The Lost Panoramas: When Chicago Changed its River and the Land Beyond - Hardcover

Williams, Michael; Cahan, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0978545079 ISBN 13: 9780978545079

Publisher: CityFiles Press, 2011

Synopsis

IPPY Award Gold Medalist for Great Lakes: Best Regional Non-Fiction

 

With more than 150 never-before-published duotone images, taken between 1892 and 1930, this collection explores the history of the Chicago River and the impact its reversal had on the watershed all the way to the Mississippi River. Offering the most complete description available of the river reversal, the stories told here provide a better understanding as to how it was done and why it was necessary, as well as how the water from the Chicago River is treated. The photographs were pulled from a glass plate photo collection taken by the Sanitary District of Chicago.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Williams is the author or coauthor of 10 books on Chicago history, including Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. Richard Cahan is a former picture editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and was the director of CITY 2000. He lives in Skokie, Illinois. They are the coauthors of Edgar Miller and the Hand-Made Home and Richard Nickel's Chicago.

Review:

 (Starred review) Many of the photographs fit together in seamless panoramas of a lost world, unspoiled rural Illinois at the close of the horse-and-buggy era, a land of subtle beauty and extraordinary fecundity. Here, too, are arresting photographs of rapidly growing and hideously polluted Chicago. Williams and Cahan profile the players, elucidate the technological innovations, track the politics, and document the beneficial and catastrophic consequences of this massive and hubristic tinkering with nature.  --Donna Seaman, Booklist

A gorgeous volume chronicling the development of the engineering marvel, its context and its effects.  --David Schalliol, Gaper's Block

About this edition

• Publisher: CityFiles Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0978545079
• ISBN 13: 9780978545079
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160