The 19th Ward of Chicago

Beginning with the maps comparing ethnic and wage composition of several parts of the 19th ward, I was able to find trace few commonalities and patterns. At first glance, all of the maps appear to be a piece of 20th century artwork or something of the sort, being nothing more than a bunch of colored squares thrown together like a quilt. So, to break it down:

In a few of the districts, I was surprised to see less unity of individuals living around one another based on weekly wages. I was slightly taken aback by houses making some +$10 differences in income right next to one another as I had almost expected more distinct economic segregation within the neighborhoods as you can find in large cities throughout the United States today. However, when looking at the ethic composition of the community, there was a much more noticable trend for members of the same nationality to live amongst each other; this was especially noticable with the Italians, Russians, and Polish. This trend can be attributed to obvious reasons such as commonality of language, traditional customs, religion, and general comfort. When comparing weekly wages to the ethnic groups that earned them, I was likewise a little surprised to find such variability. I saw members of the same block and nationality still with +$10 differences in earnings. This amount of variability being independent of nationality, living location, etc. gave me the general impression that anything is fair game when it comes to earning money.

A particularily interesting find was the abundance of English-speaking brothel districts. Brothels were obviously located in the same neighborhoods, and English speaking ones appeared to be the most prevalent. I came up with a potentially stretched explanation: migrant workers were willing to work for considerably cheaper wages than native Americans doing the same jobs and as a result, middle/lower-class laborers could have encountered more difficulties in finding work. Perhaps these English-speaking women had to resort to working in brothels to make up the slack for family earnings...? A number of possibilities could serve as proper explanations.

After scanning through the pictures of the Hull House neighboorhoods, it was evident that designated public space seemed to be less than abundant. There seemed to be a general lack of grass/trees/anything that had once previously lived throughout the community that would normally be assigned as play space for children or a public park. Still, as seen in the photographs, people make do, especially children, when it comes to making room for social activity.