Pockets of Green in a City of Steel

Pockets of Green in a City of Steel

A History of Chicago’s Public Park System



Nature has come to represent ideals of democracy, to promote imagination, and to serve

as refuge. As a reflection of its history, Chicago’s parks are demonstrations of how

important it was for early generations of Chicagoans to escape the modernity and

industrialization of a rapidly changing world. For activists and ordinary individuals alike,

parks as public spaces became symbols of egalitarianism and community. The Chicago

Public Park system embodied the notion that at the heart of all humanity is nature, a place

for all people. Clutch Gallery’s exhibition Terra/Form is a metaphorical garden that

seeks to do just that, create community while reintroducing the power of nature.

Nature wasn’t always available to all. For centuries, Chicago's citizens have united to

fight for the creation and protection of parkland, and many of the city's parks have served

as testing grounds for important ideas and social movements. In the early eras of

industrialization, green spaces were designated to limited sections within the Chicago

area. As a result, much of the public had to take refuge in cemeteries for green spaces,

leading to deplorable health and sanitary conditions. As mortality rates rose and concerns

of public health became hard to ignore, a demand for a public park system was taking

shape.

As industrialization transformed Chicago into one of the United States’ most important

cities, the influx of immigrants to already highly congested areas, led to unhealthy living

and working conditions. As Julia S. Bachrach flawlessly illustrates in her book The City

in a Garden, Chicago social workers like Jane Addams and photojournalist Jacob Riis

played key roles in the park system movement. Bachrach chronicles the involvement of

reformers and their relentless fight for the creation of additional breathing spaces within

Chicago’s tenement districts. After conducting a year-long study of the city of Chicago,

landscape architects Jens Jenson and his colleague Dwight H. Perkins proposed the

development of new parks and playgrounds as well as the protection of thousands of

acres of forest, prairie, and marshland. Their influential report led to the formation of the

Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

As the north, south, east and west side park systems were established, architects like

Jensen and Frederick Law Olmstead were given artistic liberty to recreate the beauty and

peace found in nature within the confines of a bustling city. John Graf’s Chicago's Parks:

A Photographic History depicts the evolution of Chicago’s green spaces as they were

transformed into renowned architectural treasures. As a result, parks became community

centers for large numbers of Chicago’s population who were eager to escape the

pressures of a radically mechanized city environment. Chicago was not only a center for

modernity and industrialization but also for anxiety and mounting social tensions

between social classes. For many, the park was one of the few public spaces where

individuals of all walks of life could interact without the pressures of rigid class

distinctions. In the end, the parks fostered community and social exchange. They allowed

Chicagoans to interact with each other as well as fortifying notions of democracy.

The work to maintain and expand upon Chicago’s parkland legacy is ongoing. Some the

objectives for public parks in the 21st century include replanting degraded park

landscapes, creating hundreds of gardens and several new natural areas, elevating the

level of maintenance of park facilities, and the addition of youth programs. The Chicago

Park District has set out to create facilities and programs more responsive to the needs of

local communities. In recent years, hundreds of acres of land have been reclaimed for

parkland where community gardens and public sculpture projects have taken shape, and

outdoor music festivals have taken place. The parks continue to be centers for art, nature,

and community that will no doubt influence the future of the Chicago public parks and

the people of Chicago. As a microcosm of initial ideals of the Chicago Park system,

Clutch Gallery’s exhibition Terra/Form seeks to reiterate the ideals of community as well

as reinvigorate the pursuit of health and happiness through nature.