First Son: The Biography of Richard M. Daley - Hardcover

Koeneman, Keith

 
9780226449470: First Son: The Biography of Richard M. Daley
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0226449475 ISBN 13: 9780226449470
Verlag: UNIV OF CHICAGO PR, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

"Mayor Richard M. Daley dropped the bomb at a routine news conference at City Hall on Tuesday. With no prelude or fanfare, Mr. Daley announced that he would not seek re-election when his term expires next year. 'Simply put, it's time,' he said." New York Times, September 7, 2010

With those four words, an era ended. After twenty-two years, the longest-serving and most powerful mayor in the history of Chicago—and, arguably, America—stepped down, leaving behind a city that was utterly transformed, and a complicated legacy we are only beginning to evaluate.

In First Son, Keith Koeneman chronicles the sometimes Shakespearean, sometimes Machiavellian life of an American political legend. Making deft use of unprecedented access to key players in the Daley administration, as well as Chicago's business and cultural leaders, Koeneman draws on more than one hundred interviews to tell an up-close, insider story of political triumph and personal evolution.

With Koeneman as our guide, we follow young Daley from his beginnings as an average Bridgeport kid thought to lack his father's talent and charisma to his unlikely transformation into an iron-fisted leader. Daley not only escaped the giant shadow of his father but also transformed Chicago from a gritty, post-industrial Midwestern capital into a beautiful, sophisticated global city widely recognized as a model for innovative metropolises throughout the world.

But in spite of his many accomplishments, Richard M. Daley's record is far from flawless. First Son sets the dramatic improvement of certain parts of the city against the persistent realities of crime, financial stress , failing public housing, and dysfunctional schools. And it reveals that while in many ways Daley broke with the machine politics of his father, he continued to reward loyalty with favors, use the resources of city government to overwhelm opponents, and tolerate political corruption.

A nuanced portrait of a complex man, First Son shows Daley to be sensitive yet tough, impatient yet persistent, a street-smart fighter and detail-driven policy expert who not only ran Chicago, but was Chicago.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Keith Koeneman is a third-generation Chicagoan. He holds advanced degrees from Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University and writes on Chicago politics, history, and culture for the Huffington Post.

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FIRST SON

The Biography of Richard M. Daley

By KEITH KOENEMAN

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Keith Koeneman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-44947-0

Contents

CAST OF CHARACTERS.........................................................ix
Prologue...................................................................xv
PART 1. A Kid from Bridgeport..............................................
1. DICK DALEY..............................................................3
2. EVERY HAPPY FAMILY IS THE SAME..........................................20
3. CHICAGO VISIONS.........................................................33
PART 2. The Second Generation..............................................
4. FROM FATHER TO SON......................................................49
5. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION.....................................................62
6. MAYORAL ELECTION OF 1983................................................87
PART 3. Political Calculus.................................................
7. ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE...................................................97
8. RESTORATION.............................................................106
9. CHICAGO, 1989...........................................................122
10. A NEW ERA..............................................................127
PART 4. Plugger............................................................
11. CRIME AND GRIME........................................................143
12. TAKEOVER OF CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS.....................................155
PART 5. Civilizing Richie..................................................
13. HAS CHICAGO HAD A SEX CHANGE?..........................................171
14. HOUSING WITHOUT HOPE...................................................183
15. BILL DALEY.............................................................197
PART 6. Pride Is the First Deadly Sin......................................
16. CROSSING THE RIVER.....................................................209
17. THE TWO FACES OF RICHIE DALEY..........................................210
18. MILLENNIUM PARK........................................................228
19. CORRUPTION TAX.........................................................240
PART 7. Legacy.............................................................
20. GLOBAL CITY, PAROCHIAL COUNCIL.........................................255
21. ONE TOO MANY...........................................................268
22. SISYPHUS...............................................................282
23. BLOODLINES.............................................................293
24. SUNRISE, NOVEMBER 29, 2011.............................................309
APPENDIX A. CHICAGO MAYORS SINCE 1900......................................311
APPENDIX B. ELECTION RESULTS OF RICH DALEY'S POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS...........313
APPENDIX C. TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN RICH DALEY'S LIFE........................315
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................325
NOTES......................................................................327
INDEX......................................................................361

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

DICK DALEY


Lillian Dunne Daley gave birth to Dick Daley, an Irish-Catholic kidfrom Bridgeport, on May 15, 1902, during the third term of MayorCarter H. Harrison II. During Chicago's "age of Harrison," the Irishquietly ascended to the top of the political ladder. For most of DickDaley's life, the Irish would rise and rise and rise and then, finally, controlChicago politics. It was as if all of the ethnic groups in the city decidedto play a real life, twentieth-century game of king of the hill. Likekids scrambling up a snowy, icy pile on the grade school playground—pushing,kicking, punching, crawling over the backs of each other tomake it to the top—the Irish, German, Polish, and Italians, as well asa few tough blacks, struggled and struggled to overtake one another.The game would end with Dick Daley on top of the heap, surroundedby his Irish buddies. He was, at his death in 1976, king of the hill.

But that glory was far off in the future.

Turn-of-the-century Bridgeport was a gloomy, ethnic, working-classneighborhood. Industry had created its most prominent physicalfeatures: railroad tracks to the east, the Union Stock Yards to the south,and Bubbly Creek to the west. Each day, the neighborhood inhaledthe nasty smell of the stockyards. The tangy odor of blood and manureoverpowered newcomers, but many long-time residents ceased tosense it or told their children the smell was healthy. Bubbly Creek, agaseous, waste-filled section of the south branch of the Chicago River,was equally repellent. In 1906, four years after the birth of Dick Daley,Upton Sinclair's famous expose of the stockyards, called The Jungle,described the creek as "a great open sewer."

Despite this tough environment, Dick Daley experienced manypositive influences in his childhood, including good parents. His mom,Lillian Daley, was thirty years old when she gave birth to her first andonly child. She always dressed her son in fancy clothes, an unusual luxuryin working-class Bridgeport. Like many only children, throughouthis life Dick Daley retained an inner sense of his own specialness, animmutable feeling that he probably intuited from his mother's great joyat his very existence. Even as a mature adult, he delighted in celebratinghis own birthday, along with family, friends, and his city hall employees.Like many firstborn children, young Dick Daley was a "striver."He showed up on time, worked hard, respected authority. Accordingto his grade school teacher, the nun Sister Gabriel, "[Dick Daley] wasa very serious boy. A very studious boy. He played when he played. Heworked when he worked. And he prayed when he prayed."

Daley's mom was the dominant personality in their household.She was a high-energy woman, possessed a good sense of humor, anddisplayed more charisma and aggressiveness than most women in theearly twentieth century. On St. Patrick's Day, Daley's mom joked withher young son that she needed to go down to city hall to have her "behindpainted green." Lillian Daley also regularly marched in paradesfor women's right to vote, sometimes bringing her son with her. TheNineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution granted this right towomen in 1920, when Dick Daley was eighteen years old. His momalso was tough on him, letting her son know that she had high expectationsfor his career.

Daley's dad, Mike Daley, was a quiet and...

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Verlag
UNIV OF CHICAGO PR
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0226449475
ISBN 13 
9780226449470
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
367
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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