The Chicagoan

Chicagoan, v. 2, no. 4, 1926

Chicagoan, v. 8, no. 3, 1929

Chicagoan, v. 2, no. 5, 1926

Chicagoan, v. 2, no. 6, 1926

The Chicagoan, June 14, 1926.

The Chicagoan, July 15, 1926. 

The Chicagoan. [September, 1926?]

Source: From the New York Public Library

The Chicagoan was an American magazine modeled after the New Yorker published from June 1926 until April 1935. Focusing on the cultural life of the city of Chicago, each issue of the Chicagoan contained art, music, and drama reviews, profiles of personalities and institutions, commentaries on the local scene, and editorials, along with cartoons and original art.

In an early issue, the Chicagoan's editors claimed to represent "a cultural, civilized and vibrant" city "which needs make no obeisance to Park Avenue, Mayfair, or the Champs Elysees." Despite its lofty aims, the stalwart assertions of publisher Martin J. Quigley (who once wrote that "Whatever Chicago was and was to be, the Chicagoan must be and become"), and a circulation that sometimes rose above 20,000, the magazine was largely forgotten after its last issue.

Only two substantial collections remain, one at the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library and the other at the New York Public Library. Cultural historian Neil Harris has recently written a book on the subject, The Chicagoan: A Lost History of the Jazz Age (the University of Chicago Press).