What is The Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative?
Surveying of Workers Cottages
CWCI collaborates with universities to survey areas with a high concentration of workers cottages. The 2021 pilot survey was done in the gentrified neighborhood of Logan Square. Students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with Professor Charlie Pipal, Data showed that between 2006 and 2020, 46% of demolitions in Logan Square were workers cottages.
In 2022, the SAIC students and Charlie Pipal returned to survey a section of McKinley Park, a middle neighborhood that is stable but not rapidly gentrifying. There are some classic workers cottages and nearly one entire block with Dutch Colonial rooflines.
Students from the University of Chicago with Professor Emily Talen took on surveying an area in South Chicago adjacent to the former steel mills. This neighborhood has endured financial hardship after the steel mills closed, which was followed by years of disinvestment. The threat to workers cottages here is demolition by neglect or abandonment. In a small sampling of The Bush area surveyed, 26 of the 51 vacant lots that recently had houses on them were workers cottages. Existing homeowners also struggle to afford necessary home maintenance.
The CWCI is organizing community meetings in McKinley Park and South Chicago to share the data with residents and get their feedback on what strategies might support their communities and their ability to protect the future of these humble but functional homes.
The surveying is conducted using a user-friendly app on a smart phone. The surveyors assessed what type of house it is, whether it appears to historic (other than workers cottages), and details about the workers cottages and their condition.
Advocacy
Following recommendations coming from the community, the CWCI will work with residents and City leaders to develop programs that can address the needs in each area.
“There are currently as many as 60,000 workers cottages in Chicago. Most were built during Chicago’s dramatic expansion of population and area from the 1880s to 1910s. These modest houses were built for working class families and represent the origins of the ‘American Dream’ of homeownership and the investment and pride of Chicago’s new immigrants.
“In many of Chicago’s neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment, these homes are increasingly targeted for demolition. Preserving workers cottages will retain the continuity of neighborhood history, scale, and character as well as stabilize affordable housing where housing costs are increasing.”
Learn more at the Learn more at the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative website.
A Short History of the Chicago Workers Cottage
“The workers cottage house type derives from earlier vernacular house styles in the Midwest. These simple gable-roofed dwellings were typically built with a central entrance on a side perpendicular to the roof orientation. In Chicago, this house style was adapted to fit the constrained urban space of a typical 25′ x 125′ Chicago city lot by turning the building and entry to face the street.
“A birds-eye-view map from 1868 shows hundreds of these simple gable-roofed frame houses crowding the streets on the north, south and southwest outskirts of the central business district. Though the outer areas of the map are not depicted in great detail, zooming in to the area of what is now Chicago & Wabash Avenues we can see several rows of 1½ and 2½ story frame houses interspersed among larger brick tenement apartments. Three years later, all of the houses in this area would be destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.” Learn more at the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative website.
Newspaper articles regarding the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative.
What is a Workers Cottage?
“The Chicago workers cottage is a vernacular housing style built from the 1870s to 1910s as affordable housing for working and middle-class homeowners. The house features a narrow rectangular footprint to fit on a city lot and a simple gable (peaked) roof. Most are 1-1/2 stories tall, with an attic or smaller upper floor under the angle of the roof. Beyond the smallest “cottage-like” houses, there are a wide variety of sizes of these common houses which can provide challenges to identifying them as workers cottages.
“Wood-frame workers cottages were often been modified and enlarged in the years after they were built. Many were expanded by raising the entire building to add a basement or first floor beneath to install indoor plumbing or to add an extra apartment. Different building materials used on each floor and traces of modifications may provide clues to a building’s complex history. Other houses may have been originally built on raised foundations or with two full floors for two apartments.” Learn more at the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative website.
A Short History of the Chicago Workers Cottage
“The workers cottage house type derives from earlier vernacular house styles in the Midwest. These simple gable-roofed dwellings were typically built with a central entrance on a side perpendicular to the roof orientation. In Chicago, this house style was adapted to fit the constrained urban space of a typical 25′ x 125′ Chicago city lot by turning the building and entry to face the street.
“A birds-eye-view map from 1868 shows hundreds of these simple gable-roofed frame houses crowding the streets on the north, south and southwest outskirts of the central business district. Though the outer areas of the map are not depicted in great detail, zooming in to the area of what is now Chicago & Wabash Avenues we can see several rows of 1½ and 2½ story frame houses interspersed among larger brick tenement apartments. Three years later all of the houses in this area would be destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.” Learn more at the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative website.
Additional resources and ways to get involved
- Walk around your block and get to know the houses and your neighbors better
- Get involved in community groups in your area
- Join a local preservation organization such as Preservation Chicago or a neighborhood preservation group to stay informed
- Write to your alderman to tell them how these houses are a benefit to your neighborhood and worth preserving
- Find tips on renovating historic houses at the Chicago Bungalow Association www.chicagobungalow.org
- Talk to your neighbors about decreasing the zoning classification of your street to lower the financial incentives for demolition
- Share photos and stories about your favorite workers cottages on social media
- Join the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative mailing list to learn more! Cottage News – Fall 2021 (workerscottage.org)
Newspaper articles regarding the Chicago Workers Cottage Initiative
