Examining the Archetypical Chicagoan

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In Carl Smith’s “Faith and Doubt: the Imaginative Dimensions of the Great Chicago Fire,” he discusses two of the major types of responses to the Chicago. The first posits Chicago as a distinctive entity, stresses its God-given destiny as the Queen of the West (some members of this school went so far as to argue that the magnitude of destruction demonstrated Chicago’s preeminence over other major cities, such as Paris, that also experience fires), and reduces its immoral reputation (gambling, prostitution etc.). This view largely ignores class distinctions. Conversely, the second view stresses the dangers of the lower class and explains how, without the social barriers, the lower class is truly as evil (satanic and demon-like were frequent comparisons) as the upper classes feared them to be.

Initially I found these views to be irreconcilable; one is founded on the reduction to an archetypical Chicagoan, while the other is based around the construction of class distinctions and their associated morals. However, after reading Catherine’s post regarding the classism in the Chicago fire, I began to reconsider this distinction. I was particularly interested in her discussion of boosters’ roles in providing a narrative for the Chicago fire and subsequently prompting the recovery effort. It is important to consider that these boosters were targeting upper class Americans capable of investing necessary capital into Chicago. We must then consider that these references to the archetypical Chicagoan were in fact references to the upper class Chicagoan. This would allow these initial two views to become reconcilable.

I would argue that a combination of these views can be understood as a warning against sectionalism within upper class America. By sensationalizing the ways in which the fire destroyed class boundaries, writers reminded other members of the American upper class that their position, like these Chicagoans (who are relatable because of the way that the ‘first view’ stressed their upstanding morals), were in constant jeopardy to the whims of God, Nature, and the subsequent horrors of the class intermingling so well represented by the, often fabricated, stories of crime during the fire. A stress on both Chicago’s upstanding morals and its prior financial eminence is extremely important; by reminding the upper-class of their financial and social frailty it also demonstrated the need for a unity among the upper class.