1940s Video of Chicago

[6a]

Apparently the guy snagged this at an estate sale for $40 without knowing what it was. Made by the Board of Education,  it's a half hour film showing the highlights of the city. There are some fantastic driving shots, showing the roads of the day, traffic lights, etc. By far, however, the greatest thing about the video is the narrator.

In this instant-info age I think it bears noting this might have been the only trip to Chicago a lot of people of the era would ever be able to take.

[Joe The Dragon]

1:08 you can see the cubs losing

[theline]

I'm surprised how much is unchanged in the last 70 years, including the Cubs.

[mukade]

It was an interesting film. My observations:

Many of the timeless elements of the Lakefront look the same thanks to the Burnham Plan/1909 Plan of Chicago. I was surprised to see some aerial shots of interchanges way back then. What is sharply different is seeing the predominant blue collar/middle class character of the city back then in contrast to a shrinking middle class today. See this link. I have no idea what the politics of Reboot Illinois is, but this trend shown is sobering, and this map has been linked to by numerous news outlets.

Other striking contrasts:
- the skyline was much, much more modest
- schools - seemed very solid and a great source of pride, but are now a joke in the city
- the industries shown are almost all gone - Chicago and Illinois would rather be homes for the corporate headquarters than for the manufacturing facilities
- these industries are all gone: steel, mail order houses, stockyards, publishing, telecommunications
- transportation modes: steamships seemed to be the highest capacity long-distance mode which was surprising, intercity passenger trains owned by the commercial railroads, double decker buses, and I think they said Midway handled 56,000 annual flights

Cultural observations:
- I didn't notice any black people (I assume prejudice by film-makers and/or deeply ingrained segregation were factors, at least)
- zoo visitors feeding the bears (dangerous for patrons and animals)
- a lot of footage about Christian churches from a film created by the Chicago Board of Education

[6a]

Cultural observations:
- I didn't notice any black people (I assume prejudice by film-makers and/or deeply ingrained segregation were factors, at least)

The 1940s were a time when something called the Great Migration was really getting a head of steam. Historically Chicago was less than 5% Black.  That number increased rapidly through the 60s and 70s where it hit 33 percent.  Now, I'm not going to sit here and argue there was no segregation or prejudice - let's be honest here - but at the time the population was nowhere near what it is today.

[Alps]

Cultural observations:
- I didn't notice any black people (I assume prejudice by film-makers and/or deeply ingrained segregation were factors, at least)

The 1940s were a time when something called the Great Migration was really getting a head of steam. Historically Chicago was less than 5% Black.  That number increased rapidly through the 60s and 70s where it hit 33 percent.  Now, I'm not going to sit here and argue there was no segregation or prejudice - let's be honest here - but at the time the population was nowhere near what it is today.

White flight isn't racism, it's fact. It's interesting, though, that apparently the reverse movement of "black flight" took place at the same time. (Since that era, enough new populations and reforms have come in to reset the balance.)

[Mr Downtown]

The license plates (orange on black) indicate filming took place in 1945.