page_title: Chicago in the 1930s
section_title: 1934–1935
hierarchical_section_title: Chicago in the 1930s / 1934–1935
caption_attribution_description: English: Aftermath of the Chicago Union Stock Yards fire of 1934, not the December 22 to December 23, 1910 fire.
context_page_description: Chicago in the 1930s was one of the major centers of activity in the United States. 1930s Chicago is strongly associated with gangsters and the mafia and speakeasies to provide alcohol following Prohibition. A dark and gloomy time during the Great Depression, many people in the city were unemployed and became dependent on food hand outs in order to get by; many turned to crime as a way to deal with poverty. Many struggling musicians came to the city and found solace in the blues and jazz in the clubs of the city as a way to cope with their grievances. Numerous southern blues and jazz musicians made a name for themselves in the city as they had done in the 1920s. The theater scene in Chicago thrived during this period.
context_section_description: On 22 July 1934, John Dillinger was shot by the FBI in the alley next to the Biograph Theater.
  On January 19, 1935, Coopers Inc. sold the world's first briefs. In 1935, Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago was awarded the very first Heisman Trophy. In 1934, a major fire broke out at the Chicago Union Stock Yards, the second major fire in its history after the 1910 fire.
  Masses of blacks migrated to the city from the south during the "Great Migration" of the first half of the 20th century. Many arrived in the city looking for work and settled in what became known as the "Black Belt", the chain of neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago where three-quarters of the city's African American population lived by the mid-20th century. The Black Belt was an area of aging, dilapidated housing that stretched 30 blocks along State Street on the South Side.  It was rarely more than seven blocks wide. Many African Americans who moved to the Black Belt area of Chicago were from the Southeastern region of the United States.  Discrimination played a big role in the lives of blacks.  They often struggled to find decent housing. Immigration to Chicago resulted in overcrowding, and although there were decent homes in the African American sections, the core of the Black Belt was a slum. A 1934 census estimated that black households contained 6.8 people on average, whereas white households contained 4.7.  Many blacks lived in apartments that lacked plumbing, with only one bathroom for each floor.  With the buildings so overcrowded, building inspections and garbage collection were below the minimum mandatory requirements for healthy sanitation.  This unhealthiness increased the threat of disease.  Crime in African-American neighborhoods was a low priority to the police.  Associated with problems of poverty and southern culture, rates of violence and homicide were high. Some women resorted to prostitution to survive.  Both low life and middle class strivers were concentrated in a small area.
caption: 1934 Chicago Union Stock Yards' fire aftermath.
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