Citizens' Association of Chicago

The Citizens' Association of Chicago was founded in 1874, following the second Chicago fire. Concerned by the absence of fire protection, a group of citizens organized an association to work for better municipal administration. Since that date, the Association devoted its efforts to the task of assuring Chicago's citizens of honest city government, free of fraud and corruption.

The Citizen' Association of Chicago (CAC), the nation's oldest civic reform organization, was formed in 1874 (shortly after the major Chicago fire of that year) by a group of business and professional men, to institute reforms demanded by insurance underwriters for increased fire protection in Chicago. CAC soon expanded its scope to other civic needs. In 1939 it absorbed the Municipal Voters' League, which was founded in 1896, to oppose corruption, report on aldermanic candidates, and support honest City Council members. CAC studied ward-redistricting in the early 1940s, culminating in the 1947 redistricting ordinance. In 1939, CAC joined six other better government groups to form the Joint Civic Committee on Elections to provide poll watchers in wards with a history of election frauds. In 1949 CAC created the Citizens' Community Conference, an umbrella group of neighborhood organizations that was absorbed into the CAC's regular work in 1955.