In an early issue, The Chicagoan's editors claimed to represent "a cultural, civilized and vibrant" city "which needs make no obeisance to Park Avenue, Mayfair, or the Champs Elysees."

Despite its lofty aims, the stalwart assertions of publisher Martin J. Quigley (who once wrote that "Whatever Chicago was and was to be, The Chicagoan must be and become"), and a circulation that sometimes rose above 20,000, the magazine was largely forgotten after its last issue.

Cultural historian Neil Harris has written a book on the subject, The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age (the University of Chicago Press).

Under a later married name, Marie Essipoff, she produced a number of books in the 1950s emphasizing economical cooking with new techniques, including Making the Most of Your Food Freezer.

This Mexican-born caricaturist and cartoonist portrayed stage and sports personalities for The Chicagoan in the late 1920s while working for the Chicago Daily News.

After he moved to New York, his theatrical designs and productions attracted wide attention; he created both sets and costumes with the Federal Theater Project and with Orson Welles.

Magazine cartoonist, animator, sketcher, painter, and story writer, Klein worked for The New Yorker as well as for The Chicagoan and was involved with a series of famous studios and celebrated cartoons, from Krazy Kat and Betty Boop to Popeye.

Riedel also created movie posters for films starring Clara Bow, Lon Chaney Sr., and Adolphe Menjou, and contributed to The Linebook, a publication put out for WGN Radio, a Tribune Company outlet in Chicago.

[14][15] Gabel told Crain's Chicago Business in 2015 that "We only did one issue of our incarnation of the Chicagoan, and after a very valiant effort, we couldn't raise the necessary capital to do it properly without it being run like a sweat shop.