Alongside learned discussions of questions like the social implications of industrialized capitalism, readers are often treated to block-by-block renderings of historical change, subtle distinctions in local lingo, and dozens of high-quality illustrations selected from the author’s personal collection-photographs, stereopticons, postcards, and advertisements. Pacyga’s works are distinguished by a deep, intimate knowledge of Chicago’s physical and social geography, giving them the detail and charm of local history as well as the formal analysis and attention to context of scholarly writing. In recent decades Pacyga has emerged as a something of a local bard, appearing around town in historical documentaries and publishing six books on Chicago history, all attuned to the Windy City as a showplace of modern industry, labor movements, and the complex communities that workers created. Chicago is, still, the Union Stock Yard, and Pacyga is an expert guide to its history.
Pacyga’s new book, Slaughterhouse, is to demonstrate that amateur crooners can sing along with Sinatra’s original lyrics without sounding anachronistic. One of the many contributions of Dominic A.
After 1971, when the stockyard closed for good, Sinatra often dropped his reference to the home of Chicago’s meatpacking industry when he performed “My Kind of Town.” Substituting the “Chicago Cubbies,” Sinatra effectively switched his allegiance from South side to North, and from labor to leisure. Pacyga (2015, University of Chicago Press) 233 pages including endnotes, bibliography, index, and illustrationsįrank Sinatra put it well: Chicago is the Union Stock Yard. Slaughterhouse: Chicago’s Union Stock Yard and the World it Madeīy Dominic A.
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