Chicago, America's "Second City," the sprawling, burly king of the Heartland, home of the world's tallest building and civilization's largest free library, one-time capital of American anarchism and Al Capone, is a city of oddly impressive firsts. Here were produced the first roller skates (1884), Cracker Jacks (1893), Hostess Twinkies and pinball game (1930), spray paint (late 1940's), and McDonald's hamburger (1955), as well as the nations first skyscraper (1885). Founded in 1779, and nourished over the next two-hundred-plus years by wave after wave of immigrants from every conceivable part of the globe, Chicago today is a vivid metaphor for the boundless drive, vitality, and variety of America itself.

A city of lush green parks and gray lake waters, of steel towers and high rise canyons, of sun and snow and, all too often, wind, Chicago is at once urban and bucolic, decidedly modern and almost pre-World War II quaint. From the stately Wrigley Building to the Billy Goat Tavern; the Union Stock Yard to Wrigley's Field; from the opulent Chicago Theater to the carved pieties of Graceland Cemetery; from the Art Institute of Chicago to Marshall Field's and Co.—Chicago, A Pictorial Souvenir, a marvelous portrait in words and pictures, perfectly captures this city's richly-textured diversity.

Chicago, A Pictorial Souvenir is a wonderful keepsake for anyone familiar with Chicago, and the perfect gift for anyone eager for a sense of the strength and style of this quintessential city of the American midwest.