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Carl Smith

Biography

Carl Smith

Carl Smith is Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English and American Studies and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Northwestern University. His books include CHICAGO AND THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION, 1880-1920; URBAN DISORDER AND THE SHAPE OF BELIEF: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman; THE PLAN OF CHICAGO: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City; and CITY WATER, CITY LIFE: Water and the Infrastructure of Ideas in Urbanizing Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago.

Carl Smith

Books by Carl Smith

Chicago's Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City
by Carl Smith - History, Nonfiction

Remarkably, no carefully researched popular history of the Great Chicago Fire has been written until now, despite it being one of the most cataclysmic disasters in U.S. history. Building the story around memorable characters, both known to history and unknown, including the likes of General Philip Sheridan and Robert Todd Lincoln, eminent Chicago historian Carl Smith chronicles the city’s rapid growth and place in America’s post-Civil War expansion. The dramatic story of the fire --- revealing human nature in all its guises --- became one of equally remarkable renewal, as Chicago quickly rose back up from the ashes thanks to local determination and the world’s generosity and faith in Chicago’s future.