Chicago Humanities Festival presents The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Lecture on Architecture
Carl Smith on Chicago’s Great Fire.
“Reaching much deeper than the myths that still surround this justifiably legendary urban disaster, historian Carl Smith’s new book, Chicago’s Great Fire, recounts both the harrowing destruction of the dynamic young city on October 8-10, 1871, and the extraordinary recovery that immediately followed. Join Smith for a richly illustrated lecture in which he will consider how this catastrophe irreversibly altered the physical cityscape and reflect on how Chicago’s destruction and resurrection, impressive as they were, revealed and deepened troubling social divisions. Smith will also discuss how the maps created for his book attempt both to enrich the narrative and tell their own story.
“Carl Smith is Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English and American Studies and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Northwestern University. His books include Chicago and the American Literary Imagination, 1880-1920; Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman; The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City; and City Water, City Life: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago. William Bridges, Perspective Group and Photography Gallery.”
