25 Chicago Factories That Built America’s Middle Class

Subscribe to uncover more stories from the line — thanks for watching. 25 Chicago Factories That Built America's Middle Class, and the Closings That Broke the Deal From the Union Stock Yards to the steel mills on the lake, Chicago's factories turned immigrant laborers into homeowners and their children into the middle class. This countdown goes plant by plant through twenty five of them, using court records, union files, and the workers' own words. You'll see who built them, who shut them down, and what the official story left out. One question runs through all twenty five: which closing really did the most damage? Sources and Further Reading Dominic A. Pacyga, Slaughterhouse: Chicago's Union Stock Yard and the World It Made (University of Chicago Press, 2015) David Bensman and Roberta Lynch, Rusted Dreams: Hard Times in a Steel Community (McGraw-Hill, 1987) Thomas Geoghegan, Which Side Are You On? Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991) Frank and Beatrice Lumpkin Papers, 1940–2013, Chicago History Museum, Abakanowicz Research Center Beatrice Lumpkin, Always Bring a Crowd! The Story of Frank Lumpkin, Steelworker (International Publishers, 1999) Christine J. Walley, Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2013) Kari Lydersen, Revolt on Goose Island: The Chicago Factory Takeover, and What It Says About the Economic Crisis (Melville House, 2009) Judith Crown and Glenn Coleman, No Hands: The Rise and Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, an American Institution (Henry Holt, 1996) The Encyclopedia of Chicago, edited by James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff (University of Chicago Press, 2004) Eastland Disaster Historical Society, passenger records, timeline, and archival photographs of the July 24, 1915 disaster About This Channel This video is made for educational and informational purposes. Our goal is to widen your knowledge of American industrial history and give you accurate, well-researched content built on real sources. Every script on this channel is written by a human. Our team brainstorms and develops the visuals and storyboard in-house for each video.