Chicago Diaries of John M. Wing, 1865-1866/Growing Up with a City, The

The Chicago Diaries of John M. Wing, 1865-1866. Edited by Robert Williams. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. Pp. Lxv, 139. Illus., appendices, index. Cloth, $20.00).

Growing Up with a City. Louise de Koven Bowen. Reprint Edition. Introduction by Maureen A. Flanagan. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Pp. 272. Photos. Paper, $15.95, Cloth, $40.00).

John "Jack" Wing's dairies display a rarely-seen slice of life from a young man in Chicago amidst its well-known economic boom just after the Civil War. Wing, born and raised in upstate New York, was a somewhat typical early "twentysomething" (intensely self-interested, vain, and unconcerned with his future). Yet, he also was quite entrepreneurial in pursuits: personally, in acquiring the material accoutrements of a dandy and bedding as many men as possible (he makes no bones of his sexuality) and; professionally, in his chosen career as a journalist and booster pamphleteer. To Wing, Chicago was alive with opportunities and compared quite favorably to small towns (Waukcgan, Kankakee, Monmouth) and bustling cities (St. Louis, Detroit).

After the time of these diaries, Wing found great success in publishing and real estate, retired at forty-four, and continued his great passion, bibliophilia. Upon his death in 1917, Wing left his fortune to the Newberry Library to create a collection on the history of Western printing. The Wing Foundation now is one of the preeminent collections on printing in the nation. Two short introductory essays flesh out Wing's biography while a third, quite long one, discusses in tremendous detail the fascinating, fast-paced, and technologically evolving newspaper industry in Wing's era.

While Wing's diaries are personal and intended solely for himself, Louise de Koven Bowen's autobiography is the opposite. Bowen reveals precious little of her private life while fixating entirely upon her public actions and the growth of her beloved city.

Bowen lived a remarkable life. Born into an old, elite, and fabulously rich family, Bowen could have done what many in her position did, live a safe, "respectable," and quiet existence amongst her "own kind." Instead, she navigated a far more challenging and rewarding path, half a century of public service to her city. Indeed, Bowen came of age with the city, as Chicago exploded in population and became the industrial center of America. She was most active from the 1890s through the 1920s in far too many important activities to detail here. Suffice it to say that Bowen's mark was imprinted upon almost every reform campaign of note from juvenile protection to women's suffrage, from settlement house work to fighting Chicago's notorious political machine. Though far less well known than her friends Jane Addams and Florence Kelley, she was their equal and, more important, in her philanthropy. Anyone interested in learning more of the era's reform movements can find something in Bowen's breezy, humble, and insightful page-turner. However, there is precious little in the private life or personal motivations of Bowen. The noted women's and Chicago historian Maureen A. Flanagan has written an excellent introduction that summarizes and contextualizes Bowen's career. Both books describe Chicago, a city on the make in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, from a biographical perspective, always a pleasant diversion from reading monographs.

Peter Cole is Assistant Professor of History at Western Illinois University where his research centers on the intersections of class, ethnicity, and race in the United States. He is working on a project that examines the creation of a powerful labor union by a group of very diverse dock workers in Philadelphia in the early twentieth century.

Copyright Illinois State Historical Society Summer 2004
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