Invention, Innovation, and Industry In the 19th Century

Entry 1: Before Today

I have always known Chicago as my home, but I was unaware for most of my life of the amazing accomplishments and developments that had come from the city. I knew about a couple of things, about how the city was once an onion smelling bog that no Native American tried to settle on, tried to farm on, or even went near. I knew about how we were known for the steel frame skyscraper, how we were the first to truly be able to touch the sky with our inventions. I knew how we hosted two worlds fairs because of our innovation and inventions. However, I didn't know exactly why we were given this honor. I now see from the first four chapters of the book and the first disc of the film that Chicago's Innovations, Inventions, and Industry are what shaped it into a powerhouse of the midwest and into the so-called "Metropolis of the West" that we know today.

Chicago had so many things going for it even from the time it was discovered by Marquette and Joliet as a location to connect the eastern part of the French Empire to the other half of the new world. This position was vital to the development of Chicago. The Mississippi River was just a short portage walk and river ride away from Lake Michigan, which directly connected to what was the other half of the world at the time. This shortcut came to be even more important with the opening of the Erie Canal in Buffalo, NY, which allowed for connections to New York City. 

The route that was taken by Marquette and Joliet on their expedition. ¹ 

This was the start of Chicago's potential innovation. It would change how people thought about travel. Much like the airplane today, cross country travel would no longer be an impossibility where people would potentially die in order to make it to the other end of the country. With a settlement in Chicago (then Chigagou), Cross country travel went down from taking possibly months to taking weeks or evem just days. However, there was no settlement at Chicago, therefore this potential went unused. This was until fort Dearborn, the first sense of community in Chicago ². The opening of the fort gave people who would decide to settle in Chicago a sense of security in where they lived, as there was now a military presence within their area. However, the potential that was seen by Joliet was not yet realized, as there was no harbor. This was a problem but it could be solved by doing something incredibly extreme and possibly dangerous. This was making a harbor almost 100 feet out into the lake so ships could safely dock and there would no longer need to be smaller ships sent out to deliver goods to the shore. 

The old Fort Dearborn ³

The Former site of Fort Dearborn near Wacker Dr. ⁴

We had a direct route to the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, however, the condition of Chicago was not ideal for human living. The Portage was a hassle to take boats and even canoes through and all of the land available was swampy and a house could not possibly stand on it. The solution to this was to simply fix it. The idea of a Canal between the Illinois and Chicago Rivers existed even in Marquette and Joliet's time as it would cut down the time spent out of the water and minimize travel time. So the Illinois-Michigan Canal was dug. This can be considered to be the first innovation in Chicago, it was over 150 miles long and completely dug by hand, this was truly a massive feat. It made Chicago the maritime hub, no longer was a portage walk necessary to move from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, as it was wide enough to accommodate ships. The digging of the Illinois Michigan Canal paved the way for Chicago may have only been at the surface level a small quality of life improvement to those in maritime trade at the time, it led to a variety of innovations and technologies that would eventually place Chicago on the map.

The big trend in Chicago's early history: "Wouldn't it be nice if there was..." the solution was to simply make it happen. This mentality became the reason Chicago was such a big place of opportunity; if it needed to be done, it would be done. A prime example of this was the reversal of the Chicago River, we need the trash in our river to go somewhere else. What happened? The river was reversed, a very direct approach. However, this stems back even further, consider the lack of harbor in Chicago at first. Ships had to dock 100 feet out of shore and send smaller boats out in order to land materials on the shore. This would often deter people from coming to Chicago. What was the obvious solution? Build a harbor out 100 feet so that they wouldn't have to send in any smaller boats. So, what did the leaders of Chicago do? Well, they went out and built a harbor 100 feet out so ships would not have to send in any smaller boats.   

This is how wheat was harvested before the Reaper⁷

This was not even the start of how Chicago became truly famous. Due to the quality of life improvements made such as the Harbor and Illinois Michigan Canal, people selling goods were more likely to come out west, as it was so much easier than traveling by land. So, westward they came, including the wheat industry. Many eastern shipping companies would have their ships come to the vast plains of the west in order to pick up the tons of hay produced every season. There came a problem, there was simply too much wheat! By the time the wheat was fully harvested much of it had spoiled due to too much time spent harvesting. This is where a question was once again proposed: "Wouldn't it be nice if we could harvest wheat faster?" McCormick from Virginia certainly had an opinion in this matter. He invented the Reaper, a machine that would harvest the same amount of wheat in no time. This meant that the wheat wouldn't have to spoil, making the farmers more money, saving the shippers more time, and saving everyone so much money.

The McCormick Reaper ⁸

The Reaper is one of the most important inventions to come to Chicago, as it established two completely separate trades that would help Chicago to blossom into what it is today. First is the credit industry and eventually the mail-order industry. McCormick allowed his customers to buy on solely the fact that they would pay him back later, on their credit. This is smart, as it allowed more Reapers to be sent out into the public and therefore more people would see them and more people would buy them. In turn, this would give the farmers' wives more money to shop around with, just like the wives of rich men who lived in the City proper. However, sometimes there would not be enough time for the wives to go to the city, maybe they wanted to shop at home. Enter the mail-order catalog, which would particularly be considered more of an innovation rather than an invention. It changed the mindset of those who used it. Instead of going somewhere, the vast and ever-growing railroad could have it delivered to them instead. This grew extremely fast, to the point where you could order a whole house from the mail order if you wanted to. This is a prime example of Chicago innovation, coming directly from a simple Reaper invention.

The wheat industry also suffered from another big problem: Storage. Sometimes farmers would harvest so much that they couldn't hold it all. That is until another invention from the east made it out west, the grain elevator. The grain elevator was a truly marvelous invention and are a primitive skyscraper of sorts, making use of upwards space rather than expanding outwards. The grain would be stacked high, some elevators might even fill up, many people would buy this wheat and sold it for higher prices. Eventually, people not only ran out of space for the wheat of now, but also they ran out of wheat to sell, it just had to be shipped. This led to the selling of the wheat that would be, in a market of the literal future, people would buy wheat that hadn't been planted yet. All of this future wheat needed to be stored somewhere, and they were running out of elevators, so in order to build more, there would be lumber brought in from Michigan and Wisconsin, stored in various lumber yards. Not just grain elevators were built here, there were also many houses built from the mail-order catalogs. The lumber industry was a quite unexpected journey from the Reaper, but it was nonetheless because of the reaper (very indirectly) that we got the various lumber yards seen in Chicago.

The grain elevators working with trains ⁹

The wheat industry also allowed for the railroads to thrive in the West, as they became a more efficient way to move things across the country, moving the cross country travel time down to mere days. This connects with another major industry at the time, meat packing. Meat would easily spoil over a couple days, which is why the Butcher was always a local person ⁵ he knew the pigs he slaughtered, the town knew the butcher, and everyone saw the meat they would eat before it was killed. In Chicago, this would all change. Meatpacking would be one of the most revolutionary industries to come to Chicago except for wheat and that would be a tough decision to make. Meatpacking became a yearly job after the refrigerated train car was invented, whereas before it was limited to a winter job ⁵. However, most importantly, the meatpackers brought on the so-called "Dissasembly line" ⁶. A hog would be killed, chopped up, and packed in ten minutes flat. There were stations of men all along a factory floor, each with a job. The one man butcher job was transformed into the job of many men, however, this expansion made one butchers' day worth of work turn into half an hour. Henry Ford got his idea for the assembly line from watching Chicago Meatpackers work along, as they had been so systematic about their work. This can be connected once again to the question: "Wouldn't it be nice to have massively available meats?" This question was answered with the disassembly line.

An example of a Chicago Disassembly Line ¹⁰

References and Notes

1. https://9fc6ff.medialib.edu.glogster.com/3Ix0swB0zCIKdA6ZRWfJ/media/9e/9eec2b157e4bf2217f5d5e0353605e81f398956d/89973-004-78eec308.png
2. While Jean-Baptiste Du Sable was the first person to settle in Chigagou, it was only him and his wife, rather than a community of people.
3. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Fort_Dearborn_1831_Kinzie.jpg/1200px-Fort_Dearborn_1831_Kinzie.jpg
4. https://www.chicagodetours.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Fort-Dearborn-plaques-native-american-history-Chicago-min.jpg
5. Refers to a section of "City of the Century"
6. Refers to a section of "City of Big Shoulders" By Spinney
7. https://iowahist.uni.edu/Social_Economic/IA_Agriculturist/IA_Ag_Images/Agri2_12AYNotext.jpg
8. https://cdn.britannica.com/s:500x350/38/42138-004-2D1129E7.jpg
9. https://static.agcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/11/Kirkella-Pool_cmyk-1.jpg
10. http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~bpie/Image5.gif