Chicago: City of the Century

Episode 01

Mudhole to Metropolis

Jan 13, 2003 · 87 min

Chicago's location at the end of a canal linking the Mississippi to New York makes it attractive to Yankee speculators as well as Irish laborers. In just a few decades, the remote fur trading post explodes into the metropolis of the West. Not even the great fire of 1871 can slow the city's development.

Episode 02

The Revolution Has Begun

Jan 14, 2003 · 87 min

From the railroads to Marshall Field's department store to Cyrus McCormick's reaper factory to the stockyards, workers struggle for their share of a new industrial capitalism. The Haymarket Affair becomes the most sensational labor incident of the 19th century.

Episode 03

Battle for Chicago

Jan 15, 2003 · 84 min

Chicago develops the world's first skyscraper downtown, with a unique American architectural style. In its shadows are gambling, prostitution, corruption, poverty, and disease. In 1893 Chicago's business elite hosts a World's Fair, proudly showing 27 million visitors a glistening, sanitized city of the future.