what it is
The Chicago workers cottage is a one-and-a-half-story house with its gable end facing the street. It stands on a raised basement and is reached by a short flight of steps to a narrow stoop (a small entry platform). The plan is rectangular, and the walls are wood or brick. Lots were typically 25 by 125 feet. Ornament is limited to the window surrounds and the cornice, where Italianate lintels (the beams over windows) or Queen Anne dentils (small tooth-like blocks) appear. The basement could be rented to a second family.
Workers cottages survive in Chicago's Old Town Triangle, Wicker Park and Mid-North districts, and in the Lower West Side, West Town and Logan Square. About 57,000 are still standing in the city. A Folk Victorian house is dressed with porch spindles and jigsaw-cut gable trim. A workers cottage has a stoop instead of a porch and trim only at the windows and cornice.
how to spot one
history
Chicago banned wooden buildings within its city limits after the fires of 1871 and 1874, and wood-frame cottages were then built in the townships beyond the boundary. Most used balloon framing, in which light studs are nailed together in place of heavy timber joints. By about 1880 the workers cottage had become a consistent type, built by small developers and by larger operations. S. E. Gross, one developer, advertised houses for $100 down and under $2,000 in total.
Most surviving examples date from the 1870s to about 1910. Chicago's bungalows, the next common small-house type, were built from about 1910 to 1940. The city designated the Old Town Triangle a Chicago Landmark district in 1977 and the Wicker Park district in 1991, and both include workers cottages. Demolition continues: between 100 and 120 are torn down each year, and in Logan Square from 2006 to 2020 nearly half of all demolitions were workers cottages.
where to find it
Chicago's Old Town Triangle, Wicker Park and Mid-North districts, and the northwest and southwest sides, including Pilsen and Logan Square.
easy to confuse with
