English Project glog

South Side Chicago

Lady Diva , New Checkerboard Lounge , Chicago South Side Club June 2008

The so-called "South Side" of Chicago is the unofficial name for the city's equally unofficial black section of the city. It has its own major baseball team, the White Sox, and it was once home to the Cardinals. It is also the origin of many writers such as the famed Upton Sinclair, writer of "The Jungle," which was also set in Chicago's South Side. This area was also the home to pretty much every ethnic group one can name, including Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, and other European groups. Mexicans soon followed them. This diversity in population created a large diversity in the economy there, as people from many different cultures obviously had many different jobs. After World War II, a housing explosion occured in Chicago, however the public housing of the 40's was slowly replaced by private housing in the 60's. In the 1860s and 1870s, industrial jobs started to appear. In the 50's though, the industrial jobs provided by meatpacking companies were soon gone, and there was economic decline for many years.

Source: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1177.html

As a whole, this area is a signature location for Blacks in America. The arts such as music and books (particularly jazz music, and later blues) that came from here really made this place stand out among the many Black communities around the country. Its no wonder that its one of the best-known communities in the US.

This is the setting of A Raisin in the Sun, which is what we are reading now. This is the "Black" section of Chicago, and is as such a logical setting for the play.