Chicago, city, United States: Center of Culture

Center of Culture

The city, although proud of its reputation for brawling lustiness, was also the center of Midwestern culture. Theodore Thomas and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra founded a great musical tradition. Chicago's literary reputation was established in the early 20th cent. by such men as Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene Field, Edgar Lee Masters, and James T. Farrell. Saul Bellow and Studs Terkel would continue this tradition later in the century.

Most notable in the development of American thought and taste in art was the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. One of the architects at the fair was Louis H. Sullivan, who, together with D. H. Burnham, John W. Root, Dankmar Adler, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others, made Chicago a leading architectural center. In 1909, D. H. Burnham and Edward Bennett devised their Plan of Chicago, later known as the “Burnham Plan,” a forward-looking piece of city planning containing many features that were implemented later. It was here that one of the distinctive U.S. contributions to architecture, the skyscraper, came into being. Chicago's continuing interest in this type of structure is seen in Marina City (1967), the John Hancock Center (1968), the Aon Center (1974, formerly the Amoco Building, earlier the Standard Oil Building), the Willis Tower (1974, formerly the Sears Tower), the Trump International Hotel and Tower (2009), and 150 North Riverside (2017). The noted Chicago Architecture Center celebrates the city's innovative architectural heritage through tours and education.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
The Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries
Center of Culture
The Fire and Industrialization
From the Early Days to 1850
Neighborhoods and Points of Interest

See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. Political Geography