Chicago

====1940 to 1979====
[[File:Chicago Blackhawks - Chicago Picaso (4838269639).jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Chicago Picasso]] (1967) inspired a new era in urban public art.]]
During [[World War II]], the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than [[Nazi Germany]] from 1943 – 1945.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chicago's Long and Extraordinary Labor History |url=https://ibew.org/ibew40thconvention/DailyArticles/2205/220427_Labor-History |access-date=2023-10-24 |website=ibew.org}}</ref>
[[File:1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago. Sept 68 C15 8 1313, Photo by Bea A Corson, Chicago. Purchased at estate sale in 2011 by Victor Grigas Released Public Domain.tiff|thumb|upright=1|Protesters in [[Grant Park (Chicago)|Grant Park]] outside the [[1968 Democratic National Convention]]]]
The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the [[Second Great Migration (African American)|second wave]], as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.<ref>{{cite web |title=World War II |url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1384.html |website=Encyclopedia of Chicago |publisher=Chicago History Museum |access-date=April 27, 2018 |archive-date=March 28, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328181817/http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1384.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

On December 2, 1942, physicist [[Enrico Fermi]] conducted the world's first controlled [[Chicago Pile-1|nuclear reaction]] at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret [[Manhattan Project]]. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in [[World War II]] in 1945.<ref>{{cite web |title=CP-1 (Chicago Pile 1 Reactor) |url=http://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/early-reactors.shtml |work=Argonne National Laboratory |publisher=U.S. Department of Energy |access-date=April 12, 2013 |archive-date=May 8, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190508171228/https://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/early-reactors.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>

Mayor [[Richard J. Daley]], a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of [[political machine|machine politics]]. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Szymczak |first=Patricia |date=June 18, 1989 |title=O'Hare suburbs under fire |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-06-18-8902100436-story.html |access-date=July 20, 2022 |archive-date=July 20, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220720015834/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-06-18-8902100436-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as [[white flight]] – as Blacks continued to move beyond the [[Black Belt (region of Chicago)|Black Belt]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Steffes |first=Tracey L |date=2015 |title=Managing School Integration and White Flight: The Debate over Chicago's Future in the 1960's |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144214566970 |journal=Journal of Urban History |volume=42 |issue=4 |doi=10.1177/0096144214566970 |s2cid=147531740 |access-date=June 24, 2022 |archive-date=July 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709112327/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0096144214566970 |url-status=live }}</ref> While home loan discriminatory [[redlining]] against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as [[blockbusting]], completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods.<ref name="Mehlhorn">{{cite journal |last=Mehlhorn |first=Dmitri |title=A Requiem for Blockbusting: Law, Economics, and Race-Based Real Estate Speculation |journal=Fordham Law Review |volume=67 |pages=1145–1161 |date=December 1998}}</ref> Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and [[Albert Raby]] led the [[Chicago Freedom Movement]], which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lentz |first=Richard |title=Symbols, the News Magazines, and Martin Luther King |year=1990 |publisher=LSU Press |isbn=0-8071-2524-5 |page=230}}
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Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous [[1968 Democratic National Convention]], which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police.<ref>{{cite news |last=Mailer |first=Norman |title=Brief History Of Chicago's 1968 Democratic Convention |url=http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/chicago68/index.shtml |work=Facts on File, CQ's Guide to U.S. Elections |publisher=CNN |access-date=May 5, 2013 |archive-date=March 18, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220318074348/http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/chicago68/index.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the [[Willis Tower]], which in 1974 became the [[List of tallest buildings and structures in the world|world's tallest building]]), [[University of Illinois at Chicago]], [[McCormick Place]], and [[O'Hare International Airport]], were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure.<ref>{{cite news |last=Cillizza |first=Chris |title=The Fix – Hall of Fame – The Case for Richard J. Daley |url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-the-case-for-rich.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=September 23, 2009 |access-date=April 22, 2013 |archive-date=February 1, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130201063930/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/hall-of-fame/hall-of-fame-the-case-for-rich.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1979, [[Jane Byrne]], the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden [[Cabrini-Green]] housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.<ref>{{cite news |last=Dold |first=R. Bruce |title=Jane Byrne elected mayor of Chicago |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-byrne-story,0,7583194.story |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=February 27, 1979 |access-date=April 17, 2020 |archive-date=July 15, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715034553/http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-chicagodays-byrne-story,0,7583194.story |url-status=live }}</ref>