The Pursuit of Lucy Banning - A Story Based in the Neighborhood

If you know anything about the Sloop's history, you probably know that Prairie Avenue was home to Chicago's elite class back around the turn of the century.  Walk down Prairie Avenue today and you can't help but be awestruck by some of the glamorous mansions.

With this in mind, Olivia Newport's new book, The Pursuit of Lucy Banning, brings the neighborhood to life:

Marshall Field, Henry Studebaker, Pullman, Kimball, Glessner, Bissell, Armour and Rothschild—these names add up to business inventiveness and unbounded wealth in turn-of-the-century Chicago. But changing social classes are threatening the luxury of elite Prairie Avenue, the playground for the rich and powerful. Olivia Newport introduces readers to a world of luxurious mansions, secrets and forbidden love in the Windy City.

Set on the corner of Prairie Avenue and Eighteenth Street, The Pursuit of Lucy Banning gives an inside look at the rich and powerful on the eve of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Olivia Newport transports readers to a time of opulence in the first installment in the Avenue of Dreams series.

Pretty cool stuff if you ask us.  If you want to learn more and meet Newport, she will be signing copies of The Pursuit of Lucy Banning at the Glessner House Museum on June 5th at 6:30 p.m. as part of their celebration of 125 years of the house's history.