Timothy B. Spears is professor in the Department of American Civilization and Literature at Middlebury College. He is the author of 100 Years on the Road: The Traveling Salesman in American Culture.
"Chicago Dreaming is a strong, original, and highly readable book.
It's not only a new look at Chicago literature, American realism,
and the city as historical and literary artifact, it's also a
compelling example of how to write about literature and the real
world in relation to one another."--Carlo Rotella, Boston
College
"Chicago Dreaming is about imagining city life. Where William
Cronon revealed to us the material relationships between Chicago
and its hinterlands, Timothy Spears explores the cultural ties in
those early years when the city exploded with energy. Chicago
Dreaming captures how Midwestern migrants to the city created a
metropolis of the mind. This is first-rate cultural
history."--Elliott Gorn, Brown University
The achievement of Chicago Dreaming is twofold. First, Spears
skillfully integrates social and cultural history. . . . Second,
Spears presents a new, more complicated vision of Chicago.
Chicagoans' interior worlds--their dreams--were full of paradox and
juxtaposition: provincial and cosmopolitan, immigrant and
native-born, rural pioneers and urban multiethnics. . . . As a
frenetic, chaotic, expanding urban community, Chicago was shaped by
not just material conditions but also by memory, nostalgia, and
emotions."--Tomothy J. Gilfoyle "Business History Review"
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