Encyclopedia o f Chicago
Interpretive Digital Essay : Water in Chicago
Essay: People and the Port
Photo Essays:
Solitary Lives
City of Bridges
Chicago Harbors
Essay: Using the Chicago River
Photo Essays:
Goose Island
Indiana Dunes
Essay: Sanitation in Chicago
Photo Essays:
The Sanitary and Ship Canal
Water-Related Epidemics
Essay: Water and Urban Life
Photo Essays:
Houses and Water
Shoreline Development
Growing Up Along Water
Shoreline Development

Private and public interests have competed for the use and development of the Lake Michigan shoreline since before the city was incorporated. Throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, individuals and organizations launched vigorous campaigns against growing industries to develop and maintain public access to the beaches and waters of Lake Michigan extending both north and south of Chicago. City and state governments vacillated between their support for business and their mandate to develop Chicago in harmony with its natural habitat. These struggles over use and control of the lakeshore often entailed battles between racial groups and economic classes.

Photo Essay Sections:

Early Lakeshore Development
the campaign to maintain lakefront park
private and public beaches
the plan of chicago
race divisions on public beaches
the lakefront in the 21st century