By Judy Carmack Bross
“How crazy a thing the Chicago fire was, and something that still has a profound impact today. Scott Berg’s book is not only a page turner about the Chicago Fire, block by block, fire engine company by company, it is the story about re-building and the business patterns created,” Mark Pattis, President of the Pattis Family Foundation.
On September 20 the Newberry Library will present the annual Pattis Family Foundation Award to Scott W. Berg for The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul, a gripping and deeply researched account of our city’s most destructive catastrophe and the long process of rebuilding in its wake. Berg’s book has been lauded by The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Berg and authors of the books chosen as runners up will sit down with newspaperman and radio star Rick Kogan to discuss their winning books at the free and open to the public event.
Scott W. Berg
“Scott Berg’s book is a compelling narrative of the Great Fire and provides new insight into how Chicago’s Gilded Age story has been told,” said Astrida Orle Tantillo, President and Librarian of the Newberry. “Every Chicagoan is familiar with the fire and how it transformed Chicago for decades to come. The Burning of the World shows in dramatic ways the importance of re-visiting this history.”
“As children, many of stood in a circle singing ‘fire, fire, fire’ about the event, but as adults we actually know so little about the fire. And as I researched I found many roads I had to travel,” Berg said. “I came to Chicago on a sophomore class trip in 1986 for two weeks to study about architecture. I did sketches of all the major buildings which was the beginning of love for the city and the desire one day to write a narrative history. Because of my early familiarity I began to see an old and trusted friend in a new light. Political Chicago found itself in the crucible after the fire, the Gilded Age began, building on the shoulders of the working class, leading to labor unrest. Then the skyscraper was born in Chicago, the craftsmanship and dollars involved in these tons of stone and glass was extraordinary. The middle of the city was built on the old Chicago which was a blank slate, thus a very powerful motivation.”
The first third of the Berg’s book deals with the progress of the fire.
“Almost everyone was heroic and admirable. The firefighters went beyond what they were asked to do and had success with their limited resources. They fought and fought the fire until it was beyond their ability to stop it. There were not even 20 fire engines available and there had been a fire the night before. Many had suffered smoke inhalation. These were young men of German, Irish and Bohemian descent.”
Born and raised in the Twin Cities, Berg holds a BA in Architecture from the University of Minnesota, an MA from Miami University of Ohio, and an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, where he now teaches publishing, writing, and literature. He is the author of Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C. and 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End.
Berg, who has been fascinated by the fire since the third grade, not only wanted to write an intimate story about what happened in those 36 hours that consumed so much of the city, but also about the role of so many people forced to re-organize their lives afterwards, among them Mrs. O’Leary.
“Kate O’Leary, if not for the fire, would have been the story of a successful immigrant who owned two homes, a barn and four or five cows as well as horses and other animals. People bought their milk from her and although she couldn’t sign her name she was important in the high-spirited DeKoven street neighborhood. It was not a woe-is-me kind of place or a slum, there was a saloon and a drugstore on the corners close to her house. It was a fascinating mix of people, a great place for American immigrants to lead an urban life.
“After the fire, Kate refused to speak to the press. At one point she moved. In the 19th century the family dropped the ‘O’ in their name but added it back in the 20th century. It was not until 1997 that she was officially exonerated by the Chicago City Council. Her son ‘Big Jim’ O’Leary was two years old at the time of the Fire. He was larger than life and probably had a goal in becoming a celebrity: to take the focus off of his mother. I suspect she was proud of him. I hope that someday someone will find a way to tell her story.
“I learned so much about the average working man including a young newspaperman Ed Chamberlain from the West side who went to work even though his newspaper office had burned down. Or the young women clerks, with their lunch pails, going into a city that had burned down, just as usual.
“I am honored and surprised and thrilled and very, very grateful,” said Berg. “The Newberry Library has been doing the work of Chicago history for a whole lot longer than I have, and I’m flabbergasted to be selected for this award. In a time of uncertain funding for important academic and creative endeavors, the generous support provided by Lisa and Mark Pattis is a wonderful affirmation that books are still and forever part of the American cultural bedrock. Research is a long and lonely path, and an award such as this sends a message to writers that it is all worth doing.”
As Berg prepares for the Book Award event he is also taking a big jump in time to the year 1958, researching youth culture and rock and roll. Chess Records, started in Chicago in 1950, is part of his focus. Chuck Berry recorded “Johnny B. Goode” there on January 6, 1958.
Mark and Lisa Pattis
Although Mark and Lisa Pattis are not part of the selection process which is done by a juried committee, they take great pleasure in their work with the Newberry Library and other institutions such as the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Interlocken Center for the Arts where they also present literary awards.
“We wanted to partner with a Chicago institution we really cared about when we founded these awards and the Newberry Library is such a robust institution that is well known for so many collections,” Mark Pattis said. “We wanted to focus on qualities about Chicago and recognized its genealogical, architectural and historical resources.”
Lisa Pattis added:
“We have a long-term outlook for these awards imagining how what wins each year will have an impact for one or two decades ahead. We want to end up with a collection representing the entirety of Chicago, its fiction, non-fiction, architecture and more. With the winners and runners-up we start to develop a sense of direction.”
Lisa and Mark Pattis describe themselves as voracious readers.
“We read across genres and authors. There is nothing like getting lost in a book. We live surrounded by books. Even our garage is floor to ceiling books, with stacks hanging from the ceiling,” Lisa Pattis said. “Knowledge comes from reading and bringing all sorts of ideas together. And joy comes from having all kinds of ideas.”
For more about Chicago Storytelling 2025, a free event, on September 20 from 1:00-3:00 p.m. at the Newberry Library, please visit: newberry.org.
The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award is open to writers working in a variety of genres, including history, biography, social sciences, poetry, drama, graphic novels, and fiction—all relating to Chicago. Thomas Leslie received the 2024 Pattis Award for Chicago Skyscrapers 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City. Toya Wolfe received the 2023 Pattis Award for Last Summer on State Street, and Dawn Turner received the inaugural award in 2022 for Three Girls from Bronzeville.
In addition to honoring Berg, who will receive a $25,000 prize, the juried panel also recognized Larry A. McClellan, author of Onward to Chicago: Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Illinois, and Sandra Steinbrecher, author of The Salt Shed. McClellan and Steinbrecher will receive awards of $2,500. All three Pattis Award recipients will be recognized and speak about their work on September 20. The event will also serve as a celebration of the power of storytelling and the city of Chicago, with a lineup of speakers sharing their own Chicago stories.
