less then than they are now, and musical cultures were a lot more distinct and separated than they were even 10 or 20 years later.

There is also the Drury book, Dining in Chicago, published in the 30's.

There's a few more, I'll have to check later (there're in another part of the house)

ParkerS wrote:In researching for a book, I am wondering if any one has either a good website (preferable) or book or other source of information regarding the culture and social climate of Chicago in the Forties. Where did people like Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf play

Well, Howlin’ Wolf didn’t come to Chicago until the 1950s so you probably don’t want to mention him. If the sources already mentioned aren’t adequate and you’re specifically interested in blues and jazz clubs, stop by (or call; you aren’t in Chicago are you?) Jazz Record Mart and talk with Bob Koester. If he can’t answer your questions he probably knows someone who can. Also you might consider getting in touch with Perry Duis.

The works of Nelson Algren, specifically The Man with the Golden Arm, whose protagonist is a jazz musician. Studs Terkel's books, and most especially his new one, And They All Sang, a collection of his interviews with musicians. (No one would know more about the specifics you're looking for than Studs, whose radio show began in the 1940s.) And visit the archives of the Chicago Historical Society (where the archivists are very helpful) if you really want actual primary information. I love website convenience too, but real history doesn't live there.

ToniG wrote:The works of Nelson Algren, specifically The Man with the Golden Arm, whose protagonist is a jazz musician. Studs Terkel's books, and most especially his new one, And They All Sang, a collection of his interviews with musicians. (No one would know more about the specifics you're looking for than Studs, whose radio show began in the 1940s.) And visit the archives of the Chicago Historical Society (where the archivists are very helpful) if you really want actual primary information. I love website convenience too, but real history doesn't live there.

Frankie Machine is hardly a jazz musican...

Here's some more stuff I dug up:

Patricia Bronte's Vittles and Vice is from 52 but otherwise on point.

Ian Flemming (of James Bond fame) wrote a series of "Trilling Cities" in 59 and 69 for the Sunday Times. They were collected then in print. One of the cities is Chicago. Again, it is a bit post dated for you, but a lot of the stuff in the book would apply to the 40's, at least to the late 40s.

And speaking of late, but on point, Ovid Demaris's Captive City is a much better version of the material covered in Chicago Confidential cited above. It is from 69 though. In the same vein Kup's Chicago was written in 62 but covers the 40's fer sure.

There are 3 or 4 biographies of Al Capone out there. A less known mobster of that era is Murray the Camel Humphreys. There is an interesting book about him by John Morgan.

Have fun!

A. J. Liebling's Chicago: The Second City was written in 1951 and gives a fairly comprehensive and extremely jaundiced view of what Chicago was like at midcentury. It's back in print from the U of Nebraska Press and can be purchased on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080328 ... e&n=283155

For an interesting view of the Southside of Depression-era Chicago see Richard Wright's Native Son, and, of course, let's not forget James Farrell's Studs Lonigan.

Thanks so much, all, for the help.
I've only been out of Chicago for a year and a half, and it feels like a decade.
This has been a great help to me--thank you.
I'm returning next month for a week-long fest of eats, drinks, and baseball. (and more eats).
-Parker

In addition to the books already suggested, I would add the following:

October Cities: The Redevelopment of Urban Literature by Carlo Rotella--Widely regarded as the best book on mid-century urban literature, October Cities focuses on the de-industrialization of America's classic industrial cities as a way of understanding the great literature spawned by these environments. The discussion of Chicago history, Nelson Algren and The Man with the Golden Arm is fantastic. One of the most important books written on Chicago and American urban culture.

Nelson Algren's Chicago, with photographs by Art Shay--The great Chicago photographer provides a visual backdrop for Algren's writing. Great stuff.

American Pharoah: Mayor Richard Daley--His Battle for Chicago and the Nation by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor--Daley wasn't elected mayor until 1955, but he was an important figure well before then and this book does a good job of discussing the intimate relationship between ethnic identity and political power in Chicago at mid-century.

Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 by Lizabeth Cohen--While the years under discussion precede your area of interest, the book is still highly relevant because it discusses the "Americanization" of immigrants through consumer culture and their eventual role in the New Deal coalition. One of the great books on Chicago social history.

There are many others, but these in particular have been on my mind lately....

VI wrote:

Frankie Machine is hardly a jazz musican...

Well, okay, an overstatement, but don't deny the poor fellow a fleeting fantasy; in my edition, p. 161:

Frankie took over the drums. For half an hour, while everyone was trying to bring the drummer around, the dealer was a man in a dream: he was Dave Tough, he was Krupa, then he was Dave Tough again without missing a beat. "The kid can do it when he feels like it," somebody said, and everyone shook his hand to tell him he was as much in the slot with the traps as he was with a deck.

I'd also add another book, one of the best on race relations in Chicago during the period in question: Arnold Hirsch's Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960.

It hasn't appeared in bookstores yet, but iit's scheduled to be published November 2006 by the University of Chicago Press, and it seems to be right up your alley:

Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955

Among other topics, it will be covering the 1940 American Negro Exposition, the rise of black music and culture that emerged around it, and the development of the Associated Negro Press and the founding of Johnson Publishing.

In addition to Toni G's great suggestion of Making the Second Ghetto, another indispensable book would be the great sociological study of Chicago's black south side (originally published in 1945), Black Metropolis, by St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton (with an introduction by Richard Wright). The book many, many aspects of black life in Chicago's "city within a city" during the 40s.

Perhaps too obvious to be worth mentioning, but there's the reference folks at Harold Washington libes. Back in the 80s, I knew a couple of people there and they were enormously helpful with a number of requests. My acqaintances are both gone (one moved away, the other was the victim of very nasty library politics). I don't know how helpful current staff is, or if all their resources have been traded in for internet terminals and Gameboys to keep things modern. But I would bet there is a lot of excellent material tucked away there and that someone there knows how to find it.

So what were they eating and drinking in the clubs back then? Here’s an old menu from Club DeLisa, one of Chicago’s hotspots especially in the 1940s and ’50s. I’m not sure what year this menu is from but definitely 1941 or later (it used to be on the other side of State but moved to 5521 that year). If anyone has suggestions about the date I’d love to hear them. Enjoy.