12 "The Pit", a novel by Frank Morris (1870—1902), brought to life the spectacular wheat market on La Salle Street in Chicago. "The Pit" was actually a sequel to "The Octopus", which tells of the struggle between the California wheat farmers and the railroad companies.
13. "The Jungle", a novel by Upton Sinclair (1878—1968), was published in 1906. Its detailed first-hand description of conditions in the Chicago stockyards sparked off a campaign that led to the passage of a Pure Foodand Drug Act and a Meat Inspection Act by the US Congress. The novel gave a most compelling picture of the humans engaged in the industry where only the squeals of the animals escaped being converted into profits.
14. Sandburg, Carl (1878—1967). Born in Illinois, Carl Sandburg wrote in his free verse of the turbulent life he had observed in the small prairie towns of Illinois and in the raw metropolis in Chicago. He first gained reputation with his "Chicago Poems" (1915). He was awarded the Pulit-zer Prize (1951) for his "Collected Poems".
15. Within a decade, however, New York City captured the tallest sky-scraper lead and held it. The champion until May 1973, was Manhattan's 1,350-feet-high, twin-towered World Trade Center, which tops the Empire State Building by 100 feet. But now, after a lapse of about 80 years, Chicago again boasts the tallest tower—the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Building, which soars 1,450 feet above the city.
16. "Big Bill" Thompson (1869—1944) served three terms as mayor of Chicago, became notorious for political machinations. Thompson practised what in American political terminology is known as the "spoils system"—"to the victor belongs the spoils". In the 1920's it seemed that power in Chicago was shared between Thompson, entrenched in City Hall, and Capone, sitting with his gunmen in the Lexington Hotel. This state of bliss was enjoyed by the financiers, industrialists, gangsters and
politicians.
17. Samuel Insull (1859—1938)—public-utilities financier. By 1907 he overcame the competing publjc-utilities companies in Chicago and soon he came to control the city's transit system. When the Depression broke out in 1929, Insult's pyramid of corporations was one of the first to collapse into bankruptcy. Thousands of his stockholders were ruined. Insull disappeared before he could be brought into court
18 Al Caponet(1899—1947)—American gang leader in Chicago in the 1920's. He received tribute from businessmen and politicians. His crime syndicate terrorized Chicago and controlled the gambling there. Capone' was mysteriously murdered and given a funeral featured by more than twenty truckloads of floral wreaths and numerous limousines filled "with gangsters. Thousands watched while the newsreel cameras cranked away. Crime as big business went on; in time the warfare between gangs produced a new "czar".