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  "path": "/curious-city/2026/04/29/pure-chaos-why-most-chicagoans-used-to-move-at-the-same-time-on-moving-day",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-29T10:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.wbez.org",
  "textContent": "<p><i>Editor's Note: This story first published on May 7, 2025.</i></p><p>Moving to a new apartment is not fun. Carrying heavy boxes, maneuvering large furniture and navigating traffic in a big moving truck is not for the faint of heart. But imagine moving with hundreds of thousands of people in Chicago on the same day. Moving Day is an old tradition in which Chicagoans packed up and moved house, all at the same time on May 1.</p><p>“Why everyone would want to move on one day in the calendar year is baffling,” said Paul Durica, director of exhibitions at the Chicago History Museum. “And almost every [contemporary account] acknowledges that. It’s like, ‘Why have we adopted this system? It’s not at all efficient. It’s overwhelming. It’s chaotic.’ ”</p><p>Yet from at least 1840 to the late 1940s, that’s what Chicagoans did. <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/curious-city/2025/05/07/pure-chaos-why-chicagoans-used-to-move-at-the-same-time-on-moving-day\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>Click</u></a> to read and hear more about this once chaotic time of year.</p><div class=\"Enhancement\" data-align-center> <div class=\"HtmlModule\"><a class=\"AnchorLink\" id=\"html-embed-module-750000\" name=\"html-embed-module-750000\"></a><script async src=\"https://modules.wearehearken.com/wbez/embed/4190.js\"></script> </div> </div><p></p>",
  "title": "‘Pure chaos’: Why most Chicagoans used to move at the same time on Moving Day",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-29T10:00:01.543Z"
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