It was my admiration for her and hers for me, rising up to
ask me why I had married Dorothy. Did I really know myself?
Dorothy was entranced with Chicago. She thrived under its more bracing
air. She loved the bustle, the stir. We were now in the midst of the
presidential campaign, and Mammy and Jenny saw political enthusiasm in a
new phase. Marching men passed through the street. There were shouts,
torches, many speeches on America's greatness.
Mrs. Clayton came to Chicago before the election and was all delight
over the new life which had come to her. The pulsations of great
vitality in the rapidly growing nation were well exemplified in
Chicago's development. The country was bursting with commercial
expansion; it was lusty with the infusion of strong blood from Europe.
Nearly a million Irishmen and Germans had been added to the population
since 1840. Illinois, as a garden spot, had received her share of these
virile stocks.
The iron production, which was in a primitive stage when I arrived in
America, had now grown to be a great industry. There was anthracite
coal, which was first mined in Pennsylvania in 1814 on a very
inconsiderable scale; and now the output was more than five million tons
a year. It was supplanting wood in the making of steam. The Chippewas
had ceded their copper lands on the south shore of Lake Superior, and
the mining and manufacture of copper had become an extensive industry.
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