History of Progress: 1934–present

In the 1930s, far too many Chicagoans lived in overcrowded, rat-infested, ramshackle tenement slums. Poised for change, in 1934, a group of concerned citizens founded the Metropolitan Housing Council (MHC). They wasted no time in advancing their main objective: improving the city’s housing stock by enforcing standards, collecting statistics, and promoting neighborhood planning. Even then, the Council wasn’t above a attention-grabbing stunt: at the 1934 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago, MHC transformed a Chicago shack into a “Cape Cod cottage” in 24 hours, proving it was possible to change the city’s slums. By decade’s end, they had made considerable headway toward that end, and the rest, as they say, is history.