Lectures on Tap - "The Great Chicago Fire and the Birth of the Modern City"

Lectures on Tap

Join us for a gripping evening as historian Dr. John J. Murphy uses the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to explore how cities assign blame, absorb catastrophe, and reinvent themselves in the wake of disaster.

Beginning with the legendary tale of Mrs. O’Leary and her cow, Dr. Murphy puts Chicago’s most famous myth on trial, asking why it stuck and what it reveals about 19th-century views on class, ethnicity, and culpability. From there, he reconstructs Chicago on the eve of the fire—a booming, wooden tinderbox—then follows the flames as drought, wind, and geography turn a crisis into a full-scale urban inferno.

Rather than a simple story of ruin and rebirth, this lecture exposes the unequal experience of survival and dismantles the myth of “total destruction,” showing how Chicago’s surviving economic skeleton powered an audacious rebuild into a modern metropolis of skyscrapers, planning, and new ideas about risk.

The Den Theatre and comedy club is pleased to host Lectures on Tap on July 20 , 2026 at 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood.

Tickets are currently available at thedentheatre.com or by calling (773) 697-3830.