A Posting on "Windy City" Not by Barry Popik

[Fred Shapiro]

Last year I decided that it was indeed terrible that the Chicago Public
Library had a totally wrong story of the origin of the term "Windy City"
on their website, and I started e-mailing them with the facts unearthed by
Barry Popik, urging them to correct their site.  After a long struggle on
my part, the CPL has actually changed the entry.  The bad news is that the
new entry is only slightly better than the old one, leaving the Charles A.
Dana story pretty much intact, and not even mentioning Barry and his great
discoveries on this term.  The Chicago Historical Society apparently had a
hand in this pseudo-correction.

This sad situation can be viewed at the following URL:

http://www.chipublib.org/008subject/005genref/faqwindy.html

Before I continue the futile attempt to fix this mess, let me pose two
questions for Barry whose answers will help me formulate my response to
the CPL:

1. Is there any basis whatsoever for the following statement:

"In the early part of the nineteenth century, Chicago promoters went up
and down the East Coast loudly promoting Chicago as an excellent place to
invest. Detractors claimed they were full of wind."

2. Is there any validity to the claim that Charles A. Dana popularized
"Windy City," although clearly not coining it?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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