The Great Chicago Beer Riot

Download or read book The Great Chicago Beer Riot written by John F Hogan and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-03 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “exhaustive” account of the pivotal incident between “native-born Protestant Chicagoans who founded the city and newer German and Irish immigrants” (Bloomberg). In 1855, when Chicago’s recently elected mayor Levi Boone pushed through a law forbidding the sale of alcohol on Sunday, the city pushed back. To the German community, the move seemed a deliberate provocation from Boone’s stridently anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party. Beer formed the centerpiece of German Sunday gatherings, and robbing them of it on their only day off was a slap in the face. On April 21, 1855, an armed mob poured across the Clark Street Bridge and advanced on city hall. The Chicago Lager Riot resulted in at least one death, nineteen injuries and sixty arrests. It also led to the creation of a modern police department and the political alliances that helped put Abraham Lincoln in the White House. Authors Judy E. Brady and John F. Hogan explore the riot and its aftermath, from pint glass to bully pulpit.