Chicago History | Fall 1977

Chicago History FALL 1977

$2.00

Chicago History The M agazine of the Chicago Historical Socief:)

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FALL 1977 Volume VI, Number 3

Fannia Weingartner Editor

CON TENTS

G ail Farr Casterline Assistant Editor

HISTORIANS AT THE DRAWING BOARD-ORGANIZING CHICAGO: CREATING NEW TRADITIONS/ 130

H arold L. Augustus Designer W alter vV. Krutz Pa ul W. Petraitis Ph otograph y

by Gail Farr Cas terli ne

GEORGE S. BOWEN AND THE AMERICAN DREAM/ 143

by H ugh S. De Santis

"WILL CHICAGO 'S ITINERANT CITY HALL BE MOVED ONCE MORE?"/ 155

by Glen E . Holt

CRISIS AND COMMUNITY: THE BACK OF THE YARDS 1921 / 167

by D omin ic A. Pacyga

GEORGE FERRIS ' WHEEL THE GREAT ATTRACTION OF THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE/ 177

by Sisle)• B arnes

FIFTY YEARS AGO/ 183 REVIEWS/ 187 SOCIETY NOTES/ 191

Cover: Jules Guerin's rendering of part of Burnham's Plan of Chicago, showing a "bird's-eye view" of Grant Park and the proposed harbor.

Penc i l, water color, and tempera, ca. 1908. CHS, gift of William Spencer.

Inside Cover: The magnificent Ferris Wheel at the World 's Columbian Exposition, 1893. CHS, gift of Mrs. Joseph Leiter.

Cdpyright 1977 by the Chicago Histori cal Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago, Il li nois 60614 Arti c les appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America : History and Life

Historians at the Drawing Board Organizing CHICAGO: CREATING NEW TRADITIONS

BY GAIL FARR CASTERLINE

(( The quest for exhibit materials was like a treasure hunt, leading me into attics) basements) garages) antique stores) corporate headquarters) and into some of America's most distinguished repositories.''

ON OCTOBER

15, 1976, the Chicago Historical

Society opened to the public a major exhibition, NEW TRADITIONS. Located in the Jean Morton Cudahy Gallery, it offers visitors an unprecedented opportunity to reflect upon Chicago's place in American life as mirrored in nearly seven hundred photographs, documents, artifacts, and paintings organized into six broad topic areas: urban planning, architecture, reform, culture, merchandising, and literature. Never before has such a wide range of Chicagoana been assembled in a single museum gallery. No matter where they turn, visitors encounter the ideas and personalities of numerous Chicagoans who have had a profound impact upon the rest of the nation. First, a tour ... then, the behind-the-scenes story.

Six signs hung from the ceiling indicate the placement of the topic areas so that visitors may quickly orient themselves or go directly to those areas which interest them most. Once they get their bearings, they become aware of two areas which deal with topics that affect the lives of all Chicagoans: urban planning and architecture. To the left as one enters is an enormous blueprint of the World's Columbian Exposition and part of Daniel Burnham's manuscript for the monumental Plan of Chicago (1909), which represent some of the first CHICAGO: CREATING

Gail Farr Casterline was coordinator of the exhibit she here describes and also collaborated on the publication , Chicago Metalsmiths. She has recently joined the staff of Chicago History.

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steps taken toward the creation of a planned modern metropolis. Two pastel renderings

by Jules Guerin illustrate Burnham's schemes for widening Michigan Avenue and preserving the lakefront for public parks. Both of these plans were later realized to create one of America's most impressive and appealing urban vistas.

To the right, one's eyes are literally swept upward along the fa\ades of the world's first skyscrapers-the Rookery, the Reliance, the Manhattan, and others. These structures were photographed by aiming the camera almost straight up from the sidewalk where their vertical thrust is most awesome, thereby simulating the experience of being a pedestrian in the Loop. As one rounds a bend formed by a pair of ornate elevator grilles designed by Louis Sullivan, one's gaze levels out again to take in the horitontal expanses of the Robie House and l\Iidway Gardens by Frank Lloyd Wright and other pathbreaking works by Prairie School architects. From the materials assembled here, one can readily see why Chicago is often called the birthplace of the ranch style home.

A thirteen-by-eighteen foot gazebo placed in the center of the gallery draws attention to the various efforts of Chicagoans to reform urban society. The photos, documents, and objects displayed here recall the establishment of Chicago's famous settlement houses which opened their doors to countless immigrants at the turn of the century: Hull-House, Chicago Commons, and similar community centers reached out to their neighbor; in many ways, from urging the construction of municipal

Photo by Staples & Charles.

This statue , Vulcanus , was cleaned , repaired , and mounted on a free-standing pedestal hollowed out to accommodate three-dimensional pop-up cards of the World 's Columbian Exposition. The bust , / Will, can be seen in the background. CHS.

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bath houses to making tools-such as the HullHouse loom on display-available for artisans to practice their skills. The exterior of the gazebo displays materials that deal with other important reform movements which emanated from Chicago: temperance, the evangelism of Dwight L. Moody, progressive education, efforts to improve the judicial system and public health, and attempts to reform the lot of workers. There are also materials on the development of influential black newspapers such as the Chicago Def ender.

The next stop is an area entitled "Culture: Expanding the Audience" which highlights the accomplishments of Chicagoans in popularizing the arts. Sculptor Lorado Taft's clay model for The Fountain of Time, unveiled in Washington Park in 1922, represents one of the traditional art forms which has flourished here, while a microphone used by WGN in broadcasting the Scopes Trial in 1925 reflects Chicago's place in the history of radio. Strains of oldtime piano tunes lure visitors into a miniature movie theater where they soon find themselves laughing at the antics of Charlie Chaplin starring in His New Job, produced at Chicago's Essanay Studios in 1915.

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Harold K. Skramstad , Jr., CHS director, with Hermon Dunlap Smith and Lorraine Madsen of The Field Foundation of Illinois, Inc., in front of the original blueprint for the World 's Columbian Exposition . CHS.

Two of Chicago's major contributions to American merchandising-the mail-order business and the department store-come to life through a collection of early products displayed on a long platform. The first Montgomery Ward & Co. catalog, issued in 1872, and such ir?rns as a leather tool kit, a treadle sewing machine, a Franklin stove, a roller organ, and a wall telephone, suggest the many labor-saving and recreational devices Chicago's mail-order firms made available at low prices to the nation's rural inhabitants. A tour of Sears, Roebuck and Co. headquarters as it looked in 1907-to be had by inserting a penny into an automatic stereopticon viewer-reminds one of the gigantic scale of Chicago's mail-order businesses.

Meanwhile large retail stores like Marshall Field & Company catered to an urban clientele by gathering many kinds of merchandise under one roof, introducing customer services, and carrying lines of sophisticated products. On

Creating New Traditions

one section of the platform, a William Morris chair and draperies, a Mission style desk, handcrafted accessories, and a mannequin modeling a long velvet gown re-create the appearance of a State Street show window of seventy years ago.

Yet another area deals with Chicago's rich literary heritage. Although the city has been the site of more than one literary renaissance, this exhibition concentrates on the writers who were becoming well known before World War I and who found in Chicago the stimulus and subject matter for realistic presentations of modern urban life. The words of Theodore Dreiser, Henry Blake Fuller, Ben Hecht, and others are paired with photographic images of the Chicago scenes they so graphically described, while pages from Sherwood Anderson's draft for Winesburg, Ohio afford glimpses into the mind of a writer at work. A thirty-minute taped program of Carl Sandburg reading his poetry and singing folksongs may be enjoyed in a listening alcove. Typesetter's copy for T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" attests to the international significance of Chicago's Poetry magazine, while vividly colored newspaper and book ads suggest other vital elements of Chicago's literary life in the early 1900s.

Whether visitors spend fifteen minutes or several hours studying this exhibition-and some have been known to return time and again-they have experienced a first-person relationship with Chicago's past which is not to be had through any other medium . or 1s 1t likely that they would have gained the same appreciation had they uncovered the same information in a library, for exhibitions are a most special and dynamic rhetorical tool. When museums bring together historians to explore the meaning of artifacts and talented designers to create a context for the display of their resources, they are in a unique position to develop an appreciation of history among the general public.

CHICAGO: CREATING NEW TRADITIONS was the

culmination of two years of planning, consultation, re earch, and writing involving the entire staff of the Chicago Historical Society as well as outside consultants. These efforts all preceded the actual physical fabrication of the exhibition. Museum visitors are often surprised to learn that this last step is, in fact, the least time-consuming and that the major tasks of finding, organizing, and bringing together the materials take place long before. Preparing an exhibition is much like building a house- and woe to him who starts without a blueprint.

Our blueprint originated in late 1974 with Harold K. Skramstad, Jr., director of the Society, who felt that the American Bicentennial offered a fitting occasion to draw attention to Chicago's contributions to the life of the nation.

While the Society's collections include many fine materials from the Revolutionary era, the local emphasis seemed more appropriate. First, it had never been done before. Second, the Society is committed to encourage Chicagoans in taking an interest in their own community.

Third, the Society hoped to develop a framework of ideas which would offer a guide to the unique history of the city. Finally, the concepts and materials gathered together were to be given permanence and portability in a book-length publication that would accompany the exhibit.

In these early stages, the Society anticipated a project of long-range significance which would require funding on a large scale, and for the first time substantial outside backing was sought.

The Society applied for and received a planning grant and later an imp lementation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, while additional support was secured locally.• In its choice of a thematic exhibit, the Society thought ahead to a renovation of its Chicago history galleries: ideas gathered and insights gained in preparing for the first project could some clay be carried over and amplified in a more permanent museum installation. For the time being, the temporary nature of this exhibition made it possible to borrow extensively Ch icago H istory

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Creating New Traditions

from many other institutions and individuals, and, although the Society had never before undertaken a massive loan exhibition, greater

•Other funding agencies included The Chicago Commu nity Trust, The Field Foundation of Illinois, Inc., Continental Bank Foundation, The First National Bank of Chicago Foundation, The Northern Trust Company Charitable Foundation, The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, The Illinois Bicentennial Commission, The Harris Bank Founda tion, The Quaker Oats Foun dation, the Philip K. Wrigley Special Publica tion Fun d, and The Guild of the Chicago Historical Society.

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involvement with other museums and the community as a whole promised to be a most positive result.

Thus broadly conceived, CREATING NEW TRADITIONS entered into a long gestation period.

StafI committees explored Chicago's leadership in various fields and prepared chronologies, bibliographies, and lists of items for display.

Since the Society had never before mounted an exhibit of such broad scope, aclditional staff became necessary. I was hired in July 1975 to coordinate the project through its completion.

Perry R. Duis, assistant professor of history at Visitors study the architecture area. The boys are admiring a miniature replica of a balloon frame house created by placing half of a model against a mirror. CHS.

Creating New Traditions

the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, agreed to serve as historical consultant and author of the publication. And because the exhibition promised to combine so many different kinds of artifacts, as well as topics which had to complement and not overwhelm each other in our gallery, the Society engaged Bob Staples and Barbara Charles, partners in the design firm of Staples & Charles o( Washington, D.C., which specializes in the design o( museum exhibitions.

At the beginning we were most concerned with refining the subjects and concepts to be covered and finding the historical materials which best reflected Chicago's leadership role.

In examining this and "famous firsts," we were struck by how many of them were concomitants o( urbanization, and how many had had significant implications for the nation and for the world. The processes of cause (the urban environment), response (innovation), and outward transm i ual fascinated us as we tried to isolate reasons why certain things happened in Chicago rather than somewhere else. We soon realized that many individuals would play a part in our story. We also found that the years between the Great Fire and the First World War were especially creative and decided to concentrate on this era.

Among the many areas of innovation initially suggested were the six which became the basis o( CREATING NEW TRADIT IONS, and we discussed various ways of show ing cause and effect. We defined several elements-phenomenal industrial development, central ized transportation facilities, a diverse social environment, and problems of rebuilding after the Great Firewhich sparked the innovations that took place in Chicago architecture, reform, planning, and the other fields. At one point, Staples & Charles suggested treating these background areas around the outer walls of the gallery and constructing islands in the middle for the leadership areas. We thought of making the World's Columbian Exposition the centerpiece, since it

represented a turning point for Chicago in many ways, and we even contemplated building a small fountain reminiscem of this splendid occasion. This plan for treating the background areas was abandoned, since we were afraid of detracting from the leadership areas and confusing our visitors. In the meantime our file on artifacts for display had mushroomed to such gigantic proportions that ~e decided that we should confine ourselves to intense coverage of a few subjects.

The quest for exhibit materials was like a treasure hunt, leading me into attics, basements, garages, antique stores, corporate headquarters, and into some of America's most distinguished repositories, with excitement building every step of the way. There are delightful moments of surprise which propel historians through many hours of grubby, tedious work: my portion of both pain and pleasure must have been double the usual, since I first had to uncover the facts and then find representative physical items for display. Indeed, the process could be compared to doing a jigsaw puzzle and not knowing what the pieces are. Relying on prior study, a notebook, a camera, and a tape recorder, I became very conscious of the relationship between tangible objects and abstract ideas as my work progressed. For example, a letter from Adm. Richard Byrd to Montgomery Ward & Co. in 1928, in which he thanked the firm for donating the gear to be used on his famous Antarctic expedition, went well with lifetime guarantee certificates issued to other customers the same year. Such hints of the durability of \Vard's products were borne out when we located pre-vVorld \,Var I sewing machines, washing machines, and even mail-order Model T's, all still in working condition. Much history lies beyond the written word.

Elizabeth Chatain, a freelance photographer, assisted in the compilation of a set of snapshots of exhibit possibilities. A ruler placed next to each item provided a quick record of dimensions which was later invaluable in the design Chicago History

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Creating New Traditions

process. We kept a log of everything we photographed indicating_ where the item was stored and whether restoration was needed; this information was transferred onto the back of the snapshots. Manuscripts and photographs were xeroxed and added to our file. This system not only saved our time and wear and tear on the artifacts but enabled our designers in Washington to work in their own studio.

A complete survey of the Society's resource~ took several months. The curators directed us to many possibilities, and continuing conversations with them were an integral part of the planning. Since the museum collections were in the process of being moved to newly constructed storage facilities, it was something of a challenge to find some of the pieces entered in our register. I especially remember our delight in locating our bust of the I Will figure created for the World's Columbian Exposition. She was tucked away in a wooden cabinet beneath the auditorium, and since the doors had swollen shut we had to rescue her with a crowbar.

Vulcanus, one of the few surviving pieces of statuary from the World's Columbian Exposition grounds, looked most dejected sporting a broken arm which someone had unsuccessDiagrams, layouts, an electric drill , and an iron surround designer Barbara Charles as she works to complete the architecture area. CHS.

fully tried to mend years ago. Our museum preparators did a miraculous job of repairing the arm and restoring this statue to its original gleaming whiteness.

But extensive as they were, the Society's collections did not contain certain kinds of materials which we needed to tell our story. Other institutions responded favorably to our requests for loans: The Newberry Library and the Special Collections division of the University of Chi cago Library offered the use of their fine literary manuscripts, and the Burnham Library of the Art Institute gave access to its architectural collections and the Daniel Burnham papers. Jane Addams' scrapbooks, painstakingly restored by curators at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, yielded many handbills and broadsides advertising Hull-House activities.

One of them, translated for us by Frank Vodrazka of the Czechoslovak Society of America, turned out to be a schedule for a lecture series on Czech poetry held at the settlement in 1893.

Correspondence with the University of Pennsylvania Library secured a loan of part of Theodore Dreiser's draft for The Titan. A trip to the Library of Congress uncovered a seven-foot tall poster advertising a Tom Mix movie made in Chicago around 1914. The Library's Divi-

Open spaces allow visitors to quickly spot the areas of special interest to them. CHS.

sion of Recorded Sound and sLation ,vFMT-FM allowed me to spend many hours under headphones listening to the voices of famous Chicagoans. I investigated several hundred leads, and eventually 56 institULions and individuals supplied artifacts for the exhibiLion.

A lot of our material Lurned up in more unlikely places. For some time we had been Lrying to find the plan for Riverside developed

by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1869. Only one copy was known to exist and could not be borrowed. Then a student of Perry Duis referred us to Mrs. Lloyd Unger of Riverside, who was doing historical research herself. Mrs. Unger had never seen the plan, but within a week called to say that she had mentioned our search Lo her neighbors, Mr. and [rs. John Lewe, Jr., who proceeded to show her an Olmsted plan which they had stored in their back room. It turned ouL Lhat Mr. Lewe's father had acquired it long ago while writing a communiLy hisLory. This copy was especially choice sin ce someone had pencilled in the names of

Lhe original owners of the lots as they purchased them.

OLher rewarding moments came in tracking down mail-order merchandise. Both Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Montgomery Ward came up wiLh many suggestions, and with their assisLance we located individuals who agreed to lend us their vintage mail-order products. A lender in Oregon supplied us with the dresschosen from a Montgomery Ward catalogwhich she wore to her first communion in 1917.

Two sisters in Michigan provided a mailing tube used by Montgomery \-\Tard in sending out catalogs. The tube bears the message "\Ve Sell to Out of Town People Only," and the donors had once used it to store their doll clothes.

Architecture is a difficult subject to deal with in an exhibition because the obvious artifactsthe buildings themselves-can rarely be displayed. ,ve wanted to show what made a skyscraper fit together, so we talked to local architecLUral firms to see what plans had sur.Chicago History

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Creating New Traditions

vived from the late nineteenth century. Wilbert Hasbrouck, a fellow of the American Institute o[ Architects and a well-known preservationist, enthusiastically shared his expertise in this field, explaining essential concepts and directing me to books on building technology. Several thousand drawings of many classics of the Chicago School are still extant, and as I ferreted out early structural documentation for a hollow-tile arch, cross ties for windbracing, and a major advancement in the laying of foundations, I realized more clearly than at any other point how crucial it was to do thorough research in the initial stages o[ creating an exhibit. For unless one has some basic information to draw upon, one will almost certainly miss the significance of various artifacts.

Several topics were added as we went along.

Perry Duis called our attention to a great many of Chicago's little-known firsts: the first radio broadcast of an operatic performance (19:n); the first juvenile (1899) and municipal (1905) courts in America; the Hart, Schaffner and Marx agreement of 1911, one of the first successful attempts to institute an arbitration board for labor disputes; and the pioneering efforts of Theodore Thomas "to make good music popular" during the early years of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. At the same time, we eliminated certain topics which were not unique to Chicago. As in other cities, municipal politics reflected ethnic and economic allegiances and went through cycles of creativity, corruption, and reform. That Chicago was the home of America's most diverse populace ethnically and religiously, reflected on a larger scale what was true elsewhere. \Ve decided to incorporate as much ethnic flavor as we could but to leave explicit treatment of this idea for a future exhibition.

The design of CREATING NEW TRADITIONS evolved through a long series of dialogs with Staples and Charles. Both had previously been associated with the Office of Charles and Ray Eames and had later been responsible for the 138

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planning o[ such major exhibitions as WE PEOPLE and THE FEDERAL CITY: PLANS AND REALITIES at the Smithsonian Institution as well as AMERICA ON STAGE at the Kennedy Center. We were continually gratdul for their flexibility, for their patience in listening to our ideas, and most of all for their respect for the artifacts.

Good exhibition design depends on finding way to involve the viewer with artifacts, and unless one is displaying intrinsically interesting works of art-which we were not-some enhancement of the object is called for. The result of too little design can be just so many things on the wall, while too much o[ the wrong kind of design can produce grotesque distortions. We were reassured by our: designers' distaste for facsimiles and their understanding of conservation measures. No less comforting was their working knowledge o[ the qualities and possibilities of a great many substances, from formica and textiles to tapes and glues, as well as audiovisual techniques. When we historians began to comprehend our designers' capabilities, the effect was intoxicating, to say the least, for we saw that our dreams need not be snuffed out because we didn't know how to execute them. 'vVe all came to appreciate the special design considerations of this exhibition. Our gallery was of medium size, 40 feet wide and 71 feet long, and each of the six subjects was to be contained in areas roughly equivalent spatially.

Because we had a lot of information to cover, we could use only a limited number of large objects. In many cases photographs were more available than objects: how could these be displayed to create a three-dimensional effect?

The gallery had two entrances: what would be a logical traffic pattern and what devices could be used to get people into the gallery and to insure that they saw some of everything?

V1Te mulled over these questions as we studied a scale model of our gallery in the Staples & Charles studio. By moving the components

THE

Creating New Traditions

Staff member Thomas Watson adjusts the projector for the Chaplin film. The projector is enclosed in a small box connected to the ceiling of the film theater.

around we decided that only one of the gallery's doorways would be open so we could channel aJI visitors past the introductory text. We also found that by closing off the back entrance we could make use of an existing alcove and electrical outlets for our movie theater and listening booth. Since these installations created an intriguing blend of sound audible from the other end of the room, we thought this was a g<xxl way to stimulate immediate curiosity.

Of course we hoped to provide plenty of ~idetracks en route lo and from these two highinterest areas. Few features o( the design satisfied and excited us more than the treatment of reform through the gazebo lo be constructed in the middle of the gallery. This component met the designers' need for an eye-catching area visible from the hallway and served as an unusual way of breaking up space. 1\1oreO\'er, the notion of creating a small place-a pavilion with interior space-was in harmony with the historical purposes of settlement houses. \,Ve thought it fitting that Hull-House, such a vital hub of community activity, be situ-

ated at the heart of this exhibition.

By June 19i6 we had an overall floor plan and the final selection and layout of exhibit materials began. vVe indicated to the designers the best combination of materials that could be used to convey our message, and they submiue<l tentative drawings of each exhibit space for discussion and revision. It was a joy to see how some of the most ordinary artifacts took on a new character through a few clever and subtle techniques. i\Iirrors placed behind and underneath several items created an illusion of depth. The introduction of color through mattes, passe partout tapes, fabrics, and papers compensated for its absence in the documents and photographs which comprised much of the exhibition. Formica panels of muted brown, sky blue, pale green, and light gray supported by stands made of mahogany carried a good deal of the exhibit material. These components lent additional color, and since each of the six subjects \\:ere cued to a different color scheme they served as unobtrusive spatial and conceptual dividers.

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Creating New Traditions

The use of small individual cases and freestanding pedestals afforded other variables. For the display of four souvenir pop-ups of the Columbian Exposition, the designers devised a rectangular box with eye-level windows and interior lighting. By placing our statue Vulcan us on top of this unit, we achieved variety in height and even some sense of the grandeur of the fair.

There was also wide variety in the treatment of photographs. In some instances we used original photographs, including stereopticon views and cabinet portra its. Some had s(1ch interesting shapes and borders that they were mounted with these elements v isible. Enlargements made from original negatives were toned to convey their age, while images taken specifically for the exhibition are clearly contemporary. Cropping for effect was kept to a minimum, although the photographs vary greatly in size and shape.

Our photo lab worked from xeroxes of photographs upon which Staples & Charles indicated size and other specifications. Mather Custom Prints, Inc. produced the photographic blowups which were too large to be processed with the Society's equipment. \Valdbillig Woodworking Inc. was contracted to assist in fabricating the exhibit, and Hansman Studio silkscreened the exhibit text and captions. The Society's preparators handled the matting, framing, and restoration of all materials, following framing diagrams with the designers' instructions and color samples attached. Even getting the frames involved a lot of planning. The Great Frame-Up supplied samples and donated the frames, but each frame had to be carefully sized and ordered well in advance.

While all this was going on, I concluded loan agreements, arranged for insurance and shipment of loans, and completed the exhibit script, which came to a grand total of 470 labels. An exhibit script, in the form of labels, gives cohesion to the materials assembled. CREATING NEW TRADITIONS contains several kinds 140

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of labels: key explanations of the broad significance of each of the six leadership areas; panel statements summarizing the historical background of the subject presented; and shorter labels identifying one or several artifacts and crediting the lenders. Variations in type size guide the reader to these different levels of information.

CREATING NEW TRADITIONS contains more labels than most exhibits. We wanted to give visitors things to think about as well as to look at, ancl in many instances the importance of the materials on view was not readily apparent.

In preparing the script I aimed at clarity and brevity on the one hand while guarding against oversimplification on the other. Dian Post, a freelance editor, helped in the final preparation of the script, which was then typeset, proofread, and converted to film positives for silkscreening. Ideas which could not be fully explained in the exhibit were left for further treatment in the companion publication, which was also designed by Staples & Charles.

By mid-September everyone pitched in to complete the final installation. The designers' staff and the Society's preparators were the backbone of the work force, but many curators made available their special skills and even learned new ones. Miriam Blazowski, graphics assistant and expert seamstress, took over some of the tasks involving textiles. Thomas Watson, general services administrator and an authority on early film technology, helped with the many mechanical problems involved in showing the Chaplin movie, not the least being the creation of a ragtime accompaniment. ,vatson turned to Hal Pearl, an accompanist who once played in Chicago's silent movie palaces, and taped the lively improvisation to be heard m the exhibit.

One can scarcely imagine the amount of effort it takes to install even one artifact. The preparation of the temperance petition-presented to the Illinois General Assembly in 1879 and used in the reform area of the exhibit-

Charlie Chaplin continues to enthrall both adults and children CHS. photo by Susan Eleuterio .

i, a good example. Thi petition comi ted of mam ,crap, of paper covered with ignatures and pa ted onto a long cloth, which had been rnlled up and stored at the ociety for year . .\ fany of the paper \naps had become unglued, and tl1e,e had to be reallached with archival paste. flauened, and dried. The document was di,pl.1)ed ,enicall) with about four feet of ,ignatuJC:\ visible and the rest rolled onto loose tube at the top and bottom, v¡inually concealing the bracket that held them to the panel .

To hold the petition in place, the designers introduced two colored ribbon which overlaid the petition like ,treamet~, and to thee they auached some forty different badge and buttons worn b membe1s of the "\\'oman's Chri~ tian Temperance l.!nion. All of the doth badges were li ghtly hanclsewn to the ribbon. The entire composition was fi tted with a plexiglass cover and th e placemen t of the label determined. Then the cover was removed so that the label could be silkscreened and then replaced, secured, and wiped clean. Not every installati on was as complicated as this, but all required patience, caution, and foresight.

On the afternoon of October 1 1, 1~)76, bannc:n, wem up outside the Socie ty's Clark Stree t entrance, and the first rn h cop ies of our publi cation an ived. That eveni ng the ociety ho ted a p1e\iew for the membersh ip, lender , and collabo1 a tor,, and ,,¡e watched the I eaction of tlw,e f1r-,t cut ious spectato1s. Hu t the sign ifica nt life of the exhibition bega n the next da), when <R1x11:--c. :--.1 ,,. JR,, 01110:-.s wa, u m ei led to the public. :\Imeum visitors are a mO!>t unpred ic table group, as l ha , e learned by becoming an observer in the gallery. Eac h v i itor is attracted to omething el e. ome swd y everything mi nute!) and others just seem to enjoy being su1rounded by the atmosphere of another era.

A few ~ecm con fused by the abun da nce of things to see, but almost everyone watches the Charl ie Chaplin movi e. J\.Ien in particular seem to be drawn to the architectural mater ials, while women show an inclination for the reform gazebo-perhaps because of the leading role of women in this field. Ch ildren seem to look at everything with equal enth usiasm . School children have been well represented Ch icago History

141

View of the reform gazebo: to the left a Visiting Nurse Association uniform, to the right the 1879 temperance petition mentioned in the article.

Photo by Staples & Charles.

among the 200,000 who viewed the exhibition during its first year. Groups of history professors and members of organizations such as the Midwest Archives Conference have toured the gallery and some of them have let us know that they plan to explore the possibilities of exhibits in their own work. Meanwhile staff members of the Chicago Historical Society are already making plans to renovate the Chicago history galleries in the north wing.

It is unfortunate that no organized system exists for the serious review of historical exhibitions, since critical evaluations would be most useful to the historians and museum personnel who work on exhibits. Local newspapers provided some of the most complete coverage. In the Reader o[ November 26, 1976, 142

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Nancy Banks wrote "CREATING NLW TRADITIONS i~ about the real history of real people," and commended it for being "a non-patronizing, non-gimmicky show; it allows the items on display to speak for themselves, without attempting to make them more entertaining or attention-grabbing than they are intrinsically."

These comments encourage us. Many out-oftown visitors to the exhibit have told us that Chicago seems more inviting to them now that they know someth ing of its background. This reaction means much to us, for it renews our faith in the powers of history to charm, to educate, and to forge an intimate bond between each individual and a city as vast and grand as our own.

George S. Bowen and the American Dream

BY HUGH S. DE SANTIS

"The time is opportune ... we want them all to come to the World)s Fair in 1892. Let us make them our friends and customers by being their friends and allies.)'

From the George S. Bowen Papers, CHS

1927 THE Chicago Tribune paid tribute to Chicago's founders in its "65 Years Ago Today" section. Included in the list of those who had contributed to the city's growth and prosperity was George S. Bowen. As a token of appreciation, his son sent a message of thanks to the historical editor for "'bringing to the surface' one of the men of that now Golden Age who consecrated his life and fortune to the Matchless City of his unquestioning faith."

Few others have remembered Bowen. Unlike Potter Palmer, John Altgeld, Jane Addams, Eugene Debs, and numerous other figures who crossed Chicago's stage during the nineteenth century, he did not fall into the conventional categories that have attracted attention from hisLorians. He was not a socially disinherited immigrant, a disgruntled farmer, a black struggling for freedom, or a laborer who sweated in an industrial prison; neither was he a selfless humanitarian, a wealthy philanthropist, or a ruthless capitalist exploiter of all he surveyed.

Like others of his generation imbued with the gospel of success and the nation's destiny to expand and flourish, Bowen was a relentless entrepreneur who committed his lifelong energies LO the pursuit of personal gain and, at the same time, to the larger cause of social and economic progress.

IN MARCH

This article grew out of Hugh S. De Santis' interest in American trade expansion during the late nineteenth century. He is currently completing a dissertation on American-Soviet relations, 1933 to 1946, at the University of Chicago.

George Stephen Bowen and Chicago met in 1849, when they were boLh very young. Then aged twenty, Bowen had left the tiny upstate New York town of Inghams Mills to join the procession of easterners who were rapidly settling the western frontier. Captivated by the heady Jacksonian rhetoric of individualism, wealth, and happiness, teased by the rich and voluptuous continent that lay before him, he set out to make his fortune like other native newcomers to the West. At the time Chicago was sixteen and, although already claiming a population of twenty-three thousand, still little more than a prairie town on the shores of Lake Michigan.

During the next two decades, however, the proliferation of steamship and railroad lines, the infusion of eastern and foreign capital, and the commercial impetus provided by the Civil War transformed the once remote frontier town into a thriving metropolis of more than three hundred thousand people. As for Bowen, he too en joyed his share of success. Having learned the rudiments of merchandis ing in the woolen mills of his hometown, he readily found employment in the office of a small Chicago wholesale and retail drygoods firm. In 1853 he and his brother Chauncey, who had followed him to Chicago, bought the company and established the firm of Bowen Brothers.

Joined by brother James four years later, it became one of the three leading jobbers of dry goods and notions in the developing West.

The firm's growth mushroomed during the Civil War. Stimulated by the demand for cotton and woolen goods to clothe northern arCh icago Hist ory

143

George S. Bowen, entrepreneur and reformer, in middle age. He continued to pursue a variety of business ventures until his death at the age of 75. CHS.

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Bowen's Dream

111i ·s a11d ,o:i1i11g i11fla1ion , annual sales rme 1101n .-:.wo,ooo in 1857 Lo '::-i7 million in 18fiti.

To wmcc1att· 1heir s11ccess, the 1h1ec brn1hcrs i11H·,1<.:d . 100,000 1haL yea1 to cons1111ct the frves101 y Bowrn Buildi11g at J j '!) Randolph S11cct (, ti wh,1t would now be Ci:i 71 East Ran dolph ). ·1 hey also pmchas<.:cl the adjoining prnpc11 y 011 tht· slrcct, which bt·<ome k11ow11 as Bowe11s' Block .

I laving amassed a 101 tlllH', Cha111H ·y and J.r111c·s 1<.:1i1cd lrn111 active p:111icipation in the IH1si1H·ss in 18(i7. Gcmgc , howeH·t, stayed 011 and lo1111cd the li1111 ol Bowen, \\'hitman and \Vimlow, which laH't became Bowen, Whitll!an and llunt , and finally Bowen, llunt and \\'imlow. In addition to his woolen business, he a<quircd and den:lopcd 1ealcs1atc prnp ·r 1ic, 011 1he < it}\ South Sicl<-, naming a s11ec1 Bowen ,\\cnuc (now Ltst 11st Place) in th · p101ess: mjo)Cd a «mt1olli11g i11tc1csl in the old I l}de Park I lotcl: alld pat titipatcd in th· dc,clop111ent of 1he fledgling irnn indust1 y in the neat by (;a1 y, Indiana area.

1\s a pioncct in Chicago\ expansion, Bowen 1nok pride in his :tC rnmplishments and the city\ rc111 :11 bbl• gt owth. /\las, progress for both was abruptly interrupted by the disas1rnus f11 • of 1871. Bowell !mt his woolen busi 11c,s, his clrgant home oil fichigan Ave11ue, ,11HI ntu< h ol his fm tune. AfH·t the fire he 1c·movcd his l,1mil) 10 the 11ea1by city of Elgin, Illinois, \\'hct • he purchased a substantial inI ·1e,1 in the h>x River l\fanufact111 ing Com pan}, makers ol woolt'n goods. Although he now Jlladc his hom • ou I side Ch irago, he <lid 11<1L 11cglec I his IH1siness inte1 •sts in the city.

In addition to hi, 1 ·al estate activities, he and his brother Chauncey acquired partial ownership of Enos Brown &: Co., also woolen manufacturers.

Bowen's move to Elgin coincided with the rising discontent of Illinois farmers, who had begun to rebel against the excessive freight rates charged by railroad monopolies. Having recently lost much of what he had worked so

h,11cl 10 achic,e bcc.1u,e of lrnces hcyoncl hi, con1rnl, he S)lllpathi,ed with the fa1n1crs· plight. At the same timC', he idcntifiC'd with 1hcn1 ;1s small indq>c·1Hlc111 bminc·ss111e11 who ,hared his faith in the Ame1 ica11 c at'do of prn, pct ity and ltappiness. Pat 1ly lo b1 i11g rnmpeti ti\. · 1clicl to the l;11111c1s and p:111ly 101 t<•av>m of pcrson:tl p1ofi1, he and other intcn·stecl pa1 tic, rng-a11i1ecl the Chicago a11d Pacific Rail mad in 187!.!. Although suivcycd only 10 the i\lississippi Rivet, it was intended to be the 111st link in a line tlwt was to 11111 !torn Chicago 10 111(' I':u ific <0,1'>1. In lacl, the !inc was never 1Juil1 beyo11d By1on , Illinois.

Fot a tim ·, however, the 1ailrnad did suc cced i11 1nl11c ing freight r;11es in Illinois and Bowen bccalllc som ·thing of a hero in Elgin.

Fm two )Cars in a rnw 187~ and 187'.l he was clent·d 111ayo1. B111 lac cd with I isi ng opcr;1Li ng costs and 1hc lailu1c of ,lock sub,n ibcrs 10 ho11rn thei1 pledge cl111 ing 1he dcp1ession of 187:1, the 1.iilao:ad sc><1n kl! i11to l1nanc ial dif fie ulty . In an ellrn t 10 sla\C oil di,;is1cr, Bowen a,,11111cd the pr·sidenc y of the line. The situ a1io11 prnvcd hopelt-s, in the• f:icc of compe1i 1io11 ftolll the largct railrnacl, , which lowC'ted l1cight rate, 10 levels 1ha1 clit'< tivdy squ<'Ctc·cl 1hc Chicago and Pacific cH1t of the lll:11ket. 111 .Ja1Ht:lt) 1877, the line went into tc<C:ivcrship. ·1 hree )l'.tts la1c1 it was pun ha•ccl by the C11ical-{O, ~lilwaukcc and St. l'aul.

Bowen\ <'X[><'I ierHC, clt11 ing the clep1cssion )C.tl\ liom 187 :1 LO 1878 allcct •d him prnfoundly. Once I icling the wave of prn,p •1 ity, hc was now bank1 upt. Moreover, a~ wages and pt ices in Chicago plummeted to pre Civil War level~. i11du,11 i .., c lched, and the ranks of u11cmployccl workers and hnancially ruined farmers swelled, he grew increasingly concerned about the vitality of the American economy. Even more disturbing, national markets seemed to lack their former resiliency to absorb domestic production and stimulat~ economic expansion. Meanwhile, the flow of foreign goods into the United States, particularly from England, posed a formidable Ch icago History

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threat to economic recovery and American selfsufficiency.

Bowen had evidenced concern about the loss of American trade as early as 1867, when he organized the Chicago-based Woolen Manufacturers' Association of the Northwest to mobilize local business interests against foreign encroachment on domestic markets. Three years later, he and other Chicago businessmen established the American Association of Home Industries to unite the nation's industrial interests "in defence of the system of adequate protection to American industries." As president of the association, he communicated with manufacturers and merchants in other cities who also sought "to counteract the pernicious influence of the English [Free Trade] manufacturers. " The economic setback of the 1870s magnified the issue of foreign competition and sounded the call for concerted action.

On May 23, 1878, Bowen hosted a reception at the Palmer House that led to the formation of the Manufacturers' Association of the Northwest. The aims of the association were twofold: to lobby against the importation of foreign goods and to secure new markets for domestic products. Later that summer, an exeetllive session of the association decided to concentrate trade expansion efforts in the lucrative and relatively untapped domestic markets of the Mississippi Valley and the Far West, and in Central and South America, particularly Mex ico. They further agreed to hold a national conference in Chicago to dramatize to Washington the mounting sentiment for protectionism and trade expansion. "This is preeminently the age of concerted action," stated an executive committee report of July 1878; today persons acting independently "can produce only a feeble and transient impression."

Businessmen across the country lauded the patriotism of Bowen- and his Chicago associates.

It was high time the United States took action, wrote a Washington, D.C., resident. "I have never known a time when so much American 146

Ch icago History

labor was unemployed." Unlike previous economic downturns, he lamented, this one spilled through all classes and occupations. "So the distress which at first falls upon [the industrial and mercantile] class at last reaches all classes."

Even those who could not attend the conference sent cordial messages in support of the " inspiration and faith "demonstrated by Chicago entrepreneurs in the boundless resourcefulness of the nation. A San Franciscan wrote of the "great field " for American products in Mexico.

The people of that country "will open their arms to us and we can control then the Great highway from the Rio Grande to the fair city of Mexico, and onward!" He predicted that both nations would walk hand-in-hand "in brotherly and friendly commercial relations."

On ovember 12, delegates from twenty-five states and territories extending from Massachusetts to Arizona convened at Farwell Hall to discuss the momentous question of American trade and vote on a plan of action . In addition to Bowen, who served as chairman of the convention arrangements, the Chicago delegation included Marshall Field, Potter Palmer, George Pullman, and Charles B. Farwell as well as Lt. Gov. William Bross and Victor B. Lawson, pioneers of Chicago journalism. They attributed America's parlous economic state largely to the government's failure to raise tariff barriers. Had it not been for the protective tariff adopted before the Civil War, they declared, the United States would have been forced to buy all its manufactures from England, France, and Germany. To improve the nation's economic health, they resolved that Congress promote by all constitutional means the development of American commerce with other countries and end railroad monopolies by encouraging the construction of competing lines.

While participating in the national crusade for trade expansion, Bowen also energetically promoted local interests. In 1879 he organized a railroad excursion to Mexico for ninety-three

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The Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the impressive three-family house owned by James H. , George S., and Chauncey T. Bowen . These before and after photographs are graphic testimony of the disaster. CHS .

Chicago men and wo1!1en to assess that country's commercial opportunities. Two years later, "with a view to increase business between the North and South," he arranged for a party of twelve Chicago businessmen to attend an international exposition held in Atlanta. In the judgment of the Chicago Journal of Commerce, he was "the best man to represent Chicago. He has witnessed, not only the rise of progress and prosperity of Chicago's trade, but has also experienced many of its vicissitudes. " The Atlanta Constitution, referring to Bowen as the "Moses" of the party described him as "an enterprising, energetic man, full of vim, original in his ideas, devoted to American industry and [is] a zealous protectionist who believes that the United States can and should produce everything needed by its population, and in that respect be independent of the world."

A man of no small imagination, Bowen conceived a plan in 1889 to outfit a ship with American entrepreneurs and products and sail it around South America so that businessmen could study the people, determine their needs,

and obtain large orders. At that time the United States exported about seventy-two million dollars' worth of goods to South America while importing more than one hundred eighty-one millions' worth. The United States had the capital, the brains, and the manufacturing capacity to increase her production, he observed, " but we need the markets and the consumers of these South American States." American labor was anxious for employment, he stressed.

"The time is opportune, the field is ripe for the harvest; we want them all to come to the World's Fair in 1892 . Let us make them our friends and customers by being their friends and allies."

Although nothing came of this proposal, Bowen continued to involve himself in projects to promote the public good and his own. Fascinated by Edison's successful commercial application of elecu¡icity in 1879, he became convinced that it would eventually supersede steam as the motive power for railroads and industry. In 1881 , having already enlisted the support of Chicago investors and the (Charles J.) Vandepoele Manufacturing Company-pioChicago History

147

Bowen's Dream

neers in the manufacture of electrical equipment- he obtained a charter from the Elgin City Council to establish a utility company. It took two years to construct the generating plants and light towers before the power was finally turned on in 1883. When it was, Bowen proudly displayed the new system of overhead lighting.

Apart from the publicity he received, Bowen garnered sufficient profit from his utility investment to recoup his railroad losses and to explore commercial opportunities in other fields such as silver mines, knitting mills, iron smelting companies, and urban transportation systems. Undeterred by his disastrous experience with the Chicago and Pacific, he also continued to invest in railroad projects both in the United States and England, purchasing, leasing, and occasionally operating lines in partnership with other capitalists.

In the early 1890s, Bowen and his son George Erwin, who had by then become his business associate, participated in the formation of the Georgia-Alabama Investment and Development Company. Formed in 1891 in Tallapoosa, Georgia, to "advance the Industrial interests" of the new South and to convert its raw materials-lumber, cotton, iron-into manufactured goods "for which there is a constant and increasing market both for home consumption and shipment abroad," the undertaking satisfied Bowen's commitment to contribute to the economic welfare of the nation as well as his desire for personal profit. As vice president and secretary, respectively, Bowen and his son promoted the company from offices in Chicago and Cincinnati. "We shall have the Universe for a market, and the ability to supply itTallapoosa is bound to grow and prosperyou cannot make a mistake in purchasing the stock of this company."

Yet, for all his varied investments and his successful venture with the Elgin Electric Light Company, Bowen had not grown wealthy. Writing to his wife from New York on Thanks148

Chicago History

giving Day 1887, he glumly related his inability to "do something for myself. " With his fifty-eighth birthday only days away, he lamented "I wish I could write in a more cheerful mocxl about it, but I guess it must be a fact, that my life is a great failure. I have worked hard for these many years, but success has not seemed to crown my labors."

Surrounded by "so much selfishness and wrong," he groaned, "life is a great problem.

I shall however not lay down and die, but work on."

As the nation entered the 1890s, bank failures, declining industrial activity, and rising unemployment seemed to betoken some impending disaster. Then, in 1893, as Chicagoans unveiled the World's Columbian Exposition in tribute to a century of expansion and economic progress, the United States was engulfed in a world depression of unprecedented severity.

In 1893 alone 22,500 miles of American railway went into receivership; more than sixteen thousand firms suffered bankruptcy; another 64 2 banks failed. Freight rates and industrial prices plunged precipitously during the years that followed, continuing the slide of the past two decades. By 1896 they had dropped 67 percent from their 1865 levels. During the same period, farm prices fell 75 percent while surpluses of wheat, corn, and other commodities piled higher and higher. Factory workers suffered drasti c wage cuts; an estimated three million workers out of a labor force of five million lost their jobs.

The cataclysm took a painful toll of Bowen's railroad investments and curtailed public interest in the Georgia-Alabama company. Withal, it depleted him psychologically. Once again he had been rebuffed by that "bitch goddess success" and at sixty-four his time was fast running out. So, it appeared, were his opportunities. As the frontier vanished from the American landscape, the markets it once provided for commercial expansion d isappeared as well. Those that existed were increasingly

Bowen's Dream

controlled by such corporate empires a nited tale tee!, tandard Oil, and du Pont. These corporation al o held great quantities of gold, Bowen wro te to hi wife early in 1 93, and "of one thing all may re t a urecl, that the men who hold the Gold control the world, the Church and the people." From this observation followed Bowen' solution Lo the national cri i and his personal mi fortunes : restore il,-er to the legal tender it po e ed prior to 18i3.

Bo,,·en' an wers to America's social ills resonated the views of other mall bu inessmen who had been hard hit by the erie of economic upheaval during the la t quarter of the nineteenth century. They reasoned that the remonetization of silver would augment the exportation of dome tic goods to ilver-producing nations like ;\fexico and China and thereby stimulate American commerce. Thi would end the depre ion and imultaneously counteract the monopol) power wielded by gold-hoarding banker , railroad men, and corporate magnates. trategically, independent bu ine men like Bm\°en continued to advocate economic expansion as they had two decades earlier. However, now that domestic markets appeared aturated and attention shifted perforce to foreign countries--e pecially in the Far Eastthe) abandoned their former tactic of protectioni m and embraced free u·ade. mall urban businessmen were joined in their condemnation of the tru L and in support of ilverism by farmer , particularly in the outh and ;\fidw~t. who had experienced no relief during the 18 os from the declining agricultural prices of the previou decade. :0.Ieanwhile, urban factory worker, immigrants, socialists, humanitarians, and others who felt outs ide the mainstream of American life raised their dissident voices in denunciation of the corporate interests, expressing their particular grievances and writing their own social prescr iptions of trade unionism, public ownership of utilities, and class violence. While they did not espo use the farmer's or the small business-

man' evangel"i tic faith in the panacea of free silver, they hared the same fervent commitment to the goal of social reform. Thus icleo-logically, if not politically, they allied with rural and urban populist in 1892 "to restore the government of the Republic to the hand of the 'plain people,' with who e hands it originated," a the platform of the new People's Party read. What these plain people had in common was the desire to de troy the "vast con piracy" of corporate moguls. They were not oppo ed to American economic progress; they simply wanted a share of it. fore than anything, they wanted an opportun ity to succeed.

Despite the defeat of Populist candidate James B. \\'eaver in the presidential election of 1892, "free silver" advocates eagerly climbed aboard the bandwagon of William Jennings Bryan, a Lealous upporter of the bimetallic standard who had received the nomination of both the Populi ts and Democrats. Bowen was among them. :\ Republican most of hi life, he had joined the Greenback-Labor Party (a precursor of the populist movement) in 1876, running unsuccessfully for Congress on the Peter Cooper ticket. Politically reborn in the depres ion years of the 1890s he became president of the Bimetallic Reform League of Cook County in 1895 and assistant secretary of the ational Bimetallic nion, establ ished in ·washington, D.C. during the same year to publicize the cau e of silverism.

The campaign for free silver went into high gear in 1896 as Bryan challenged Republican \Villiam fcKinley for the presidency. Bowen worked tirelessly on behalf of Bryan and silver in concert with other Bimetallic clubs around the country, with Silver Democrats, and a host of reform organizations such as the M ajority Rule League, which aimed to remove politics from big-city bosses and return it to the people.

In the June 4 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Bowen harked back to the sound-money practices of Thomas Jefferson to restore equitChicago History

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Col. M. Jefferds, an American civil engineer living in Shanghai, encouraged Bowen to trade in China.

He is shown here in Chinese dress. CHS.

able conditions for all Americans. "There are greater forces than Wall Steet," he declared in response to an attack by a New York banker on the "ignorant western voters." An<l those forces '\,¡ill answer to your ungracious taunts, your autocratic threats [and] your greater potencies" in November with the election of Bryan. As it turned out, not enough Americans shared his views. Although Bryan carrie"d the agricultural states and the Democratic South, he lost the votes of industrializing Americaincluding factory workers-who remained impervious to silverism, and the election.

Undaunted, the Bimetallic Union continued its crusade. Bowen pointed out to his son in April 1897 that "the real interest in the cause of Bimetallism is growing every day." Given the depressed business conditions, he believed that the "time to do the work is now when the people are in a mood to listen and learn, 150

Chicago History

and think-and when the time comes they will vote the right ticket." He even attempted to establish a morning daily in Chicago, appositely called The Commoner, to sustain the struggle. But the defeat of Bryan had taken much of the wind out of the sails--of the silver issue. Unable to build a sufficiently large circulation, Bowen was forced to forego his plans for a newspaper. ¡ Ieanwhile Bowen's private business affairs were not faring any better. His railroad investments continued unrewarding, partly, he believed, because of the dishonesty of some of his associates. To raise more capital, he considered selling some of his Elgin property, but "very few of the merchants are making any money, " he told his wife, "I am quite discouraged." Still he persevered. "You may safely conclude that I have not been idle, and that I have done the best I could under all the circumstances," he wrote from New York to his son in 1895. Burdened by the guilt of having let clown his family, he reminded them that " I spend no money for cigars, drinks, theatres or otherwise."

Although supportive of her husband's efforts, .Julia Bowen found the strains of the depression years difficult to endure. She was especially di tressed by her husband's continued affiliation with investors who seemed to hold him "victim. " "I think if all the hours of anguish I have suffered on account of [Mr. Cone's] baneful influence upon you were¡ counted," she remonstrated, "it would make years." "He always overpowers you," she scolded, and association with his devious schemes "irreparably damages your good name." Later in the year, she wrote, "I hope you will make a hit this time and relieve the awful pressure we are under."

But Bowen did not make a hit. Efforts to revive the Georgia-Alabama company proved fruitless. "Our Tallapoosa stock [of] over 6000 shares is all soon to be wiped out by foreclosure," he informed his son in the spring of 1897.

Cable address ALLGEORGE 805TOlf

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GEORGE M. EMRICK, Tr<asum-.

Offices: 344 Unity Building,

79 'Dearborn St.

Chicago,

May 18,

1899.

These are two of many letterheads used by Bowen in his business undertakings. The Bowen Papers include a variety of such items which help indicate the range of his business and political activities. CHS.

"[ (eel a deep sense of mortification in that I do not see a way to make or earn any money or sell any property for cash at any price."

Still, despite his many setbacks, Bowen was not bereft of investment ideas to achieve his goal of wealth and status. Even as he prepared to liquidate his Tallapoosa investment, he was already casting his net in the markets of Mexico and China.

Bowen had begun to explore opportunities in i\Iexico during the mid-eighties, enl ist ing the assistance of an American consular official in Guadalajara, who provided him with an insider's view of the status of Iexican trade and manufacturing. Finally, in 1899, Bowen formed the Compania de la Hacienda d e Coahuayula to promote the development of the area's rich coffee, rubber, cacao, and sugar Ch icago History

151

Bowen's Dream

cane resources and ultimately to stimulate trade with Chicago.

His fascination with China was helped along by the roseate expectations of Col. M. R. Jefferds, an American civil engineer residing in Shanghai, who desired to open that country to Yankee commerce. Bowen envisioned "large business results as the outgrowth of the seeds [Jefferds] has planted" for himself, Chicago, and the nation. China offered Chicago a field for the exportation of farm machinery and the introduction of electric railways; by the same token, Chicago provided a- ready market for Chinese tea, silk, and woodcrafts. Certainly ''large orders could be taken for Marshall Field & Co., John V. Farwell & Co., [and] Carson Pirie Scott &: Co.," Bowen thought. So in the summer of 1896, he and .Jefferds organized in Chicago the American-Chinese Chamber of Commerce to arrange a showcase [or American manufacturers in China and to compete more effectively with European traders there.

During the months that followed, Bowen solicited the participation of American manufacturers in the venture by blanketing the country with advertisements and by publicizing the China market in trade periodicals. "An Empire of 400,000,000 inhabitants within easy range of the greatest manufacturing nation on earth" was eagerly awaiting American industry, he wrote in Wind and Water, a Chicago monthly devoted to makers of well-drilling and irrigation machinery. "Our manufacturers need larger markets than we now command," he pointed out. In 1894 American imports from China amounted to more than sixteen million dollars, nearly twice what the United States exported there. Bowen visualized exports in the hundreds of millions of dollars, provided United States businessmen displayed the same aggressive trade expansionism as the British, long the dominant force in China. "We must go to the markets; they will not come to us," he admonished, "if we would conquer and our commercial and industrial supremacy be 152

Ch icago History

maintained."

While Bowen immersed himself in plans for Mexican and Chinese trade, support was mobilizing in the United States to bring public pressure against the trusts. In 1898 Bowen was asked to reply to a letter sent to John P. Altgeld, formerly governor of Illinois,-soliciting Chicago's support in the movement. "Having been a merchant for many years in this city and carried on a large business I have a very extended acquaintance which may be utilized," he responded, "and being in perfect sympathy with this movement I might be useful in making it successful in this state."

To further the organization's educational objectives, Bowen joined in 1898 with reformist publisher Charles H. Kerr and editor Frederick U. Adams to form the New Time Corporation, publishers of The N ew Time, New Occasions, and Th e Money Question. In addition, he and his son established themselves as publisher's agents for a variety of progressive screeds-such as Altgeld's Live Questions, which called for the dissolution of the trusts, municipal ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones and penal reform. At the same time, Bowen brought the message of commercial expansion, free trade, and free silver to Chicago businessmen and citiLens' groups. Free coinage of silver would "introduce into the veins of our commerce [sic] our manufactures, our agriculture and mercantile life the blood it must have to preserve our life as a Nation," he told the Chicago Woman's Club, "to give labor free employment at fair wages and to restore prosperity to all our people."

In September 1899, Bowen and a number of concerned citizens from various states decided to organize a national anti-trust conference in Chicago to rally forces against those "criminal conspiracies" which "close the doors of business opportunity to all but the rich and powerful ... impoverish the producer and consumer . . . [and] degrade labor." On February 12, 1900, some 450 delegates from 31 states, one territory,

Bowen's Dream

and the District of Columbia streamed into Chicago's Central Music Hall. The list of those attending included many in the populist pantheon: James B. Weaver, Mayor Tom Johnson of Cleveland, Henry George, Jr., "Sockless" Jerry Simpson of Kansas, and Ignatius Donnelly.

The choice of Lincoln's birthday was symbolically fitting, for his principle of "justice toward all, malice toward none" set the tone for the proceedings. "We make no assault upon business combinations for diminishing productive costs or augmenting productivity and efficiency," read the conference statement of principles. "What we do attack is combinations for coercing producers and lessening production. It is such combinations that constitute the trust evil, and them we would abolish root and branch." After three clays of speechmaking, the conference established a working organization of the American Anti-Trust Leagues and produced a broad platform of demands, including the reduction of trade barriers.

Bowen was gratified by his contribution to the success of the conference. "I am not ashamed of the work I have done in the interests of better conditions for all people," he allowed to his son several months later, "although cash dividends are not in sight." Bowen's personal affairs also gave signs of improvement, and dividends were in sight. Inspired by another Edison invention, he organized the Campaign Polyphone Company in 1900, which recorded and marketed Bryan's sonorous tones across the country. In July he arranged for a $275,000 loan in New York to enhance his railroad investments. "The railroad business grows in importance ancl J do hope it will prove a success," he wrote his family; "everything seems to look like success."

Once more things did not turn out exactly as Bowen hoped. Again McKinley defeated Bryan.

In addition, Bowen's bu iness interests soured.

Neither the :M exican company nor Campaign Polyphone captured the public's fancy. Finding himself again in debt, Bowen trekked back to

New York early in 1901 to raise funds to keep his Far Eastern business afloat. Somehow the dream of success that had animated Bowen a half-century earlier had capriciously eluded him. In November Col. Jefferds sent Bowen a congratulatory message in honor of his seventysecond birthday. "The Lord has been good to you in giving you health," .it read, "and now may Dame Fortune do justice to you and give you wealth so that you may live and do as you would like to for the balance of your days."

As the years of the new century drifted by, Bowen continued to struggle against the "bondage of debt." Although he was no longer able to play an active part in the social reform movement, he retained enough spirit to try yet another business venture. In 1904, at the age of seventy-five, he organized a Chicago-based import-export firm, the North Pacific Trading Company, to promote and develop trade with the Far East. With offices in Japan, China, and Korea, the company was excellently situated to find outlets for domestic goods and to secure imports for American markets. The prospects seemed bright indeed, not on ly in C hina, b u t in Japan as well. After all, dating from the days of Commodore Perry, the new Japan "was built upon the present basis of political, educational and financial institutions by Americans hands."

Unfortunately, a combination of fac tors-discriminatory hikes of duty on Japanese products by American customs authorities, the failure of company officials in Japan to market American products effectively, and the su bsequent loss of confidence on the part of American businessmen-worked against the firm from the start. Trade with China also proved disappointing. After Bowen's death in 1905, the orth Pacific Company continued to fu nction for several years longer. However, it does not appear to have survived beyond 1909.

In the course of his life, George Bowen crossed paths with many of those Americansreformers, agrarian radicals, workers, and corporate magnates-who have come to form the Chicago History

153

THE LAST AUTUMNAL

EXCURSION TO TALLAPOOSA, GA.

WILL •• o ~• N •D profit au • aTa I N NOYaM a • ft.

A Special Round Trip Rate has been made via Queen &. Crescent Route of

$13.80, G000 F0R THIRTY 0-A.YS The train will leave Cincinnati \\.EDXESD ..\Y. October 14, at 8 o'clock P. M., arrive in Tallapoosa Thursday, 6 P. M. This trip affords a splendid opportunity to visit the South in a delightful season for travel, and see with your own eyes the wonderful development now going forward in the ideal city of Tallapoosa, visit Atlanta, Lookout Mountain, and oth~r points of interest, buy a few lots that will double in value within a year, drink the pure Lithia water from the fawons spring, and live. \\Tlule the harvest moon is shining O'er the Alnbama bills, When the TalledeKa Light Guards Rxccute fautac.tic drills, Take a. trip on Queen & Crescent To tbc Georgia Mountains blue, Let the ~prin~.."S of Tallapoosa Paint your cheek.a a.uotbcr hue Later on.

F.ulth, success and wealth abiding, Balmy weather, cloutltCN skies, Luscious fru it.$, perpetual flower&, Atmoapbere that never dies,

These. an~ chRrms ofTallapoosA, Cruder te!lource, mnuuta1n:. high, She

t~~s:~Oi81c.:~\~!1~\~~~!i by

Later on.

Let to---day be your advisor, Strike the iron while it's hot.

Vou can ma.kc no mo,·c that's wi5er; Seek in Dixie happier lot.

All the worlll before you o~ned Offers pros~ct none t'<> fair Aa you'll find in Tallapoo!o8, Plant

yoN;;tact:;!,it~~c;, t:!~t

F or particul ars correspon d with

Gt0. S. B0WtN &. S0N, General A~ents Geo.-Ala. <::o.

119 Vine Street, stock company of actors used by historians to enact the drama of modernizing America. Unfortunate ly, their fam iliar scenarios have included no part for Bowen, who was neither wealthy and social prominent nor poor and socially dispossessed. His was a moderate success, not unlike that of many small businessmen of his day. However, while some were content with what they had accomplished, Bowen and others like him were dissatisfied because they wanted more of what American life had given them, indeed, had promised them. In the end, the part for which Bowen might best be remembered is that of having chased the American Dream and lost.

154

Chicago History

€IN€INNA TI, 0.

A broadside used by Bowen to promote one of his real estate ventures. CHS.

Selected Sou rces Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men in Chicago. Chicago: Wilson, Pierce & Co. , 1868.

George S. Bowen Papers. 74 boxes of correspondence, 66 letterbooks, 58 separately catalogued volumes of related materials (CHS).

Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.

Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics Pollack , ' orman . The Populist Responses to Industrial America.

Cambridge: Har\'ard University Press, 1962.

Statistical Abstracts of the United Stales.

Williams , William A. Contours of American History. Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1961.

"Wi II Chicago's lti nerant City Hall Be Moved Once More?"

BY GLEN E. HOLT

The Chicago Sunday Tribune asked this troubling question on October 2~ 1898. It was a question that had been asked before and would be asked again more than once in the years ahead.

the Chicago owl, addressing an audience of a pair of pigeons in his pitch-dark corner under the roof of the City Hall. 'Whenever will these restless people settle down? Seven times already in less than three score years they have disturbed me, and now they talk of moving once more. When will a body have a chance to catch a wink of sleep with all this moving?'"

The Chicago owl was a fictitious character, of course, a facetious invention of a newswriter in 1896, but the point being made was true. For the first seventy-five years of Chicago's history, its most important public buildingits city hall-moved as frequently as some of the Windy City's upwardly-mobile citizens who were always seeking new homes to keep up with their growing families.

Chicago's first government in May 1837, rented auspicious quarters in the Saloon Building located on the southeast corner of Clark and Lake streets, where the city council and " 'HEIGHO ! MOVING AGAIN!' SIGHED

Glen E. Holt is chairman of the Urban Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis.

He is co-editor of St. Louis: An Historical Anthology published earlier this year and is currently at work on a social history of Chicago with coauthor Perry R. Duis.

the municipal court operated from a single room. amed for the capacious salon or hall on its third floor, this building was erected in 1836 by merchant George W. Dole and Captain John B. F. Russell. A later writer declared that there was "eternal fitness" to the fact that Chicago's first councilmen should meet in a building so named. "It matters not that there was no bar in the edifice. Its occupancy by the Aldermen and the business calling of a large number of the men who have since served on the board go to show there is something in a name."

In 1842, the city lost its lease on the Saloon Building room. The council then moved to another frame building at the corner of La Salle and Randolph, just across the street from the present city hall. This structure was owned by a widow, Mrs. Nancy Chapman. From the windows of their second-floor quarters, the councilmen could see the wooden jail and east of that the county court house, erected in 1835, both of which stood on the "public square," the block bounded by Randolph, La Salle, Clark, and Washington. This square was a visible disgrace when viewed from the front windows of Mrs. Chapman's second-floor room, and the council persuaded half-a-dozen "solid men" of the community to clean up the lot. This group pulled the weeds, filled Chicago History

155

Itinerant City Hall

the holes, planted some "sickly trees," and erected a board fence around the block. In improving the fence, "it is a matter of history that the whitewash gave out before the fence was completed," a fact that led the Chicago Democrat to complain in May 1842, that "the fence around the public square, on Clark Street, stands like a good many politicians we wot ofbut half whitewashed."

Through the 1840s Chicago was growing; "a boom, they called it," the Chicago owl narrated, "but whatever it was it meant a change of quarters." In 1844, John M. Van Osdel had established the first architectural office in the city. In early 1848 the council commissioned him to design a building that would serve a dual purpose: provide quarters for the local government and for a public market. This building was erected in the middle of State Street fronting on Randolph, and extended 180 feet north toward Lake Street. The council took possession of its new home on November 13, 1848, with some locals acclaiming it as "about the finest edifice west of the Alleghenies."

This city hall was significant for several reasons. First, its $11,070 cost for full brick and stone construction was paid by the city, making it the first such building owned by the municipal corporation. Second, combining the hall with a market represented a notion that was common in the nineteenth century: that public buildings could be made to pay. The entire first floor was divided into 32 stalls which were rented to local farmers so they could sell their produce to city dwellers. Finally, the interior rooms of the building illustrated that the city was performing a larger number of duties. On the second floor, along with the council room were to be found a circulating library and the office of the city clerk.

The city government was in its Market Hall home only two years when the council decided that more room was needed to house its various officials and the court. The county, meanwhile, 156

Chicago History

was experiencing the same problems; it too had outgrown the Ii ttle one-story courtroom and basement offices of the first court house building at the southwest comer of Clark and Randolph. The county government held title to the public square, which it had been granted when Cook County was created. It also owed the city $30,000 for various services rendered by the municipal government. To pay off this debt and obtain land from the city on which to build a criminal courts building and a county hospital, the county granted the city the west half of the present city hall-court house block. To complete the deal, the county agreed to pay three-fourths of the construction cost of the new jointly-occupied building. John M. Van Osdel was called on to design the structure which cost 111,000, and which was financed by a county bond issue. "A fine building it promised to be," the Chicago owl noted in 1896. "Big enough to find room for the jail and courthouse and city hall under the same roof, . . . and the roof of the new building would cover 17,000 square feet and have a dome and cupola in the bargain .... I thought to myself, when I heard of so much money being spent, we are here to stay at last."

When this building was completed in 1853, city and county officials looked at the resplendent, two-story structure and "thought they had something too large, but they were profoundly proud of the beauty of the building."

Instead, the structure soon proved too small for its purposes, and an additional story was added in 1858. Further remodeling eleven years later included additions to both the eastern and western sides. The faults in this last construction became apparent in 1870 when the roof of the east wing collapsed. An investigation disclosed "that the roof and other portions of the building had been constructed without blue prints or architectural plans."

Still, with all its faults, in an age before commercial buildings rose to dwarf church steeples and public halls, "this building was

Itinerant City Hall

the pride of every true Chicagoan." And with good reason. First; there was the dome that attracted the local resident and tourist alike.

"The stairway leading to the highest part of the dome, or observatory, was a steep and tiresome climb," a newspaperman recounted some years later, "but sightseers from far and near felt well repaid for the¡ effort in the view afforded of the city, surrounding country and the lake, from this elevation. Hundreds of names were written in pencil or engraved with knife on the walls and woodwork, for there was no book in which visitors might register."

In the second place, citizens attached great significance to the courthouse bell-or rather, bells. The first bell, weighing 10,000 pounds, and cast in a local foundry, was installed on .June 13, 1854. This bell cracked in early 1862 and was replaced by another in December of that year. Weighing 10,849 pounds, it had been cast by Jones and Company of Troy, New York.

This bell sounded the alarm for the great Chicago fire in 1871. Later it was melted down and manufactured into numerous small mementos of the fire.

In spite of the high regard which Chicagoans of the time had for the courthouse, an old problem reasserted itself. After remodeling and additions in 1869-1870, including the purchase of new furnishings for the interior, some $467,000 had been expended. Yet the city hall quarters were still too small to accommodate the growing government of a dynamic city.

The Fire of 1871 destroyed the build ing.

But even as the fire burned, the council met to insure continuity in local government and established a temporary city hall on the second floor of a structure located at Ann and Washington streets west of the fire zone. On October 11, with the ashes of the fire still warm, the council appointed a committee of its own members to secure new quarters. The aldermen overrode the mayor's choice of a building at Hubbard Court and Wabash Avenue and

The Saloon Building in which the city's first government rented quarters in 1837. From A. T. Andreas ' History of Chicago , vol. 1, 1884.

voted to relocate in the ¡w est Mad ison Street Police Station. "Thus . . . for a short time a police station, crowded with criminals, served as the headquarters of a great municipality."

The city government remained in these unusual quarters only fourteen months. By January 1, 1873, a new city hall was ready for occupancy. The Old Rookery, located at La Salle and Adams, was a jerry-built "pile of brick and mortar two stories high with holes punched through here and there to serve as doors and windows." The building was thrown up around a large, elevated water tan k that had served the South Side before the holocaust.

Given the rapidity with which it was erected, it is not surprising that the O ld Rookery was "devoid of conveniences." Although the building cost $75,000 to construct, one official put its real value at "about 75 cents." Still, it contained sufficient space to house most city government offices, including the first public library which was located inside the water tower. The Old Rookery served as Chicago's city hall for twelve years. Referring to it in 1896, the City owl recalled, "What a queer old rambl ing place it was! . . . How the poor folks on the street outdoors used to crowd and jostle one another as they stood in line at the windows, paying their water taxes and things."

Only three days after the fire, the aldermen directed the board of public works to cooperate with the county board of supervisors to find an appropriate design for a jointly-constructed building to be located where the pre-fire structure stood. Less than two weeks after tak ing Chicago History

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11 I

-

THE WIDOW (HAPMAN~ BUILDINu 2'!ÂŁ>

CITY HALL, this action, the city received a financial windfall when the General Assembly authorized payment of a city claim for the expense of making canal improvements. After this appropriation had been applied to the rebuilding of the city's burned bridges, the amount that remained was allocated to help pay for a city hall. Meanwhile in February 1872, the state authorized the county to issue $1,500,000 in bonds to build a North Side jail and a new county court house.

The stage was now set for the playing out of Chicago's equivalent of New York's Tammany Hall building scandal, with one exception-two governments were involved instead of one. The tragicomedy began on a respectable enough note. In June 1872, the city .and county announced an architectural competition to find the best design for the proposed structure. First, second, and third prizes of $5,000, $2,000, and $1,000 were offered as inducements. To insure that no favoritism would be shown by the judges-who included the members of the building committees of the county commissioners and the city council, plus three members of the city's board of public works-each design was signed only with a motto or title. The actual name of the architect was known only after the final choices were made. In July 1873, the "great competition" ended. The first prize was awarded to 158

Chicago History

The only known drawing of the second home of the city hal I (1842 through 1848)-rented premises in the Widow Chapman's building. From the Chicago Tribune , October 2, 1898.

"Justica," Otto H. Matz; the second to "Aut Caesar and Nihil," Henry Lord Gay; and the third to "Eureka," Thomas Tilly.

The trouble began when the jury announced the winners. Both city and county officials agreed to pay the priLes as designated, but neither government wanted to build Matz's winning design. The county insisted-and eventually the city agreed-that Thomas Tilly's third-place proposal be built, but not without modification . Another architect, .James J. Egan, was hired to join Tilly in making the changes. ¡w hile the two were at work, Tilly insisted on a fee of 3 percent of the building's total cost; the governments would agree to no more than 2 percent. After a "series of rows," Tilly was dismissed and Egan placed in total charge of the project. Meanwhile, unsolicited by any officials, "some gentlemen of the city" asked W. W. Boyington, architect of the 1orth Michigan Avenue Water Tower, to work up a new design. In mid-1876, Boyington announced that with the use of his plans, the new building could be constructed at a cost of $2,100,000 or $900,000 less than had been anticipated.

Itinerant City Hall

Boyington's plans might have been taken more seriously but for the fact that on August 12, 1875, ground-breaking ceremonies were held and con truction begun on the new city hall and coun hou e as designed by Egan. That ceremony set the tone for what was to follow.

For after a group of officials endured the perfunctory formalities, they "adjourned to Clem Periolat' 'Bean Club' where a goodly ponion of them got drunk in honor of the occa ion. " \Vith the money to go ahead, the county began construction first. The building wa hardly under way before the critics began to howl.

Charge were made that the foundation footings were improperly set and that the cut stone contract had been given to a Cook County firm to obtain votes rather than LO get high quality work. It abo appeared that the bid for ironwork was rigged in favor of one firm. Amici all these charges, the county court ho use wa completed in 18 2.

The city, meanwhile, had its own problems.

After purchasing all of Egan 's plans for a bargain. 3,000, the council hired another architect, S. D . Cleveland , to devi e a more elaborate and ornamental interior. But the city had the money to carry on construction only episodically. There were other problems as well. The city cho e to u e a different tone from that used on the coumy side-somewhat lighter in color originally, although when weathered it was a close match to all but the trained eye. The quality of the brickwork, the mortar, and the foundations all were que tioned, but in the fall of 1879 wh en a Democratic mayor and city coun ii conducted a formal investigation of the work done previously under a Republican administration, their unexpected conclusion was "the substantial exoneration of all of the parties whose conduct formed the object of the investigation."

Labor problems caused more delays, and the promised completion date kept shifting, first to 1882, then to 1884. The building finally was opened in 1885.

\Vhen the cmt for both the court house and city hall were toted up, they ame to more than ..J ,000,000. As soon as the building was finished, its true character became evident. The first problem was the interior. High reilings, small windows, oddly siLed rooms, and long, drafty, and dark corridors made for inconveni ence and discomfort. l\foreover, becau e it had been under construction for so long, the building was already overcrowded before it wa even finished, and some employees had to be moved into rented space. From the publi 's standpoint, these were not the worst problems, however. \,Vhi le James Egan's design was the basis for the stn1cture, other architects and numerous engineers and contractor¡ also had a hand in its construction. Some had done their work well, others badly. Within a year afler the building was finished, its foundations shifted, cracks appeared in the walls, and facades crumbled to the pavement below. The bu)lding became a joke in national architectural ircles, a black eye for Chicago and for a pathetic Thomas Tilley, who took his forecl<x>med fight for ornpensation all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 1881.

Still, while the building had many detractors, it had ib fans as well. Chicago archite t and critic Thomas Tallmadge in 1939 recalled, ":'-:ever was I tired of ga1.ing at the moukl~ring grandeur of that mighty pile. In the morning its barbarisms were evident enough, but against the evening sky all was forgiven in the rearing ilhoueue and the cavernous shadows that made the building an incarnation of a Piranesi etching.'' Even Tallmadge admitted, however, that "it was old fashioned and outdated by the time it was finished."

Because of crowding, discussion about constructing a ne\.v city hall and court house began nearly as soon as the old one was occupied. But a lack of funds rendered this discussion theoretical. In 1'898 a serious effort was finally made to replace the structure. In May of that Chicago Hist ory

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CHS.

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Chicago History

Chicago History

161

NORTl-1 FRONT OF 1 5TRVC.TVRE' fRE<.TEO BY (.ITY FOR C.ITY PURPO!)c!>. Kl'IOWl"t A~ THE MARKET

BUILD1NC:i

In November 1848 the city council moved into the Market Building. This drawing shows the view north on State St. from Randolph. From the Chicago Tribune , October 2, 1898.

T H E COURT-HOUSE BEFORE T H E F I RE .

Although the combined city hall-court house building erected in 1853 was poorly built , it was " the pride of every true Chicagoan." From A. T. Andreas' History of Chicago , vol. 2, 1885.

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Itinerant City Hall

year, a West Side alderman introduced a resolution inlo the council calling for the centralization of all the city's governmental functions in a new single complex to be located in the West Division. The argument was that this installation would create "a new and valuable business center" while eliminating some congestion from the Loop. This resolution was sent to a special committee where it was tabled. Then in the early fall, $8,000 had to be "expended merely for the purpose of removing a portion of the crumbling walls of the building and for providing one small additional room on the first floor." Responding to the expense, on September 12, Alderman Edward T. Novak introduced a resolution and ordinance to move city hall to a West Side location. Already in 1885 the public building was nicknamed "the Tombs," because "ventilalion and light are unknown quantitites." Novak enumerated these disadvantages and also noted that high rentals were being paid by the city to use outside space, notably for the board of education, which was paying $18,000 annually for its quarters. But Novak's main point was that the West Side deserved the public structure. In his "moving resolution," he complained, "The South Side of the city contains ... the Court House, Art Institute, Public Library, Post office, etc., and the West Side ... with its great population, its great commercial industries, its great tax-paying community, is not possessed of any public institution, except the Bridewell [jail], County Hospi Lal and Dog Pound." Novak concluded his proposal by asking the council to put "the four story stone building . . . commonly known as the City Hall of the City of Chicago" up for sale by sealed bids to be opened in December 1898. The resolution-ordinance failed by a vote of 35 to 26, or Chicago's Loop city hall would have been no more.

In reporting on the Novak resolution, the Tribune seemed less interested in the relocation Lhan the character of the new building. The Chicago school of architects already had made

its impact on the city by 1898, and the newspaper editorialized, "Whatever else is done, one thing is assured, if a new municipal building is to be put up it will be constructed on the Jines of a modern office building, of steel, glass and iron, a true Chicago building in a double sense."

Disaster finally catalyzed the construction of the present court house and city hall. On January 16, 1905, an explosion and fire ripped through the upper floor, attic, and roof of the county side of the jointly-tenanted building.

The estimate of the damage was only $10,000, but the cause of the explosion startled officials.

A foundation had sunk six inches, shearing a gas pipe. This finding led to further examination of the building. The county board was faced with the dilemma of whether to undertake expensive repairs and remodeling on an ouldated and spatially-inadequate building or to erect a new one. One week after the fire, the board resolved to create a commission of ten, including board members, other public officials, and leading county residents to consider the construction of a new court house. The city established a counterpart group to maintain design uniformity. The count)"s special commission did its work quickly. In February it reported, "The need of a new courthouse is so imperative that a long delay is absolutely out of the question." To obtain financing, the commission recommended that the county utilize its bonding powers. At a special election on April 4, the question of issuing $5,000,000 in bonds was submitted to the voters and carried by a 40,000 vote majority.

As they did in the 1870s, the two governments combined to sponsor an architectural competition . In the earlier contest, the architects had been limited by the stringency of the specifications for the interior space of the building. The 1905 rules followed the same pattern with similar results. The three prize-winning plans, with a few exceptions, looked as if they had been turned out on a copying machine.

Chicago History

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Itinerant City Hall

The five judges, however, found significant differences among the thirteen entries. None of the designs was considered wholly ideal, but the committee was unanimous in its recommendation that the new building should follow the plans laid out by the Chicago firm of Holabird and Roche. The contract for installing the caissons on the county side of the building was signed December 11, 1905, drilling began on January 18, 1906, and the cornerstone was laid on March 2 1. The first offices were moved in on July 6, 1907.

The city did not begin construction of its half of the building until two years later, on April 15, 1909. The reason for the delay was money: the municipality had to wait for the state to expand its limit of bonded indebtedness before the new structure could be financed.

Demolition on the city side began August 1, 1907, with many of the municipal offices occupying space in the new court house. With variations in interior arrangements, the city hall was identical to the court house, mainly because it was b uilt on Holabird and Roche's court house p lans, which the firm sold to the city at a bargain price of $180,000. Eighteen months after construction began, the new city hall was completed. Dedication took place on February 27, 1911. At this point the combined cost of the two buildings was computed at $5,242,3 23.

Hailing the completion of the project, the Tribune proclaimed that it "represented a new idea in public architecture, . . . of making a p ublic edifice a 'practical' structure, as well as an ornate one." The chief practical features were well-designed interior space and an exterior covering of gray granite, "as a whiter kind would be spoiled by Chicago smoke."

Overshadowing its purported practicality was the building's scale. With 12,000,000 cubic feet of interior space, fourteen acres of floor space and a mile of corridor, the new court house reportedly was the largest such structure in the country. Even before its completion, the 164

Ch icago History

Tribune declared the edifice "a triumph of modern public architecture."

Both city and county had built massively.

Yet even before the building was finished, city officials had doubts about the capacity of their side. In May 1910, a letter was directed to Holabird and Roche inquiring how long the new city hall would meet municipal government needs. The architects replied, "Our estimate of the probable life of the building, from a structural standpoint, is 100 to 150 years.

From the standpoint of its adequacy for the city executive and administrative departments we would say that it would be fully adequate for 50 to 75 years."

This latter estimate proved to be highly optimistic. Well before 1920 the city began to rent space for its engineering department and for some of its permanent committee employees outside city hall. The board of health was pushed out next. And other offices followed. By 1940 the city's rent bill was running $50,000 annually.

The county, meanwhile, was plagued by the same problem: rapid growth of governmental functions led to serious overcrowding. The first county proposal was to acid additional stories atop the existing building following an example from 1858. Since this possibility had not been considered in the original design, the remodeling cost-entailing expenditure for structural reinforcement and the placement of new caissons-would have proved enormous. In view of this the county board, in 1954, asked its consulting architect, Raymond F. Houlihan, to design a county administration building that would house all its offices except the courts.

Houlihan drew up a proposal for a building of twenty-two stories, containing 17.7 acres of floor space, which he predicted would be adequate through 1975. The proposed location of this building was the west ha!ÂŁ of the block just east of the county court house-city hall, with underground and overstreet passageways linking the two structures.

CITY HALL llUll.l>ING. Within a few days of the Chicago Fire work was begun on the next city hall, later known as the "Old Rookery " because so many pigeons roosted in ils tower and eaves.

From A. T. Andreas' History of Chicago , vol. 3, 1886.

I Toulihan's suggestion was a conceptual fore1 unner ol' the present Chicago Civic Center. A year after Houlihan made his report, the Public Buildings Act was passed by the Illinois General Assembly. This law allowed the issuance of bonds for the erection of public structures without a taxpayers' vote. There was general recognition that more courtrooms were needed and under the terms of this act, land acquisition for the new civic center to house these courts began in the late 1950s. Ground was broken on February 28, 19G3, and the 87,000,000 project was dedicated on l\fay 2, 1965. Even before the installation 0ÂŁ the Picasso steel sculpture in the plaLa wuth of the building, the civic center brought honor to Chicago. Douglas Haskell formereditorof the Architectural Forum, writing in the December 1966 issue of Fortune Magazine, called the center one of the nation's premier landmark structures, one of the "Ten Buildings That Climax an Era" in modern architecture.

The thirty-one story, 648-foot structure, de-

signed by an archite tural team headed by C. F. Murphy Associates was not on ly highly fun tional but was set up to look "woncferfully light on it feet." The "mighty spirit" behind this building, Haskell asserted, was Mies van der Rohe. The incorporation of his ideas had produced a formal skyscraper that had "casual grace and charm."

Accolades aside, the primary function of the civic center is as a courts building, although it contains other agencies like the city board of public health and the genera l offices of the Cook County Sheriff. But those citizens who do much business with either the city or the county will agree with the Daily News writer who stated two years before it opened that the civic center was "not a new seat of city and county government," rather, it is "an annex to both seats."

Today no single building can be expected to contain all the functions of Chicago and Cook County government. Central Police HeadChicago History

165

"Never was I tired of gazing at the mouldering grandeur of that mighty pile," said architect-critic Thomas Tallmadge of the Cook County court house and city hall completed in 1885.

CHS, gift of Rand McNally & Company.

quarters, located on the site of the old First District Police Station at 1121 South State, and the presence of several city departments in the converted Reid, Murdock and Company warehouse at 320 North Clark, both demonstrate this point. But the political crossroads of the city and county is still to be found in that gray granite pile located exactly where the city and county governments have been headquartered since 1855. So, while some government functions have been relocated at other places, the old Chicago owl can complain no longer.

What was "Chicago's Itinerant City Hall" in the first few decades of the city's existence has become one of its most stable institutions in the course of the past century. With the resurgence of the administrative importance of the Loop and with the construction of the civic center, any attempt to remove this political nerve center from its present location in the near future is unlikely.

As the Chicago owl commented in 1896, "When you think how comfortable it has been 166

Chicago History

up here and what a lot of money it cost to fix up this place it does seem hard on us to talk of moving again .... "

Selected Sources Andreas, A. T. History of Chicago. 3 vols . Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1884- 1886.

The American Architect and Building News. I -VIII (1876-1880).

Chicago City Council Proceedings, 1872 , 1873, 1898, 1899.

Harpel Scrapbooks (Chicago Historical Society) XVII. Inland Architect and News Record. XLVI ( 1905).

Johnson, Charles B. Growth of Cook County. I. Chicago: Board of Commissioners of Cook County, 196o.

The Land Owner ( 1873) .

Randall , Frank A. History of the Development of Building Construction in Chicago. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1949.

Rex, Frederick. Historical Information About Chicago. Chicago: Municipal Reference Library, 1956.

Tallmadge, Thomas E. "A Once Famous Competition, Now Forgotten ," Illinois Society of Architects Monthly Bulletin.

XXIV (September, 1939), pp. 6-7.

The West Side Historical Society Bu/1,tin (October, 1937).

FEATURE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: Chicago Tribune. May 5, 1896; October 2, 1898; January 19, 1905; September 13, 1906.

Chicago Sun-Times . December 1, 1966.

Chicago Daily News. March 17, 1923; August 17, 1957; Februâ&#x20AC;˘ ary 28, 1963.

Crisis and Community: The Back of the Yards 1921

BY DOMINIC A. PACYGA

We will win if the men stick. Things are looking better than they ever did.

Union leader Dennis La,ne (( There is no matter of dispute between the management and employees.))

Spokesman for Armour and Company a

Chicago stockyards was marked by labor troubles almost from the start.

The Knights of Labor were the first to attempt to organize the packinghouse workers, in 1886, but an unsuccessful strike that year proved their undoing. In 1894 stockyard workers struck in a show of sympathy for the Pullman workers. But this strike was poorly organized and also petered out. The most significant strike by these workers in the pre-World War I period was organized in 1904 under the banner of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America. Led by the American Federation of Labor (AFL), it was directed at improving the conditions of the unskilled workers in the industry. But once again the combined strength of the great packers defeated the strikers. No further attempts at organization took place for the next thirteen years.

A successful organizational drive during the war brought most of the packinghouse workers into the fold of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters.

And war also brought a degree of prosperity to the neighborhoods surrounding the square mile of slaughterhouses and pens located on Chicago's South Side. It was to protect the gains made during the war that the union called a strike in 1921.

THE HISTORY OF THE

Dominic A. Pacyga, an urban historian, is completing a study of Polish workers in the meat packing and steel industries in Chicago from 1900 to 1930. He is co-author of Chicago: Moving Through th e Past, to be published by the Society later this year.

)J

This conflict lasted a little more than a month, but the bitterness engendered in its course would take more than a decade to fade.

However, the strike represented an important stage in the development of the community based in what was known as the Back of the Yards. To the surprise of those who had always considered the immigrant districts as merely chaotic and disorganized conglomerations of people, the residents of the area stood together in the face of common problems and showed a cohesiveness and self-awareness that had not been anticipated.

By 1921 the packing industry was firmly entrenched on the South Side of Chicago. The Union Stock Yards, established in 1865, had proven to be the most successful of the western livestock markets and had, therefore, attracted the greatest names in meat packing to the area.

In 1921 the yards stretched over more than a square mile and employed approximately forty thousand workers in the industry. The Big Four, as the major packers were known, dominated the industry: Armour, Swift, Morris, and Wilson had their main plants and general offices in the Chicago stockyards and set the pace for the smaller packers. An earlier attempt by Gustavus Swift to consolidate the major packers into the National Packing Company had been prevented by the intervention of the federal government. But although the attempt to set u p a corporation that would have been comparable to United States Steel had failed, the industry, by 1921, showed clear signs of oligopoly.

With the continuing growth of the pack ing industry, the need for a source of cheap labor Chicago History

167

Back of the Yards

became more and more acute. The development of the residential area directly adjoining the stockyards was a direct response to the needs of the industry. The neighborhood known as the Back o[ the Yards, roughly a mile-and-ahalf square to the south and southwest of the Yards, contained dun-colored, two and threestory frame tenements inter!aved with an occasional brick flat. The district had originally been settled in the 1870s and 1880s by the Irish and Germans but by the turn of the century Slavic immigrants and their children had begun to predominate in the area.

The East European experience had left a strong impression on the community and helped shape the attitudes of the neighborhood during crisis periods. This was demonstrated in the reaction of one of the Slavic groups, the Poles, during the industrial crisis of 1921. Following the arrival of the first Poles in the area in 1877, the community had grown rapidly. In 1884 Poles were introduced into the stockyards on a large scale for the first time as strikebreakers in an Irish and German walkout. After that incident, Poles settled in the area and organized the first permanent Polish Parish, St. Joseph's, in 1889. \Vith the turn of the century, when Polish immigration into the district reached its peak, other parishes were founded to the east and north of St. Joseph's.

By 192 1, the Slavic settlement of the Back of the Yards was more or less complete. The parishioners of ten of the thirteen churches in the area were Slavic or East European in origin.

Indeed by then, the last Polish parish to have been organized-in 1911-the Sacred Heart of Jesus, had already paid off its debt. Besides the parishes other types of ethnic organizations had sprung up in the area, including local chapters of larger fraternal groups such as the Polish Roman Catholic Union and the Polish National Alliance. A series of informal organizations also enjoyed considerable support, including youth gangs and, perhaps most significantly, the peasant commune. This was an attempt to re-create 168

Chicago History

in America, despite vastly differing conditions, the Eastern European village structure within which many of the immigrants had been reared.

Once firmly established in the area, the Poles began to set down roots in the industry as well as in the neighborhood. The AFL affiliated Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher \Vorkmen of North America began a drive to organize the stockyards and packinghouses in 1900.

This campaign was aimed at the non-English speaking workers-especially the Poles and Bohemians-who now predominated in the industry. Fortunately for the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, the charter granted it by the American Federation of Labor in 1897 virtually made it an industrial union. The AFL resolution concerning the Amalgamated stated That the jurisdiction of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America should include every wage earner from the man who takes the bullock at the house until it goes into the hand of the consumer.

In 1900 the Chicago-based Journeymen Butchers Union of America, a local skilled-craft union, joined with the Amalgamated, and the great drive to organize the Chicago stockyards was on. President Michael Donnelly of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters personally led the campaign in Chicago. The union attempted to organize on an industrial rather than on the traditional craft basis. Donnelly also began a deliberate interracial policy. The union leaders realized that the demands of the workers would never be met by the packers if different ethnic or racial groups could be relied upon to act as strikebreakers. This might be especially true if, because of their ethnic or racial background, they had been excluded from the union in the first place. The Meat Cutters used bilingual organizers and started ethnic locals.

Organized labor often feared the East Europeans, believing them to be unorganizable and a fruitful source of strikebreakers. Yet in 1904 the Poles had flocked to join the Meat Cutters

A typical scene in the Back of the Yards district in the 1920s. CHS , gift of the Visiting Nurse Association of Chicago.

union and they returned in large numbers during the World War I organizational drive which eventually culminated in the Packinghouse Strike of 1921. Why? The most obvious reason for the growth of a union organization in America was simply self-interest. Numerous private and public investigations of the industry and of the residential area had reached the same conclusion, namely, that living and working conditions in the area were terrible.

Indeed, living conditions were so bad that even a packer representative stated in 1918: "The only remedy is the absolute destruction of the district, burn all the houses." Earlier, Upton Sinclair in his novel Th e Jungle ( 1906) had written: The most uncanny thing about the neighborhood wast.he number of children; you thought there must be a school out, and it was only after a long acquaintance that you were able to realize that there was no school, but that these were the children of the neighborhood-that there were so many children to t.he block in Packingtown that nowhere on

its streets could a horse or a buggy move faster than a walk.

It could not move faster anyhow, on account of the stat.e of the streets. Those through which Jurgis and Ona [characters in the novel] were walking resembled streets less than they did a tiny topographical map. The roadway was commonly several feet lower than t.he level of the houses, which were sometimes joined by boardwalks; there were no pavements-there were mountains and valleys and rivers, gullies and ditches, and great hollows full of stinking green water.

By 1920, not much had changed. Schools were still inadequate, though according to the census fully one third of the population of the Back of the Yards was under the age of ten.

The poverty of the area was only slightly relieved by wartime prosperity. In the fifteen years since Sinclair's observations some improvements had been made in the streets and sewerage system, but the area remained bleak. One notable change was the growing commitment of the immigrant community to the neighborhood.

About 57 percent of the homes in the area were Chicago Hi story

169

The "L" and one of the major packinghouses dominate this southwest view of the stockyards ca. 1910. CHS.

now owned by residents and about go percent of these houses were owned by immigrants rather than native born, although immigrants made up only 50 percent of the total population. Actually, 60.7 percent of immigrant-occupied dwellings were owned by immigrants.

Dangerous working conditions and appalling heal th conditions persisted in the stock yards and packinghouses long after the 1904 strike.

Between June 1907 and December 1910, thirteen men died in the Ch icago Swift plant alone.

Nevertheless safety conditions failed to improve, and in 1917 the packing industry still had one of the highest accident rates in manufacturing.

The general health conditions were also frightening. In the period from 1894 to 1900, tuberculosis and pneumonia accounted for 20 percent of the deaths in the stockyard district.

A government investigation of the industry in 1906 blamed the meat packers: 170

Ch icago Hi st ory

The lack of consideration for the health and comfort of the laborers in the Chicago Stock Yards seem to be a direct consequence of the system of administration that prevails .... the unsanitary conditions in which the laborers work and the feverish pace which they are forced to maintain inevitably affect their health. Physicians state that tuberculosis is disproportionally prevalent in the stockyards, and the victims of this disease expectorate on the spongy wooden floors of the dark workrooms, from which falling scraps of meat are later shoveled up to be converted into food products ....

The neglect on the part of their employers to recognize or provide for the requirements of cleanliness and decency of the employees must have an influence that cannot be exaggerated in lowering the morals and discouraging cleanliness on the part of the workers employed in the packinghouses.

Fifteen years later, in 192 1, the tuberculosis death rate among Poles and other East Europeans was still the highest in the city of Chicago. Many of these deaths were directly attribut-

Back of the Yards

able to the working conditions found m the plants of the major packers.

There is little doubt that the Poles of the Back of the Yards hoped that the union might be able to do something about the conditions that continued to prevail in the industry and the district. Prior to World War I, the meat packers had been involved in an intensive drive to cut costs and increase profits. The most obvious way to achieve this was to lower wages.

This proved easy enough in the days before the war because of the great surplus of labor in Chicago. During the war, however, the disruption of immigration and the manpower demands of the U.S. military forces ended the packers' advantage. But the big break for the workers lay in the fact that the industry was important to the war effort.

From the defeat of the 1904 strike until the outbreak of the war, the meat-packing industry had been characterized by wildly increasing production and profits while wages remained frozen. Common labor rates in the stockyards remained at 17½¢ an hour-the rate paid just after the 1904 strike---throughout the prewar period, while Swift's national sales more than doubled ($200,000,000 to $425,000,000), as did earnings ($4,000,000 to $9,000,000) and dividends ($2,000,000 to $5,000,000). Lack of organization since the defeat of the 1904 strike left the workers powerless in the face of this ironic situation. The war crisis brought an immediate and drastic change. Now production accelerated even more but labor was in short supply.

Other factors also helped. The Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson had a more liberal labor policy than previous administrations and was also most anxious to avoid problems in so important an industry as meatpacking during wartime. Fearing crippling strikes, the government set up an arbitration board for settling labor problems in the meatpacking industry. Federal Judge Samuel Alschuler was appointed to investigate conditions

and settle wage disputes between the workers and management. And, most significantly, Alschuler in effect recogniLed the Amalgamated Meat Cutters as the official representative of the packinghouse workers. .Judge Alschuler's first award, announced in March 191 8, granted a basic eight-hour day and a basic forty-hour week, wage increases, and pay for overtime. The changes had long been asked for and greatly affected the lives of the workers and conditions in the Back of the Yards. Over a three-year period Alschuler granted roughly a 50 percent pay increase to the packinghouse workers. On December 8, 1920, a final wage increase awarded 100,000 employees an average of $27.50 in retroactive pay. The combination of effective union recognition and wage awards during this period led to a growth in the membership of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters from approximately seventy-five hundred retail butchers in 1916 to a nationwide membership of one hundred thousand, including most of the workers in the large meatpacking centers, by 1920.

Then, on February 26, 1921, the Big Four packers notified the government that they would no longer be able to abide by the wartime arbitration agreements. In March the packers agreed to a compromise which kept the arbitration agreement in effect until November 28, 1921, and reduced wages. On July 4 of that year, the Chicago packers asked the Alschuler arbitration court for another wage cut of five cents an hour, claiming that wages constituted 45 percent of their production costs and that they were still losing millions of dollars. The unions, of course, reacted negatively to the reduction, and the 1921 AFL convention in Denver backed the workers in their protest. The convention charged that the packers were taking advantage of the postwar slack by reasserting the prewar open-shop policy.

The arguments went on for several months until, on November 1, 1921, the New York Times reported that the Amalgamated Meat Chicago History

171

Back of the Yards

Stanley Walkosz, packinghouse worker and resident of the Back of the Yards in the Polish mountaineer dress worn on special occasions .

Photo courtesy of Dominic A. Pacyga .

Cutters had voted to strike on November 15.

The union claimed a national membership of 100,000 workers, 40,000 of them in Chicago alone. The Big Four responded on November 9 by proposing further wage cuts. They claimed, moreover, that an Amalgamated Meat Cutters' strike would not affect their operations, since the vast majority of their workers were content with conditions and nonunion status. Louis F. Swift, who was the major spokesman for the packers, claimed that Swift workers earned .$5.70 more per week than steel workers, and $6.70 more per week than cotton workers . The lVew York Times quoted his appeal to the workers, "It must be apparent to you, to your foremen and to your workmen, that this step, wage cuts, must be taken."

These announcements on November 9 were followed by the convocation of plant congresses at the plants of the Big Four. The plant congress had originally been devised by Swift and Company as a form of company union and was supposed to serve as a representative council and grievance forum for the workers. The idea had 172

Ch icago H istory

by now been adopted by the other packers as well.

On November 18, 1921, word came that the Swift plant congress had voted to cut the pay scale, leaving the details of the adjustment to the company. At the same time, it was announced that representatives of 26,000 Armour employees had voted for, and fixed , a reduction which would become effective November 28. ¡w ilson and Company was expected to declare a cut the next clay. The new agreement would affect all plants throughout the ¡w est. The reports stressed that the workers had agreed voluntarily to the wage cuts. The reaction of the Amalgamated was quick and predictable. Union secretary Burns was quoted as saying: "v\Te gave to our national officials the right to call a strike in October. If a working agreement satisfactory to the organization as a whole cannot be reached, a strike will be the result."

The stage was now set. Swift and the other packers were banking on the belie[ that the workers would not support a strike, but the Amalgamated Meat Cutters responded by calling a nationwide strike. On December 5, 192 1 , the union claimed that more than twelve thousand Chicago packinghouse workers had walked out. The packers, however, claimed that only a thousand workers were on strike. The next clay the packers admitted that the number was higher but claimed that the total was still only twenty-five hundred out of an estimated forty thousand workers.

On December 7, the New York Times published an editorial expressing the packers' viewpoint. "The strike is not caused by the 10% reduction in wages, but by a determined effort on the part of the old line labor leaders to destroy the shop representation plan."

On that day, the Back of the Yards was the scene of fierce rioting as crowds of workers attacked the high fences surrounding the yards and were repeatedly driven back by the Chicago police. The strikers fought with stones, bricks, and clubs while the police fired volleys into the

The canning department of Morris & Co. in 1917.

Wartime brought a boom to the industry and higher wages to the workers. CHS , Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

air and used their night sti cks freely and effectively. But although the mounted police charged into the crowds repeatedly, the demonstrators refused to disperse. The most serious confrontation took place on West 44th between Ashland Avenue and Marshfield Street. Here as more than 2,500 residents of Back of the Yards struggled with the police, two men were seriously wounded by gun shot and another half dozen injured.

A mob of strikers grabbed a black whom they identified as a strikebreaker and dragged him to Bubbly Creek where they threw him in and pelted him with stones and bricks until he disappeared below the crusty and polluted water of the West Fork. Such violence forced the packers to keep their workers inside the plants, even though it meant providing them with shelter and food for the duration.

The Chicago Tribune of December 8 carried the sensational headlines : STRIKERS STORM "L" TRAIN 9 SHOT, 27 HURT IN YESTERDAY'S RIOTS AT YARDS Claiming that the rioting was the most serious since the race riot of 1 g I g, the Tribune report-

eel that 1,000 extra police had been put on duty to reinforce the regular 500 Stock Yard District police.

As Chicago read the December 8 headlines, the Stock Yard District went back to war. The riots were renewed and sniper fire was reported up and clown the streets of the Back of the Yards. Around one hundred fifty people were injured in the December 8 riots when, according to the Tribune, "Mounted Policemen repeatedly charged into mobs of strikers and their adherents which congregated despite efforts of half the city's police force in strategic corners near the exits of the stockyards."

At the same time, the Tribune reported the solidarity with which the community responded to the events. The women emerged as the most radical and violent in their stand. Among the first to confront the police, they threw red pepper into the eyes of horses and the mounted police and devised various tactics to block the motorcycle police. The entire Back of the Yards became a battlefield. Non-striking workers often found mobs of strikers in front of their houses chanting and throwing bricks and sometimes starting fires . At Davis Square, a small park located near the 43rd Street and Ashland Avenue entrance to Packingtown, the rioters chanted at the police, calling them Cossacks and pelting them with bottles and bricks. Over 1,000 police took part in the rioting at Davis Square. This was the high point of the violence.

Chicago Hist ory

173

News photographers film an encounter between a striker and police during the 1921 strike.

CHS, Chicago Daily News photo , gift of Field Enterprises.

On the day of the Davis Square riot, Judge Dennis Sullivan handed down an injunction against the strikers, noting: "All rights are relative; the line comes when the actions are a benefit to themselves and an injury to others." On December 9, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters asked for a parley while local leaders planned to expand the strike. It was reported that more than eight thousand strikebreakers had been imported into Packingtown, yet the union remained optimistic. Union leader Dennis Lane claimed, "We will win if the men stick. Things are looking better than they ever did."

These brave words supposed a continuation of widespread community support and dedication, but the bitter economic realities of the time proved too much for the people of the Back of the Yards. As the harsh winter days dragged on with no settlement in view, it became clear that the choice was one of starve or go back to work. The spirit of defiance waned.

By January 9, 1922, a spokesman for Armour and Company announced, "There is no matter of dispute between the management and employees." In effect, the strike was over.

But the worst was still to come for many of the stri kers, for when they attempted to return to the plants they found that their jobs were no longer available: non-striking workers who had proved their loyalty to the company and 174

Ch icago History

strikebreakers imported for the occasion had taken their place. The immigrant strikers (most of those named in the Chicago papers as participating in the riots were Slavic or Lithuanian) were quick to learn the realities of the American labor market in 1921.

But why had a community which had itself been accused of strikebreaking by earlier generations of stockyard workers rallied so faithfully and, indeed, violently, in support of this strike? The fact is that even though the success of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in organizing the stockyards during the war was in good part due to the special circumstances created by that emergency, it is unlikely that the unionization drive would have been as successful had is not been for the recently achieved stability of the immigrant community.

The Poles and other immigrant groups in the Back of the Yards had by 1921 passed the first crucial test of settling into the community.

By then the initial stage in the adaptation of a population which had come from predominantly rural areas in Eastern Europe to the unfamiliar industrial environment of America had been successfully accomplished. This process was by no means automatic, but once the settlement had taken on the outward appearance of stability the establishment of various ethnic parishes had made the transition much easier.

Back of the Yards

A great many of the Poles who came to the Back of the Yards were probably from the region of Galicia, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. More specifically, many of the stockyard Poles came from the High Tatra Mountains. These mountaineers, or gorale, shared a long cultural tradition that embraced the notion of the extended family and fostered a deep feeling of community. ,vhile the outlook of the gomle most certainly underwent many changes as they traveled the world in search of chleb (bread), their basic behavioral patterns survived.

In their monumental study The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1921) W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki pointed to the disruptive effects that migration had had both on individuals and the community. They saw

the traditional peasant family as on the verge of extinction and concluded that the Polish community in America was merely a transitory sociological phenomenon. Yet at the very moment that Thomas and Znaniecki were putting their study together, the stockyard Poles were organizing as a group with shared goals and displaying a strong sense of social cohesion which grew out of the tradition that the authors considered moribund.

Sacred Heart Church , the major Polish mountaineers' parish, nine years after the strike during the first congress of the Polish Highlanders Alliance. Photo courtesy of Joseph Topor and the Polish Highlanders of America .

Back of the Yards

From shortly before World War I until many years later, much of the leadership of the community came from the Polish Catholic church.

Three priests in particular-Fr. Louis Grudzinski, Fr. Stanislaus Cholewinski, and Fr. Francis Karabasz, pastors of the three Polish parishes in the Back of the Yards-offered much guidance.

Father Grudzinski, with the cooperation of his two colleagues, had organized Guardian Angel Nursery and Home for Working Women in Back of the Yards in the early 1900s. The nursery, which might more appropriately have been called a settlement house, provided the neighborhood with a day-care center, a women's hotel, and a dispensary, as well as a cultural institution to help preserve the Polskosc: or Polishness, of the people. Located on the corner of the district's notorious Whiskey Point, Guardian Angel was in direct competition with the University of Chicago Settlement House, just down the block.

The Polish settlement was only a small part of the attempt to preserve the ethnicity of the immigrant group. As the large fraternal organizations, like the Polish National Alliance and the Polish Roman Catholic Union, expanded their activities and as the Archdiocese of Chicago became more interested in the social welfare of the community, the proliferation of ethnic institutions continued. Perhaps the most interesting of the local cultural institutions were the neighborhood libraries. Most successful in Back of the Yards, was the Julius Slowacki Library which carried books in the Polish language. When the demand for Polish reading material became even greater, the various parishes also opened libraries to cater to the tastes of the community. These religious and cultural institutions along with various entrepreneurial ventures such as a community store and tavern as well as Polish banks, commercial clubs, and even theaters, had been permanently established

by World War I. In other words what might in

176

Chicago History

1900 have been described as a conglomeration of Poles living in a certain district had by 192 1 become a stable community with a network of interlacing institutions and a high degree of self-awareness.

When the moment of crisis came, this basically conservative community mobilized all its resources in self-defense. The strikers did not regard themselves as radical opponents of the capitalist system. They were members of a community whose very livelihood was under attack.

The prospect of a 25 percent wage reduction was a direct threat to the viability of the entire community. That is why it reacted as a whole and why such conservative institutions as the Roman Catholic Church and the Polish Roman Catholic Union continued to give their support to the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, even after the violence of early December.

This radical response of basically conservative social institutions reflected the dichotomy of being both Catholic and working-class in America in the early twentieth century-a dichotomy that affected not only the Back of the Yards but the labor movement of the entire country.

Selected Sources John Fitzpatrick Papers, CHS. Mary E. McDowell Papers, CHS. University of Chicago Settlement House Papers, CHS. U.S. Senate Commiuee on Agriculture. Hearings of the SoCalled Beveridge Amendment to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill H .R. 185J7. Washington : Government Printing Office, 1906.

NEWSPAPERS: Chicago Daily Tribune; Chicago Daily News; Dzienr1ik Zwiazkowy; The New York Times; The New World; The National Provisioner.

Amalgamated Meal Cullers and Butcher Workmen of North America , AFL-CIO. Our First 60 Years. Chicago: Butcher Workmen Benevolent Association , 1956.

Burgess, Ernest W . and Newcomb, Charles. Census Data of the City of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19~ 1.

Clemen, Rudolph Alexander. The American Livestock a,id Meat Industry . New York: Ronald Press, 192~.

Corey, Lewis. l\1eat and Man. New York: Viking Press, 1950.

Dobrowolski, Kazimierz. ''Peasant Traditional Culture'' in Teodor Shanin, Peasants and Peasant Societies. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 197 1.

Poles of Chicago 18n-19J7. Chicago: Chicago Polish Pageant, Inc., 19g7.

Polish Day Association. Poles in America: Their Contribution to a Century of Progress. Chicago: Polish Day Association, 19gg.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: New American Library of World Literature, Inc., Signet Edition, 1964.

George Ferris' Wheel The Great Attraction of the Midway Plaisance

BY SISLEY BARNES

(( Up, up) high) higher, highest) and we were two hundred and seventyjive feet in mid-air. Before us were the waters of Lake Michigan .... Fronting (us) were the countless marble-like buildings) and floating from domes and towers were ensigns ef )) every coun try ....

Mrs. Mark Stevens, Six Months at the World's Fair

as much a part of any county fair as are the granny-square afghans, the super squash, and the scrubbed, polished pigs to be judged and be-ribboned.

New amusement parks feature all kinds of wondrously terrifying rides with names to match. But since its birth in 1893 the Ferris Wheel has probably been the favorite.

This original vertical merry-go-round, built especially for the ¡world's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, was the brainchild of a 33-year old bridge builder from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, George ¡w ashington Gale Ferris.

His inspiration came from Daniel Burnham, director of the fair, who in early 1892 challenged America's civil engineers to create something so sensational that it would rival the Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 Paris Exposition and ensure financial success for the Chicago fair. Ferris was among the group of architects and engineers who attended a meeting of the Saturday Afternoon Club called to discuss Exposition plans, at which Burnham is reported to have said, "Towers of various kinds have been proposed but towers are not original. Mere TODA y

FERRIS WHEELS ARE

Sisley Barnes is a freelance writer presently living in Phoenix, Arizona.

bigness is not what is wanted-something novel, original, daring, and unique must be designed and built if American engineers are to retain their prestige and standing." ]n the spring of 1892, Ferris showed Burnham his first drawings of a double-rimmed steel wheel 250 feet in diameter. It appeared to be hanging on spidery spokes radiating from a hub. "Too fragile-public afraid," muttered Burnham. One member of the Exposition's ways and means committee called the device a monstrosity, and the committee thought Ferris a crackpot, "the man with wheels in his head."

Nevertheless, Ferris was able to convince the fair board that the wheel would safely carry not only its own weight but also that of 2,160 riders. Perhaps because the idea was so far-out, it was accepted. In November Ferris was given approval to go ahead and four and a half months to build the wheel before the fair opened in April 1893, but he was given no financial backing. Ferris persuaded several other businessmen and civil engineers to join him in forming a capital stock company. Among them were Robert W. Hunt, head of a prestigious Chicago firm of consulting engineers, Judge William A. Vincent, and Andrew Onderdonk, who had taken part in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Chicago History

177

Ferris' Wheel

How and when Ferris conceived of his wheel is nol known; it is thought that it had existed on paper for some time. Certainly Ferris was a creative man of many ideas. After earning an engineering degree in 1881 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New York), Ferris had planned the construction of railroad lines in New York and West Virginia. He then became general manager of a West Virginia coal mining company during which time he developed a coal trestle and a tunnel system. He was then led into bridge building, an industry which at that time was being transformed by the use of strucwral steel. By 1883 Ferris had become responsible for the testing of iron and steel elements for the Kentucky and Indiana Bridge Company of Louisville. By the time he had completed work on the Henderson (Kentucky) Bridge across the Ohio River, Ferris was an expert on the properties of structural steel.

In 1885, at the age of 26, Ferris organized a consulting and contracting firm, G. W . G. Ferris & Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The firm specialized in inspecting the manufacwre of iron and steel structural components in m ills and factorie throughout the country for safety and durability.

When banks laughed at Ferris' requests for a loan to build his "barbaric contraption," Ferris used his own credit. First he spent $25,000 to develop exact specifications by his company's draftsmen under the direction of W. F. Groneau. Steel as a building material was innovative. Since little data on the stress factors of such a structure yet existed, each aspect of the plan had lo be reasoned out individually and mathematically proven. Ferris' draftsmen prepared diagrams to compute the stress at every conceivable position, planning for the weight of the more than two thousand riders and the perils of wind, rain, and ice.

Construction was farmed out to several steel plants and bridge works, none of whom knew how much Ferris was in debt. Bethlehem Iron Company made lhe axle, 32 inches in diameter, 178

Chicago Hist ory

5 feet long, 45 tons in weight-the largest single piece of steel forged until that time.

While the steel parts were being made, workmen poured the 20 by 20 foot concrete footings, reinforced with steel, to secure the two 150 foot pyramid-shaped towers which would hold the axle. The footings rested solidly on 30-foot piles capped by heavy timbers, sunk through frozen ground to bedrock at 35 feel.

Ferris chose Luther V. Rice, assistant engineer for the Union Depot and Tunnel Company of St. Louis, to supervise the construction of the footings. From the time that Rice accepted the job, his destiny was intimately linked with that of the wheel. He remained in Chicago as superintendent once the wheel was in service and later tried to find it a permanent home.

In late March, after the towers were in place, a convoy of five freight trains of thirty cars each chugged into the fairgrounds and unloaded a mighty burden, thousands of steel parts. The axle, with its hubs and journal boxes of bearings, took up two fl.at cars. Long-boomed derricks raised the axle into place on top of the tapered towers.

The invemion worked on the same principle as a bicycle wheel. The bottom half of the wheel supported the entire slrucwre at any given time in the rotation. But instead of being supported by the ground, the weight of Ferris' wheel was borne by the enormous axle. Hung upon either side of the axle on iron hubs were two wheels of the same size, each with an outer rim composed of a curved hollow iron beam and a similar beam running 40 feel inside the rim. The beams were put together panel by panel and an elaborate trusswork held the lwo beams wgether. The inner beam was connected to the axle by bicycle-like spokes, each less than three inches in diameter, placed at thirteen-foot intervals.

Tw in reversible 1,000-horsepower steam engines (one to be held in reserve) were installed

George W. G. Ferris, "the man with wheels in his head," ca. 1893 and Luther V. Rice , 1894, the young engineer whose fortunes became inextricably linked with those of the wheel. CHS.

in a pit below the construction. The engine turned four huge sprocket wheels around which ran two endless chains. The links engaged large cogs on the outer rim of the wheel and turned it with ease and with surprisingly little noise. Powerful Westinghouse air brakes gave the operator complete control. Before the passenger cars were attached, daredevil construction workers heroically clinging to struts and trusses, tested the wheel. What a sight that must have been-better than a circus for bug-eyed onlookers at the already opened fair.

Correspondence in the George Ferris papers at the Chicago Historical Society gives a vivid picture of the excitement that attended the completion of construction. On June g Rice sent a jubilant telegram to Ferris, detained in Pittsburgh on other business: The last coupling and final adjustment was made and steam turned on at six o'clock this eveningone complete revolution of the big wheel was made-everything working satisfactorily-twenty minutes time was taken for the revolution-I congratulate you upon it-<:omplete success-Midway Plaisance is wildly enthusiastic.

In response Ferris urged his colleague to "rush the putting in of cars, working day and night-

if you can't put the cars in at night habbitt [i.e., hobble] the car bearings at night so as to keep ahead."

Then installation of the 36 elegantly woodveneered cars began. They were suspended between the double rims from individual shafts 6½ inches in diameter and hung free so that the cars would always remain upright. Each car was 27 feet long, 13 feet wide, and g feet high. Each was furnished with 40 plush-covered swivel chairs on a base of steel fastened firmly to the floor. Rice soon wired to say, "Six more cars hung today-people are wild to ride on wheel & extra force of guards 1s required to keep them out."

Indeed, anticipation rose to a fever pitch.

On June 11 a trial trip with the cars was scheduled. In the absence of her husband, Ferris' wife Margaret was one of the passengers. Two days later Rice informed Ferris, "Twenty one cars are hung--offices and platforms are practically complete-wheel is working smoothly and the cars have little oscillation-foreign papers are asking for plans and data-trial trip for reporters tomorrow evening."

Both Rice and Ferris had some last-minute doubts and postponed the press preview until the 15th. Several professional colleagues and Chicago History

179

Ferris' Wheel

Toweri ng above the Midway, the Ferris Wheel proved one of the prime attractions of the World's Columbian Exposition. Each car accommodated 40 people on its plush-covered swivel chairs. CHS.

investors also made final inspections. Investor Robert vV. Hunt telegraphed Ferris on Saturday the 17th: "At meeting Onderdonk, Vincent, and myself decided it unwise to open wheel to public until opening day because of incompleteness and danger of accidents." Ferris himself urged restraint in the ¡wake of heady public enthusiasm. Even as he left Pittsburgh to attend the opening ceremonies he instructed Rice, "Do not start wheel before Monday morning-if you are absolutely ready for the public Monday morning, start her, otherwise wait until Tuesday. Be sure and have your men in position understand their duties before taking a ticket."

Came Wednesday June 2i! The exposition had opened fifty-one days earlier, but no matter. This was the day of the Ferris Wheel. On the first ride George and Margaret Ferris feted large numbers of guests including Chicago's Mayor Carter Harrison and his wife, the entire city council, Mrs. Potter Palmer, and a fortypiece band. Grandly uniformed guards stood at the entrance and exit doors. Fairgoers watched and waited. After a couple of revolutions the Great Wheel stopped, 6 cars at a time on the platform, and the party de-wheeled, smiling.

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Ch icago History

Lines formed at the ticket office and from that day until the end of the fair the Ferris Wheel ran every day from eight in the morning until eleven at night. Each fifty cent ticket entitled the rider to two revolutions of the wheel, one of them uninterrupted and the other broken by six stops during which passengers disembarked and boarded 6 cars at a time. The entire trip took a leisurely twenty minutes. In a day of five cent rides, fifty cents was out of this world. But so was the Ferris Wheel.

The wheel became at once a prime attraction of the Midway where it competed with colorful foreign villages, and in particular the exotic d ancers of the nearby Street in Cairo.

One observer reported: When it was seen that the \Vheel was moving, the foreigners in this street of many nations came running from all sides, shouting vociferously and gesticulating wildly. The Wheel had been an enigma to them; now they hastened with their weird and uncanny musical instruments to celebrate this glorious triumph of American industry and skill.

For those million and a half bold souls who ventured a ride, the sensation was much like ascending in a balloon. Very little noise â&#x20AC;˘ or mechanical joltings interferred with their pleasure. Outlined with 3,ooo incandescent lights supplied by the \Vestern Electric Company of Chicago, the wheel was especially inviting at night.

Brochures describing the wheel stressed safety, assuring passengers that they would suffer no nausea and pointing out that "To avoid accidents from panics and to prevent insane people from jumping out, the windows are covered with an iron grating." The Scientific Am erican of July 1, 1893, reported: It is being considered whether each car shall not have a telephone connection with the office on the ground. It is thought that this would be an attraction, both as a sort of amusement for people who wished to converse with their friends below or in

A workman shimmies up the spokes to complete inspection: "better than a circus for bug-eyed onlookers .... " CHS.

another car and as a sort o[ reassurance to timid people. The thought of being detained up in the clouds, as it were, by accident, and not being able to learn what it is or when it will be remedied, might frighten some timid people out of making the trip.

Nothing came of this, however.

The wheel was of course favored by lovers.

A Romance of the Ferris Wheel, a curious little booklet circular in form and written by an unknown author, was sold as a souvenir. Several young couples asked to have their marriages performed in the uppermost cars; but the company did not desire this form of publicity and the weddings took place in the superintendent's office.

Sometimes admissions ran as high as 4,000 an hour. On Chicago Day ticket sales totaled over 34,000. By the time the fair closed on October 3o, the wheel had grossed $726,805.50.

Even after giving the fair board the contracted sum of half the gross receipts earned above the first $300,000 in ticket sales, the Ferris Wheel Company made a handsome profit since expenses for construction and operation had been about $400,000.

After the close of the Chicago Exposition, the wheel was dismantled and stored along railroad tracks near 61st and Woodlawn pending shipment to a new site. In 1895 Ferris, Rice, Hunt and other original backers of the

wheel reassembled it at what is now 2653 Clark Street, near Wrightwood Avenue, a location easily accessible by streetcar. Despite a lively promotional campaign, however, the wheel lost money. A year later, after George Ferris had died of tuberculosis at the age of 37, the company was placed under receivership of Andrew Onderdonk, who was later succeeded by Luther Rice.

By 1goo the firm's stock was almost worthless. Rice, facing bankruptcy as well as the termination of his lease, appeared in circuit court to obtain permission to take the wheel clown. There must have been a reprieve for it was still operating in 1903 when it was auctioned off at a receiver's sale. The highest offer was $1,800 by a junk firm. According to the Chicago Tribune of June 3, Rice, comparing the amount bid to the initial cost of the variou~ parts, exclaimed, "It's a shame, a terrible shame." The buyer responded, "Yes, but just think: It's going to cost us $30,000 to take the wheel down."

The wheel recovered some of its former glory when it was installed at the 1904 St. Louis 'i'\Torld's Fair. Ticket sales there were substantial but the expense of dismantling, transporting, and re-assembling the monster made further use unprofitable. The wheel was sold to a wrecking company in May 1906, dynamited, and sold for scrap.

Chicago H istory

181

Ferris' Wheel

Ferris' wheel was the inspiration for a number of other rigid-spoked pleasure wheels, though none as magnificent as the original.

There were wheels with observation Lowers and elevators; wheels within wheels; wheels with musical accompaniment; and one with sliding seats that bumped violently from spoke to spoke as the wheel revolved. Quincy Stubbs of Cincinnati operated a water-powered wheel.

Orie rigid-spoked type of wheel is still in operation, the Reisenrad in Vienna's Prater Park in Austria. This wheel, the world's largest (209 feet) and the oldest (77 years) was a star in the motion picture The Third Man. The original wheel was the progenitor of the Ferris Wheel we know today, thanks to the imagination and perseverance of another bridge builder, William E. Su!Jivan of Roodhouse, Illinois. In 1905 Sullivan completed construction of the first wheel with interchangeable parts. The following year he founded the Eli Bridge Company of Jacksonville, Illinois, to manufacture his portable wheels; this firm is still in business today.

Ferris Wheels have delighted millions of people throughout the years. Why? The hero of Ebenezer Slimmens' Experience of an Innocent Boy from Vermont noted after visiting the ¡world's Columbian Exposition: I hev climbed big mountins to hum an got out on the edge of a big rock an looked down most 100 feet, an it seemed awful high, but then I knew I wus standing on sumthin solid, but when we got up in that wheel, and the higher we begun to rise and see the roof of the car jest behind us kinder go under us, I didn't know what to make of it; I felt more like I hed wings and wus goin up, an up an up to the clouds. I looked down an saw that jam o' people, say, honest, they looked jest like a lot of little ants a crawlin round a ant hill; an them bildins what wus so big inside didn't look no bigger than a pill box.

Describing the night time view from the wheel a 1904 brochure noted:

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Ch icago History

In 1895 the Ferris Wheel was reassembled at 2653 Clark St. CHS, gift of C. Howard Gill.

See the magnificent electrical illumination , forming as beautiful a spectacle as the eye cares to behold.

It can only be seen in all its majestic grandeur from the cars of this world-famous invention.

Small wonder, then, that the Ferris ¡wheel was so popular.

Se lected Sources George W. G. l'erris Papers (CHS).

Brochures , leaflets, and financial statements of the Ferris Wheel Company, as well as misce llaneous newspaper clippings, 18931906 (CHS).

History of the Ferris Wheel, undated typed manuscript (CHS). \Vor1d's Columbian Exposition Concession Agreements, III (No,ember 09, 1892).

Biographical sketches of George W . G. Ferris in Dictionary of American Biography; The 1Vational Cyclopedia of American Biogra/1hy; and Biographical History, with Portraits, of Prominent M en of the Great West. Chicago: Manhattan Publishing Compan)', 1894.

"The Great Wheel at Chicago." Scientific American, LXIX (July 1, 1893).

Burg, David F. Chicago's White City of ,893. Lexington: University Press o[ Kentucky , 1976.

Lawson, Robert. Th e Great Wheel. New York : Viking Press, 1957. For )'Oung readers.

Meehan , P a t. "'The llig Wheel. " UBC Engineer, 5 ( 1965).

Engineering Undergraduate Society, University of British Columbia.

Slimmens , Ebenezer [A. J. Dockarty]. The Midway Plaisance: The Exf1erience of an Innocent Boy from Vermont in the Famous Midway. Chicago: Chicago World Book Company, 1894.

Swenson, l\lrs. Mark. Six Months at the World's Fair. Detroit: Detroit Free Press Printing Company, 1895.

Articles in Coronet (September 1958); Popular Mechanics (December 1958 and March 1961) ; McCall's (August 1976).

Leners and printed materials furnished to the author by Bob Garner, Eli Bridge Company, Jacksonville, lllinois.

Fifty Years Ago

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

1927 Sept. 4. Chicago's 350 movie and vaudeville houses reopen after the Motion Picture Operators' and Stage Hands' unions reach an agreement with the Chicago Exhibitors' Association. The projectionists were locked out six clays ago and the stagehands walked out two clays later. The operators will have their current contract fulfilled and will receive payment for the period of the lockout. The stagehands win a 7 to 8 percent raise.

Sept. 14. Actress Fannie Brice is granted a divorce from Nicky Arnstein on the grounds of infidelity. Brice testifies that Nicky lost romantic interest in her a year and a half ago, shortly after Fannie had her nose straightened. The suit before Circuit Court Judge Otto Kerner is uncontested, and Arnstein's attorney announces that his client has waived all rights to community property.

Sept. 18. Federal agents make the largest raid in the history of Chicago's narcotics unit, netting more than $1,500,000 worth of drugs.

Confiscated at an apartment at 514 W. Cornelia St. are 2,000 ounces of morphine and cocaine, and more than 300 pounds of smoking opium, all of the finest grade. The goods-wrapped in 3-clay-old newspaperswere headed to the East Coast via Chicago.

Sept. 22. Gene Tunney retains his world's heavyweight boxing championship by a unanimous decision over ex-title holder Jack Dempsey before 145,000 spectators at Soldier Field. Tunney was in trouble only in the 7th round of the 10-rouncl bout, when Dempsey floored him for what appeared to be the

necessary 10 count. Referee Dave Barry, however, did not start counting until Dempsey headed for a neutral corner, some four seconds after the champ hit the canvas. The purse totals $2,658,000; Tunney receives $900,000, Dempsey $450,000.

Sept. 27. Fires caused by exploding moonshine stills are on the increase, says Deputy Fire Comm. Edward Maloney. Most of the 174 explosions during the last 3 years have been in "congested neighborhoods" populated by recent immigrants. An "enterprising chap" will often rent a basement in an overcrowded tenement, states Maloney, and a resulting blast can mean serious injury or death.

Oct. 1. Illinois coal miners, on strike since Apr. 1, vote to return to work under their old wage contract. The mines were closed by .72,000 diggers :when the operators' association refused to renew the union agreement, citing competition from states with nonunion mines. The operators, it is believed, agreed to the settlement because winter is fast approaching.

Oct. 4. "Make the World a Better Place to Die In" is the slogan of the tenth annual convention of the National Selected Morticians, a group of America's foremost funeral directors. The morticians-"undertaker" is now out-approve the use of rose-colored caskets and the wearing of business suits and ties, rather than the old black frock coat and black tie.

Oct. 6. Eight-year-old South Siders Charles Jackson and John Huckley end up in police custody after driving a stolen mail wagon through a reel light at Madison and Dearborn sts. The youths tell the officers that they took the wagon from the Adams St. side of the Federal Building.

Oct. 7. Maxie Eisen, business agent for the Poultry Dealers' Association, and Jack "Knuckles" Cato are charged with assault for the beating of David Trabish, owner of a kosher butcher shop at 1224 S. Keclzie Ave. Chicago Hi st ory

183

50 Years Ago

Trabish refused to sell his fowl in the Association's 38 to 50¢ price range, and he was beaten with a tire iron after failing to pay the resulting $50 "fine."

Oct. 14. Calling the practice "an evil harking back to the Middle Ages when the peasantry kow-towed to a privileged aristocracy," the City Council bans the sounding of sirens to clear the streets for the autos of movie stars, dignitaries, and other visitors. Howling sirens have become so common that motorists now ignore the warnings of police cars and fire engines. The police¡ chief will have the discretion of granting permits for special cases, such as for heads of state.

The U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, refuses to review the appeal of two Loop cabarets closed last year, thus upholding the government's right to padlock establishments which furnish "setups"-glasses, ice, and mixers. Attorneys for the Moulin Rouge and the Friars Club argued that institutions such as banks, hotels, and clothing stores a id and abet the drinkers' habit but are not being locked up as "nuisances."

Oct. 21. School Bd. member U. J. "Sport" Hermann, a noted yachtsman recently appointed by Mayor William Hale Thompson to rid the Chicago Public Library of all pro-British volumes, announces that the "tainted" books will be publicly burned at the lakefront.

The campaign is an outgrowth of Thompson's battle to fire School Supt. William McAndrew, whom the mayor recently called "a paid agent of the British Crown."

Oct. 24. A temporary injunction blocks construction of a $15,000 makeshift high school for the 24 black students presently enrolled at Gary's Emerson High School, where 1,500 white students boycotted classes for a week last month. Only 36 of the city's 3,000 black pupils currently attend integrated schools. A hearing on a permanent injunction. is set for Nov. 7.

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Ch icago History

Infidelity ended the marriage of Fannie Brice and Nicky Arnstein; Fannie thought that their trouble began with her nose-straightening surgery. CHS , Chicago Daily News photo , gift of Field Enterprises.

Oct. 28. In a vote by postcard, Glencoe residents approve the showing of movies in the village by a 4-1 margin. Sunday films receive a much narrower ratification. Arthur B. Farwell, a Glencoe resident and member of the Chicago Law and Order League, asks that the movies-if shown-be "strictly censored."

Nov. 6. Five thousand persons jam the Ashland Blvd. auditorium for the tenth anniversary celebration of the Russian Revolution. The principal speaker, Jay Lovestone, executive secretary of the \Vorkers' Communist Party, declares, "We do not expect a revolution in America for some time, but the American workman, slow to get started, will finish the job in great fashion." Pamphlets passed out promise a seven-hour day and racial equality for America's blacks under a communist regime.

Nov. 7. Movies in Chicago this week include 7th Heaven, with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell; The Girl from Chicago, with Conrad Nagel and Myrna Loy; What Price Glory?, with Victor McLaglen and Delores Del Rio;

50 Years Ago

Wings, with Michael Arlen, Clara Bow, Charles Rogers, and Gary Cooper; and The Fair Co-ed, with Marion Davies and Johnny Mack Brown.

On stage are Lenore Ulric in Lulu Belle, Grace George in The Road to Rome, Ruth Gordon in Saturday's Children, and Holbrook Blinn in The Play's the Thing. John McCormack sings at the Auditorium and Albert Spalding is the guest violin soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Fritz Leiber appears in Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, and Paul Whiteman and his orchestra entertain at the Chicago Theater.

Nov. 8. Mayor Thompson and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finally reach an agreement on the use of water meters in Chicago.

The Long Count: Tunney on the canvas after a barrage of blows by ex-champ Dempsey in the 7th round of their title fight in Soldier Field. CHS , Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

The city's commissioner of public works had announced on Sept. 28 that the 25,000 recently installed meters would not be read, in violation of the government ordinance allowing Chicago to draw additional lake water for the Sanitary District. Under the terms of the 1925 act, the city is obligated to meter go percent of its home water supply; the compromise lowers the percentage to So, an advantage to the smallest users.

Nov. 15. Chicago radio stations end the practice of Monday "silent nights," when most of them did not broadcast so that listeners could pick up distant stations. The burgeoning numbers of out-of-town stations, causing inadequate reception, and the possibility that Chicago stations might be permanently denied the use of their wavelengths on Monday nights are the reasons given for ending a convention dating back to radio's earliest days.

Nov. 17. The Chicago Physicians' and Surgeons' Economic League is formed, with a $5 initiation fee and $2 a month dues. The

50 Years Ago

association's president is Izzy Braverman, acquitted of the murder of a policeman four years ago when he headed the Fixture Hangers' Union . The Chicago Medical Society opposes the League, which Braverman says will mainly collect unpaid bills-a growing problem for doctors-and will not coerce membership.

Nov. 18. The name of Frank 0. Lowden, governor of Illinois from I g 1 7 to 1921, will be on the Republican ballot in Indiana's presidential primary in May, even though Lowden has been silent about his plans. Lowden's name is expected to be on other ballots before he announces his intentions.

Nov. 24. Margaret Bruce Beaumont, organizer of the Chicago Salon of Fine Arts, vanishes from her North Side hotel as society ladies debate how to recover S20,ooo in memberhip fees. Mrs. Beaumont came from San Francisco a year ago to establish the Salon, which held only one meeting. Some of the members found that their $100 patron checks had been cashed at Loop hotels by Mrs. Beaumont for personal use.

Nov. 26. By writ of habeas corpus, 32 of the 50 hoodlums arrested at last night's Mickey Walker-Paul Berlenbach boxing match at the Coliseum are freed. The raid, which netted Jake Guzik and Frank McErlane among others, was directed by Chief of Detectives William E. O'Connor, who has issued crackdown orders in the wake of renewed warfare between Al Capone and various North Side mobsters who have been operating south of Mad ison St., Scarface's unofficial territory.

FREDERICK J. NACHMAN

Gene Tunney clowning with Johnny Coulon , bantamweight champ 1910 to 1914 and proprietor of a boxing emporium , before Tunney's bout with Jack Dempsey, CHS, Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

186

Chicago History

Reviews

The Roads They Made: Women in Illinois History

by Adade M itchell Wh eeler w ith A1arlene Stein Wortman Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1977.

10 cloth; . 3.95 paper.

AOA0£ :'sllTCHELL \\'HEELER ' S study draws on diaries, memoirs, and biographies to survey the contributions that Illinois women have made to family, community, and society. The first five chapters cover the period from pre-Revolutionary times to the present and highlight the efforts women made, both individually and in groups, to expand their boundaries. The remaining portion of the book consist of six essays on such contemporary issues as women's health care and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Lacking explanatory notes, these essays come as something of an afterthought that might better have been replaced by suffrage bills, temperance petitions, property laws, and other historical documents.

1ow that historians have formulated some initial questions about women' pa t, they need to do some hard digging at the local, state, and regional level for answers. In this respect \\' heeler has been looking in the right places, but her investigation has ignored too many major questions. For example, David Potter has questioned the validity of Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis for women; he asks us to consider whether or not the frontier offered women "a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage to the past." Although \\1heeler's chapter on the. frontier presents ample anecdotal evidence verifying the hardships of pioneer life for women, it is not convincingly argued with Turner's thesis in mind. !or does she play with the idea that women's frontier became the cit), where machines equalized the physical differences between the sexes and offered women new educational and occupational opportunities.

Similarly, historians have suggested that the scarcity of women accounts for the passage of women's suffrage bills in Wyoming in 1869 and in Utah in 1870. How important was this factor in Illinois?

Was the early support given suffrage by the Illinois Woman's Christian Temperance Union counterproductive? ,vere most women of the post-Civil vVar generation apathetic about the vote? We are told that the Illinois legislature did not enfrand1ise women during the nineteenth century, but the reasons are never considered. These and a variety of other interpretive issues concerning women's relationships to reform movements, occupational

changes. urban politics, and family life are not soundly anal)t.ed.

This failure to develop a historical narrative around key themes is the book's greatest weakness.

It is also marred by middle-class assumptions that bias the selection and pre entation of material. The chapter on Indian women not only relies too heavil} on white accounts, it also reflects the cultural insen itivity of the witnesses used. To cite another instance, \\' heeler says that the availability of sen·ants by 1 860 signaled an end to the most strenuous part of the frontier experience; thi conclusion overlooks the fact that gains for middle-class women usually occurred at the expense of rural, black, and immigTant women.

The Roads They Made pulls together some interesting infonnation, particularly data on women's role in the trade-union movement, the establishment of settlement houses, and the feminization of certain occupations. However, its undue emphasis on individual achievement makes it primarily useful as a biographical compendium of women who did something important for the record. Perhaps t11is is as much as we should expect for a start. \\'hat is still needed is a history that analyzes the changing themes of Illinois women's past and explains how that past differs from or reflects the collective experience of American women as a whole.

SUSAN DY£ LE£

Madonna Center: Pionee r Catholic Socia l Settlement

by Mary Agnes Amberg Chicago: Loyola Uni,·ersity Press, 1976. 7.95.

TIIERE IS A TENDENCY to regard Hull-House as t11e archetypal settlement house and Jane Addams as a repre entative resident. Yet for each resounding success like Hull-House there were many others like i\fadonna Center: small, poorly funded, and in many respects removed from the mainstream of progressive innovations. i\Iary Amberg's fascinating memoir chronicles her family's role in creating this pioneer Catholic settlement. Her leitmotiv is competition. Rich, ethnic, and devoutly religious, the family attempted to prove that Roman Catholics were "as American as any of tl1e social workers in the Protestant or secular social settlements." The Sunday scl10ol mission whid1 her motl1er helped to found in 1898 for Italians in the Hull-House neighborhood gradually diversified into a full-fledged settlement u nder i\ Iiss Amberg's direction. ew programs were added continually to lure slum dwellers from tl1e doors of nearby non-Catholic centers.

Amberg's narrow religious focus is both a virtue and a flaw. Madonna Center raises many intriguing issues about Catholicism and the settlement movement which more general stud ies have virt uall y ignored. Her comments about Ja ne Addam s are particularly revealing; they d isplay a frank admixture of admiration, envy, and riva lry.

But some of the most sign ifican t question s are treated in a vacu u m. For example, she fa ils to com-

Chicago History

187

,,

pare her own painful transltlon from socialite to social worker with that of her college-educated counterparts who so eagerly embraced professional careers. Nor does she explain why the center was still serving a predominantly Italian clientele in 1940, long after demographic vicissitudes had radically altered the constituencies of most of Chicago's other settlements. Unfortunately, the reader must be familiar with the literature of non-Catholic institutions to fully appreciate the book's merit.

Charmingly written and highly anecdotal, Madonna Center affords a very personal glimpse into a forgotten sector of the settlement movement.

Those seeking a balanced account of the movement as a whole must look elsewhere.

KATHLEEN D. MCCARTHY

The Idea of the University of Chicago: Selections from the Papers of the First Eight Chief Executives of the University of Chicago from 1891 to 1975 edited by D.J.R. Bruckner and William Michael Murphy Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. $15. directors are, perhaps by definition, unlikely to be historically minded. Nostalgic maybe, but usually not genuinely interested in the past. D. J. R. Bruckner at the University of Chicago is a notable exception. In the past year, Bruckner's public affa irs office has issued two books capturing, in photography and print, part of the university's history. One is a visual essay (Dreams in Stone) documenting the university's extant architecture; the other is an anthology (The Idea of the University of Chicago) chronicling tl1e writings of the university's first eight presidents. Ever since W. R. Harper and T. R. Goodspeed, Chicago has always had a rather good press; Bruckner's two works continue this tradition.

The Idea of the University of Chicago, like the built environment of Henry Ives Cobb's English Gothic campus, has its inspiration in Oxfordian England. Although Bruckner and his coeditor William M. Murphy (a UC graduate in modern Irish history) do not make much of their title's debt to John Henry Newman's educational classic of 1873, the book is intended to collect "eight personal reports of a single compelling vision" on Chicago's institutional commitment to higher education and scholarly research.

As Bruckner and Murphy's subtitle suggests, their anthology is selective, both in topics surveyed and in amount of coverage given each president's words.

The book opens with a chapter celebrating the collective wisdom of the presidents on the "idea" of the institution's educational manifest destiny. Then follow topical cl1apters that focus on the chief executive's relations witl1 his main constituencies: the faculty ("these thousand-odd kings"), the students, as well as trustees, alumni, and alumnae. Other chapters are devoted to the twentieth-century preoccupations of every major American university president: finances ("the inflationary kingdom of UNIVERSITY PUBLIC RELATIONS

188

Chicago History

Midas"), internal university affairs, and relations with the wider academic community, city, region, and nation of which the institution is a part. In each section, tl1e editors have assembled, usually in a rough chronology of presidential succession with an occasional special deference to Edward Levi (the incumbent when the anthology was being readied), what each of the Chicago eight had to say on these topics. Bruckner and Murphy's sources are what they define as official papers, an eclectic potpourri of speeches (published and unpublished), articles, and intra-uni:â&#x20AC;˘ersity reports.

The book does not purport to be a real history of the university presidency, much less of the university proper. At best, it is a collection of one type of documentary data that an educational historian would need in writing a university history which, in Chicago's case, would have to be primarily an intellectual history. Unfortunately, beyond the amorphous "idea" of a university dedicated to education and research (and what university bulletin does not proclaim a similar aspiration?), there is no effort by the editors to ferret out other pervading ideas in the presidents' pronouncements. To be sure, the anthology conveys some sense of the intramural debates that occurred over tl1e last eighty years, certain issues (place of athletics, extension course work, undergraduate vs. graduate education) recur; but, given the cut-and-paste format of the book, the reader is only enticed, not sufficiently satisfied, in his quest for the intellectual substance and style of the university leadership as a whole.

This is especially the case for the less well-known administrators such as E . D. Burton, C. M. Mason, or L. A. Kimpton. Occasionally tl1e excerpts of writings are only snippets, too brief or too enigmatic to be of much help to the average reader.

Nonetheless the Bruckner-Murphy volume contributes to both university and Chicago history. In our own time, when university presidents style themselves as low-keyed, corporate managers and custodial bureaucrats, it is refreshing to read the visionary, purposeful, even haughty prose of entrepreneurial giants-a Harper, a Judson, a Hutchins---of an earlier age. One can use the anthology to collect their individual thoughts as a corpus or one can consult its valuable index (176 subject headings) to look up their collective opinions on issues that range from the curriculum to Izzy the laundryman, from Stagg Field to tl1e Yerkes Observatory. In brief, with this book one can relax tl1e usual professional historian's caveat to beware of public relations directors who come bearing university histories that they have written, commissioned, or edited. The Idea of the University of Chicago is a useful, if specialized, compendium of another chapter in tl1e history of one of the city's most important cultural assets.

THOMAS J. SCHLERETH

Dreams in Stone edited by D.J.R. Bruckner and Irene Macauley Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976. $35.

IT MUST HA VE COST the University of Chicago a small fortune to produce this elaborate but rather strange

book. It consists essentially of 348 briefly captioned photographs that show every building on campus.

The only text is Bruckner's eight-page introduction.

As he does not sufficiently explain the purpose of the book, we can only guess; phrases like "fundraising tool," "public relations brochure," or "alumni souvenir guidebook" come to mind.

However, the introduction alludes to nobler motivations. The project to document the university's architecture began auspiciously in 1974 when Bruckner hired Patrice Grimbert, an extraordinarily promising young photographer. The work was hardly begun when Grimbert suddenly died.

He was replaced by two other very talented young photographers, Jose Lopez and Luis Medina. During the next two years they made almost two thousand negatives for the project.

The original prints from these negatives that were exhibited by the photographers when the book was released received well-deserved acclaim . Unfortunately, many of the best photographs either were not chosen or were not properly presented by the R. R .

Donnelley Company, who designed and printed the book.

The feeling of bleakness is not entirely the fault of the printing-after all, the buildings are made of gray stone. But there is an almost complete absence of people in the pictures. Some evidence of life would lessen the feeling that certain pictures were taken in a deserted ruin or a cemetery instead of on an urban campus.

Originally designed by Henry Ives Cobb in 1892 in Tudor Gothic style, the famous central quadrangle campus has since been expanded by the work of more than seventy architects. The newer buildings no longer follow the medieval theme but the viewer cannot help but be impressed with the overall unity of the architectural park of varying styles that has resulted.

The book is reco=ended for those interested in architecture and photography as well as for alumni.

LARRY A. VISKOCH!L

Historic City: The Settlement of Chicago The People of Chicago: Census Data on Foreign Born, Foreign Stock and Race

1837-1970 City of Chicago, Department of Development and Planning, 1976. 3.95 for the set, which is available

through the Department of Development and Planning, Room 1000 City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle, Chicago 60602.

AS THE COMEDIANS SAY, "I've got good news and bad news." First, the good news. For $3.95 you get a good outline chronology of the development of the city's ethnic neighborhoods and their many drnrches as well as six large, full-color maps, dozens of illustrations, and an excellent bibliography. For no extra cost you also get a separate publication, The People of Chicago, a handy compilation of census data on Chicago's various nationality groups from 1837 to 1970, complete with a "Mother Tongue Addendum" for the period 1910-1970.

Now comes the bad news. First, almost without exception the line drawings are rather bad copies of existing, and sometimes well-known, illustrations, done in a sketchy style reminiscent of high school yearbook artwork. Second, although a disclaimer that Historic City "is not rightfully a history-it is a souvenir" appears in the introduction, this does not absolve the publication from historical criticism.

In many cases, the text relies all too heavily on secondary sources. Moreover, the maps, which could have been the saving grace for this publication, are marred by errors. Even the note that "the locations of various settlements are sometimes approximate" does not explain the omission of several pioneer settlements, particularly during the period from I 840 tO 1870.

All things considered, Historic City and its companion volume can be recommended both as a good starting point for someone with little background in Chicago history and as a reference guide to ethnic source material and institutions. Indeed, this is one of the few single-volume surveys available which gives the general reader this much background information on Chicago's ethn ic communities in the twentieth century. However, in light of the comprehensive history it might have been, the question arises: Who needs another souvenir?

PAUL W. PETRAITIS

Chicago Surface Lines: An Illustrated History

by Alan R. Lind Park Forest, Illinois: Transport History Press, 1974.

17.50.

PAST DOZEN years or so the shelves of Chicago's larger bookstores have been more than amply stocked with pictorial histories of urban mass transit. Few of these books contain anything likely to do more than catch the passing interest of the average reader. Traction buffs, like all hobbyists, often become absorbed in the trivia of their special fancy and are apt to turn out lists of trolley-car numbers or compilations of timetables that bore or baffle the uninitiated.

Alan Lind's Chicago Surface Lines is an outstanding exception to this sorry rule. His book is both a trolley buff's delight and a first-rate piece of popular urban history. This is both because of the unique subject of the book and the broad approacl1 Lind has taken in dealing with it.

Chicago Surface Lines, as any Chicagoan over thirty-five can tell you, was no ordinary street railway. In the absence of a comprehensive elevatedsubway system, the CSL grew to be the largest streetcar operation in the United States. In an era when the automobile was still a luxury to the average working-class family, CSL's " Red Rockets" and "Green Hornets" became objects of the same affection (often mixed with frustrated ire) which our generation reserves for its Volkswagens, Cougars, or what-have-you. But the CSL was something more.

The trolley ride was a more personal experience than a trip on the groaning, serpentine "L". At the same time, it was a community experience as the automobile ride could never be. A route took on

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Reviews the character of the neighborhood it served, and the wide variety of CSL equipment made it possible to imagine that the streetcar on your street was something special. CSL was preeminently a neighborhood utility, which nonetheless served an entire city; and despite political, economic, and traffic obstacles, it served remarkably well.

All this and more comes across in Alan Lind's Chicago Surface Lines. There are plenty of pictures of trolley cars but for the most part they are trolley cars going somewhere, full of real people in real streets, living a life the reader can begin to imagine, if he does not know it-' from memory, just by studying the pictures.

Nor is th is all. CSL had its act together in ways the company's daily riders hardly suspected: a topnotch engineering staff pioneered not only transit innovation but traffic control as well; trained and supervised operating men conducted a vast precision operation; the union knew how to protect the rights of its members while keeping a healthy respect for the importance of the service they performed. All these and much more are amply described and illustrated by the author in clear, direct language not often found in hobbyist publications.

For in the encl Chicago Surface Lines is a hobby book. The great bulk of the publication is taken up with the description of routes and equipment, and the old rosters and timetables one would expect are there in abundance. But Lind has also managed to convey something about an entity that was more than equipment, more than a business or a public service. In words and pictures, Chicago Surface Lines brings to life a part of the urban past. Anyone who wants to understand what Chicago life was like between the two world wars would do well to study this book. As with the streetcar itself, there is more here than meets the eye.

one. A photo by Henry Herr Gill or a cartoon by John Fischetti enhances the beginning of each section .

The editors have included wriLings by the greats of the past such as Carl Sandburg, Robert J. Casey, and Ben Hecht. But the book is somewhat imbalanced, for too many of the selections have been written by writers still on the newsroom staff. fore time must pass before the significance of their work can be fully assessed.

On the other hand, the reader will en joy this aspect of the book for most events recorded lie within easy memory.

CLIFFORD BUZARD

Everywhere West: The Burlington Route

by Patrick C. Dorin Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1976 .. 14.95.

Coach Trains and Travel

by Patrick C. D orin Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1975. 14.95.

IIERI:: ARE TWO ADDITIONS to the huge popular literature on railroading. One is a readable, concise story of "The Q," particularly its streamlined passenger trains. The photographs are clear, but the publisher cut corners and printed what are obviously xeroxes of schedules and line illustrations.

The other volume is a train buff's picture tour of the often neglected subject of coach travel. Not everyone rode Pullmans, and Dorin tells the story of "doodlebugs" and milk trains as well as streamliners. The major flaw in the book is the unfortunate dependence on overused official publicity photos from Amtrak and Auto-Train when original pictures might have been used instead.

PAUL BARRETT

PERRY R. DUIS

Done in a Day edited by Dick Griffin and Rob Warden Chicago: Swallow Press, 197i. , 15 cloth, $7.95 paper. of columns, news, and feature stories from the Chicago Daily News, collected in observance of the newspaper's one hundreth anniversary. The editors chose each selection as representative of American literature at its best, albeit "done in a day" under the pressure of inflexible dead lines. Typical is an obituary on Jackie Robinson that, the editors say, was written in less than an hour.

The publication of a daily newspaper has been known as "the daily miracle" not only for the speed of writing and editing. The speed of page make-up, typesetting, printing, and delivery is of equal importance. ¡whether the writing in this book is literature or journalism must be left for the reader to decide. There is a difference.

These selections from the Daily News have been sorted into thirteen topics. The editors have placed the material well; after a moving or particularly heavy piece on crime or war comes a lighthearted THIS IS AN ANTHOLOGY

190

Chicago History

Antiqu e Collecting in the Midwest

by Sara Simonsgaard with A1arguerite Bookstein Chicago Re,iew Press, 1976. S5.95 paper.

A SEASONED COLLECTOR and former dealer, Sara Simonsgaard provides beginners or those contemplating collecting antiques or "collectibles" with sound adv ice and carefully selected sources. The first half of the book contains a survey of the types of antiques available in the Midwest (primarily eastern and English); discusses how to develop a collecting strategy; and indicates how much can be learned from dealers, flea markets, auctions, and museums.

The ~cond half lists sources both for buying antiques and for finding information about antiques.

SHARON S. DARLING

Brief Reports Chicago World's Fair of I893: The World's Columbian Exposition, a filmstrip-cassette presentation, was written and directed by Sally Anderson Chappell and produced by the _Illi~ois _ Bicentenni~l Commission and DePaul U n1vers1ty m 1976. It 1s available for S25 from Dr. Chappell at DePaul University, 2323 North Seminary, Chicago, IL 60614.

Sally Anderson Chappell is among the growing group of architectural historians who question Louis Sullivan's bitter indictment of the architecture of the , ,v orld's Columbian Exposition. This slide-cassette presentation incorporates more than one hundred rare photographs, drawings, and color lithographs to demonstrate that the fair was actually a Midwestern watershed in the history of architecture as well as a major achievement in the planning of public spaces. The text rests on solid scholarship. Since the thesis is presen tee! unobstrusively, the viewer is allowed to experience and en joy the fair vicariously.

The presen talion, complete with narration and music, is cued to an electronic pulse and has a running time o[ twenty minutes.

Minority Voices, a new semiannual interdisciplinary journa l o[ literature and the arts, publishes articles concerned with Afro-Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans. Prospective authors and subscribers should contact Elaine D. Woodall, Editor, 101 Walnut Building, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. A oneyear subscription is $5.

Early National Historical Society Forming A group of historians of the early national period of American history (approximately 1789-1830) will hold an organizational meeting in Dallas at the Fairmont Hotel, Tuesday, December 29 at 2:30 p.m. The American Historical Association will be meeting in Dallas at that time.

The group hopes to publish a newsletter to cover book reviews, lists of articles and dissertations, and notes on work in progress about the period. For more information contact James H. Broussard, Room 413, 140 North Senate Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46204.

Society Notes Recent Accessions The graphics collection has purchased an attractive collection of more than eighty-four posters and pamphlet covers designed and created by members of the Illinois ¡works Progress Administration (WPA) Art Project in Chicago. l\Iost of the material from the 1930s relates to v\'PA art exhibits and activities by other WPA projects. l\Ianuscripts recently acquired by the Society, all by gift, include the working files o[ the Northwest Community Organization (1962-1971); publications and other records of the Illinois fanufacturers' Association (1954-1977); additional inactive files from the Better Business Bureau of 1\fetropolitan Chicago; minutes and other records of the Chicago Tuberculosis Institute and other agencies involved in the fight against tuberculosis, including a unique collection of Christmas Seals (1920-1973); candidates' files maintained by the Independent Voters of Illinois; personal papers of Francis Crane Lillie and other members of the Crane and Lillie families; papers of James P. Brennan, significant in regard to Chicago's Irish (1893-1933); and the records of The Cordon and the Arche clubs, two women's cultural organizations.

Program Activities A series of films produced in Colonial Williamsburg depicting life in eighteenth-century Virginia will be shown at the Society at 2 :00 p.m. on the following Sundays: November 6, 13, 20, and December 11.

On Saturday December 17, between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m., the Society will hold its annual Members' Christmas Party. Casey Sinkelclam, master chef at the Kitchens of Sara Lee, will show guests how to make gingerbread houses. l\Iusic, craft activities, films, and refreshments should make for a festive occasion.

Be Sure to Visit CREATING NEW TRADITIONS, the Society's major Bicentennial exhibit, which closes on December 31. This exhibit explores and interprets Chicago's contribution to American life in the areas of city planning, architect ure, merchand ising, social reform, literature, and popular culture. six CHICAGO BRIDES, featuring bridal fashions of the late nineteeth and early twentieth centuries, which runs through December 31.

Daily demonstrations of spinning, weaving, and candle dipping in the Ill ino is Pioneer L ife Gallery.

CHICAGO:

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191

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

OFFICERS

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

Harold K. Skramstad, Jr.

The Chicago Historical Society is a privately endowed institution devoted to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and selected areas of American history. It must look to its members and friends for continuing financial support. Contributions to the Society are tax-deductible and appropriate recognition is accorded major gifts. The Society encourages potential contributors to phone or write the director's office to discuss the Society's needs.

TRUSTEES

MEMBERSHIP

Bowen Blair Philip D. Block III Cyrus Colter Emmett Dedmon Stewart S. Dixon J ames R. Getz Philip W. Hummer Willard L. King

i\Iembership is open to anyone interested in the Society's activities and objectives. Classes of membership and clues are as follows: Annual, $20 a year; Governing Annual, $100 a year; Life, $500; and Patron, 1000 or more. Members receive the Society's quarterly magazine, Chicago History; a quarterly Calendar of Events, listing Society programs; invitations to special programs; free admission to the building at all times; reserved seats at movies and concerts in our auditorium; and a 10 % discount on books and other merchandise purdtased in the Iuseum Store.

frs. Frank D. Mayer Andrew McNally III Bryan S. Reid, Jr. Gilbert H. Scribner, Jr. Harold Byron Smith, Jr. Gardner H. Stern Theodore Tieken

LIFE TRUSTEES

i\frs. C. Phillip Miller Hermon Dunlap Smith

HOURS HONORARY TRUSTEES

Michael A. Bilandic, Mayor, City of Chicago Patrick L. O'Malley, President, Chicago Park District

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

THE EDUCATION OFFICE

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

ADMISSION FEES FOR NON-MEMBERS

Adults 1; Children (6-17), 50¢; Senior Citizens, 25¢. Admission is free ori Mondays.

Single copies of Chicago History, published quarterly, are 2.25 by mail; S2 at newsstands, bookshops, and the Museum Store.

View from the southwest of the Cook County court house-city hall ca. 1859, after the addition of an extra story.

CHS, attributed to photographer William Shaw, active in Chicago at the time.

View from the southwest of the Cook County court house-city hall ca. 1859, after the addition of an extra story.

CHS, attributed to photographer William Shaw, active in Chicago at the time.

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