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A review by susanhecht
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon
5.0
I'd been meaning to read this book for years, and it did not disappoint! Engaging to read and I learned a ton. I grew up on a farm in Iowa and it was fascinating to learn about how grain, lumber, and livestock developed as industries as transportation networks and financial markets grew and how that in many ways created the landscape that persists today.
Nobody likes memorizing dates when learning about history, but taking note a few milestone years can be really helpful in orienting yourself when you learn something new. I knew that 1848 is a key year in European history, what with the Communist Manifesto, and revolutions breaking out in many places, but I learned from this book that 1848 was also key year in the history of Chicago (and the agricultural and industrial development of the Great West that Cronon describes):
In 1848:
Nobody likes memorizing dates when learning about history, but taking note a few milestone years can be really helpful in orienting yourself when you learn something new. I knew that 1848 is a key year in European history, what with the Communist Manifesto, and revolutions breaking out in many places, but I learned from this book that 1848 was also key year in the history of Chicago (and the agricultural and industrial development of the Great West that Cronon describes):
In 1848:
- Opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal
- First telegraph in Chicago
- Construction of the first railroad began (the Galena and Chicago Union—opened by 1850)
- First steam-powered grain elevator built in Chicago (the first was used in Buffalo in 1842)
- Chicago Board of Trade founded
And thereabouts: multiple stockyards were built in the 1840s and 1850s, and the McCormick reaper works was built in Chicago in 1847.