by Bruce Kraig, Professor of History at Roosevelt University and President, Culinary Historians of Chicago
<ph: 312-341-3710; fax 312-341-3680> Date: Mon, 3 May 1998
Note: Professor Kraig is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on the history of the hot dog. He has published extensively on this topic, has starred in two award winning PBS specials on Food, and is the author of Cuisines of Hidden Mexico : A Culinary Journey to Guerrero and Michoacan.
For a picture of Original Jim's in 1998, click here. For a picture in 1994, click here. --SB
I strongly support the efforts to preserve one of Chicago's important cultural landmarks, Jim's hot dog stand at the corner of Maxwell and Halsted Streets. As an historian of food and foodways with a special interest in both street food and ethnicity, I can attest to the significance of the Maxwell Street area and Jim's place in it. In delivering papers and speeches on these subjects across the country and around the world, I illustrate them with slides of Chicago food stands. Jim's is at the center of the discussions. The talks and pictures unfailingly stir great interest in both academic and general audience: they are paradigms of vernacular art and they evoke the deep cultural history of our city.
Briefly, there are three major reasons for maintaining Jim's in its original location. One is the aesthetic merit of the stand and the building that houses it. As mentioned above, they are models of the kind of architecture and folk art that come from the ordinary people of Chicago. Destroying them would be to toss away the very stuff that makes the city what it is: an extraordinary place made up of these ordinary people.
A second reason for preserving Jim's is its historical interest. Wherever I speak, someone in the audience will utter the phrase "Maxwell Street." They mean hot dogs and Polish sausage. Vienna Beef's Maxwell Street posters can be seen wherever their products are sold across the United States and in Europe. These "lowly" sausages mean "Chicago" to many within and outside the city. They are important parts of the city's folk culture and its history … and that means Jim's, a stand that has existed from at least the 1920's.
The third reason is also historical. Food is one of the main paths by which immigrants to the city made their way in their new society. This is the world of the storied petty entrepreneur from whom many an American success story has emerged. Jim's is a prime example and should be kept as a tribute to this aspect of business (and cultural) history.
There is one more argument for keeping Jim's and its building. I strongly believe that it will be a living part of the open air museum that a preserved Maxwell Street should be, maybe even a tourist attraction in itself. I, for one, would hate to have to say in lectures that someone so lacked historical vision and cultural sensitivity as to have destroyed this important cultural artifact.
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