Abstract of Masters Thesis proposal (6/13/96)
Please send questions, comments or suggestions to Dan M. Parker <ParkDan@aol.com>, Graduate student in Sociology at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois 60605.
provided by OPENAIR-MARKET NET
My thesis consists of research done predominately at the old Maxwell Street Market in Chicago. It is an ethnographic case study of the Maxwell Street community, the methods of data collection in ethnography being participant observation and formal interviewing. In addition, I have done extensive archival research and documentary photography in the area. My interest in the subject began in 1989 and 1990, when I lived on Maxwell Street for nine months as a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The majority of data was collected during the summer of 1994, just before the Market was relocated to Canal Street. By way of a community analysis typology, I am looking at the interrelations of the various component groups in the Maxwell Street community -- within the Market itself the blues music segment and the Hispanic segment, and the established merchants, mostly along Halsted Street. Other elements of the Market and area are being tied in where relevant. The community's relationships with the City at-large and other outside groups (UIC, adjacent neighborhoods, groups and individuals who helped in the resistance) are also being scrutinized. My contention is paradoxical: that the community's greatest strength -- its heterogeneity --was also its most glaring organizational weakness.
Maxwell Street is many things to many people -- a place of commerce, home of urban blues, underdeveloped real estate, a way of life, etc. -- and it is my intention to to sort through some of these interpretations. But, most importantly I hope to give voice to those individuals who were kind enough to share their lives and stories; stories of a place that won't be forgotten and cannot be replaced.
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