The South Side communities where Irish-America was built — five generations of stockyard workers, city politicians, and parish Catholics
Chicago has the largest Irish-American community of any city in the United States — an estimated 2.5 million residents of Irish descent, concentrated historically on the South Side in a arc of parishes, ward organisations, and working-class streets that stretched from the canal terminus at Bridgeport to the Victorian ridge of Beverly.
This is the community that built Chicago's Democratic machine, staffed its police and fire departments, ran its union halls, and sent five men to City Hall as mayor. Their story is told in the streets they lived in.
Five Chicago mayors, the Union Stock Yards, and a century of Irish Catholic political power — the most famous Irish neighbourhood in America.
Where Irish-American families moved when they made it — the ridge of Victorian houses that became the destination for the South Side's Irish Catholic middle class.
The working-class heart of the stockyard district — Irish packinghouse workers, canal navvies, and the community that Upton Sinclair documented in The Jungle.
The Sicilian and Calabrian immigrants who made the Near West Side Italian-America's most enduring food and cultural street — from Hull House to Al's Italian Beef.
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