I am starting a short series of posts on classic Chicago history books. This is a quirky personal list of great Chicago books, many old and out of print. Emphasis is heavy on Chicago history. Other people will have different preferences.
Many of these books would be good for a personal library. These Chicago classics will really make your bookshelves pop.
Friends and visitors will browse your shelves, ignore you for hours, then finally take your books home, and never return them. Alternatively, some make great gifts, allowing you to have fun reading your friends' bookshelves.
The first classic is the is the Plan of Chicago which others have written about so I don't need to. It was the Fall 2009 One Book One Chicago selection. Chicago in 4D has an excellent post about it.
So far I have in the works:
- Lakeside Classics Series
- Chicago Negro Almanac and Reference Book
- Andreas' Histories of Chicago and Cook County
- City of the Century
- Milo Quife's Chicago Highways Old and New
- History of Chicago Public Works and the History of the Development of Building Construction in Chicago
- The Oz Books
- The Social Evil in Chicago i.e. the Report of the Vice Commission
- The Chinese Laundryman
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