| Summary: | The years between 1870 and 1930 marked the emergence of Chicago as a dominant American city, undergoing some of the most dramatic and extensive social, political and economic changes in our national history. Against this backdrop we present a unique record – the Chicago Police Department Homicide Record Index – chronicling 11,000 homicides in the city during those years. Because these crimes became cases, these records are also the foundation for a study of courts and legal institutions. The police and their operations were inextricable from those they answered to, the mayor and alderman, ward politicians, and the citizens of Chicago. Thus the records offer an opportunity to study the rule of law, or its absence, and this theme is echoed throughout the various facets of the research conducted to date under the auspices of this Project
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