Description
The Macmillan Company, Published 1929. Hardcover, 305 pp.; 22 cm; First Edition (stated "Published June, 1929" with no reprint notice); with statistical tables in text.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Good condition, no dust jacket. Maroon cloth boards with orange lettering and rules on front and spine. Mild shelf and edge wear, small scuff to front cover just below author's name, two 1/4-inch tears to cloth along top edge of rear cover and a series of small thin slits to cloth along rear hinge; mild bumping to corners. Binding tight, with a few thin cracks, notably between pp. 86-87 and 134-135, but binding still tight. Previous owner's gift inscription in ink on front free endpaper, dated Christmas 1929. Endpapers toned, heavier to free endpapers. Some toning and foxing to a few pages near the gutter, with occasional light spotting or toning along the inner seam. Otherwise unmarked. Merriam (1874-1953) joined the University of Chicago in 1900 as its first political scientist, chaired the department from 1911 to 1940, and sat on the City Council as alderman for the 7th ward (1909-1911 and 1913-1917); he won the 1911 Republican mayoral nomination and narrowly lost to Carter Harrison IV. Written from twenty-eight years as participant and observer, the book covers Chicago's economic rise, its racial and religious composition (with 1920 population tables), the Lorimer, Deneen and Brundage factions, the showmanship of Mayor William Hale Thompson, the "invisible government" of patronage, and the bomb-marred 1928 "Pineapple Primary." Merriam was founding president of the Social Science Research Council and a leader of the Chicago school of political science. Contents: Introduction; How Chicago Came to Be; The "Big Fix"; City Builders; Governments: Visible and Invisible; Cross Currents: Race, Religion, Sex; Some Chicago Leaders; Actual Government; The Pineapple Primary and Others; Chicago Emerging.