Chicago History | Spring 1976

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·Chicago History SPRING 1976

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The Chicago White Stockings (now the Chicago Cubs) , including Hall of Famers A. G. Spalding and Cap Anson , in the National League 's inaugural season .

Chicago Historical Society

Chicago History The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society SPRING 1976 Volume V, Number 1

Cover: Broadside for the 1911 International Aviation Meet. From a watercolor by John A. Coughlin.

Chicago Historical Society

CONTENTS

HENRY WHITEHEAD, CIRCUIT RIDER/2

by Louise Christoph er

THE INTERNATIONAL AVIATION MEET, 1911/12

by George D. Bushnell

THE WORLD WAR II BATTLES OF MONTGOMERY WARD/19

Isabel Grossner, Editor

by Frank M. Klei/er

Frederick J. Nachman, Assistant Editor

CHICAGO 'S PIER/28

Mary Dawson, Editorial Assistant

by Bernard R. Kogan

HOW THE CUBS GOT THEIR NAME/39

by A rthur R. Ahrens

BISHOP HILL: UTOPIA ON THE PRAIRIE/45

Editorial Advisory Committee Emmett Dedmon J ames R . Getz Oliver Jensen Robert W. Johannsen Herman Kogan Will Leonard Nathan A. Scott, Jr. Robert M. Sutton

Copyright, 1976 by the Ch icago Historical Society Clark Street at North A ven ue Chicago, Illinois 60614 Arti cles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America : History and Life

by Paul £linen

FIFTY YEARS AGO/53 BOOK REVIEWS: FOUR HISTORICAL VIEWS OF CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE/57

by Richard E . Twiss

BRIEF REPORTS/58 LETTERS/61 SOCIETY NOTES/62

Henry Whitehead, Circuit Rider

BY LOUISE CHRISTOPHER

State and Madison was just a swamp) a church could be floated across the Chicago River) settlers and Indians lived in an uneasy truce) and missionaries rode horseback over the prairie in the time of carpenter) storekeeper) and preacher Henry Whitehead.

IN SEPTEMBER 1833, one month after the muddy settlement known as Chicago was incorporated as a town, Henry ·w hitehead, a Methodist evangelist, arrived from Mackinac, eager to preach to the settlers and Indians. There were certain risks in frontier life, of course- the Black Hawk War had barely ended and a cholera epidemic had recently taken its loll-but Whitehead, born in England and fresh from a year's work as a circuit rider in New York State, was an adventurous twenty-three year old with a message.

Whilehead's vessel was greeted with whoops and yells from the Indians camped along Chicago's shoreline and the many who approached in their canoes. Ahead of him lay their teeming encampment, and west of the second Fort Dearborn stood a small lighthouse near the south bank of the Chicago River.

He went ashore in a lighter, exciled by the chaotic scene; at the same time, he viewed the mud and the scattered shanties with discouragement. l\Iackinac, with what ·w aller Havighurst has described as its "great whirl of lake commerce," had been quite different. In Chicago, despite his adventurous spirit, Henry felt lost in the confusion. "The grassy prairie," he later recalled, "teemed with warriors on racing horsesaround these fiends ran naked children, scurrying squaws and dogs." The squalor was appalling.

Indeed, five thousand Indians from the Chip-

Louise Christopher, the founder of the Off-Campus Writers' Workshop in Winnetka, Illinois, has completed a full-length manuscript on Henry Whitehead.

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Chicago History

pewa, Otlawa, Pottawatomi, and Fox lribes were en camped in Chicago at lhis time. In eight days, these nations were to sign a treaty with the Uniled States whereby they would cede their five million acres of land to the governmentfor which they were to receive an equally large reserve on the other side of the Mississippi River and $350,000 in cash-and then they were to begin their westward journey.

Whitehead 's first obligation was to find the semblance of a Methodist mission amid the mud and rubble. He had letters of introduction to Jesse ·walker, an older missionary who had arrived in Illinois in 1826. Walker apparently recognized a staunch spirit when he saw one.

"As you may surmise," he told Henry, "we are pressed for housing but I welcome you." He explained that he himself was needed at the Fox River Mission and so, for the time being, would leave local Methodist concerns in Henry's hands.

"Brother Walker" piloted him to the Sauganash, described by a contemporary as "an unappetizing hostelry, one of the few frame structures in the area." There Mark Beaubien, lhe jolly half-breed proprietor, served roast fowl. ,<\Thitehead wrote in his journal: A rugged individual seated beside me insisted on feeding the dog at his feet. Morsels were not only taken from l11s own plate but from the common platter. ·when not feeding the animal or stuffing food into his own mouth, he amused himself and others by killing the dog's fleas and depositing them on his plate.

Henry had expected a frontier town, but he was unprepared for Chicago.

Chicago H istorical Society

Jesse Walker took him to Watkins' School, which served as the Methodist Meeting House, and said he could sleep there. On the following Sunday, Whitehead preached his first sermonwhich would appear to have been rushing things a bit since Stephen Beggs had been summoned to replace the veteran Walker as resident minister only two years earlier. But Beggs had interests in Plainfield and asked Whitehead to assume the duty. With almost equal speed, Whitehead received his license to preach throughout the territory. It is believed to be the first ministerial license issued in Chicago and is probably the reason Whitehead has been called "the founder of Chicago's Methodism."

The town to which Whitehead ministered grew by leaps and bounds in the four years it took to become a city. \,Vith the dredging of the harbor completed, there was an influx of newcomers and the beginnings of a throbbing city life. Homesteaders arrived daily. By 1834, the wagon station at the corner of Lake and Dearborn streets was a hub of activity. "I hear the population is now up to six hundred," Whitehead remarked to a friend, Peter Crawford.

Prospectors arrived, went immediately to the ]and offices on Lake Street lo buy cheap property, and often resold it before they could get a good look at it.

A rendering of the confluence of the North and South branches of the Chicago River with the Main Branch as of 1834. The Methodist Meeting House is the furthest building to the right in the background, almost directly across the North Branch from Miller's Tavern . The large structure in the right foreground is the Sauganash Hotel.

Whitehead himself, no real-estate speculator, found it hard to eke out a living in this bustling community. But he did have an allied and valuable skill. In England, before becoming a lay preacher, he had served as an apprentice carpenter and shipbuilder to his father in the port of Chatham. He adopted carpentry as his trade and, when the Methodists decided to build a meeting house of their own, \Vhitehead got the contract. Watkins' School was at best a makeshift church. Even augmented by Billy Caldwell's Tavern, which was also used for services, there wasn 't room enough for the whites, "let alone the half-breeds and Indians," as Stephen Beggs phrased it. For Whitehead, to build a church with his own hands and to serve in it would be a double pleasure.

Fund raising, however, was even then the builder's first task. Dave Gale, proprietor of the Green Tree Tavern, described how Whitehead set out with John Stewart to take a "subscription blank to the nabobs on the north side Chicago History

3

Chicago Historical Society

the River. They met up with Mark Noble, who told them to go up to the North Branch and cut all the stuff they needed." With such cooperation, a frame structure was completed by the spring of 1834. Located at the corner of North Water and Clark streets, it was twentysix by thirty-eight feet, with twelve-foot posts, a sheeted and shingled roof, and a neat pulpit and platform. It cost $580.

Evangelists of this era were poor and not prone to see life as jolly, yet at heart Henry Whitehead found much amusing in these hardcore pioneers, so different from the people he had known in England. Underneath their often crude exterior, they were the most friendly people he'd ever met. And he himself was a friendly man, always dipping into a bulging pocket for a mint, horehound, or spruce gumhe had acquired a taste for spruce gum in Mackinac-and frequently offering it to acquaintances despite his natural frugality. He loved the circus. He found nothing seditious in honest fun. Later, when he attended with his own children, the circus no doubt reminded him of his childhood jn Chatham when Richo[

4

Chicago History

The Frink & Walker stage office at the intersection of Dearborn and Lake sis., one of the city's busiest areas by 1834.

ardson's Wagons brought the famous clown, Grimaldi. Even very late, lacking in energy and wracked with pain, he retained, along with his religious dedication, his basic ability to see and enjoy the amusing side of ]i[e. "How amazing," one o[ his colleagues remarked to ·w hitehead's wife during those late, dark days, "that in the face of physical ills his delightful sense of humor should hold out."

Marriageable women were scarce in 1834, but a friend, David Hunter, who was married to John Kinzie's daughter, Maria, urged Henry to find a wife. From the first, Henry had been attracted to Elizabeth Jenkins, who had arrived from Wales in 1832 with her family, members o[ the Wesleyan, or Methodist, Society.

Elizabeth was a girl of unusual poise with warm, powerful eyes and a beautiful Welsh voice.

Henry was poor, and diffident about approaching Elizabeth, but Elizabeth listened to his sermons with rapt attention and he grew bolder, eventually proposing. His friend, Pastor

Henry Whitehead

Theeman, married them on July 31, 1834, in the church Henry had built, and all twentyfive members of the congregation attended.

It was a good match. Elizabeth's serenity counterbalanced Henry 's intense nervous energy. Others later said of her that she was "exceptional in spirit with abnegation in the splendour of her affection," and that "the iron core of her was seldom in evidence, but it was there."

For a time, they lived in a log cabin on the river where the Civic Opera House now stands.

In winter, their bed was often covered with sifted snow blown in through the roof; in summer, "flies tangled in the butter." Rats from the river and woods were bothersome until the Whiteheads obtained cats. Life could be dangerous as well. At night, wolves prowled the outskirts of town; bears were common. One was shot emerging from heavy timber as near the settlement as Franklin and Jackson streets.

Pioneer E. 0. Gale testified that "in 1834 a four hundred pounder was shot where La Salle and Adams intersect."

In 1834, the Indian squatters outnumbered the whites twenty to one, and the whites took advantage of them at every opportunity. 'it\1hitehead later told his son that whiskey dulled the Indians' senses, putting them off their guard, and thus making them easier to cheat while, at the same time, making them less careful of their most basic self-interests. He also observed that whiskey sometimes brought out the warrior in the Indian and often led him to violence, some of which was directed toward the whites.

Though Henry tried to reassure his usually placid wife that her faith would protect her from harm and that the Indians were aware that ultimately they were at the mercy of the whites, Elizabeth feared the Indians' revenge.

During these turbulent times, the Whiteheads' first child was born in the cabin on the river and the veteran 'iValker died. 'i,Vhitehead was called to take over Walker's circuit duties, an assignment which meant going to DeKalb

County to mm1ster to the settlers and to the Indians waiting for the final trek west. Loathe as he was to leave his wife and child, Whitehead felt he had no choice but to fulfill the duties of his ministry. Pastors Mitchell and Curtis took over the Chicago church.

Alexander Robinson, a half-breed trader and interpreter whose Indian name was Che-ChePinqua, accompanied Whitehead part of the way. Robinson taught him some Pottawatomi words, and Henry arrived at DeKalb in high hopes of making some conversions, although some of the whites resented his dedication to the Indians, whom they considered "a no good savage threat."

On his circuit Henry followed Indian trails and held regular classes at various stations. His theme in preaching was taken from Acts 14:22: "Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of Goel."

"How true! How true!" Henry heard a man say to a group. "I had a wager on a cock fight and lost $30. Tribulations enough, I'd say."

Henry, amused, joined the men. "Next time," he said, "my text will be, 'The worth of a man is judged by Goel not so much by his successes as by the way he meets adversity.'" There was general laughter. Because his approach was practical, it was palatable.

In Henry's absences, when Elizabeth was left alone with the baby, Indians visited her regularly on Thursday, knowing it was baking clay.

She would sing hymns to calm herself as she made bread into long pones. Before opening the door, she would hide her baby under the bed.

Occasionally, a grateful squaw would return with wild honey.

One night, a squaw whom Elizabeth had befriended came stealthily to the door to warn her of marauding drunken Indians. She bundled the baby in a shawl and groped her way to the river bank. The squaw untied a skiff and helped her in, . then pushed the craft into the water.

Here Elizabeth, thankful to be safe from leering faces at the window, passed three miserable Chicago History

5

Henry Whitehead

hours while the squaw kept watch. ·whitehead learned the story only after he returned from DeKalb. It added to his misgivings, because he privately felt that his message to the inhabitants of northern Illinois had "fallen on stony ground."

He was next sent to the Joliet J\Iission, after but a short time with his family. Be ides riding circuit, he was in charge of camp meetings, where old friendships were renewed and where revival services took place for believers and nonbelievers alike. Henry, evaluating his work in the Joliet area in his diary, wrote: In my eagerness to convert, the climax being in shouts of "Glory!" and "Hallelujah!" my goal was for personal success. but I soon realized that conversion without dedication on the part of my listeners was meaningless. It was a revelation to come to terms with my limitations . Things were rugged enough without design for higher esteem for myself.

J\Iore and more, Whitehead worried over the family he kept having to leave behind in Chicago. To bolster his small income, he decided to establish a trading post. On his return from the .Joliet Mission and after much deliberation , he chose the corner of State and l\fadison streets, then unused land south of the city. He and James Bramwell built "a fair-siled building for a store and Bram,rell ·was to live with the family." Bramwell and Elizabeth were to manage the store while Henry was away.

Thus the itinerant circuit rider became the first merchant on what was to become the "busiest corner of the ,,·orld." Carson Pirie Scott & Company stands there today. The rent for the marshy property was SGo per year; " ' hitehead could have purchased it for $1,000 in 1835 or 1836, but he believed land speculation "the grossest folly." l\foreover, his advisers, including Bramwell, told him buying would be foolish, as the city would never stretch that far south. Still, far as it was from the hub of commercial activity, Henry had hopes that the store would prove profitable.

He arranged for merchandise to be shipped 6

Chicago History

to him overland and by water from the east, and for this he had to borrow cash, some from his father-in -law. Times were hard in 1837; there were no Jaws governing banking practices and the country was flooded with worthless paper money. Customers placed orders way ahead of time, as it took goods many days to arrive .

Barter was the order of the clay, and many of ,i\Thitehead's customers paid in kind instead of cash. l\fany came with poultry to ell. Indian trappers brought pelts, and hunters arrived with the Join of a buck or a saddle of deer.

In his later years, Henry's son helped run the business. He waited on customers, took orders, measured beans, and tended the family cow, which was pastured ·w here l\farshall Field & Company now stands. Like most pioneer stores, the \Vhitehead store carried everything from saddles to needles and thread , flour to log chains. It smelled of coal oil, fish both dried and fre h brought from the Jake by Indians, wood smoke, and coffee, "likely as not ground from peas and barley." Unlike most storekeepers, he added religion books to his stock. And, having collected remedies from Indians and settlers in his wanderings, he was more than ,villing to share these with his customers. One of the most sought after was Cure for Cough and Ague: 2 parts capsicum; ipecac, 2 p:uts; powdered opium, one part. l\fix these ingredients and dose as much as will rest on a 6 cent piece. l\Iix this with wild honey and take 4 times a day.

Elizabeth Whitehead had the better head for business and, since her husband was absent for long interva ls, often managed the shop and made the decisions. , Vhen " ' hi tehead was there, he was particularly lenient with the poor. Once a girl brought her dead father's violin with which to pay a debt. Whitehead not only paid her for the instrument, but gave her a sack of flour besides. In fact, all of his life, ,vhiteheacl felt guilty about owning anything while others went hungry. Naturally, the store did not show a profit.

One of the several certificates of ordination issued to Henry Whitehead , circuit rider. This one , filed in Milwaukee in July 1844, qual ifies him as an elder in the Rock River Conference.

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Henry and Ellzabeth Whitehead.

Photos by noted Chicago photographer C. D. Mosher.

Chicago History

7

Henry Whitehead

It is hard to overstate the physical difficulties of a circuit rider's life in those primi tive times, ancl \Vhiteheacl seems to have lacked some o( the stamina of his predecessor, Jesse \!\Talker. He began to suffer more and more from ague and from severe back pain brought on by the inclement weather in which he rode clay and night over the prairie. Actually, the pain seemed to intensify his courage for, like other ministers of his day, he belie\·ecl in the redemptive power of pain. He could also console himself in the knO\dedge that he, at least, had a home in Chicago to which to return; other missionaries were sometimes moved so far and so often that they "·ere left without any sense of a home base.

He probably also lacked some of the selfco nfidence that had sustained " ' alker. Perhaps he had more humility. On his lonely rides, he evaluated his purpose and his effectiveness. His superiors seemed to believe him capable"But," Henry wrote in his diary, "I fear at times the Bishop is frosting the cake with undue praise and I prefer to remain obscure."

In 1837, Henry \ 1Vhitehead was assigned to Little Fort (now \Vaukegan). He decided to leave the running of the store to Bramwell and to take his wife and son "·ith him this time. In Little Fort another son was born; according to reports,' \Vhitehead as istecl with the delivery.

His wife and children soon returned to Chicago and the store, but \Vhitehead remained.

Periodically he came back to State and l\faclison, cager to resume the life of storekeeper, visiting with the farmers who came to purchase goods.

In 1839, another assignment. The l\Iethoclist Conference sent \Vhitehead to the Racine i\Iission in \Visconsin, an area which had fewer than five hundred whites at the time. Again, relations between the whites and the Incli:ms were not good. In the fall, the Indians "·otild set prairie fires to drive the deer. Since the prairie grass was eight to ten feet high , the fire took over, at times burning out whole families of settlers. But Henry believed, and cou n seled 8

Chicago History

other missionaries, never to betray the Indian.

"In coming to terms with the reel man you must be faithful. He deserves human trea tment before conversion," he wrote in his diary. or ,vas the hope of conversion his only motivation in dealing with his compatriots. He was charitable, almost without exception, even lending physical assistance he could ill afford to g ive. One clay he stopped to help a man-a Catholic of Alsatian descent-whose home had been burned out b y a prairie fire. \Vhitehead observed, in his notes, "God does not count a man's persuasion when in need of assistance and a roof over his head." \ 'Vhi teheacl was back in Chicago in 1839 when his church was floated across the river on sco"·s.

Elder John Clark had suggested this move to a better location , and the Canal Commission had donated the land-eighty by one hundred and thirty feet-at the corner of ·w ashington and Clark streets. There it beca me known as the Clark Street l\Iethodist Episcopal Church. \\Then Pastor Borein died, \,Vhiteheacl preached in the pulpit; when Luke Hitchcock arrived to become resident minister, Henry went back to Racine.

In Chicago, Henry also preached at missions and in the jail, once known as "the estray pen" because it was used to house "extra" animalsvagrant domestic pets. One derelict asked him, "Preacher, " ·hy be poor when you can feel rich with a bottle of bo01e for $2?" Henry did not think it a foolish question; he realized that his mess:1gc must be adapted to such listeners. He must have had some success, for Reverend See later said of him that "\Vhitehead could sway all sinners as well as the best o' them."

In 18.10, \,Vhitehead was given full charge of the Racine Mission, an extensive field to cover.

He received his instructions at the conference in l\f t. l\forris. At times he rode as far as Shingle Town (now Green Bay).

His ministerial duties were more demanding but, with the help of Bramwell, Elizabeth, and his son, he still had his store. Bramwell's proph-

Chicaqo Historica l Socie ty

The brick church constructed by the Methodists in 1845. Unfortunately, no authentic representation of the earlier wooden church built by Whitehead is known to exist.

ecy was proving correct, however; the store was too far from the center of the city and the swampy area was unhealthy. The sale of religious books, however, had been taken over by the Book Depository, which the ·w estern Book Concern set up in the 18_1os and was doing quite well. The Christian Advocate described it much later as "that bulk of the Methodist Book Concern which would grow to fuller size in Cincinnati, a company with which Henry \Vhitehead was associated for the rest of his life." By 18.15, the Depository was housed in Dr. Temple's home on Lake Street. That same year, the little wooden church made way for a new brick structure, 66 by 95 feet with a 14 8-foot spire, costing 512,000. \Vhiteheacl's fam il y, sometimes with him but more oflen domiciled in the city, had grown to five children- the last three, daughters born to EliLabeth between 1840 and 18,H. Whiteheacl·s health continued to worsen as he traveled, but still he rode, a dedicated missionary. One night, during a blizzard near Buffalo Grove, Illinois, hearing cries above the wine!, he stopped his horse. The swirling flakes

blinded him. Another cry came "into the soul of the snow," and then he saw a man and boy groping toward him. He put the boy across his saddle and led the two ahead into walls of drifts, finally gu ided by a light to a farm.

On arriving at this lonely place, Henry collapsed. The farmer's wife nursed them and the others soon recovered, but Henry, exhausted to begin with, had to stay on. Even so, he returned too soon lo Chicago, with the result that he contracted pneumonia and almost died. A newspaper of the clay reported that "Few men have been so manifestly purified by physical suffering." About this time, he received a testimonial regarding his good works from Bishop Thomas i\Iorris and letters of tribute from many Chicago citizens. He was also superannuated because of his poor health.

This enforced retirement, when there was still so much to do, was ·whitehead's most bitter disappointment. He was not one to stop and nurse his illnesses. Having seen a slave auctioned in Chicago in 1836 and never forgotten the horror of it, Whitehead began to crusade with Philo Carpenter for temperance and against slavery. He created a sort of roving ministry within the city.

Thus, he became known to Chicagoans as "Father Whitehead." And although he had little strength for the fervent evangelism of his earlier years, Whitehead tended the Book Depository and aimed his spear of righteousness at the Sands, a notorious brothel, and at dens of vice along Randolph Street.

For the historian, one of the most tantalizing aspects of Henry ·Whitehead's diary and papers is his failure lo include precise data. He skims over great events in the city's history. \Vhen Lincoln was nominated for president on the third ballot, a man on the roof of the Tremont House had messages relayed to him, then rang a bell and imparted the news. Henry was in the cro'_vd, and one can imagine him nervously munching the horehounds ,rhi ch he always carried in a pocket, but his written remarks on Chicago History

9

Henry Whitehead

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A page from Henry Whitehead's diary, recounting his Journey from England and his arrival in Chicago.

Ch icago Historical Society

The Chicago Temple Building at Washington and Clark sts., the site to which Whitehead's wooden church was floated, houses the present Methodist church.

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10

Chicago History

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this important event were simple, "The crowd was motley, the noise raucous."

During the Civil War, Father Whitehead often visited Camp Douglas at 33rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, where Confederate prisoners were housed, to deliver sermons on the theme that all men are brothers. His diary also mentions Lincoln's assassination, the shock of it, and a description of Chicago "draped in black" when the funeral train arrived.

His daughter Caroline married the Reverend Arthur Edwards, editor of the Northwestern Christian Advocate, and Whitehead felt he had a champion in his new son-in-law. According to Dr. Edwards, Father Whitehead was often in the pulpit, his frame shrunken and fragile.

Like other Methodist families of the day, Whitehead's lacked outward demonstrations of affection; moreover, Whitehead was a firm father, difficult to contradict and unassailable in his beliefs. Still, this family was knit together by loyalty and love. A daughter died at twentyone, but the other four children lived nearby.

By 1871, the "\,Vhiteheads were living outside the range of the disastrous Chicago Fire. The oldest son lived on Prairie Avenue; the second son was in Springfield, a member of the state legislature; and the daughters were not in the fire's path. They were, however, very much aware of the devastation. In his diary, Father Whitehead described the flaming sky, the terror, the homeless, and the hideous destruction.

The Ladies Christian Society of St. Louis, under the direction of Phoebe Cousins and a sister of EliLabeth Whitehead, who lived in that city, came to Chicago with relief supplies. Mayor Roswell l\Iason publicly commended Father Whitehead and his wife for their help to the needy. Over three thousand persons were fed from the soup kitchens that he and Elizabeth helped man at Green and Cauoll streets.

To Whitehead, the most discouraging aspects of the relief distribution were the railroad strike then in progress and the "free loaders"

posing as impoverished victims. By 1873, when the city was rebuilt, the populace was more cosmopolitan; Father Whitehead was distressed that "there seemed no solidarity in the easy existence of the rich."

In these last years, suffering from angina and his back ailment, he walked with a slight stoop and seemed to have lost the urgency which had driven him all his life. He wrote, "I was not resurrected by good works, but by suffering I hoped to be purified, and in that there is expiation."

Like other pioneers, he found great pleasure in the annual gathering of old settlers at the Calumet Club on Michigan Avenue and 20th Street. The club, organized in 1878 at a member's home, was open to early and distinguished residents of the city, and one finds many other prestigious names on the list-among them Orrington Lunt, P.H. Swift, John Wentworth, and Philo Carpenter.

Father Whitehead's last appearance at the Calumet Club was in 1884. He attended with his wife, and a portrait of him as a young man was presented in honor of his contribution to the history of Chicago. Death came suddenly after a day at the Book Depository. He was in his seventy-fifth year.

Dr. Charles McCauly Stuart, who was to become president of Garrett Biblical Institute (now Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary), said of Father Whitehead: No man gave his all to God with more dedication and humility. Upon such an individual and family life Methodism and Chicago laid a firm foundation of present greatness and prosperity.

In Rosehill Cemetery, a shaft marks the grave of Chicago's pioneer preacher. But what memorial could be more fitting than the Chicago Temple Building, a twenty-two story building at Washington and Clark streets, which c;ontains the fifth Methodist church on the site to which Henry Whitehead's frame building was moved in 1839?

Chicago Hist ory

11

The International Aviation Meet, 1911

BY GEORGE D. BUSHNELL

Did an airplane ever touch its wheels to the top ofyour car while you were driving down Michigan Avenue?

Then you probably weren)t around for the International Aviation Meet in 7977. this August, Chicagoans turned out by the millions to watch the city's first aviation meet, a nine-day thriller in which the best of the pioneer flyers competed for prizes offered by the Aero Club of Illinois. Earlier in 19ll, under the driving leadership of Harold F. McCormick, treasurer of the club and of the International Harvester Company, the year-old organization had decided to sponsor what Chicago newspapers were to call "the Greatest Aviation Meet Ever Held."

At that time, most Chicagoans still considered the airplane an amusing toy, a frail type of vehicle in which a handful of daredevils could indulge their exhibitionism. Few envisioned the flying machine as a future means of transportation equal to the automobile just beginning to appear in large numbers on the city's streets. Indeed, the first plane airborne in the area had done its stuff less than two years earlier, in October 1909, when Californian Glenn Curtiss flew a quarter-mile in forty seconds at the Hawthorne Race Track in Cicero. The city itself had to wait until September 1910, when pioneer aeronaut Walter Brookins made several passes over the Loop and lakefront before a crowd estimated at twenty thousand. America's first air competition was not staged until January 1910, at Los Angeles, followed by meets in September and October at Boston and New York.

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

George D. Bushnell, a frequent contributor to Chicago History, is currently completing a history of Wilmette, Illinois. Aviation buffs may be interested to know that the papers of the Aero Club of Illinois are at the Society.

12

Chicago History

Despite the city's sketchy experience with flying, McCormick saw a great future in aviation. Interested in airplane design, he spent $150,000 on several unsuccessful aircraft and donated $25,000 to build an aeronautical laboratory for the free use of Chicago inventors at the Cicero airfield, which remained the center of the area's aerial experiments until 1913.

Having decided to sponsor the meet, the Aero Club incorporated the International Aviation feet Association, which picked the elates of August 1 2 to 20 and set out to raise a fund of $100,000 guaranty. The South Park Board agreed to make Grant Park available for the event.

Organizing, and getting a site, were relatively simple. Raising the money proved far more difficult. McCormick's leadership and connections were essential: he pledged a quarter of the total sum from his family and solicited hundreds of Chicago's affluent citizens by letter. The meet committee expanded its roster by adding the names of influential individuals who could bring in more money and, by late May, the guaranty fund was assured. Commissioner of Public Works Bernard J. Mullaney was appointed the meet's general manager.

From the start, the Association set a new policy for awarding prizes. Flyers at previous meets had been guaranteed a fixed sum, payable when they arrived with their machines, and prize money was paid only when a flyer won more than his guaranteed amount. Thus, the aviators actually had little incentive to fly often or well. But for this meet, the Association announced that $80,000 of its total budget would be spent on prizes to be based on daily compe-

Walter Brookings in th e first airplane . to fly over Ch"1cago, 191 o. .

Chicago Historical Society

Aviation Meet

tition, and that only $500 would be allowed for each flyer's expenses. The sum was barely enough to transport the pilot and his plane to and from Chicago; as Mullaney made clear, each flyer, "to make his entry worthwhile to himself . . . must fly and win something."

Furthermore, "absolutely no deals or exceptions will be made for star flyers." And when some of the stars attempted to force him into separate deals, he stood absolutely pat.

The generous prize money-described as the "largest sum ever offered for a competitive meet"-combined with the prospect of the largest audiences in aviation's short history drew flyers from the United States, England, Canada, France, and Ireland. Among them were Harry N. Atwood, William R. Badger, Lincoln Beachey, Frank T. Coffyn, Eugene Ely, Howard Gill, Lee Hammond, St. Croix .Johnstone, James V. Martin, .J. A. McCurdy, Earle R. Ovington, Phillip 0. Parmelee, Galbraith P. Rogers, Rene Simon, T. 0. M. (Tom) Sopwith, and Arthur Stone.

Just as plans were going well, a major stumbling block materialized. From Dayton, Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright notified the meet's officials that every airplane built anywhere in the world infringed in some way on their basic patent. The Wrights demanded a fee of $20,000 for allowing their own planes and the aviators under contract to them to enter the competition.

Unless they got their fee, the Wright brothers threatened, they would sue to block the entire meet.

McCormick and his officials decided immediately not to yield, although they were well aware of the Wright brothers' power, and knew that the meet could not succeed without the Wrights' planes and their flyers. They decided to gamble that the meet would prove to be so attractive that the Wright pilots could not afford to stay out..

With the meet only a few months off, however, a quick reaction was required. Mullaney publicly accused the Wrights of wanting "the 14

Chicago History

certainty of receiving more money from the Meet than anybody else," and the Association announced that the event would be open and competitive, and that it would make "common cause" with any flyers who might be harassed by the Wrights' legal proceedings.

The Association's position looked good to the press, which joined the battle, and to competitive-minded professionals and businessmen.

Among the letters which poured into the Association's office was one addressed to McCormick dated July 10, from George H. Guy, secretary of the New York Electrical Society.

Guy wrote that "The whole country will hail you as the deliverers of aviation from the greedy grip of the Wrights." The president of a small aviation company wrote James E. Plew, the Association's president, urging him to "stand pat on the grifting bunch .... The hell with them .

Are you going to stand pat? Or are you going to bow to them?"

Bow he did not, but McCormick made two trips to Dayton and a Wright representative came several times to Chicago to attempt an agreement. Finally, on August 17, five days after the meet began, Orville Wright filed suit in U.S. Circuit Court, stating that he opposed "circus performances which we don't believe ... does aviation any good." It was too late. In actuality, the Association had triumphed. The Wrights had not succeeded in preventing the meet, nor did they follow up their suit. Nor did they receive any fee at all.

There were some lighter moments during the final preparations. Several Chicago couples suggested getting married in the air during the meet, for a sum large enough to start housekeeping. Despite the publicity value, Mullaney rejected those proposals. And from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, attorney E. W. Griffiths wrote Mullaney asking for financial aid to enter a self-styled "cigar-shaped car that is propelled without wings or propellers and will start or stop anywhere." Griffiths proposed to build a marvelous craft which could not only fly but disappear

Daredevil Lincoln Beachey at the 1911 meet, from a postcard by J . Inbody.

Chicaao Historical Society

The meat's leading money winner, C. P. Rodgers, in Grant Park.

Chicago Historical Society

)

Rene Simon rounding a pylon during the meet.

Daily News Collection Chicago Historical Society

Chicago History

15

Aviation Meet

in the water like a submarine, an invention he thought would be equal "to the telegraph or the steam engine." Although the Association's policy was to answer all correspondence, no reply seems to have been made to the lawyerinventor.

Chicago's newspapers heralded the event. On August 8, the Tribun e carried a special supplement containing a full-page article headlined AVIATION WILL BE THE SPORT OF THE FUTURE.

There was also a long interview with McCormick in which he predicted that "in five years, today's machines will be on view only in museums." The supplement also carried illustrated articles on aviators, their records, women flyers, cartoons, and one early science-fiction piece headed SHALL WE FL v To OTHER WORLDS? And poet Harvey Peake provided some satiric verse: Into the spreading chestnut tree The aeronautist flies He steers to right, he steers to left With loud and profane cries And the muscles of his puny arms With his exertions rise.

The Tribune also ran daily articles about the planes which would perform, offering more or less profound explanations of the nature of the new machines. For example, it noted in the first of the series on the Curtiss biplane that "an aeroplane is nothing but a huge kite using a motor and a propeller to push it instead of a rope or string to pull it." Readers also learned about the Bleriot monoplane, the Farman biplane, the graceful Santos-Dumont Demoiselle, and the Antoinette monoplane.

Advertising by Chicago businesses spurted weeks before the meet opened. The Congress Hotel advertised its strategic location, pointing out that it overlooked Grant Park and had 2,000 front windows. Marshall Field & Company announced that it would display a 40 by 30-foot Curtiss airplane during the meet. When the meet opened, the store also published a pocket-size daily schedule of events, the winners 16

Chicago History

of the previous day's competitions, and simple definitions for new aviation buffs, such as "monoplane-an aeroplane hav ing single surfaces like the wings of a beetle."

The opening day of the International Aviation Meet brought thirty-five aviators to risk their lives in the frail aircraft. Chicagoans bought tickets at the Auditorium Theater's box office or at State Street stores and hotels: seats sold for 50¢, $1, and $1.50; box seats were $2; and reserved auto parking cost$ 1. A day's events began at 3:30 P.M. with a flight duration contest; an over-water race twice around a threeand-one-half mile course took place at 4: 30; bi plane passenger-carrying races started at 5: 30; altitude competition was scheduled for 6; and the clay closed with cross-country flying at 7.

The first day was a great crowd pleaser, with several unscheduled thrills. Arthur Stone made a steep turn in his Queen Bleriot monoplane at so low a n altitude that his wing tip hit the ground, flipping the plane on its back. As the crowd gasped in horror, Stone and his mechanic emerged smiling from the wreckage, waving jauntily. Then Frank Cofiyn, carrying two passengers in his ·w right biplane, made a forced landing, demolishing a Moisant monoplane on the field. He, too, walked away uninjured. Rene Simon's Moisant leaped away after he started the engine and smashed into a tree. James Martin overshot the runway in his BristolFarman biplane and crashed through a fence.

He clambered out without a scratch.

The first clay's winners included Earle Ovington, who beat Tom Sopwith in the speed races by flying 20 miles in 23 minutes, 52 seconds.

C. P. Rodgers won the flight duration contest by staying aloft for 2 hours, 55 minutes, and 33 seconds. Howard Gill won the altitude climb in a Curtiss biplane, reaching 4,980 feet to win over Lincoln Beachey, who reached 3,507 feet, and Phillip Parmelee, who attained 3,273. At one time that day, eight aviators were in the air simultaneously. , vord of the open ing day's flying feats spread

throughout the city. The next day was Sunday and that clay, August 13, a throng estimated at six hundred thousand jammed the park area to watch Lhe flyers. Three hundred police were on duly. People packed Lhe site from Lhe lake shore back Lo State Street. Traffic on nearby streets was at a standstill as drivers of wagons, cars, and Lrucks left their vehicles to get a closer look at the airmen.

Once at the meet, it was impossible to leave.

People sLOod on viaducts, clung to lamp posts, perched on electric signs. Banners strung across Michigan Avenue advised pedestrians Lo enter the two-mile aerodrome area by the Harrison Street viaduct. The grandstands east of the Art Institute were sold out. The city's hotels enjoyed a rare phenomenon in summer-no vacancies.

The second day was no less exciting than the first. A sudden gust of wind brushed J. J. Frisbie's plane against a statue atop the 250-foot tower of the Montgomery Ward Building, and Frisbie injured his hand in the vibrating wires of his craft. As the crowd watched breathlessly, the plane stood on end, then dropped crazily.

The gasps turned to cheers when Frisbie, using his one good hand, regained control and landed adroitly in front of the judges' stand.

Daredevil Beachey thrilled the audience that clay and throughout the meet, rounding pylons at a sharp angle, ~kimming so low his wheels touched the ground, then climbing, diving, spiraling, and pulling out just as he seemed certain to crash. Not content with his aerobatics over the field, Beachey also zoomed low over l\Iichigan Avenue, touching the tops of automobiles with his wheels and making spectators on rooftops duck as he swooped overhead. As one man later recalled, "The wheels on Beachey's old Curtiss went by so close you could count Lhe spokes." The newspapers loved it.

On fonclay, August 14, the daring men in their flying machines continued to live a charmed life, although five accidents occurred.

Rene Simon was flying his Moisant over the

lake, diving within a few feet of the water then zooming skyward, when his engine stalled. As people on Lhe nearby excursion boats watched in fascinated horror, Simon glided to a landing so smooth that he was picked up by a rescue boat without getting a shoe wet.

Then Lee Hammond's Baldwin biplane snapped a wire as he banked it around the filtration plant pylon three and a half miles out in the lake. The loose wire fouled the propeller, but Hammond managed to dive clear a's his plane crashed into the water. Earle Ovington was rounding a pylon at a very low altiLude when a cylinder began missing. His Curtiss lost power and dipped until its left wing hit the ground. Ovington stepped unhurt from the wreckage. Fifteen minutes later, he was flying a Bleriot in another race.

Trying for a new altitude record, Howard Gill reached 800 feet when the drive chain on his left propeller broke. Gill managed to regain control and glide down skillfully in a wide spiral, landing safely. J. A. McCurdy had a narrower escape as he attempted to land on shore with a stalled engine. The wing tip of his biplane struck a high tension wire, the plane flipped over and crashed on the beach, but McCurdy was thrown free and watched on his feet while his plane burned to a blackened skeleton.

Harry N. Atwood added to all this excitement by landing on the field after completing the first leg of his flight from St. Louis to New York. Telegraph dispatches had covered his initial 283 miles and, as his plane stopped rolling, thousands of cheering spectators swept guards and fences aside, lifted Atwood from his plane, and carried him in triumph to the officials' box.

The pioneer pilot, flying for a $10,000 prize, completed his 1,155-mile trip 11 days later at Governor's Island, near the Statue of Liberty.

But on August 15, the inevitable finally happened, and two aviators were killed. \i\Tilliam R. Badger of Pittsburgh died when, trying to outdo Beachey, he dove toward the field from 300 feet and attempted to pull up only 20 feet Chicago History

17

MONDAY, AUGUST 21 GRANT PARK-LAKE FRONT

Great Testimonial Exhibition WORLD FAMED AVIATORS Total Receipts for Benefit of Mrs. St. Croix Johnstone ALL THE WONDERFU L BIRDM EN VO LUNTEERING A SPLENDID PR OGR AM

OPENING SALUTE 4 P. M. Meet opening at t.be firing of' the bomb at 4.00 p.m. Eibibition speed monoplane flights from. 4.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. Exhibition speed bipl ane Rights from 5.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. A general exhibition by all the aviators w-ith their aeroplanes showing the control of the aeroplane in landing and starting. etc., also many unexpected Rights and tricks by the aviators, which up until the present time they have been unable to do, bet-ween the hours of 5.30 p.m. a.nd 6.30 p .m. or the firing of the

hut bo1nb.

Pric es, 50c to $1.50 ; Box S eo-ts $2.0U Tickets on sale at Audit,n.,.;,,_ '!l:'4~n.ter Box Office, principal State e.•~reet Stores and DowntoW'n Hotels.

Contribu tion D epositories at Free Grand Stand.

. .... ~'!.·:.......

Chicago Historica l Society

Broadside announcing a benefit program for the widow of St. Croix Johnstone, who was killed when his p lane crashed into Lake Michigan on Aug . 15.

from the ground. Badger's plane crashed, and he was crushed in the tangle of metal, wood, and wire. Soon afterward, St. Croix Johnstone drowned. Another pilot said that Johnstone's monoplane seemed to explode at 1,600 feet and then dove stra ight into Lake Michigan, imprisoning the pilot as it sank a mile off shore.

These deaths brought vehement but shortlived demands that the meet be cancelled. The Association refused, stating that many flyers had come long distances and that the meet was important in increasing aviation knowledge in sp ite of the "regrettable sacrifice of human life."

A nd, everything considered, most pilots had more than a little luck.

Some of the events must have seemed bizarre.

For example, pilots competed in a grimly prophetic "bomb-throwing" contest, dropping paper bags filled with flour onto an outline of a huge battleship dra,vn in whitewash. Rings represented the ship's forward and stern gun turrets. The Chicago Inter Ocean noted that if the bombs and the battleship had been real, the explosives "would have demolished the turrets, 18

Chicago Histo ry

penetrated to the engines and boilers and scattered destruction on the deck."

On Friday, the seventh clay of the meet, Oscar A. Brindley tried unsuccessfully to break Beachey's altiLUde mark of 8,500 feet and the French record of 11,152 feet. On the final day, however, Beachey made it-he climbed until he ran out of gas, then glided clown after setting a new altitude record of 11,578 feet, a height not surpas eel for another three years.

Two other world records were broken during Chicago's meet. Tom Sopwith climbed 1,634 feet in his Bleriot in 3 minutes, 25 seconds, and vV. G. Beatty carried a passenger in his 'Wright biplane for 3 hours and 38 minutes. ·w hen the meet ended, the top money winners were C. P. Rodgers, $15,803; Tom Sopwith, S13,340; and Lincoln Beachey, $10,731. According to authoritative estimates, the meet itself lost between S50,ooo and 65,000, but the nine exciting days of flying had drawn close to three million spectators. One of these, Donald E. Willard of Danville, Illinois, now 95, who graduated from Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1905 with a mechanical engineering degree, remembers the meet well. At the time, he was an assistant plant manager on Chicago's Southwest Side. He recalls leaving work early with a cohort and driving to the meet in a 1906 two-seat Stanley Steamer. After watching the daring aeronauts for several days, '\ Villard decided that the single-wing airplane, though less stable in flight than the biplane, would be the aeronautical design of the future.

And what was accomplished? As Association president James Plew said, "This city now knows something of the wonders of air navigation and the practical use of heavier than air craft has been demonstrated." Aviation historian Howard L. Scamehorn has put it even more strongly. He wrote that the International Aviation Meet of 1911 "proved that airplanes could fly-a somewhat dubious assumption at that time."

The World War II Battles of Montgomery Ward

BY FRANK M. KLEILER

There was a war on the home front right here in Chicago in 7944) waged by a crusty old businessmanSewell Avery of Montgomery Ward.

FAR FROM the European and Pacific battlefronts during "\,Vorld War II, Chicago was the scene of some strange military operations.

Twice, under orders from their commander in chief, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, U.S. Army troops occupied the headquarters and other Chicago properties of Montgomery Ward & Company. At one historic moment, soldiers wearing trench helmets carried Sewell Avery, chairman of Wards' board, from his office at 619 West Chicago Avenue to the street after a face-to-face confrontation with the attorney general of the United States, Francis Biddle. Troops with rifles and bayonets patrolled the company's property.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the military occupation and-when a minor company manager took one of several copies of an official government order from a corridor wall to read in his office-G-men nabbed him, put him in handcuffs, and hustled him off to jail.

In his autobiography, Biddle said of the first seizure that it "had the quality of opera bouffe." If nothing else, the occupation produced one of the most famous news ph otos in the history of journalism-the picture of the sedate, gray-haired Avery being carried to the street by soldiers. Millions of Americans were shocked; others were amused. Few understood

Frank M. Kleiler, a former deputy assistant secretary of labor, was the Chicago field examiner for the 1ational Labor Relations Board during the Montgomery Ward controversy. He has also written for scholarly journals, including the Political Science Quarterly.

that Avery had goaded the government into inflicting that historic indignity upon him.

The second seizure was a coolly planned operation-less dramatic but perhaps mor'e significant as a case study of the interweaving of civilian and military activities in wartime.

The central character on the scene was Avery-a hero to some and a villai n to others.

He possessed a law degree from the Un iversity of Michigan and, by 1905, at the age of 31, he had become president of United States Gypsum Company. When he was selected as cha irman of the board of Montgomery Ward in 193 1, Avery was known as a suave businessman who co uld produce profits without producing bad feelings. But somewhere during the co urse of his leadership of Wards, Avery became the epitome of the autocratic tycoon, constantly battling with labor unions, the ew Deal, and even his own executives. He is reported to have said, "If anybody ventures to differ with me, I throw them out the window." The exact language is questionable, because Avery customarily used better grammar, but the sense of the quote is perfectly plausible. By World War II, Avery h ad established a reputation as a crusty old man. Nor did he ever lose it: During his twenty-four years as cha irman of the board, four presidents and forty vice-presidents made sudden departures from his management team. He had many hates, perhaps the most extreme of which was his antipathy toward Franklin Delano R oosevelt.

The story of the seizures of Montgomery ·w ard began with a labor dispute in 1942. A Chicago loca l of the United R eta il, Wholesale and Department Store Employees of America, CIO, won elections conducted by the National Chicago History

19

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

November 18, 1942

Mr. Jewell Avery, President Montgomery Viard and Company, Inc. Chicago, Illinois

Dear Mr. Avery; The National War Labor Board has notified me of your rejection of the Board's Directive Order of November 5, 1942, issued as its final determination of a labor dispute involving your Company. Tne Board's Directive Order was rendered in accordance with Executive Order 9017 and pursuant to the national agreement between labor and management that there shall be no strikes or lock-outs for the du.ratlon of the war, and that al 1 labor disputes shall be settled by pea~eful means.

As Commander-in-Chief in time of war, I ex?ect all employers, including Montgomery Ward and Company, and all labor groups to comply with the provisions of i:;xecuti ve Order 9017, as supplemented by Executive Order 9250. I, therefore, nirect ~ontgomery viard a.r.d Company to comply, without further delay, with the Kational ivar Tabor Board's '.)irective Order of November 5, 1942. I consider such a course of action essential in the interests of our war effort.

Yours truly,

Courtesy Montgomery Ward & Co.

Roosevelt's first directive to Wards did not persuade the firm to honor its employees' decision to be represented by the United Retail , Wholesale and Department Store Employees Union. After a follow-up letter on Dec. 12, in which the president wrote only one sentence, saying in part, "As Commander-in-Chief in time of war, I hereby direct Montgomery Ward to comply ... with the ... War Labor Board's directive order," the company signed its first one-year contract with the union.

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Chicago History

Wards v. the U.S.A.

Courtesy Montgomery Ward & Co. Chicago Daily News photo

With no contract renewal in sight, Wards' employees finally went on strike in Apr. 1944. Here, they greet a returning soldier in front of the company's W. Chicago Ave . offices.

Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and were subsequently authorized to represent two units of Montgomery Ward employees. But the local's efforts to negotiate a contract with the company were unsuccessful. The dispute went to the v\Tar Labor Board (WLB), a government tribunal which had been established to stabilize wages and resolve labor disputes. The WLB issued a series of orders with which the company initially refused to comply. Then, under strong pressure from President Roosevelt, the company signed a one-year contract with the union in December 1942.

In the fall of 1943, as the union was attempting to negotiate an extension and modification of the contract, the company again questioned the union's right to represent the employees.

In fact, the company refused to deal with the union at all. Again, the dispute went to the WLB. The WLB ordered the union to file for a new National Labor Relations Board election, and it ordered the company to extend the old contract until the election was concluded and the question of representation resolved.

For its part, the union filed the necessary petition; for its part, the company refused to extend the contract. Avery strenuously objected to certain clauses in the old contract, which he said the company hacl. signed "under duress" from President Roosevelt in 1942-

especially a maintenance of union membership cli!,use with a fifteen-day escape period, which he persisted in calling a "form of closed shop"; a voluntary dues check-off clause; and a requirement that arbitration be the last step in the grievance procedure. The union then objected to any NLRB action toward holding a new election, insisting that the company also comply with the War Labor Board's order. Finally, on April 12, 1944, the union called a strike of Wards' Chicago employees. Union truckers and railroad workers honored the picket lines.

In calling the strike, the union was violating the no-strike pledge which both the AFL and CIO had made shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It justified its violation on the grounds of the company's refusal to comply with WLB orders. The WLB, in its turn, concluded that both the strike and the company's behavior constituted such a drastic challenge to its authority that it could be made ineffective as an agency for resolving disputes and stabil izing wages.

The president called upon the union to terminate the strike and the company to comply with the WLB order. On April 24, the union called off the strike, but the company refused to back down. In fact, it was planning to hold out at least for the short run. Already geared up for the peak of the spring selling season, v\Tards had even before the strike hired several thousand part-time and temporary employees-housewives and high-school and college students-to handle the extra work load.

On April 22, the company sent a letter to the temporary high-school employees, who had been working a few hours a day after school, inviting them to work full time from April 24 to May 1, the spring vacation of the Chicago public schools.

The president was in a quandary. True, he had ordered the seizure of property to secure compliance with War Labor Board orders before the problem with Wards, but those cases involved government contractors and coal Chicago History

21

Wards v. the U.S.A.

mines which were clearly essential for war production. The seizure of a retail operation was a different matter-a politically risky business.

Then again, if the company did not comply with the WLB directives, the government's wartime machinery for handling later disputes and stabilizing wages would probably collapse. But Avery refused to compromise, and Roosevelt reluctantly decided that seizure was the only solution.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson urged the president not to put the army in charge of the seizure. He argued that such action would constitute an improper intrusion of the military into civilian and economic matters, that it would impair the prestige of the army at a time when it needed the full confidence of the public, and that it would harm the morale of the army by diverting troops from their primary mission at a time when combat needs were serious.

Thus, on April 25, when Roosevelt issued his seizure order, he made Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones responsible for operating Montgomery Ward's property in Chicago. Jones was considered a friend of big business, and he sent Under Secretary Wayne C. Taylor, a member of an old Chicago family with good connections in the business world, to Chicago. The next morning, with Ugo Carusi, an executive assistant to the attorney general, Taylor delivered the president's order to Avery and tried to persuade him to comply. He failed.

Taylor and Carusi then went to see Al Woll, now general counsel of the AFL-CIO, who was then the U.S. attorney in Chicago. At about 4 P.M., Taylor and Carusi returned to Avery's office, accompanied by eight gun-toting federal marshals. After about twenty minutes, they emerged with the glum news that Avery was still refusing to recognize the seizure order. Whatever the legal situation might be, Avery held, eight marshals were not sufficient force to require him to admit that the government had in fact taken possession of Wards.

22

Chicago History

Consequently, late that afternoon about fortyfive soldiers arrived from nearby Camp Skokie, wearing trench helmets and armed with rifles and bayonets. Taylor, accompanied by an officer and two soldiers, re-entered Avery's office.

"Am I being evicted?" Avery asked. "No," Taylor replied, "but the troops are in charge of the plant," adding that Avery was free to come and go from the premises as he chose. "Well, it's time to go home anyway," Avery said, and he walked out of the building.

Attorney General Biddle flew from Washington to Chicago during the night and, on the morning of April 27, was conferring in Avery's office with Taylor and the officer in charge.

Avery walked in at about 10 A.M., accompanied

by John Barr, his labor relations manager, who was to become president and chairman of the board in 1955.

There are differing accounts of who said exactly what during the next interval, but from all accounts it is clear that Avery took such an obdurate position that force would be required to carry out the president's order. Biddle and Taylor both testified to that effect in a congressional hearing, but Biddle's dispassionate testimony does not reflect the vigor of the dialogue between himself and Avery. In his autobiography, Biddle wrote: Wayne Taylor ... suggested Avery call a meeting of his staff and ask them to co-operate with us. Avery said he would do just the opposite-"To Hell with the government." There was a pause. I was deeply shocked. This reckless old man was paralyzing the national war effort that had been built up with such infinite pains. Turning to Taylor I said: "Take him out!" Avery looked at me venomously, summoning the most contemptuous words he could think of; and finally-"You New Dealer!" he managed •o say.

Two soldiers who had been called into Avery's eighth-floor office attempted to escort him to the elevator. Avery refused to budge. The soldiers then picked him up, carried him to the elevator, and set him on his feet. Avery refused to enter the elevator. They picked him up again, carried

Courtesy Chicago Daily News Photo by Harland Klotz

One of the most famous photos in American history-the defiant Sewell Avery being evicted from Wards' headquarters.

him into the elevator, and again set him on his feet. When the elevator reached the ground floor, Avery refused again to move-and the soldiers carried him into the street. His arms folded over his chest, Avery maintained his composure as the press cameras clicked away.

Avery later explained to a congressional committee why he refused to walk: "I did not wish to have any doubts ... I would make them carry me out. Thank heaven I did that. Because the damned photograph resulted and the public was awakened to some of the realities of the situation."

Meanwhile, the clay before, April 26, the National Labor Relations Board's Chicago regional director, George J. Bott, had issued a notice that the Board would hear the representation case. But on April 27, it was unclear who would represent the employer at the hearing. Barr, possibly with tongue in cheek, told the NLRB's field examiner that, since it was the government's position that the Department of Commerce was in possession of the property,

he had some doubts that he and the company's lawyers could properly represent the employer.

Bott and his aides discussed the problem with Biddle shortly after Avery had been carried out of his office. The NLRB representatives explained the major issues in the representation case, which concerned the composition of the unit or units appropriate for collective bargaining. An "appropriate unit," in NLRB parlance, meant a group of employees among whom an election may be held and for whom a union would become the exclusive bargaining agent if it won a majority of the votes. In the Montgomery Ward case, the union wanted to merge into one unit several groups of Wards' Chicago employees for whom it had acquired bargaining rights in the past. The company insisted that several separate units be recognized.

Biddle and Bott agreed that it would make no sense for the Department of Commerce to represent the employer at the NLRB hearing, even though it was the government's position that the Department of Commerce was in charge. The attorney general therefore advised Bott to seek the cooperation of Barr and others who normally represented the company. "If you can get anything from them," Biddle added, "that will be more than I can do. They won't even give me any records."

Avery's lawyers were preparing a law suit to challenge the validity of Roosevelt's seizure order, but the government beat them into court.

Late on April 27, the attorney general, without notifying the company, persuaded Federal District Court Judge William H. Holly to issue a temporary order restraining Avery and other officers of the company from interfering with the operation of the property by the under secretary of commerce.

Avery and his lawyers were furious.when they were served with the court order. At the opening of the court session on April 28, the company's attorneys . argued vigorously that the order should be dissolved, contending that a statement by the under secretary of commerce filed Chicago History

23

Courtesy Montgomery Ward &. Co. Acme Newspic tures photo

in the court the night before was false in declaring that the Montgomery Ward properties were equipped for and actually used in the production of materials necessary for the war effort.

But the most they could get from the court was an order setting a hearing for May 10 on the merits of the case.

It was a busy day for Avery and his staff. An annual meeting of stockholders was scheduled to take place at the company headquarters on West Chicago Avenue later in the day. The meeting was shifted to the Crystal Room of the Blackstone Hotel, where the stockholders reelected Avery and other directors and adopted a resolution commending Avery for his resistance to the government.

Concern with the events at Wards went far beyond the assembly of stockholders at the Blackstone, however. The Chicago newspapers reported the controversy between the government and Avery more prominently than the war news from overseas; indeed, throughout the country the press reported the Montgomery Ward battle as if it were at least equally as important as the news of the greatest daylight raid on Berlin and the Allies' bombing of ports in western Italy by night.

24

Chicago History

Employes entering Wards' offices , Apr. 27, 1944.

The Notice on the doors is Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones' explanation of the government's seizure.

It was the year in which Roosevelt ran for his fourth term. "Gestapo methods!" exclaimed Charles S. Dewey, Republican congressman from Illinois. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia asked, "Does Francis Biddle cherish the ambition to be an American Himmler?" Mississippi Sen. James Eastland complained, "I( the president has the power to take over Montgomery \Varel, he has the power to take over a grocery store or butcher shop in any hamlet in the U .S." Anti-New Dealers in Congress vied. with each other to launch investigations. The House Rules Committee, overthrowing the leadership of Illinois New Dealer Adolph Sabath, whipped through the House a resolution for an investigation by a seven-man select committee. Gallup ran a poll asking if the government "did the right thing" in seizing Montgomery Ward, and 61 percent answered No. The National Labor Relations Board hearing opened in Chicago on Saturday, April 29, before trial examiner Sam Jaffee from Washington. Montgomery Ward's management and

Wards v. the U.S.A.

lawyers cooperated, and the Department of Commerce was not involved. The hearing ended at 4:35 P.M., Monday, May 1. Delaying his departure only long enough to get a verbatim transcript from the official reporter, Jaffee flew back to Washington that night.

In wha t was an all-time record for speed, the Board on the following day issued by telegram a decision and direction of elections in two units.

The elections were scheduled for May g.

Following Avery's removal from his office, most of Wards' employees and supervisors at the lower levels carried on their normal functions, but officials of the Department of Commerce who were trying to establish their authority complained that the highest level executives were balking. Federal agents became vigilant, alert to specific instances of interference. It was in this context that Paul Sowell, assistant to Wards' operating manager, was seized by FBI agents without a warrant on May 4, handcuffed, and arraigned before United States Commissioner Edwin K. Walker on charges of taking government property. Sowell pleaded innocent, explaining that he had merely taken one of several copies of a government order from the wall of a corridor to read in his office so that he could fully understand its requirements. He was released on $250 bond pending a hearing on May 11.

Some five thousand employees were eligible to vote in the NLRB elections on May g. On the afternoon of that d ay, before the Board's polls in Chicago closed, President Roosevelt held a press conference in Washington. As reported by N ewsweek , Roosevelt "cracked a critical whip at 17 3 correspondents for their coverage of the Montgomery Ward dispute."

Then he told them that the matters would be settled that very day. "If," the president went on, "the election shows that the union does not have a majority . .. that will end the case ....

If the election shows that the union does have a majority, then the management has declared it is willing to continue its contract, and that will

end the case." The president then issued an order terminating the seizure, even before the ballots were counted in Chicago.

The union won the two elections handily, but union officials were not happy. They were back in almost the same position they had been in before they called their strike. The head of the union, Sam Wolchok, was hopping mad over Roosevelt's termination of the seizure before Wards had complied with the War Labor Board's order.

For the first time, Wolchok and Avery agreed about something. The seizure had not really settled anything. The company had not agreed to extend the disputed contract if the union demonstrated its majority anew, and Wolchok knew it even if the president did not. Avery had said he was now willing to negotiate with the union, but he also announced that never again would he agree to any variant of the closed shop or to the checkoff of union dues.

Told of Roosevelt's order ending the seizure, Avery remarked that he thought that Secretary of Commerce Jones should carry him back into his office. He did not wait for that unlikely action, however, and from his desk he told reporters that the fight had just begun. "The fundamental issues must still be determined in the courts," he said.

Chi cago Historica l Society

Ugo Carusi (left) and Wayne C. Taylor (right) tell reporters how and why they seized Montgomery Ward's offices, Apr. 1944.

Wards v. the U.S.A.

When the company's motion to have the seizure declared illegal came up for hearing on May 10, however, the court dismissed the case because the seizure had already been terminated. The other pending legal action was settled on May 12, when the United States commissioner exonerated Sowell of the charge of taking government property.

The quiet did not last long. \ 1\Tithin a week, there was another bitter clash between Roosevelt and Avery. The War Labor Board had sent to the president a case involving a wholly owned Montgomery Ward subsidiary, the Hummer Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Illinois. Some four hundred and fifty employees had struck at Hummer when the company defied a WLB order to sign a contract containing a maintenance of union membership clause with a fifteen-clay escape period identical to the clause in the Chicago contract which Avery had refused to renew. Hummer manufactured munitions and Roosevelt ordered the plant seized and run by the army. That seizure-like other wartime seizures of the operations of military contractors-was uneventful.

During the summer and fall of 1944, Montgomery Ward's noncompliance with the War Labor Board's orders proved somewhat infectious. Indeed, throughout the war, Avery's policies continued to embarass the industry members of the Board and to cause consternation among its public and labor members. How could they expect other employers and unions to comply when Avery was thumbing his nose at the Board and getting away with it? The War Labor Board therefore sent recommendations for enforcement action to the vVhite House in all cases in which Wards refused to comply with the Board's orders. This time, R oosevelt procrast inated . He did not want another fiasco before the November election, but he could find no other way other than seizure to force the company to comply. While the unions clamored for action, the company carried on a vituperative public attack on the War Labor Board and 26

Chicago History

the concept of government seizure to enforce its orders.

Serious planning for another seizure of Montgomery ·ward properties finally got under way in November. On December 27, 1944, the president issued an executive order which directed the secretary of war to take possession of and operate the plants and facilities of Montgomery Ward not only in Chicago but also in Jamaica, 1ew York; Detroit, Dearborn, and Royal Oak, Michigan; St. Paul; Denver; San Rafael, California; and Portland, Oregon. This time, Secretary Stimson delegated the job to Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, commander of Army Services Forces, and General Somervell delegated the job to Maj. Gen. Joseph W. Byron.

On the morning of December 28, General Byron handed Avery a copy of President Roosevelt 's order. Avery denounced it as "arbitrary," "coercive," and "illegal." Leaving Avery at his desk, General Byron took over an adjoining office for himself and converted the company's auditorium into a huge office for his clerks and advisers. Meanwhile, Avery was informing the press that "I am going to work daily unless they throw me out bodily. I am still running the place."

During the afternoon, army officers under Byron's command moved into \Yards' plants in other cities, executing carefully prepared takeover plans. Employees at the San Rafael store had been on strike for nineteen days. When the army arrived, the strike promptly ended and the pickets marched off, waving American flags.

After the army took over the Denver operation, a clerk played a phonograph record of a song named "The Army Made a Man Out of Me" over the public-address system three times before the commanding officer ordered it stopped.

By the end of the week, it was clear that it was General Byron who was running Ward & Co., although with extreme difficulty. During those early days, Avery seems to have spent most of his waking hours in his office conferring with his lawyers. Company officials treated the army

r

•

Courtesy Montgomery Ward & Co. Chicaqo Sun photo

no better than they had treated the Department of Commerce during the first seizure, refusing to cooperate and to turn over records. Army officers had to ferret out what they needed. And, until the Signal Corps installed an army switchboard, General Byron and his staff used a pay telephone in one of the corridors.

Alleging many acts of interference by company officials with the War Department's activities, the government went to the district court in Chicago to seek a restraining order against Avery and others. Again, the company sought a court order to oust the army from its property.

In January 1945, Judge Philip L. Sullivan, who had been appointed to the bench by President Roosevelt, ruled that the president's seizure order was not valid, but he allowed the army to continue to run the seized property pending appeal of his decision. In June, a circuit court of appeals reversed the district court and ruled that the seizure was legal. The company promptly asked the Supreme Court to review its case. While the litigation proceeded, the army put into effect most of the War Labor Board's orders.

The war ended, but the seizure did not, even though the \!\Tar Department recommended its immediate termination. For some reason, President Harry S. Truman delayed for about two months, until October 1945. On the clay the army moved out, a corporal, his arms folded over his chest a la Avery, was carried out into the street by two of \!\lards' clerks-probably a gag arranged by the news photographers. It

The second union vote. Clerks from the National Labor Relations Board with ballot boxes for the May 9, 1944, elections, in which Wards' employees again voted overwhelmingly for the union.

seemed to many an appropriate symbol of the termination of the seizure.

As soon as the army left, Avery set about to undo its accomplishments. Down came the union bulletin boards that the army had installed. Out went the maintenance-of-membership and clues checkoff arrangements which the army had put into effect. Five dismissed workers whom the army had rehired were fired again.

Union agents began passing out leaflets attacking the company, talking strike, and berating the army for not having given employees retroactive pay raises.

One War Department official was reported as saying, "Hell, Wards would have stopped the checkoff and maintenance of membership if we'd stayed here until the Second Coming.

That's why the whole business was such a farce. \Ve haven't accomplished a damn thing."

Nobody contradicted him. The union was in the same plight it had been in before the seizure.

But it seems probable that if nothing else was accomplished by the seizure, it helped prolong the life of the War Labor Board, which did not go out of business until the end of 1945.

With the end of the seizure, the litigation became mo?t. The Supreme Court accordingly denied the company's petition for review and never ruled on the merits of the case.

Chicago Hist ory

27

Chicago's Pier

BY BERNARD R. KOGAN

Navy Pier may have a bright new future ahead but) as you will see) it will be hard to come up with any really new ideas for it.

1923, at the end of his second consecutive term as mayor of Chicago, William Hale "Big Bill the Builder" Thompson published Eight Years of Progress, a brochure which loudly proclaimed the completion and administration of Municipal Pier, a steel, concrete, and glass structure extending more than three thousand feet into Lake Michigan from the foot of Grand Avenue. How what we now call Navy Pier came to be built in the first place; how it played its part in two world wars; how it almost became what l\fayor Thompson's booklet extravagantly tagged it: "a modem Sans Souci-a veritable 'palace without a care'-where fresh air, sunshine, free concerts and entertainments under idea l conditions were gratuitously dispensed"; how it eventually housed a navy training center and then a university known to its students as "Harvard on the Rocks''-all these matters belong to the story of an authentic bit of Chicagoana, a landmark almost as well known as the Water Tower.

The idea of enlarging Chicago's harbors and building municipal piers goes back at least to Mayor Fred Busse's term in the early 1900s, but nothing much resulted from the early plans. On February 7, 1912, Mayor Carter H. Harrison II's Harbor and Subway Commission submitted a detailed proposal for the improvement of Harbor District No. 1, which included the area near the mouth of the Chicago River. The plan was passed by the City Council, and Chicagoans

IN

Bernard R. Kogan is professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and the brother of Herman Kogan.

28

Chi cago Histo ry

approved a $5,000,000 bone\ issue for financing "initial harbor developments." After a few wrangles over the federal government's role in improving breakwaters designed to protect the projected piers, construction of "Outer Harbor Municipal Pier No. 2"-as Navy Pier was first known- began. The first of twenty thousand Oregon timber pilings was sunk into the lake floor in April 1914, and building operations were virtually completed when the Pier opened to the public on June 25, 1916.

0£ five piers originally proposed, only one was built, at a cost of $4,500,000-by no means a piddling sum in 1916. The hypothetical Pier No. 1 would have been 2,500 feet long and located just south of Pier No. 2. Three other structures, of the same length, would have been spaced out north of Pier No. 2 extending to Chicago Avenue.

Pier o. 2 was planned for freight and passengers, as well as for summer recreation. The over-all purpose of the system of piers was, in the words of the builders, "not merely to restore Chicago's prestige as the chief terminal for water-borne traffic on the upper lakes, but . . . ultimately to fulfill its manifest destiny as the greatest inland seaport in the world." Another purpose was to divert water traffic from the Chicago River and thus eliminate costly and timeconsuming raising and lowering of the river bridges.

The completed Pier consisted of the Head House at the west end; twin double-decked Freight and Passenger buildings, each 100 feet wide, running 2,340 feet eastward from the Head House and separated by an 80-foot roadway; and a recreation pier, 660 feet long, at the extreme east encl. The recreation area included

The recreation area at the Pier's east end, shortly after it opened in 1916.

a Terminal Building, a 3,500-seat Concert Hall, and a Shelter Building which linked the two.

The Pier as a whole was 3,040 feet long and 292 feet wide.

The three-story Terminal Building contained a cafeteria, concession stands, an emergency hospital, and rest rooms. The Shelter Building, an open pavilion equipped with tables and chairs and providing convenient refuge from heat and rain, had two decks and a roof garden. On either side of the Concert Hall was a 165-foot observation tower. The lower decks of the north and south transverse buildings were designed for freight handling, and the upper decks for passengers. The Grand Avenue streetcar proceeded up a ramp into an opening in the Head House and then in a loop around the inner court of the Pier at the level of the passenger deck. Excursionists could alight at particular spots along the five-eighth of a mile route where their ships were docked.

In 1916, the Pier was the largest structure of its kind in the world, a distinction it no longer holds. The 1975 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records identifies Southend Pier in Essex, England, as the world's longest "pleasure pier." Completed in 1929, it is 1.33 miles in length. The longest pier of any kind is the Damman Pier in El Hasa, Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf. This 6.79-mile structure, completed in 1950, consists of a main pier, a steel trestle pier, and a rock-filled causeway.

Chicago's Navy Pier inevitably invites comparison with the famed piers of Atlantic City, New Jersey, designed excl usi vel y for recreation.

Steel Pier, the longest of these, is more than 500 feet shorter than Navy Pier. The Million Dollar Pier is next in size: 1,700 feet. Central Pier, once the longest, at 2,700 feet, has been damaged by fires and . is now only one-third its original length. Steeplechase Pier, known for its amusement rides, is 1,500 feet long.

Chicago Hist ory

29

Navy Pier

Navy Pier assumed its characteristic features by the end of World \\Tar I. Some freight and passenger service began operating early: the Northern Michigan steamship line ran excursion boats to lake ports in Michigan even before the Pier's formal opening. Some shipping continued during the war, and the public was admitted for the usual recreational fare as well as for patriotic plays, assemblies, and concerts.

The Pier also housed several regiments of soldiers and a United States 1aval Auxiliary Reserve school with an enrollment of 2,100, as well as Red Cross and "home defense" units.

The Pier's "golden age" extended roughly from 1918 to 1930. During the summer seasonsfrom Memorial Day to.Labor Day-the recreation pier was open from 8 A.M. until midnight.

The Drama League and the Junior Drama League presented plays and pageants in the Concert Hall (or Auditorium-the two names were used interchangeably). Concerts of serious, popular, and military band music were given, and audiences participated in community singing sponsored by the Civic Music Association.

A small children's playground was equipped with slides, teeter-totters, and sand boxes. And for the entire family, there was a merry-goround, a Ferris wheel, a "whip," penny arcades, weight-guessers, photographers, and spacious boardwalks along the outer sides of each of the Freight and Passenger buildings. Iost memorable of all were the small launches which carried passengers from the docks at the east end to Lincoln and Jackson parks. The fares were 25¢ one way, 35¢ for the round trip.

One of the most popular attractions was dancing in the Concert Hall. Moralists fulminated over the "undesirable elements" who were descending upon the Pier, but the dance program, featuring competent bands which played for 5¢ a number plus one encore, caught on from the first.

During its heyday, the Pier always maintained some kind of art gallery. In the early years, it was located in a small area in back of 30

Chicago History

the Concert Hall. A first showing of sixty paintings in "the only known picture gallery in the world on a pier" was a great success. Forty of the paintings, all of them by Chicagoans, were loaned by the Society for the Encouragement of Local Art and twenty by the l\Iunicipal Art League.

The Roof Garden invariably moved Mayor Thompson's publicity staff to lyric prose: From this point a truly Venetian scene presents itself as the rays of the sun lose themselves in a gorgeous sunset over the boats and piers in the distance. It is a fine place to go if you wish to forget your cares and worries and look at the brighter side o{ things.

Among the notable events of the "golden age" were Mayor Thompson's Pageants of Progress, held on the Pier during the post-war depression of 1921 and 1922. These were minor world's fairs, sequels to the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and forerunners of the Century of Progress of 1933 and 1934. The first Pageant, which proved to be a success in every way, ran from July 30 through August 14, attracting a million visitors and almost six hundred exhibitors and netting an income of $355,000.

Over a million dollars worth of orders was taken for merchandise displayed in the 1hree miles of exhibits.

On opening day, Norman Ro s, recent Olympic swimming champion, won the thirteenth annual Illinois Athletic Club Chicago River marathon swim from the dock just r.orth of the Pier, around the east encl, and up the river to the Wells Street bridge. Each clay had its own theme-Education Day, Illinois Day, Dixie Highway Day-and a special daily feature was choral singing by groups stationed on barges off the east end of the Pier. There were also daily pigeon, airplane, and motorboat races, demonstrations of fire fighting, and nightly fireworks.

Sergeants Pat Love and G. A. Shoemaker alternated in performing the then-daring feat of jumping by parachute from an airplane 2,000 feet in the air; on a record-breaking August 7,

when· a quarter of a million people attended the Pageant, Love crashed into the north tower on his way down and was killed.

Ending each day's activities was a fire dive by Jack "The Human Torch" Turner. Nightly, Turner ignited his gasoline-soaked swim suit, waited for a moment while he blazed away, and then jumped. On the closing day, visitors were treated to a double display of fireworks, as well as to Turner's dives.

The second Pageant's activities were similar.

This time there were Dental, Milk, Moose, South Chicago, Nurses, Typewriter, and Ford days, among others; the marathon swim was won by newcomer Richard Howell, Norman Ross finishing second; three bands and an organ supplied music each day; and an "opera extravaganza" entitled "Push Along" was produced in the Concert Hall. An added gimmick in the parachute jump was Ethel Dare, who bailed out from 3,000 feet. On August 7 and 8, the International Radio Congress attracted many notables, including Charles Steinmetz, who read an original paper. And on the 17th, a woman passenger aboard the steamer Christopher Columbus was shot and killed by antiaircraft fire from the Pier directed at planes "attacking" in a simulated battle. Ma Streeter, widow of the celebrated squatter and self-styled owner of most of the near-north lakefront area still referred to as Streeterville, was also in attendance. In Ma's eyes, the Pier and its environs were her property, and she was merely permitting the city to stage the Pageant on it. To pick up a dollar or two, she tied up her houseboat, the Vamoose, just south of the Head House and conducted a busy trade in hot dogs.

The second Pageant, which ran from July 29 through August 20, 1922, had started off badly when, on the evening before the official opening, federal agents raided the Roof Garden and arrested several waiters for erving liquor. For some time, evidently, the administrators of the Garden were paying only lip service to the Volstead Act and to the principle of "decorous

Chicago H istorica l Socie ty

Mayor William Hale Thompson with Evelyn Slader, Queen of the Stockyards District and one of the contestants for Queen of the Pageant of Progress, 1921.

Chicago History

31

Municipal Pier. The view is from the south.

dancing." "On week-ends," the raiders reported, "the roof garden has been just as zippy as the soft drinks." On weekdays, entertainment was furnished by "a rather ordinary company of five principals and eight chorus girls"; but on Saturdays and Sundays, the federal men charged, "the programs have been enlivened by the contortions of an uncommonly agile dancer."

The raid on the Roof Garden was not the only excitement caused by Prohibition at the Pier. By one account, avy Pier was the scene of the only successful raid on rum runners in Chicago's waters, thanks to the feud between the Capone and Moran gangs and the work of Capt. John 0. Anderson and his men. A Capone mobster found that Moran's men were bringing in $75,000 worth of choice Scotch from Canada in a sixty-foot motorboat which was to dock at the Pier.. The mobster tipped off Anderson, the commander of Chicago's Coast Guard station, who watched with a crew of armed men as the liquor was being unloaded . A volley of gunshots followed, the bootleggers ned, and Anderson took possession of the Scotch and the motorboat.

The second Pageant also suffered from the effects of a municipal traction strike which lasted throughout the first week in August. Even though the original closing elate was extended for six days, the total attendance was less than half the first year's and the profits were considerably less. The prediction that the Pageant, originally planned as an annual event, would not be repeated in 1923 became a certainty when William Dever succeeded Thompson as mayor in April of that year.

32

Chicago History

Radio broadcasting came to the Pier in 1926 when the Chicago Federation of Labor established its pioneer studio and transmitter for WCFL, The Voice of Labor, in the north tower, next to the Concert Hall. The station broadcast on a frequency of 1,500 watts and paid the city a ren ta! of $ 1 a year. WCFL moved its studio from the Pier to the American Furniture Mart in 1931, but its transmitter remained in the north tower until 1935, when a new one was built in Downers Grove. Among \VCFL's featured artists during its first years were Marian and Jim Jordan, then known as The Metropolitan Entertainers but later to achieve fame as Fibber McGee and Molly. l\Iunicipal Pier was changed to Navy Pier"N a val Pier" was also considered-by resolution of the City Council on December 28, 1927.

The Council voted down an earlier proposal to rename the Pier in honor of Woodrow \Nilson and decided instead to establish it as a memorial to Chicagoans and other Midwesterners who had served in the navy during World \ ,Var I, as Soldier Field had been made a rr.emorial to army veterans. Plans called for collecting $100,000 for a huge bronze statue of a sailor to be placed on concrete piles in the lake east of the Pier, but the sum was evidently never raised.

Navy Pier became the official name on October 2 5, 1 931.

By then, however, the Pier had begun its decline as a commercial and recreational structure.

Steamship lines were still operating excursion boats to lake ports in Michigan-Ludington, Charlevoix, Mackinac Island, Petoskey, St. Joseph, and others-but there was less and less

-·~· •

I

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Chicago Historical Society

\

traffic; in any case, even in the good years, a number of these lines had docked their vessels in the Chicago River rather than at the Pier.

The decline in passenger traffic on the lake was clue not only to the Great Depression but also to the rise of the automobile. By 1930, it was simpler and faster to motor to St. Joseph or Benton Harbor than to travel by water. The thrill of a lake ride was superseded by a new kind of transportation thrill. The recreational facilities at the east encl also declined as the automobile carried more and more families to more novel vacation spots. Lake freighters were superseded by huge trucks capable of transporting cargoes as large as livestock and motor vehicles. Michigan fruit, for example, which had formerly been carried by water, was now driven in cheaper and faster by truck. Moreover, a great deal of the commercial traffic that did remain moved southward to the Lake Calumet area.

One particular calamity, the sinking of the 65-foot launch Favorite, on .July 28, 1927, helped end the once-thriving small-boat traffic between the Pier and Lincoln and Jackson parks. The Favorite, proceeding in mid-afternoon on its routine run from the Fullerton Avenue clock in Lincoln Park, ran into a squall off North Avenue and cap ized with more than eighty passengers aboard. Though more than fifty persons were rescued by volunteer swimmers-including Johnny ·w eissmuller-one man, ten women, and ixteen children drowned in Chicago's worst marine disaster since the sinkingoftheEastlandin 1915.

Valiant efforts were made to restore some of

the cultural and educational features of the recreation pier in the 1930s. Art shows continued; in July 1940, 555 artists exhibited a thousand paintings. In 1935 and 1936, ambitious plans were made for municipal opera in the Concert Hall, but it failed to materialize.

A seven or eight-week season of grand opera at popular prices-50¢ and $1-was announced in 1935, but only three performances were actually presented. The 1936 season consisted of only four evenings of opera. One bright note: at the same time that recreation and shipping were declining, the Pier was becoming a thriving convention center. Some of these events, as we shall see later on, were truly exciting.

But exhibitions, recreation, and commercial and passenger traffic ceased altogether in 1941, when, with the nation facing the threat of war, practically the entire Pier was leased to the United States Navy, which soon established a series of training schools. On August 10, 1941, the entire area officially closed to the public; the Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, and hot dog stands were moved out; and work on building the training center began. On October 5, 184 sailors and 75 Marines, the first enrollees in a service school to train aviation machinist's mates and metalsmiths, moved into their new quarters. By the end of 1942, ten thousand students were in attendance; by October 1946, just before the radio materiel school moved out, some sixty thousand recruits-including twelve hundred Marines, as well as British, Canadian, Brazilian, and Pernvian sailors-had been trained on the Pier.

The navy built a drill hall and a hangar Chicago History

33

Streetcars traveled in a loop along the passenger decks of the Pier's inner court, 1921.

building to the southwest and northwest of the Pier. An additional structure, designed primarily as an auxiliary mess hall , was cons•ructed above the roadway between the north and south transit buildings just west of the Terminal Building. The Shelter Building was bricked up; its second floor became the school's main mess hall and the first was turned into the galley, or kitchen.

After V-J Day, commercial interests began pressing the navy to move out and make the Pier available for four particularly big trade shows which were expected to bring about ninety million dollars into the city in 1946.

The navy had planned to vacate in 1947 but finally agreed to leave a year earlier. But just as there had been a war emergency in 1941, there was now an unprecedented emergency in higher education. To the recent graduates of Chicago high schools were added swarms of exservicemen who wished to use their educational privileges under the GI Bill of Rights. Almost twenty-three thousand students were expected at the University of Illinois in Champaignover eight thousand more than capacity-and the university asked to lease the Pier, with its navy school still intact, for an undergraduate branch for at least half of this surplus. The convention-hungry businessmen reluctantly acceded to this request after Mayor Edward J. 34

Chi cago History

Kelly assured them that the university would take only a little more than one-third of the Pier.

With dramatic speed, the university prepared the school for four thousand students, most of them veterans, and the first fall semester began on October 21. Captain Charles Caveny, who had been the executive and education officer of the navy training center, became the dean of the undergraduate division.

A reputable faculty of close to three hundred was assembled, and courses were offered in liberal arts, science, commerce, engineering, architecture, and physical education.

The university constructed classrooms and large lecture halls in the auxiliary structure west of the Terminal Building and converted the navy galley into a cafeteria The main mess hall became a giant library containing "the largest reading-room in the state of Illinois." One of the brigs-prisons to landlubbers-as well as other convenient recesses provided space for thousands of student lockers.

The Auditorium, which the navy had used for a variety of purposes, from prize fights to educational films, served as the assembly hall and women's gymnasium. The drill hall, purchased in 1947, became the men's gymnasium.

The Chicago Undergraduate Division of the University of Illinois-as the two-year campus

Navy Pier

Chicago Historical Society

Sailors training on the fireboat Fred Busse at Navy Pier during World War II.

was officially known-rented its quarters on the Pier for almost twenty years. Finally, in February 1965, the university moved to Circle Campus, a multimillion dollar, thirteen-building educational plant on the near West Side, at Harrison and Halsted streets. During its long tenancy, the university had as neighbors the Traffic Division of the Chicago Police Department and the Traffic Violations Bureau of the Municipal Court of Chicago, both of which moved out in 1956 to a centralized traffic fenter on North La Salle Street. The North Pier Terminal Company, the other principal Pier tenant, has remained there to this day.

Once the university moved out, the original drill hall became the Chicago Fire Department Gymnasium and began functioning, as it does today, as part of l\Iayor Richard J. Daley's Youth Foundation, providing athletic facilities for Chicago's residents. An outdoor swimming pool and two tennis courts complete the sports complex.

Great Lakes shipping was restored to the Pier in 1954, after thirteen years of inactivity.

At that time, Martin Oettershagen, deputy administrator of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, predicted that the completion of the Seaway project in 1959 would bring a great number of foreign ships to the Port of Chicago. Anticipating the Seaway operation, the city began planning for the expected increase as early as 1957. By 1961, after Seaway traffic had been proceeding for two years, a new dock, 2,340 feet long and 96 feet wide, had been completed along the south transit building. To service it, a new transit warehouse, fifty feet wide, was placed on top of the dock. Two and one-half miles of track were laid down in the over-all Pier area to facilitate loading and discharging.

A promenade deck was also constructed atop the new south dock warehouse to permit Chicagoans and tourists to watch the loading and unloading of cargo, an idea which Port Director John J. Manley credited to Mayor Daley.

Chicago History

35

Chicago Historical Society Photo by J. Sherwin Murphy

"The mayor came out and saw how impressive the view was," Manley reported, and "he said, 'the people of Chicago ought to see this. Can't you bu ild an observation platform or something of the kind?' " The deck is open during the navigation season from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M . There is no admiss ion charge, and an average of a hundred thousand visitors a year pass through the deck's turnstiles.

Another project for attracting people back to avy Pi:er never got off the ground. The Chicago Sky Tower Corporation announced plans in 1963 to build a S12,000,000, 965-foot towercomplete with restaurants, shops, a theater, and observation points-at the east end of the Pier. B ut the Federal Aviation Agency refused to allow it because it would have stood in the flight paths of Meigs Field, Chicago's downtown airport. There was some discussion about locating the tower on the west end of the Pier or on other lakefront sites, but the project was never begun.

By the early 1960s, the Pier was capable of berthing six full-sized ocean-going freighters simultaneously, and frequently did. The number of ships docking at the Pier rose dramatically, though the great majority of vessels pro36

Ch icago Hist ory

"Harvard on the Rocks"-the University of Illinois Chicago campus on the Pier in the 1950s, before its move to Circle Campus.

ceeded to the Lake Calumet and Calumet Harbor facilities in South Chicago. In 1960, 91 overseas ships tied up at the Pier, and 187 docked there the following year. By 1963, official municipal publications were identifying Chicago as the "greatest inland port in the world. " But the peak year was 1964, when 259 ships were berthed-principally British, German, Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish, though 13 other foreign countries were represented-and 311,404 tons of general cargo were handled. An equally dramatic decline in ship arrivals occurred during the late 1960s, though the drop in total tonnage was less severe. The last published report of the office of the Port of Chicago shows only So foreign vessels tied up at the Pier in 1971, and the number has gone down progressively. In 1974, the most recent year for which accurate figures are available, only 25 freighters clocked at the Pier.

Port Director Verner J. Soballe attributes the continuing decline to world and national

Daily News Collection Chicago Historical Society

A later fair, a later mayor, and another queen. Queen Elizabeth of England and Mayor Richard J. Daley visiting the International Trade Fair, 1959. Note the thousands of pennants decorating the fac,ade erected for the occasion.

economic conditions, but he anticipates eventual recovery.

Navy Pier, as we have said, has served as a meeting place and convention cenLer from its inception. With its 304,000 square feet of exposition space and its proximity to transportation and hotel facilities, the Pier has been particularly suitable for industrial trade fairs. After the Pageants of Progress of the 1920s, the most memorable was the Interna tional Trade Fair of 1959, which ran from July 2 to July 18 and attracted almost a million visitors, including Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip o( England. In honor of the Queen's visit, the U.S. avy sent a flotilla of thirty-two ships into Chicago harbor. To embelli h the Pier itself, the city mounted fifty thousand alternating orange and red pennants and yellow gold banners and festooned the entrance ramp with flags representing all the nations participating in the fair.

Among ten expositions held on the Pier in

1960 was the first Holiday Folk Festival, which featured the cultures, foods, and manufactured products of the countries represented by Chicago's many ethnic groups. This popular municipal undertaking has since turned into an annual event.

Many of the conventions held at Navy Pier transferred to McCormick Place after its completion in 1960. On January 16, 1967, however, McCormick Place was totally destroyed by fire, putting it out of commission for four years, during which time Navy Pier took up the slack and kept many conventions in Chicago. The Pier housed sixteen separate exhibitions in 1970, the greatest number in its history. In January 1971, the rebuilt McCormick Place was officially opened to commercial trade, and most of the conventions returned there. Currently, the Pier services occasional trade exhibitions and the annual Folk Festival, as well as special events like the visit in the summer of 1975 of the Bicentennial Freedom Train, which displayed memorabilia of American history.

The future of Navy Pier is uncertain. St. Lawrence Seaway foreign shipping should increase in time. The Pier will continue to host small shows as an adjunct to McCormick Place Chicago History

37

Foreign ships at Navy Pier, 1962. The Japanese Muneshima Maru is at the right.

and other convention centers. There is considerable talk about restoring the amusement features of the glory years and perhaps even digging some of the Chicago Transit Authority's ancient streetcars out of storage to provide transportation to the Pier and along its inner court. Such long-term restoration seems unlikely in this clay of television and the two-car family, but preparations are already underway for at least a tentative, one-year return to the old times. The Chicago Building Commission has assumed ti tie to the Pier and, under the direction of Chief Architect .Jerome Butler, is carrying out a renovation of the east end at an estimated cost of more than $7,000,000.

The work includes repairing and remodeling the Auditorium, the Shelter Building, and the Terminal Building, as well as the creation of small parks, plazas, and promenades on the east encl and along the entire length of the Pier.

Colonel .Jack A. Reilly, l\!Iayor Daley's Director 38

Chicago Hi story

of Special Events, hopes that all construction will be completed in tim e for an international trade fair at the Pier in .July 1976, which will constitute the city's major celebration of the United States Bicentennial. At this writing, the U. S. Energy Research and Development Administration has approYed a $300,000 plan to install 7,750 square feet of solar heat collectors on the roof of the north building of the Pier.

The solar energy would be used to help heat the air and water in the Administration Building.

The short-term revival may indeed develop into something more extensive, but this is for the city planners and the people of Chicago to determine. In any case, whether its decades are numbered or instead it lasts "for centuries," as its builders boasted, Big Bill Thompson's Sans Souci on the lake remains a Chicago institution, massively horizontal against the background of the ever-changing city.

How the Cubs Got Their Name

BY ARTHUR R. AHRENS

We have ·been asked more than once how the Cubs got their name.

Well) here is the answer- along with an explanation of how they got their other fifteen. of major league baseball, many teams have had unusual and colorful nicknames. In the early 1900s, the Boston Red Sox, for example, were known as the Puritans. Their rivals, the Boston (now Atlanta) Braves, were once the Boston Beaneaters. The Los Angeles Dodgers, at various times during their residence in Brooklyn, marched under the banners of Bridegrooms, Superbas, and Robins.

But no team has had such a wide variety of names as the Chicago Cubs-no less than sixteen in its hundred years of existence.

Baseball was part of life in Chicago years before the Cubs were organized, although the origin of the sport itseH is still uncertain. It is usually claimed that the game was invented by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, but there is very little factual evidence LO support this contention. A more probable explanation is that baseball is an outgrowth of rounders, an eighteenth-century British game.

Whatever its origin, baseball most likely reached Chicago in the 1850s. On July 21, 1858, the amateur Chicago Base Ball Club held a convention at which the local teams adopted the rules of the Association and Congress of Base Ball Clubs of New York.

The Civil War temporarily halted the growth of organized baseball but, after 1865, the sport enjoyed an unprecedented boom. By 1868, there were many semiprofessional teams play-

THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY

Arthur R. Ahrens is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and has written articles for Baseball Digest and Baseball R eseai·ch Journal .

He lives a mile from Wrigley Field.

ing in and around the Chicago area, bearing such forgotten names as Unions, Excelsiors, Eurekas, Atlantics, Ogdens, and Garden Citys.

In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings startled the baseball world by announcing that all their games would be played on a professional basis. Although Cincinnati's experiment was not a financial success-the team's net profit was $ 1.39-Chicago, not a city to be outdone, formed a professional ball club of its own in 1870. Because the team's uniforms included white hose, they were called the White Stockings.

The 1870 White Stockings lived up to their professional status, defeating opponents on a Southern tour by such scores as 75-12, 48-2, 11-1, 157-1, and 51--0. Later in the season, they twice defeated the powerful Cincinnati Reel Stockings.

In the ensuing months, professional ball clubs sprang up in several cities. With baseball enthusiasts clamoring for more professional contests, the ational Association of Professional Base Ball Players-known as the National Association-was formed in 1871. Keeping the name White Stockings, the Chicago club entered the league and contended for the championship until the final two weeks of the season.

Then, on October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed their lakefront ballpark, situated between Washington and Randolph streets.

The White Stockings were forced to play their last three games on the road and lost the championship.

The team lapsed into semiprofessional status until it re-entered the Association in 1874. The White Stockings of 1874 and 1875 were strictly "also-rans": the best Midwestern players had all gone to teams on the East Coast.

Ch icago Histo ry

39

Cubs

The Cubs were the Chicago White Stockings, National League champions, in 1880.

The National Association had also fallen on hard times. Scheduling was piecemeal, players jumped freely from one team to another, fans became increasingly rowdy, and gambling ran rampant. By 1875, game-throwing scandals had become widespread and, after only six years of existence, professional baseball was ready for reform.

Reform came, in February 1876, largely through the efforts of William Hulbert, who had become president of the Chicago team the previous June. The National Association was 40

Chicago History

disbanded in favor of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which still exists, and the White Stockings were completely reorganized under the managership of A. G. Spalding. The year 1876 is generally accepted as the founding elate of the Chicago National League Ball Club. Fittingly, the rejuvenated White Stockings won the National League's first pennant with such newly acquired stars as Spalding, Cap Anson, Ross Barnes, and Jim White.

In 1879, Cap Anson was appointed manager

and, during his reign, Chicago created baseball's first dynasty. Anson's men won pennants in 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, and 1886, and the name White Stockings-occasionally abbreviated to Whites-was worn with pride. Even when they did not finish on top, they always finished close to the championship.

Chicago's dominance began to fade after the St. Louis Browns of the American Association, then a major league, defeated the White Stockings in the 1886 championship series. Spalding, by then the Chicago club's president, blamed the defeat on the nighttime carousing of three star players-catcher Mike "King" Kelly, pitcher Jim McCormick, and outfielder George Gore-and he sold the rights to all of them.

Kelly's price, an unprecedented $10,000, created front-page headlines. Abner Dalrymple, a fading veteran who had once performed brilliantly, was also dealt away. TJ;ie loss of these established stars gave birth to the team's next nickname.

The following year, Anson recruited a number of youngsters to replace his former key players. Because of this, sports writers began calling the team the Colts, and--on one occasion-a Chicago Tribune account jokingly referred to the veteran players as "old horses."

Among the "old horses" was outfielder Billy Sunday, before he quit the game for the pulpit.

But the name Colts was only sometimes usedthe team was still usually referred to as the White Stockings, reflecting their uniforms of dark blue jerseys and kickers, white caps, and white hose.

In 1888, a new uniform was adopted: white jerseys and pants, blue lettering, blue capsand black socks. Accordingly, the White Stockings became the Black Stockings, although during 1888 and 1889, they were still often called the White Stockings and, sometimes, the ColLs. In the meantime, a revolt had been brewing.

A ballplayers' union had been formed in 1886, calling itself the Brotherhood of Professional

Base Ball Players. Among its major grievances were the salary limit and the reserve clause, which bound a player's services to a particular club until the club decided to trade, sell, or release him. While the National League acceded to some minor demands, it balked at abolishing the reserve clause and the salary limit.

Declaring lack of good faith on the part of the N a tional League, the Brotherhood formed the short-lived Players' League in 1890.

Since Chicago's German-speaking second baseman, Fred Pfeffer, was one of the leaders in the union movement, nearly all of the ·white Stockings jumped to the new league. Only three members of the Chicago club's 1889 roster were back the following year: Anson, Tom Burns, and Bill Hutchison. Anson wrote in his autobiography, A Ballplayer's Career, that: The defection of Tener, Williamson, Ryan, Pfeffer and others left me with a comparatively green team on my hands when the season of 1890 opened . . . the team was composed of a lot of half-broken "colts," many of whom were newcomers in the league, and with a reputation yet to make.

Because of the team's youth, the nickname , ,vhite Stockings was discarded almost completely, and the team became known as the Colts for the remainder of Anson's reign. In 1894, the Chicago Tribune made a half-hearted attempt at reviving the name ,,Vhite Stockings, but the effort failed miserably. By then, the team had fallen into the second division and displayed little similarity to the mighty White Stockings of the previous decade.

Eventually, the name of White Stockings was restored, but on a different franchise: the Chicago American League club founded by Charles Comiskey-the manager of the Chicago team of the Players' League-at the turn of the century. Almost immediately, the newspapers began shortening the name to "White Sox and, in 1904, the abbreviated version was officially adopted as the club nickname.

Meanwhile, the Colts had enjoyed first diviChicago History

41

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Chicago Historical Society

sion finishes in 1895 and 1896, but dropped to ninth place in 1897. In February 1898, Cap Anson was unceremoniously fired after twentytwo years of service and, for the next eight years, the sports writers kept coining new names for the team. Still called Colts during the early part of 1898, they became the Ex-Colts when Anson took a managerial post with the New York Giants. Since a number of early season games were rained out, they were also known briefly as the Rainmakers.

Both names died out quickly, however, as sports writers finally settled on Orphans, which seemed appropriate following the loss of their "father," Anson. The name Orphans stuck for the next three years.

In 1899, the team held spring training at a ranch in New Mexico about half-way between Deming and Silver City, and the sports writers began experimenting with names with a Western flavor. During that season, the newspapers often called them the Cowboys and the Rough Riders; one account even referred to them as the Desert Rangers.

The new century brought new problems, not only for Chicago but for the entire National League. The youthful American Leagueoriginally formed as the Western League, a 42

Chicago History

Members of the 1889 Chicago team that toured Europe, with their mascot, right . Cap Anson is seated front, second from the right; second baseman Fred Pfeffer, who took most of the team with him to the Players' League a year later, is at his left.

minor circuit-declared itself a major league in 1901. v\'hen the National League refused to recognize its new competitor, the youthful confederation retaliated by raiding the older league's clubs, luring away established stars with plush contracts.

The Chicago National League team was hard hit by the raids. No less than seven players of the 1900 squad, most of them regulars, moved to the American League in 1901. To make matters even worse, three of their former starsoutfielder Sam Mertes, and pitchers Clark Griffith and .Jimmy Callahan- were playing for the pennant-bound White Sox on the city's South Side, only a few miles away.

Their ranks decimated, the Orphans were quickly relabeled the Remnants, an appropriate appellation for the raggedy collection of untried rookies and washed-up has-beens who represented the club in 1901. They finished the season in sixth place with only 53 wins and 86 losses, escaping last place by only one game.

Cubs

Nevertheless, a name such as Remnants was too demeaning to last long, and it was dropped early the following season.

The American League raids continued in 1902, as Danny Green, Rube Waddell, Barry l\fcCormick, and Tullos Hartsell defected to the new circuit. Frank Selee, the team's new manager, emphasized youth in his rebuilding program; hence, a new name, the Cubs. As the weekly Sporting Life observed, "With the crowd of youth the National League club went on with their schedule, but the papers began calling the kid players 'cubs.'"

The new nickname first appeared in the Chicago Daily News of March 27, 1902, when · an unsigned sports column noted that "Frank Selee will devote his strongest efforts on the team work of the new Cubs this year." The name has sometimes been credited to sports reporter George Rice, at other times to Chris Sinsabaugh, a headline writer. In any case, Daily News sports editor Freel Hayner took a liking to the name, and that Chicago paper henceforth used it exclusively.

A month later, the Chicago Journal also began using the new name, although the other newspapers were not as quick. Since the team was young, the name Colts enjoyed a comeback for several years. The Tribune took the lead in reviving the old name, noting, on April 17, 1902, that "the present team is more generally composed of Colts than any which ever carried that name in Anson's day." The Chicago Evening Post also referred to the team as the Colts.

The Chicago Inter Ocean, on the other hand, used both Colts and Cubs, sometimes on the same sports page. Harvey Woodruff, a popular Chicago sports writer of the era, summed up all this confusion by writing "in 1902, 1903, and 1904, they were pretty generally known as Selee's Colts, although use of the word Cubs was gaining in popularity."

Other nicknames also appeared during this period. The Chicago Record-Herald called the team the Recruits in 1902 before switching to

Cubs the following year. During a trip East in May 1903, several players bought Panamastyle straw hats-with the result that, for about six weeks, the team was commonly referred to as the Panamas.

In 1905, the nickname Cubs gained ground.

The Inter Ocean shelved Colts and began using Cubs on a full-time basis. In May, the Tribune also dropped Colts, but substituted two other nicknames-Zephyrs and Nationals. The ;11ame Zephyrs lasted about a month and a half, but Nationals enjoyed a minor success, being frequently used well into 1907. The team was called the Fourth Nationals or Third Nationals or whatever, depending on its standing in the pennant race, On August 1, 1905, manager Frank Selee resigned and was replaced by Frank Chance.

Selee had preferred the established title of Colts, but Chance liked Cubs better and his preference spurred the use of the new name.

Around the same time, Cap Anson organized a semi professional team called Anson's Colts, further dissociating the old name from Chicago's National League club. The use of the name Colts declined rapidly thereafter, although the Evening Post continued to use it as late as 1906.

During the winter of 1905 and 1906, the club was purchased by Charles A. Murphy, giving rise to a new nickname, Spuds. The name lasted only a year, however, since it was actually more of a tongue-in-cheek Irish joke than anything else.

By 1907, the team was almost universally known as Cubs-even in the previously reticent Tribune-although the name Nationals was still used occasionally. That year, the name Cubs first appeared on the team's scorecards; prior to that time, only the word Chicago was used. The same additional identification was adopted by the annual Spalding and Reach baseball guides, which heretofore had simply referred to the team as the Chicagos.

Finally, in 1908, a Cub emblem was put on the team's uniforms-a large "C" enclosing a Chicago History

43

An overflow crowd whoops it up at West Side Park in 1908, the last year the Cubs won a World Series.

bear cub carrying a baseball bat. It is probable that the name Cubs was made official about that time. The fact that the team had won three straight pennants and had just won two world's series-in 1907 and 1908-solidified its new name even further.

Since then, there has been only one attempt at renaming the team. In 1913, when Johnny Evers, their popular second baseman, was named manager, the newspapers began calling them Trojans after Evers' home town, Troy, New York. Among those who sometimes called the team the Trojans was Ring Lardner, who 44

Ch icago History

then wrote the Tribune's column, "In the Wake of the News."

Had Evers enjoyed a lengthy reign as manager, it is possible that the team might be known as the Trojans today. Although Evers piloted the team to a third-place finish, he was dismissed after only one year, and the name his leadership inspired went with him. Evers returned to manage the Cubs in 1921, but the name he had inspired did not.

From 1914 on, Cubs has been the team's only name, although writers will occasionally throw in a variation like Bruins or Cubbies.

Bishop Hill: Utopia on the Prairie

BY PAUL ELMEN

Perfection) the residents of the utopian colony of Bishop Hill found out) was no easier to achieve in Illinois than it was in Sweden.

IN THE SUMMER of

1846, the Chicago correspondent for Harbinger, the newspaper published by the Brook Farm utopian colony in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, sent his editor a description of some noteworthy travelers he had seen camping just outside his window: I must write to you 0£ an interesting band 0£ immigrants who have been encamped for the last three days under my windows. They are Swedes, in number about sixty-five. There was a look about these people which I have never seen among the masses of European immigrants who have passed through Chicago since I have lived here. It was an expression of patient, intelligent endurance; all had it, except the young children . . .. They walked erect and firm, looking always hopeful and contented, though very serious.

The immigrants outside his window were Janssonists, religious utopians on their way from Sweden to their destination at Bishop Hill, Illinois, some one hundred sixty miles west of Chicago. They were much like other visionaries who passed through Chicago in the mid-nineteenth century-the Fourierists on their way to Wisconsin; the Amana colonists on their way to Iowa; the Mormons bound for Nauvoo, Illinois, and the Bethel people asking directions for Missouri. All had the same gleam in their eyes, the outward sign of their secret hope that somewhere further west was a hallowed spot where a settlement modeled after Paradise could be established.

Paul Elmen, professor of moral theology and ethics at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, is the author of Wh eat Flour M essiah, a biography of Eric J ansson to be published by the Southern Illinois University Press later this year; and "Yesterday's Communes," a book review essay in the last issue of Chicago History.

In their religious beliefs, they resembled most the Akionists, the pious band portrayed in Vilhelm Moberg's novel and movie, The Emigrants. Like Moberg's small party, the Janssonists were Perfectionists-they believed that once God had granted salvation, He would also grace them with the ability to lead a life _absolutely free of sin. This belief brought both groups into conflict with Lutheranism, the state church of Sweden, which taught that even after conversion the Christian was still in a state of imperfect holiness and needed to confess his other sins and ask for forgiveness daily. Moberg's fictional pastor, Brusander, was modeled on Pastor N. A. Arenander, the real-life pastor in Osterunda who tried to suppress the Janssonists with brute force .

At first, some of the Swedish clergy were sympathetic to the J anssonists, thinking that they might bring a warm, personal piety into the framework of traditional worship, and many lay people, particularly the liisare (readers) in the northern provinces, clutched eagerly at this new faith which promised to them the holiness for which they had so often prayed.

Eric Jansson's ostensible errand when he traveled north to Halsingland was to sell wheat flour, a welcome substitute for the darker rye flour which grew in colder climates, but his real purpose was to gather about himself a circle of true believers who would passionately commit themselves to what theologians call Perfectionism. Wherever Jansson went, crowds gathered in farmyards and farm houses. By the hundreds, they pledged to him their lives and fortunes.

The prospect of a lay movement, grounded on a dubious theology that threatened to d istract the Lutheran faithful, deeply disturbed both the civil and the church leaders. Various unsettling religious enthusiasms had sifted in from European countries to the south ever since Ch icago History

45

Courtesy Swedish Pioneer Historical Society Photo by $Oren Hallgren

Planting Corn at Bishop Hill , painting by Olof Krans now on display at the Colony Church at Bishop Hill.

the eighteenth century and, as early as 1726, the Swedish Parliament had issued a Conventicle Edict which forbade any religious gatherings which were not supervised by the local pastor.

The Edict had never been strictly enforced.

Now, over a century later, some, like Pastor Arenander, thought it high time to begin using it. Others believed that the movement, if ignored, would expire of its own extravagance and that any show of opposition would only acid fuel to its fire.

A dramatic series of book burnings finally exhausted the patience of the state church and ended any chance of reconciliation. Eric Jansson taught his followers that books which the Lutherans regarded almost as sacred-works by Luther, Arndt, Nohrborg, and others-were in reality works of the devil, since they warned against any state of unqualified perfection. The J anssonists therefore staged several public bonfires and sang hymns while the flames roared.

Such insolence was not Lo be tolerated, and Jansson and other ringleaders were arrested and jailed several times. But it was difficult to make any charge stick-except that they had been singing hymns and preaching without the sanction of the local church-charges which hardly warranted imprisonment in a social climate not quite dedicated to a crusade against heresy.

An accusation brought against Jansson by Karin Ersdotter, a Delsbo girl locally known as Bos-Karin, promised to prove more popular.

She spread the story that while she was tending cattle at a summer pasturage south of Delsbo, Jansson had come to her and made several 46

Chicago History

shocking proposals. The gossip reached Lars Landgren, Delsbo's sturdy pastor, who also believed in direct confrontation. He held a church court to review the charges, and several witnesses corroborated Bos-Karin's story. Jansson did not deny that some such talk had occurred, but he said that the girl had deliberately twisted the account. The truth was, Jansson said, that she had attempted to seduce him and that he, in turn, had spoken the words simply to test her character. In the encl, since all parties agreed that nothing had come of the conversation, Jansson was freed. His last trial, in the fall of 18.15, was also held at Delsbo; again no decision was made. He was transferred to another jurisdiction but, on his way there, managed to escape from his custodians. He went into hiding and later, in disguise, skied across the border to Norway. He finally escaped by ship from Oslo and, by tortuous means, arrived with his family in New York.

Believing that the charges against their leader were accusations trumped up by jealous adversaries, twelve hundred of J ansson's followers prepared for the embarkation to the United States. One of their leaders, Olof Olsson, who had gone over in 1 845 to scout the new land, had sent back letters replete with praise of America-its freedom, fertile lands, and friendly people. The Janssonists sold their homes, land, and all their possessions except what they

Bishop Hill

carried along as baggage, made their way to Swedish ports, and booked passage for New York. The "American dream"-a curious amalgam of fact, fancy, romantic longing, and frustration-was being built.

Their ships faced a long, difficult, and dangerous passage across the Atlantic, since none of them was built to carry passengers. Some of them sank. The schooner Betty Catharine was last seen off Oresund; it presumably foundered in heavy seas with sixty-five J anssonists aboard .

The brig Ceres was washed ashore at Oregrund and, though no one drowned, the voyage had to be abandoned. The brig Carolina was wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland.

Through all these trials, the J anssonists maintained the attitude of patient endurance which the Harbinger reporter noticed. One of their hymns, all of which had been written by Jansson, shows the source of their high spirits in the face of disaster: Should we not suffer from the sword We never shall have peace, What other way to serve the Lord In evil times like these?

We must expect a savage blow From Satan's angry men, Their curse is that they'll never know Our Savior's regimen.

Al l the Swedes who came through New York at this time were greeted by Olaf Hedstrom, a Methodist minister who presided over a seamen's mission in the harbor. He had a brother, Jonas Hedstrom, also a l\Iethodist minister, who had [ound his way to the Illinois territory and who wrote glowing accounts of the lovely farmland available in that area. The .Janssonists themselves decided to make Illinois their home, though the journey promised to be long and tortuous. They booked passage on a river steamer which chugged up the Hudson River as far as Albany, ew York. Once there, they wrestled their luggage aboard a canalboat which traveled

the length of the Erie Canal to Buffalo. Thence they boarded a paddle steamer which worked its way through the Great Lakes and finally arrived at Chicago.

The .J anssonists were recovering from this ordeal when the Harbinger reporter saw them.

They were catching their breath before setting out on the last lap-some on horseback or carriages, others on the packet boat which, at least after April 1848, took them clown the Illinois & Michigan Canal to La Salle. A few intencl,ecl to walk the 160 miles, carrying their luggage .

The first parties of .J anssonists settled around Victoria, south of Bishop Hill but, after looking over the available sites, agreed that the choicest spot was along the Edwards River. Here they found plenty of good timber, fresh water, and deep, black soil. At first, they bought sixty acres; in September, forty-eight more were added at a cost of S1.25 per acre. At the height of the colony's existence, the J anssonists owned collectively at least fourteen thousand acres of fertile Illinois farmland. ·when the autumn chill came in 1846, they hastily built thirty dugouts in a ravine and lined them with logs for snug, if unpretentious, shelters against the winter snows.

After they learned to make bricks, they began building with great excitement. The Colony Church, which stands today in original condit ion, was begun in 1848. The basement and the first floor were used for living quarters, one family to a room, while the upper storyin which the men sat on one side and the women on the other-was the place of worship.

The so-called Steeple Building, built in the Greek Revival style, is also a tourist attraction today.

The brick kiln turned out more bricks, and a bakery, sawmi ll, brewery, and smithy were soon erected. Eventually, there was enough brick to serve not only the Janssonists but also the neighborir:ig settlers. The tour de force of the builders was ca lled Big Brick, a four-story apartment house with two large dining halls and Chicago History

47

Bishop Hill

The Colony Church.

living quarters for ninety-six families, by far the biggest building between Chicago and the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, Big Brick burned down in 1928 and now exists only in some faded photographs.

The Janssonists' way of life was similar to life in many of the utopian settlements which clotted the map of the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. They were communistic, but not in any doctrinal or Marxist sense.

They did not speak English when they arrived.

They pooled their resources and bought and owned land collectively. Somewhat taken with Shaker-style celibacy, they half-heartedly separated their men and women and even briefly tried celibacy by forbidding marriage-an idea abandoned when they forsaw the disastrous consequences for the future of the colony. The Janssonists had no great stomach for asceticism; when they fasted, it was because of the difficulty of serving meals to a thousand people with the nearest store many miles away. No prohibitionists, they drank homemade beer in moderate quantities. Unlike their Quaker friends, the Janssonists sent a company to fight on the Union side during the Civil ,var. But they were, of course, deeply and passionately religious, holding ecstatic meetings in their church and filling their letters with biblical phrases.

Many of the settlers had been successful farmers in Sweden, and they brought their knowledge of land and weather to the tilling of American soil. The neighbors watched in astonishment as fifty young men in a line plowed parallel furrows two miles long and, at the end of the day, marched home like Thomas Gray's plowmen, singing ancestral songs with their tools on their shoulders. They grew corn and made brooms, raised flax and wove linen cloths, made rugs, and learned how to produce carriages and plows. In 1852, they built a steam 48

Chi cago History

mill which was so needed in the neighborhood that it ran night and day. An expanding country with very limited production of goods welcomed these industrious Swedes, and the markets of Chicago and St. Louis bought whatever they could turn out.

One of the early colonists, Olof Krans, learned how to paint in oils and produced portraits of a great many village leaders, besides views of the daily farm life. The paintings provide us with a remarkable visual record of these people. They had rugged faces-serious, devout, every line a witness to their determination to worship God without harassment by secular authorities. Krans became a sergeant in the Civil vVar, and his self-portrait is called Olaf Kra11s in his Union Suit. His paintings, prized pieces of Americana, are on exhibit in the colony museum at Bishop Hill and at the Chicago Historical Society.

Though the colony was planned as a utopia and had auspicious beginnings, its rosy hopes soon faded. The first great problem was Asiatic cholera, which ravaged all the overland routes

Courtesy Swedish Pioneer Historical Society Photo by Soren Hallgren

Weather vane which formerly perched on the tower of the town's hotel.

Cou rtesy Swrdish Pioneer Historical Soc iety

at mid-century and for which medical aid was both unavailable or unavailing. The plague entered the colony with a party of Norwegians; before it had run its course in 1849, about two hundred deaths had ocrnrred. People rose well one morning, were sick and nauseous the second clay, and died on the third. In a short while, few were strong enough for burial details and bodies were simply wrapped in a sheet and dropped into common graves. Jansson ordered the evacuation of the colony, and many went to a section of land which they owned near Orion. But the dread disease followed them, and seventy more died. Jansson then took his fami ly to their fishing camp on an island in the Mississippi River.

IronicalJy, the cholera was even more rampant at nearby Rock Island and Davenport, and his wife 0011 sickened and died. Scores of Janssonists died on lake boats bound for Chicago.

They were quietly dropped overboard. The survivors were frightened and subdued, but they continued to pray and sing hymns.

The second disastrous event was the arrival of John Root and some fellow rascals in the fall of 1848. They said they were Swedish, had served in the Swedish army, and that they had also served in the United States Army during the Mexican War. The records do not support their claims. John Root, stopping at Bishop Hill to visit his religious countrymen, fell in love with Jansson's cousin, Charlotte. In Janu-

Big Brick, an apartment building which housed ninety-six families. Destroyed by fire in 1928, it was once the largest building between Chicago and the Pacific Ocean.

ary 1849, he and Lotta, as she was called, were married, but only after Root signed a document in which he promised never to take his bride away from the colony. The colonists obviously mistrusted this dashing stranger.

And they were right. He was in the village occasionally, eating food with the others and drawing his clothes ration, but more often he was to be seen walking away with his rifle and hunting dog. Certain disreputable elements in nearby towns accepted him more warmly than the Janssonists. During one of his long absences, Lotta gave birth to a son; when he heard the news, Root came back to take his wife and son away from these cholera-ridden pietists. She refused to leave, reminding him of his pledge, and stormy scenes followed. On one occas ion , Root tried to kidnap her while the colonists were eating together. Later, he succeeded in bringing her to his home in Chicago. Then the Janssonists kidnapped her back. Root, supported by a band of ruffians assembled from the nearby towns, assaulted the village. The neighboring Americans sympathized with this glib gentleman whose wife and child were kidnapped and held, they thought, like slaves. At one point,' when Lotta and her son, John, could not be found, the mob threatened to burn down Chicago History

49

Bishop Hill

Chicano Historical Society

Bishop Hill. The climax came in May 1850, when Root and Jansson met in the courthouse in Cambridge, Illinois, where each was appearing as a defendant on separate charges. During the noon recess, Root approached Jansson, who was chatting with his attorney, and demanded that .Jansson give back his wife. Jansson replied, "A sow would serve well enough as a wife for you!" Root drew a revolver and shot twice.

The second bullet entered J ansson's heart, and within five minutes he was dead.

The colonists took .Jansson's body back to Bishop Hill and prayed for three days that he would rise from the dead like Christ's true apostle. But .Jansson newr stirred, and his griefstricken followers carried him to his resting place in the village cemetery . .J ansson's bride, Sophia, put her hand on the head of Andrew Berglund, one of the colony's elder statesmen, lo signify that he should serve as regent until Jansson 's son, Eric, should come of age.

John Root, who had not even attempted lo 50

Chicago History

This paint ' ng by Olof Krans is not of a farm in Bishop Hill , as is often claimed, but of the artist's childhood home in Sweden.

e cape but who had stood quietly by Jansson's ideas he died, was arrested and charged wi•h murder, but the trial had several continuanc.cs because of the difficulty of assembling an unprejudiced jury. Finally, in 1852, the trial commenced al the circuit court in Knoxville, Illinois. Although Root had been indicted for murder, the jury sympathized with this wronged husband who had simply defended his honor, and they returned a verdict of manslaughter.

His sentence was two years in prison, and Joel A. Matteson, the governor of Illinois, pardoned him after one and one-half years. Root returned to Chicago where he moved in questionable circles-indeed, Gustav Unonius, the Episcopal priest at nearby St. Ansgarius Church, wrote in his memoirs that he thought Root made his living as a burglar. Root died in 1856, and the

Chicago Historical Society

Methodist minister who conducted the funeral service said that nearly the entire Swedish community of Chicago attended the burial ritesprobably because of Root's notoriety rather than in grief, in the present writer's opinion.

The Bishop Hill colony lived on for a decade after Eric J ansson's death, but some of its special quality-its vividness, its assertiveness, its gusto-which had made even its errors seem interesting, was gone. Dissolution, grubby quarreling, and financial trouble followed. In an effort to pay off heavy debts, nine of the most resourceful villagers had been dispatched to the California gold fields two months before Jansson's death in 1850. Jonas Olsson, their leader, kept a diary of this venture-a long tale of hardship, disease, clanger and, finally, failure.

When he learned by letter that Jansson had been murdered, Olsson returned at once to Bishop Hill. He took over the leadership of the colony in November 1850.

The colony tried hard to subsist, even after

The Krans family celebrating a birthday in Galva, 111., 1900. Olof Krans is the bearded and spectacled gentleman standing in the center.

Jansson's death. The village was incorporated in 1853, a set of by-laws was drafted, and direction was placed in the hands of a board of trustees who embarked on a risky financial program. When the depression of 1857 struck, they were all in deep trouble. Quarreling, distrust, and angry charges replaced the collective hymn singing. In February 1860, all agreed to split up into two camps, the Olsson party and the Johnson party. The Olsson group divided their common shares into individual holdings, but even this did not bring peace among them, and one of the colonists, E. U. Norberg, filed suit in 1868, charging improper management. Some of the disillusioned J anssonists moved to other pioneer seulements. Several returned to the Lutheran church of their childhood. Some transferred their hopes for Perfectionism to the end Chicago History

51

Bishop Hill

of history by joining the Second Adventist Church, which taught that the perfect time would come at the end of history. Still others found it easier to join the Methodist church which had been built in the village. The Methodists, it should be noted, believed that perfection was a worthy ideal, and that such signs as we see of it in life have the form of love. Still another group of Janssonists stopped going to church altogether.

The remaining characters in the central drama finished out their days more or less conventionally. Lotta Root stayed on happily with her frie nds at the village. Her son John became a well-known lawyer with offices in nearby Galva . Sophia, Jansson's widow, moved with her own son to the Shaker colony at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, but apparently soon became disenchanted. She returned to Galva, opened a boarding house which was not a financial success, died in the county poorhouse in 1888, and lies buried in the Bishop Hill cemetery next to Eric Jansson's grave. Jansson's son, Capt. Eric Jansson, became a newspaper and magazine editor and d ied in 1919. Mathilda, Jansson's daughter, married a Union officer and moved to a farm in Iowa. Their granddaughter, Edla Warner, is the archivist for the Bishop Hill Heritage Association.

For decades, Bishop Hill slept peacefully, scarcely remembering its tumultuous past. But in the twentieth century, we have seen a revival of interest in our national origins, and now Bishop Hill's distinctive role in the saga of America is widely recognized. The village, now listed in the National Register of Historic P laces, is remarkably unchanged from the days when Jonas Olsson sat in the rocking chair on his front porch and John R oot swung down the road on one of his hunting days. Loving care has gone into the reconstruction of the Colony Church, the general store, the Steeple Building, and the central park. Since 1946, the Department of Commerce of the State of Illinois has main tained a staff in the village. D uring the 52

Ch icago History

summer, busloads of tourists visit this charming vestige of the pioneer past and listen to the talk of the local inhabitants, some of whom are descended from the original settlers, bear their names, look like the Krans portraits hanging in the Colony Church, and even speak with traces of the Halsingland dialect.

One must wonder if the Janssonists left anything more than a tourist spot and the memory of a utopi an experiment that died after fifteen years. There were some peripheral effects. Lars Paul Esbjorn, a Lutheran pastor who also came from Halsingland, Sweden, was sent over to establish a Lutheran church which would win the erring sheep back into the fold, and he founded what later became the Augustana Synod in Andover, only a short distance away.

It is also true that the J anssonists were the first to travel in large numbers from Sweden to America; they may have helped trigger the great migrations of the next few decades. Certainly, the letters they wrote to family and friends back home, often describing America as a land of milk and honey, influenced others to seek their fortunes in the new land.

In any case, the Janssonists were peculiarly vivid examples of the American dream . Theirs was a vision shared by countless strangers who came to this country from abroad and by many Americans as well-that the possibilities of human history could become reality in a new land which was unencumbered by ancient social forms. The dream was that in thi~ great good place, innocence might be recovered. The Janssonists added to all this a special hope, for a richer and more holy Eden than the more secular immigrants even imagined. That no earthly place could have fulfilled such lofty expectations is perhaps not surprising. The Garden of Eden of which the Janssonists dreamed had to disintegrate as soon as it began to be embodied.

We who reflect on their history are left to conclude that Perfectionism is creative as a yearning, but only as a yearning. It becomes destructive when it is seized.

Fifty Years Ago

As recorded by newspapers in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society 1926 Mar. 2. Upholding a fine of $50 against Charles Reiss for selling Art Lovers magazine, the Appellate Court rules that jurors can distinguish between "artistic beauty" and "indecency." The judges, who did not see the magazine, declare, "As the conclusion of the jury to the character of the magazine was based solely upon inspection of it, we presume that the verdict was justified."

Mar. 3. The Board of Education, without a dissenting vote, prohibits the teaching of pacifism and banishes a history syllabus which embodies "the ideas of the so-called pacifist movement." The resolution also states that "deeds of patriots should be stressed" and "the aim of all instruction is the making of good citizens."

Mar. 9. William Burkhardt, a waiter at a restaurant at 3 W. Grand Ave., is fined $5 for refusing service to a egro customer, who testified that Burkhardt told her she would have to take the food out or eat it in the kitchen.

Mar. 10. The City Council finally passes an ord inance allowing the use of hard tile in walls up to forty feet, a blow to organized labor because tile is currently manufactured in non-union shops. Until now, only brick was permitted.

Mar. 15. Examinations begin for the first women volunteering to contribute to Chicago's "human dairies," announces Health Commissioner Herman N. Bundesen. The women will be given free fresh foods and paid 10¢ an ounce for their milk, which will be sold to mothers who can afford it and given

free to charity cases. Bundesen hopes that the program will decrease the infant mortality rate.

Mar. 19. Police arrest four youths-age 13 to 16-who admit cracking seventeen safes in three months. The boys learned the technique from a movie, but add, "We did it better than the guy in the picture."

Mar. 20. Chicago Federation of Musicians Pres.

James Petrillo warns the city's radio stations that his group will no longer tolerate their use of amateur musicians. Petrillo is also considering charging hotels, cafes, and movie theaters when radio hookups are used to broadcast live music.

Mar. 22. "Men who fail to pay their alimony will be put to work," says Judge Joseph Sabath, denouncing the practice of volunteering for jail rather than paying support. Members of the "Alimony Club" will now work in jail and turn their earnings over to their families.

Mar. 31. New Yorkers Steve Conway and Frank Walsh are arrested as alleged heads of a $500,000-a-week dope ring. The two are believed to be reorganizing the city's drug trade, filling the void left by the arrest of Will Gray Beach, former chief of the narcotics division in the area. Forty-eight others are arrested in connection with supplying heroin, cocaine, and morphine to Chicago's 25,000 addicts.

Apr. 2. Radio announcer Phillip Friedlander, who testified that it was only a joke, is fined $25 for broadcasting that State's Attorney Robert E. Crowe had occupied a front-row seat at the Moulin Rouge cabaret. The case is believed to be the first radio slander suit in history and should bring about a new law.

Apr. 9. Prohibition Administrator E. C. Yellowley resurrects an 1857 federal law which allows confiscation of all property-personal, real estate, and land-involved in the operation of an illegal still. The Volstead Act, though permitting the seizure of machinery and autos, provides only that the premises be padlocked for a year.

Chicago History

53

The board of the Women's World's Fair, which opened Apr. 17.

Apr. 13. Chicago's primary elections are once again marked by the theft o( ballot boxes, the kidnapping of election judges, and the strong-arming of clerks into recording false results. Colonel Frank Smith, an opponent o( U.S. membership in the ·w orld Court, defeats Sen. William B. McKinley in the Republican senatorial primary, and Democrats nominate Chicagoan George E. Brennan by a huge majority. Voters approve all sixteen bond issues for local improvements, totaling $19,070,000, as well as a referendum legalizing professional boxing, which has been banned in the city for over twenty years.

Apr. 17. The second annual \Vomen's World's Fair begins a seven-day run at the American Exposition Palace. J\fayor Dever and ten foreign consuls are among the dignitaries attending the opening of the fair, which will benefit the Juvenile Protective Association.

Apr. 27. Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson signs a foreclosure order for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad and announces that the system, valued at $750,000, will be sold. l\Iay 3. Employees of the Chicago Surface Lines ask for 5¢ more an hour and a $1,000 death benefit. The requested maximum for motor54

Chicago History

men and conductors would be 80¢ an hour, the salary in effect in 1922 before salary cuts were ins ti tu ted. l\fay 4. A secret warrant is issued for the arrest o[ Al Capone for the machine-gun murders of Asst. State's Attorney William H. McSwiggen and bootleggers Thomas Duffy and James Doherty in Cicero on Apr. 27. The warrant claims that Capone was leading a group o( five autos carrying thirty gun-toting gangsters and that he handled the machine gun as an example to his more timid underlings. l\IcSwiggen is considered an innocent bystander who happened to be on the scene when Capone sought to even a score with the rival O'Donnell gang.

May 5. Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil is found guilty of handling postage stamps and bonds stolen in the Rondout train robbery as the result of the testimony of a confederate who pleaded guilty and testified against him. Weil faces thirty-two years in jail. l\Iay 8. Chicago's first municipal airport, located at Cicero Ave. and 63rd St., opens with a mail flight by Miss Chicago to Dallas. Also launched are four carrier pigeons with messages to Washington from Chicago dignitaries.

50 Years Ago

The funeral of Asst. State's Attorney William H. McSwiggen.

On May 4, police were still looking for Al Capone.

50 Years Ago

Dai 1y News Collect ion Chicago Historical Society

Rin-Tin-Tin, the Wonder Dog, held by trainer Lee Duncan.

The canine star's latest movie was showing in Chicago the week of May 9.

May g. Movies in Chicago this week include The Night Cry, with Rin-Tin-Tin, the \,Yonder Dog; For Heaven's Sa.he, with Harold Lloyd; Outside the Law , with Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean; and Tramp, Tramp, TramjJ, with Harry Langdon and Joan Crawford.

On stage are Leon Errol in Louie the I4th, ·walker vVhiteside in The Arabian, Elizabeth Risdon and Harry Minturn in The Mashed Woman, and The Dybbuk (in English). Also performing are the Chicago Bach Chorus, William Bueppler conducting, and the \Voman's Symphony Orchestra. The Outdoor Life Exposition-complete with log rolling and lumberjack competition-is at the Coliseum. i\Iay 12. The City Council appropriates S500,000 for street cleaning after residents compla in that ashes and garbage haven't been removed for over a month . The street department had stopped cleaning side streets and all eys in twenty-five wards because it ran out of money.

56

Chicago History

l\Iay 27. \Varden John L. Whitman of Joliet Penitentiary, who claimed that parole irregularities were responsible for the murder of Deputy vVarden Peter Klein by seven escapees on !\Jay 8, is fired by Gov. Len Small and replaced by Elmer J. Green. \ ,Vhitman had testified that Klein and other state appointees had been selling paroles: "If you had money or influence it didn't matter ... what your record was .... If you had them not, it didn't matter how good your record, how trivial your o[ense-you couldn't get out."

Two men admit poisoning four race horses, one fatally, as part o( a nationwide betting fix. The horses, who were supposed to get only enough strychnine to slow them down, were among seven entries in a race at Aurora's Exposition Park. Police obtained the confession by revealing that one o( the poisoned horses is owned by gangster Terry Druggan and by threatening to turn the men over to him unless they came clean.

May 29. The Plasterers' Union ends its threeweek strike by accepting an increase of $ 1, raising their daily pay to S 1 3, al though it had demanded S2 and a five-clay week. The compromise is considered a victory because the Bricklayers' and Lathers' unions had earlier accepted renewals of their old con tracts.

F.J.N. Governor Len Small, flanked by state parole board chairman Will Colvin and state director of public welfare Chauncey Jenkins, 111 inois officials charged with selling paroles on May 27.

Books

Four Historical Views of Chicago Architecture Architecture in Old Chicago and Old Chicago Houses are reprints of volumes fir st published thirty-five years ago, but they are books still relevant and interesting today. The first, by Thomas Eddy Tallmadge, is a paperback reprint of the 19"11 hardcover edition published shortly after his death.

A graduate of the i\Iassachusetts Institute of Technology and a long-time resident of Evanston, Tallmadge was an outstanding ecclesiastical architect, a partner in the prolific architectura l office of Tallmadge and vVatson, and a well-known architectural historian. His earl ier books. Th e Story of Architecture in America and The Story of Architecture in England, brought him recognition as a writer who could treat a tedrnical subject with charm and even humor.

Tallmadge was an inveterate collector of elates and details, a characteristic of his diverse personality revealed in Charles Collim' eulogistic Introduction.

Tallmadge·s long interest in the architecture of Chicago (which began in the Daniel Burnham's office in 1898) led him to record his research in this detailed, colorful, and highly narrative account of the development of arch itecture in Ch icago. From the huts of the French voyageurs (which apparently weren't "architecture"), to Fort Dearborn (which was), to the Greek Revival city of the 1850s, to the Great Chicago Fire and the fresh start which followed, through the eclectic Parvenu Period (a term Tallmadge uses to describe the architecture of the 1870s and 188os), to the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Tallmadge leads us on a merry search through a confusion of styles and personalities that shaped Chicago's architecture in those nearly forgotten times.

Architecture in Old Chicago is not a detailed technical study of architecture: for such information the reader should conwlt the work of Carl Condit. It is more a history of the city's growth as it found expression in wood, stone, and steel-a personal and very readable account that will appeal to architects, historians, and laymen alike. One suspects, however, that Tallmadge would have prderrcd more photographs

.4rrhiUcl11re i11 Old Chicago, by Thomas Eddy Tall-

madge, reprinted by the Uni,·ersity of Chicago Press, 19i5, , 3-9:,: Old Chicago J-1011s es, by John Drury, reprinted by the UniYcrsity of Chicago Press, '9i5, $6.95; Chicago, the Risi11g City, by Thomas Knudtson , The Chicago Publishing Co., 1975, S 1.95; Lost Chicago, by David Lowe, Houghton -Milllin, 1975, 20 .

than his associates pro\'ided for the 19.J 1 edition and better reproductions of these photographs than appear in th e 1975 reprint. Since almost all the photographs arc in the collections of the Art lnstitutc and the Chicago Historical Society, it would seem that this situation could easily have been rectified.

Old Chicago How es by John Drury, also a paperback reprint, is a compilation of a series of weekly articles which appeared in the Chicago Daily News from 1\l arch 1939, to February 19"11. ln researching the hundred houses about which he wrote in his articles, Drury said that he "adhered on ly to facts," using "in each instance, a blend of historica l, biographical, architectural and social facts in an attempt to create a detailed picture of the dwelling under discussion." All the houses that he discussed, with the exception of the Frederick C. Robie House

by Frank Lloyd Wright, date from the nineteenth century. The houses were also representative of the architectual styles of different periods. were important or conspicuous neighborhood landmarks, and were often the homes o[ locally or nationally famous men and women. Thus he included modest frame cottages and farmhouses of the 1850s, the Greek Revival v\Tidow Clarke House, Potter Palmer's Lake Shore Drive castle, and Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright's Charnley House.

In his Jntroduction, Drury observed that many of his selections might not ha,·e seemed o ld or eyen middle-aged to those from other parts of the country, but he reminded his readers "that the last onehundred years in the history of Chicago (1841194 1) ... encompassed in that relatively brief span the trail-blazing, pioneering and social and industrial development that had taken much longer in older communities of the Atlantic seaboard. Thus, a house built fifty or sixty years ago in Chicago has achieved the dignity of age without accretion of years." ,vriting between 1939 and 1941, Drury was able to interview some of the people who built the houses he wrote about, or their descendants, friends, and relatiYes, as well as some of the occupants. Even in 1941 , his book was a revealing social record of the disappointing decline and change of many of Chicago's fine o ld neighborhoods and a disturbing look at the use-and non-use-to which the city's fine old homes had been put. And now, only thirty-five years after its initial publication, only thirty-five of the houses still stand. The publisher's note to the 19i5 reprint indicates thirty-four "survirnrs" but omits the L. Hamilton i\fcCormick mansion at 100 East Ontario Street, later the Kungsholm Restaurant, and now Lawry's.

The terra-cotta cornice of the proud old house can still be seen above the limestone facade of the Kungsholm.

In Old Chicago Houses, Drury logically di,·ided the houses into groups related by topic and geography. Each section has an introduction whid1 establishes a frame of reference for what follows, a nd there is one photograph of each house-usdul for identification but unfortunately not of architectural quality. The book, more than just an architectural survey, is very readable and full of information. vVith its fascinating stories of the people who occupied its Chicago History

57

Books homes, it is also a social history of the people who contributed to Chicago's story. We welcome its appearance in the body of available literature about Chicago .

Chicago, the Rising City by Thomas Knudtson is a thin paperback consisting of a cover, title page, six pages of prologue in four sections titled "The River," "The Land," "The Garden City," and "The [Water] Works," followed by thirty-six pages of text paired with thirty-six Cull-page, black-and-white photographs.

The question "Why?" comes easily to mind.

The book appears to be a "first effort" by Knudtson, the descendant of nineteenth-century Norwegian immigrants, to record Chicago stories in such a way as to suggest the rise of a great city. But suggest is all that it does. Too often the text offers information that the photograph cannot substantiate. The small volume, a nicely laid-out compendium of Chicago myths and facts, suffers from a too-singular and tooselective approach. Grammatical and typographical errors abound, terminology is often wrong (Carpenter Gothic for Eastlake, e.g.). This reviewer would rather have Tallmadge.

Lost Chicago by David Lowe is that rare book with a strong sense of time and place. A native Chicagoan, Lowe is a graduate of Oberlin College and the UniYersicy of Michigan. and a past editor of American Heritage. Dra\\·ing on a long interest in the city and its architecture, he has created a surprisingly complete visual picture of the growth of Chicago from Fort Dearborn to the thoughtless destruction of many of its finest landmarks in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lost Chicago is divided into ten chapters roughly approximating stages in the city's growth, attainment of cultural and commercial supremacy, and gradual decline. The beginnings of Chicago at Fort Dearborn arc described in "The Island'': "Time of the Temple" (reprinted in part in the Fall issue of this magazine) re-creates the Greek Revival city of the 1850s; "Holocaust" recalls the Great Chicago Fire; the great expositions of 1893 and 1933 represent "Dreams of Empire"; and so on. The introduction to each chapter sets the stage for each period . outlines its ideals and achievements, and introduces the principals. The importance of the railroad, the development of Chicago's commercial and public architecture, the rise of the castles and cottages of the people, the parks and places of entertainment and recreationall are traced and made clear.

And all of this is reinforced with well-captioned photographs and drawings. The photographs seem to ha,e been d1osen with two criteria in mind: to tell as much as possible as clearly as possible about the situation under consideration and to present a view not published before. \Viele use is made of quotation from literature of the writers inspired and nurtured

by Chicago. It is not, of course, possible to re-create physically what Chicago has lost, but Lowe has succeeded in great part in recalling the spirit of what is gone.

58

Chicago History

l\fy criticism of the book is three-fold. The first is wistful: how much better it would have been if this book had been written and published in Chicago rather than in New York. Second, like other books of its genre, it negatively asserts that all is gone, nothing is left. even though Lowe states in the final sentence of his Preface that his purpose is to "help preserve that splendor not yet departed." Third, even if we could have back all that has been lost, would it all be worth having? It is useless here to argue the merits of the Old Chicago Stock Exchange versus a Victorian refreshment stand in Lincoln Park, but it is nevertheless a sad commentary on the state of preservation in Chicago today that, having already lost so much, we must be so selective in what we can still try to save. Lost Chicago is one more reminder that the vitality that made Chicago great has left it and has not sustained it. \,\Tritten with wit and flair, profusely illustrated, and beautifully designed, Lost Chicago deserves a place on the bookshelves of anyone who professes e,·en the least interest and love for the Windy City.

RICHARD E. TWISS

Richard E. Twiss is a Chicago architect, architectural historian, and lecturer.

Don 't Make No WavesDon't Back No Losers

by 1\1ilton L. Rakove lncliana Uni1crsity, I9i5· $10. ilIILTON RAKOVE has produced a treatise on the Chicago machine which sho\ild become a standard work on the city's political history, a book which this reYiewer would compare favorably with Harold F. Gosnell's Machine Politics: Chicago Model (1937) and James Q. " 1ilson's Negro Politicians: The Search for Leadership (1960). The chapters on the "Daley Politburo" and "The ,vard Organizations" are classics, and throughout the book Professor Rakove offers perceptive obsenations on how the mad1ine flourishes by truly being "with" and "of" the people by providing even the most intimate services-provided, of course, the recipients arc not openly critical of the administration. Rakovc also repeatedly treats of the machine's shortcomings, the greatest of which is its overbearing desire to perpetuate itself in office and power. He sees the need to view the Chicago machine in the context of its relation with the suburbs, the state government, and the national government. And, much to his credit, he boldly lays himseH open to future criticism by speculating on the nature of machine once l\Iayor Daley is no longer on the scene.

Yet despite its many strengths, Don't Make No Waves has some glaring weaknesses. It hardly merits its subtitle, An Insider's Analysis of the Daley Ma-

chine, for such an analysis could only come from a Tom Keane, a George Dunne, or another of the select few in the mayor's inner circle. R.akovc is also hampered by his "objective" approach: in eschew ing "value judgements on the morality or immorality of the actions of the machine as an entity, or its members as individuals," and by declining to measure the ma chine's "successes or failures by evaluating the quality of the governmental process in Chicago," Rako\·c has severely limited his inquiry. And, although he duly notes that Chicago's machine politicians have been less (han outstand in g in solvin g enduring social problems, he is relatively unimaginative about exploring the drastic limitations of Ch icago's future dictated by the circumscribed approach now being pursued. Neither has R.akove commented sufficiently on the consequences of the fears so many Chicagoans have about those of different races, nationalities, a nd political viewpoints nor on how these fears are being played up to every clay, particularly in the neighborhoods ruled by negativism and suspicion. R.akove speaks very well of "how" things are, but needs to address himself further to "why" they arc and what they augur abo ut Chicago's growth and vitality.

ARCHIE J. MOTLEY

Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith

by Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill U11i\'crsity of Illinois, 1975. S7.95.

burst into the jai l at Carthage, Illin ois, one warm summer afternoon in 1844, brushed aside the guard, and killed the i\formon prophet J oseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Five anti-i\formon defendants were tried for the murders in a parody of justice in which 110 i\formons were a llowed to serve on the jury. A guard testified that he had fired directly into the approachin g mob to protect the unpopular brothers, yet no one was wounded and no witnesses could remember seeing anyo ne they recognized on th e scene. The freed defendants went on to lead successful li ves, some of them holding public office.

In this book, the president of Brigham Young Un iversity and an ass istant professor of history at that university tell the story with fascinating detail, painstakingly reviewing every scrap of evidence. Their readers, servin g as a modern jury, cannot help but bring in a new verdict: gu ilty on all counts. The Carthage trial goes clown in history as a copy-book examp le of what lawyers call "nul lification," a e uphemism for the ugly event which occurs when a prejudiced public overpowers clue process of law.

A ~roB

PAUL ELMEN

The Bulls and Chicago: A Stormy Affair

by Bob Logan Follct I , 1975. S7 .9_1.

has always been a graveyard for professiona l basketball teams, a history o[ the Bulls--in their tenth season-is not surprising. Logan, who has covered the team since its in ception for the Tribune , has compiled only slightly more than a summary of

SINCE c11 1C.\ GO

successes and failures. Devoted fans will be interested in recalling the team's annual fa ilu re in the championship playoffs; the numerous squabbles invo lving the players, coaches, and management; and the short c.1recrs of Izzy Schmissing and Reggie Harding. But even they will find Logan's hackneyed phrases and unabashed idolatries a bit grating.

FREDERICK J. NACll~[AN

Superjock

by Larry Lujack with Daniel A. Jedlicka Regncry, 1975. 6.95.

is the sporadically amusing autob iography o[ Larry Lujack, the sarcastic kingpin of Chicago top-forty bubblegum radio. At its best, Superjock is a depressingly accurate picture of rock radio's cutthroat competition, backstabbing, insecurity, 50,000watt egos, crank phone callers, and neurotic station managers. Even a four-hour radio show is work and can be a gruel ing routin e. Yet, like the show, the book is glib, geared to the lowest common denomin ator and peppered with one-liners. Autobiographical flashbacks woven into a typical day-in-the-life of good old "Lar" trace his announci ng career from rural Idaho to big-time Chicago. Some childhood photographs, a picture o[ his wife, and some control room shots are thrown in. For [an-magazine readers, there is some personal trivia-e.g. he married a model, stays at home, thinks fashion and drugs are "dumb," and likes country and western music. But he doesn't divulge his salary, age, or future plans. Lujack's comment on disc jockeys in genera l applies to mud1 of his book: it has a "high irrelevancy quotient."

SUPERJOCK

NAT SILVERMAN

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan

by Irwin Porges Brigham Young Uni,wsity, 1975. $19.95.

Tarzan of the Apes could swing grace fully through the treetops carrying his lissome J ane, one doubts he could ha\·e clone so while toting this new biography of his creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs--a massive, definitive, exhaustive, and exhausting great lump o[ a book that runs to 820 pages with 270 illustrations. Porges and his wife spent four years rummaging through a warehouse of correspondence and memorabilia, and Porges has brought to this biography of his hero something for e\'eryo ne-inclucling the boy who loved Tarzan, the nostalgia buff, the common reader, and even the anth ropologist and social historian.

Burroughs himself could ha\'e been an Horatio Alger character. Before he hit upon Tarzan, Burroughs went from job to job, including door-to-door selling and peddling patent medicine. Then, working in Chicago and Oak Park between 1910 and 1920, he produced about forty popular novels. Johnny ,veissmuller, the most renowned of the performers to portray Burroughs' Ape Boy on the screen, was also a Ch icagoan, as Porges reminds us. The local boys made good.

T11ouc 11

FRANCIS J. WALSH

Chicago History

59

Books

The Am erica n Poster Renaissance

by Victor Margolin Watson-Guptill, 1975. $25.

Blues

by Robert Nd/ and Anthony Connor Godine, 1975. S15, cloth; S7.95 paperback.

TIiis is real! The authors' non-reactive approach bears fru it. They unvei l realities about Chicago's musical giants which penetrate the core of the blues ethos. A most welcome book, a solid beginning in filling the void of new literature about Chicago's black musical scene.

RALPH METCALFE, JR.

Po li sh Ameri ca n Politi cs in Ch icago 1888-1940

by Edward R. Kantowicz Uni,-crsi ty of Chicago, 1975. $12.95.

EDWARD KANTowrcz' book, an outgrowth of his dissertation for the University of Chicago, is an exploration of the voting patterns, issues, and leaders of Chicago's Polonia. That Poles have not won greater political victories for themselves is attributed to their almost unswerving loyalty to the Democratic Party, whid1 has come to take them for granted, the Old World preoccupat ions, and their reluctance to become Americanized. In 1920, only 33.7 percent of Polish-born males over 21 were naturalized, whereas 80.2 percent of the Irish were, and 79.2 percent of the Germans. The point is not made by Kantowicz, but it supports h is explanation.

JOHN CORRIGAN

For God and Country: The Rise of Polish and Lithuan ia n Ethnic Consci ousness in America , 1860-1910

by Victor Green Stale Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1975. $17.50.

IMJ\11GRANT NATIONALISM is usually assumed to be a defensive response to American nativism. Green, however, believes that Polish and Li thuanian nationalism arose from intragroup dispu tes between the ex iled patriots and the clerics, the patriots working for the liberation of the fatherland while the clerics cared for the immigrants' spiritual needs.

Other d isputes arose over the ownership of church property. Green presents chapters of Chicago life previously inaccessible to English-speaking readers, a contrast to the better-known Chicago of Field, Palmer, and Pullman .

J· c.

60

Chicago History

SINCE TII EIR REDISCOVERY in the I 960s, the attractive American posters of the 1890s and their designers have been the subject of considerable attention. l\fargolin presents more than a h istorical review of the posters and their effect upon the American public: he ummarizes the careers and discusses the styles of the best known of the artists and offers briefer accounts of about sixty other artists, most of whom disappeared into obscurity after 1900. Information on the firms-primarily publishing-which commissioned the posters is also included, and the book contains over two hundred full-page, b lack-and-white photographs. Among the poster artists working in Chicago in the 1890s were Will Bradley, Joseph C. Leyendecker, and ,,v. W. Denslow, three influential men whose careers continued to flourish after 1900.

Corrections need to be made on the captions of two of the Chicago posters: the J. l\Ianz advertisement, page 188, was done by staff artist Henry Hutt; Frank Hazenplug's Living Posters, page 210, refers to tableaux vivants of poster characters at a Visiting 1 urses Association benefit on December 3, 1895, in Chicago.

Although American Poster Renaissance is a good pictorial and textual summary of the American poster movement of the 1890s, it appears to be based solely on secondary sources and therefore will be most interesting to beginners. At $25, the price seems a bit steep.

JULIA WESTERBERG

Potawato mi Ind ia n Sum me r

by E. William Oldenburg Ecrdmans, 1975. 5.95.

IN THE WOODLAND behind their Michigan home, six wh ite children from the twentieth century travel two centuries back through time to an era of unpoll uted rivers, dense forests, and life in a Potawatomi tribe.

E. ,villiam Oldenburg, late author and poet, has created an exciting, fast-moving adventure for readers age 10 to 14. Unfortunately, in the confused early pages of the first chapter, the author introduces the children as six to eight. Once the reader corrects that error to correspond to the vocabulary and the ensuing advenwres, the story becomes colorful fun. Accurate research on Potawatomi life is buried within the flesh of a good ta le.

Betty Beeby's lovely illustrations, properly hazy in the manner of Indian summer, give no clear-cut view of a Potawatomi brave, but there is a good description in the text. It is slightly confusing therefore, that l\Is. Beeby poru·ays the villains of the story, the l\Iohawks, on the book's jacket and with in the book. Young readers looking for a portrayal of a Potawatomi Indian have to find it in the text. Sud1 minor points should be corrected in the further editions which this fine children's book merits.

EDITH FREUND

Letters

Who Out Th ere Is Reading Our Reviews?

I, for one, have read your reviews. I am just now going through the spring and summer issues, looking for books that I've missed in other publications or my bookstore browsings, to order for the college library's urban studies collection and for my personal library.

I find your selection of books to be excellent, both for its appropriate special-interest limitations and for its depth and variety within those limits. For example, I'm pleased to find out about both the book on Henry Blake Fuller and the one on Illinois arts and crafts in your "Brief Reports" section for the spring; you have consistently provided such "finds" for me and I appreciate that.

I've also noted that your reviewers tend to make their own biases clear enough so that I can judge whether or not I'm going to agree with them. That is helpful.

Thanks. Keep at it.

RICHARD L. STORINGER

Associate Professor, Humanities Oakton Community College, Morton Grove, Ill. \Vell, I'm out here reading the reviews, for one. The reviews in Chicago History have been not only enJOyabJe for me, but also professionally useful and they are appreciated, as is the entire magazine. Your essay in the Spring issue was especially interesting as it took the wraps off of a situation one simply takes for granted. Frankly, you would have my vote to expand the section in each issue by at least two pages, which might help the short shrift problem (especially in the case of the i\ladden book). In general I have found your selection as to which books to be treated in which way sound-the l\!cCready review essay was excellent, and except for the i\fadden the short notices were all appropriate to the titles given the space available to you. The l\fadden book, of course, was heavily covered in the other media. I thought Vinci a nice choice to write the notice.

RICHARD P. HARTUNG

Director, Rock County Historical Society Janesville, Wisconsin Here is one of your book review readers--<:hecking in!

I was amused by your excellent essay and also delighted when I discovered your personal remarks concerning my book, Art, Crafts and Architecture in Early lllino~s. Acceptance of my work among critics in my native city of Chicago is most gratifying, I assure you.

l\Iy compliments to you for your judicious management of Chicago History-the best history magazine in Illinois. It is attractive and its subject matter has literary style. It is scholarly without being obviously so. Most important, to my way of thinking, it does not dwell constantly with our state's general obsession with politics and politicians; instead it has a wide range of human interest topics.

Finally, I wish to compliment you for your honest and forthright essay about books, their reviews and reviewers. It made me, a new and unknown writer feel that somebody out there in the blue was judging on the content of books, rather than on authors' established reputations.

BETTY I. MADDEN

Curator of Art, lllinois State Museum Springfield, Ill. In reply to your question in the Spring 1975 issue as to whether anyone reads your book reviews, I should answer that I do, altho I do find them often disappointing. As a mere interested non-professional and with limited income, I purchase few books a year. Thus, a review that informs me that a book is interesti~g is of little value; is it better than anything else available on the same subject or docs it offer something new? In the longer book reviews in the Sunday newspapers, there is additional information conveyed, so that even if one does not read the book, something new is learnt. Your review of "Step Right Up, Folks!" by AI Griffin was lukewarm and uninspiring, altho I found his article on Riverview Park, which I never got a chance to visit, fascinating.

Also, I roust take exception to your idea of like reviewing like. Are you suggesting that because I am not a woman I may not read Emily Dickinson's poetry, because I am not a black I may not read J aroes Baldwin's prose? Art should be the reworking of one's personal experience by the art ist into a creation that communicates with others. If it is merely for self-gratification or directed to a like in-group it fails as communication-it is merely wasted effort, repeating what is already commonly accepted within that group.

Thank you for the opportunity to get excited.

NOAH GOLDMAN

Chicago The editor replies: l\fy deepest thanks to all of you who wrote to say you were reading our reviews, and my apologies to those whose letters we can't print. Mr. Goldman's was the only critical response, but maybe other dissenters were simply too polite. He seems to have misunderstood my point, however: I didn't say he couldn't read Emily Dickinson's poetry, being a male, or James Baldwin's prose, being white-I wrote that he shouldn't review them. Someone else made the very same error, a well-known white reviewer who sent his compliments on my little essay and then offered to write an analysis of Native Son for us. Keep reading, keep writing, please; we'll publ ish what we can.

Chicago History

61

rative arts, or Mrs. Robert Hixon Glore, chairman of the Guild's Decorative Arts Committee.

New Exhibitions The first of the Society's two major Bicentennial exhibitions, Creating a New Nation, 17631803, now open, explores the earliest period in the history of the United States. On display are some of the Society's great treasures, including a rare copy of the original broadside of the Declaration of Independence, a set of Amos Doolittle's engravings of the battles of Lexington and Concord, a first impression of Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre, the first patent issued in the United States, and many other important period materials from our collections.

The Society's second major Bicentennial exhibition will focus on the role of Chicago and its people in the making of modern American society. In the years following the Civil War, Chicago became a leader in many of the basic changes that occurred in American life; these revolutionary changes, little noticed since they occurred neither in the battlefield nor in the political arena, nevertheless transformed the American experience, creating a new world beyond the imagination of the Founding Fathers.

Chicago's role in this revolution, especially in the areas of social reforms, architecture, city planning, literature, merchandising, and the democratization of art and culture, will be explored and interpreted in this exhibit, which will open in October 1976.

Early in 1977, the Society will mount a major exhibit of the work of Chicago metalsmiths, artists and craftsmen who worked in silver, copper, and brass. Few realize it, but Chicagoans played an important role in the arts and crafts movement in America. At present, the Society is still building its collection of Chicago decorative arts, and anyone having information about the local arts and crafts movement or possessing Chicago-made metal or other decorative objects is urged to contact Sharon Darling, the Society's curator of Chicago deco62

Chicago History

Recent Accessions The Declaration of Independence now on exhibit was only recently acquired by the Society.

Only twenty-one copies of this broadside, America's most important document, are known to exist, and there is no other copy in Illinois. The acquisition was made possible by the trustees of the Frederick Henry Prince Trusts as a memorial to Frederick Henry Prince's many contributions to the development of Chicago.

On Thursday, July 4, 1776, after voting to adopt the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress directed that it be printed so that copies could be sent to the various assemblies, conventions, committees and councils of safety, and to the commanding officers of the Continental troops. Accordingly, Robert Livingston, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Thomas Jefferson carried the manuscript to the Philadelphia shop of John Dunlap, official printer of the Continental Congress. That rough draft, primarily the work of Jefferson, is displayed at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the broadside of which the Society now owns a copy was printed overnight. The printed copies were sent out on the morning of July 5, 1776, one copy being inserted into the "rough Journal" of the Continental Congress, now preserved at the National Ard1ives. Thus, the first public announcement of independence was the printed broadside. The famous manuscript version of the Declaration of Independence, permanently on display at the National Archives, is a commemorative document, not completed and signed until August 1 776.

It is not known how many copies of the broadside were printed, but in the opinion of Frederick Goff, honorary consultant in early printed books to the Library of Congress and former chief of the Library 's Rare Books Division, less than a hundred copies were made.

Of the twenty-one which still survive, many are fragmentary. Eighteen are held by institutions and three by private mvners. The Chicago Historical Society's copy is complete.

A walnut parlor suite made in Chicago during the 1860s has been added to the Society's collection of Chicago decorative arts, the gift of June Hanselman of Evanston. The suite, consisting of a settee, gentleman's chair, lady's chair, and four side chairs, was commissioned by the

donor's grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. George Hanselman, for their Chicago home. The residence burned during the fire of 1871, but the Hanselmans saved the suite by burying it in the back yard. Dug up and restored, the furniture remained in the rebuilt house for ninety years.

Manuscripts recently acquired include the papers of Ralph G. Newman concerning his Abraham Lincoln Book Shop and his association with Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. (the Leopold papers are closed until September 1, 1976); the personal papers of the Society's late director, Paul M. Angle; minutes and publicity scrapbooks of the Chicago Sunday Evening Club; a substantial file of life histories prepared for the Institute for Juvenile Research; the first installment of early books of minutes and other records of various Chicago locals of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; and three scrapbooks of material about St. Leonard's House, a drug-rehabilitation halfway house operated by the Episcopal Church in Chicago.

The papers and original design patterns of the Kalo Shop, perhaps the most important center of Chicago silversmithing in the early twentieth century, constitute an important addition to our manuscripts relating to Chicago's decorative arts. Substantial additions were also made to the papers of the Chicago Committee to Defend Lhe Bill of Rights and the Chicago Journalism Review, which ceased publication in 1975.

We would like to remind our members and friends that the Chicago Historical Society is the major repository of library and museum materials relating to the history of the Chicago area. The Society also has very important collections of Lincolniana and materials about the Civil War, Illinois hislory, and the history of American costume. Anyone having material in these areas who would be interested in donating Lh~m to the Society is encouraged to write or telephone us.

Program Activities By late spring, the museum staff and a substantial part of the Society's collection of artifacts will have moved to a new location, a facility adjoining the Gilpin Library on the top floor of the Society where researchers will be able to sLUdy many objects which have previously been inaccessible. Made possible by a gift from Philip K. Wrigley and support from Lhe Museum Capilal lmprovement and Rehabilitation Pro-

gram of Lhe Chicago Park DisLricl, the area will be known as the Helen A. Wrigley Center, in acknowledgement of Mrs. Wrigley's many years of devoted service to the Sociely and its programs. It will be open daily, Tuesday Lhrough Saturday. Please call ahead for an appointment.

The Graphics Collection of the Library is closed mornings until the end of 1976 in order to allow Lhe staff to carry out necessary reorganization of the collection and its storage facilities. Its present hours are 1:00 to 4:30 P.M., Tuesday through Saturday. During July and August, our museum and library research facilities will be open Monday through Friday.

A new research project of the Society is the preparation of a much-needed interpretive history of the peopling of Chicago, a long-term project which will result in a major publication useful not only to scholars, but to all interested in Chicago's history. The principal scholars will be Glen E. Holt of "\,\lashington University in St. Louis, Missouri (Mr. Holt was the principal researcher for Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis), and Perry Duis of the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. The Society plans to fund this important research project with the help of foundations, corporations, and individuals from the Chicago community.

The Chicago Historical Society and The Newberry Library will be holding a series of workshops on community history in the Midwest, designed for individuals who are active in historical programs in their communities. Supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the workshops are intended to provide participants with the opportunity to develop new skills in historical investigation and to discuss a wide range of sources and possible approaches.

Workshops will be limited to twenty-five participants. There will be no charge, study materials will be provided, and a limited number of travel subsidies, up to $100 each, will be available to those outside the Chicago area.

Applicants should contact Mark Friedberger at The Newberry Library.

Finally, a reminder that the Society is always seeking qualified volunteers to serve in our research and educational programs. Anyone wishing to contribute time to museum or library research programs should write or call those offices; others wishing to participate in our public ed1;1cation and craft demonstrations programs should contact Nancy Lace, the Society's volunteer coordinator.

Chicago History

63

THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY Clark Street at North Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60614 Telephone: Michigan 2-4600

OFFICERS Theodore Tieken, President Stewart S. Dixon, Isl Vice-President James R. Getz, 2nd Vice-President

Gardner H. Stern, Treasur er Bryan S. Reid, Jr., Secretary DIRECTOR Harold K. Skramstad, Jr.

The Chicago Historical Society is a privately supported institution devoted to research and interpretation of the history of the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and selected areas of American history. It must look to its members and friends for financial support. Contributions to the Society are tax-deductible and appropriate recognition is accorded major gifts. The Society encourages potential contributors to contact the Office of the Director to discuss the Society's needs.

MEMBERSHIP

TRUSTEES Bowen Blair Emmett Dedmon Stewart S. Dixon James R. Getz Philip W. Hummer Willard L. King Andrew :\fcNally III l\Irs. C. Phillip J\Iiller

Bryan S. Reid, .Jr. Nathan A. Scott, .Jr. Gilbert H. Scribner, .Jr. Harold Byron Smith, .Jr. Hermon Dunlap Smith Gardner H. Stern Theodore Tieken l\Irs. Philip K. Wrigley

HONORARY TRUSTEES Richard J. Daley, Mayor, City of Chicago Patrick L. O'l\Ialley, President, Chicago Park District

l\Iembership is open to anyone interested in the Society's activities and objectives. Classes of membership and dues are as follows: Annual, $15 a year; Life, $250; Governing Life, $500; and Patron, .$1,000 or more. l\Iembers receive the Society's quarterly magazine, Chicago History; a quarterly Calendar of Events, listing Society programs ; invitations to special programs; free admission to the building at all times; reserved seats at movies and concerts in our auditorium; and a JO% discount on books and other merchandise purchased in the museum store.

HOURS Exhibition galleries are open daily from g: 30 to 4: 30; Sundays, from 12:00 to 5:00. Library and museum research collections are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 to 4:30 (Monday through Friday during July and August). The Society is closed on Christmas, New Year's, and Thanksgiving.

THE EDUCATION OFFICE offers guided tours, assemblies, slide talks, gallery talks, craft demonstrations, and a variety of special programs for groups of all ages, from pre-school through senior citizen.

ADMISSION FEES FOR NON -MEMBERS

Adults 1; Children (6-17), 50¢; Senior Citizens, 25¢. Admission is free on l\Iondays.

Single copies of Chicago History, published quarterly, are $2 .25 by mail, $2 at newsstands and bookshops.

Broadside for the first Pageant of Progress at Municipal Pier (now Navy Pier) . The poster was also used for the cover of a booklet about the Pageant.

JULY 30th to AUGUST 14th

1921 CHICAGO

Chicago Historical Society