ABSTRACT
The great theme of Chicago's nineteenth-century history is the battle between growth and control, restraint and opportunity, privatism and the public good. In general, nineteenth-century city governments strove to serve the needs of property owners, not the general public. Chaotic Chicago seemed to have sprung up spontaneously, without planning or social foresight, a pure product of ungoverned capitalism. The midpoint in Chicago's extraordinary development from a frontier town to a modern city was the Civil War, which threatened to destroy the city as well as the Union. From Chicago's incorporation as a village in 1833 until at least 1847, it had what historians have called "the booster system of city government." By the end of the Civil War in 1865, Chicago had become the undisputed capital of the Midwest, bypassing rivals like St. Louis, Detroit, and Milwaukee. After the Civil War, however, the number of business leaders in policymaking offices began to decrease steadily.
