My Chicago (Chicago Lives) - Softcover

Byrne, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810120879 ISBN 13: 9780810120877

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2003

Synopsis

By the end of her first meeting with the late mayor Richard J. Daley, Jane Byrne had been questioned, berated, and told she might, one day, reach the House but probably not the Senate-and she had also reduced him to tears. That would be but the first of many altercations in her pioneering political career.

My Chicago is the story of Jane Byrne's rise from young campaign worker to the mayor's office, all within the bruising arena of Chicago politics. Part sociopolitical history, part memoir, it begins with a history of the city and her early life, before she enters politics as a paid staff member of JFK's presidential campaign and, soon after, begins service in the Chicago Machine, but not of it.

Her view from the inside allows Byrne to sketch portraits of Daley, for whom she eventually worked, members of the Kennedy family, and Presidents Carter and Reagan. And, of course, it provides a fascinating perspective on the battle to succeed Daley, which ended with her own triumph over the Machine and a controversial term as mayor, which saw her begin development across the city and (famously) move into the Cabrini-Green housing project. The first memoir by a Chicago mayor in two generations, My Chicago is a valuable history as well as an entertaining look at no-holds-barred city politics.

About this title

About the Author

Jane Byrne was born in 1933 in Chicago. In 1979 she became the first woman mayor of Chicago after defeating the Democratic Party candidate in the primary.

From Kirkus Reviews

In an engaging and readable work of history and autobiography, Chicago's first woman mayor reflects on the history of her city and of her tenure. Weaving her own story and that of her Irish immigrant ancestors into the narrative, Byrne devotes much space to the tumultuous story of Chicago from its beginnings as a frontier outpost to its growth into the multiethnic city it has become. She presents her own political rise as part of the tale of the ascent of the city's traditionally despised immigrant groups--particularly the Irish and the Germans. By the time Byrne was entering public life in the early 1960's (as an idealistic Kennedy supporter), Chicago was ruled by such groups through Mayor Richard Daley's celebrated political machine. Byrne joined the machine and became commissioner of consumer affairs. But as commissioner, Byrne claims, she quixotically resisted the pervasive corruption and back-room dealing of the machine. Ultimately, she was fired for attempting to blow the whistle on an illegal taxicab rate-increase. Byrne tells how ``Taxigate'' was the starting point of her successful run for mayor, one in which she dreamed of revitalizing Chicago's slums and neglected neighborhoods. She also tells of how she deferred those dreams once she learned that she had inherited an enormous deficit from her predecessor. Throughout her tenure as mayor, she pressed to reconcile her dreams of urban renewal with financial and political constraints, with her most spectacular success coming at Cabrini Green, a low-income housing project, where she took up residence and exorcised the gangs. In 1983, in a three-way race, she lost the mayoralty to Harold Washington. A compelling account of modern urban politics, from one who was there. (Photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0810120879
• ISBN 13: 9780810120877
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 392