Chicago 1871 framed bureaucrat its spires drawn with the

its spires drawn with the same confidence the city used to announce that American wealth had finally learned to build in stone

here corralled into the elliptical geometry of a Victorian orrery diagram

The draftsman's lines trace not just a structure but a descent

It is less a map than an ephemeris of longing

Storming of the Heights at Monterey by the American Army

Chicago 1871 framed bureaucrat its spires drawn with theChicago 1871 a document of the year the city burned, when the lake wind carried embers across wooden boulevards and three hundred souls were lost to a fire that began, so legend insisted, in a barn on DeKoven Street. The image belongs to the smoldering ledger of an American metropolis learning to rebuild in brick and iron. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National