Revisiting the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
By Jane L. Levere
Published by The New York Times on October 19, 2021
Among the surprises in a new exhibition at the Chicago History Museum: streets paved with wood, an unusual heat wave and exoneration for Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.
Chicago’s Great Fire, 150 Years Later
By Nora McGreevy
Published by The Smithsonian Magazine October 13, 2021
An exhibition at the Chicago History Museum explores the legacy of the blaze, which devastated the Midwestern city and left 100,000 homeless.
Chicago re-examines its origin story 150 years after the great fire
Published by The Economist on October 9, 2021
n october 8th 1871 Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and sparked the fire that incinerated one-third of Chicago—or so legend has it. The story of the blaze and Chicago’s triumphant rebuilding is often retold with more than a dash of Whiggish inevitability: the fire was the catalyst by which Chicago became America’s commodity capital. But this year, on the 150th anniversary of the great fire, Chicagoans are looking anew at their city’s creation myth, and finding the truth to be much more compelling.
Chicago rose from the ashes 150 years ago, stronger than before.
By Terry Keshner
Published by the WBBM NewsRadio on October 8, 2021
Chicago didn’t stay down for long.
“It continues to grow, just sort of at this enormous pace,” said Julius L. Jones, curator of a Great Chicago Fire exhibit at the Chicago History Museum.
Indeed, the city rose quickly from the ashes, agreed Paul Durica of the Newberry Library. Read more on the WBBM NewsRadio Website.
Chicago History Museum’s Great Fire Exhibit
By Daytime Chicago
Published by the WGN on October 7, 2021
Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire. It’s something we’ve all heard about, but what do we really know about it?
The Chicago History Museum has a brand new exhibit that explore the origins and outcomes of the event that changed Chicago forever.
Chicago History Museum 'City on Fire' exhibit gives visitors 'a sense of fleeing the fire itself'
By Larry Mowry
Published by the ABC7 Chicago on October 7, 2021
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The assistant curator for the Chicago History Museum's "City on Fire" exhibit said visitors will "get a sense of fleeing the fire itself."
Chicago was the fastest-growing city in the world when the Great Fire tore through three square miles in October 1871. Around 300 people died and 100,000 people were left homeless. Assistant curator Julius L. Jones described walking through the new Great Chicago Fire exhibit 150 years after the tragedy occurred.
Don’t blame Mrs. O’Leary’s cow for the Great Chicago Fire
By Don Babwin
Published by the Associated Press on October 7, 2021
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago seems to like to pin the blame for its misfortune on farm animals. For decades the Cubs’ failure to get to the World Series was the fault of a goat that was once kicked out of Wrigley Field. And for well over a century, a cow belonging to Mrs. O’Leary caused the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Read full article on their website.
Chicago History Museum Remembers Great Fire of 1871
By Marc Vitali
Published by the WTTW Chicago on October 7, 2021
Friday, Oct. 8, marks 150 years since the start of the Great Chicago Fire, which began on a Sunday night in the O’Leary’s barn on the near South Side.
The fire burned until Tuesday morning as far north as Lincoln Park. A new exhibit offers a fresh look at the calamity that scorched the city in 1871, a century and a half ago.
Watch Full News Segment on Website.
Museum takes close-up view of Great Chicago Fire
By Stefano Esposito
Published by the Chicago Sun-Times on October 7, 2021
A bird’s-eye view of a city ablaze, ropy flames crackling against the night sky from every window and doorway.
That’s the image many have of the Great Chicago Fire — that, and a clumsy cow knocking over a lantern in Mrs. O’Leary’s shed.
The Chicago History Museum’s “City on Fire: Chicago 1871,” opening Friday, offers the wide-angle images of a blaze that destroyed some 18,000 buildings, but it also encourages a closer, more personal look on the 150th anniversary.
Great Chicago Fire was 'almost inevitable' from conditions, historian says
By Terry Keshner
Published by the WBBM NewsRadio on October 7, 2021
Once the fire began on Oct. 8, 1871, there was no stopping it.
“The fire, because of its scale, seemed impossible. But if you look at everything that led up to it, it also seems almost a little inevitable,” said Paul Durica, director of exhibitions at Chicago’s Newberry Library.
Read more on the WBBM NewsRadio Website.
A distant fire: An inside look at the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 a century and a half later
By Mike Lowe
Published by the WGN on October 6, 2021
CHICAGO — Thursday marks the 150th anniversary of one of the most significant events in Chicago history: The Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Citycast Chicago
Episode: The Chicago of 1871 Was Built to Burn.
By Jacoby Cochran
Published by the City Cast Chicago on October 5, 2021
In 1871, Chicago was a city made of wood. Houses were built of wood; streets were paved with it. Water still ran through wooden pipes in parts of the city because the growing metropolis had not yet swapped them for iron.
But the city of timber was not unprepared for the fire that would burn through its streets later that year, said Julius L. Jones, assistant curator at the Chicago History Museum. That’s one of the prevailing narratives about the Great Chicago Fire he hopes the museum’s exhibit, “City on Fire: Chicago 1871,” will challenge when it opens Oct. 8, the 150th anniversary of the blaze. Read full article on the Chicago Tribune website.
See Inside New Exhibit About Great Chicago Fire
By NBC 5 Chicago
Published by NBC 5 Chicago on October 4, 2021
On Oct. 8, 1871, Chicago went up in flames, with more than 17,000 buildings burning in a three-and-a-half mile radius. At least 300 people were killed and 100,000 left homeless. A new exhibit opened on Friday called “City on Fire: Chicago 1871.” NBC 5’s LeeAnn Trotter reports.
No clear-cut villain in the Great Chicago Fire saga, 150 years later.
By Terry Keshner
Published by WBBM News Radio October 4, 2021
This week marks the 150th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire. All week long, WBBM takes a look back at the conflagration that burned the city and reshaped it.
Myths Debunked, History Examined, And Lessons Learned Upon The 150th Anniversary Of The Great Chicago Fire - CBS Chicago
By Jim Williams
Published by CBS Chicago October 4, 2021
The Great Chicago Fire began on Sunday, Oct. 8, 1871 on what we would now call the city’s Near West Side. Over two days, it jumped the South Branch of the Chicago River, destroyed the downtown area, and jumped the Main Branch of the Chicago River – not stopping until it reached Fullerton Avenue.
On Monday, CBS 2’s Jim Williams examined the lessons we might learn as it tries to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chicago built back from the Great Fire in just two years. Now, 150 years later, the city finds itself at another crossroads.
Published by the Chicago Tribune 9/27/2021
Article by ROBERT CHANNICK
On a hot and dry October night in 1871, a cow kicked over a lantern in Mrs. O’Leary’s barn, starting a blaze that rose up from her modest Near Southwest Side home, leapt the Chicago River and burned down a large portion of the nascent prairie metropolis. Read full article on the Chicago Tribune website.
“City on Fire: Chicago 1871”
Published on the Chicago Reader September 23, 2021
From its humble beginnings as a settlement founded by the Haitian Afro-Frenchman Jean Baptiste Point du Sable in the late 18th century, Chicago experienced explosive growth in the 19th century to become a hub of American economic and industrial innovation and progress. Read full article on the Chicago Reader website.
The Great Fire's recovery embedded inequalities into Chicago's built environment.
By Julius L. Jones
Published on the Crain’s Business Chicago on September 23, 2021
In Greek and Egyptian ancient mythology, the phoenix is a large bird that symbolizes renewal and rebirth. As the story goes, the bird catches flames from the sun and flies across the sky with brilliant hues of red, yellow and orange on its wings. The fire eventually consumes the bird, yet the phoenix is not destroyed. Instead, the phoenix resurrects from its own ashes, emerging stronger and more vibrant than before. Read full article on website.
The Great Chicago Fire, As Told By Those Who Lived Through It
Published by Chicago Magazine on September 21, 2021
Article by Robert Loerzel
As the city marks the 150th anniversary of the defining event, ROBERT LOERZEL mines the archival record to offer a compelling portrait of what it was like to live through those disastrous days. Read full article on the Chicago Magazine website.
Things to do.
The City on Fire: Chicago 1871 exhibition has been feature in Time Out Chicago’s list of ‘Things to Do.’ Read full article on the Time Out website.
The Ultimate Family Guide to Chicago History Museum’s New Exhibit, City on Fire: Chicago 1871.
Published by Chicago Parent on September 1, 2021
We can learn so much from the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire that’s totally relevant to today’s world. The Chicago History Museum’s new exhibit of the 150-year-old tragedy brings home valuable social lessons. Read full article on the Chicago Parent magazine.
An Age-by-Age Guide to City on Fire: Chicago 1871
Article published on Chicago Parent on September 1, 2021
By Lori Orlinsky
The Chicago History Museum is marking the 150th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire with its highly anticipated exhibit, City on Fire: Chicago 1871. Designed exclusively for families, City on Fire: Chicago 1871, invites children and adults alike to learn, explore and discover the impact the Great Chicago Fire had on the city and the people who lived here.
But it also is designed to help families talk about the Chicago of today and how some of the same issues then are still relevant today.
Read full article on the Chicago Parent website.
How the Chicago Fire of 1874 and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 led to the formation of the Black Belt
Article published on The Tribe on July 7, 2021
By Tonia Hill
The notion that Black life in Chicago began during the first wave of the Great Migration in the 1910s isn’t accurate. Black Chicago’s origin story began when Chicago’s first non-Indigenous settler, a Black man named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, came and set down roots in the 1780s.
While the bulk of Black folks arrived in the 20th century, there was a small, yet thriving Black community near what we now refer to as the South Loop. Some of those “Old Settlers” include abolitionists John and Mary Jane Richardson-Jones, Joseph and Anna Elizabeth Hudlin—the first Black people to own and build their own home in Chicago—and politician John W. E. Thomas.
Read full article on The Tribe website.