Edward McClelland

Go Midwest, young man. Read more

Most famous for getting beat by Abraham Lincoln, the senator's other local legacy is making Chicago the railroad hub of America—at immense cost. Read more

Integration, and the cultural changes that come with it, have changed the way Chicagoans (and Michiganders, and Upstate New Yorkers) talk. Read more

A Tennessee native, Thurman co-founded the Young Patriots, a group of poor white Appalachian migrants that organized in Uptown in the 1960s, became part of the original Rainbow Coalition, and changed politics in Chicago forever. Read more

Chicago was squeezed into Illinois to make it more Northern. It's now the capital of the Midwest, but culturally, call it a Great Lakes state. Read more

Part Southern, part Inland North, the Black Chicago dialect captures the history of the city since the Great Migration. Read more