A Kitchenette to Fit Your Needs: Housing Chicago's Great Migration

Uncovers how Chicago's kitchenette apartments shaped housing, race, and urban life in the twentieth centuryDuring the twentieth century's Great Migration, kitchenette apartments served as the primary homes for Black migrants to Chicago.These small one- and two-room units were often illegally converted from larger apartments and were concentrated on the city's densely populated, segregated South Side.Typically featuring a communal hallway bathroom, a cooktop tucked into a closet, chronic overcrowding, and exploitative rents, kitchenettes gained widespread fame and notoriety in news reports, housing code campaigns, and the works of celebrated Black artists including Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, and Richard Wright.They also preceded and paved the way for Chicago's notorious public housing projects. A Kitchenette to Fit Your Needs offers the first book-length cultural analysis of the kitchenette within Chicago's history of housing, race, and urban life.Both materially and symbolic