Chicago in Flames: Scene at Randolph Street Bridge, 1872 Frame Style:Canvas Wrap the year of Gettysburg and

the year of Gettysburg and the Emancipation Proclamation

rendered with the ceremonial gravity the Gilded Age reserved for its rituals — a republic still binding its post-war wounds

charming a court whose alliance would decide the war

The image arrived in American parlors as elegy and alibi at once

Chicago in Flames: Scene at Randolph Street Bridge, 1872 Frame Style:Canvas Wrap the year of Gettysburg andChicago in Flames: Scene at Randolph Street Bridge, 1872 a documentary engraving of the city's harrowing exodus, drawn in the long shadow of the Great Fire as crowds, carts, and panicked horses press across the river while the skyline behind them glows with its own undoing. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National Archives, regional historical societies, and the