Chicago Sketches: Urban Tales, Stories, and Legends from Chicago History - Hardcover

Glasgow-born Sawyers is the author of Chicago Portraits, which contained brief biographies of 250 famous Chicagoans. In her latest book, Sawyers has written 72 essays on the history of her adopted city. She divides the book according to such subjects as early days; radicals, reformers, and eccentrics; the literary beat; life in the neighborhoods; law and disorder; the spiritual life; political bedfellows; disasters and events; the arts; visitors and other strangers; and sports, fairs, and recreation. Al Capone is here, of course, along with Jane Addams, "Big" Jim Colosimo, "Texas" Guinan, Father Jacques Marquette, Cardinal Mundelein, Mayor John Wentworth, and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Sawyers writes about speakeasies, the Cliff Dwellers Club, the Iroquois Theater fire, the Eastland's sinking, Riverview Park, the Yiddish Theater, the Columbian Exposition, and the Chicago Bears. She includes 52 engaging photographs and five handy maps. Her provocative writing captures the spirit of the city; this is history and nostalgia at their best. George Cohen