Episode
American Experience: Chicago: City of the Century (2): The Revolution Has Begun
Overview
A three-part history based on historian Donald L. Miller's book "City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America." Part 2 covers the 1870s and '80s, when the city's can-do business leaders found themselves increasingly at odds with labor. The episode profiles meatpacker Augustus Swift; sleeping-car magnate George Pullman, who established what he hoped would become a utopian workers community; and merchant prince Marshall Field, who had no such notions. Then there were the anarchists.
Details
- Series
- American Experience
- Season
- Season 15
- Episode
- Episode 4
- Air date
- 2003-01-14
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Chicago: City of the Century (2): The Revolution Has Begun is Episode 4 in Season 15 of American Experience. It aired on 2003-01-14. The runtime is 55 min.
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Episode 3: Chicago: City of the Century (1): Mudhole to Metropolis
A three-part history based on historian Donald L. Miller's book "City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America." Part 1 begins with the arrival of French explorers Marquette and Joliet in 1673, and follows the digging of canals, and the arrival of railroads and industry. It ends with the Great Fire of 1871, which interrupted the city's explosive 19th-century growth only momentarily.
Episode 5: Chicago: City of the Century (3): Battle for Chicago
A three-part history based on historian Donald L. Miller's book "City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America." Part 3 concludes by exploring the city's ethnic and class tensions during the 1880s and '90s. Ethnic groups banded together in what narrator David Ogden Stiers calls "a defensive communalism," but most immigrants headed first to the city's worst slum, the Near West Side, which was presided over by Alderman Johnny Powers, the "prince of the boodlers," who traded services for votes.
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