History of Chicago from Trading Post to Metropolis
External Studies Program | University College

Module 1 Chapter 3
Technology and Change

Geography and Transportation

In many ways the city of Chicago is a creation of technological change. The rapid growth of the city from a small village to one of the world's largest metropolitan areas can only be explained in terms of technological development. The swampy area on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan was as unpromising a place for settlement as any that bordered on the massive Great Lakes. The one positive attraction of Chicago was its location on a river system that more or less led to the Mississippi River. The Chicago Portage was important, as we have seen, for Indians and fur traders throughout the early period of development. Chicago, however, was dwarfed in importance by St Louis for the river trade in the early 19th Century.

St. Louis, founded in 1764 by the French, was built on a limestone bluff that was the first elevated spot to the south of the place where the Mississippi intersected the Illinois and Missouri Rivers. Its location was important right from the start, as St. Louis was strategically located for the French fur traders and its hinterland promised to maintain a rich agricultural settlement. St. Louis, however, remained small and intensely French even after the Louisiana Territory was ceded to Spain. At the turn of the 19th century, St. Louis had only 925 inhabitants, including 268 slaves. When the town became part of the United States in 1804, following the Louisiana Purchase, two-thirds of the inhabitants were cousins and the town would continue to maintain its French character for a number of years.

As the Louisiana Purchase opened up the West to American expansion, St. Louis seemed to be destined as the great American city of the West. It would serve as a point of embarkation for settlers and would grow as a port that could exploit the rich hinterland of the upper Midwest. The three rivers that met near St. Louis made it possible for St. Louis based merchants to reach Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, and the territories to the north. This entire area was being settled by men who would be eager to sell their surplus agricultural products to the east. The best way to transport these goods would be down the Mississippi to New Orleans and then by sea along the coastline to Atlantic Ports. Also the growing plantation economy of the South was eager for the Midwest's agricultural goods. St. Louis seemed to be an ideal place for merchants to organize this growing trade. By the time Chicago would begin to assert itself as a small village, St. Louis would be a great city. St. Louis had in fact been chartered as a city in 1809, twenty-eight years before Chicago. The early story of Chicago was played out under the shadow of this great city on the Mississippi. As America began to grow after the War of 1812, it seemed obvious that the great interior cities would grow along the river systems that drained the early West. All along the rivers, cities began to develop as trading areas where the settlers could obtain goods from the East and could in turn sell their own products. These early cities played out the traditional role as centers of trade and culture in the surrounding frontier wilderness. Some manufacturing was also beginning to locate in the Midwest, but the major industrial centers were still located on the fall line to the east.

Until the development of steam as a source of power and later electricity, American industries could only locate on what became known as the fall line. The fall line was the geographical location where the water of the North American rivers literally fell to lower ground level creating water falls and thus energy for the early industries of the country. As can be readily seen this source of energy was limited and necessitated the location of industry in a rather small area near the Atlantic coast. Chicago located on the Great Lakes in a rather flat, marshy area would have to wait for some other form of energy if the town was ever to become an industrial center.

Luckily at just about the time that Chicago was being settled technological change was happening at a rapid pace. This change would have a tremendous effect on the relatively new settlement. First it would affect Chicago's traditional role as a trading center, later, it would help to transform the growing city into a great industrial center.

The first problem faced by settlers pushing west after making the initial settlement was to get their surplus products to market in the East. If the farmer did not live near a major waterway his only alternative was to move his goods along dirt roads. Shortly, a system of plank roads and turnpikes was developed that made the trip easier, but in reality this was little improvement and settlers deep in the interior found it hard to compete with those near a water system. The major change in farm marketing in the first quarter of the 19th century was the development of a canal system that would link the West to the East. The natural trade routes prior to this development were north-south routes that benefited the river cities. Midwestern farm products were gathered together at the great river ports like St. Louis and from there were shipped south on the Mississippi system to New Orleans, from which they could be taken by sea to the east coast. The creation of a canal system reoriented this trade to an east-west axis and helped to insure Chicago's future as it lay directly on the Great Lakes, which fed into the developing canal system.

The most important canal for the development of Chicago as a great agricultural market was New York's Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. The Erie Canal took nine years and approximately $7 million to complete. By about 1835, a large part of the traffic that had formerly been sent down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans was now making its way across the Great Lakes and down the Erie Canal to New York City. Lumber, meat, and grain products were the most important commodities which traveled this route to the East. These same products would quickly prove to be the main products that Chicago gathered from her expanding hinterland and on which the city would make her early fortune. Chicago would quickly become a great market place for the natural products of the upper Midwest.

Chicagoans still had the problem of tapping her potential hinterland. It must be remembered that the rivals for the rising city had a great jump on her and could be counted on to use their lead to Chicago's disadvantage. Chicago's chief rival was, of course, St. Louis, which by this time had developed an extensive hinterland including much of Southern Illinois and all of the upper Midwest drained by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Another rival that threatened to develop the northwestern hinterland of Chicago and therefore kill the city off before it could grow was the river city of Galena. Located on a small, but navigable river that flowed directly into the Mississippi River, it threatened to dominate much of the agricultural trade of the upper Midwest. Competition with these two cities would be fierce and Chicagoans had to look hard in order to take advantage of their natural opportunities and perhaps create new ones for themselves in the battle for domination of the area.

Canals and Railroads

As was seen in the earlier sections, Chicago had always attracted people because of her location on the Great Lakes system and the fact that the Chicago Portage connected the location with the Mississippi via the Illinois River. But the Portage was hardly navigable and was not adequate for connecting Chicago and the Lakes with the inland river system. What had been adequate for Indians and French fur traders was not adequate for the plans of Chicago's new settlers.

With the demonstrated success of the Erie Canal and the other canals of the American waterway system, Chicagoans decided to build their own canal that would improve the old portage and link the growing hinterland to Chicago and Chicago to the Mississippi system. The Illinois-Michigan Canal, which took twelve years to build (1836-48), was one answer to the problem of exploiting the countryside to the southwest. Another attempt was the development of plank and toll roads. The roads that were laid off to the west and northwest brought Chicago into competition with Galena, while the canal, which veered off to the southwest brought Chicago into St. Louis' sphere of influence.

The development of the American system of canals and rivers had a great effect on the American economy. Some investigators have even suggested that the water system was adequate enough not to necessitate the development of other transportation systems. Still, it was to a large part replaced by a new system that developed in the years just prior to the Civil War.

Even as the first barges made their way down the Illinois-Michigan Canal a new and more important era in the history of Chicago was opening up. The age of the railroad and of Chicago's dominance of the nation's railway system also began in 1848.

The first use of a steam locomotive is attributed to an Englishman, Richard Trevithick, in 1801. It was not until 1825, that the first locomotive developed for public use was manufactured in England, and the first steam locomotive to run on an American line was the Stourbridge Lion which made a trial run in 1829. After the successful demonstration of several small American railroad systems, American railways began to develop in the Northeast.

There was much opposition to many of the early railroad lines especially by those whose economic position might be threatened by the further development of the railway system. Millions of dollars had been spent on canals, plank roads, and turnpikes, and thousands of people were dependent on these systems for their livelihood.

There was also a general suspicion of the new technological development in the transportation system. In the two decades after the first steam locomotive had been successfully tested in America, the canal and turnpikes systems remained the primary means of transportation in the United States.

Slowly, with the growth of the railroads in the Northeast, it became obvious that the railroad was here to stay. It proved itself to be a more efficient means of transportation and quickly expanded in the decade prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. The decision of local communities, individual states, and the Federal government to promote the growth of railways became a decisive factor in the history of various communities.

Once the full impact of the influence of the Erie Canal and of the growing Eastern market for western goods was felt, Chicago began to compete with her river rivals for the produce of the Upper Midwest. Chicagoans faced the problem of tapping the vast hinterland that was continually being opened by the advancement of white settlement. Chicago's initial growth in the 1930's depended on the farmers of the region having easy access to Chicago and in turn to the markets of the east via the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal. The trade in livestock, lumber, and grain set down the financial basis for much of Chicago's later growth. Even before the establishment of the Union Stock Yards in 1865, Chicago had become the livestock center of the nation surpassing Cincinnati in the butchering of hogs in 1861. The exploitation of the hinterland was the crucial problem facing Chicago and Chicagoans began to look at the steam railroad as a tool to help the city overtake her river rivals, which had such a tremendous advantage in the race to exploit the agricultural produce of the upper Midwest.

With the end of the Indian wars and the permanent settlement of the upper Midwest, northern Illinois reached its economic takeoff point. The continued migration of New Englanders and the beginning of foreign settlement helped to rapidly fill up the surrounding area. The early stages of this economic development saw the creation of a subsistent economy, but by the mid-1830's, the farmers of northern Illinois began to produce a surplus for which they could find a ready market in the East and in Europe. This agricultural surplus was to be the source of Chicago's wealth and the impetus for its later growth. In 1838, the first wheat was shipped through Chicago. This first shipment of 78 bushels grew to 2.5 million bushels by 1848. Chicago, of course, had the advantage of having excellent shipping facilities and a tie up to the Erie Canal via the Great Lakes. The city's disadvantage was her lack of money for continued investment and poor connection with the West.

Chicago merchants saw their future in the railroad and a group of them organized several ill-fated railroad companies in the 1830's. These first ventures were killed off by the panic of 1837, and actual construction on Chicago's first railway, the Chicago and Galena, did not begin until 1847. William B. Ogden, Chicago's first mayor and one of the city's great boosters, spearheaded the program, which met with success in 1848. A third-hand steam locomotive, renamed The Pioneer, (which can be seen today at the Chicago Historical Society) made its initial trip out to Oak Park on October 25, 1848. By December the railroad reached the Des Plaines River.

The original goal of the Chicago and Galena Railroad was to connect the two cities, but the railroad, which was to be renamed the Chicago and Northwestern R.R., never reached Galena. Galena had witnessed terrific growth between 1830 and 1845, but was already a dying city by the mid-1850's. The economy of the city was based on the production of lead mines. As lead mining moved West and the Galena River began to silt up, the city went into quick decline. The railroad stopped at Freeport, instead of moving on to Galena, and returned to West Chicago, from where it worked its way West. The Chicago and Northwestern was the first railroad to cross the Mississippi. This railroad and later the Illinois Central brought Chicago's influence right into the traditional hinterland of St. Louis.

Now Chicago faced her greatest rival in the Midwest and once again the railroad would play an important role. While Chicago's first railroad ventures brought Chicago into contact with the West, the city quickly began to see the advantage of a rail connection with the East rather than depending on the Great Lakes system. By 1855, the city was connected by rail with New York City and was reinforcing the trade route change from one that was north-south to one that was east-west. The fatal mistake of Chicago's rival was that she ignored the railroad until it was too late. The development of the Chicago and Alton Railroad put the Chicago merchants virtually into St. Louis' backyard.

St. Louis had also benefited from the Transportation Revolution, which owed its success to technological change. The steamboat, which was developed early in the 19th century, transformed St. Louis into America's third largest city by the time the Pioneer made its trip to Oak Park. While Chicago could make a claim to better harbor facilities than St. Louis, St. Louis was flood free, the river location of St. Louis gave it a natural advantage as long as the trade routes remained north-south in direction. St. Louis merchants saw the river as the ultimate advantage and did nothing to promote the development of railroads in their hinterland until the Chicago railroads crossed the Mississippi River. At that point St. Louis merchants tried to prevent the crossing of the river by railroad bridges, claiming that they were hazards to boats trying to navigate the river. Eventually, St. Louis did enter the race for the development of railroads, but the development was to the west. In the mid-1850's, the Missouri Pacific R.R. reached Kansas City. St. Louis also was rather reluctant to encourage outside investment, which would have been necessary for a rapid development of a railroad building program. Chicago on the other hand eagerly looked to the East, especially to New York and Boston, for investors in projects which Chicagoans were promoting. In some respects, Chicago became a colony for eastern capital throughout the 19th century. Six years after the Pioneer made its initial voyage, Chicago had become the railroad center of the United States. As America stood on the verge of Civil War she seemed destined to be the great trading center of the quickly developing Midwest. The Civil War insured this trend in the economic history of the area.

With the outbreak of the war St. Louis merchants found their traditional trade routes blocked by the Union Navy which was maintaining a blockade on the river. The location of St. Louis in a slave state also prejudiced railroad development in the state and new industries hoping to locate in the safe zone away from the war naturally avoided St. Louis, while Chicago seemed to be an ideal place for relocation.

Chicago, in the period just prior to the Civil War, was fortunate in that its leadership contained men who clearly saw the advantages of the technological developments in transportation that were taking place in the first half of the 19th century. These men were avid boosters of the city and were able to attract outside capital into an economy that was short on hard cash for investment. Chicago's location on the Great Lakes system and the willingness of Chicagoans to take a chance on new modes of transportation such as canals, turnpikes, plank roads, and finally the railroad insured her position in the upper Midwest and her dominance over a great trading area.

ANSWER QUESTION 7 IN THE REPLY BOOKLET. (Provided after registering for courses through the External Studies Program.)

Industrial Beginnings

Technological change did not only affect the transportation industry. Changes in power sources and the development of different kinds of machinery had a permanent effect on the development of the city. From the beginning, Chicago developed a diversified industrial base. This varied economy was a key for the successful development of Chicago's future. Unlike Galena, whose economy had been based on one industry, that of lead mining, Chicago's diversified economy would make it possible for it to maintain its economic position in times of change.

The early development of industry had much to do with Chicago's geographical position in the developing Midwestern farm belt. Lumber, grain, and livestock came into the city and the city shipped out farm machinery and other goods to the farm belt. The city's trading role blossomed into an industrial role as the city developed. Technological change would make Chicago a meat packing center rather than just a shipper of livestock. The location of Chicago made the city a natural center for the lumber industry and for the production of farm machinery. Later, as Chicago developed as a major industrial center, her excellent location for the receiving of ore helped her to develop as a major steel producing area. These industries began developing prior to the Civil War, but the period after the Fire saw the greatest growth of Chicago's mass production industries.

Meat-packing

Perhaps the most important industry for the development of Chicago as a manufacturing center was the meat-packing industry. This great industry incorporated all of the technological changes that helped to build Chicago as a great metropolitan center. Meat packing together with steel-making proved to be the two largest contributions to the development of Chicago not only as an industrial center, but as a goal for European immigrants.

In the 1840's, before the development of the railroads, large cattle drives were common in the Chicago area. The cattle were basically for local consumption, though some were shipped east via the Great Lakes. Chicago's major meat export was salted pork, which was shipped in barrels on lake cruisers. Chicago had overtaken Cincinnati in the slaughter of hogs in the years before the Civil War. With the advent of the war, several packers who had been located in the Border states relocated to Chicago in an attempt to get away from the fighting. By this time Chicago had been connected with the East by rail and in the same manner that Chicago had become a major shipper of grain and lumber she became a major shipper of livestock to slaughtering centers in the East.

Before 1865, Chicago's livestock trade was conducted at several yards that had been organized in different parts of the city (see map on p. 50 of Mayer, Wade, and Holt). Chicago's meat-packing plants were located on the south branch of the Chicago River about two and one half miles from the eventual location of the Union Stock Yards. This set-up was not well-suited for the continued development of the industry and several groups, including the Chicago Tribune, began to campaign for the establishment of a Union Stock Yard that would solidify the marketing procedures and put the industry on a more efficient footing.

The increased traffic in livestock during the war made it more than obvious that the old system was no longer adequate. In 1864, the Chicago Pork Packer's Association proposed the building of a new yard on the outskirts of the city. The Association found a ready response on the part of railroad officials with lines running into Chicago. Negotiations began immediately and The Union Stock Yard and Transit Company of Chicago was capitalized at $1,000,000, of which all but $75,000 was subscribed by the railways.

The area chosen for the new stockyard was located in a marshy section to the south of the city in the town of Lake. The land, which had originally been considered next to worthless, was purchased from Chicago's colorful booster "Long John" Wentworth. The company itself, chartered on February 13, 1865, began construction of the yards on June 1st. The yards were opened on Christmas Day, 1865. The new stockyard had a pen capacity of 21,000 cattle, 75,000 hogs, 22,000 sheep, and 200 horses. Anyone visiting the area on opening day could see Chicago's commitment to the railroad. The yards were completely surrounded by railroads and rail loading and unloading docks. Cattle drives would be a feature of Chicago as late as the 1880's, but it was obvious that Chicago had made a definite break with the past with the construction of the Union Stock Yards.

The market and the industry grew rapidly. In 1866, the yards' first full year of operation, 1,564,293 head of livestock were handled; the number grew to over 14 million by 1900. By 1900, the original 320 acres had expanded to 475 acres with a pen capacity for over 75,000 cattle, 50,000 sheep, 300,000 hogs and 5,000 horses.

After the establishment of the Union Stock Yards in 1865, the Chicago meat packers slowly began to move away from their location on the South Branch of the Chicago River to the area just west of the yards between Racine and Ashland Avenues and 39th and 47th Streets. One of the first packers to move into the area was the Nelson Morris Company. Shortly afterward, the plants were to become the major packers located in "packingtown."

The major problem now preventing the continued expansion of the industry was one of distribution. Salted and dry meat could not capture much of a market and Chicago remained primarily a distributor of fresh meat to its immediate area and of livestock by rail to the East for slaughter. This role as a shipping market would remain important for the Chicago yards throughout its 105 year history, but thanks to technological change its role as a slaughtering center would be its most important one.

Chicago's development as a meat center was advanced by the development of the refrigerated railroad car, whose development made possible the long distance shipment of meat without spoilage. The radius for the shipment of Chicago meat now became limited only by the amount of rail laid by the expanding railroad. This development led to the creation of a nationwide distribution system by the Chicago packers. Nelson Morris is credited with shipping the first refrigerator carload out of Chicago in 1874, but it was Swift and Company that made the shipment of dressed beef by rail a financial success. Armour and Company followed Swift's example and also set up a distribution system of branch houses. It proved to be cheaper to ship dressed beef by rail than livestock on the hoof. Chicago as the center of the nations' railroad system was in a perfect position to take advantage of yet another advancement in technology.

Along with the development of the refrigerator car the meat-packing industry began to develop the modern factory system of production. Large modern packing plants appeared next to the Union Stock Yards taking advantage of modern assembly line techniques, perhaps a more accurate name for the process in this case would be disassembly line. The animal during and after slaughter passed from one worker to another on a hook hung from an overhead line. This system facilitated the quick and easy production of meat products and, more important, it allowed the industry to replace highly skilled butchers with great numbers of unskilled labor. This was made possible by the breaking down of intricate processes into simple jobs, creating a huge market for unskilled labor and adding to the development of Chicago as an immigrant and working class city.

Steelmaking

Another great mass production industry, which like meat-packing developed on Chicago's South Side in the last quarter of the 19th century, is the steel industry. The same three basic factors that contributed to the development of meat-packing and, in fact, are important for the development of any mass industry, made Chicago a major steel producing center: an easy availability to natural resources, a good transportation system, and a ready pool of labor.

Before 1880, Chicago's steel industry was located along the North Branch of the Chicago River. But with the continued growth of the city the industry found itself being crowded on the shore of the river. Steel itself was about to go through some profound changes that would transform it into a mass production industry employing great amounts of unskilled immigrant labor. In 1879, the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company, which operated plants in Milwaukee and on the North Side of Chicago, began to look for a new location. The site finally decided on was at the mouth of the Calumet River to the south of the city in the settlement of Ainsworth or South Chicago.

Four blast furnaces were erected and blown by the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company launching a new era in the industrial development of the city. Development and expansion came quickly and a Bessemer steel mill and a rail mill were put into operation in 1882. Seven years later two events occurred that greatly affected the history of the region. First, South Chicago, was annexed to the city of Chicago. Second, the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company merged with the Union Steel Company and purchased the plant of Joliet Steel Company forming the Illinois Steel Company. In 1900, another merger took place and Illinois Steel became part of the United States Steel Company, which controlled 50% of the entire steel industry.

The South Chicago plant, often referred to as the South Works, was one of the most modern and efficient in the country. From an original 74.5 acres it grew to approximately 260 acres by 1898. At this time, some 3,500 men worked at the South Works alone, while many others found employment in the steel industry as other companies began to locate on the far South side of Chicago.

The South Works was a magnificent technological wonder. The design of the plant made every attempt to take advantage of the newest advance in engineering and steel-making. Once again, Chicago's complete dedication to the railroad was symbolized in the massive plant. Thirty-six miles of standard track and six and one half miles of narrow gauge tracks served the mill. While the railroad played an important role in the development of the mill, Chicago's advantageous position on the Great Lakes tied the mills to the rich northern ore fields touched by the Lakes. Water shipments were handled at the south slip running in from the Calumet River and the north slip, which connected the plant directly with Lake Michigan. The total ore received in 1897 was 1,629,865 tons.

Perhaps the most dramatic symbol of the steel mill was the blast furnace. Described often in dramatic terms it and the Bessemer furnace were the heart of the mill. When all eight blast furnaces of the South Works were in operation at the turn of the century, the mills could produce 80,000 tons per month or 960,000 tons of steel per year.

Expansion

The growth of steel-making and meat packing symbolized new developments in the industrial base of the city and can be used to show the effect of industry on Chicago.

Situated far from the primary areas of settlement the mass production industries were free to grow and influence their environment in what would prove to be a very negative way. The need for large amounts of unskilled labor necessitated the development of cheap housing in the immediate vicinity of the new plants. Almost overnight, large working class districts were created near the gates of the stockyards and steel mills.

It should be understood, however, that the creation of much of the city was in direct response to the growth of industry in the city proper. The development of Chicago owed much to its position in regards to natural resources that could be easily produced in Chicago itself. It must also be remembered that Chicago found a huge market for finished products among the farms of the Midwest.

Cyrus H. McCormick moved to Chicago in the years before the Civil War in order to be near the Midwestern plains farmers, to whom he hoped to sell his new farm equipment, especially the now famed McCormick reaper. The McCormick Reaper works became one of the city's fastest growing and most important industries. An employer of thousands, McCormick actually began the trend of industry moving away from the crowded central city to the more spacious outskirts of settlement. His farm implements and supplies created a multiplier effect that increased the bounties of Midwest farms and provided more wealth for the merchants of Chicago, as they continued to handle ever increasing amounts of produce for the growing eastern market.

Chicago-based merchants quickly saw other opportunities to exploit the surrounding hinterland. Great mail order houses such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Spiegel's were Chicago-based firms that opened up the Midwest farm market by using the rural post office system to reach the isolated farmers, first with their mail order catalogs and then with their easily obtainable goods. This creation of a great market provided, of course, many jobs for Chicagoans and helped reinforce the trend of immigrants to find their way to the city.

The impact of technology and of the agricultural revolution, which found its greatest victory in the Midwest in the years after the Civil War, had a tremendous effect on the growth of the city. These different forces, technological change, and the development of Midwestern agriculture, reinforced and generated each other and helped create a great city which was able to take advantage of the change in a more efficient way than any of her urban rivals.

ANSWER QUESTION 8 IN THE REPLY BOOKLET. (Provided after registering for courses through the External Studies Program.)