History
Early beaches were generally funded by private entities such as hotels and private clubs. Late 19th century city ordinances prohibited public bathing, but popular norms created demand for public beaches. Proponents saw public beaches as an opportunity to accommodate demand for public baths and eliminate the expenditure of enforcement resources on ordinance violations for public bathing. The city responded by opening the first public bathing beach in 1895 in Lincoln Park primarily as a response to the efforts of the Free Bath and Sanitary League (formerly the Municipal Order League). Spaces were designated for public use and the city accepted responsibility for maintaining the beaches. By 1900 the lakefront was divided into zones of recreational, residential, agricultural and industrial uses. Lake Michigan water quality concerns lead to the reversal of the Chicago river with deep cut of the Illinois & Michigan canal in 1871 and the construction of the Sanitary and Ship Canal at the start of the 20th century. The 1909 Burnham Plan led to development of the lakefront. Recreational development on the city lakefront became a priority due to the influence of Aaron Montgomery Ward. His belief that the public's access to the Lake left its impression on the development of Jackson, Burnham, Grant and Lincoln Parks. Continued popular support, led to the opening of several municipal beaches in the second decade of the 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Chicago Beaches
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“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)