Chicago History | Fall 1976

Chicago History FALL 1976

Streeterville in 1923-quite a contrast to a photo of the same area taken only 14 years earlier, which appears in the article on the area's feisty founder, Capt. George Wellington Streeter. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

Chicago History T he Afaga:::.ine of the Chicago Historical Socielj· FALL 1976 Volume V, Number 3

Cover: A Vi ew of St. Louis. From Lucus Place , lithographed by Edward Sachse & Co. and pub li shed by Edward Bueh ler, St. Louis, ca. 1855.

CONTEN T S

BESSIE LOUISE PIERCE: SYMBOL AND SCHOLAR/130

by Perry D uis

CHICAGO 'S MIDWEST RIVALS: CINCINNATI , ST. LOUIS, AND MILWAUKEE/141

by Lawrence H . Larsen

CAPTAIN STREETER'S DISTRICT OF LAKE MICHIGAN/152

Isabel Grossner, Editor

by K . C. T essendorf

Frederick J. achman, Assistant Editor

IN A PERFECT FERMENT: CHICAGO, THE KNOWNOTHINGS, AND THE RIOT FOR LAGER BEER/161

Mary Dawson, Edi torial Assistant

by R ichard !Vi/son R enner

BOOK REVIEWS:

Editorial Advisory Committee Emmett Dedmon James R. Getz OliYer Jensen Robert ,v. Johannsen H erman Kogan " .ill Leonard R obert ~r. utto n

Copyright 19 76 by the Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago , Illino is 60614 Articles appearing i n th is journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life All illustrations , unless otherwise cred i ted, are from the collections of the Chicago Historical Society .

MORE ON THE WORK OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT/171

by John T'i11ci

BRIEF REPORTS/172 FIFTY YEARS AGO/175 LETTERS/ 180 CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY ANNUAL REPORT 1975-76/181

Bessie Louise Pierce: Symbol and Scholar

BY PERRY DUIS

Contrary to myth) Bessie Louise Pierce) Chicago)sforemost historian) was not one of the first women academicians or even the first woman prefessor at the University ef Chicago. history student in the 1960s, it was an impressive sight. Tucked away in the East Tower o( the University of Chicago's Harper Library were two dusty rooms filled with bookshelves, desks, and endless rows of filing cabinets which spilled into the hallway. The name on the "Rockefeller Gothic" oak door was Bessie Louise Pierce.

To those who enjoy the history of Chicago, Bessie Louise Pierce's name is familiar and important. Her three volumes on nineteenthcentury Chicago are considered a classic work.

To thousands of readers, she remains the most thorough and reliable source on the early history of the city. Graduate students at the University of Chicago recognize her as a founder of urban history, the field that has attracted many of them to the campus. vVomen view her as a pioneer in a profession that has often been hostile to their sex.

Bessie Pierce came from a middle-class, Midwest home. Her father, a New Yorker, moved west at the age of twenty, and went to work as a clerk in a dry-goods store in Caro, Michigan.

There he married and, on April 20, 1888, Bessie Louise, his first daughter, was born. The following year, Clifton Pierce decided to buy into a partnership in Waverly, Iowa. The new TO AN INCOMING GRADUATE

Urban historian Perry Duis is at present on leave from the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and working on a social h istory of Chicago under the sponsorship of the Chicago Historical Society. Formerly a re earch assistant to Bessie Louise Pierce, he has, at the editor's request, included in this article an evaluation of her threevolume history of the city, recently reprinted by the University of Chicago Press.

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dry-goods company prospered, and the Pierces became pillars o( the community. They purchased a commodious home, belonged lo the popular civic and fraternal organizations, and were active in the local Episcopalian church.

"Waverly was a fine town," Bessie Pierce recalled years later. "We did all the things that girls do in small towns, danced, played cards, and I read a lot. When I was eleven, I read Darwin's The Origin of Species, because I'd heard that it was a great book. I can't say that I understood much of it then, though." She went on lo Waverly High School, where she served as class president for all four years. \'\Then she graduated, in 1905, she expected to settle down like the other young women in her senior class. "I did a lot o( fancy needlework when I was a girl. I had my hope chest filled with fancy linens by the time I left high school.

I had my dream of the day some man would invite me lo marry him, but, well, I don't know what happened."

One of the things that happened is that the education of women was very important lo the Pierce family. Clifton Pierce's sister, Della M. Pierce, had gone to medical school and become one of the pioneer women physicians in Michigan. She led a movement in Kalamazoo lo establish hospitals and break down rural prejudices against institutiona!i?ed health care. Her niece idolized her and, instead of "settling clown," enrolled at the State University of Iowa. The young woman from \,Vaverly joined Alpha Xi Delta sorority and enjoyed parties and springtime outings to nearby lakes. Some of the luxury disappeared, however, when her father lost his business in the economic panic of 1907. She became an assistant to the registrar at 15¢ an hour while she completed her

Harper Library, the University of Chicago. It was in the library's East Tower that the author first met Bessie Louise Pierce.

work for the bachelor's degree in education, and yet was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa m 1910.

Bessie Pierce began her teaching career m 1910, at the high school at Sanborn, Iowa, and soon became head o( the history department al Mason City High School. But, like most women pursuing careers in education, she faced low pay and little chance o( further promotion, and she decided lO seek an advanced degree. The University of Chicago, little more than two decades old when Bessie entered in 1913, was well known for its support of coeducation. A decade earlier it had undergone a crisis over the aclmis ion of women and segregation of the sexes in clas rooms and, by the time Bessie Pierce arrived, women made up a substantial share of the student body.

She enrolled as a summer student, returning lo her teaching duties at l\fa on City each

autumn, and her determinat ion, as well as her scholarship, eventually impressed the faculty and administrators both at the University of Chicago and at the University of Iowa. In 1916, she became the principal of the State University's high school in Iowa City, a most desirable position. Still, she cont inued the yearly trek to Chicago. In the summer of 1918, she completed her thesis on the relationsh ip of North Carolina lo the Confederacy and received her master's degree.

At this juncture, Bessie Pierce's career might have reached its height. Her principalship had won her a wide reputation in Iowa's educational circles and as much financial success as most women could hope to attain. But then a series o( unforeseen events redirected her future. O ne was the arrival at the Iowa campus of a rising young history professor named Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. Schlesinger, unlike most of his peers Ch icago History

131

who believed that the only true history dealt with political and international events, was interested in America's social history-its cities and even its etiquette books and everyday recreations.

Schlesinger was also noteworthy for his interest in the role of women in American society. Âź'omen's history, in the early 1920s, consisted of little more than autobiographies and popular commemorations of the victory of the Nineteenth Amendment. But Schlesinger, writing in New Viewpoints in American History in 1922, declared that: If ... the women of the nation have played their full part in American development, the pall of silence whid1 historians have allowed to rest over their services may possibly constitute the d1ief reason why the women have been so slow in gaining equal rights with the men in this the greatest democracy in the world. The men of the nation have, perhaps not unnaturally, felt disinclined to endow with equality a class of persons who, so far as they knew, had never proved their fitness for public service and leadership in the past history of the country.

Much to Pierce's surprise, Schlesinger asked her to be his first graduate student. "All of the women I know who have their doctor's degrees are shriveled-up old ladies," she replied, but she agreed nevertheless. To support herself, she became a graduate assistant, helping her mentor run his courses and earning extra money baby-sitting for the Schlesinger family.

Years later, she claimed that her greatest triumph as a sitter had been to get Arthur, Jr.132

Ch icago History

As her second-grade class poses at the rear of the schoolroom, Bessie Louise Pierce stands immediately in front of the teacher, a place presumably earned by scores such as appear on the blackboard at the left.

Photo, and all succeeding photos in this article, were made available through the courtesy of Special Collections, University of Chicago Library.

later an adviser to Pres. John F. Kennedy-to eat his spinach. Her academic accomplishments were also impressive and, in 1922, when she received her Ph.D., the University of Iowa asked her to join the history faculty. There were then only a few thousand professional women in the entire country who taught at the college level. Only a quarter of them had doctorates, and most taught required courses in English, modern languages, or home economics. Bessie Louise Pierce had indeed achieved a high status.

In her next few years of university teaching and research, Pierce utilized her knowledge of the high-school classroom. She knew that teachers were under pressure to select certain kinds of texts and to put forward particular viewpoims. Even the teacher's personal conduct, especially if she was an unmarried woman, was intensely scrutinized. Her dissertation, which examined the laws regulating the teaching profession, was published in 1926 as Public Opinion and the Teaching of History. Two subsequent books discussed the influence of popular political beliefs on the content of textbooks and the methods employed by civic groups to instill patriotism in youth.

Bessie Louise Pierce

Although such investigations drew vehement objections from those who considered her detached and critical attitude to be unpatriotic, she fast gained a reputation as an historian as well as an educator. She served as president of the National Council for the Social Studies and assisted the ational Advisory Commission on Radio in Education. She occupied a tenured position at the University of Iowa.

There were few women educators with as much prestige. And then an unexpected communication came from the University of Chicago: an offer to join one of the leading history departmenu in the country.

It was a very difficult decision. Bessie Louise Pierce was about to be promoted to a full professorship at the University of Iowa. Chicago offered only an associate professorship and only a three-year contract. But the position involved studying the history of Chicago, an alluring prospect.

She agonized over the offer for several weeks, writing dozens of letters to friends and former teachers. Henry Johnson of Columbia University's Teachers' College, where she had taught several summers, advised that "On general principles I believe that a woman in a position as attractive as yours in Iowa should have her entire future in mind," but added that "few as good po itions for women are, I believe something excellent would be waiting for you at the end of your three years." Schlesinger, who had moved on to Harvard University, wrote that the Chicago offer was "pretty much a matter of six of one and half a dozen of the othersecurity and recognition versu greater distinction and hazard." She finally decided to take the chance. In the fall of 1929 she moved to Hyde Park-"with the stockmarket crash," as he later remarked-and began a forty-four year long career as the foremost expert on Chicago's history.

What the University of Chicago wanted was historical information for a series of dissertations, articles, and books on the contemporary

social life of Chicago. For more than twenty years, the University's social scientists had been investigating urban slums, housing, neighborhood structure, deviant behavior, ethnic communities, and mass entertainment. They had collected maps and statistical data, conducted interviews, and made visual surveys. Now, during the 1920s, they were creating the new field now called "urbanology" and formulating theories about society as a whole. Chicago, known for its social and economic variety, was to become a microcosm of the world's cities, a laboratory in which people could be observed and generalizations made. Bessie Louise Pierce's job was to tell these social scientists how Chicago had evolved into its present state, reveal unexplored areas of research, and provide the broad framework for the individual investigations.

Under her direction, however, the seemingly carefully limited History of Chicago Project became a vast pioneering effort. The historical profession had been formulating its own rules about evidence and evolving a methodology for the examination of such broad topics as historical change, leadership and the relationships among economic, political, social, and cultural forces. Pierce's goal was to apply these new techniques to the story of a single city. Before she set to work, the history of Chicago had been a field left almost entirely to popularizers. She was determined to produce an accurate record.

Her first activity was to organize courses on the history of the city, a time-consuming task.

But she also managed to hire a group of graduate assistants to begin the research for her books. Their job proved to be surprisingly difficult. Chicago's newspapers lacked indexes, except for the years between 1904 and 1912, and every page of every issue of at least one newspaper had to be read simply to find ou t what had happened. The Great Fire of 1871 had destroyed much of the documentation necessary to reconstruct the ~arly years, and a second fire in 1874 had destroyed the reassembled collections of the Chicago Historical Society.

Ch icago History

133

A family group of intellectual women: Bessie Louise Pierce's maternal grandmother; her aunt, a pioneer physician; her sister, a professional concert singer and teacher of music at the State University of Iowa; and Bessie Louise Pierce, at her graduation from the State University of Iowa.

.. .

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Chicago History

/

Bessie Louise Pierce

A project that was to produce results quickly took years instead.

The History of Chicago Project, though small when compared with the atomic research under way across campus, was expensive, and no large government grants were being handed out for social science research. But there were many unemployed Ph. D.'s grateful for employment, and as many as ten assistants worked at compiling information. After completing research on a particular subject, her assistants wrote detailed manuscripts. Then they checked each other's research and interpretation. These were assembled, and then Pierce began composing her own interpretation of the events. The last step was for the University's libel attorneys to read the typescript: in those clays, the courts frequently sided against historians and biographers who embarrassed important people.

The first book produced was As Others See Chicago, a sprightly collection of travelers' accounts published for the 1933 Century of Progress, most of which had to be translated into English and annotated. The visitors wrote about dancing, education, ethnic groups, gangsters, humanitarian movements, and music, and a number of passages were about women, as individuals and as a group.

During that same Great Depression of the 1930s, Pierce also advised the Illinois Writers Project, which was composing a large guide to Illinois and collecting documents and folklore about the state's black citizens. She helped guide the Foreign Language Press Survey, for which dozens of Chicagoans translated and transcribed stories from the ethnic press. During its five years of operation the Survey prepared oYer one hundred thousand stories, carefully typed and cataloged. Pierce knew the value of the Survey to her own history project, for no individual could have learned the eighteen languages involved or read hundreds of years of newspapers.

While compiling As Others See Chicago, Pierce decided that her history should be di-

vided into several volumes. The Civil ¡war, a normal dividing point in American history, seemed less compelling than local events, and she chose the construction of the first railroad in 1848 as the ending of Volume I, which appeared in 1937. Volume II, which ended with the Great Fire of 1871, appeared in 1940. She decided that Volume III should end in 1893, on the eve of the Columbian Exposition, and that Volume IV would carry the history to 1915, the end of Progressive reform and the beginning of the agitation for World War I. The project received considerable publicity and support, and the Rockefeller Foundation and the University's Social Science Research Committee provided generous funding. Pierce's training under Schlesinger made her the most qualified person for the job, and her gender was of little concern to her colleagues.

Indeed, Pierce never sought symbolic victories over discrimination, and the most serious confrontation she ever had on that issue involved the Quadrangle Club, the faculty retreat. After several angry exchanges of words and letters, she became one of the first women to hold a full-fledged membership. Nevertheless, the burden of her work inevitably affected her social life. Despite references in her sister's letters to a "mystery man," Pierce remained single. She later remarked, "I would have liked to marry. I guess most women want to marry.

But I got so wrapped up in other things ... " Professor Pierce was actually a latecomer to the ranks of distinguished women at the University. Since the turn of the century, they had held faculty appointments in several departments. Mary McDowell headed the University's settlement house, founded only two years after the University itself. Two sisters, who were trained social workers, Edith and Grace Abbott, formulated policies and wrote several monographs about child labor, immigrants, and family welfare work. In 192 1, Grace became head of the Children's Bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Sophonisba Ch icago History

135

Bessie Louise Pierce

The family business at Waverly, Iowa.

136

Chicago History

Breckinridge, who held a law degree, became a renowned expert in housing, women in the labor force, and poverty law administration.

Pierce was actually part of a second generation of academic women at the university-those who had arrived just as the true pioneers were retiring or moving on to active roles in government. She was not even the first woman to join the history department: Frances Gillespie, a capable British historian, had arrived a few years earlier.

In her own books, she treated women's history factually and dispassionately. Pierce carefully explained how Illinois' laws deprived women of the vote, property ownership, and even legal control of their own offspring. She summarized the history of the suffrage movement, and she noted the accomplishments of a few exceptional women such as Myra Bradwell, editor of the Chicago Legal News. No woman, however, received more space than a prominent merchant. Nor did men receive very much attention. Pierce believed that broad social, economic, cultural, and political movements had clone more to shape Chicago than great personalities. She also believed that urban historians should not be unduly influenced by the political atmosphere or their own emotions.

Perhaps that is why she condensed the story of Chicago's women into only a few pages in each of the first two volumes, while she devoted several chapters to the "Economic Empire" of Chicago.

Even such limited treatment, however, was more than most historians offered. When asked about that widespread omission, Pierce blamed it on the narrow scope of most histories. Traditionalists thought that only legislative activities and political campaigns were important.

They excluded the suffrage movement because it was slow in gaining success and they excluded the widespread participation of women in the political process because it was too recent to be historical. She felt that such shortcomings would eventually be corrected. "The tend-

Two mon of Influence : the senior Arthur M. Schlesinger as a young professor Interested In urban history who encouraged Bessie Pierce to enter graduate school, and Charles E. Merriam, political scientist, who became her col league at the University of Chicago.

ency now," she observed in 1 9!M, " is toward the study of c:ultural and M> ial, as well as purely political influen<es on hi swrical events. This trend wil l also favor women's place in future history."

Despite a cc1 tain detachment from the feminist rnuse, Pierce alway~ encouraged women to enter the prnfession . r fer research staff was seldom without female members, and she coached them on how to behave in the male academic world. A fot mer ~tucl ¡nt recollects: I remember well how ~he dealt with me when I cxpr<",secl my trepidation a\ l cm,rrontcd an opportunity 10 attC'nd 1111 annual meeting or the /\meric:an lliMorical /\\~ciation. She made it clear that I mus, 1101 t<>r1,idcr mysclr infrrior b ¡cause I was a woman.

There was no need to be hesitant bec:ause women

were outnumbered by men at these meetings. Thus, take care to be well-groomed . . .. Wear a becoming but quietly well-designed costume. No outlandish hats! Even more important, no outlandish statements designed to attract attention. All good advice for those days.

The second volume of A History of Chicago had just been published when World War II

interrupted the project. Mo~I of her assistant went ofl to military service, and she had to teach more classes in the absenc of many of her male colleagues. Much of the financial support of private foundations disappeared. "ihe ~erved as a War Bond war<len and much of h r wartime professional activity was based on experti\e as an educator rather than as an urban histo1 ian. I fer first books had examined the impact of World War r patriotism on teachers and curricula. ow, in 19,p!, she chaired a rnmmittec of the American lJistorica l Association which advised the government on how to interpret American history in its propag11 11 da . She joined her colleagues in collecting donimcnts and interviews about the impact of the war on American soc.ial life, especially in Chicago. She participated in committees to help plan social-science research in the pos twar years. But perhaps her greatest satisfaction came from her promotion to full professor in 1943.

After the war, Pierce b~came involved in a dispute among railroads that drew nationa l attention to her and the History of Ch icago Chicago History

137

Bessie Louise Pierce

A manuscript page from A History of Chicago, written and revised by Pierce and presumably now ready for the typist.

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Bessie Louise Pierce receiving an honorary degree from J. Roscoe Miller, president of Northwestern University, in 1954.

Project. The case involved the di memberment of the old Chicago and Alton Railroad and the Santa Fe and Burlington Railroad's attempt to purchase the line between St. Louis and Kansas City. All of the other railroads entering St. Louis joined against the Santa Fe and Burlington and asked Bessie Louise Pierce to disprove the San ta Fe's boast that its transcontinental service had built Chicago. Bessie realized she was being offered an opportunity to assemble economic data for her third volume, as yet unwritten. The railroads paid her salary for several months and provided funds for several research assistants and, in December 1946,

she presented her evidence at an Interstate Commerce Commission hearing.

She delivered a powerful scholarly case for the theory that dominance over the midwestern economy, and not the creation of transcontinental railroads, had created Chicago's enormous economic base. But the headlines read "Woman Key Witness for Santa Fe Opponents" and "Woman Historian Speaks against Santa Fe Plan."

The St. Louis stories, carried around the country by wire services, helped make Bessie Louise Pierce a public figure. They also helped to create a myth. Bessie Lou ise Pierce's aunt had been a pioneer woman physician, but Pierce the historian was of a later generation.

She was part of an already dwindling group in 1946. And by the time she retired in 1953, nearly all of the women who had been the academic pioneers of the century's first two decades had died or retired. 1any were replaced by men, and the ranks of faculty women gradually disappeared. Even in her own department she was alone; her frie11d and colleague Frances Gillespie died in 1950.

Pierce's retirement from teaching finally gave her enough time to complete the third volume of her History of Chicago in 1957. Her age, sixty-nine, as well as her sex, colored the praise she received. At numerous award ceremonies, the prose of the speakers tended more and more to place her squarely in the first generation of women academics. ,'\'hen she was entertained at one awards banquet in 1966, the speaker said of her, "Diminutive she may be in actual height, and charmingly endearingly feminine in mein and manner, but her grace and graciousness should not mislead us. She has proved herself to be a fierce and effective fighter for both the right of women to an equal place with men in the academic sun ."

Although it is true that she was barely five feet tall, such emphasis ended by overshadowing her intellectual contribution to urban history.

Her last years were frustrating ones. The sysCh icago History

139

Bessie Louise Pierce

tern she had carefully developed to arrange notes and compose chapters broke down under the weight of the information . Her work, which emphasized broad changes, required many more bits and pieces of evidence than histories that depended primarily on biographies of important people. By the time she reached the period of the fourth volume (1893-1915), the number of available newspapers, manuscripts, and other sources had become overwhelming. In the meantime, her advancing age had reduced her ability to concentrate. The initial drafts of her earlier volumes were as long as seven thousand pages, all composed in longhand . By the early 1960s, it was clear to those who knew her that she would not be able to complete her work.

Appropriately, her last published work dealt with the history of women. The article appeared in a newspaper supplement sponsored in 1968 by the Illinois Sesquicentennial Commission and was little more than a revision of one of her standard talks. After recounting the contributions of a few outstanding women and giving a brief description of the struggle for suffrage, she returned to one of her favorite themes in Chicago's history. The city, she maintained, had always been the most progressive part of the state, and its women had been particularly important in introducing a more refined culture. But downstate conservatism, especially among rural men , had impeded legal progress. She concluded the article with a warning not to forget history: Thus in celebrating the year of its sesquicentennial Illinois can view her full participation in one of the most amazing revolutions in the History of the United States-a change in the status and importance of women. This change was foreshadowed particularly in the years of the late nineteenth century.

It reached full flower in the present, as one after another masculine bulwark crumbled.

Bessie Louise Pierce &ed on October 4, 1974, a t eighty-six. She never did finish her fo urth volume bu t, even if she had, most historians 140

Chicago History

would have considered it sadly out of date. It was for this reason- and not her slowness in completing it-that her original publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, allowed her volumes to go out. of print years ago. The Great Depression of the 1930s had caused her generation of historians to overemphasize economic factors in American history and left an indelible mark on her writing. Her volumes devoted several chapters to the lumber and grain trade, but only a few pages to other equally important subjects. Chicago's ethnic diversity and its unusually strong sense of neighborhood identification, for example, received only sketchy treatment.

Finally, Pierce's History of Chicago evolved without an interpretive framework and yielded too few useful generalizations about the city. Her massive research, which filled 108 file drawers, ultimately became a compressed chronicle rather than an insightful interpretation. In her history, urban social institutions appear and disappear without any explanation for their existence. Political history is a series of campaigns that do not convey the meaning of politics. Nor does she deal with the geographical patterns of social status, housing, or politics. Chicago covered a huge territory, and its people and their institutions were spread unevenly across the landscape. To a great extent, these problems were caused by the longevity of her project. Her first two volumes were no less sophisticated than other historical works of the time but, as the decades wore on, she failed to keep pace with her profession's new emphasis on interpretation.

None of these criticisms, however, should detract from her important contributions. Her work is still a model of historical accuracy.

Her high standards helped make the study of urban history a legitimate enterprise which today is taught at dozens of universities and colleges. Finally, although not really a pioneer among academic women, Bessie Pierce is a legitimate inspiration to younger women. She survives both as a scholar and as a symbol.

Chicago's Midwest Rivals: Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee

BY LAWRENCE H. LARSEN

Cincin~ati had the Ohio River and St. Louis the Mississippi.

Chicago didn)t even have a harbor)yet it won the battle for economic domination of the Midwest. that New York emerged as the leading city on the East Coast, that Chicago came to dominate the Midwest, and that Los Angeles defeated San Francisco for control of the Pacific Slope. However, there has been a tendency to believe that such particulars of the urban mosaic were preordained by geography. Not so. To understand the ascendancy o( a New York or Los Angeles, it is also necessary to understand the entrepreneurial process. In particular, the process by which Chicago came to dominate the Midwest deserves attention.

Geography, except in the largest sense, had little to do with the rise o( Chicago. Of course, its promoters contended that the city had a superior location, and that there was never a possibility o( failure, but promoters always make such claims. And it is true that Chicago is situated at the head of Lake Michigan and at the mouth of the Chicago River, and that the lake provided a route to Eastern markets and that the river afforded access to downstate Illinois. It is also true that the Indians had recogniLecl the importance of Chicago's site by selecting it as the place to hold their trade fairs.

But Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Kenosha and Racine, ,visconsin, were also old Indian trading, pow-wow, and burial grounds-and they all had better natural harbors than Chicago-yet they never rose to greatness.

The ke) to urban supremacy in the Iidwest, therefore, was not harbors or trade fairs. It lay IT

1s

COMMON KNOWLEDGE

Lawrence H. Larsen teaches urban and twentiethcentury American history at the Univer ity of l\[issouri at Kansas City.

elsewhere: in the ability of capitalists to formulate plans and to attract the large sums of money necessary to construct port facilities and transportation systems designed to capture vast economic hinterlands. And Chicago had the necessary leadership-such early businessmen as William B. Ogden in finance, John H. Kinzie in real estate, and Oliver Newberry in shipping-to formulate an economic strategy and to construct elaborate canal and railroad systems. The result was a city which, within a short period, was able to capture large and growing marketing areas, rising head and shoulders above competitors that in the beginning had been as blessed. So rapidly did events move that Israel Andrews, an influential economist commissioned by Congress to study North American trade patterns, reported in 1853: The city of Chicago starts at the mouth of the Chicago river, with a population of about 40,000, and as the river debouches into the head of Lake Michigan, is therefore the imminent part of the lake, and the farthest advanced into the country, which supplies its export and consumers its import trade. It is, on this account, most favorably situated for a commercial depot.

Even that early, the brilliant tactical and strategic moves of Chicago's entrepreneurs appeared to outside observers to have been determined by geography.

Such was far from the case. By 1853, the cities of the l\Iidwest had for many years already been fighting ,rith and against each other for dominance, and they continued to do so. The winners and losers were determined by frenzied speculative activities that had little logical public or private rationale . During the first, exuberant clays of town promotion preceding Chicago History

141

Chicago's Rivals

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1836 handbill announcing an auction for land in Germantown by Augustus Garrett, who became mayor of Chicago in 1843. Germantown is believed to be one of the many imaginary towns platted during the land boom of the 1830s and never heard of again after the Panic of 1837.

the Panic of 1837, the mania for founding new comm uni ties became so universal that realestate operators threw common sense to the wind. Lots in remote "towns" sold for thousands of dollars an acre. Speculators platted literally thousands of town sites throughout the region, and most of them had to fail. Even the Midwest, for all its great natural advantages, could not.support so many.

In that same early period, the survivors learned to sharpen their talons. While urban rivalries were hardly new in America-New York City fought off several competitors following the War of 1812-the struggle for supremacy in the Midwest was more sustained and spirited; so much so, that leaders easily adopted military parlance in describing how they planned to ovecome their rivals.

Cincinnati was the first town to formulate a strategy of mastery over the Midwest. Founded in 1788 as a promotional venture on the north bank of the Ohio River, it won its first small victories over two rivals, Columbia and North Bend, and became a major commercial point.

Helped by the establishment of a military base, 142

Chi cago History

Cincinnati became the second largest town west of the Appalachians by 1810, with a population of 2,540. The city recovered in magnificent fashion from the nationwide depression that followed the Panic of 1819, and even the cholera epidemics, serious fires, punishing floods, and financial downturns of the 1850s failed to stop its steady advance. Disasters only spurred Cincinnati's leaders to greater efforts. The roads and canals constructed in Ohio and Indiana vastly increased Cincinnati's markets. River transportat ion and local railroad projects flourished. Cincinnati became a meat-packing center, and its breweries and furniture factories developed into important industries. Its population rose rapidly, from 24,831 in 1830 to over six times that number by 1860. Only one consideration darkened the picture of its future growth. The city of Cincinnati had failed to win the Midwest.

In building their city, Cincinnati's promoters had placed their emphasis on river systems and feeder canals, accepting without question the prevailing economic theory that established "natural" channels of communication were primary and that "artificial" channels could only serve to augment them. The city's entrepreneurs assumed that the Ohio River would serve as the axis on which the economy of the l\fidwest revolved, and they believed that progress anywhere in the region would strengthen rather than weaken the city. Discerning no massive shift in westward patterns of migration, they interpreted the growth of the region merely as the creation of new markets for Cincinnati.

Even railroads were viewed as having much the same function-to provide more lines to feed into the all-important Ohio River.

The leaders of the Queen City initially concentrated on securing territories adjacent to the Ohio River and on competing against other cities which they perceived as major threats.

"Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville are the places which at present have the fairest pros- , pects of future greatness," wrote Cincinnati

Cincinnati's boat l3ndlng In 1855, howlng the city's formidable commercl:11 morltimo traffic ,

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mies. lts promoters made a plausible and natural error. They failed to realize, until too late, the extent to which the Erie Canal would shift the course of westward migration from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes. They also miscalculatecl St. Louis' commercial intentions, considering that city to be an ally, a natural protector o( Cincinnati's western flank. Actua ll y, SL Louis intended to garner for itself the

losses sultered from fires, floods, and cholera.

The city surged ahead. Its population rose to 77,860 in the 1840s, and the Fifties were generally prosperous, despite the Panic of 1857.

By the eve of the Civil War, the population had risen to 160,773.

Within a few decades, St. Louis had become a large city. Its commission houses shipped and transshipped goods to other river cities. Its boats

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Chicago's Rivals

plied thousands of miles of waters. Its merchants traded throughout Missouri, Iowa, downstate Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota. Its bankers ran the Missouri General Assembly. St. Louis was a success-and its leaders expected, as a matter of right, that this city would become the Memphis of the American Nile, the chief metropolis of the Great Central Valley of North America. Confidence abounded. There was, however, one serious and unexpected obstacle. Chicago had similar objectives.

Chicago, which became a town in 1833, evolved into the fastest-growing place in the world but, in 1840, only 4,470 people lived in the depression and debt-ridden community.

The Panic of 1837 had ruined many promoters attracted to the uninviting and swampy site.

"Broken fortunes, blasted hopes, aye, and blighted characters; these were the legitimate offspring of those pestilent times," recalled Joseph N. Balestier, an early speculator. "The land resounded with the groans of ruined men, and the sobs of defrauded women, who entrusted their all to greedy speculators." Prospects appeared bleak. Yet, ten years later, there were 29,963 people in Chicago. In 1860, Chicago ranked ninth nationally, with a population of 112,172. Nothing like this had ever been seen before in America. In a nation obsessed with census data as a measure of progress, the unprecedented growth of Chicago made it a wonder city.

Chicago's business community played a crucial role in its resurgence. Gurdon Hubbard, John H. Kinzie, John Temple, and other realestate investors had little choice but to promote Chicago's chances; otherwise, their properties would have become worthless. So they fended off creditors and predicted a great future. One of their number, John S. Wright, founded the Prairie Farmer, a newspaper that encouraged regional agriculture and described Chicago as the emerging "Commercial Emporium of the Great Interior." In addition, many of Chicago's 144

Chicago History

merchants and shippers, including George Dole and Oliver Newberry, gained reputations for honesty and cemented new trade patterns through fair and aboveboard business practices.

Of equal importance was William B. Ogden, who became Chicago's first mayor shortly before the Panic of 1837. Ogden represented the American Land Company, which was controlled by a group of wealthy New York investors. A man of tremendous business ability, he used their money wisely during the dismal five years that followed the 1837 crash. At a crucial juncture, when some Chicagoans talked of repudiating their financial obligations, Ogden successfully refuted their arguments with his own: "Do not dishonor yourself and our city." Responding to his leadership, Chicago's businessmen built plank roads, grain elevators, hotels, and churches. They lobbied successfully in Congress for port improvements-an absolute necessity, because Chicago had no natural harbor. Their campaign to bring manufacturing to the city was handsomely rewarded in 184 7, when Cyrus McCormick decided to move his farm-implement factory to Chicago. Ogden and his fellow leaders assumed, and correctly so, that failure to attain an economic mix would lead to limited growth and possibly to stagnation. Furthermore, they understood the need for great networks of transportation.

The Chicagoans succeeded in refinancing the moribund Illinois & Michigan Canal which, when opened in 1848, twelve years after the start of construction, greatly expanded the city's economic horizons. "Yesterday was an eventful period in the history of our city, of the state, and of the West," a writer for the Chicago Weekly Journal proclaimed the day after the opening ceremonies. "It was the wedding of the Father of Rivers to our inland seas-a union of the Mississippi with Lake Michigan." Although problems plagued the canal and it fanned an intense urban rivalry between Lockport and Joliet, two towns through which it flowed, its shipping accrued to the benefit of Chicago.

... '

St. Louis recovered from this disastrous lire of May 1849, and went on to greater successes, but its great shipping was finally overshadowed by Chicago 's canals and railroads. Lithograph after a painting by Henry Lewis.

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Milwaukee, ca. 1854. Despite its fine harbor and its cognizance of the importance of the railroad, the great city's hopes of becoming the economic center of the Midwest were ended by the extension of the Chicago and North Western into Wisconsin.

l\f uch freight and passenger traffic that previously would have gone down the :Mississippi River to St. Louis and New Orleans went instead to Chicago. Chicago's merchants and wholesalers transshipped huge quantities of lumber and merchandise down the artery. Until after the Civil War, it remained the chief avenue by which corn reached the city.

Ogden and Chicago's other leaders, having already won downstate Illinois, could have rested on their laurels: or they could have expanded an already proven course, building a whole network of canals. In fact, the Illinois & Michigan Canal had done so well that, for a time, Chicago's businessmen contemplated building 146

Chicago History

a series of canals, including one running all the way to Toledo on Lake Erie. Instead, they struck out on a bold new course, prepared to take major financial risks and even to endanger the solid advances made in the 18,10s. The stakes were high-the winning of the entire Midwest- and well worth the gamble. Emphasis was quickly shifted to the railroad as soon as it had been proved that it worked over long distances and could change the flow of comâ&#x20AC;˘ merce. The decision flew in the face of the economic theory that artificial channels of commerce could not alter the natural channels but, unlike Cincinnati's leaders, Chicago's businessmen recogni7ed that the theory had had its day.

Railroading had begun modestly in Chicago in 1836, with the chartering of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, designed to run across the prairies of northern Illinois to the lead mines of Galena on the Mississippi. The Panic of 1837 dashed any real hopes for quick

Chicago's Rivals

construciion of the Galena and Chicago Union, and building did not begin until 1847, proceeding very slowly because money was still scarce. The road never reached Galena, which Jost importance, anyway, after the bottom dropped out of the lead market in the late Forties. The tracks stopped at Freeport in 1853, and another railroad company completed a spur the n ext year from there to the Mississippi River opposite Clinton, Iowa.

Despite its checkered progress, the Galena and Chicago Union had important implications. It made money right from the start. And once the line connected with the river, it cut into St. Louis' traditional dominance of the trade along the upper \lississippi. The railroad became a conduit that cost St. Louis clearly.

The stockholders received such fantastic dividends that Eastern capitalists, who had previously shied away, changed their minds and clamored Lo invest in new Chicago lines. Money was suddenly no longer a problem for Chicago's railroad builders. Without a formal declaration of intent or a single hostile act, Chicago's main assault on the Midwest had begun.

Other projects followed, the most significant of which was the Illinois Central Railroad.

Tnitially, that road was to run only as far as Cairo, Illinoi , at the confluence of the Ohio and fississippi rivers, but its promoters received a federal grant of land extending to the Gulf of Mexico. Stephen A. Douglas, who owned land in Chicago, used his influence to help get the proposal through Congress, and many other important Illinois citizens held stock in the-railroad. When completed in 1856, the 700-mile line was the longest under single ownership in the nation; moreover, it furthered Chicago's campaign to win the Midwest. The construction amounted to economic war. Led by steel rails, Chicago capital marched through territory that St. Louis considered its natural hinterland. As the road pushed south, Chicago's newspapers speculated about how much the "St. Louis cut-olI" would gain for their

city, and how much commerce in Illinois and the lower i\Iississippi River valley would be siphoned away from St. Louis. And in the railroad's wake, Chicago businessmen consolidated their gains. A Janel company owned by the Illinois Central established new towns in downstate Illinois. "Many existing communities paid the railroad for main and branch connections or were brought to heel by the threat or actual founding of competing towns. Before St. Louis' businessmen realized what had happened, ribbons of steel had tied numerous dependencies to Chicago.

During the 1850s, several other railroads contributed to Chicago's rapid growth. One important move was to thrust a 250-mile railroad across Illinois, starting at Chicago and ending al Alton, just north of St. Louis on the Mississippi River. The Chicago and Alton Railroad funneled trade away from St. Louis the day it opened. Three more railroads bridged the :Mississippi River and invaded Iowa, seizing lucrative markets regarded by St. Louis as part of its natural heritage: the Rock Island Railroad crossed the river at Rock Island in 1856 and reached as far as Des Moines five years later; the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy crossed at Burlington and, by 1860, had been extended to Ottumwa in southeastern Iowa; ancl the Chicago and 1orth "\Vestern crossed at Clinton ancl drove toward Iowa City and the east-central part of the state. After the Civil " 'ar, these Jines were linked up at Council Blulis, opposite Omaha, the eastern terminus of the first transcontinental railroad, and most ol Iowa's trade fell into Chicago's hands.

Chicago's railroad men a lso pushed eastward, constructing lines in ::\lichigan and Indiana. The result was that, within a few short years, almost all the major trunk and feeder lines radiated from Chicago. "\Vhen the first railroads from the East reached the l\Iidwest in the 1850s, their tracks came into Chicagoinevitably. ¡ St. Louis' leaders were, at first, unalarmecl.

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Chicago's Rivals

In the 1850s, they moved blissfully ahead, congratulating themselves on their magnificent internal progress, assuming that all good things would automatically come to them and expecting eventually to be able to sit back and enjoy the gains that generations of hardships and suffering had made possible. They looked upon Chicago not as a rival, but as a super-satellite that could be depended upon in a battle against Cincinnati-a battle that, as a matter of fact, never took place. St. Louis' entrepreneurs had therefore welcomed Chicago's first railroads, making no special efforts to build their own or to obtain Eastern connections. Chicago was doing that job for them. Once complete, the huge system would naturally come to the Mississippi River and to St. Louis: Chicago was, after all, not situated on a developed natural artery.

Thus, unworried about the Midwest, St. Louis looked to the \Vest, the new frontier.

Two projects were of special importance. The first was the Pacific Railroad. With great fanfare, the construction of a road to California was begun in 1851. St. Louis' leaders, assuming that their city was the logical eastern terminus for a federally financed railroad linking the \Vest to the Midwest, expected Congressional support. Consequently they were unprepared when an alliance of Northern interests favoring Chicago and Southern interests supporting Memphis blocked the necessary legislation. Denied federal a id , the directors of the Pacific Railroad turned for help to the Missouri General Assembly and to cities along its projected right-of-way in Missouri. The railroad was to reach the Pacific Coast within a decade but, by the Civil \Var, it extended only to Sedalia, Missouri, some two thousand miles short of its goal. Its slow progress embittered many Missourians, leaving a legacy of hate. Instead of aiding St. Louis' cause, the road only hurt the city's image in Missouri.

The second railroad, the Hannibal and St. Joseph, was constructed across northern Mis148

Chicago History

souri. The intention was to create a dual transportation system-steamboats between St. Louis and Hannibal, and trains from there to St. Joseph. The road opened in 1859, but its operations were disrupted by guerrilla action during the Civil War. The Civil War helped Chicago and hurt St. Louis. The hostilities increased the prosperity of the Lake Michigan city, which was remote from the actual fighting, while the normal life of the Mississippi River city was disrupted by its proximity to the battlefields. Only quick military action prevented St. Louis from joining the Confederacy, and martial law followed. Moreover, the closing of the lower l\Jississippi and federal restrictions on trade acted to offset the financial gains that came to St. Louis from a wide variety of military activities. Still , St. Louis' heritage o( overcoming adversity stood it in good stead. In 1866, the city did more business than ever before. St. Louis' commerce recovered rapidly, and its leaders stood ready to resume what they finally perceived as a conflict with Chicago. But the great urban campaign was over. Chicago had already won.

Chicago's triumph was, as we have said, closely bound to the railroads. Ironically, the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, supported by St. Louis' entrepreneurs, became an important factor in Chicago's victory. The road aclllally fell into the hands of a group of Chicago and Boston business allies after the Civil ¡war, an alliance formed on the basis of a mutual vision of shared interests. Both groups of capitalists reali,ed , as St. Louis' bankers had not, that the road could thrust into Texas, and there link up with regional roads out of Houston-roads already built with Eastern money. The plan spelled the doom of St. Louis' hopes for preeminence in the l\Iidwest. In 1869, the refinanced Hannibal and St. Joseph comp leted the first railroad bridge across the Missouri River, at Kansas City, and started to move out into the Southwest.

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B~ the time of the Civil War, Chicago was already the railroad hub of the Midwest. Map by Ed. Mendel, 1862.

Chicago History

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Four of the entreprenuers who worked successfully to offset Chicago's relatively unfavorable location: at top, William B. Ogden, Chicago's first mayor as painted

by G. P. A. Healy, and a cabinet photograph of merchant George Dole. Below, a purported likeness of trader and real-estate speculator John H. Kinzie, from a lithograph printed in 1867, and an engraved portrait of real-estate tycoon John Temple.

150

Chicago History

"There is a railroad running from Hannibal to SL Joseph, draining and carrying ofI the trade of all North l\Iissouri eastward, as well as a large portion of the trade and commerce of Kansas," the editor of the St. Louis Republican wrote even before the bridge at Kansas City opened. "The building of this road was the severest blow ever given to St. Louis. She has lost on account of it a trade equal to hundreds of millions of dollars. " The Chicago businessmen who read that report could afford to smile: even so late, St. Louis' leaders failed to comprehend the truly vast financial implications of the very road they had themselves initiated.

During the bitterest days of the Great Urban Rivalry, Chicago also conducted a limited war

Chicago's Rivals

against l\Iilwaukee. The Wisconsin community founded in 1835 by four speculators-Solomon Juneau, Morgan Manin, Micajah Williams, and Byron Kilbourn-pursued very aggressive policies. One Chicago editor charged that every cititen was a member of a "committee of o(f ense and defence," and there was some truth to the statement. Neither the Panic of 1837 nor the Panic of 1857 stopped Milwaukee's dramatic growth. Much of the city's spirit stemmed from the pluck and fortitude of the speculators who had hewn their community out of an uninviting swampy wilderness, while fighting with each other over a wide variety of issues. It took a decade for the Martin-Juneau and ¡w illiams-Kilbourn groups to settle their clifierences, but they proceeded, zealously and skil][ully, to promote transportation schemes and port improvements that defeated the efforts of several Wisconsin communities with better natural harbors. Swelled by an influx of German and Irish immigrants, Milwaukee had 20,061 people in 1850 and more than thrice that number in 1870.

Milwaukee's economic warriors never formulated a strategy for challenging Chicago. They simply forged ahead, oblivious of the odds, fighting for their own interests. Milwaukee's grain merchants bid against their Chicago counterparts for Wisconsin wheat. Milwaukee's comm ission houses traded throughout Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Milwaukee's bankers financed projects that might, under different circumstances, have been underwritten by Chicago bankers. Milwaukee's entrepreneurs competed for Eastern money, particularly in financing railroads, a number of which radiated out of Milwaukee throughout Wisconsin by the Civil War. Milwaukee's share of the tonnage on the Great Lakes increased steadily.

Milwaukee's brewers captured part of the Chicago market. l\Iatters finally came to a head when Milwaukee's railroaders began to plan railroads that would extend through Minnesota and

toward Puget Sound. It was one thing to fight for the underdeveloped Wisconsin economy, quite another to interfere with the grand design of Chicago's railroad strategy. Chicago's railroad men extended the Chicago and North Western Railroad into ¡w isconsin, forcing their Milwaukee rivals not only to abandon plans for constructing rails to the Pacific Northwest, but even to fight for a lready hard-won gains.

The opponents played off against each other flourishing cities with aspirations of their own-Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Oshkosh, and Appleton. In the encl, Milwaukee's leaders, their plans attacked by a growing segment of Chicago's power, bowed to the inevitable and settled for the little that Chicago would allow them. Milwaukee retained the portions of the ¡w isconsin economy that Chicago did not want, and the Illinois city got the first railroad connections to l\Iinneapolis-St. Paul, and finally to Seattle.

In 1880, Chicago was the third largest city in the United States, with a population of over a half-million. St. Louis, which in 1870, had been more populous than Chicago, h ad 350,518 people. Of the four other Midwest cities of more than a hundred thousand in 1880, Cincinnati and :i \Iilwaukee had lost their desire for further fighting. The remaining two, Cleveland and Detroit, had avoided confrontations with Chicago, concentrating on manufacturing and securing their immediate marketing districts.

There were fifty-six other Midwest cities of over ten thousand people, but all of them had only a limited future because the swiftness of Chicago's victory had drastically reduced the chances of sma ller communities to achieve large populations. For Chicago, the rewards were many. The city had achieved international importance, secured vast and lucrative markets, and was assured of a continuing rapid increase in population. Chicago reigned over a region with ten million in,habitants, and future aspirants would have to contend with an established order.

Chicago History

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Captain Streeter's District of Lake Michigan

BY K. C. TESSENDORF

When Captain Streeter's boat ran aground in Lake A1ichigan, he stayed put, arrangedfor the shoreline to surround him, and declared a separate republic.

Now one of Chicago's poshest neighborhoods, it was for decades the scene ofpitched battles.

ASK A CHICAGOAN about Streeterville and your attention will be directed to the Near North Side area bounded by Oak Street on the north, l\Iichigan Avenue on the west, Grand Avenue on the south, and Lake l\Iichigan on the east, the site of many of Chicago's fanciest shops, most expensive apartment buildings, and finest medical institutions. Your informant may even volunteer some bits of folklore about its eccentric founder, the legendary George ¡wellington "Cap" Streeter. Even in his lifetime, Cap Streeter made better newspaper copy than history.

Streeter was shipwrecked off what is now the Gold Coast in 1886, and he stayed put in the most positive sense until 192 1. He was Ii terally the man who made this choice slice of lakefron t, but he gathered little gold over the years.

Instead, he survived and even thrived upon derision, threats, abuse, mayhem, armed insurgency, and imprisonment before encountering defeat and death. His passing was marked neither by disgrace nor dishonor but, as we shall see, it was greeted by sighs of relief from the establishment. During his prime, he founded a comic-opera republic and for decades exercised effective, if improbable, sovereignty over the 186-acre territory he called the "Deestric of Lake Michigan." The pesky Cap Streeter never ducked a fight.

K. C. Tessendorf is a free-lance writer whose articles have appeared in the American West, the Smithsonian, the Foreign Service Journal, and other periodicals.

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Streeter poses in full regalia with his wife, "Ma."

George Wellington Streeter was born on a farm in Flint, Michigan, in 1837. One of thirteen children, about all he inherited beside a sonorous name were the genes of fighting ancestors. One Streeter, a drummer boy in the War of 1812, died following a too-strenuous drumming display at a Fourth of July fete. He was 105. Streeter's mother proudly traced her descent from Francis Marion, the Revolutionary War hero known as the Swamp Fox. Streeter was, in many ways, a typical preCivil War adventurer. He wandered the Great Lakes working as a logger and trapper, as an ice cutter on Saginaw Bay, a deck hand on a vessel plying Canada's island-studded Georgian Bay, and a miner in the iron and copper country.

Then he married Minnie, a saucy hometown girl- "a very charming young lady," by his own description, "but she later proved to be more of a charmer than a lady, as I found to my sorrow." With two friends , Streeter later traveled in a covered wagon as far as the Rockies and Texas, returning lo Michigan on the eve of the Civil War. He entered the Union army as a private, quickly became Gen. John M. Oliver's aide, and was discharged as a captain after fighting in the Tennessee theater.

The Civil \Var veteran now indulged, perhaps at his wife' prompting, in a short career as a showman. He collected a menagarie of Michigan animals and birds and created a wagon -drawn road show, gradually adding bunko and exotic carnival arts. In its second

Streeter rebuilt the Reutan , renamed it the Maria, and floated it as a sight-seeing boat during the World's Columbian Exposition. He never improved his spelling. however.

year, the George S. Wellington Shows went bankrupt. After returning to the Michigan woods as a lumberjack, he recouped enough money to purchase the Wolverine, a small steamer in the service of the logging camps on the Saginaw River. Following its profitable sale, the Streeters migrated to St. Louis. Cap built the Minnie E. Streeter himself, but his wife was not sufficiently impressed. Fortified with the family's savings, she ran ofl with a vaudeville troupe.

The jilted mariner plied the central rivers of America for several years, sold out, bought a hotel in New Bedford, Iowa, and sold out again.

He came to Chicago in the mid-188os and used his stake to buy a half-interest in the tawdry¡ Apollo Theatre. He was back in show business and destined to remain in a limelight of publicity for the rest of his days.

Cap Streeter quickly established himself as a raffish personality, circulating garrulously amid the bars and shows of the city's entertainment district. He was a rather small man, sporting a flowing red mane, shaggy eyebrows, and a mussy moustache which framed a face turned brick red by prolonged exposure to the outdoor elements and indoor spirits. The wiry Streeter was a memorable sartorial spectacle in his everpresent top hat and the "tobacco-stained, rustyChicago History

153

green frock coat several sizes Loo large" that dangled from his lean shoulders Lo his ankles.

It was in Chicago that Streeter met and soon married his second wife, Maria Mullholland, a tough, middle-aged Irishwoman who could sustain a bender for a week, and whose fierce loyalty and skill with weapons proved to be important assets to her husband in the battles to come.

Together they encountered a flamboyant adventurer standing drinks to an appreciative barroom audience-Captain Bowen, a soldier of fortune who had recently returned from the Banana Republic wars in Central America.

Down in Honduras, he told the Streeters, there were always opportunities for mercenaries and those with the capital in hand to support them.

A soldier who chose the winning side would be rewarded by the successful caudillo with land 154

Chicago History

Cap's "castle," 1892, an old scow to which he added a two-story structure. The Streeters fought off invaders from the first floor and lived on the second.

grants and a lucrative pos1t1on. Meanwhile, paid in advance, the wily gun runner couldn't help but get rich, Bowen said. It was just the sort of alcohol-infiamed dream which appealed to the newlyweds.

Cap Streeter sold his theater and purchased a hulk which he repaired and furnished with a secondhand boiler. On the occasion of its launching on Lake Iichigan, Maria crashed a champagne bottle upon the weathered prow and announced, "I christen thee R eu tan." She was thinking of Roatan, an island off the Honduras coast that was probably a lair of revolutionaries.

Captain Streeter

Before piloting the Reutan clown the Mississippi and on to Honduras, Streeter decided to perform some shakedown cruises on Lake Michigan, excursions to l\Iilwaukee with paying cusLOmers. A lake gale, the captain decided, was just what was needed to prove seaworthiness; if the Reulan couldn't weather Lake Michigan, it surely couldn't survive a gu!E storm.

On July 10, 1886, a gray and blustery day, the Reulan, with the Streeters, an engineer, and a few passengers aboard, embarked on its maiden voyage. The trip was so distressful that all the passengers elected to take the train back from Milwaukee. At 3 P.M., the Reulan passed beyond l\filwaukee's breakwater and chugged south. But the wind and waves only became increasingly violent, and the master realized he had his lake gale with a vengeance.

The unwieldy vessel arrived off Chicago at 10 P.M. and, at this critical juncture, its aged boiler failed. Narrowly missing the breakwater at the mouth of the Chicago River, the Reulan drifted northwest, a captive of the storm, and ran aground about four hundred fifty feet (151.4 2 feet, Cap's surveyors would later aver) from the beach. Tying himself by a length of rope to the wheelhouse, the dauntless commander spent the wild night on deck and sometimes overboard, as the boat was pounded to a sieve.

In the calmer day5 that followed, Cap Streeter pondered his cash reserve and his liabilities and decided to stay put. The storm had banked a soggy drift of sand around the sprung bulwarks of the Reutan. This promised a degree of temporary safety: the hulk might provide a rent-free shelter until something better turned up.

Chicago was then in a building boom, and Streeter found excavation contractors eager to pay a fee for the right to dump fill on the beach near the Reutan rather than make the customary long haul to the city's northwest fringes. ,,Vith liLtle difficulty, a causeway was construct-

ed in the shallow water. From the Reutan, now cozy behind a rock breakwater, a sanely desert with a network of transient shacks gradually spread to the north, south, and west. In these early years, the Streeters subsisted on the' contractors' fees, the sale of junk they found in the debris, and rents from their tenants.

A dreary marsh area called The Sands, once a lawless shack town, abutted the Streeter domain. In 1857, fayor "Long John" ¡wentworth had led a crowd which burned down the community of bordellos and sa loons while the residents were at a dog fight. The Sands was now vacant, and no one bothered about Streeter. Not until Potter Palmer began erecting the original Gold Coast residences was Streeter noticed by the rich and powerful: he was spoiling their lake view.

In the 1890s, Cap Streeter became both a formidable and objectionable presence on the lakefront. The old showman refloatecl the Reulan, renamed it the Maria, and used it as a sight-seeing boat for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. He encouraged friends and visitors to buy lots in "my valuable proppity."

He had consulted an 1821 government survey which showed Lake Michigan's shoreline to be much farther west than in later surveys. From this, Streeter determined that his man-made Janel lay beyond the certified boundaries of Chicago, Cook County and, indeed, Illinois. He claimed to have advised Washington that he was therefore exercising his riparian rights and that he was homesteading as a Civil War veteran.

At about the time the land-filling operation merged with the original shore, the owner of that property, millionaire N. K. Fairbank, hustled out in his buggy to evict the squatter from what he believed was his land. A shouting match over the property ensued, Streeter produced a shotgun, and Fairbank fled. The choleric tycoon went straight to his lawyer, who advised him that riparian dghts were an ambiguous part of the law. Going to court might Chicago History

155

The Streeters sat out their frequent evictions in various imag inative abodes. Here, a tent (1902) and Streeter's later, more commodious " automobile residence ."

About all that Cap left Ma was the Vamoose , their last home, but she continued to defend it with a rifle when necessary. Photo, ca. 1925,

by George Hillman.

156

Chicago History

Captain Streeter

result in lengthy litigation, he counseled. That was the besl legal forecast the anti-Streeter forces would receive for decades to come.

The embattled Cap Streeter then broadcast his own, freewheeling, cracker-barrel legalisms: "Ripairin' rights is the right lo ri-pair yer shore where it's wore off by the water. Don't gi 'en ye no more right to fill in the lake and own the fillin' 'an it does me to dig a hole in your front yard an' own th' hole." As for the oft-repeated charge that he was nothing but a squatter, the homesteader scoffed: "Shoot; when I come here ther warn't a particle of land for me to squat on!"

Sensing thal his growing throng of enemies would conspire to muscle him out in extralegal fashion, Streeter replaced the Maria, when it was water-borne, with a homemade castle. He secured a high-sided old scow, beached it on his domain and, upon it, built a two-story structure. The scow was his castle's buttress, and it featured a retrievable ladder. The first story was Cap's war room, the second Aoor his residence.

The mettle o( Streeter's castle and its defenders was often tested. In the beginning, the assailants were parties o( private detectives and sluggers hired by real-estate men, armed with specious warrants. Cap and Maria responded with sawed-off muskets loaded with birdshot.

Their aim-pretty good, as nearby doctors testified-was to repel, not kill. Such assaults were numerous in the 1890s. As Cap told E. G. Ballard, author of CafJtain Streeter: Pioneer, who probably "fixed up" the wording: My wife could usually hold the fort in the upper story while I skirmished around on the outside and tried to protect the place from invasion.

One day they almost succeeded in ejecting us, being able three times to throw our furniture and piano from the house, but each time I managed with a little assistance to drive them o[ by the use of my guns and replace the furniture in the home. I was also obliged occasionally to make trips down town to buy provisions and ammunition, for these would run out. During these absences, which the detectives were always looking for, advantage would be taken

to attempt ejection. My wife, however, was a brave woman, and able to handle a gun when necessary to keep them from the top story of the house, and they learned to respect her commands after receiving a few bird shot in places where they would have preferred more ease.

On onf occasion, the doughty l\Iaria unerringly doused three deputies with boiling water from a tea kettle. Cap, then in their clutches, later affirmed that nary a drop scalded him!

Unable to budge the Streeters by force, the establishment now turned to the courts to obtain a decree dispossessing the pair. But Streeter, who had his land professionally surveyed and platted and who paid his own lawyers with deeds of land, was protected by skills his adversaries consistently underestimated.

Streeter had occasionally written to Washington seeking government assistance. These letters had gone unanswered but, in 1899, the federal bureaucracy finally replied, reporting that it could find no basis for jurisdiction over his affairs. Cap was elated. He had already "proven" by federal surveys that his domain lay beyond the control of both Chicago and Illinois. Therefore, if the federal government claimed no jurisdiction, the land was indeed his own. He was sovereign! In April, he proclaimed a republic: the District-"Deestric" in Streeterese--of Lake Michigan . A "constitutional convention" was held although, according to Cap, it was no big deal: We established our government in the D istrict of Lake Michigan without any flourish of authority or blare of trumpets, and, in fact, without any undue demonstration. One of my outhouses was converted into a temple of justice, and a sign placed above its door proclaimed its august character. Our deliberations, elections, and other necessary assemblages were held in this building until the police authorities of Chicago regarded it with secret disfavor.

Tipped off to one of .many police raids, Streeter once arranged to be alone when two hundred invaders, led by Inspector Max HeidChicago History

157

Captain Streeter

elmeier, arrived. The inspector's English lapsed in time of stress, as the Kansas City Star reported: "In der name of der beetles of Illinois, I gommands beace!"

Cap paid not attention, but continued to read his newspaper.

"In der name of der beetles of Illinois," the Inspector began again, "I gommand you to disperse."

"Hold on, thar," Streeter interrupted . "I cain't disperse. They ain't but one 'o me. I'd do it if I could, Max, but I cain't."

"Veil," the Inspector insisted, "you god to go oud mid here."

The captain refused to go except by force, so was lifted, rocking-chair and all, into the patrol-wagon.

He was booked for refusing to disperse when ordered, but after hearing his very logical defense, that, being only one, he could not very well "disperse," the charge was dismissed.

158

Chicago History

The District of Lake Michigan was a desolate place in 1909. The view is to the north , as in the photo on our inside front cover. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

The numerous assaults by police and thugs led Streeter to appoint vVilliam Niles, an adventurer, military governor of the district.

Shortly thereafter, Captain of Police Barney Baer drove out to reconnoiter. Niles sent two solid bullets crashing through the buggy roof, each barely missing the occupant's skull. Baer retired gracefully.

On May 25, 1900, five hundred police were readied to attack Fort Streeter "to supress anarchy." The police soon wavered and retreated

BOULEVARD

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with their wounded, forced back by the Captain's rag-tag militia armed mostly with stones and clubs. While the authorities pondered their next move, Cap's army melted away. That night, the police captured Streeter and iles, took them to jail, and gave the military governor a severe beating. Both, however, were released without being charged-jurisdictional problems again.

Although a number of invaders were killed in attempts to storm the district---one allegedly by a pitchfork-the city found it difficult to put or keep Cap in jail. He was once acquitted on self-defense; another time he proved that the birclshot from his rifle couldn't possibly have kilJed the policeman found with a hunk of lead in his heart. In March 1902, John Kirk, an imported Western gunman, was killed in the district. Cap was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1904. He claimed he was framed, and Gov. John Peter Altgeld agreed by pardoning him nine months later.

But while he was away, Maria died---of a broken heart, said the newspapers.

Cap resumed control over his domain, now greatly shrunk by attorney's fees. He married again in 1906: Elma Rockwood-known as "Ma"-was as stalwart as Maria had been.

The city built a lakeshore road which surrounded the Deestric, but the fading potentate said he didn't care-it improved his proppity.

In 1918, the courts finally ruled that an 1895 government patent, signed by Pres. Grover Cleveland, giving him sole title to the land was an obvious forgery. Streeterville was now a small enclave of bars and dives: "This is a frontier town, and it's got to go through its red-blooded youth. A church and WCTU branch never growed a town big yet. Yuh got to start with entertainment," philosophized Cap. Shortly after his arrest in 1918 for selling liquor without a license and assault on a police officer, agents of the Chicago Title and Trust Company, armed with real warrants, Chicago History

159

Captain Streeter

Captain Streeter's funeral in 1921. The right part of the ribbon on the wreath from the Grand Army of the Republic reads, in part, "At Rest, Our Beloved Member."

Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

put the torch to Streeter's. castle. Ma's final charge with a meat cleaver was unavailing. Cap and Ma retreated to a third vessel, the Vamoose, to wanly continue the fight. Docked on the Calumet River in East Chicago, Indiana, for legal shelter, the Vamoose became a floating hot-clog stand, in seasonal weather, often hovering around Municipal Pier and the lakefront.

The feisty Captain lost his final battle-to pneumonia-on January 24, 1921, at 84. The Grand Army of the Republic buried him, and he had a forty-car funeral attended by numerous dignitaries, including Mayor William Hale Thompson. Harrison B. Riley, president of the Chicago Guaranty & Trust Company, issued a honey-tongued accolade: 160

Chicago History

The Cap'n's ideas of law were somewhat at variance with that of the preponderant legal opinion but he was a gallant and able antagonist nevertheless. We shall miss him more than might be imagined. He kept two lawyers and one vice-president busy for twenty-one years .... May he rest in peace and find his lost "deestrict" in some fairer land where Jaw courts cease from troubling and title companies are at rest.

The Captain's death failed to encl the battle over Streeterville, however. Ma continued the fight in the courts when she wasn't fending off the police, who occasionally hauled her in for violating the city's harbor laws. In 1925, the federal district court in Chicago finally ruled that, because Cap never divorced Minnie, Ma was not legally married and thus not eligible to file claims for the property. She persisted until she died penniless in Cook County Hospital in 1936, and the last suit brought by alleged heirs was dismissed in 1940, tamely ending a half century of colorful struggle and litigation over the District of Lake Michigan.

In a Perfect Ferment: Chicago, the Know-Nothings, and the Riot for Lager Beer

BY RICHARD WILSON RENNER

Chicago's Know-Nothings, crusaders against papery, joined with temperance forces to sweep the municipal elections of 1855.

When the chips were down, they had to rely on the Irish Catholics to save them from the respectable but lager-loving Germans.

1850s, the United States outgrew its status as a young republic and entered upon an adolescence of awesome and frequently painful social change and economic expansion. New sights and sounds invaded the landscape; new issues shaped its politics; and, as European immigration surged, new faces populated the cities and towns.

Chicago, just emerging from its own frontier existence, was the material expression of this national energy. A town of thirty thousand, it exploded into a major city even as it contended for the commercial supremacy of the Midwest. Irish and German immigrants accounted for much of the growth. The wards north of the Chicago River became host to a stream of Bavarians, Prussians, and Saxons who transplanted their cultures to the neighborhoods of the Nord Seite and soon numbered a fifth of the city's population.

Not everyone welcomed the increasingly cosmopolitan flavor of American cities, however.

N ativism, the fear that immigration, particularly of Roman Catholics, would subvert "American" institutions, was already entrenched, and the waves of newcomers from Germany and Ireland who began arriving in the 1840s sharpened the apprehensions of the older settlers. Their response came in the form of scattered, if noisy, political agitation which seemed to have spent itself by the end of the IN THE

Richard Wilson Renner, who studied history at Stanford University and the University of Illinois, is now in his final year of law school at the University of Chicago.

decade. In reality, nat1v1sm had gone underground, kept alive in various secret social clubs with names like the Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, only to re-emerge and coalesce under the stimulus of even greate.r immigration in the early 1850s. The result was a new political movement calling itself the Native American Party, popularly known as the Know-Nothings after the members' frequent response-"! know nothing"-to outsiders' inquiries.

Inevitably, an immigrant metropolis like Chicago would experience its own nativist pressures. In March 1853 the Chicago Tribune, under the editorship of Henry Fowler, inaugurated an increasingly vitriolic attack on the Catholic populace: editorials scored Catholic priests for teaching that religious laws were above civil laws and blamed the unrest in the city on the drinking habits of the Irish Catholics. The approaching visit of a Catholic editor from St. Louis in 1854 prompted the Tribune to speculate about Roman Catholic control of the nation and to warn that "Inquisitions, with all the concomitants, of prisons, racks, thumb screws, and all the instruments of torture ... applied to poor heretics in Spain by order of the holy Apostolic Catholic Church" could indeed one day "include the land of Washington."

Another newspaper which preached nativism was the Free West, published weekly for a year and a half before it was absorbed by the Tribune in July 1855. Although the paper crusaded primarily for the abolition of slavery, the Free West also supported temperance, eventu ally connecting drunkenness and foreigners.

Chi cago History

161

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The \"at1•;,,s are up <l' ye s,·e, Th,•y come in thei, ,trength an,! pride, From the licJW•.>r-cla,l ,ak and lea, And the rift in the mounl;1in's ,iile, Firm !,oson,.< and bol<I they bear, To !JalllP for h~a1 th an,l h,,me, ' ' an op~n fi' e Id an, I f,ur, .

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The chief disseminator of nativist propaganda, a magazine innocuously titled the Chicago Literary Budget, preached the Know-Nothing ethos between the latest news of Charles Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton. This weekly, originally published by William W. Danenhower to promote his book store, provided an interminable diet of the perils of "popery," "Jesuitism," and a worldwide Vatican conspiracy against individual liberty. Although all foreigners were suspect, the Irish, cast as the Pope's particular tools, were the Literary Budget's favorite target. From his eminence as the president of the Illinois State Know-Nothing Council, Danenhower attacked the Celts' corrupt, bovine allegiance to Stephen A. Douglas and his "Irish Democracy," and frequently printed unflattering ethnic humor at "Pat's" expense.

By June 1854, a formal Native American organization had surfaced within the city and, while assailing the Pope and his Irish minions was fine sport, the local Know-Nothings were wise enough to the ways of politics to realize tha t success would require a broader appeal.

In the burgeoning temperance crusade they saw an attractive ally.

Temperance advocates had derived encouragement from the enactment of Maine's general prohibition law of 1851, and within a year they were hard at work in Chicago. Their mayoral candidate, Amos G. Throop, had been soundly defeated by Democrat Isaac L. Milliken in the local elections of 1854, but success seemed imminent by early 1855, when the Illinois General Assembly enacted its own version of the Maine law. Its implementation awaited only the assent of the voters in a special referendum set for June. While the Know-Nothings were not avowed teetotalers, temperance was hardly an uncongenial notion. The stereotypes of the whiskey-soaked Irishman and the lagerloving German provided a bridge that could join Chicago nativists and drys in an alliance of mutual expediency.

A new municipal government was to be elect-

ed in March 1855. For the Know-Nothings, the timing was auspicious. National and local struggles over slavery, temperance, and immigration had shattered the old two-party system.

Apostates and castoffs from the Democratic faith mingled with remnants of the old Whig creed in search of a central theme, a single banner around which to rally. Confidently, the Know-Nothings were offering that banner. In the elections of 1854, they had swept Massachusetts and Delaware, scored notable successes throughout New England and the Northeast, and sent seventy-five friendly congressmen to Washington. For many Americans, nativism seemed to speak the language of the future.

In Chicago, this nativist future arrived in 1855. Fashioning a paste-and-string coalition of nativists, abolitionists-including many Germans-and teetotalers, the local Know-Nothings nominated Dr. Levi Boone for mayor; candidates for city collector, attorney, treasurer, and surveyor; and ten men for seats in the Common Council. They achieved almost a total victory: Chicagoans elected Boone over the incumbent Milliken, the candidates for the administrative offices, and seven councilmen.

Levi Boone was the long, lean grandnephew of the legendary Kentucky explorer. Like so many pillars of local society, he had come to Chicago in the 1830s and commenced an ambitious career during the course of which he combined medicine, banking, insurance, and politics. He represented the 2nd Ward in the Common Council when he was nominated for mayor.

On March 12, a week after his election, Boone delivered his inaugural address and u nveiled his program. Alcohol was his principal concern. According to the Literary Budget, 675 "liquor establishments" marred the municipality, their presence rendered particularly painful by the fact that only 50 were kept by "native American" proprietors. The remainder were owned by Germans and Irish. Boone's solution anticipated the "undoubtedly" successChicago History

163

ful referendum on the state prohibition bill.

He proposed to proscribe the business entirely.

However, should the Common Council find this a bit drastic, he was willing to compromise and merely increase the saloons' annual license fee from $50 to $300.

Everyone knew that such rules could never be enforced by the city's existing law enforcement apparatus, a haphazard affair devoid of central direction, so Boone urged the Council to consolidate the old day and night watches into a single, uniformed force under his own control. The new recruits were to be men "of strong physical powers, sober, regular habits, and known moral integrity"-in sum, native Americans.

Purportedly, Boone's program bore not a speck of -nativist discrimination. It would be beneath him as a man, he assured the assembled citizenry, to discriminate among people merely on the basis of nationality. Catholicism or popery, however, was quite another matter, and Boone's inauguration wound up with a rousing salvo aimed at the "politico-religious organization" whose membership owed "an oath of allegiance to the temporal, as well as the spiritual supremacy of a foreign despot, boldly avowing the purpose of universal dominion over this land."

In those days, the mayor's term lasted only a year, and if Chicago's Know-Nothings were to help forestall the Catholic Church's Universal Dominion they could not mark time. The Common Council proved unprepared to exclude 164

Chicago History

John Barleycorn completely from the city limits, but it did agree with the mayor that he should pay more dearly for his presence. Accordingly, on March 26, the duration of liquor licenses was reduced to three months and their annual cost raised to $300. Some eighty nativeAmerican police officers were sworn, to see that licenses were in order and to enforce an old, unobserved ordinance directing the city's saloons to close on Sunday.

The results were immediate. Within clays, errant saloonkeepers found themselves arrested, charged with selling liquor on the Sabbath, and sent on their way ten dollars poorer. Meanwhile, they warily watched the enforcement of the new licensing law, doubting that the Council was determined to follow through on such a rigorous ordinance. By early April, the number of prosecutions approached twenty and the saloonkeepers' hopes began to evaporate. And as the police went about their business, Danenhower's Literary Budget cracked its editorial lash against alcohol, Catholicism, and the Irish menace.

It was the Germans, however, rarely the Literary Budget's target, who had been most aggrieved by the new administration's anti-saloon program. Not only had a cultural institution, their Sunday afternoon pilgrimage to the beer hall, been proscribed; they were also convinced that Boone's police were hovering over the beer parlors while winking at the saloons where the native-American clientele took their shots of whiskey. There was no justice when the Young

America, a favorite oasis o[ the Know-Nothings, could simply direct its patrons to a side door and conduct a booming Sunday trade, undisturb.ed by the hawk-eyed officers watching the Blatz brothers' establishment further clown the block. Valentin Blatz solved his problem, but it took some anticipation of the speakeasy clays: a secret next-door entrance and heavily draped windows covered by empty steins to absorb the noise.

The Sunday closing law thus settled clown into a mere annoyance, but the licensing ordinance was critical. Three hundred dollars a year was an almost prohibitory ante for the Bierst11ben-Ostendorf's, Mueller's, Best's, Weiss'-which lined Randolph Street and the avenues o[ the North and \Vest sides. And if they disappeared, so would the rich Milwaukee Lager brought down the lake daily by steamer and the products of the infant local breweries, Busch & Brand and EichenLieher. It was outrageous, and the Germans would have none of it. On the afternoon of April 4, they gathered some six hundred strong at North Market Hall, subscribed $5 each to form a society to combat the laws, and appointed John Huck, a North Side brewer, to lead them.

This stirring in Chicago was not an isolated phenomenon in the spring of 1855. It was proving to be a tumultuous season all over the republic. Newspapers augmented their usual reports of murder, cholera, and mad clogs with a remarkable number of "riots," "outrages," and "great excitements" ignited by the passions

Randolph St. between La Salle and Clark sts., a tippler's paradise. The fence surrounding the Court House can be seen at the lower left. Photo is a composite from a panoramic series taken by Alexander Hesler from the Court House dome in 1858.

of slavery and nat1v1sm. Only hours after the indignation meeting at North Market Hall, news was arriving of anti-foreign election riots in Cincinnati: "The Germans Prepared for War" was the headline in one Chicago paper.

Chicago's German population had yet to reach this pitch, but parades of anti-temperance partisans led by drums, fifes, and local ethnic militia attested to their increasing militance. Still, the sale of licenses continuedreaching eighty by mid-April-and arrests exceeded a hundred.

From his room in the Cook County Court House, Judge Henry Rucker had been trying to dispose of these cases, but the numbers were becoming unmanageable. Accordingly, the city attorney and the liquor interests' counsel agreed to expedite matters by the trial of only one case. Its result was to decide all the other cases.

The hearing was scheduled for the morning of April 20, a Friday, but Rucker's absence from the city delayed it until the following day.

News of the postponement dispersed the hundred or so saloon stalwarts who had assembled at the Court House to express their sympathies but they returned in vastly increased numbers the next morning, once more flowing down from the North Side, rallying to the tap and trill of fife and drum before Mueller's and Chicago History

165

Lager Beer Riot

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166

Chicago History

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the other lager shops lining Randolph Street across from the courts. So many of the crowd accompanied the defendants into the courtroom that they spilled out again into the hallways. When the crunch became too great, Rucker asked them to leave.

Those who complied retreated into chaos-a restless mob, agitated by drums and drink, which was milling about the sidewalks and the intersection of Clark and Randolph streets. Not liking what he saw, Captain of Police Luther Nichols sought out Mayor Boone in the Court House and received orders to get what assistance he could and clear the thoroughfares. Returning with two or three patrolmen, Tichols emerged from the northwest gate in the iron fence that surrounded Court House Square, confronted a group on the sidewalk, and demanded that they leave. The occupants stood their ground until a shove from the captain sent one of them stumbling toward the street.

Within a second, police and protesters were upon each other, the thud of striking clubs and canes mingling with the drummers' calls for

reinforcements. Some of the mob tried to escape up Clark Street while the more curious and combative drew closer to the fray. Nichols had fallen to the ground, but his squad was bolstered by more police, City Marshal Darius Knight, and some sympathetic bystanders.

Eventually, the officers' clubs outperformed the fists, feet, and canes of the demonstrators and they began to fall back. From atop a hack, one hotblood attempted to rally the crowd, but a rising young detective named Allan Pinkerton helped drag him down, and he joined eight battered companions in the jail of the Court House basement.

By noon, peace had been restored to the immediate area but, north of the river, crowds of angry men, some of them armed, vowed to free their friends from jail. Back at the square, Mayor Boone distributed bronze stars to a corps of hastily commissioned special police while groups of curious citizens crowded the windows, ledges, and other vantage points.

Shortly before 4 P.M., the cry was raised: "The Dutch are crossing the bridge!" The

At left, Levi Boone, Know-Nothing mayor of Chicago, 1855-1856, painting by James Forbes; at right, his captain of police, Luther Nichols.

Chi cag o History

167

Lager Beer Riot

Clark Street drawbridge had been opened to pre\'ent such a march, but an immense backup of wagons required that it be sw ung shut long enough to let them cross. Sei1ing the opportunity, some hundred men surged across the river and down Clark Street toward the Court House. ,vaiting for them only t"¡o blocks away were hefty contingents of regular police, the new patrols, and herds of onlookers whose presence gave the broad square the atmosphere of an arena. The mayor watched from his office window in the Court House as part of the arriving mob poured around the corner of the Sherman House and into Randolph Street.

Hastily aligning, they raised a cheer, brandished their weapons, and rushed across the street.

Boone turned away to write an order summoning the militia. Outside, a squad of special police "¡as just passing th rough the northeast gate of the square when the crowd attacked.

Police on the board sidewalk in front of the gate stepped into the street and met the ,rnve.

Cries came from the mob to "pick out the stars." Shots cracked out. Spectators clucked or do\'e for safety, scattering merchandise and shattering at least one plate-glass window in their headlong dashes to escape the gunfire.

Policeman H. A. Langley felt a ball rip through his coat. A fowling piece discharged and another officer, George Hunt, crumpled to the ground, his left arm mangled. Hunfs assailant attempted to flee, but fell when a bullet caught him in the back.

Like the spectators, many of the mob were trying to escape the violence, but the police dragged whatever wounded and prisoners they could grab and herded them into the Court House. One special policeman, apparently cra,:ed by the excitement, shoved a pistol into Allan Pinkerton 's side and prepared to fire, but a comrade tore the weapon away.

The battle was over in minutes, though the police continued to snatch prisoners from the milling crowd. Around 5 P.M., cheers from the 168

Chicago Hi story

onlookers signaled the arrival of the first militia unit, the crack volunteer Light Guard company, who arranged themselves before the Court House. In time, Randolph Street was cleared between Clark and La Salle, and the mayor mounted the Court House steps to ask the remaining bystanders to return home. Additional persuasion was provided by the appearance of two more militia units and two cannon which were trained upon the scene. l\Iost citi,:ens obeyed Boone's order. revertheless, Chicago was a city on edge. Street lamps burned through the night, and businesses and public buildings closed early to provide the extra gas. Around the Court House, martial law ruled. Patrols of militia sealed oil Randolph Street and searched the lager shops along their way. Two Germans found in front of Iueller's saloon with loaded revolvers and a concealed sword were hustled oil to jail. To the north, the evening's quiet was punctuated by random shots.

The night passed , and Sunday morning brought no further trouble. But the military watch remained, and Know- 1othing Boone summoned the Irish Montgomery Guards to relieve the troops.

Meanwhile, the city was counting the cost.

Over sixty persons reposed in the Court House basement. Names Jike Karstaat, Herder, and Clausen substantiated the popular notion that the riot had been German work, but enough Carrigans and Brogans were included to indicate some Irish a id. As for the police, their bruises testified to considerable ill-handling, and George Hunt, his arm amputated, was not expected to survive. His assailant, Peter Martin, lived from minute to minute. By Tuesday, the twenty-eight year old immigrant cobbler was dead.

Martin's death was the rioters' sole recorded fatality, though rumors persisted o( secret burials north of the river. Whatever the truth, Chicago emerged from the weekend in a state of shock. A grand jury was convened and twen-

Jitcrari ~nbgct.

I I

ILLINOIS AMERICAN PLAl'FOR)[,

1.. . We hrli1•t"" In thf' <'Xi"t11nl"<' Clfan Almkhty tkln:,:. who rnll'-: tht> univf'r~,•. tmcl j,r("lt"l'rn,a n11 tinn~. nn,l hl. ho,-l' n11-wl"" nn,1 r:1.t .. rnft.l c-1trl.' wr ar,• in,lt•l,tnl tf•r our u11pMt11h•lt·ll a1h"itnccment in 1u1tir,nol :\OJ. indlTiilunl prn-=rrrhy.

2. W,· :111mit thP t'lrh i11•,:f', 11n11 will t.Jr>fru,1 1hr ri;.:ht ,,f 1tl1 rwr:-....,n • . of" hutt•'f't-r n·lhlnu!' /ll('rl .-,r lh111• 1m ln1,- , lion. to 1•'(1·rd~e J·nfl'N fr1•Nt11m in rt':kl,1011; op!uim111, 110.J tn '' wor-.h ip G<l«l nrrordino:: to lht' dic-1:ll""' of tht'lr rnt1~if"nr·r!I:," ~o Inn~ tt"l thf'y i;ih~ll uot ns H ~t·<'t or rhnrrb. 1 1 F1•1•k to t:tt•r1+-=t" :1nv tPn1p<•Tft) prrner: lla•r1·l r th·n,·tn~ · ttll wil'lh or puq,ost- to iutcrfore with tbl' r,•:l~fous oi1lnl-1 on,r nf ttn\' on('.

3. W,, 't1rl· f'I J•Jw-,i::rrl to nll pc,lltlrnl oc;q,c•il1tinn11 of mrn rnmp1•t'1l •·:-.rl u~i\'t•ly t•f r,·r~on~ <'f li.1:-.. l;:11 Hrfh. 11nd ui th~ formuliou of foreign mililury crmJ :rnll'/1 in our countr,1.

4 . TIH1 ruitin1tion and dl•nl C'J mrut r f o. pur,•lr A10c-rh·n11 11'••ntinwnt an,! tl•l·lin::- n r11~!1'inn:,tl! ftfl'ld1u1t>nt to our Nmn:r~·. ,mil i!:1 i:n,·t.•rum,•nt--<'f ,i.,ltnlmtlmt of thr Jlt1n·rdH,1< of,'l11r nntinirnl 1•xi,I Pllt't"-l •f ,· t•11 1 •rn1 ir,11 of 111

ty-four individuals were indicted. At the same time, the city's respectable groups· were assembling at the South Market Hall for a "Law and Order Meeting." The affair went splendidly until Dr. Brock McVicker began comparing the lager rioters with the hos ti le abolitionist crowd that had greeted Senator Douglas some months earlier when he returned from "\Vashington after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Segments of McVicker's audience replied with groans and hisses.

The outburst was indicative, for slavery was becoming an ever more divisive issue in American politics. And the issue proved to be disastrous for the Know-Nothings who were attempting to span sectional guHs with a national program of hostility to Catholicism and foreign immigration. However brilliant at the moment, their attempt was doomed to be swept away in the coming battle against slaYery.

The dissolution of the Chicago coalition, which had already begun, was hastened by the lager riots. The clumsy treatment of the local Germans, most of whom were anti-slavery and some of whom had supported Boone's ticket, disgusted the coalition's abolitionists. ·w ithin weeks, they and the Free IVest were deserting to the banner of a new, more attractive organization, the Republican Party.

To adcl to their troubles, the Know-Nothings' un10n with the temperance advocates also proved to be unrewarding. Throughout the spring, the Know-Nothings dutifully promoted the passage of the state prohibition bill in the June referendum, despite the hoots of "fanatic" ancl "quack reformer" from the liquor interests. In .June, when Chicago and Illinois rejected the prohibition law, the Know1othings' coalition collapsed. The northern, heavily foreign 7th, 8th, and 9th wards provid-

~~~i'1~\~~j';'.:~,~;~~i~;· 1~1~;~ ?r~1~.~~:: 1:::,it~o~1r~!~t:11\~;~~:e, wi:e• j

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[1. Th:,r 111•• tim•· h,o• :,rri\ 1.·•I wlz,•n 11,,. :\nit'rir-nu 1'11rt,- of th~ Uuih-"'' :,l,tnr,•,; !\rt•<'1illnl upt'ln t11 tnki• 01•1•n. f••nrJ,.,.i,: N.nt.1 t1,1rt:F1•n('J ,1;r1111111! UJ ion tlw ;:r,:1t q11c·~ti1m nf ~lll t'Prv. t!u•t i~ now n'.!i!atinc- thu ru•opl1• r,f n .. r~· l"l'r:ff)u 11f thht , lnlnn: a:1,l tb11t thf' idt>1p,1• t'Xr'ICt'lllt•lll jjlltl nl.'i!ati<'n \\ hkh nt thc- J•T<''-\'llt tilllf' arc 1!i-1tr:1t'li11;: "" ' Nlll ntn·• upon th" ituhjt'd of i,:l:1l"f'T." h:,,·,• l)(•1•n t.·n11!'••1l hv th o r~•l 1 1 1

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c-r1-.l ro1111 11,<'t. t>1th.• r 1.-. J into l1cLv. ct'n 1lu· tw,, ;:r~11t i"f·tt•m<c r,f lld-1 '.!rl':it ,•,,1ff1·,lt•r:1(·1·. :u11l in tlw h i:.ch,·-: d••:.tn ,, •h•Flructh e tc:1 1h 1• fH•t11•0• ii.1•d wdfor1• 1,r n •i,1 l' ni,- 1,. 'l'Jwt !

I\ rt•,.l1 1r:ltim1 of th l.' \l\ ,:::ou1 I Cc,11q,rfln,i:-:1•. fl.:- it v. ill 1~i-t,,rA the t.,rrltnr., fr>.- whirlt it ,,.nq nri~inn1J1· 111.1,te to ti,,,,.:nnc t-ituntiNl iu "hkh it ,·11~ lx:forc thRt Hot.• wu~ u11n ..1•l'IIIIL· rlly ll,•11trorc<1 . ~,) it will rc~tore }'i::u·t> 1111,l l1:1rnunv to tl~+!rou~1try. \\i:hnu t i:ijur.v or i11ju11tkt' tn :111y r,of'tion c,t lht• \ O!'ln: lbn t wl ilc it 11 ill 'JIiiy ~in• t.r1 fn•1•1lt,m th:lt wl1ir'I. with ,!11,• ... •)1,·mnit.,· :mil iu ;:0t.. l folrii 11.·n:- l•llll,!'

Finer Nln\'{'Jt..~I to Jin un,lt·r the contr:tct. it will t!'tlllHlly pre--.t•n·r th,., 1.,ll :rnd 1111,li•pul1•d rl;.:ht/ol :ir,1uir,•,! i;: itl• ·r It hy tht> $<,11th. R1J1! th:it lhf"rrf""'' lht> '.\1i:i,;cfl11rl C'omnrnmil'I~ i-hoalJ 1,c T"'"l1,rt•1l . nnd thut in nil Pf,lith·rd nntlontLl t"l)lll(' o: t~ l.,t' Am1-rit-im 1,:1rty In tl-1• ~tt1t1• (If lllint1f11'. will 1lnu1u1d ;,r !t/ol'. c:;mclitintt-:- for offlt·t• Rmnn~ c.,tlltr 11u1d• tfl1·at1:ma their c.ipcn ai.ud uuf..li.-s:ui.•t.·d opiuiouti: u.,iou LLj., qu~11urm. ti. The t'!1'Fet1li:,l modifk~tion of thP nftturn.111,11.tion ltiw:1 l,y t'XlPtvJin~ the timl' or rl't-i1lr>J1('1•, it.'qnin•d of tltn!'I~ of !'orri::n birth to entitle th~m Lo <'ilizcn,-Jdt.. A tntn.1 rcJ•t•ul t·f:lll ~tnt,, IAw:-i nllo .. iu;: n1:y l,nt dtl;wn~ of th(' l"nflt'fi :,.tf:,t.P!' the r1'!htof111utfta\Cf', Rut n. r:,r"fol ll\'OitJ:mcl' bfnll intcrfrr,·r:t·l' with rigLu of cilbcn11hi1, r 1lre11,1.,, nr-op1irrrl ur:ill'r 1•xl!'li11J? lftw,-, . 7. Ht,i!"lRtwe to tht· t"flrrupth·e iotlueucc.11 n11d At:',1tTCl'l111n·e pnJJcy of rh•• Hn111i.-h c'hun:·lt , um:w,•n iu;: c,; 1,11.:Hinn t4? •II fnrt:iJZ"n h_1tt_ut-n c~ nr int,•rfor~uce offorl•lgn cmUIJ1n rtt•11, wh ethn r1~· 1J 1ir rrde,-fo"lti1•11I. ~. A M1.1lirtll impro,·,•mcut in 1lw prl'•c-nt ,iv,it.-m of exef·utiv .. patrona;:••. ,vhit•h un:-j•1:1.ria)!ly. <'C.nf;,n tl'\\1trd;. for polltit.·1'1 11u},<11•ni11nr.,·, trnd punl:<h,•11 f11r m11nly hu.l1•J1t•n1hmrf' in politiC'tl.1 O}Jlnion ttnd a r'l•urll',, ut•rci!e of polillC'al ri;;htsi.

U. 'l'he f'tluC'ntic,n flf the ,·outb of C>ur lr.nd Jn the 11ehoolsClfnur1"(1tmtry,whkh ,..1,nuhi l>tt c•J•<'ll tc, tdl. "ilhout rt•j!ttnl to r:om.li:i<-11 or c~P1·:I. :in1l whkh llhnll t.(' frN• frt1m 1111 iutlt1l'11l'P" 1,f:, t.1en11rni11arlonsl nr p11rl11.nn rhnrnrtcr.-1,ut in whic'h the JI, I)' lli1il~. ,hall l'\'t'T 1.w fr,•..,Jy h1tril(}u,·1•ll 11.n,I rt•111I. n<I' Ille l1>0k whkh c·,11tnfnJ11 thi> ht'ioit ti) :ttrm or ruor~J..,. u1,.J till' ocl.,· "Y1>1l~m nf rure TPll~lon, ,mt.I frnut wlawh l'\·•·ry 1ru~ Chri·lll:111 mu~tJerht: th~ rnl<- tif ht.~ foif h unit pr:,,·I ire..

10. 'l'h •· ju ... t nnJ 1•r• )'l'r rrote-ctinn to Am~ricnn lrthor , anJ Amnl,·,u1 enlt•rpril"e and ,r~ntu,. "lJnio,-;t thP 11-1.h'••rifi- j Jl<\lir:, of fu rPi._11 nnlionl'l: ft,1,cntl11;.: sl•o. tb:tt il j,; IJ(lth l ~ithtn the 1~1v.n _1uul•lnty of the l(f'lh•ral govcntm,•nt tt) aid an,l4"ttdhta.t•• mternnl cntnm,.rce l,y ,rn ID1pro,·eu11mt uf our rl~• .. '"" Rnll tbr lmrhor!'I upnu our Jakf'JII, 11. \\e ,te,d:n·e our fttlft('hrurut to the l'ni('ln ofthel!'e ~tn.t1•,i. tunl wldlt• w1• do uot pnrtnkt> of the f••nr,ii ,o often eut.-Ttalued of it:1 l 1i,,:-ulution, we will ent.leavor to pro• mot.. h~ rerp••tutry by" firm "dln:N!uee to atl the prlndplt>ll. lO' •~II t•fth~ C'f111i-:titution nA thu Ut...::laratlon of A~.:rir•!' lnt.leJl('nll.-nr:e.

- \\ e Uh:chthu 1111 rt;:ht of th~ ~cneral ;:tovernment t , iut1•tft"tf' with lhts iu,tltutlntt ohla.nrv •~ It ex~t 111 ln any o~t11" State~ofthii< linioo; but we di..,tlndly u"ert that. Con,:;tt!I..." ha,r full power. uu,ln 1111' l'on1111tutloo to ~t!,~lti UJlOD U1e ~ubject in tlle 1'trritorie1t of the lintted

I

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13. Such • ratlbl mfldifln.tlon of the 1t1.w11

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reter-

f'nce to l'nllJ!ntk,n u willf'rfN:tu11IIT prnent. the 111endlug to o;r 111 lhtt Ji&upen •nd fclon,I or otl,C'r oatloua.

1 • e COIM.lf'nin. lo a tnOflt. ('IOfllUve wanner the _. nult,t upo1 1 tltf! elttthe f?'an('hl!le In KauN.11, an~ the cf• l:1N lo control the fl"f'1!: ~x~nrl~ or the riJ(bt or au.JI' • t.u •·blch ~i-erJ Atner\nn cUlun it eutltl~. rag ' 1

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Re,tol•ed. That the prln('lple11 antl olij~U of th!'! A- , merinm J'Clfty J1baJI b.-""9.ner nery where ctu.Uo('UJ

r

William H. Danenhower's Ch icago Literary Budget, Aug . 4, 1855. In addition to the platform of the Illinois State Know-Nothing Council, the issue announced Danenhower 's new paper, the Native Citizen .

anJ opeol ""°owed aud publlaibted; awl we ioTlte all r,..

IIIOU,. Y)IO ~ltne lo true Amuhn rrlnclplo, to tu <Wr-yln.,: out our principlu u hereJn 1et forth---ud :: wUI ('bet:!rfwly co-operattt •tth auy part.7 M a nnt:lonal wW be lo OUT)' Into eff-.-ct

=!;:!:=e:teet.tt

.J~.•»~~• •t Sprlnglh-ld, OD

t.be

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11". W. DAKnffOwn.

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Lager Beer Riot

ed the requisite margin for the defeat in the city. By the Free W est's calculations, the returns in the 7th vVard-843 to 84-were larded "beyond doubL" with at least three hundred illegal ballots. But, as was also beyond a doubt, prohibition was dead, a victim, in the Literary Budget's bitter idiom, of "the foreign rabble and disgraceful rummies."

A month later, the results at the polls were echoed in the acquittal of all but two of the fourteen lager rioters who eventually came to trial. By then, Chicago's Know-Nothings were only the remnants of a fading faction. Some of the officeholders, following the old temperance candidate Throop, joined abolitionist organizations which eventually became part of the Republican Party. One councilman became a Douglas Democrat. The Common Council argued aimlessly over the liquor situation, and Mayor Boone found it increasingly worthwhile to remain at home. Danenhower, however, remained a staunch defender, fashioning the new Weekly Native Citizen from the remainder of his Literary Budget, which suspended publication in August.

But by the time of the new municipal elections in March 1856, slavery and the KansasNebraska Act had long retired the old issues of "popery" and "Jesuitism;'' ¡what remained of the Know-Nothings nominated for mayor Francis C. Sherman, who was also the candidate of the anti-Douglas Democrats, to oppose Thomas Dyer of the Douglas Democrats. The Tribune made one final effort to link the Catholic Church with slavery, with little success.

Dyer was elected, probably because the KnowNothings supported Sherman. The Native American Party elected only two councilmen.

Soon afterward, the Tribun e attacked the Know-Nothings, claiming that their nativist sentiments had delivered all of the city's foreign population to the Douglas Democrats, and it thereafter softened its anti-Catholic line. The paper also hinted at collusion between Danenhower and Douglas: while great numbers of 170

Chicago History

the nation's Know-Nothings were aligning with the Republicans, Danenhower was moving closer to the Democrats. In August, he switched his support from the Know-Nothings' presidential candidate Millard Fillmore to Democrat James Buchanan. The unofficial death of the KnowNothing movement in Chicago came in November, when Fillmore received only 332 of over eleven thousand votes cast in the presidential election. Danenhower's Native Citizen ceased publication the next day.

From its inception, the career of Chicago's Know-Nothings had been colored with irony.

They had attained power through a coalition composed in part by foreigners. They were brought low by a group-the Germans-with whom they had no particular quarrel and over an issue-temperance-which was not even part of their platform. It was only the capstone to this strange saga that, in his hour of greatest need, Know-Nothing Boone had actually summoned the Irish Catholic militia to help protect the city.

As time passed, the temperance forces carried on, and the germs of nativism lurked just beneath the surface. But it was clear that never again would they set the tone of a city renowned as the immigrants' new home and the tipplers' retreat. Indeed, after a few decades, Chicagoans began recalling the riots with a perverse, typically Chicagoan, pride, like the later deeds at Haymarket Square or on St. Valentine's Day. The lager riots became one more incident in the life of Carl Sandburg's "stormy, husky, brawling" city. Levi Boone, as he grew older, proved to be not averse to a cold brew now and then. And George Hunt? He confounded his doctors and survived the amputation of his arm. Years later, having retained less vigorous municipal employment and skillfully invested an award for his loss, Hunt could be pointed out as the city's wealthiest policeman, his empty sleeve one of the last reminders of the riot for lager beer and Chicago's flirtation with the Know-Nothings.

Books

More on the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright except £or a small but devoted group of clients and admirers, Frank Lloyd Wright was a prophet without honor in his own land. The German aesthetician Kuno Francke, in America as an exchange professor at Harvard, toured the Midwest and discovered Wright's buildings. On a visit to the ard1itect's Oak Park studio, Francke urged Wright to live and work in Germany.

"I see that you arc doing organically ... what my people are feeling only superficially. They would reward you. It will be long before your own people will be ready for what you are trying to give them."

Wright declined the offer, but stated in his autobiography that it was probably this encounter whidt led the Berlin firm of Ernst Wasmuth to publish a definitive monograph of Wright's work.

Among the American critics who had noticed Wright and attempted to evaluate his work was poet Harriet Monroe, sister-in-law of ard1itect John ·wellborn Root and founder of Po etry magazine.

To a large extent, her criticism supported Francke's dire prediction. For the Chicago Examiner, she described Wright's 1907 exhibition of drawings, models, and designs in the Art Institute of Chicago: DURING MUCII OF 111S CAREER,

His work is thus a most interesting experiment, dependent for its success wholly upon the designer's creative force and inborn sense of architectural proportions and harmonics. What is his measure of success?

His limitations arc ob,ious enough. We pass by the more ambitious buildings-the plaster models for Unity Church at Oak Park, for the Larkin Company administration building at BulTalo, and for a huge, square nameless structure, all of which look too much like fantastic block houses, full of corners and angles and squat, square columns, massive and weighty, without grace or case of monumental beauty.

Wright responded with a three-page polemic on the principles of Prairie architecture. He described her review as "little more than the superficial snap judgement 0£ the 'a rtistically informed' "and added: "I cannot believe you altogether insensible to fun-

Studies and Executed Buildi11gs of Fra11k Lloyd Wright, Prairie School Pres, 1975, 10; Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, llli11ois, by Donald G. Kalec and Thomas A. Heinz and the Restoration Committee of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation, Frank Lloyd Wright I lomc and Studio Foundation, 1975, 3.

damental qualities but what a flimsy characterization 0£ the Ideal behind the work to which I have given my life . . . . Concerning our perennial friend the 'squat' -We happen to be living on the prairie."

When the Wasmuth publication , titled (in English) Studies and Executed Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright appeared, the noted Eastern architectural critic l\Iontgomery Schuyler wrote a not unpositive review in the Architectural Record of April 1912.

But even he had his reservations: The defect of the architecture is the same as the dcfcct of the "Mission" furniture, which it appears that the architect, commonly and properly, specifics to go with it. The stock unmodelcd transitions give an air of something rude, incomplete, unfinished. The bui ldings seem "blocked out," and waiting completions rather than completed.

In Europe, on the other hand, the reaction to the Wasmutli portfolio was positive and immediate.

Mies van der Rohe recalled, years later, in an appreciation written for an unpublished catalog £or the 1940 exhibition of Wright's work at the Museum of Modern Art: . . . we young architects found ourselves in painful inner discord. Our enthusiastic hearts demanded the unqualified, and we were ready to pledge ourselves to an idea. But the potential vitality of the architectural idea of the period had by that time been lost.

This was approximately the situation in 1910.

At this moment, so critical to us, the exhibition of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright came to Berlin. This comprehensive display and the exhaustive publication of his works enabled us to become really acquainted with the achie\'cments of this architect. The encounter was destined to prove of great significance to the European development.

The work o( the great master presented an architectural world of unexpected force , clarity of language and disconcerting richness of form.

Ausgefiirte Bauten has gone through five ed itions since then.

The publisher of this new sixth edition 0£ the Wasmuth monograph, Wilbert R. Hasbrouck, de-

NOTE: The reprinting, by the University of Chicago Press, of Bessie Louise Pierce's A History of Chicago (3 vols. covering the period 1673- 1893, S15 per vol.) is a major publishing event that would normall y call fo r a full-scale review in these pages. Our readers are instead referred to Perry Duis' evaluation of Pierce's work, in the latter pages of his article in this issuc.-Ed.

Ch icago History

171

Books

scribes the five earlier editions and comments on their format, materials, and general unavailability.

His new edition, in book rather than portfolio form , and about one-third the size of the original, is a photolithographic copy of the 1910 Berlin edition, but contains both the original German and the later English texts. Printed on one side only on good paper stock (the original had major plates on several colors of heavy stock and minor plates on tissuelike sheets), this new edition has an unfortunate fault: some of the reduced plates have become weak and difficult to reacl. Despite this problem, the sixth edition does serve as a working copy of a book difficult for the average library to obtain and circulate. A paperback version, offered at a lower price, would bring this important volume more within the reach of the average purchaser.

Architectural preservation in America is as often determined by historical incident as by the quality of the ard1itecture itse1ÂŁ but, as we are reminded

by Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, here architecture and architectural history have become one. The most American of architects designed, and then frequently altered, this complex, and the manges reflect his growth as an anist as well as the growth of his family. Here he experimented with new ideas and he and his colleagues designed many of the projects included in the epoch-making Wasmuth publications.

Dedicated preservationists, aided by the National Trust ÂŁor Historic Preservation and by funds lent

by Oak Park's AYenue Bank and Trust Company, have succeeded in purchasing this shrine of American architecture and are now well on their heroic way to a thoughtful restoration. The newly established foundation that is undertaking the task has published a twenty-four page booklet illustrating the history of both home and studio during those "golden years." The monograph, the first chronology of plans and alterations during the twenty-two years Wright lived there, is an invaluable aid in following this early and formative period in his career.

JOHN VINCI

Architect John Vinci is a frequent contributor to these pages.

172

Chicago History

Brief Reports Chicago's White City of 1893

by David F. Burg University of Kentucky, '9i6. S'i¡ is all about Chicago's coming of age, for Chicago d10se the World's Columbian Exposition to demonstrate its pubescent beauty and its industrial muscle.

Originally planned to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, in reality the Exposition marked the transition of America from a rural nation to an industrialiLecl urban one. And since the design of the Exposition required that nearly all the buildings and sculpture be painted white, it was called the White City.

This was the first time in American history that architects, engineers, landscape architects, interior designers, painters, and sculptors cooperated to produce a magnificent new city-and all from a 469acre tract of muddy swamp on the edge of Lake Michigan. It was also the first time that women were given the opportunity to participate in such an auspicious venture. The 1,Vomen's Building was designed by women, its construction was controlled by them, its interior murals were painted by them, and it was filled with their sculpture.

Overseeing the entire Exposition was one person-Daniel H. Burnham. Although Burnham assigned individual projects to many architects, he remained in charge and was responsible for putting it all together. His partner, John ,v. Root, and Frederick Law Olmsted worked out the original scheme that eventually became the final master plan for the Exposition. Olmsted, a superb landscape architect, convinced Burnham to use the basic plan as the basis for developing the area into Jackson Park after the fair was over. And Burnham became so fascinated with city planning by this experience that he deYeloped the Chicago Plan of 1909, which preserved not only Jackson Park but all of Chicago's lakefront.

Chicago's major cultural achievement before the Exposition was the development of tl1e Chicago style of architecture, now referred to as the Chicago Sdlool. That development was the happiest and most immediately impressive outgrowth of the Great Fire of 1871. The fire demanded in effect that Chicago be entirely rebuilt. That fact alone attracted many young architects-among them Louis Sullivan, TlllS WELL-RESEARCHED BOOK

Daniel Burnham, John Root, William Le Baron Jenney, and Henry Richardson. By the time of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago's new buildings had re-created the city as a very impressive physical presence. Much of the work of these young architects, now considered masterpieces, had considerable influence on architects throughout the world during the period.

It is ironic, therefore, that the grand design for the White City (with the exception of Louis Sullivan's Transportation Building) was classical, greatly influenced by the beaux-arts style, which was the rage in Europe. It apparently suited the desire and taste of the city fathers to use this opportunity to display Chicago's opulence and industrial power, and the total effect was highly successful.

The master plan for the Exposition designated several distinct areas. They were the basin and canal; the wooded islands and lagoons; the government-federal, state, and local as well as foreign; the buildings of the concession area, including the Ferris wheel; the livestock and agricultural area; the Convent of LaRabida; Leather, Forestry, Dairy and Anthropological buildings; and the railway yards, storehouses, warehouses, and workshops.

Strikes and disagreements added to the task, and the final plan was barely completed in time for the architects and engineers to meet the opening-day deadline.

The unimproved 469-acre area of .Jackson Park's total 640 acres had to be raised by 6.5 feet and interspersed with waterways. The black earth had to be removed and returned after the fill was made, requiring the handling of 400,000 cubic yards of earth twice! A stupendous undertaking by any reckoning.

These and many other unusual features of the Exposition are described by author Burg. This book, though the writing is dull in spots, is a fine sequel to Hubert Howe Bancroft's The Book of the Fair, published shortly after the closing of the Exposition, and much better illustrated. However, since Bancroft's purpose was merely to chronicle the Exposition, we must look to Burg to find out how the real world of 1893 was structured and how Chicago fit into that pattern.

IRA J. BACH

Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues

by John Holway Dodd, Mead, 1975. $9.95.

LIKE ROBERT PETERSON in Only the Ball Was White, John Holway has made excellent use of oral history to portray life in the black baseball leagues. Holway interviewed eighteen former players and l\Irs. Effa Manley, co-owner of the Newark Eagles, and they provide valuable insights into the black leagues, sandlot teams, and black life before 1947, when organized baseball abandoned apartheid and the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson.

Most, if not all, of the people who tell their stories in Voices are unknown even to the knowledgeable, although their white counterparts are household words. "Sug" Cornelius, David Malarcher, Bill Foster, "Cool Papa" Bell, and others tell fascinating stories about the skills and exploits of their fellow players. Their recollections of barnstorming tours in which they won over all-star teams of white players, combined with Holway's statistics and perceptive commentary, offer proof that black leagues were always the equal of the white major leagues and that good black ball players are not a recent phenomenon. They have just been, in Holway's words, "invisible men," deliberately overlooked and denied employment and means of expression.

Many of the black stars who reveal their feelings about discrimination are amazingly free of bitterness. Their comments about the attitudes of white baseball players and other figures in the game are of special interest, as are their vivid descriptions of traveling and playing conditions, and their teams' management. But they do not gloss over rough tactics or other unsavory matters, practices paralleled in white baseball of the time.

Warm and enlightening, Voices should be read by all baseball ÂŁans-especially those unaware of black contributions to the sport-and by anyone interested in black life in America.

ARCIIIE

J. MOTLEY

Strategies for Change: How to Make the American Political Dream Work

by Dick Simpson and George Beam Swallow, 19i6,

10.

that fulfills the promises of the title of this one. Simpson and Beam have not written that book. They focus on three strategies: electoral strategy, administrative strategy, SOMEONE NEEDS TO WRITE A BOOK

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Just Mahalia, Baby

Books and the strategy of pressure politics. But Simpson's experience-based discussion of electoral strategy and pressure politics is distorted by an ideal view of the nature of independent politics. Beam, the principal author of the chapters on administrative politics, is inexperienced in the application of this strategy and therefore writes hypothetically. The result is a simplistic analysis that provides Jillie of the "how to" of the book's title.

As a discussion of what independent politics could be and an exploratory essay about bureaucratic change, this book would be appreciated. As a "how to" book, it fails.

by Laurraine Goreau Word, 1975. $12.95.

UNFORTUNATELY, sheer weight (610 pages), an irreverent title, and the author's unusual style will turn off many who would otherwise read this informative biography. Beneath the avalanche of names and minutiae is a fascinating story of the world's greatest gospel singer. Rich in " i\Iahaliaisms," the book describes her long struggle to make gospel music repectablc, her little-known political and civil-rights activities, her turbulent love life, and her towering faith in a walking-talking-God. ERA BELL TIIO~IPSON

LAURENCE HALL

The Heartland: Pages from Illinois History Field Days: The Life, Times, & Reputation of Eugene Field

by Robert Conrow Scribner's, 1971. $12 .50.

Eugene Field mostly as a saccharine popular poet, albeit also an interesting Chicago newspaperman, have another think coming. It seems that Field's family, friends, and biographers conspired well to conceal the racy, funny, iconoclastic, and even plagiaristic parts of his long career. Conrow drops the veil, and we see Anthony Comstock successfully battling to ban the sale of Field's " Only a Boy," an erotic prose poem detailing the fatal effect of a premature sex life on a boy of twelYe ; Field prophetically proposing that books be condensed and sold in cans for the edification of businessmen who wanted culture but lacked the patience to acquire it; Field deliberately beefing up his "Sharps and Flats" column for the Chicago Daily N ews with paragraphs so censorable that even sophisticated editors like Eugene Dennis and Victor Lawson were forced to blue-pencil the planted items and lured into leaving the rest alone; Field impersonating Oscar Wilde, on the streets of Denver the day before Wilde's arrival, complete with lily and flowing tie, being unmasked only when he consented to be interviewed by the press; Field writing daring love letters to actresses; Field despising and deprecating the sentimental verse that made him famous.

Bibliophiles with an interest in erotica will be sent scurrying, by this biography, for the privately printed verse with which Field delighted his male friends. Very seldom does pornography proYoke hearty laughter; Field's stuff does. Curiously, some of the Victorian's four-letter words are here conveyed by ellipsis, in a presumably more liberated day.

It took me a long time to pick up and read this book because, frankly, the idea of a big book about Eugene Field sounded boring. But once I did, I found it hard to put down . It is good reading and heartily recommended to those who would like to meet the man who, up to now, has been too well protected by a myth.

Parental guidance suggested.

TIIOSE WHO VIEW

!SABEL S. GROSSNER

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Ch icag o Hist ory

Ed. Robert M. Sutton Dccrpath, 1975. S1.95.

The Heartland is an over-all treatment, in 250 pages, of Illinois history from "Prehistoric Indians" to "Illinois and the Future." i\fany chapters are therefore quite brief, but the information is accurate. Considering the length, it seems odd that one of the several sections on Chicago devotes three and a half pages to Richard J. Daley and the 1968 Democratic Convention, including the street riots and the fact that television coverage was seen by horrified citizens throughout our own nation and around the world.

Suggested for high-school level and above.

SARAJANE WELLS

Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder

by D onald ,?,ochert Rcgncry, 19i6. 8.95.

THERE ARE TWO LAURAS: Laura Ingalls, the little girl whose prairie childhood is wonderfully recorded in the "Little House" books, and Laura Ingalls vVilder, the mature woman who wrote them. Zochert's rich description of the girl's life documents the settings for the books from Pepin , Wisconsin, (Little House in th e Big Woods) to DeSmet, South Dakota (Littl e Town on th e Prairie). The pages reflect his affection for the girl and recall the hardship and hope that characterized pioneer life.

But Zochert devotes only one chapter to l\frs.

Wilder's life from her marriage at eighteen to her death at ninety-one. How did a rural housewife with memories transform herself into an author at the age of sixty-three? About the mature woman, the beloved author, we learn little.

BONNIE JOLLS

Fifty Years Ago

As recorded by newspapers in the collection ef the Chicago Historical Society

1926 Sept. 1. Chicago police announce that their drive to enforce the 10 P.M. curfew for youths under 16 is successful and will continue.

Violators are taken home; second offenders face juvenile court and their parents can be fined $5 to $100. Because of short skirts, rolled hose, and bobbed hair, several married women, well past 20, are mistaken for children.

Sept. 3. A Municipal Reference Library study finds 37 separate park boards in Cook County; Chicago alone has 18, which employ 121 officials and still do not cover the entire city. Bewildered Aid. John Touhy of the City Council Recreation Committee offers to pay $10 to anyone who can explain why there are so many.

Sept. 4. The Oak Park school board readmits 57 boys expelled from Oak Park High School in May for being members of secret fraternities, and the boys' attorneys agree to drop their suit against the school board.

Sept. 7. Chicago's Jews face a shortage of meat and poultry for the High Holidays as 60 sclwchetim-kosher chicken slaughterersjoin qo butchers' assistants who have struck \Vest Side kosher meat shops. l\Iaxwell St. butcher shops remain unaffected.

Sept. 8. i\Irs. Frank Lloyd \Vright returns to Chicago after an unsuccessful attempt to take up residence at Taliesin, the \ Vrights' Spring Green, \Vis., estate. She believes that her husband and his mistress, Olga i\Iilanoff, are still living at the estate, but are hiding to avoid service of a warrant for adultery

sworn by Mrs. l\lilanoff's ex-husband. "Because he is Frank Lloyd Wright," says his estranged wife, "he thinks he can do anything and escape the consequences."

Sept. 10. Movie theater musicians sign a threeyear contract, ending a four-day strike. The musicians, now earning $82 a week, will receive $1.50 a "¡eek more during the first two years and an additional S3 during the third.

An arbitration board will decide whether small houses can replace their four-man orchestas with a pianist or organist.

Sept. 15. "Colored waiters and cooks are seeking to become the twentieth century artists in service and cuisine," declares a speaker at the first convention of the National Association of Colored \Vaiters and Cooks on Chicago's South Side. Frank Gregson, manager of the southern zone of the American Hotel Corp., promises his company's aid in placing Association members.

Sept. 16. Air-mail pilot Charles A . Lindbergh, on the last leg of the St. Louis to Chicago route, parachutes 4,000 feet to safety in Ottawa, Ill., after circling the fogged-in Maywood airport for over an hour while his gasoline gauge dropped almost to zero.

Three sacks of mail are recovered from the wreckage.

Sept. 20 . AI Capone escapes unharmed after machine-gun fire rakes his Hawthorne Hotel in Cicero. Police believe the daytime attack is retaliation for the attempted murder last month of Vincent Drucci. Despite little evidence, Bugs Moran and Peter Gusenberg of the rival Drucci-,Veiss gang are held.

Sept. 28. The athletic directors of the Western Conference (Big Ten) universities issue an appeal to alumni to stop "making big college football games the occasion for mass violation of the prohibition laws, for gambli ng and betting on games, and for ticket sca lping." The universities-including Chicago, orthwestern, and Illinois-say that "homecoming" games are the most tro u blesome.

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50 Years Ago

Oct. 1. Northwestern University dedicates its new McKinlock Campus on the Near North Side. The four-building, $15,000,000 complex will serve students of medicine, dentistry, law, and commerce.

Oct. 1 o. All seven railroads afiected by the proposed straightening of the Chicago River accept the city's terms, and work will begin Dec. 1 on the $7,000,000 project. The plan includes the extension of three streets into the Loop and the construction of a huge railroad terminal.

Oct. 11. Earl "Hymie" Weiss is machinegunned to death in the 4 znd bootleggingwar murder in Cook County this year. The shots, fired from a roominghouse at 740 No. State St., nearly obliterate the inscription on the cornerstone of Holy Name Cathedral.

Authorities suspect Al Capone and his men.

Oct. 14. Pres. Calvin Coolidge taps a telegraph key in Washington, and a quarter of a million Chicagoans on State St. watch the new street lamps go on. The 140 lights, each 2,100 walls, make the stretch between Lake and Van Buren sts. the brightest in the world.

O ct. 20. Eugene V. Debs dies at age 70 in Elmhu rst Sanitarium. A five-time Socialist Party candidate for president, he is best remembered in Chicago for organizing the railroad workers into an industrial union that supported the Pullman strikers in 1894 by refusing to service Pullman's cars.

A parade and speeches highlight the opening of Wacker Dr., a two-level thoroughfare along the Chicago River from Michigan Ave. to Market St. Mayor William E. Dever calls the Drive, which will help speed downtown traffic, "the greatest improvement of i ts kind in the world's history."

O ct. 30. R oy Tagney, business agent of the Mach inery and Scrap Iron Teamsters' Union, is acqui tted of the murder of South Side contractor Morris Markowitz after four witnesses testify that T agney was in the Loop at the time.

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Nov. 2. Republican Frank L. Smith is elected Illinois senator over Democrat George Brennan by about 70,000 votes, but Democrats sweep most of the Cook County races. A state referendum recommending that the Volstead Act be modified to allow individual slates lo permit the sale of light liquors is approved, 2 to 1.

Nov. 6. A raid on the tax extension department in the County Building, punculated by the sound o( breaking glass on other floors, ends in the arrest of three employees for selling liquor in a rear vault.

Nov. 8. Music lovers face an exhausting week as the Chicago Civic Opera opens its season with Aida, (ea tu ring Claudio Muzio and a cast of luminaries including Alexander Kipnis; other operas to be presented-a difierent one each performance-are The Jewels of the Madonna; La Boheme; Resurrection, featuring Mary Garden; Tristan und Isolde; Rigoletto; and ll Trovatore. Al Orchestra Hall, Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will hold forth with such soloists as pianist Alfred Corot and violinist Albert Spalding and orchestral selections from Mozart to Stravinsky. Other concerts include the ¡women' Symphony Orchestra, a song recital by Lucrezia Bori, and the Ukranian ational Chorus. Dennis King continues in the operetta The Vagabond King, and John Philip Sousa and his band will play at the Auditorium.

Theatergoers may choose among A Woman of the Earth, with Nazimova; The Runaway Road, with Mrs. ' Samuel Insull; the Marx Brothers in The Cocoanuls; George Jessel in The Jazz Singer; and several minor attractions. Motion picture fans are offered John Barrymore in Don Juan; Reginald Denny in Take It from Me; Eddie Cantor in Kid Boots; W. C. Fields in So's Your Old Man; Douglas Fairbanks in Black Pirate; Syncopating Sue, with Corinne Griffith and Tom Moore; the first Chicago appearance of

The McKinlock Campus of Northwestern University, dedicated on Oct. 1. This, and all following "50 Years Ago, pix, unless otherwise noted, Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

The room at 740 No. State St. where gunmen waited for days to shoot gangster Hymie Weiss.

They were successful on Oct. 11 .

Unions and contractors in the Oct. 20 parade celebrating the opening of WackerDr., "the greatest improvement of its kind in the world's history."

50 Years Ago

Queen Marie of Roumania, with Prince Nikolas and Princess Ileana seated beside her, at the Roumanian Jewish Synagogue on Chicago's West Side. The Queen's behavior was much less formal at a dinner on Nov. 13.

League, are found innocent in the milliondollar sacramental wine scandal involving 3,000,000 gallons of port, sherry, and muscat drawn by bootleggers using fake permits to houses of worship. The jury, which took only an hour to reach its decision, evidently did not believe another ex-Prohibition director, Ralph \V. Stone, who testified that l\fason collected the payoffs after muscling him out.

Nov. 17. In a precedent-setting decision, the Circuit Court rules that the unimpaired use of an assigned radio frequency is a property right and enjoins a suburban station from broadcasting over a wave length too close to WGN's.

The Chicago Black Hawks, the city's first professional ice hockey team, defeat the Toronto St. Patricks, 4-1, before an audience of vVarner Bros.' "Vitaphone"; and a dozen others. And Comdr. Richard Byrd will speak on the first flight to the North Pole, at Orchestra Hall.

Nov. 11. Lawrence Ghere and Arthur McClellard, suspects in the recent half-million dollar robberies of jewelry salesmen, claim that they were relieved of thousands of dollars worth of diamonds by two detective bureau agents, but Chief of Detectives William Shoemaker claims that the descriptions do not match any of his men.

Nov . 13. Such bonhomie prevails at a Drake H otel banquet for Queen Marie of Roum ania that the Queen and other honored guests ligh t u p and smoke cigarettes.

Nov. 15. Former Prohibition Director Percy B. O we n and State Sen. Lowell B. Mason, who was recently endorsed by the Anti-Saloon

29TH ANNUAL FOOT-BALL

ARMY VS NAUV Football fans at the first Army- Navy game p layed in Ch icago , Nov. 27. The Midsh ipmen are de ployed in th e east stands ; the Cadets , in th e west stands.

Photo by Kaufmann & Fabry.

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NOVEMBER 21TH. 1926 fQNitAl

Of.DCATDI OI

SOUXER Afl.ll CHKA<O

<,AM[

more than 7,000 at the Coliseum. Chicago's entry in the National Hockey League is owned by a syndicate headed by Maj . Frederic McLaughlin.

Nov. 20. The Building Trades Council and the Building Construction Employers' Association agree on new guidelines which will severely cripple the Landis Award committee, which arbitrates labor disputes for non-union shops. The terms stipulate that the employers, to remain members of their Association, must accept the closed shop. Under the 192 1 contract, which the new agreement replaces, 13 building trades retained open shops.

Nov. 22. The bankrupt Chicago, Mi lwaukee and St. Paul Railroad is sold at auction for $140,000,000 to the company's reorganization managers, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the

National City Co., pending court approval.

The new owners immediately change the name to the Chicago, Milwaukee and Pacific.

Nov. 26. Six convicts, the greatest number of individuals to receive the death penalty for the murder of one person in Illinois, are sentenced to death for the murder of Deputy Warden Peter N. Klein of Statesville Penitentiary last Iay during a jailbreak. One escapee is still at large.

Nov. 27 . Soldier Field is packed with the largest football crowd in American history111,000 fans-for Chicago's first Army-Navy game, which ends in a 21-21 tie as Army's last-quarter attempt at a 36-yard field goal falls a foot short. Gate receipts total almost $ I ,000,000.

F.

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J.

N.

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shells from the trap shooting range. I liked the red, green and yellow casings and the brass bases . ...

Chicago History continues to increase in value of content, and I am sure in readership, and I congratulate you.

Letters

JAMES R. GETZ

Lake Forest

Saloons I en joyed reading the Winter issue and, in addition, a good friend of mine by the name of Julian Van Winkle, the former owner of the Old Fitzgerald Distillery in Kentucky, tells me that he is very interested in the label [for Old Rip Van Winkle Whiskey] that was on the cover. I would appreciate any information so that I may pass it on to him.

BROOKS DA VIS

Chicago The editor replies: The "label" you refer to is in reality a chromolithograph printed, perhaps, in 1882, according to our curator of broadsides. It is an advertisement for one S. F. Eagan, a wholesale dealer in brandies, wines, gins, and Old Rip Van Winkle Whiskey, located in Buffalo, New York. The text and illustration are printed in reverse, obviously to be hung opposite a mirror. For our cover, we had the address brushed out and flopped the litho so it reads from left to right.

South Shore Country Club Having been brought up as a kid at the club (we all called it "the club"), I was interested in Aubrey 0.

Cookman's excellent article in your summer issue.

It brought to mind many recollections. ... The main clubhouse was simply beautiful. On Sunday nights, first-run movies were shown with no admission fee, attracting many kids who had already spent their week's allowances ....

The outdoor dining area at the men's locker building was not called the "Bird Cage" till after some extensive rebuilding had been done after World vVar II. During the 193os we kids sometimes ate lunch there, but usually (on our parents' orders) ate across South Shore Drive at Walgreen's, where everything was much cheaper. In those days, a chocolate sundae at Walgreens cost 15¢, but a quarter at the club.

ROBERT W. SHOEMAKER

Naperville, Ill.

The editor replies: We hope that Mr. Getz, whose letter contains some charming reminiscences, is right in predicting that others will write us. Mr. Shoemaker's letter seems to bear him out.

Although we are unable to print either letter in full, the Society's library is starting a file for such reminiscences of the South Shore Country Club's members. Unfortunately, when the Club moved its offices to downtown Chicago, many of its informal records were lost. The Society has photos and some formal records, and hopes to receive the rest of the records when the Club's secretary, Erna Schwandt, has completed her work. Meanwhile, we shall welcome the otherwise unrecorded recollections of members who care to write us, and such letters will be preserved.

Aviation The absorbing article on the aviation meet [Spring 1976] pleased me very much. I particularly enjoyed the bit about the first flight over Chicago, by Walter Brookins.

In September 1910, I had just passed my eighth birthday. With my parents I drove in from Lake Forest and saw this first flight. For everyone, especially a small boy, it was a memorable day.

DURAND SMITH

Washington, D.C. There is always something interesting to me in each issue of Chicago History.

The last two issues have had a special appeal. As a 14-year-old, Chicago's International Meet of 1911 convinced me there was such a thrill in flying that I enlisted as an air cadet six years later. In 1918, I piloted the first plane to be landed in Chicago's suburb, Oak Park.

Your summer issue also shakes up a few memories.

My own City News Bureau experiences in 1916 were fun all the way. Walter Brown gave me several assignments that almost hooked me for life, occupationally. One involved old Tom Carey and a noble Chicago experiment: horse racing without betting.

Thank you for producing such an entertaining publication.

ROBERT C. PREBLE

Today I received the Summer issue of Chicago History. The variety of subjects has wide appeal, and I think the choices have been excellent.

I have an idea that as a result of Aubrey Cookman's article you will receive many letters from members or their children.

For my part, I can add a few memories, for what they might be worth. I can recall going to the Club on weekends with my father, but my main objective at the age of 7 or 8 was to collect used shotgun 180

Chicago History

Chicago NOTE:

The New-York Historical Society plans to publish a definitive microfilm edition of the Papers of Aaron Burr and seeks information concerning lellers Lo or from Aaron Burr or any documents wrillcn by him.

The editor of The Papers of Aaron Burr is Mary-Jo Kline, New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park W., NYC, NY, 10024.

Annual Report 1975-76

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Chicago History

181

President's Report

FOR THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, the past year has been an important one, marked by significant milestones in every one of our major program areas.

It was a year of significant acquisitions. The most important was an extremely rare broadside of the Declaration of Independence, printed in Philadelphia on the night of July 4, 1776. This fine document, the acquisition of which was made possible by the Frederick Henry Prince Trusts, is one of the most brilliant gems in our American history collection and is the centerpiece of our Bicentennial exhibition, CREATING A NEW NATION: 1763-1803, whid1 opened in April.

It was also a year of prodigious activity in our exhibition program. Since July 1975, the Society has mounted twenty-one new exhibits, all drawn from our own rich collections. Public response has been extremely encouraging and, more important, the number of returning visitors has increased significantly. Since any institution sud1 as ours should be a continuing source of insight and interpretation , we hope that more and more people will continue to explore our interesting and ever-changing programs.

Exhibitions, however, are only part of our over-all responsibilities, and other interpretive programs were also strengthened during the year. \Veil over a hundred thousand school children toured our exhibits as part of organized groups, and over ten thousand students participated in the Weekday Assembly and Please Touch programs produced by our Education staff. The popular pioneer craft demonstrations in the Illinois Pioneer Life Gallery, performed entirely by dedicated volunteers, help to keep alive the traditions of an earlier historical period. One project which all of you should see while visiting the Pioneer Gallery is the beautiful Bicentennial quilt created by our volunteers.

Special recognition should also go to the volunteers in the Society's Fife and Drum Corps, which added a festive touch to a number of Bicentennial programs in the Chicago area .

It is almost impossible to measure the contribution of the Society's many volunteers. At a time when economic pressures are so severe, their contributions often mean the d ifference between continuing or closing some of our most important programs. It is also heartening to hear that many volunteers feel that their own lives have been enriched through participation in our programs, and we have high hopes that their act ivities will continue to grow and prosper.

The Society also offered a number of new interpretive programs. Perry Duis, a member of the history department of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and a research associate of the H istorical Society,

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gave a series of twelve lectures entitled "The Peoples of Chicago" to enthusiastic audiences. J\fany special demonstrations were also conducted during the year, including such diverse crafts as bookbinding, nineteenth-century wood graining, and the engraving of powder horns. In line with our policy of tying exhibitions and programs more closely to fields of historical interest, we showed a number of films directly related to American history.

The Society was also the scene of several important individual lectures. At our annual meeting in October 1975, Marvin Sadik, director of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, spoke on the process of building that institution's collections. On Lincoln's birthday, T. Harry Williams, a distinguished Lincoln scholar from Louisiana State University, inaugurated the Paul Angle Lecture Series with a talk entitled "Lincoln, the Myth and the J\fan." And, for the first time, we kept our members and friends informed of all of our public programs during the year, through a Calendar of Events which is now sent out quarterly.

This has also been a year of increased collaboration with other Chicago cultural institutions and groups.

We joined with The Newberry Library in a series oE workshops devoted to methods of interpreting community history, a program which we hope will significantly upgrade the interpretation of local history. Another project will enable us lo explore the possibilities of sharing parts of our collections with other institutions through long-term loan exhibitions. Both of these projects were supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities . The Historical Society was also privileged to co-sponsor the Thomas Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities given by John Hope Franklin under the auspices oE the NEH . The recent exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, Tl IE WORLD OF FRANKLIN AND JEFFERSON, was punctuated with important documents and anifacts from our collections and we also lent materials to the Chicago Public Library, the Amon Carter Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Illinois Arts Council.

But our collaboration has not just been with other museums and libraries. It extends to other groups and institutions as well. An exhibit at the Upper Avenue Bank prompted considerable community interest and brought us an increase in membership. Foote, Cone & Belding helped us conduct a survey of our membership and contributed the creative work of designing and writing a new membership brochure. During the coming year, they will continue to work with us in developing an aggressive membership drive. Our goal is 10, 000 members by the end of 1978. This means

doubling our membership in two-and-one-half years, certainly a major undertaking. i\Iany others in Chicago have been of great assistance to the Society during the past year. We received major bequests this year from the Harriet-Frances Barnes Stuart Trust, the Estate of Chester D. Tripp, and the Estate of Ado][ Marx. You will notice, from the list of donors which concludes our Annual Report, that over six hundred individuals, businesses, and foundations responded to our annual call for contributions. \Ve are especially grateful to i\[arshall Field & Company, which made the Society's costume collection the beneficiary of its [all fashion show.

The Guild of the Society, always a strong supporter of our activities, helped materially in the development of many of our collections and pledged major financial support for our Bicentennial exhibition program. We arc most appreciative of the cooperation the Society has received from i\frs. A. Loring Rowe, The Guild's chairman. The Costume Committee, ably led by i\frs.

Gardner Stern, provided important support in the development of our costume collection. All of this most welcome support, to which must be added increased re, enues from admissions, memberships, the museum store, and photoduplication fees, and savings produced by tight financial controls, enabled us to reduce our operating deficit from an anticipated '123,820 to a more manageable $80,880. This was a major accomplishment since the $80,880 figure is about $36,000 Jess than last year's deficit. It has proved to us the value of comtant re-evaluation o[ our activities and programs to ensure that every dollar, whether coming from endowment, admissions, grants, or any other source, is stretched just as far as possible. \\lhile we are heartened by the continuing support of contributors to the Society and encouraged by our own efforts to "hold the line" on expenses, we nevertheless cannot be complacent about the future. Funding the revised pension program required under the new ER.ISA rules will add materially to our expenses each year. The cost of energy, services, and salaries will also continue to rise. To help us deal with this ever-growing problem, we established, during the past year, a new trustee committee-the Development Committeewhich has, as its primary responsibility, the increasing and expansion of financial support for the Society.

Our problems, large as they may seem, will not keep the trustees from pursuing our commitment to keep the Chicago Historical Society one of the nation's premier cultural institutions. We are celebrating our 1 20th anniversary this year, and we are all enthusiastically looking forward to celebrating many more.

THEODORE TIEKEN

T. Harry Williams, left, who delivered the Society's first Paul M. Angle Lecture, chats with Paul Angle's son and his wife, John and Shona Angle.

The individual blocks of the Bicentennial quilt being assembled by volunteers Mary Brzeczek, Elizabeth Moffat, Gretchen Shafer, and Joan Gundersen in the Illinois Pioneer Life Gallery.

J

Treasurer's Report

FOLLOWING is a summary statement of the Society's operating income and expenses for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1976. The auditors' certified report of the Society's financial condition is available upon request.

GARDNER JI. STERN

THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY STATEMENT OF GENERAL FUND INCOME AND EXPENSES For the Year ended June 30, 1976

INCOME: From securities ........................ . .............. $

671,476

Chicago Park District museum tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

151,430

General contributions

106,194

Photoduplication fees

31,104

Museum Store sales ... . .... . ....... . .................. .

66,515

From trusts . ........... . ....... . .................... .

62,155

General admissions ....... . . . . .. . . ...... . ..... . ...... . .

43,920

Membership dues

42 ,188

Miscellaneous, net

4,469 Total income . .. ... . ............ . ... $ 1,179,451

EXPENSES: Administrative and Program services

904,291

Support services ......... . ...... .. .. . . . . . .. . ......... .

177,558

Museum Store

55,944

Publications .......... ........ . ........ .. ..... .

49,739

Membership, Public information, and Special events .. .. ... . .. . . . ... . .. . ......... . .... .

40,063

Collections ..... . ... .. .. . ......... . ....... . .... . ..... .

21,719

Exhibitions . . . . . . . . . . . .............................. .

8,340

Education and Public programs . . ... . .... . ............... .

2,677

Total expenses ....... . . .. ... . .. . .... $ 1,260,331 Excess of expenses over income . .... . ... $( 184

Chicago History

80,880)

Director's Report

THE YEAR wl-iich has just ended has been satisfying, exciting, and frustrating. Satisfying and exciting because we can look back on a record of solid accomplishment. Frustrating because we never seem to do as much as we would like.

I{ we simply look at the statistics, they tell us much about our growth during the past year. Our attendance now approaches a quarter-million visitors a year. The use of our research collections has also been on the rise. There has been an increase of almost twenty percent in the use of our library; the use of our rich graphics collection is up thirty-five percent; o{ our manuscript collection, thirty percent. Our membership is growing rapidly and the pace o{ activities has made every staff member more productive. But it has also been a year during which we have closely exam in ed our collections, publications, interpretive programs, and exhibitions to make sure that our reach docs not so exceed our grasp that it attenuates the quality of our performance.

This process of self-evaluation is perhaps most evident in our collections. In the past year, we have become far more discriminating about what we will accept and so have added considerably less material.

We do this because the accessioning of new material entails long-term responsibilities, including cataloging, study, and conservation.

Even with a more focused collecting policy, a number of significant new objects were acquired. Theodore Tieken has already mentioned the broadside o{ the Declaration of Independence. Other important add itions to the library included a lithograph o{ the Randolph St. Bridge and Washington St. Tunnel, published in 1869 when the tunnel opened; an early daguerreotype of George 1\I. Pullman, the gift of l\lrs. C. Phillip !\filler; and thirty-seven glass negatives of the White City Amusement Park taken by H. J\. Atwell during the 1920s, the gift of l\frs. Harold l\l. Gilden. Among the more important manuscripts acquired were the papers and records o{ the following organizations and individuals: Rosenthal &: I Jamill and other predecessor partnerships to the present law firm o{ King, Robin, Gale&: Pillinger; Ralph G. Newman and the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop; the Society's former director, Paul l\f. Angle; Dr. Otto L. Schmidt, former president o{ the Chicago Historical Society and the Illinois State Historical Society; Ivan l\ folek, Slovenian language editor and publisher in Chicago; Pearl Hart, Chicago attorney and civil libertarian; Dempsey J. TraYis, realtor and leader in Chicago's black community; the Lake View CitiLcns' Council; the South Shore Country Club; the Chicago Sunday Evening Club; the Better Government Association; and the Open Land~ Project.

At the Hancock Center offices of the Upper Avenue National Bank, which featured a display of some of the Society's Bicentennial materials, J. Peter Trenholm, right, the bank's executive vice-president, presents Harold K. Skramstad, Jr., the Society's director, with a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence.

Chicago History

185

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l-I E N in the Courfc of human Even~ it becomes neccft.ry for one People to diffolve the Polhical Bandt which h,.vc c:onnell d th with a~hcr, snd tQ alTumc among the t>owcn of the F.inh. , the (cparate aod equal StatioD to which the f.Awt o( N c d NsturC c:od ~n1i1le th,,,m, "decent Rcfpol\ 10 the Opm \ns of Mankind requires rhar the$ (htX.oic\.dc...1.1..-r. \I . ,..,w,., wlucb a!~an ,._ to th: $cp:i.tlllto0-

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hold ,_hde Truths to be fdf-cviJent, th~t 20 Men uc crc11tcd cqu1l, ~h•t they iare endowed by their Creator with cert.in uoali_cnablc R_1g~u. that among thcfc an: L ife, L1bct1y, and the Purfu1t of J la.ppancfs- -That to focure ibeJc Jtighu, Covcrnmcncs arc inftitutcd among i\-'icnt dcra,,111g their JUil Po~·crs from ~hi: _Confcnt of_ Lhc Ct~l'tfncd, that whenever _•ny form of Go.Yemment ?Ceomc, ddlru(live of thefc End,, it is th.: Ri~IH of the People 10 alter or co •~hOt 1t, and to '!1ft1tut< new Government, laying its. Fouadat1on on. fuch Principles , and or aniz.in io Power~ in foch l·orm, as 10 thctn ~:JI (ecm moR hkcly to effcO tbe1r S;~Jctt and H.zpp~nc(1. Prudence, indeed, will d,~te dut Govcmmcntl fong ei ubhlhcd fhn>JJ.1 not be <.h,u~gcd for light •nd tr111~tic.nt Caufes; and tec(;lrdmgy all Expencncc hath fllCwn, thit Mmkind :trc more di(pofcd 10 fuffcr, while E"ils arc fuff..:r:i.bk, than 10 right t~cmfclvcs by abohflung the Forms to which t\ey Arc .ac,:u~o?1cd •. Bu~ whc~ long. Trai l'l of Abu(cs and Ufurpttiom, urJi.ill'1;:?: invari.tbly the (Jme Ol-jclr, nmccs a Defign .to rcdm:c them under abfolute De(poufm, 1t 1.1 the.tr R,g~t, u II their Duty, to .lhrow off fuch Go\c,!ncnt.

-.nJ to pro,·iJc nc~ Gnards for their future_ Scc11nty. Such has been the paucte Sulf~rancc of thde ~\o":1e, 1 ~nd fuch is now t~ N~ffity which conA.nina lhcm lo :1hcr their former S1A.e'?' of CoHrnmcnt. The H11\-ory of the pre.G 1t King of Gr_cat-Bn~1n 1s a H1llo~y of ~tcd Jnjune, and Ufurpations, all h:iving in din.-t\ Object: the Ef't.abillhrnentof an 1Mohue Tyranny o•er thcfe States To prove this, let F:18., be fobrumcd to a candid. World.

J-b has rcfolcd hi( Aff<:nt to Law,, the moft whok(ocnc. and necca'•ry for the public Good.

Hi: h:a forbidden hi, Governors to pill Liws of 1mrncdu.tc and pulling l mJ>',rtancc, unlcf, fofpcndcd in their Operation till hit Alfent Chould be oblirMd. ~d when Jo fofrcrided. he it-.1.~ uucrly neglct.kd to attend _to them. . . . , • Ht h:u rcfu(cJ to. pu•. other L:iWi for the Ac:corom<~cb.tton of brgc D10.rith t4'° People, unle(s lho(e People would rclinqu1rh 1bt Ri&ht of Rcprc(enruion in the LegiOatun:, :i l{ighl 1ncftun:ible to th_em, anJ form1d1b1e toTyna.nu only. . • 11,, has c-.llcJ together t.cgiO.ui~e ~1e1 :u Places unufua.l, uocomfor~blc, :i!ld di(\:ant from the Depo6tory of their public Records, fo, the WJc Parpo(c of 1 fatiguing them into CompliJ.nce with h1! Me2fures. . . .

Hii has diffolY'ed ReprcJcnta.tive Hou(e1 re~~cdly,. for oppofing ,ivirh manly Finnrkl'i h11 lnv.1fions on the Right, of the Pcopl~ 11£ bu refufed for:11 long Tame, .•Jter Cu.ch 0 11To1uuons, t~ c_auf~ othcu to be elcttcd ;' ~ y the LegiO•~vc Powers, inc:11~\,le of Annihilation, have re .. turned the People at Jargc for thcirexcrc1(e.i the Sutc rcmammg 11'1 the mean tme expo~cd 10 all the Dangcn ot l n~·afion from wit~Ju t, and Convullions withio.

10 H r.: bu endeavoured 10 prevent the Popula~on of thefc St•.~; for that Purpofe ~b_Rrulhng the L.aw1 for Naturilization of Forcigfcr•; rtfuJlng to par, othcu ra~ 4h,ei.r Migr,11ion1 .hi_Uler,. .nd .-Ji~ tbt:..Q)ndi;1ocu new App t1on1 of Lan~•· . j-iz iifl ..ft)fttt,l\od\he .A~n1(\rat1on Pf Ju{hcc. by n:Ju 1og h1t A1f.-:at to L for dUblJllung Judlciary Powers.

Ht has m:idc Judges dependent on his Will alone, tbt: l em,re , •ffl 1llc A1i't6.nt-;uwl i ~mcnt of rncir ,.Ja,ics.

H a. has ercded a Multitude of new Offices. and Jen_t hither ~warm.• of Otiicc MJTll(s 011r People, and• out their l ubfbnc H £ has kept among u~ in Timr.s of Peace, Sr.indmg Armies, :w,thout tlie. n(eot of our Lcgillaturu.

H& hu alfcded to rend« the Mili lary independent, o~ •~d f';Cr~or to the C 1 Po"'.cr.

HE hu co~bined with others tit fubjelt us to a Ju.rlfdidioo orctgn to our C: tuuon, acd unacknowJcdgaJ by our Laws; g.i\•i-c his Afi"ent to tlicir Alls of

tor:

pretended Leg10auon ; . . foR qu2.rh:ring brge Bodies of Arm~ Troopr. among o, . .

Fo• rrotctling chem, by a 1~ock Trial, fror.i Pundhrn~nt for :i.ny MurJers which they O.\Ou.ld commit oo the Jnhabiant, of da,fe St1.tc, 1 FoR cutting off' our Trade wnh all Puu of the World.

FoR imp~fi.ng Taxes on 'C1 w1thout our Confen1 : . _ Foll: depn\'\ng us, 1n many C.Ce~. of th!; Bcnc6ts of Tnal by Jw:y: fop, tran(porting us bcyood Seas to be t.ned for ~tCllde_d Oifencci • . t . . _ .

Fo• aboliihing t he free Syn.cm of Eoghlb Ls.w1 1n a ~ghboo~ng Pro"1nee, ~Aab11tlung thc:mn :m arbit~ry Government, anJ cr,b.r~g its Bound.irie~, (,., as to render it :lt once an Examp1c anJ fit l nfinuntnt for mtroducmg the fame lt(olu1e Rule into thefe Colon," : Fok taking: away our Cb;a.rtel'$, abolifhing our nluable La':"s• and al~c,\ftg fundamentally the Fo,:m-' of ou.r Governments 1 • Fok fufpc:nding our own.Lcgitbturc:s, and declanng thcmfdvcs invefled wal1,1-'owcr to legiOucfor us in all Cafe.1 't'·batfOC\'Cr. Hh hu ahdic:ucJ Government here, by declmng tU oul of hi, ProtcdlOn a.id waging War ~amA. u,;.

H e h:u plundered our Seas, nvagcd our Coa~ burnt ~ur Towof. ~d dcft.p,ed the Lwes of our P«>p.lc. .

Ht. is, at this Time. uan(p0rti•g 1'.rge Ann1u of ~ore1gn Merccrurics to «lnplcat the W ork, of Death, Dcfolat«>n, and_ T yr:i.nnr, already begun with cir• eu.mO::mce, of Cruelty and Perfidy,_ ~carcely p~nllclc~ 1n the mo~ bub:uous and ~ y un:worthy 1he H OO of a civilized Na~ion. , Hr: h.i.s connr:iined our fcJlaw C1t1~ens taken Capuvc on the h1i;h. Seu to Arni, agu ntl. tbc.1r Cou ntry. 10 become the Eiccc•tioners of. lhcir Fnencb and

1:•

Brethren, or ro f:all thcnifelves by the.tr Hands. £ has excited domell.ic Jnfur~tl:.1ons.•mong!l us. ~d has cndenoun,d to b k 11 R le of W arfare. ii an undillingu1Jbcd Dcfuua.1on, of all Ages, Sexes ~ n;wn n..-g- of tftde 0pprdiio1n. v,t, have Petitioned for Rcdref, in t~e A Pnocc, whoieCharatl:eristbusmvkcd: ~yevef)· act which l'l..i N~i?'have we been wanting in Attt:n lions to uu.r Bntilh Bttt~rt:n. _\Ve luv unwarnntab1e J urifd,llion o'f'ct us. We ha.ve remmdcd them c.t.. the ~1rcumRat J uilice -ind r,.1..1gnanimity, and we hu·ceooJUrcd them by the l 1e110.. our com Conncdions and Corrc._fpcndena. They too have b«n ddto the V01~ 9f Ju d~ ounces our Sep:in.uon :ind hold_ them, 11 we: hold the rd'l' o( ~bnk.md, E 1 therefore: the Repre(cnut1\'Cj, of the N l E D T AT ;a.lin& to the S\J~rcmc Judge of 1he World _for lhe Re.lbtudcof our 1":tention bnnl)' PubliQ, an.I Dccb.f'f'. That 1hcfe United Colonu::. uc, and of Right ou -b~ l'fcd from 11 Allegi:tncc to the Bn1i(h Crown , and tha.t all pol1tlol 11 ·: 1° d .

J ih:it u }-' It ,: • Aw o I N o 1:, ll ND s NT T ATC s, ve • :in and to do :i.tl other ACh and Thi,ll?:. which I :rl n i; P • S' D t. N on the Protc.!tion of di,·inc Providence. we mut~lly pledge

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. . . ig on _t~c lnlub1t.ant1 of Ou.r Fro0-ucrt , the mercilcf1 J ndi.tn ~vagcc, wbofc uons. fl. h umbk Terms : O ur repeated Peticforu h~-.:: bec-n an(wcrcd only by re~J.l· " 1 ~ t.

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The rare broadside of the Dec larati o n of Ind ependence, printed in Philad el ph ia o n Jul y 4, 1776, an acq uisition made possible by the Fre derick Henry Pri nce Trusts as a mem o ri al to Frederick Henry Prince' s many contributions to the deve lopment of Chicago .

186

Chicago History

,,.

them ~rom_T1mc to T ime ot An.cmpu by c..r cgi uurc to ("i.:tenJ :m cs of. our Em1g_r.it1on sN Seulcrncut here. ~\.'e •"e a.ppc.al~d to ,the,r nu1ve Kindred tod1fav~~ thefe Ufurpauon,. wb,c;h, ~ouJd !n,:,m,L.ly m~CTni) tour c: ~M. of <;"onfa0gu1n1ty. We inu.il., tben:forc, ac<t"1cCcc 1n the NtttRuy. wlu1.h m1ct m \\ ar. 1n Peace. Fucnd~.

O F A M R l c.: A, in O • N . .. A L C O w O • i. 4 •• Afl"~mbt~. apdo. in the Nm\C. and by Authority of lac good Pcorle of thc{o ~lon1,-i., Ju• t. ta be, F ll t. 1. AW D IND "t Pr,. us:~ ! ST A T , , , tlut th,·y •re ' between 1h.ema.nd the State of Grcat-n.rw, .. lf-«IMI ought.to be tou.lly t11fy h:lvc full Power to k-,r w.r, conclude P-cc • .1oon1r.11:'t All1.incr,, dl•lihlh ST A T 1. • may of right do. And for the forport ot tlu .. Ued.uati,.in, witli • other our Liffl, our Fortunes, ;:nd our 1:J.crcd Honor.

EN T.

,.--"i

We continue to receive a wide variety of printed materials about other Chicago organizations and institutions. From the Chicago Yacht Club, for instance, we received many publications, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous materials. There were, in addition, a number of minor purchases and gifts which, collectively, are important in building an extensive research collection-such as the Wagner J\[anufacturing Company's 1922 catalog, Everything for Home Bottling; a collection of prohibition songs, The Charged Live Wire, published by a Chicago firm in 1916; a history of the Great Lakes Dredge and Philharmonic Society, a group of Christmas carolers active in the 1ear North Side; recent programs of the Old Town Players; two stereographs of Union Stock Yard taken about 1900; a Handbook of the Banks of Chicago for 1930; and broadsides issued during the 1970s by the Peoples Bicentennial Commission of Chicago. The gift with the largest number of donors came on June 1, when more than five hundred students marched to the Society from the Abraham Lincoln School to present a volume on the territorial expansion of the United States prepared by students of the school in 1876 for exhibition at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and preserved for many years by Charles T. Wilt III, together with a 1976 volume containing drawings and essays by the students about their school, community, city, and country.

Important donations to our museum collection include a fine Chicago-made parlor suite from the 1860s, the gift of June Hanzelman; an important Chicagoassociated art deco dining room setting of 1931, the gift of J\frs. Robert D. Graff; the desk used by Henry Demarest Lloyd, the gift of his descendants; a desk, table, and credenza made in the Pullman cabinet shops for Pullman executives, the gift of Pullman Standard; the wedding gown worn by Frances l\facbcth when she married John Jacob Glessner in 1870, the gift of J\[rs.

Charles F. Batchelder; the wedding gown and accessories worn by ]\[arian Deering at her marriage to Chauncey l\!cCormick; and a selection of fifty-seven Bes-Ben hats, the gift of Benjamin B. Green-Field.

I am also happy to report that there were a number of significant additions, both by purchase and gift, to our collection of Chicago silver and ceramics, including the papers and designs of Chicago's most important craft shop, the Kalo hop, and a fine tray wrought by the Shop which was gi\¡cn by i\!rs. Conway Olmsted in memory of i\lrs. James J\f. Hopkins.

We have made some real strides in conserving our collections. \Vith support from the National Endowment for the Arts, we arc cleaning a11d restoring a number of valuable but sadly deteriorated paintings. vVe have also begun a determined effort to halt the dcteri-

oration of parts of our graphics collection: with the aid of another grant from the NEA, we arc now deacidifying and remounting several hundred posters from the Ryerson Collection. Conservation of such paper materials is an especially serious problem: much of our graphics collection of more than a half-million items, and of our manuscript collection of more than four million items, are of paper made from wood pulp, which literally destroys itself in the course of the years. In the future, we intend to devote an increasing portion of both our time and financial resources to this type of conservation. v\Te also hope that, in the near future, it will be possible to invest in an adequate microfilm facility so that we can film many of these materials and thus store them more compactly and retrieve them less expensively.

This year, our new museum office and collection storage facilities were completed. The area, known as the Helen A. Wrigley Center in honor of one of the Society's hardest working and most enthusiastic trustees, makes it possible, for the first time, to properly view and study heretofore inaccessible parts of our collections. The location of the \Vrigley Center is also a major asset, bringing together in to one part of the building both the curatorial and library staffs.

The main reason for acquiring and maintaining collections is research, and this year our collections were very heavily used. Over-all use of the collections by researchers has more than doubled in the last ten years.

The use made of our materials continues to be diverse, ranging from a doctoral dissertation on public mass transit in Chicago, to a Chicago Sun-Times article on the hundredth anniversary of the Chicago Cubs, to a filmstrip on black theater in America, to Houghton i\liffiin's Lost Chicago, in which some of our fine photographs appeared.

The Society's exhibition program, of course, is major research and interpretive use of our collections. The last year must have set some sort of record: the Society literally opened a new exhibit almost every two weeks.

Among the most noteworthy were a new Civil vVar exhibit in the A. ]\[ontgomery Ward Gallery; a series of nine American Issues Forum exhibits, related to a nationwide Bicentennial program; a retrospective exhibit, JOO YEARS OF CHICAGO IIISTORY AS SEEN BY Tl-IE DAILY NEWS; and an exploration of the work of a noted Chicago photographer, C. D. MOSI-IER's BICENTENNIAL GIFT To CHICAGO. The costume alcoves, a new addition to our exhibit space, allow us to display, in an interpretive context, a variety of materials from the costume collection. Among the exhibits were a showing of very early fashions from ]\[arshall ¡F ield & Company and the first major museum showing of the work of BesBen, Chicago's own hat designer. A special note of Chicago Hi story

187

Hats from the exhibit The Whimsical World of Bes-Ben Hats, gift of their maker, noted Chicago milliner Benjamin B. Green-Field.

The spacious Helen A. Wrigley Center, a new facility for the Society's museum staff and visitors , provides conference areas, offices for staff and volunteers, tables for examining artifacts and large storage rooms for objects. Here, Teresa Krutz, registrar, answers a cal le r's query at the Center's reception desk. At a conference table, Sharon Darling , curator of decorative arts, and Joseph Zywicki , curator of painting and sculpture, examine oil lamps. Just inside the entrance, Elizabeth Jachimowicz, left, curator of costumes, discusses some accessories recently offered to the costume collection.

188

Chicago History

thanks must go to our exhibit preparation staff for their admirable performance under the stress of this greatly accelerated program. Preparations, under the able direction of Gail Farr Casterline, continued for the Society's major Bicentennial exhibit, CIIICAGO: CREATING NEW TRADITIONS, which will open in midOctober. The exhibit has received generous support from both the Chicago community and the ational Endowment for the Humanities, and we feel it will be a major comribution to an understanding of Chicago's role in the making of modern America.

One of the most important w;iys in which the Society makes its resources available to a wide audience is through its publications program. Our quarterly, Chicago History, is distinguished by its commitment to informative, interpretive, and yet lively articles, and seeks out new audiences and members through its distribution on newsstands and bookshops throughout the Chicago area . Last year, this major part of our publications program was supplemented by the revival of the Society's research monograph series: The Pioneer:

c~r;,.'1"~ .. ,

~ 0 -C . ""'-'

Hand-colored sketches from Jean Patou, sent from Paris to Mrs. H. H. Windsor, Jr., the donor, in the 1950s. The famous couturier included prices and swatches of fabric so that Mrs. Windsor could order by mail, and she preserved over two hundred of his designs in scrapbooks .

Chicago's First Locomotive, by John H. White, Jr., curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Institution, has been well received by both scholars and reviewers. ,ve have also instituted, during the year, a policy of publishing small interpretive brochures, free for the taking, to accompany each of our exhibits.

Through a close monitoring of publications costs, we were able to effect substantial savings in Chicago History and still strengthen other parts of our publication program without an increase of total expenditures in this area.

A number o[ less visible changes are making it possible to [unction more effectively. We have completely reviewed and substantially upgraded the security and fire-detection systems at the Society. We have also begun to renovate, into classroom and meeting space, some of the space vacated when the museum staff moved into the Wrigley Center.

A number of essential administrative changes were also made. The Society has adopted a new pension plan that will better serve all our employees. ,ve have almost completed the lengthy process of establishing formal position descriptions so that comparable levels of responsibility can be set and employees carrying out similar responsibilities receive equal levels of pay.

I cannot close without elaborating on a point made

by Theodore Tieken in his President's Report. The past year has been one in which the Society made major strides in each of its programs, and yet without increasing its too-large deficit. This achievement was made possible by the close teamwork of the trustees, the director, our volunteers and, especially, the staff. It is primarily because of their day-to-day efforts that we can point with pride to our accomplishments. Although we realize that our financial problems will long remain part of our daily existence, I have no question that the Society will be able to continue the tradition of excellence that has carried it through the past 120 years .

Mrs. Gardner H. Stern, chairman of the Costume Committee, announcing that the Society's costume collection will benefit from Marshall Field and Company's International Designers' Show in the fall. She is standing before a dress, ca. 1893, part of an exhibit, Fashi ons from Field's, mounted in the costume alcoves in June .

llAROLD K. SKRA~!STAD, JR.

Chicago History

189

The Staff

Harold K. Skramstad, Jr., Director Margery Melgaard, Assistant to the Director Richard C. ]arrow, Comptroller Theodora C. Olsen, Bookkeeper Barbara Thewis, Accounting Clerk Christine Rose, Membership / Special Events Coordinator Patricia Ingram, Membership Secretary•

LIBRARY Robert L. Brubaker, Chief Librarian Eleanor Kanik, Secretary Grant T. Dean, Acquisitions Librarian and Bibliographer John C. Sanders, Cataloger Phyllis Helm, Cataloging Assistant Larry A. Viskochil , Reference Librarian Neal J. Ney, Assistant Reference Librarian .

James R. Lynch, Rosa Lidia Ruiz,• Reference Assistants Archie J. Motley, Curator of /IIanusaiJJts Linda J. E\'ans, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts Alexander Fiedotjew, Jr. ,• Margaret Z,n·auero,• Maiwscripts Assista11ts . .

Mary Frances Rhymer, Curator Ernentus of GrajJh1cs Collection John S. Tris, Curator of Graphics Col/ectio11 . .

Julia Westerberg, Assistant C11rator of Graphics Collect10,1 Miriam Blazowski, Graphics Assistant

MUSEUM Joseph B. Zywicki, Curator of Painting and Scttlpturn Elizabeth .Jachimowicz, Curator of Costumes Elizabeth Krause, Assistant to the Curator of Costumes Herbert G. Houze, Curator of Weapons and Military History Sharon Darling, Curator of Decorative Arts Teresa Krul£, Registrar Joell Kunath , Museum Aide•

EDUCATION OFFICE Sarajane \Veils, Chief, Education Programs Jill Jeskin, Assistant to the Chief, Education Programs Frederic Gotham, Education Associate Donald Park, Education Associate Nancy Lace, Coordinator of Volunteers Mary Escriva, School Tour Receptionist Mary Benson ,• Mary Jane Newsom,• Sally Walker,• School Tour Controllers

EDITORIAL OFFICE Isabel S. Grossner, Editor Frederick J. Nachman, Assistant Editor Mary L. Dall'SOn, Editorial Assista11t

Two youngsters seem awed by the wonderful toys exhibited at the Society's annual Christmas party for members and their guests.

190

Chicago History

GENERAL SERVICES Thomas C. Watson, Ge11eral Services Administrator Don R. Sack, Administrative Assistant Frank Sanew, Building Su/Jervisor (weekends) • Frank J. Schmitt, Shipping m,cl Receiving Clerk Peter Matzer, Printer Walter Krutz, Photographer Paul Petraitis, Assistant PhotograJ1her Freddie Harris, Cloakroom Attendant Marlene Faught , \ 'irginia Gard , Receptio11ist- Switchboard Operators

Preparation Shop Edward Stashinski , Chief Preparator Charles C. Carlson , Pre/Jara tor H. Lanny Green, Preparntor Peter Motz, Preparator

Maintenance Otis Thomas, HousekeeJJi11g Supervisor Paul J. Ray, Assistant Housekeeping Supervisor Ste,c Jonov, John Norman, Filip Todorov, Ra)mond F. Wapolc, Janitors Ellean Bradley, Jessie Stamps, Maids Doyle Sidie, Builcling Mechanic

Security Willie Bellis, Security Captain John Banks, Leonard Bondurant, Hercules Burch,• James J . Butcher, Irving Friedman ,• Edward Glenke, Raymond Glorch,• Edward Gorski,• John R. Madden, Durett Matthews, Roy McMicken,• Horace Mealing, William Meisel,• Anthony Miller,• Clarence Moton, Branislav Popadic, Walter Rouse, Harold Schultz,• Patrick Sigerson, Guards

Museum Sales Laura Brown, Lorraine Kehoe, Joseph Provost,• Susan Yermack, • Salespersons

Staff Activities

11A1WLI> K. sKRAMSTAl>, JR., director , was elected to the Cou11cil o( th · American /\ssotiation of lme111ns, was reappoint('cl as a member of the: Joi11t Committee: on La11cln1arks for the: National Capit;d, and sc:rvc:d as a member of the Chicago Committc:e of the: /\rnerican Jssues Fortun . /\t the: 197.', Wint ·rthur Co11ference, he spoke on "l\-f;,rc·r ial Culture: : /\ View from the Othc:r Side: of the: Glass" ;incl talk('d before a va1 iny ol groups, including the Coloni,d Dames, the: Chic;1go Woman\ Club, the Illinois Op('ra Guild, the: l.oyal Legion , and the Civil War Round Tahk.

Koh ·rt L Br uhakc:r, c.hic:f librarian , wrot · a chapter for U/n111y--A rrhivrs l{('/11/ iims, to he: puhfohed this fall by R. R. Bowkct . I I c: aho spoke hdo1 e the Ft iends of /\met ic:a11 Wt iters, complc:tc:cl a COltr\C' on conservatio11 ,it the Newheny Library, a11cl served on the Soci<·ty of /\m Tican Archivists (SAA) Committee on Archives Library Rc:lations.

Grant ·1 . Dea11, acquisitio11s Jibratian and hihliogra plwr, conti11uecl to serve 011 the ;iclvisory wmmittees for the Commission on Chicago I I htot ital and Architectural I ..11nlm;n ks .

Lat ry /\. Vbkod1il, rdc-rcncc librarian, S<'t ved as chairman of one of the local arrangemc•1Jls committe: ·s for the t!J7(i American Library Association convc:ntio11 (/\LA) and wrnte a11 attic.le about Chicago's m,m famous pottrait photogn1pher, C . D. Moshet, for C/11cago l/islory . cal J. Ney, ,1ssistant 1efc:tence librarian, edited the Jllinois Library Association Junior Members Round ·1 able Nf'w.1l1·lln in qJ7li and served 011 a subwmmill .,. of the local ;nrangetncnts rnmmiuec fot

the t!J71l /\Li\ rn11vc:ntion. llis teview or the Tor/WI' was pt inted in (;/iirngo lli1101 y. /\rdri(' .J . i\Jotlc:y, curator of manuscripts, was appoi111ecl drairpeNi11 of the S/\/\'s 11c·w ad /wt Com mi11c·c 011 1ht Wider Use o( Archives and continued to s(•rvc· as a member of the Illinois State An.hives /\clvism y Boan!. for C:hic/lf!,O Jfi11my, he reviewed /)011 '/ ,\lllhl' No W111w1: /)011 ' / /l11rh No LosC'rs. James R . Sanders, manuscripts assistant, rnmpktccl his aca demic work for a cloum ate i11 /\fri<.an history at orthw('sttrn Uni\l·tsity and ldt for England and Ghana Lo ptirsuc· his diss<·rtation research.

Maty Frances Rhymet , curator emeiiws of the graph ics collection, kcturcd on "'l he History of the Chicagolancl in Pie.tut es Prnject" at two of 1he project's workshops at 1he Society. John S. Tris, curator ol graphics, SC't vcd as an exhibit judge at the: Photographic Colkctors Sod ·ty\ annual meeting, gave a slide lceture on "What to Photograph" at two Chicagoland-inl'ic.tures wm kshops, and htcame a c.hat1er member of the Chic.ago Map Society at the Newberry Library, heading i1s study group on the Chic.ago area. Julia Westet berg, assi,tant curator of gr aphirs, spoke abouL the collc:c.tion at a workshop in c.ommu11ity hist0rY. 1)0<101

The Chicago Historical Society's Fife and Drum Corps performing at the Society's steps at lhe annual OldFashioned Fourth of July Celebration, 1975. Photo by Paul Batchelor.

Art Deco style chair from a complete dining room setting formerly in the apartment of the late Mrs. James M. Hopkins, Chicago. Gift of Mrs. Robert D. Graff

sponsored by the Society and the Newberry Library and reviewed The American Poster Renaissance for Chicago History. Paul W. Petraitis, assistant photographer, reviewed Psychic City: Chicago and two books on the American Indians for Chicago History.

Elizabeth Jachimowicz, curator of costumes, lectured to the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Chicago Chapter of the Victorian Society in America, and the Fortnightly Club. Sharon Darling, curator of decorative arts, was selected to attend Winterthur's Summer Institute on American decorative arts, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for research on Chicago silversmiths, wrote "Collecting Americana, Chicago Style" for the Greater Chicago Antique Show and Sale catalog and "Admiral Dewey's Loving Cup" for Silver magazine, and was a founding member of the Chicago Chapter of the Victorian Society in America, serving as program chairman this year.

Sarajane Wells, chief of education programs, chaired the 1976 meeting of the J\Iidwest J\Iuseums Conference Educators (~I ,\ ICE) and, with Donald Park, education associate, judged the Bicentennial entries for the International Film Festival in Chicago. Nancy Lace, coordinator of volunteers, served as official recorder for the MJ\ICE session "Evaluating the Performance of Teaching Volunteers" and also reviewed the Illinois Handicrafts Directory for Chicago History.

Isabel S. Grossner, editor, was elected a vice-president of the Illinois State Historical Society and served on its publications committee. She also continued as a director of the Chicago Book Clinic and as a member of its nominating committee, and was appointed chairperson of its 27th Annual Exhibit, in which capacity she supervised the call for entries, selected the judges of the books, and coordinated the show, whid1 took place on l\fay 4 and will travel throughout the l\Iidwest for the remainder of the year. Both she and Frederick J. Nachman, assistant editor, wrote several book reviews for Chicago History. Fred Nachman also reviewed The China Hands for the Chicago Daily News and completed "Production for Publishers," a course co-sponsored by the Chicago Book Clinic and the University of Chicago Extension. Mary L. Dawson, editorial assistant, was elected to the Docent Council of the Chicago School of Ard1itecture Foundation, and became a founding member of the Chicago Chapter of the Victorian Society in America, serving this year as chapter secretary.

Chair from a 7-piece walnut parlor suite made in Chicago in the 1860s for the George Hanselman family. Gift of Miss June Hanselman

192

Chicago History

The Guild

The Guild sponsored several programs in connection with activities of the Chicago Historical Society. The first was a tea following the Society's annual meeting in October. On April 7, The Guild held a reception at the opening o( the Society's first major Bicentennial exhibition: CREATI G A NEW NATION, 1763-1803. Later in April, Tl1e Guild joined with the Costume Committee of the Chicago Historical Society LO honor milliner Benjamin B. Green-Field at a reception following the opening o( an exhibit of BES-BE:s HATS. Elizabeth Jachimowicz, curator of costumes, gave a slide talk.

In 1ovember, Harold K. Skramstad, Jr., the Society's director, conducted a tour for Guild members of The A. i\fontgomery Ward Gallery, in which he explained the problems involved in the preparation and installation o( the Civil War exhibit which was about to open in the ga llery. Harold Skramstad was also the speaker at The Guild's annual meeting in January. His subject was "Chicago and the American Experience: A Bicentennial Perspective." Tea was served following his talk.

On i\[arch 2, Carson Pirie Scott & Co. invited The Guild to sponsor a benefit exhibit, TIIE FLOWERING OF AMERICAN FASHION, in its State Street store. i\Irs. E. Ogden Ketting was chairman of the event, which netted S3,525.

In late April, twenty-eight members visited Annapol is and i\faryland's eastern shore under the able guidance of i\Irs. Paul Guenzel and Mrs. Douglas Warner. The tour realized S3,400.

The Decorative Arts Committee worked closely with the staff in developing a comprehensi\'e collection of materials relating to Chicago's important role as a center o( creat ivit y in the decorative arts. Two meetings were held with Sharon Darling, curator o( decorative arts, one on silver, the second a tour through the storage areas.

The Guild has pledged $25,000, payable over three years, to help defray the cost o( installing the Society's second major Bicentennial exhibition, CHICAGO: CREATING NEW TRADITIONS. To date, 10,000 has been paid. Through the ge nerosity o( individual members, The Guild also raised .$3,582.48. We are most grateful for such support. l\fany thanks are due the Society's director and its museum staff for doing so much to make our 28th year so interesting and active for The Guild's 438 members.

DURING THE PA:ST YEAR,

BARBARA B. ROWE

At The Flowering of American Fashion, a benefit for The Guild sponsored by Carson Pirie Scott & Co.: John E. Cotter, executive vice-president of the firm 's Chicago stores; Mrs. A. Loring Rowe, chairman of The Guild; actress Polly Bergen, guest commentator; and Edward M. Bergeson , the firm's divisional vice-president and general merchandise manager.

The Guild of the Chicago Historical Society OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS

Mrs. Mrs. l\Irs. Mrs. Mrs.

A. Loring Rowe, Chairman George S. Isham, Vice Chairman Gera ld A. Sivage, Vice Chairman Edgar J. Uihlein, Secretary E. Ogden Ketting, Treasurer

Mrs. Philip D. Block, Jr. Mrs. Harry B. Clow l\Irs. Elliott Donnelley Mrs. Robert Hixon Glore l\Irs. Chalkley J. Hambleton Mrs. Hunt Hamill Mrs. William 0. Hunt, Sr. Mrs. Chauncey Keep Hutchins Mrs. Frank D. Mayer Mrs. Charles F. Nadler Mrs. John K. Notl, Jr. Mrs. \Villiam Wood-Prince Mrs. Sanger P. Robinson l\frs. William L. Searle l\frs. Len H. Small HONORARY DIRECTORS

Mrs. Howard Linn Mrs. John T. McCutcheon l\Irs. C. Phillip Miller Mrs. William F. Petersen Mrs. Edward Byron Smith Mrs. Philip K. Wrigley Chicago History

193

THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

List of Donors Ju ly 1, i975-June 30, 1976 Gifts of Money and Securities

Gifts of $1,000 or More

Beverage set consisting of water pitcher, tray, and tumblers made for Harry Monroe by the Kala Shop, Chicago.

American Issues Forum, Chicago Committee Arthur Andersen & Co. III rs. Abra Anderson i\lr. and l\lrs. William T. Bacon Bellcbyron Foundation Mr. and :\Irs. Bowen Blair Buchanan Family Foundation DeWitt\\'. Buchanan, Jr. Chicago Community Trust Continental Bank Foundation A. G. Cox Charity Trust A. B. Dick Foundation :\Ir. and :\I rs. Elliott Donnelley :\Ir. and l\Irs. Gaylord Donnelley l\lrs. Harry L. Drake Field Foundation o( Illinois First National Bank of Chicago Foundation Gc:raldi Norton 1\Iemorial Corporation Graham Foundation (or Adi anccd Studies in the Fine Arts :\Ir. and :\Irs. William B. Graham l\lr. and :\!rs. Paul W. Guen,cl Gui( & \\'estern Foundation Hales Charitable Fund, Inc. Harris Trust & Sa\'ings Bank H B B Foundation Illinois Bicentennial Commission Illinois Tool \\'or~s Foundation Inland Steel-Ryerson Foundation, Inc. International Han ester l'oundation Joyce Foundation :\!rs. Stanley Keith

H.P. Kraus i\Irs. Richard \V. Leach Francis L. Lederer Foundation Frances G . Lee Foundation Otto \V. Lehmann Foundation iirs. Howard Linn i\IcGraw Foundation lllr. and Mrs. Frank i\lcLoraine l\lr. and Mrs. Andrew McNally Ill Dr. and l\lrs. C. Phillip Miller Lillian l\lolner Charitable Trust National Endowment £or the Arts National Endowment for the Humanities Kenneth Nebemahl Northern Trust Company Northern Trust Company Charitable Fund Northwest Industries Foundation, Inc. Abbie Norman Prince Trust Quaker Oats l'oundation l\(r. and l\lrs. Bryan S. Reid, Jr. Robert H. Reid i\lrs. Henry N. Rowley Sahara Coal Company, Inc. l\lrs. Len H. Small Harriet Stuart Trust lll r. and J\I rs. Frank L . Sul,bergcr Sul,er Family Foundation Sun -Times/ Daily ews Charil} Trust Estate o( Chester D. Tripp Mrs. Edgar J. Uihlein i\ledard William Welch lllr. and Mrs. Benton J. Willner Mrs. John P. Wilson lllr. and Mrs. Frank H . \Voods

Gifts of $100 To $1000

lllr. and :\!rs. Philip D. Block , Jr. Arthur Blome \!rs. R. P. Boardman \Irs. \l'illiam A. Boone John Jay Borland Joseph T. Bowen, Jr. \Ir. and :\!rs. Arthur S. Bowes lllrs. Laban J. Brady Mr. and \frs. Gardner Brown Dr. and Mrs. lllurray C. Bro" n D. P. Buchanan Eugene Di\'Cll Jluchanan Mrs. Brillon I. Budd l\Irs. Ferdinand A. Bunte Mrs. James A. Campbell lllr. and llfrs. Champ Carry Carson Pirie Scott & Co. \[rs. Latham Castle \Irs. Kent Chandler, Jr. Cherry Electrical Products Corporation Chicago Arca Camera Clubs Association Chicago \\'oman 's Club Eleanor Chirpc Da, id G. Clarke i\Ir. and l\Irs. John \\'alter Clarke llfr. and i\frs. Harry B. C low Helen Clow

Cyrus H. Adams Ill Alsdorf Foundation Mrs. James 11· . ..\lsdorf Amsted Industries, Inc. ;\Jrs. Paul lll. Angle Anonymous ;\Ir. and :\!rs. A. \\'atson Armour Ill :i.rrs. Laurance Armour Laurance H ,\rmour, Jr., and :\[argot B. Armour Famil) Fo11ndation i\frs. Vernon Armour

Early daguerreotype of George M. Pullman, probably taken in New York in 1857.

Gift of his granddaughter, Mrs. C. Phillip Miller.

194

Chicago History

\Ir. and :\Irs. Edwin C. Austin Babson Bros. Co. ;\!rs. George A. Basta lllr. and \Irs. John P. Bent \Ir. and :\lrs. R. Ford Bentlev \!rs. Robert S. Bellen ' John:,;, Bingham \Ir. and :\!rs. Edward llicCormick Blair II . B. Blanke Charitable Trust B \Ir. and lllrs. Andrew K. Block \Ir. and :\!rs. Joseph L. Block \fary and Leigh Ulock Charitable Fund, Inc.

:\!rs. D:l\ id P. Cordray Edmund S. Cummings, Jr. :\Ir. and .'llrs. Loren D. Daily ,\lildrcd DaYison \I'. C. DeVry i\lrs. Albert B. Dick, Jr. Albert B. Dick III i\lr. and l\lrs. Stewart S. Dixon 1\1 rs. James R. Donnelley i\lrs. Pauling Donnelley R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Dolores M. Dorman ;'.Ir. and Mrs. George H. Dovenmuchle l\frs. Harry J. Dunbaugh Jllr. and Mrs. Lowis C. Duncan Ernst & Ernst Farwell Voundalion Mrs. Robert C. Ferris William Fink! i\frs. Charles Daniel Frey friends or American \Vrilcrs GATX James R. Getz l\lrs. R. Kennedy Gilchrist i\fr. and :llrs. Robert Hixon Glore Thomas R. Gowenlock III Mrs. Earle Gray John D. Gray Dr. and l\lrs. B. Herold Griffith :\Ir. and :llrs. George J. Grikshcll i\Irs. A. Paepckc Gucmcl :\Ir. and l\lrs. C. C. Haffner III I laffncr Foundation :\Ir. and i\frs. C. J. Hambleton :II r. and .'II rs. John 1\1. Hands ;'.Ir. and l\lrs. Bernard J. Hank l larris Bank I;-oundation

.\Ir. and ;'.[rs. ,\lorlimer B. Harris I larl Schaffner & .\larx Charitable FoundaLion

\\'alter E. Heller Foundation Dr. and .\!rs. Paul llolinger llclcn Jlolt :\!rs. J. .\. Houle, Jr. :llrs. Otis L. llubbard Jan is llunt Mrs. William 0. llunl ;'.!rs. George S. Isham Albert E. Jenner, Jr. .\I rs. August Kern l\frs. Meyer Keslnbaum l\lr . E. Ogden Kelling Mrs. Wallis P. Kilzer Keith Kindred II'. S. Kinkead George Krambles :\Ir. and Mrs. Sigmund \\'. Kunstadtcr La Salle c'lational Bank i\frs. Foreman :II. Lebold :\Ir. and :\!rs. John H. Leslie ;'.!rs. Glen A. Llovd :llrs. Arthur 1\1. Long Mrs. R. S. l\1acdonald .\!rs. Albert F. Madlcncr :llr. and Mrs. John F. Mannion Mrs. Frank D. l\!aycr l\lary M. l\fcDonald \\'illiam B. Mcilvaine l\lr. and l\lrs. Henry\\'. Meers .\Ir. and Mrs. Thomas \I'. :llcrritt. Jr. Charles A . .\!eyer Montgomery \\'ard Foundation .\Ir. and :\I rs. Albert H. , 'cwman ~lrs. Lawrence E. Norem :\!rs. John Nu,¡ecn Mr. and .\lrs. Richard B. Ogilvie .\!rs. Conway 11. Olmsted lllrs. John R. Orndorff :llr. and .\!rs.\\' . lning Osborne, Jr. Lloyd C. Pa rt ridge l\lr. and l\frs. David D. Peterson

GIFTS UNDER $100 Gordon Adamson i\lrs. K. D. Agar ;\lrs. Thomas If. Alcock Joseph Allworthy .\Ir. and .\!rs. Carlyle E. Anderson Clarence P . .\ndcrson ;\(rs. Robert G. Anderson (\orman Arkin ;\Ir. and ;\!rs. c'/. F. Armour i'\lrs. Edwin Asmann

Silver water pitcher made for Beatrice Wolbach Swartchild by Chicago Silversmith F. Novick in 1933. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Swartchild, Jr.

Albert Pick, Jr. Fund Frank J. Piehl Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Potter Mrs. Charles Price l\frs. Frank Read William 1\1. Redfield John S. Recd Jllr. and Mrs. Harold A. Reskin Roberts foundation J\fr. and Mrs. Sanger P. Robinson Mr. and l\lrs . Theodore \I'. Robinson, Jr. l\lrs. A. Loring Rowe Arthur Rubloff i\lr. and :\lrs. Gilbert H. Ruderman fund .\!rs. Margaret H. Ryerson Leonard B. Sax .\!rs. franklin B. Schmick Arthur W. Schultz !'rank V. Schwinn .\!rs. Sherman Sexton James G. Shakman Arch \\'. Shaw Foundation J cffrey Shedd i\lrs. Warren Shoemaker, Jr. Mrs. Clyde E. Shorey l\lrs. Hiram Sibley :\!rs. Gerald A. Sivage \!rs. Edward Byron Smith Harold Byron Smith, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Hem1on Dunlap Smith Solomon Bvron Smith James E. s;,yder Society o( the Colonial Dames o( America in the State of Illinois l\frs. Robert E. Spiel lllrs. Da\'id B. Stern, Jr. i\lr. and Mrs. Gardner H. Stern 1\1 r. and ;\!rs. Russell T. Stern .\!rs. Robert E. Straus Mrs. John Stuart Sunbeam Corporation i\lrs. A. Thomas Taylor i\lrs. J. R. Thomson Edmund B. Thornton Towers, Perrin, foster & Crosby United States Gypsum Company Herbert A. Vance :\lrs. Errett Van c'/ice ;\!rs. Douglas A. \\'arncr A. Rush Watkins Charitable Foundation i\lrs. Donald P. \Velles i\lrs. Albert D. \\'illiams Mrs. Thomas L. Williams, Jr. l\ l rs. H. H. Windsor Mrs. Philip K. Wrigley Winfred H. Zurfli

Dr. and ;\Ir. John P. Ayer :\!rs. James A. Babson Mr. and :\!rs. Arthur A. Baer i\lr. and ;\!rs. James E. Baggot Mr. and i\lrs. Charles E. Baker l\lrs. Eric K. Baker, Jr. Elisabeth D. Ballard Katherine W. Barry Emery Bass J. T. Beatty, Jr. l\lrs. Louis E. Beckman III John L. Behr Helen R. Beiser Dorie Bell Dr. and ]\[rs. Philip J. Berent :\!rs. Garret L. Bergen Adrian D. Beverly ;\!rs. E. B. Blackwell Blake Blair \[rs. Chauncey B. Blair ;\[rs. Philip D. Block III lllrs. Samuel \I' . Block l\lrs. Edwin R. Blomquist J\lrs. Max S. Bloom ;\(rs. George W. Blossom, Jr. Mrs. G. V. Bobrinskoy W. S. Bodman l\lr. and ;\[rs. Russell Bonadonna l\lrs. John Borland Melvin Boruszak Mr. and :llrs. Kenneth A. Bro i\lrs. Donald C. Brock :\frs. Amos Brown Mrs. Charles H. Brown Mrs. Templeton Brown Aldis J. Browne, Jr. i\lary Buchanan Henrietta A. Bruns\'old Robert Buchler Mrs. Robert H. Burnside Mr. and l\lrs. George S. Burrows Louisa L. Burrows .'llrs. Gerald :\I. Butler i\lrs. John Meigs Buller :llrs. C. H. Caine Patricia R. Caldwell Mrs. Joseph K. Cah in Kenneth .\I. Campione ;\!rs. \\'illiam G. Caples William J. Carney :llr. and l\lrs. Robert Adams Carr f. Strother Cary, Jr. \\'ilma D. Castle Silas S. Cathcart Mrs. Sila S. Cathcart :lfrs. Christopher Chamalcs Jenny S. Chandler L. L. Chandler ;\!rs. George S. Chappell, Jr. Louise E. Chmelik Zeta E. Clark Mrs. Charles F. Clarke G. P. Clausius Robert Parker Collin i\lrs. I.\\' . Colburn Elston C. Coleman, Jr. ]\[rs. R. Jack on -Coleman i\lrs. Alfred Collins ]l(r. and i\lrs. Julien H. Collins

Chicago History

195

A. \V. Consoer Burree Cowherd Mr. and llfrs. Wi ll iam A. Cremin Mrs. Edward M. Cumm ings Tilden Cummings Mrs. Richard J. Da ley Mrs. Alfred E. D'Ancona III J.P. Danky Mr. and l\frs. Mikell C. Darling Mrs. Paul J. Darling Mr. and l\lrs. William Darrow l\lr. and Mrs . James G. Davis John H. Dawson Mrs. Herbert D. DeBorde Norman DeHaan William B. Derby Annette Dering H. E . Devereaux Mrs. J. K. Diederichs Theodore C. D iller Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Disabato Mrs. Lawrence Dobson Mrs. Edmund J. Doering II Marilyn A. Domer Mrs. Alanson Donald Erl Dordal Clara Douglas Martha C. Douglas Helen J. Douglass Mr. and Mrs. Wesley R. Dove John Drish Mary M. Dunea Helen E. Duval John B. Elliott l\frs. R. Winfield Ellis Mr. and Mrs. F. L. Emeny Mrs. Dewey A. Ericsson Mrs. Howell B. Erminger, Jr. Edward R. Ettlinger John F. Fau lhaber Mrs. Henry Faurot , Jr. A. Daniel Feldman l\lrs. Meyer Field Maurice Fisher Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Fitzgerald John R. Flanagan Mrs . Paul A. Florian Charles W. Folds J\lr. and lllrs. John E. Forbes Thelma B. Forstbauer Mrs. Teddy Foufas John Fowler J ane Freiman Arthur M. Freytag William B. Friedeman J\lrs. William S. Freideman Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Friend Mr. and Mrs. William R. Frink Perry L. Fuller l\lr. and Mrs. Charles B. Gale Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Galitzine J. I. Gallery Henry A. Gardner, Jr. Mrs. Norman H. Gerlach Mrs. Isak V. Gerson Mrs. Gerald S. Gidwitz Mrs. Benjamin J. Gingiss Catherine D. Gira ldi Mr. and l\lrs. James Girard J\larian Godehn Marcia W. Goldberg John M . Grady J\lr. and Mrs. Bruce J. Graham l\lrs. \V. \\". Grainger Katie L. Grannis George T. Gray Eugene Green Benjamin B. Green-Field Bruce G regga Roy R. Grinker, Jr. Mrs. Fred G. Gurley

196

Ch icago History

J. Mark Hale Carolyn W. Hammond Mr. and Mrs. Jack Hand Mrs. Donald C. Hannah Homer C. Harlan Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert A. Harrison l\lrs. John Hart Daggett Harvey i\lr. and Mrs. Laurens G. Hastings William B. Hauslein Ellen Hauth Mrs. James A. Hayes Mrs. Alexander Hehmeyer Ben \V. Heineman Ruth J. Hess Barbara Gene Hetzer Mrs. James 0. Heyworth E. L. Hield Howard E. Hight Mr. and Mrs . Richard Himmel Mrs. Charles M. Hines Mr. and Mrs. Edward W . Hobler Mrs . \V . Press Hodgkins Arlene K. Hoffman Elizabeth Hoffman Philip Holliday i\lrs. George P. H ollingbery Mrs. Dement Holloway l\frs. William J. Hoppe Mrs. James E. Howie James P. Hume Mrs. Philip W. Hummer Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel B. Hunter Mrs. Chauncey K. Hutchins l\lrs. William G. T. Hyer l\[rs. Michael L. Igoe Mrs. C. E. Ingram Samuel Insull , Jr. Robert H. Irrmann Henry P. I sham, Jr. Mrs. Robert T . Isham Elizabeth Jachimowicz Myrna C. Jaffe Frederick G. Jaicks Mrs. Thomas N. James Mrs . Willard Jaques Charles C. Jarchow J. B. Charitable Trust Stella Jenks l\lrs. Merritt L. Joslyn Judith Kadish Mrs. Byron C. Karzas Mrs. James S. Kemper Mr. and Mrs . Donald G . Kempf, Jr. Cl,arles C. Kerwin l\lrs. Meyer Kestnbaum I rs. Charles W. King l\lrs. Ansel M. Kinney Mrs. Weymouth Kirkland Mrs. A. l\l. Klaprat Carl Klaus M. H. Knotts Mr. and Mrs. Ferd Kramer Elizabeth Krause l\lr. and Mrs. Robert E. Kulasik Mrs. Edward J. Lace Herman H. Lackner l\lrs. Louis E. Laflin , Jr. Mrs. J. A. Laird William N. Lane John Large, Jr. Janet Laskin J\lrs. Nicholas Lavezzorio Leslie Lawitz Burton L. Levenson Harold W . Lewis Robert A. Lewis Fund Dr. and Mrs. Roman J. Lipinski Dona ld C. Lisle Mrs. John Livingood Mrs. Richard Q. Livingston

Richard M. Loewenstein Mrs. Thomas H. Long Ralph J. Lueders Louise Lutz James P. Lux Mrs. Richard Lydy J\lrs. J. Hayden Macdonald Mr. and Mrs . Walter M. Mack Holly W. Madigan Mrs. Otto Madlener Mrs. William l\laierhofer Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. Malm Arnold J. Marki Mr. and i\frs. Sydney R. Marovitz Lucy A. Marshall l\lrs. Harold T. Martin Frances Maul Martinek Mrs. Vojta F. Mashek Janet May Mazzio Charles B. McCann Mrs. Franklin B. McCarty, Jr. Mrs . Lawrence McClure Mrs. Brooks McCormick Mrs. Robert R. McCormick Mae J. McCray Mrs. George Barr McCutcheon Inez McDonald Andrew W. McGhee Mrs. Charles Morgan J\lcKenna John L. McKenzie Mrs. Herbert McLaughlin Edward F. McLean Edward C. McNally Mrs. Robert C. McNamara McShumwill Foundation l\lrs. Franklin J. Meine Virginia and Hunter Mermall Josephine Mesha Mrs. E. E. Michaels Mrs. R . Hunter Middleton Mrs. John F. Milliken Mrs. Ralph J. Mills Mrs. 111. G. Mitchell Frank A. Manhart Henry I. l\lonheimer James W . Montgomery Thomas J. Moorhead Janice M. Moriarty Mr. and Mrs. V. C. Morris E. Kimball Morsman Mrs. John T. Moss Mrs. Henry Mostosky Arthur T. Moulding Mrs. George W. Maxon Lola Muller Mrs. John C. Murphy Mrs. Charles F. Nadler Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Nathan National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Jean B. Nerenberg Mrs. Robert Newman Kay A. Nichols Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Nickels Noriko Nishi Mrs. William S. North Mrs. Edgar M. Nuckols William R. Odell Mrs . Jean B. Ohai DeWitt O'Kieffe Lawrence Okrent Eric Oldberg Rosalyn L. Olian Mr. and Mrs. Richard H . Oliphant Mrs. Roy H. Olson Arthur M. Oppenheimer Mrs. J. Sanford Otis Mrs. Ralph C. Otis, Jr. Frank J . Panian Mrs. E. Cummings Parker Norman J. Patinkin

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=~~""""~,.,.,.,~----~---------- ----

7 I

The 19th-century seal of the Graceland Cemetery Company. Gift of John P. Wilson, Jr.

Randolph St. Bridge and Washington St. Tunnel, lithograph probably published in 1869, shortly after the tunnel was opened.

OMIOAOO,ILL,

Green Teco art pottery made by the Gates Potteries, Chicago , ca.

1904-1929.

Chicago History

199

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

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Theodore Tieken, President Stewart S. Dixon, ISi Vice-President James R. Getz, 2ncl Vice-President Gardner H. Stern, Treasurer Bryan S. Reid, Jr., Secretary DIRECTOR

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a

The Fun House at White City Amusement Park , printed from a glass negative made by H. A. Atwell during the 1920s. Gift of Mrs. Harold M. Gilden

1