The city -- The internationale of the citizen workers: from slavery to the labor question -- The eight-hour day and the legitimacy of wage labor -- Chicago's immigrant working class and the rise of urban populism, 1867-73 -- Class and politics during the depression of the 1870s -- Combat in the streets: the Railroad Strike of 1877 and its consequences -- Regime change
Summary
In this history of mid-19th-century Chicago, historians John B. Jentz and Richard Schneirov trace the capitalist transition in Chicago during the critical decades from the 1850s through the 1870s, a period that saw the rise of a permanent wage-worker class and the formation of an industrial middle class