Annual Awards Meeting
Plus
surprises for all who reserve by 11/28/2006*
Program:
The Acme Coke
Plant and the
Re-making of Chicago’s Calumet Industrial Landscape
Presented by
Mark Bouman
Professor of Geography
Chicago State University
Monday, December 4, 2006
Reservations needed by Tuesday, November 28th
In December, 2001, the Acme
Coke Plant in Chicago, Illinois, closed, and so ended one
hundred twenty six years of integrated steelmaking in the city
of Chicago. While “Indiana/Chicago” is still the leading steel
producing district in the United States, centered now on the
giant Mittal Steel (East Chicago and Burns Harbor) and USX
(Gary) complexes in Indiana, steelmaking has vanished from the
landscape of the City of Chicago itself.
As recently as twenty-five
years ago, the Calumet district was home to four major steel
manufacturers and 40,000 workers. Steel from the region found
its way into iconic Chicago products such as Pullman railcars,
International Harvester farm equipment, and steel frame
skyscrapers. Though a few other structures remain, the Acme
plant is the last significant set of intact structures in the
city’s Calumet region, and that fact alone has awakened an
eleventh hour effort to preserve some tangible piece of the
city’s steelmaking heritage for a labor and industrial history
museum. The effort to save the structures has been contested and
is reflective of the contentious history of the Calumet region
in general, as former steelworkers, industrial developers,
planners, open space advocates, community organizations and
preservationists battle over the fate of the site.
Mark Bouman is Professor of Geography at Chicago State
University, where he has taught since 1984 and specializes in
urban historical geography. For the past nine years he was
department chair and he co-founded CSU’s Neighborhood Assistance
Center and Calumet Environmental Resource Center. He is
currently President of the Calumet Heritage Partnership, a
bi-state organization dedicated to preserving the history and
environment of the Calumet region at the southern end of Lake
Michigan. Bouman graduated from Valparaiso University with a
degree in Geography and received the M.A. and Ph.D from the
University of Minnesota in geography (with minors in history.)
One Professional Development
Hour (PDH).
Diplomat West
Banquets
681 W North Avenue
Elmhurst, IL 60126
630-279-9700
630-279-9701
Free
Parking
Monday, December 4, 2006
Deadline for
reservations: Tuesday, November 28
6:00 PM Registration
6:45 PM Dinner
7:30 PM Presentation |
|
Menu
Chef's Salad, Roast Chicken, Top Sirloin of Beef, Mostachiolli,
Potatoes Parisian, Vegetables and Dessert
Meeting fee is $25 for
members and their first guest,
$30 for non-members, and $13 for students.
The
deadline for reservations is Tuesday, November 28
Sign-Up by
using
this link or calling 847-646-6054 (Tom Peterson) and leave a
message,
or an email to
petersona3@asme.org
. |
