In this episode, Dominic Pacyga (Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia College Chicago) and Tobias Brinkmann (Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History, Penn State) discuss the immigration of Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians and Lithuanians to Chicago via the Hamburg-America Line.

Topics include the following:
-the first Eastern European immigrants in the 1850s
-the self-definition of these groups through language, religion, and ethnicity
-the concept of spatial integration and social segregation in Chicago
-the role of railroads in opening up Eastern Europe to the port of Hamburg
-the turmoil in Europe that caused different waves of immigration
-the importance of foreign-language, ethnic newspapers in Chicago
-the new roles available to immigrant women in Chicago
-the inter-ethnic conflict in Chicago caused by World War I
-the effect of immigration restrictions on Eastern Europeans due to the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924
-the inter-ethnic conflict between German Chicagoans (the German-American Bund) and other groups before and during World War II
-the softening of immigration restrictions after WWII with the Displaced Persons Act of 1948
-the differences among Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian experiences during the Cold War

If you are interested in learning more about Polish Chicago, check out Back Home: Polish Chicago at the Chicago History Museum through June 8, 2024. https://www.chicagohistory.org/

And visit the Packingtown Museum to learn more about the role of the stockyards in the immigrant experience. https://www.packingtownmuseum.org/

In honor of Black History Month, Douglas Cowie and his guest, award-winning novelist Ryan Gattis, discuss a classic novel about Black Chicago, Richard Wright's Native Son.

Published in 1940, the novel follows the life of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man living on the South Side of Chicago, who murders a white woman and is thrown into the criminal legal system. The novel's themes include segregation, racism, and economic inequality in the city of Chicago.

February is African-American History Month, and we celebrate the occasion with an episode about Black Chicago with award-winning scholar Dr. Mary Pattillo, Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at Northwestern University.

Topics include the difficulties in defining Black Chicago, which is neither a static nor homogenous concept; the two waves of the Great Migration of Black people from the rural South to the cities of the North in the early 1900s; the important differences between the concepts of the Black Ghetto and the Black Metropolis; and the history of important Black political figures in Chicago from Ida B. Wells and President Barack Obama to Mayors Harold Washington, Lori Lightfoot, and Brandon Johnson. Throughout, Pattillo highlights the resilience and complexity of Black Chicago.

In our first episode exploring the literature of Chicago, host Dr. Douglas Cowie and his guest, Dr. Katie McGettigan (Royal Hollow, University of London) discuss one of the first great Chicago novels, Sister Carrie, by the German-American author Theodore Dreiser.

Set in the late 1800s, the novel tells the story of an innocent country girl from Wisconsin who makes her way to the booming city of Chicago in 1889, seeking a better life for herself while getting mixed up with problematic men. The novel asks many questions. Does life in the city make people better or worse? Is it a corrupting force, or does it help us discover our true selves? Or is living in the city like being on a Ferris Wheel (first constructed in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exhibition in 1893), sometimes rising, sometimes falling, but always sitting in the same place?

In our second episode on German Chicago, Andrew Sola and Sebastian Wuepper discuss the continuing growth and then decline of German Chicago, which largely disappeared with America's entry into WWI in 1917.

Topics include the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), which united the German community in Chicago; the importance of German-language newspapers, namely the Illinois Staats-Zeitung; the impact of the Great Chicago Fire (1871) on German communities on the North Side; the next wave of German immigrants who came as industrial workers to help rebuild the city; the left-wing political activities of these new workers, which led to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Haymarket Square Massacre of 1886; the first conflict between the German Empire and the United States as seen in the Samoan Crisis (1887-1889); the death of German-language newspapers and culture with the onset of WWI; the final wave of German immigrants fleeing communism and the loss of the territories of Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia following WWII; and the lasting contributions made be German immigrants to Chicago, including gym class in schools, playgrounds in public parks, and homes for senior citizens.

In our fourth episode, Andrew Sola and Sebastian Wuepper, historian of German immigration, continue telling the story of Chicago history by discussing the first two waves of Germanic migrants to Chicago, the so-called Dreiziger (the 30-ers, the ones who arrived in the 1830s) and the Vierundachtziger (the 48-ers, or the ones who arrived due to the 1848 revolutions in various German-speaking states, duchies, and principalities in what is now modern Germany).

Topics include the rapid growth of Chicago between 1833 and 1880, when it grew from a mere 200 to over 500,000 inhabitants, making it the world's fastest growing city; the difficulty of defining "German immigrants" in early Chicago because Germany did not yet exist as a nation-state; tensions between the 30-ers and the 48-ers; the strong political beliefs of the 48-ers, including a staunch opposition to slavery and secession; the shift of their political support from the pro-immigrant Democratic Party to the anti-slavery Republican Party of Abe Lincoln; the importance of beer to the German immigrants, as seen in the Lager Beer Riot of 1855; the creation and deployment of so-called ethnic regiments, including German ethnic regiments, during the Civil War; and the importance of German community associations, namely the Turnverein or Turner halls as well as singing societies and choirs, throughout the 1800s.

In our third episode of the series, Andrew Sola and his guests, Dr. Low (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Ohio State University-Newark) and Dr. Karamanski (Loyola University-Chicago) tell the story of the indigenous people of Chicagoland from the end of the War of 1812 through their violent removal from the region over the course of the 19th Century.

Specific topics include the various origin stories of the Potawatomi; the willingness of tribes to accommodate and compromise with Americans; the Indian tribe as a construct of the US government; the Indian Removal Act of 1830; the Blackhawk war of 1832; the Treaty of Chicago of 1833; the phenomenon of "Treaty Chiefs," as seen in the cases of Billy Caldwell (British-Potawatomi) and Alexander Robinson (British-Ottawa); the unique story of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi; the development of Indian boarding schools, whose purpose was to destroy all aspects of indigenous culture and identity; the diverse perspectives of various Indian tribes and bands in their responses to the arrival of Americans; and the Native American perspective about the concept of land ownership.

In the second episode of the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, we meet the original Chicagoans: the Native Americans who first inhabited the region.

Dr. Sola and his expert guests, Dr. Keating (North Central College) and Dr. Karamanski (Loyola University-Chicago), discuss the history of the indigenous people of Chicagoland from the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago through the War of 1812.

Specific topics include the arrival of Paleo-Indians and the development of Mississippian culture, which reached its summit in the indigenous metropolis of Cahokia; the arrival of European traders and settlers; the machinations of European powers in Paris and London to exert control over the region; the long period of peace between the first French traders and indigenous people; the first non-indigenous settler in Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who was of African not European descent; the rise of the mixed-race Metis culture around Chicago; the resistance of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa to American expansionism; and the outbreak of violence during the War of 1812, which culminated with the burning of Chicago's Fort Dearborn by an indigenous army.

Welcome to the ChicagoHamburg30 podcast series, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City Partnership!

We open our 30-episode series with two distinguished guests: German Generalkonsul in Chicago Michael Ahrens and American Consul General in Hamburg Jason Chue.

These two career diplomats discuss their reasons for becoming diplomats, their first impressions of Chicago and Hamburg respectively, and the importance of the sister-city partnership. They also discuss the strength of German-American friendship on the political level, the economic level, and the cultural level.

The year 2024 marks the 30-year anniversary of the Chicago-Hamburg Sister-City Partnership. Join us in celebrating the special relationship with this 30-episode podcast series about the history, culture, literature, music, and people of Chicago. Guests will include scholars, journalists, writers, musicians, and thinkers who all have a special affection for Chicago, Hamburg, and the transatlantic relationship. We will launch our first episode in January 2024.

The podcast is sponsored by the Amerikazentrum-Hamburg, a non-partisan, not-for-profit institute dedicated to increasing transatlantic understanding and strengthening transatlantic relations. The podcast is produced by Andrew Sola. The primary host will be Douglas Cowie. Wouter Verhulst of The Soundary composed the theme song. Henning Christiansen designed the logo.

The podcast logo evokes an enduring symbol of Chicago, the Ferris wheel, the first of which was built for the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. The Ferris wheel is also the centerpiece of the Hamburger Dom, Hamburg's carnival, held three times a year in the heart of the city. The stars on the wheel represent the stars on the city flags of Chicago and Hamburg.