Tag: First World War

Categories
Aviation Pioneers

Books : Our Transatlantic Flight.

Our transatlantic flight, by Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown
Our transatlantic flight, by Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown

Newfoundland

Before 1949, Newfoundland was called Dominion of Newfoundland   and was part of the British Commonwealth . In 1949, it became a Canadian province.

The first non-stop flight eastward across the Atlantic.

The book « Our transatlantic flight » tells the story of the historic flight that was made in 1919, just after the First World War, from Newfoundland to Ireland. There was a 10,000 £ prize offered by Lord Northcliffe   from Great Britain for whoever would succeed on the first non-stop flight eastward across the Atlantic.

A triumph for British aviation

Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown , respectively pilot and navigator, wrote the story of their successful flight in this book which was published in 1969. The followings are pilot quotes from the book : « For the first time in the history of aviation the Atlantic had been crossed in direct, non-stop flight in the record time of 15 hours, 57 minutes. » (p.13) « The flight was a triumph for British aviation; the pilot and navigator were both British, the aircraft was a Vickers-Vimy   and the twin engines were made by Rolls-Royce. » (p.13)

Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown
Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown

As with all great human achievements, a very good flight planning and some luck was needed to make this flight a success. If there was an engine failure during the flight, even if the planning was excellent, there was only one outcome : downward.

In order to make the flight, Alcock and Brown boarded a ship from England bound to Halifax. They then headed to Port aux Basques and finally arrived in St.John’s. There, they joined a small group of British aviators who had arrived a few days before and who were also preparing for the competition. « The evenings were mostly spent in playing cards with the other competitors at the Cochrane Hotel, or in visits to the neighbouring film theatres. St.John’s itself showed us every kindness. » (p.60)

Maritime transport was used to carry the Vickers-Vimy biplane to Newfoundland on May 4th. It was assembled in Newfoundland. « The reporters representing the Daily Mail, the New York Times, and the New York World were often of assistance when extra manpower was required. » (p.61).

While the aircraft was being built, there were more and more visiters coming to the site. Brown says : « Although we remained unworried so long as the crowd contented itself with just watching, we had to guard against petty damage. The testing of the fabric’s firmness with the point of an umbrella was a favourite pastime of the spectators […]. » (p.61)

The Vickers-Vimy is being reassembled at Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland.
The Vickers-Vimy is being reassembled at Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland.

It was difficult to find a field that could be improvised into an aerodrome : « Newfoundland is a hospitable place, but its best friends cannot claim that it is ideal for aviation. The whole of the island has no ground that might be made into a first-class aerodrome. The district around St.John’s is  especially difficult. Some of the country is wooded, but for the most part it shows a rolling, switchback surface, across which aeroplanes cannot taxi with any degree of smoothness. The soil is soft and dotted with boulders, as only a light layer covers the rock stratum. Another handicap is the prevalence of thick fogs, which roll westward from the sea. » (p.59)

They flight tested the airplane on June 9th at Quidi Vidi. During the short flight, the crew could see icebergs near the coast. They did a second trial on June 12th and found that the transmitter constantly caused problems. But, at least, the engines seemed to be reliable…

The departure

The two men left Newfoundland on June 14th 1919. In order to fight the cold air in flight, they wore electrically heated clothing. A battery located between two seats provided for the necessary energy.

The Vickers-Vimy departs from Newfoundland in 1919
The Vickers-Vimy departs from Newfoundland in 1919

The short take-off was very difficult due to the wind and the rough surface of the aerodrome. Brown writes : « Several times I held my breath, from fear that our under-carriage would hit a roof or a tree-top. I am convinced that only Alcock’s clever piloting saved us from such an early disaster. » (p.73)

It took them 8 minutes to reach 1000 ft. Barely one hour after departure and once over the ocean, the generator broke and the flight crew was cut off from all means of communication.

As the airplane consumed petrol, the centre of gravity changed and since there was no trim on the machine, the pilot had to exert a permanent backward pressure on the joystick.

Flying in clouds, fog and turbulence.

During the flight with much clouds and fog, Brown, having almost no navigation aid,  had real problems to estimate the aircraft’s position and limit the flying errors. He had to wait for a higher altitude and for the night to come to improve his calculations : « I waited impatiently for the first sight of the moon, the Pole Star and other old friends of every navigator. » (p.84). The fog and clouds were so thick that at times they « cut off from view parts of the Vickers-Vimy. » (p.95)

Without proper instruments to fly in clouds, they were relying on a « revolution-counter » to establish the climbing or the falling rate. That is pretty scary. « A sudden increase in revolutions would indicate that the plane was diving; a sudden loss of revs  would show that she was climbing dangerously steeply. » (p.176)

But that was not enough. They also had to deal with turbulence that rocked the plane while they could not see anything outside. They became desoriented : « The airspeed indicator failed to register, and bad bumps prevented me from holding to our course. From side to side rocked the machine, and it was hard to know in what position we really were. A spin was the inevitable result. From an altitude of 4,000 feet we twirled rapidly downward.[…]. « Apart from the changing levels marked by aneroid, only the fact that our bodies were pressed tightly against the seats indicated that we were falling. How and at what angle we were falling, we knew not. Alcock tried to centralise the controls, but failed because we had lost all sense of what was central. I searched in every direction for an external sign, and saw nothing but opaque nebulousness. » (p.88)

« It was a tense moment for us, and when at last we emerged from the fog we were close down over the water at an extremely dangerous angle. The white-capped waves were rolling along too close to be comfortable, but a quick glimpse of the horizon enabled me to regain control of the machine. » (p.40).

De-icing a gauge installed outside of the cockpit.

Snow and sleet were falling. They didn’t realize how lucky they were to continue flying in such a weather. Nowadays, there are many ways to dislodge ice from a wing while the aircraft is in flight. Here is what Brown says about their situation : « […] The top sides of the plane were covered completely by a crusting of frozen sleet. The sleet imbedded itself in the hinges of the ailerons and jammed them, so that for about an hour the machine had scarcely any lateral control. Fortunately, the Vickers-Vimy possesses plenty of inherent lateral stability; and, as the rudder controls were never clogged by sleet, we were able to hold to the right direction. » (p.95)

After twelve hours of flying, the glass of a gauge outside the cockpit became obscured by clotted snow. Brown had to deal with it, while Alcock was flying. «  The only way to reach it was by climbing out of the cockpit and kneeling on top of the fuselage, while holding a strut for the maintenance of balance. […] The violent rush of air, which tended to push me backward, was another discomfort. […] Until the storm ended, a repetition of this performance, at fairly frequent intervals, continued to be necessary. » (p.94)

In order to save themselves, they executed a descent from 11,000 to 1000 feet and in the warmer air the ailerons started to operate again. As they continued their descent below 1000 feet over the ocean, they were still surrounded by fog. They had to do some serious low altitude flying : « Alcock was feeling his way downward gently and alertly, not knowing whether the cloud extended to the ocean, nor at what moment the machine’s undercarriage might touch the waves. He had loosened his safety belt, and was ready to abandon ship if we hit the water […]. » (p.96)

The arrival.

They saw Ireland at 8.15 am on June 15th and crossed the coast ten minutes later. They did not expect a very challenging landing as the field looked solid enough to support an aircraft. They landed at 8 :40 am at Clifden on top of what happened to be a bog; the aircraft rolled on its nose and suffered serious material damages. The first non-stop transatlantic flight ended in a crash. Both both crewmen were alive and well, although they were dealing with fatigue…

The transatlantic flight ends up in Ireland in a soft field
The transatlantic flight ends up in Ireland in a soft field

Initially, nobody in Ireland believed that the plane arrived from North America. But when they saw mail-bags from Newfoundland, there were « cheers and painful hand-shakes » (p.102).

First page of the Sunday Evening Telegraph in 1919.
First page of the Sunday Evening Telegraph in 1919.

They were cheered by the crowds in Ireland and England and received their prize from Winston Churchill.

John Alcock chaired by the crowd
John Alcock chaired by the crowd
Winston Churchill is presenting the Daily Mail Check to the two pilots.
Winston Churchill is presenting the Daily Mail Check to the two pilots.

Their record stood unchallenged for eight years until Lindbergh’s flight in 1927.

The future of transatlantic flight.

Towards the end of the book, the authors risk a prediction on the future of transatlantic flight. But aviation made such a progress in a very short time that, inevitably, their thoughts on the subject was obsolete in a matter of a few years. Here are some examples :

« Nothwithstanding that the first two flights across the Atlantic were made respectively by a flying boat and an aeroplane, it is evident that the future of transatlantic flight belongs to the airship. » (p.121)

« […] The heavy type of aeroplane necessary to carry an economical load for long distances would not be capable of much more than 85 to 90 miles an hour. The difference between this and the present airship speed of 60 miles an hour would be reduced by the fact that an aeroplane must land at intermediate stations for fuel replenishment. » (p.123)

« It is undesirable to fly at great heights owing to the low temperature; but with suitable provision for heating there is no reason why flying at 10,000 feet should not be common. » (p.136)

The Air Age.

There is a short section in the book on the « Air Age ». I chose two small excerpts on Germany and Canada :

On Germany’s excellent Zeppelins : « The new type of Zeppelin – the Bodensee –  is so efficient that no weather conditions, except a strong cross-hangar wind, prevents it from making its daily flight of 390 miles between Friedrichshafen and Staalsen, thirteen miles from Berlin. » (p.140)

On Canada’s use of aeroplanes : « Canada has found a highly successful use for aeroplanes in prospecting the Labrador timber country. A group of machines returned from an exploration with valuable photographs and maps of hundreds of thousands of pound’s worth of forest land. Aerial fire patrols, also, are sent out over forests.» (p.142) and « Already, the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police [today the RCMP] have captured criminals by means of aeroplane patrols. » (p.146)

Conclusion

The Manchester Guardian stated, on June 16th 1919 : « […] As far as can be foreseen, the future of air transport over the Atlantic is not for the aeroplane. It may be used many times for personal feats of daring. But to make the aeroplane safe enough for business use on such sea routes we should have to have all the cyclones of the Atlantic marked on the chart, and their progress marked in from hour to hour. »(p.169)

Title : Our Transatlantic Flight

Authors : Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown

Edition : William Kimber

© 1969

SBN : 7183-0221-4

For other articles on that theme on my website: Aviation pioneers.

Categories
Controversial subjects

Total ecstasy – The Third Reich, Germans and drugs

Translated from German to French, this book is titled : « L’extase totale – Le troisième Reich, les Allemands et la drogue ». The original title was : « Der totale Rausch. Drogen im Dritten Reich ». The author is a German journalist and documentarist who worked for Stern and Der Spiegel. He has also written four other books. I tried to translate the quotes to the best of my ability.

The research made by the author shows that in the years preceding the Second World War, the German population regularly used drugs to better support the defeat resulting of the First World War. Drug consumption  was a standard phenomenon. It became necessary to curtail this habit.

Front cover of the book "L'extase totale" by Normand Ohler
Front cover of the book “L’extase totale” by Normand Ohler

Hitler is thus presented as a « pure role model […], an ascetic, the enemy of drugs who disregards his own needs » (p.25). But if there is somebody in Germany who is becoming a regular user of drugs and who even has access to his own pusher, namely the well-known Dr Morell, it is Hitler.

In the documents presented by the author, Hitler is also described as the Patient A : « Hitler is getting used to repetitive shots and to those mysterious substances flowing in his veins to supposedly invigorate him » (p.37).

In 1937, the Temmler factories create the first German methylamphetamine, also known as « pervitin ». There is a widespread use in the German population as well as in the army. Pervitin is the artificial booster that lasts more than twelve hours, « solves problems » and keeps the German soldier awake for several days : « Use of pervitin becomes as natural as drinking a cup of coffee » (p.44).

The German troops, who sleep every two or three days now, rush through Europe. It is the famous Blitzkrieg. The armour do not stop anymore. While the Allied soldiers must sleep on a rotating basis, the German soldiers charge without taking any breaks, energized with methamphetamine.

Poland is the first surprised. « […] provided with a huge amount of drugs, but without dosage indications, the Wehrmacht attacks the Polish neighbour who is not doped and has no idea of what to expect. » (p.63).

Thirty five million doses are ordered for the army and the Luftwaffe. « The Wehrmacht becomes the first army in the world to widely use chemical drugs […]. A new form of war has appeared » . (p.76)

Peter Steinkamp, a medical historian, states that « the Blitzkrieg was led through the use of methamphetamine, not to say that it was planned with methamphetamine in mind » (p.85).

The German officers do not obey orders anymore, exhilarated by the quick victories : « Guderian […] continues his offensive while he has formally received the order to stop » (p.86). It is the same thing for Rommel who does not obey General Hoth’s orders : « He has lost all senses of danger, [which is] a typical symptom of an excessive consumption of methamphetamine. He maintains his offensive both day and night ». (p.88). Hitler does not control the generals of the armoured divisions who now act in an autonomous mode.

Decided to regain control of his officers, Hitler takes a decision that ignores any military strategy. He orders all his troops to stop during ten days, at a moment when they have almost surrounded the Allied. The German officers impress upon Hitler to complete the military campaign but « Hitler wants to show his ground troops that it is him and nobody else who leads this war » (p.95). At Dunkirk, « more than 340,000 French, Belgian and British soldiers escaped by the sea » (p.95).

Backcover of the book " L'extase totale " by Normand Ohler
Backcover of the book ” L’extase totale ” by Normand Ohler

 

 

The author refers to numerous research documents pertaining to extensive drug consumption among soldiers and officers. This habit was present up to the highest military ranks. The German population was also keen to use drugs on an extensive basis : « It does not take long before the number of doses that find themselves in the stomach or blood of Germans exceed the million doses » (p.114)

The melting pot of drugs used on a daily basis by Hitler has an important effect on his judgment. He makes a serious strategic mistake concerning the war raging with Russia. He forbids any retreat of the German troops without his official authorization. The Wehrmacht undergoes heavy losses to the elite Russian divisions « freshly arrived from Siberia » (p.135).

Another important strategic mistake happens in December 1941 when Germany decides to declare war to the United States : « Germany is already exhausted by the fights it wages on multiple fronts, while overseas, the industrial giant is ready for the battle » (p.139).

Hitler’s stubbornness « to refuse to give up an inch of the conquered territory has a more profound reason : that the chimneys continue to work as long as possible in the East, in the extermination camps in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobidor, Chelmno, Majdanek and Belzec. Hold all positions until all the Jews are killed. Distancing himself from the human laws, [Hitler] continues his war against the weakest» (p.140).

The author enumerates other military strategical mistakes made by Hitler. He also details the close relation that existed between Hitler and his personal doctor, Dr Morell. The reader learns about the content of Hitler’s daily drug cocktails, among which Eucodal, cocaine and morphine. Benefiting from his close personal relation with Patient A, Dr Morell also increases his personal influence and fortune.

The reader witnesses the Führer’s progressive decline and the consequences of his desperate decisions. It is quite surprising that among all Hitler biographies, his heavy consumption of drugs and their consequences are barely noted.

The end of the book deals with the harsh experiments made on prisoners in the concentration camps.

The book « L’extase totale » allows a different understanding of the Second World War and of the psychology of the German population at the time. The reader realizes the very strong impact of the chemical drugs before and during the war. Even the way the Blitzkrieg is traditionnally presented has to be reviewed.

The advanced technology combined with military strategy and extensive use of chemical drugs initially gave the advantage to the German forces. However, with time, a lack of control on pervitin and other drugs had irreversible negative consequences on a huge number of soldiers and officers. It was the cause of crucial military strategical mistakes. An exclusive identity-based nationalism was also responsible for the loss of millions of human lives.

Title : L’extase totale – Le troisième Reich, les Allemands et la drogue
Author : Normand Ohler
Editions : La découverte
© 2016
ISBN : 978-2-7071-9072-7

Categories
History of cities

Books: Histoire de Chicago (History of Chicago)

The 2016 televised political debates on CNN between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump put forward the topic of racism in the United States. Chicago was specifically mentioned as it detains the national record for violent deaths. The book “Histoire de Chicago” allows, among other subjects, to better understand what feeds social inequalities between Blacks and Whites since the creation of Chicago.

The reader understands that it is not the cultural deficiencies that are at the base of the problems but an institutionalized racism and the economic choices of the different municipal administrations.

The city grew set against a background in which the color of a person’s skin determined the type of work that he or she was allowed to occupy. Eventually, even urban planning was designed so that Blacks and Whites would be separated: the artificial walls created by the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway or the Dearborn Park are in themselves good examples.

In 2016, the polls show a strong support for the Unites States republican candidate Donald Trump. Trump knows Chicago very well and he had his “Trump Tower” built there.

The republican candidate takes over in his political platform some of the elements that have made the popularity and success of the Daley family who ruled over Chicago for decades:  the exploitation of fear between ethnical groups to build and maintain a political power, the idea of building a wall and the use of torture as a simplistic solution to complex problems.

This populism attracts a certain class of American electors who are easily scared by the differences between people and cultures.

The book “Histoire de Chicago” is very much a reflection of what is happening today and the authors do no fear to raise delicate political subjects.

Cover of the book "Histoire de Chicago" by Andrew Diamond and Pap Ndiaye
Cover of the book “Histoire de Chicago” by Andrew Diamond and Pap Ndiaye

Chicago

Chicago became a territory of the United States with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Subsequently, natives progressively lost their lands through different manoeuvers, among them the signature of contracts while they were drunk. Around 1830, when the Indians were definitely gone, the speculative fever started.

Railways

Starting around 1860, Chicago organized itself to become the main hub for the most important railway companies of the United States. The city grew very quickly. Passengers, livestock, cereals and other merchandise had to transit through Chicago. The city depended on the train to grow, and the railway companies depended on Chicago to be profitable.

The rapid growth of Chicago’s population was essentially the driver of migration from Europe (Irish, Germans, Polish and Italians). The evolving and often violent relationships between Chicago’s ethnic groups is well explained in the book.

Retail stores

Just before 1900, the Chicago population witnessed the creation of the first retail stores in which a customer could order through a catalogue and use credit. New categories of employees and managers were added to the working population and helped shape the middle class.

Black immigration in Chicago

Around 1910, there was an important increase in the Black immigration coming from southern United States. Chicago was an abolitionist city. This does not mean that it was favoring racial equality but that it was against slavery. In fact, Chicago progressively became the most segregated city in the United States.

Blacks were massively arriving from southern United States, not only for economic reasons but also to get away from the slavery, racial violence and segregation that was the norm in multiple states. Although far from ideal, the situation in Chicago was better than in the south of the country.

The First World War considerably reduced the number of immigrants coming from Europe. This created a serious problem for a city that was benefiting from numerous military contracts and needed a very high number of employees in its manufacturing companies. This also favored the “great migration”, which is to say “the spectacular intensification of the Afro-American migration towards the North-East and Middle West major urban centers […]” (p.143)

Chicago’s slaughterhouses

Chicago was renowned for the very high number of its slaughterhouses, in particular its pork slaughterhouses. The smell and pollution created by this activity was terrible. Chemical laboratories allowed for the commercial use of all parts of an animal. The writer Georges Duhamel wrote in his book that in Chicago “nothing leaves the slaughterhouse but the squeal” (p.63).

Black workers did not have the right to work in the Chicago steel industry and had to limit themselves to slaughterhouses where they were hired as manual workers. They had no access to qualified jobs.

The Second World War

During the Second World War, Chicago was competing with other major American cities to obtain huge military contracts. The city did not manage its efforts to show it supported the American government. Chicago eventually received billions of dollars for the construction of tanks, tractors, torpedoes, bombs and aircrafts (among them the B-29 bomber aircraft).

To compensate for the lack of manpower, since a lot of men enrolled as volunteers and had gone to war, women massively entered the workforce. Employers saw an opportunity to maximize their profits by reducing the salaries of working women, which corresponded only to 65% of the men’s salary for the same work. This represents the way women were thanked for their effort and collaboration.

Transformation of the Chicago economy

A United Airlines Boeing B747 is taxiing over the expressway at the Chicago O'Hare international airport (on aviation postcard)
A United Airlines Boeing B747 is taxiing over the expressway at the Chicago O’Hare international airport (on aviation postcard)

Chicago experienced a profound transformation during the ‘70 s. The closure of the slaughterhouses in 1971, and the diminishing demand for steel mills products signalled the end of the industrial era. It was followed by an opening on the international and the development of a new economy based on specialized services like finance, real estate, insurance, marketing, publicity and legal services.

The Chicago mayor, Richard M. Daley, fostered the establishment of a new socio-professional class of creators in the city (design, arts, music, etc.) by considering it like another “ethnic group” who needed privileged space to express itself.

The development of housing estates and complexes during the ‘60s and ‘70 s

During the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Chicago landscape was profoundly modified. Huge housing estates and complexes were built (Magnificent Mile, Sandburgh Village, Marina City, Lake Point Tower, Dearborn Park) where the White population lived, in the north part of the city. The Chicago Tribune said of Dearborn Park that it was “a fortress reserved for Whites and aimed at protecting the financial district against the Blacks”.

The Daley administration had to fight against urban sprawling and consequently favored the construction of skyscrapers to maintain the presence of Whites in the central area while receiving more property taxes.  Two stock exchange institutions were created, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The creation of those two institutions as well as of the complexes did not do anything to change the dynamic between the Whites and the Blacks.

The racial segregation

Although Martin Luther King was a dominant figure in the fight for the civil rights of the Blacks in the United States, the authors underline that the black population of Chicago had not waited for a leader to promote their rights as they had already started to mobilize themselves years before.

Martin Luther King’s ideas on the integration of Blacks did not receive the support of everyone in the black community, especially the Chicago black politicians who benefited from a special treatment from the Daley machine, which favored the status quo.

Chicago’s mayor Richard M. Daley experienced much success. To stay in power, the Daley Machine “rested squarely on the continued separation and competition between communities”. (p.322-323) The separation between Blacks and Whites was planned and maintained. There was and there are still two Chicagos.

A highway, the Dan Ryan Expressway, was even positioned in such a way that it would create an artificial wall between the Daley’ s district, Bridgeport and the Black Belt: “This was the most massive obstacle that the city could build, other than a wall, to separate the white South Side from the Black Belt” (p.259).

The Daley Machine

We cannot talk about Chicago without underlining the importance of the Daley family and its political machine: “Through an authoritarian control of the “machine”, Richard J. Daley and his son Richard M. Daley, each one in his own style, dominated the Chicago political scene for forty-three years, between 1955 and 2011.

                During that period which saw the development and the subsequent decline of modern civil rights, the ghettoization of huge parts of the West Side and South Side, a massive immigration wave from Latin America and the transformation of the city from an industrial giant to a world-class global services economy center, Chicago barely knew one legitimate municipal election or one real debate at the municipal council” (p.16)

There was rampant corruption and secret budgets in the Daley administration. In total opaqueness, the City Hall diverted the funds reserved to disadvantaged neighbourhood and distributed it to the privileged ones.

“[…] While important businessmen, Mafiosi and others who had links with the Daley machine were getting richer, Blacks and Latinos in need were shot in the street or tortured in the precinct’s’ back rooms” (p.394)

Law firms and entrepreneurs gave huge sums of money in exchange for important contracts. The Daley Machine was never short of money.

Beechcraft N35 Bonanza N545T in flight during the years when the Daley family was reigning over Chicago (on aviation postcard)
Beechcraft N35 Bonanza N545T in flight during the years when the Daley family was reigning over Chicago (on aviation postcard)

Racial tensions and repression policies under Mayor Daley

“By the 1930s, Chicago had become, according to the historian Frank Donner “the national capital for police repression” (p.321)

The black migration that took place during the 1940s and 1950s scared the Chicago population that felt besieged. This increased racial tensions that were already present and maintained. It was easier to accept more policemen than social housing.

The muscled tactics of Mayor Daley were the most obvious during the 1968 Democrat Convention, when policemen and 7000 National Guard soldiers “went down hard on the [crowd of 10,000 young protesters] in an explosion of mindless violence” (p.315)

The exploitation of racial fears was quite successful. Daley was defending his policies by saying that “ most people are more worried about a black uproar than of a mayor that orders the use of lethal force to put an end to it and they recognized themselves far less in pacific protesters than in policemen that hit them with truncheons” (p.319).

Media propaganda and the Daley Machine’s police were efficient in convincing the Blacks to respect the established order. Torture was common in the zone 2’s precinct, in the South Side, between 1972 and 1991.

The expected arrival of a new black mayor, Harold Washington, during the 1980’s, increased the fear that everything would change in Chicago. Everything was done to undermine Washington’s candidacy, but he eventually won helped by the black vote.

There were several left-wing political movements which all had their own objectives and were unable to unite under the same progressist banner. This provided the necessary margin of manoeuver to the Daley Machine, who worked in cooperation with the federal authorities to organize the state repression.

Back cover of the book "Histoire de Chicago"
Back cover of the book “Histoire de Chicago”

Social problems in disadvantaged neighbourhoods

During the 1995 heat wave, 739 persons died in Chicago. The social precarity helped increase the number of deaths, but it was easier to determine that the victims were responsible of their fate.

The Blacks and Latinos believed, and still do, that the problems related to their school system and neighbourhoods come from some cultural deficiencies, but in trying to understand the real nature of their problems, they overlook the ongoing racism and economic choices of the different city administrations since the creation of the city.

“The 1980 census showed that ten out of sixteen of the poorest neighbourhoods in United States were in Chicago, in the Black Belt, of course”(p.334)

In 2002, Chicago was the American murder capital, with 647 victims. In 2008-2009, the city held the record of students killed in public schools which were gang related.

Today, there are two Chicagos

Today, Chicago benefits from well-defined ethnic neighbourhoods that attract tourists in search of diversity. However, the sustained racial segregation policies have isolated the black neighbourhoods and in 2016 Chicago still has the sad reputation of being the murder capital of the United States.

“The Chicago situation looks more and more like a science-fiction scenario. While part of the city has an economic capacity that sets it among the five first in the world, the other part is frozen in an austerity situation that could very well become irreversible” (p.443)

Title: Histoire de Chicago

Authors: Andrew Diamond and Pap Ndiaye

Editions: Fayard

© 2013

ISBN: 978-2-213-64255-0