Christmas Through the Years in Chicago

Although the United States is not yet involved in World War I, there are repercussions in Chicago. Preacher Billy Sunday, the former ballplayer, is packing them in and railing against the evils of Chicago. Auto drivers get notice that in the new year, they won't have to be hauled off to a police station for a traffic offense.

A sunny economic outlook in December, but tensions were rising in Europe. Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande were popular. Some scientists were warning that a kiss might be dangereous.

   The murder trial that would inspire a hit TV series and a movie, a plan to deck Chicago, not with holly, but with expressways, the Democrats decide to dump the incumbent mayor and nominate Richard J Daley for the job, and the Drifters and Eartha Kitt.
PLEASE NOTE: All of these podcasts stem from a radio series turned into a book, Season of Joy of which I still posess numerous copies. If you're interested, the price is $15 and contact me at benesjim35@gmail.com. 

   A Christmas cold wave, the world's tiniest baby, a high school boy's efforts to get treats to the American troops in Iraq, the Great Chicago Fire Sale and Dione Warwick's new Christmas album.
PLEASE NOTE: All of these podcasts stem from a radio series turned into a book, Season of Joy of which I still posess numerous copies. If you're interested, the price is $15 and contact me at benesjim35@gmail.com. 
   

A new dance craze is sweeping the nation, but it doesn't sit well with a preacher in Indiana. Then there's the matter of libations during this Prohibition Christmas season.

An armistice in Korea, money swirling along the train tracks, Jack Benny goes Christmas shopping.

Because of the energy shortage, even Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was affected. Watergate was closing in on President Nixon, and Merle Haggard wondered if we'd ever make it through December.

A very special Christmas in Chicago: the city lights its first municipal Christmas tree, a 35-footer donated by the land-based partner of Captain Herman Schunemann, who with his crew on the Christmas Tree Ship, died when it sank in Lake Michigan in 1912.

This was the coldest Christmas in Chicago's history. It also was a time when bombs and fears of bombs were near the top of the public mind. It also was the debut year for what is now a Christmas movie classic.
 

A slight uptick in the depths of the Great Depression; depressing news from Germany with its new leader; some red faces in Berwyn.