Chicago Stories

Between 1908 and 1942, Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck, and Co. sold kits in its mail order catalogs that allowed people to build their own homes.

After a week of intense competition, we have a winner of our Chicago candy bracket: Frango Mints! 

What will be named Chicago's favorite candy? Will it be Butterfinger or Frango Mints? Vote to decide by midnight on Sunday!

Who will advance to the final? Will it be Laffy Taffy or Butterfinger? Snickers or Frango Mints? Vote to decide by 3:00 pm on Thursday! 

Stephanie Hart of Brown Sugar Bakery bought the Cupid Candies factory to produce chocolates and keep jobs in her community. "The better the places are to work, the better the community is going to be,” she says.  

Ahead of the premiere of Chicago Stories: Candy Capital and Halloween, we thought we’d stir up a little healthy competition. Vote for your favorite candy with Chicago connections!

Carlos Lozano was 10 years old when a fire broke out at Our Lady of the Angels school in 1958. Some 65 years later, his daughter, Bianca Lozano, worked as the associate producer for the upcoming WTTW Chicago Stories documentary about the fire. They share what the experience meant to their family and the difficulties of discussing a traumatic event.

A new season of WTTW's Chicago Stories that airs this fall includes a documentary on the reversal of the Chicago River. We spoke to the producers of the film about what new things there are to learn, and why it's relevant. 

November 11 is Veterans Day. WTTW and PBS have covered veterans, their lives, issues, and the wars they fought in extensively, but we have pulled together a small selection of those stories for you to watch and read today. 

"The story of gospel music is actually a more universal story of American music and our country’s history," says the producer of a new Chicago Stories documentary about the genre's origins in Chicago.

Jane Byrne was the first woman to be elected Mayor of Chicago and the first woman to lead a mayor U.S. city. A new Chicago Stories documentary follow's Byrne's rise to power and tenure as mayor. 

Improv "was born out of a need to communicate with a new immigrant population, from a woman who loved theater," says the producer of our new upcoming documentary Inventing Improv: A Chicago Stories Special.

The writer and producer of a new WTTW documentary about the groundbreaking civil rights activist, journalist, and suffragist discusses Wells' relevance today, at a moment when Wells is becoming more and more recognized for her work.

The Great Chicago Fire: A Chicago Stories Special reveals new details with recreations and animation that bring the fire to life. Executive producer Dan Protess and producer and writer Peter Marks talked about their approach to telling the old story in a new way.

Anna Pavlova, Irving Berlin, Serge Diaghilev, George Balanchine, Rudolf Nureyev: the choreographer and dancer Ruth Page worked with them all, plus brought Americana into ballet, built artistic institutions in her home base of Chicago, and choreographed over 100 ballets.