''Through elaborate text and photographs this book helps to define the distinct look of the urban Midwest by examining the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century aesthetic of the great Chicago architect Louis Sullivan and his disciples and imitators. Schmitt traces the development of a commercial midwestern architectural and decorative style, at once solidly handsome and sprightly, that is embodied as much in the banks and stores of Wisconsin and Minnesota downtowns as in Chicago's celebrated Carson Pirie Scott and Auditorium buildings.'' Atlantic Monthly