Building the American dream: A history of home ownership and housing reform, Chicago, 1871--1919

This dissertation traces the history of the ideal of home ownership from its nineteenth century roots in America's immigrant working classes to its emergence as a symbol of middle class status in the early twentieth century. It explores the expansion of the city's residential real estate market, emerging discourses of housing and sanitary reform, and the introduction of new urban infrastructure in Chicago from the Chicago fire of 1871 to the race riot of 1919. Focusing on changes in the form and function of the family home in a rapidly industrializing city, this work demonstrates that the family home, far from being a separate sphere, or simply an adjunct to industrialization, was central to the processes transforming race, class and gender relations in industrializing cities.