The Big Three

Chicago has made a trio of influential contributions to the world: Nukes, cell phones and McDonald’s. Is that a good thing?

By Paul M. Banks

Every big city has contributed in its own distinct way to the world. San Francisco gave the world blue jeans. Seattle is home to Starbucks and Microsoft, two multibillion dollar corporations with enormous power. Similarly, Chicago played a crucial role in developing significant industrial, scientific, and technological breakthroughs.

These three innovations have changed the history of the globe. For better or for worse is a matter of opinion, and whether you take pride or shame in Chicago’s role in their respective developments is up to you. This triad is dissimilar in many ways, but they are very much alike in the amount of wealth and power they have brought to those who control them. All three figure into some of the hottest topics making the biggest headlines today.

Cell Phones

Contrary to popular belief, Chicago’s nickname has nothing do with the climate or weather. Chicago received its “Windy City” nickname when city politicians were criticized for talking too big and talking too much about the 1893 World’s fair.

How fitting that a city known for such things would play a critical role in the cellular phone’s development. Long before the days of U.S. Cellular producing Joan Cusack commercials and renaming Comiskey Park, Chicago developed America’s first cellular infrastructure. In the early 1980s, Illinois Bell became the nation’s first cellular provider. In addition to U.S. Cellular, the Second City is also home to another multibillion dollar corporation synonymous with wireless telecommunications. Motorola, headquartered in suburban Schaumburg, released the world’s first commercial hand-held cellular phone, the Motorola DynaTAC, in 1984.

Some of the most prominent topics in the news these days revolve around domestic spying, privacy and our conversations being recorded and monitored. Both the abilities and limitations of cellular devices factor into this debate. Cellular telephones have increased work productivity and efficiency, but critics often point to the inherent disadvantages of being permanently accessible.

McDonald’s

Cellular devices revolutionized telecommunications in the same way fast food restaurants transformed our eating habits. The first of these restaurants to highlight convenience and service efficiency was McDonald’s. On April 15, 1955, Ray Croc opened the first franchised McDonald’s restaurant in suburban Des Plaines. It was actually the company’s ninth store, but the company itself refers to this date as the “beginning” of the company, replacing the McDonald brothers with Kroc as founder of the company. Today, the site of “McDonald’s No. 1,” contains a replica of the original restaurant as well as a museum.

Mickey D’s headquarters are located in suburban Oak Brook. This campus includes Hamburger University, a 130,000 square-foot training facility with 30 resident professors. It has graduated over 70,000 managers, even surpassing the U.S. Army as the nation’s largest training organization.

Eric Schlosser’s book “Fast Food Nation” states that McDonald’s is the single largest purchaser of beef, pork and potatoes. However, the golden arches are much more than just another multinational corporation and global brand. The use of the prefix “Mc” has been affixed to describe practices of standardization, brand consistency and conformity in all facets of life. Sociology students in our nation’s high schools and colleges are often assigned to read the bestselling books “Jihad vs. McWorld” and “The McDonaldization of Society.”

The Economist magazine uses the “Big Mac index” (the price of a Big Mac) as an informal criteria of purchasing power parity among world currencies. Globalization is one of the most discussed and debated issues in our media culture today. Since McDonald’s has become emblematic of globalization, the golden arches are one of the prime targets for international anti-globalization activists.

Nuclear Weapons

Much like McDonald’s has contributed immensely to American economic and socio-cultural dominance, nuclear weapons have been a driving force in our nation’s military superiority. It all began with the famous “Manhattan Project,” led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The first major obstacle of the project was cleared on Dec. 2, 1942, beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

Enrico Fermi led a team of scientists who initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental reactor named Chicago Pile-1. This was a crucial milestone for developing the first atomic weapon and using it to end WWII.

In 1957, the football stadium was destroyed. In 1967, 25 years after the breakthrough discovery, the location was commemorated a national historic landmark as “the Site of the First Self-Sustaining Nuclear Reaction.” That same day, a sculpture by Henry Moore entitled “Nuclear Energy” was unveiled.

Legendary University of Chicago football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg’s name is not only associated with the site of the first nuclear reaction, but also the site of its waste. Coincidentally, a high school in suburban Palos Hills is named after him and located about a mile away from Palos Forest Preserve. The nuclear waste from CP-1 is buried within the forest.

One of the biggest stories making headlines today is Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the U.S. efforts to inhibit them. America not only ushered in the atomic age, but is also the only country ever to have used these weapons in battle. The U.S. currently possesses the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. These facts have bred Anti-Americanism all around the world, and this resentment grows stronger every time the U.S. intervenes in the nuclear ambitions of other nations. Other countries regard our interference as a hypocritical double-standard.

 

On the flip side of all the wealth and power these three innovations have created, (McDonald’s revenues for 2004 were $19.07 billion dollars, U.S. Cellular: $2.64 billion, Motorola: $31.3 billion) the troika has been proven to carry health risks on differing levels.

Obviously, nuclear weapons are the most dangerous innovation of all mankind. In contrast, the scientific evidence for serious health risks associated with cellular phone usage is minimal to this point. The epidemic of obesity in American society is very real, and McDonald’s position as the highest-profile fast food company makes them a convenient but worthy scapegoat. When it comes to foods commonly associated with the Second City, McDonald’s may be surpassed only by deep dish pizza. Perhaps this popular association had something to do with Men’s Health magazine recently rating Chicago as the nation’s fattest city.

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