Author: WBEZ Chicago

Chicago — like so many other frigid American cities — can’t seem to kick its dependence on road salt. In our last episode, we learned how winter weather on both ends of the thermometer can impact the local economy. Some businesses come out on top during the coldest winters: auto mechanics repairing cars when they hit a pothole, snow plow companies shoveling out small businesses and rock salt providers when the roads get icy. But chloride from salt is harmful to both our natural and built environments. You’d be hard-pressed to find a cold-weather community that avoids road salt altogether, but we found one! In this encore presentation, we visit a place way up north, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Dominick Miller, chief of marketing at the Mackinac State Historic Parks, tells us about how the island deals with snow and ice in the winter without laying down a single grain of salt. And it has a lot to do with the fact that cars have been banned on Mackinac Island for over a century.

Each Chicago winter’s wintery-ness has big implications for your sanity and your wallet. That led one Curious City listener to ask us if mild winters have a noticeable effect on the local economy.

For decades, the FBI was a man’s world. Anybody else was just living in it, especially the administrative staff. In the last episode, we learned how the bureau recruited high school girls for clerical work during the 1940s. But for decades women were explicitly prohibited from becoming special agents. Western Springs resident Jane McCarty was hired out of high school in the late 1960s to work as a stenographer for the FBI. She held several positions during her more than four decades at the organization. Today, the former president of the Society of FBI Alumni talks about the ebbs and flows of women’s access to leadership and autonomy within the bureau. She endured a sexist work environment but later witnessed the first women become FBI special agents.

For a few decades starting in the 1940s, the FBI recruited high school girls for clerical work. A Chicago Catholic school was a go-to spot to make new hires.