Windy City

My report on the latest research into the origins of Chicago's nickname "Windy City" was published in the Chicago Tribune on December 7, 2004. My appearance on Chicago Public Radio's "Eight Forty-Eight" to discuss the topic is the fifth segment here.

As I wrote, no one has worked harder to get to the bottom of this than New York etymologist Barry Popik. Barry's report at his personal page is here; his postings to the American Dialect Society are here; Carl Weber's summary of Barry's work is here; the Chicago Reader's report is here.

Click here for my partial transcription of key passages from Tribune articles dating back to the 1890s. Click here for a list of the windiest cities in the United States. Chicago is tied for 74th.

• Barry's earliest relevant references are these from 1875; they call Chicago the "Municipality of Wind" and "Wind-Swept City":

8 March 1875, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, pg. 4, col. 5:
_The Mayor's Movements._
Mayor Johnston and his "next friend," Quinn, the Roofer, returned from Chicago yesterday morning. The train was due here early, but was detained by the trifling circumstances of a "jump off" two hours this side of the City of the Lakes, and a much more emphatic adventure on a bridge near Richmond. (...)
In Chicago both gentlemen met,...
What they didn't see, we venture to wager, in that five hours wasn't worth seeing in the Municipality of Wind. 25 February 1875, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, pg. 2, col. 1:
_INDIANAPOLIS LETTER._
(...) They read the Chicago papers; are proud of Chicago's prosperity; believe in Chicago wind; trust in Chicago; and swear by Chicago; but when it comes to cutting up the glorious State of Indiana to accommodate Chicago they will rebel.

6 February 1875, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, pg. 9, col. 2:
_CHICAGO BLOWING._
_The Wind-Swept, Fire-Scorched and Frozen_City--Nice Place to Live._

Finally, if you're still confused, Barry sums up his years of research thusly:

1. "Windy City" has been in continuous use by the Cincinnati Enquirer since at least 1876.
2. "Windy City" became well known nationally by 1886. It was recorded in a Sporting Life (Philadelphia) city nickname list in 1886.
3. For what it's worth: New York Sun editor Charles Dana did lead New York City's bid for the World's Fair (1889-90, for the fair that would take place in 1893). I checked all of these daily articles nine years ago.
4. New York Sun editor Charles Dana did not coin "Windy City."
5. New York Sun editor Charles Dana did not popularize "Windy City."
6. New York Sun editor Charles Dana either did not use "Windy City" at all, or he rarely used it.

I've discussed these digitized Sporting News and American Periodical Series Online citations on ADS-L, but here they are again (below).

The Chicago Public Library will still not believe me.

Barry Popik

(THE SPORTING NEWS, 1886-present, digitized at www.paperofrecord.com)
1 The Sporting News 2 Monday, June 21, 1886 News 04 News
2 The Sporting News 2 Monday, July 26, 1886 News 04 News
3 The Sporting News 2 Monday, July 26, 1886 News 05 News
4 The Sporting News 2 Monday, October 25, 1886 News 04 News
5 The Sporting News 2 Monday, October 25, 1886 News 05 News
6 The Sporting News 2 Saturday, October 30, 1886 News 02 News
7 The Sporting News 4 Saturday, October 30, 1886 News 03 News
8 The Sporting News 2 Saturday, October 30, 1886 News 04 News
9 The Sporting News 2 Saturday, November 6, 1886 News 04 News
10 The Sporting News 2 Saturday, December 4, 1886 News 07 News

• Additional comments from other sources:

Cincinnati Historical Society:

The May 9th story does not mention damage to the churches as does the May 8th. That is the entirety of the May 8th article, by the way. I believe the word "freaks" means the fickleness of what was and what wasn't damaged by the tornado. It mentions some railroad depots and sheds were damaged but not all, the same with the hotels located downtown. Also mentions the slum section which needed reconstruction was not damaged."

Tim Samuelson:

Popular legends of this strength and durability usually have some grain of truth to them, although distorted and amplified over the passing years.I wouldn't be surprised if the Dana quote does indeed exist. If it wasn't part of a published editorial, perhaps it was part of a speech, letter or other personal pronouncement by Mr. Dana. The most interesting part of this story is when the Dana story emerged as an "alternative" spin on the meaning of "Windy City" - even to the point of overshadowing its true origins and interpretation. I'll bet it even precedes James O'Donnell Bennett's published version in the Tribune. Much of the information in older newspaper citations came from the legendary "morgues" that were maintained by the major newspapers to archive past stories as reference material for their reporters. The old-time newspaper morgues were amazingly comprehensive assemblages of material, and were usually scrupliously maintained by a dedicated employee who gathered and archived material from their own paper, and others as well. These newspaper "morgues" were a leading source of stories being repeated over the years as stories and themes were revisited, and perhaps had a role in carrying-on the "windy city" legends in this particular case.

Gerald Cohen:

[The wind speed rankings] demonstrate that in a nation-wide competition for (meteorological) windiness, Chicago doesn't deserve to win. So? That in no way excludes the possibility that some people in, say, the 1870s, focused their attention on whatever Chicago windy occurence might have been noteworthy at the time. One good possibility: the Feb. 6, 1875 Cincinnati Enquirer item "Chicago Blowing"; subtitle: "The Wind-Swept, Fire-Scorched and Frozen City--Nice Place to Live.".

Also, the CPL item in no way comes to grips with the early evidence (pre-1889-1890) that "Windy City" did actually refer to the the winds of nature. E.g., May 9, 1876 Cincinnati Enquirer article titled "That Windy City,"; subtitle: "Some of the Freaks of the Last Chicago Tornado."

From the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for "windy": [The OED says the 1887 LCJ citing was first published in the _Dictionary of American English_, 1944.]

windy
1382 WYCLIF Job xvi. 3 Whethir windi woordis [Vulg. verba ventosa] shul not han ende? ...
a1629 T. GOFFE Orestes II. iii, With a North gale of *windy blowing sighs. ...

9. advb. and Comb., as windy-blowing, clear, -footed (cf. 3), -headed (cf. 6, 7b), -looking adjs.; Windy City (U.S.), a nickname for Chicago.
1887 Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 31 Jan. 5/1 An alleged anarchist dynamite plot from the *Windy City. 1908 K. MCGAFFEY Show Girl 58 Chicago is surely rightly named when they call it the Windy City. 1948 News-Dispatch (Michigan) 3 Apr. 9/3 The handsome Windy City youngster has an enormous following. 1979 K. BONFIGLIOLI After you with Pistol xvi. 120 The scent of the Chicago River as it slides greasily under the nine bridges in the centre of the Windy City.

Finally, two good points by Erin McKean, the first made to me and the second quoted in Allan Metcalf's "Presidential Voices."

• I can't really say anything about the chicken-and-the-egg weather vs. attitude, but I can say that the Charles Dana story has persisted because people like their etymologies to be a good story, first and foremost. Having a "celebrity" or at least a known person attached is also somehow pleasing. It seems that many people prefer the resonant myth to the plain unvarnished fact, especially when it comes to etymology!

• If a word can be thought of, it can be thought of at different times by different people, atr and it's often the case that the thinker-upper with the best access to the media is anointed as the coiner even if your Great-Aunt Sadie said it every day of her life beginning in 1932, "Presidential Voices," p139

• More about my On Language column here