Private and public interests have competed for the use and development of the Lake Michigan shoreline since before the city was incorporated. Throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, individuals and organizations launched vigorous campaigns against growing industries to develop and maintain public access to the beaches and waters of Lake Michigan extending both north and south of Chicago. City and state governments vacillated between their support for business and their mandate to develop Chicago in harmony with its natural habitat. These struggles over use and control of the lakeshore often entailed battles between racial groups and economic classes.

Photo Essay Sections:

Early Lakeshore Development	the campaign to maintain lakefront park	private and public beaches
the plan of chicago	race divisions on public beaches	the lakefront in the 21st century

Gwen Jordan