Richard C. Lindberg
Richard C. Lindberg is an award-winning author, journalist, and lecturer who has written and published twenty earlier books related to Chicago history, politics, biography, true crime, criminal justice, city neighborhoods, institutional and corporate histories, sports, and ethnicity. In 2012, his sensitive memoir of growing up in an immigrant household in Chicago’s Norwood Park community and his family’s deep connections to the Swedish Andersonville/Edgewater community, Whiskey Breakfast: My Swedish Family, My American Life, was awarded Non-Fiction Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association. Mr. Lindberg is a past president of the Society of Midland Authors and the Illinois Academy of Criminology. He is a past member of the Chicago Crime Commission and a past board member of the Illinois State Historical Society. Over the years he has appeared as a commentator on numerous television and radio programs and cable documentaries of local and national origin including A&E, Travel, The History Channel, Investigation Discovery, French television, WTTW’s Chicago Stories, the Travel Channel, National Public Radio (NPR), and many others. Before retirement, Rich served as speechwriter for Alderman Edward M. Burke, the long-serving chairman of the Chicago City Council Committee on Finance.
Books
- Citadels of Sin: Chicago Vice Under the Gaslight (1860-1920). Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press. Due January 2026.
- The Saddle & Cycle Club Now and Then: A 130-Year Commemoration. Brookfield, MO, Donning Company Publishers, 2025.
- Ascension St. Joseph Hospital: a Sesquicentennial Celebration of 150 Years of Community Caring, (Chicago, IL), Brookfield, MO, Donning Company Publishers. Co-author with Susan Kramer, 2025.
- Simply Different: The History and Heritage of Farmers Union Insurance. Brookfield, MO., 2022. Donning Company Publishers. Hardcover edition.
- Addison: The Vision Continues, Brookfield, MO: Donning Company Publishers, 2020. Hardcover edition.
- Tales of Forgotten Chicago. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2020. Trade paperback edition.
- Mr. Chairman! Power and Prominence in Chicago’s City Hall, Brookfield, MO: Donning Company Publishers, 2018. Privately published hardcover edition.
- Northeastern Illinois University: The First 150 Years, Brookfield, MO: Donning Company Publishers, 2017. Hardcover edition.
- Gangland Chicago: Criminality and Lawlessness in the Windy City, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury U.S., New York, 2015. Hardcover edition. Republished in trade paperback in December 2017.
- Whiskey Breakfast: My Swedish Family, My American Life. A Memoir of Sweden and Chicago. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Trade paperback edition.
- Heartland Serial Killers: Belle Gunness, Johann Hoch and Murder for Profit in Gaslight Era Chicago. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011. Hard cover edition. Audio edition produced by Redwood Audio Books in November 2019, with a voice-over by actor Bob Dio.
- The Gambler King of Clark Street: Michael C. McDonald and the Rise of Chicago’s Democratic Machine. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009. Hard cover edition. Republished in trade paperback and in a Kindle edition, Spring 2017.
- Chicago: Yesterday & Today, co-authored with Carol Carlson. Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, Ltd., 2009. Hard cover edition
- Shattered Sense of Innocence: the 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006. Hard cover edition. Republished in trade paperback and in a Kindle edition, July 2016.
- Return Again to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Even More Infamous Places in Chicago, Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2001.
- Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago, Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 1999.
- The Armchair Companion to Chicago Sports, Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 1997.
- The White Sox Encyclopedia, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997. Republished and updated as Total White Sox, Chicago, IL: Triumph Books, 2006.
- Quotable Chicago, Chicago, IL: Loyola Press/Wild Onion Books, 1996
- Passport’s Guide to Ethnic Chicago, Lincolnwood, IL: 1992. Second edition published in 1997.
- To Serve & Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal, Westport, CT 1991. Republished in paperback by Southern Illinois University Press in 1998.
- Chicago Ragtime: Another Look at Chicago, 1880-1920, South Bend, IN: Icarus Press, 1985. Republished in trade paperback as Chicago by Gaslight: A History of the Chicago Netherworld, 1880-1920, by Academy Chicago, 1996.
- The Macmillan White Sox Encyclopedia, New York: Macmillan, 1984.
- Who’s On Third? The Chicago White Sox Story, South Bend, IN: Icarus Press, 1983. Published in hardcover and mass-market paperback.
- Stuck on the Sox, Evanston, IL: Sassafrass Press, 1978
