To see how these neighborhoods grew from prairie outposts to settled enclaves stocked with historic houses, check out the Encyclopedia of Chicago’s entries on Beverly and Morgan Park.
From Beverly:
From its earliest days, this community symbolized upward social mobility, first for white Anglo Saxon Protestants, and later for Irish Roman Catholics and African Americans… In the 1920s, Beverly’s ethnic composition expanded to include Irish Catholics and German Lutherans who established St. Barnabas church and school (1924) and St. John Divine Lutheran (1929)…Beyond the post—World War II baby boom, Beverly’s increase in population between 1940 and 1960, from 15,910 to 24,814, was due in large measure to racial change in such neighborhoods as Englewood, Normal Park, and South Shore.
From Morgan Park:
Reflecting its origins as a Baptist community, Morgan Park prohibited the sale of liquor in the area between Western and Vincennes Avenues when it was incorporated as a village in 1882. Its middle-class character was further reinforced by the construction of main-line Protestant churches…Whereas Morgan Park’s mainline Protestants tended to live and worship in the oldest part of the neighborhood, the largely Irish Roman Catholic parishes of St. Cajetan (1927) and St. Walter (1953) drew most of their congregations from the area west of Western Avenue. Reflecting the reality of urban segregation, African American Catholics established Holy Name of Mary (1940) at the east end of the neighborhood. Racial integration in the larger Morgan Park area did not occur on a large scale until the late 1960s. By then, however, the west leg of Interstate 57 had effectively isolated the older black settlement east of Vincennes.