Social Justice Studies

The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago showed Western Europeans and other peoples of the world that America had come of age. Simultaneously, African Americans dreamed that they could participate fully as citizens, celebrating true emancipation. African Americans flocked to the fair, arriving by the thousands.

Examines the first one hundred years of African American settlement and achievements in Chicago. It spans the antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction periods.

On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded at a Chicago labor rally, wounding dozens of policemen, seven of whom eventually died. Coming in the midst of the largest national strike Americans had ever seen, the bombing created mass hysteria and led to a sensational trial, which culminated in four controversial executions.

Jane Addams (1860-1935) was one of the leading figures of the Progressive era. This "pragmatic visionary," as Knight calls her, is best known as the creator of Hull House, a model settlement house offering training, shelter, and culture for Chicago's poor.

This study investigates social structures, labor, the struggle for control over Black politics and protest, the transformation of religion, cultural and aesthetic expressions, and the legacy of that time period.

An engaging social history that reveals the critical role Pullman porters played in the struggle for African American civil rights. Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter, and provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon.