This map of the 19th Precinct and 1st Ward at Chicago by W. T. Stead is from his book "If Christ came to Chicago! A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer", records 46 saloons, 37 "houses of ill-fame," and 11 pawnbrokers in 1894. It uses overwhelming tones of red, black and grey to convey a reformer's view of "vice and inequity in Chicago."
William Thomas Stead (5 July 1849 – 15 April 1912) was a British newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. He is best known for his 1885 series of articles, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. These were written in support of a bill, later dubbed the "Stead Act", that raised the age of consent for sex from 13 to 16.
Stead's "new journalism" paved the way for the modern tabloid in Great Britain. He has been described as "the most famous journalist in the British Empire." He was known for his reportage on child welfare, social legislation and reformation of England's criminal codes.
Stead died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic. ~ Wikipedia
He attended the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and stayed on to write "If Christ Came to Chicago", half religious exhortation, half political expose. "The book used all Stead's ploys of sensational interviews and lurid descriptions of the disreputables, the degenerates, the 'Boodlers' and also exposed mass corruption in the running of the city."
Stead devotes an entire chapter to the Nineteenth Precinct of the First Ward of Chicago, "not because it is an average precinct, but because it presents in an aggravated form most of the evils which are palpably not in accord with the mind of Christ. If Christ came to Chicago it is one of the last precincts into which we should care to take him." He tallies the precinct's 46 saloons, 37 "houses of ill-fame," and 11 pawnbrokers, "the moral sore spots of the body politic." And he allows that the map of the precinct "does not overestimate, but rather gives an unduly favourable impression as to the influences in the midst of which the inhabitants of the precinct grow up."
Title: Nineteenth Precinct, First Ward, Chicago
Collection: Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection - 1115.01
Creator: Stead, W. T. (William Thomas), 1849-1912
Date: 1894