Chicago by Gaslight (In Person)

Based on his book, Chicago by Gaslight, and inspired by the HBO TV series The Gilded Age, Richard C. Lindberg will guide us on a colorful and intriguing journey back into time for a close-up look at the Windy City. Through words and pictures, Rich will present famous and forgotten events -- including the Chicago Fire, Haymarket Riot, and Pullman Strike -- of Chicago in its formative years. He will take you from the glittering mansions of Prairie Avenue to the back alleys of squalid slums. You'll meet society mavens Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer, and a cadre of female reformers working to improve conditions amid a place and time awash in criminal activity and political bosses. Chicago, a city of dramatic contradictions, stood at the cusp of a new century with its citizens optimistically looking to the future with a sense of renewed hope that the 20th Century would become an age of miracles.