The third episode chronicles the events happening in Chicago from the 1880s and covers topics on social structure of society, immigration issues and some projects designed to make the city look better. As seen in the previous episodes, by the end of 19th century the situation in Chicago looked quite optimistic and it pledged to be the city of the future.
First of all, the author emphasizes that in was becoming a cosmopolitan city. There were many Europeans in Chicago. They tended to bang together for living and formed districts of their nationality. Thus arose a little Ireland, a little Germany, a little Poland, etc. One of the comments made me realize how complicated was the situation with immigrants in Chicago. It was Mr.Green’s comment on a polit-correctness of the city. He said that people of the same religion kept visiting separate national churches. He claims that this fact proves that the ethnic diversity was constructed on this basis and predicted the racial segregation of the city.
The narrator does not leave aside the problem of gambling and prostitution which were quite popular. But the filmmaker approaches it in a way that short narrator’s comments are illustrated with witnesses and historians opinions. Despite present in the city, these activities did not overtake the heart of its social life. Fighting with poverty and lack of education is presented by the authors through various social programs. One of them was presented by Jane Addams and aimed to change the life of poor people by organizing various clubs, for example, the Shakespeare club at Hull-House. This institution was supported by wealthy patrons who donated money for kindergarden classes, clubs for older children, night classes for adults, and even free speech courses. Another project was aimed to provide ready-made meals for women, but it did not succeed as people prefered cooking at home.
Another Chicago’s dweller who tried to improve the welfare of the people was called Montgomery Ward. He implemented the idea of the Auditorium theater. This project impressed everybody by the size of the building and the idea to make high culture accessible to the working classes. But the brightest event in the life of entertainment was opening of the Chicago’s World Fair in May 1893. It was an amusement park constructed to show to the world Chicago’s uniqueness. It was named the World’s Columbian Exposition after Columbus’ landing in North America. People thrilled by various gadgets, electric lights, works of art and plenty of foods. The statistic says that one in four Americans visited the exhibition in 1893.
