Chicago Stories
EIGHT NEW STORIES
on WTTW and the PBS app
WTTW brings you a new season of Chicago Stories, the only weekly documentary series dedicated to uncovering the fascinating history, rich diversity, and breadth of human experience that shaped our great American city. New stories include Angels Too Soon: The School Fire of ’58, The Race to Reverse the River, Pullman and the Railroad Rebellion, The Boss and the Bulldozer, Jane Addams: Together We Rise, Candy Capital, The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor, and The Rise and Fall of the Mail Order Giants.
EIGHT NEW STORIES
on WTTW and the PBS app
WTTW brings you a new season of Chicago Stories, the only weekly documentary series dedicated to uncovering the fascinating history, rich diversity, and breadth of human experience that shaped our great American city. New stories include Angels Too Soon: The School Fire of ’58, The Race to Reverse the River, Pullman and the Railroad Rebellion, The Boss and the Bulldozer, Jane Addams: Together We Rise, Candy Capital, The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor, and The Rise and Fall of the Mail Order Giants.
The Rise and Fall of the Mail Order Giants
The catalogs of Sears, Roebuck, and Co., and Montgomery Ward were beloved icons of Americana. The catalogs reflected the power of companies to shape how people shopped and what they bought. The rise and fall of these mail order giants is intertwined with the history of Chicago and the rest of America.
Explore Website
The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor
In 1988, Danny Sotomayor faced what amounted to a death sentence: AIDS diagnosis. No cure, costly meds, and quick fatalities. At 29, he was terrified but chose to combat the crisis in his unique way — through spectacle.
Explore Website
Candy Capital
Chicago, once "Candy Capital of the World," birthed iconic sweets like Cracker Jack, M&Ms, Snickers, and Lemon Heads. 100 local companies, including Wrigley, Mars, and Ferrara, made a third of US candy, employing 25,000. Immigrant contributions shaped this confectionary legacy.
Explore Website
Jane Addams: Together We Rise
Jane Addams was an activist ahead of her time. Within the walls of Hull House on the Near West Side, she led a social movement and amassed an army of women to demand change, pushing boundaries and breaking barriers along the way.
Explore Website
The Boss and the Bulldozer
Richard J. Daley, aka The Boss, transformed Chicago as mayor (1955-1976). Facing white flight, he spearheaded city planning, creating the 1958 Plan for the Central City. His vision revitalized downtown but displaced 168,000 people by 1963, causing racial tensions.
Explore Website
Pullman and the Railroad Rebellion
Railroad titan George Pullman’s name was once synonymous with luxury, but when his success didn’t trickle down to his workers, a rebellion ensued. A group of Black workers found success through organizing, paving the way for a Black middle class and a civil rights movement.
Explore Website
The Race to Reverse the River
From its earliest days, Chicago residents and businesses alike dumped their waste directly into the Chicago River, which flowed into Lake Michigan and contaminated the city’s drinking water. Chicago Stories explores the various methods tried to combat the problem, and one engineer’s bold solution.
Explore Website
Angels Too Soon: The School Fire of '58
In 1958, a tragic Catholic school fire at Our Lady of the Angels in the city’s Humboldt Park neighborhood took the lives of 92 children and 3 nuns. The fire at Our Lady of the Angels was an unimaginable tragedy that shook a parish and changed a community.
Explore Website
The Birth of Gospel
This episode of Chicago Stories traces the birth and growth of gospel music in Chicago in the 1930s. The story follows "The Father of Gospel", Thomas A. Dorsey, who wrote one of gospel’s early hits while coping with his grief over the death of his wife and child. It explores the roots of gospel from southern spirituals during slavery, through gospel’s early years.
Explore Website
Our Soldiers, Our Lady of Guadalupe
This is the story of pride and heartbreak in a close-knit South Side community. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Chicago’s first and oldest Mexican-American parish, lost 12 young men in the Vietnam War during a brutal five-year period.
Explore Website
The Union Stockyards
At the end of the 19th century, Chicago completely transformed the way Americans eat, and the Union Stockyards on the South Side were the center of that revolution. Experience the sights, sounds, and awful smells of the Union Stockyards and the complex of meat factories next to it, known as Packingtown.
Explore Website
The Real Mad Men of Chicago
You may not have heard of Albert Lasker, Eugene Kolkey, or Tom Burrell, but you most certainly know their creations. They're Chicago’s Mad Men - the local executives who created iconic figures like the Marlboro Man, Charlie the Tuna, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. This episode of Chicago Stories explores how the real Mad Men of Chicago became the leaders of the advertising world.
Explore Website
Downtown Disasters
Chicago Stories recalls two very different disasters that occurred in the heart of Chicago’s Loop 90 years apart: First, the deadliest building fire in U.S. history: the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire.
Explore Website
Jane Byrne
As a woman once again occupies the fifth floor of City Hall, Chicago Stories remembers the city’s first female mayor. After pulling off one of Chicago’s greatest political upsets, Jane Byrne found herself caught between the political machine that shaped her and the reformers who elected her.
Explore Website
Inventing Improv
It may be Chicago’s greatest cultural export: improvised theater that was carried out into the world by the likes of Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Stephen Colbert. But this art form wasn’t created by a funny man - it was devised by a woman who wasn’t out for laughs. Explore the life and legacy of Viola Spolin, the social-worker-turned-theater guru known as The Mother of Improv.
Explore Website
Ida B. Wells
There are few Chicago historical figures whose life and work speak to the current moment more than Ida B. Wells, the 19th century investigative journalist, civil rights leader, and passionate suffragist. WTTW brings you a new Chicago Stories special that tells her story as never before.
Explore Website
The Great Chicago Fire
On October 10, 1871, Chicago awoke to an unrecognizable landscape: where 48 hours earlier there had been a vibrant city, now there was nothing but rubble stretched for miles on end. The Great Chicago Fire: A Chicago Stories Special brings to life this seismic event as never before, using vivid animations, elaborate re-creations, and interviews with historians and the descendants of eyewitnesses.
Explore Website