40 percent died before the age of 3

My mother, a remarkable woman. She had three daughters. I was the only one who survived. My beloved sister Anna died at the age of 12, an age where children had usually escaped the diseases.  Our hearts were broken. Vaccines made a difference. Of all children born in Chicago in the 1890’s, forty percent died before the age of three. People expected children to die, which didn’t make it right.

Group of children on street; Chicago, IL. [Source: ICHi-24067. Chicago History Museum. Reproduction of photograph, photographer unknown. Date: ca. 1905.]

Shame the man who is doing the bad thing

You don’t have to scare anyone, or everyone. Just stare a man down, shame the man who is doing the bad thing, who is saying: No, you can’t do this, this good thing. And at the end of the day, we don’t have trouble recognizing what that is.

Playing in an empty lot at 45th and Laflin. Description: Playing in an empty lot at 45th and Laflin; Chicago, IL.
[Source: ICHi-31535. Chicago History Museum. Reproduction of photographic print, photographer unknown]

Always in Chicago, our mood is the weather

Our mood. Always in Chicago, our mood is the weather. Broody, bright, the sun winking at us through the clouds.

Image of a boy with his mittened hands at his mouth, sitting in a wagon made from a crate, on a sidewalk in Chicago, Illinois. A baby carriage is visible behind him. Text on the image reads Cold Weather Scene. [Credit: DN-0065405, Chicago Daily News collection, Chicago History Museum] 1915

We Are Alive!

Florence Kelley speaking, live from 1890s Chicago  

When we hear of an unexpected, sudden death, the woman with the limp and the burgundy stained apron—we passed as she hurried down on the muddy street yesterday, we mutter under our breath now: sad, sad, so very sad, and every day we open our eyes to sunlight and put our two feet flat on the floor, is a day to celebrate! We are alive!

Source: DN-0000953. Chicago History Museum.

Who was Florence Kelley?

Florence Kelley was the first woman factory inspector in the United States, appointed in Illinois by Governor John Peter Altgeld in 1893. A resident of Hull House, and a reformer – who refused to be associated with any political party–Florence Kelley lived in Chicago from 1891 until 1899, leading and participating in a variety of projects. These included: a wage and ethnicity census of the slums and tenements in Chicago; the reporting of cases and contagion in the smallpox epidemic of 1893; the enforcement of the universal primary education laws, and, most importantly, enforcing the provisions of the Illinois Factory Inspections Law of 1893.

Visit The Life and Times of Florence Kelley

Children digging with pick axes on a Chicago street; Chicago, IL. Source: ICHi-52108. Chicago History Museum. Reproduction of photographic print, photographer unknown. Date: 1898