Chicago History | Spring 1977 by Chicago History Museum

Chicago History SPRING 1977

Cartoon by John T. Mccutcheon, 1912, on a problem that never seems to disappear. In this issue, Michael P. McCarthy traces the brief history of the Progressive Party of Illinois.

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS THE" PuB1-1c. WILi- NEVE:R.

I M1~$CP C..E7'"flf'tCr A

0-1,._RTE"r,z... MEMBERSHIP C~T1F1C.ATE IN

115""

6UT l'M

N01' G-OING To MIS$ tT Now

THE NEW WAY

How Much of a Progressive Are You? Buy a Certificate and Become a Member of the Progressive Party

Chicago History The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society SPR ING 1977 Volume VI , Number 1

Cover: Th e Wom an's Building, World's Columbian Exp osition of 1893 , a watercolo r by William J ohn Wh ittem ore, 1860-1 955.

CONTENT S

THE SHORT, UNHAPPY LIFE OF THE ILLINOIS PROGRESSIVE PARTY /2 by Michael P. McCarthy

Frederick J. Nachman, Associate Editor

STEAMSHIPS AFTER 1871/12 by A. A. Dornfeld

A TEMPLE TO WOMEN 'S GENIUS : THE WOMAN 'S BUILDING OF 1893/23

Editori al Advi sory Committ ee Emmett Dedmon James R. Getz O liver Jensen R obert W. Johannsen Herman Kogan Robert M. Sutton

by Jeanne Madeline Weimann

MOLLIE NETCHER NEWBURY : THE MERCHANT PR INCESS/34 by Margaret Corwin

THE SWEET, SWEET SCENT OF SOAP/44 by Lester A. Weinrott

FIFTY YEARS AGO/53 BOOK REVIEWS : THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION BICENTENNIAL AND THE WRITING OF MIDWESTERN COMMUNITY HISTORY/58 by Kirk Jeffrey

BRIEF REPORTS/59 SOCIETY NOTES / 62 LETTERS / 63

Copyright 1977 by the Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60614 Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life All illustrations. unless otherwise credited, are from the collections of the Chicago Historical Society.

The Short, Unhappy Life of the Illinois Progressive Party BY MICHAEL P. McCARTHY

The Illinois Progressive Party expired shortly after its fourth birthday after few electoral successes. Many of its members) however) went on to serve in prominent government positions during the next thirty years.

and marching bands in Chicago's Orchestra Hall, a sizable number of insurgent Republicans declared themselves the Progressive Party of Illinois in August 1912. Shortly thereafter, at the Coliseum, they joined Progressive delegates from other states to nominate Theodore Roosevelt for the presidency. The Progressive Party was composed of diverse individuals-as we shall see, they remained both diverse and individualistic-and many of its leaders played an important role in the reform movements of the early 1900s. More-their advocacy of women's rights, better working conditions in factories, and protection of consumers resulted in pioneering social legislation, and their belief in the right of voters to pick candidates ultimately led to the primary laws that produced the George McGoverns and Jimmy Carters of the 1970s. But in 1916, when Theodore Roosevelt declined to run again, the party died like a burntout meteor, its passing unmourned by many who founded it. Âˇwhat happened to the Progressive Party of 1912? That tangled tale is best begun by first understand ing some nomenclature. In the early 1900s, amid the municipal crusades and trust-busting hoopla that characterized Teddy R oosevelt's years in the White AMID BANNERS

Michael P. McCarthy is assistant professor of history at the State University of 1ew York at Stony Brook. He has written for the New York Times and the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society and is currently at work on a book on American politics and urban growth from 1870 to 1930. 2

Chicago History

House, reformers of all political stripes frequently called themselves "progressives," much as they call themselves "liberals" today. The "Progressive Republicans"-they dropped "Republicans" by 1910-began, on the other hand, as a collection of Republican mavericks who felt the party and the nation were drifting under the leadership of Roosevelt's hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft, who had been elected in 1908. Whether the problem the Progressives perceived was real or not is another matter. Taft, a gentle behemoth weighing more than three hundred pounds, was very different from Roosevelt in both personality and style. He was so shy and reserved, in contrast to the athletic and ebullient Teddy, that the transition no doubt would have been difficult anyway. But Taft was also easygoing, almost to a fault, and perhaps too anxious to keep the Old Guard regulars happy. When he established cordial relations with such conservative party leaders as Nelson A. Aldrich of Rhode Island, "the uncrowned king of the Senate," and "Uncle Joe" Cannon of downstate Illinois, the former Speaker of the House who had fought the liberalization of party rules, the reformers within the Republican Party began to feel they no longer had a friend in the "\,Vhite House. Chicago was the home of an interesting and varied group of these R epublican dissidents, among them Harold L. Ickes, the irascible lawyer and one-time political reporter who had been involved in reform politics since h is student days at the Universi ty of Chicago in the 1890s. Another was Donald R ichberg, a wit and

The founding of the Progressive Party of Illinois: delegates entering Orchestra Hall for the state convention, August 1912. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

Chicago History

Progressives

Charles E. Merriam strikes a fighting pose during the 1911 mayoral campaign . The young alderman and college professor soon after became the leader of Chicago's Progressives. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

a frustrated novelist-he did publish one in 1911-who worked with Ickes in the law firm of Richberg's father, an old Chicago politico o( German descent. Charles R. Crane, grandson of the founder of the great Crane Company, one of the world's leading producers of plumbing supplies, was an unassuming, reflective, and respected soul who preferred reform causes to the family firm. Medill fcCormick, another member of the group, was a debonair scion of the Chicago Tribune family whose influence was felt on the paper's editorial page. McCormick's wife, Ruth, the daughter of the late Republican kingmaker Mark Hanna, was also active in reform Republicanism, and so was young Fletcher Dobyns, an Ohioan who graduated from Harvard, came to Chicago, studied law at Northwestern University, and served as an assistant U.S. district attorney. The leader of the Chicago insurgents was Charles E. Merriam, then in his thirties and already a prominent political scientist at the University of Chicago. Merriam received his Ph.D . from Col umbia University and came to Chicago in 1900. Here, he immersed himself in local politics as a consultant for civic groups and as a member of charter and harbor commissions. In 1909, he decided to run for the position of alderman in the City Council from his home ward of Woodlawn and Hyde Park. ot everyone was happy about the idea. William Rainey Harper, the president of the University of Chicago, believed that h is faculty should keep the study of politics in the classroom; Fred A. Busse, a bluff North Side R epublican regular who was then mayor, was against anyone from the University of Chicago on principle, telling l\Ierriam that he cou ld expect no support from his organization because "They are all Socialists out there. There is too damn much Hull-House for me." But Merriam went ahead anyway and proved h imself to be a formidable candidate: an effective public speaker and a good mixer whose rural roots and self-deprecating style belied the big-city "professor" stereotype. In the 4

Ch icago History

heavily ÂˇRepublican, middle-class ward, Merriam swamped his Democratic opponent in a victory that drew applause from the local press and even the notice of the national journal Outlook. By 1911, Merriam had wreaked havoc on the Republican organization. As chairman of the Commission on City Expenditures, he uncovered enough irregularities to leave Busse's "business" administration in shambles. In the city's first mayoral primary that year, made possible by a state law he had helped to write, Merriam captured the party's nomination by beating two party hacks after Busse dropped out. The general election was close, and Merriam lost-but the Progressives were not too downhearted. After all, they had ousted Busse, and the new mayor, Democrat Carter Harrison II, was something of a reformer himself. Against this background of increasing party strife, the Republicans began to prepare for the 1912 presidential election. By then, even Roosevelt had grown restless with Taft's performance and had decided to run for another term in the White House. He swept most of the presidential primaries and appeared to be the choice of the party's voters. At the convention in Chicago, however, the party's regulars, who controlled the delegates, secured Taft's renomination. The Progressi\'es were angry and frustrated, and Roosevelt announced he would seek the presidency on his own. In those tumultuous clays of June, Roosevelt hoped that the Democrats, then meeting in Baltimore, would select W'illiam Jennings Bryan as their candidate. In a three-way race against Taft and the old ebraska orator, Roosevelt felt he might haYe a real chance. Those dreams evaporated, however, when the Democrats finally nominated \Voodrow \\Tilson, formerly a profes or of political economy and president of Princeton University, and later the reform governor of New Jersey. "Cal" O'Laughlin, a \Vashington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and an old confidant, told

Roosevelt that Republican politicians at the capital thought neither he nor Taft had a chance against Wilson. "Of course, it is too late to talk about another [Republican] convention," O'Laughlin remarked almost wistfully. "The call having been issued, the Third Party must be created." Colonel Roosevelt, a title he enjoyed from his Rough Rider days in the Spanish-American v\Tar, was in no rush, however. Medill McCormick went to Roosevelt's home in Oyster Bay, New York, and returned with a plan to field only a presidential Progressive slate and leave the rest of the Republican ticket unchallenged. The incumbent Republican governor, Charles S. Deneen, had given Roosevelt nominal support after his own victory in the primary, and he had kept the Illinois delegation pledged to Roosevelt throughout the convention. A full Progressive ticket, it was argued, would only benefit the Democrats. This sort of maneuvering angered Merriam, Ickes, and Crane, who had supported Roosevelt only when it was clear that Sen. Robert M. "Battle Bob" Lafollette of Wisconsin had no chance of gaining the Republican nomination. They were skeptical of Roosevelt's interest in reform politics after an episode in 1904. Roosevelt had appointed Thomas N. "Doc" Jamieson naval officer of the Port of Chicago, a patronage plum. An erstwhile druggist and politico, Jamieson's only ostensible qualification was his close friendship with Republican Cong. William Lorimer, the so-called Blond Boss of Chicago's West Side. Such influential editors and publishers as Frank B. Noyes of the RecordHerald, Victor F. Lawson of the Daily News, and Robert W. Patterson of the Tribune joined party reformers in urging Roosevelt to reconsider. But Teddy defended his choice of Lorimer's friend and soon after made known his annoyance at the Chicago insurgents. So, in the summer of 1912, Roosevelt's courting of the regular Deneen only reinforced the reformers' doubts. Ch icago Hist ory

Progressives

President William Howard Taft, 1912. Photo by Harris & Ewing.

Merriam, in particular, was distrustful of Republican politicians after his experience the previous year. Although he had swept the party's primary election, the regular Republicans, including Deneen, had clone little to assist his campaign against Harrison. Many had, in fact, encouraged ticket splitting-voting for all the Republicans except for Merriam-that defeated Merriam by a narrow margin. Âˇwith that memory still fresh, Merriam walked out of a Progressive Party meeting in Chicago when Roosevelt's friends defeated a move to include a full state ticket and refused to rejoin them 6

Chicago History

unless they created an authentic new party with a full slate of state candidates. Whether or not the Colonel actually did want a third party, events in Springfield forced his hand. In the third week of July, Deneen announced that as a loyal Republican he felt obligated to support Taft. For a few days, McConnick continued to hope that a compromise was still possible and urged Roosevelt to avoid statements about a third party in the state. Roosevelt and his national campaign manager, Sen. Joseph M. Dixon of l\Iontana, however, must have sensed that the time for temporizing had pasl. Both blasted Deneen and called for a new state party with a full ticket. Chauncey Dewey, one of the few regulars to join the Progressives, took a parting shot of his own in a letter of resignation from the Republican state central committee. After that, the Illinois Progressive Party closed ranks. Merriam gave the keynote address at the state convention, at which Frank Funk, a popular state senator, was nominated for governor. Funk was from Bloomington in fcLean County, a former Yale football star, a gentleman farmer whose family owned the wellknown Funk Seed Company, and a prominent Republican politician. With Roosevelt and Funk at the head of the ticket, the Progressives were confident they could sweep the state. A host of problems faced the Progressives, however, once the euphoria of the convention faded. McCormick and John Bass, another wealthy young Chicagoan, began running the state party, and Merriam, Ickes, and the old LaFollette crowd refused to cooperate, forcing an election for party posts. In place of McCormick, the party picked Dewey; Bass was elected Cook County chairman, a face-saving move, but the job proved too much for him. At McCormick's request, Ickes took over the chairmanship early in September. The party could ill-afford this sort of rivalry and job juggling with the election less than three months away, and a sulking LaFollette

The Progressive Party's national convention at the Coliseum, August 5, 1912.

did not help matters either. Still angry at what he considered Roosevelt's political opportunism, LaFollette refused to support the new party at either the national or state level. He claimed to be neutral, but LaFollette's Weekly published articles friendly to Wilson and thus divided Progressive loyalties even further. And campaign money was hard to come by: most of the old benefactors either closed their purses when the Progressives bolted or, like Crane, supported ,vilson. Perhaps the biggest problem was the Democratic ticket, which in many respects was just as reform-minded and balanced as the Progressives'. Wilson offered Chicago voters his constructive record as governor of an industrialized, highly urban state, and his Southern background and moderate-to-conservative economic and social views were assets in wooing the sizeable number of downstate rural Democrats. For governor, the Democrats had nominated the Progressives' old friend, Edward F. Dunne, a former judge and Chicago mayor who had been a crusading liberal in his years in City Hall

from 1905 to 1907 and who enjoyed strong labor support. Despite it all, the Progressives remained optimistic. All the major issues that year gave an immediacy to their call for a new party and new directions in state and national politics. Their concern for the social and economic problems of the inner city and for women's rights-one of their party's planks promised suffrage to women-attracted many Democrats and such prominent settlement-house and reform workers as Jane Addams, who founded Hull-House on South Halsted Street in the early 1890s, and Raymond Robins and his wife, Margaret Drier Robins, who had worked at Graham Taylor's Chicago Commons on Grand Avenue. Roosevelt drew enthusiastic crowds on his whirlwind tour of the state in October, and the Progressives began to believe that an upset victory might just be possible after all. Even on election clay, that dream still looked real for a while. Roosevelt carried Chicago and the suburbs, Peoria, Lockport, Galesburg, and the whole tier of counties in northwest Illinois.

Chicago History

Progressives

But as the downstate vote came in, the race turned into a seesaw struggle which , ,vilson eventually won by a narrow margin, with Taft a distant third. Across the nation, the story was much the same. In the popular vote Roosevelt did quite well, with 4,126,020, compared to Wilson's 6,286,214 and Taft's 3,483,922, but he carried only 6 states and lost badly in the electoral vote, with only 88 votes to "Wilson's ,135. In Illinois, however, the Progressive Party won impressive victories, especially considering that it was a brand-new party. It captured some twenty-four seats in the lower house of the Illinois legis lature (the Democrats won sevcntytwo; the Republicans, fifty-one; and the Socialists, three). The following year, the Progressives accomplished procedural reforms that gave the assembly more control oYer its affairs; they also cooperated with the Democrats in the passage of a public utilities bill. Perhaps most important, they sponsored and successfully lobbied for a suffrage bill that gave Illinois the distinction of becoming the first state east of the Mississippi to grant voting rights to women. Old problems of party leadership persisted, however. The Lafollette and Roosevelt people kept eyeing each other suspiciously and a bitter dispute over two vacant seats in the U.S. Senate exacerbated the ill-will between the downstate and Chicago Progressives. In 1913, the state legislature still elected U.S. senators. The battered R epublican organization, seeking a horse trade, offered to back Funk for one seat in return for Progressive support for its candidate, R oger Sherman, for the other. For Funk, it was an exciting opportunity; for his downstate colleagues, many of whom had been reluctant to leave the R epublican Party in the first place, it was a glorious opportunity to mend fences. T he Chicago Progressives, however, refused to cooperate-they felt that dealing with the R epublicans was risky and might cost them the good will of reform Democrats-and Funk lost ou t in the voting. Given the necessity of charting an independent course, the decision was 8

Chicago History

perhaps sound. But the Chicagoans, with Roosevelt's blessing, had acted with a heavy hand. Relations were also strained at the national level. The party's national chairman was George ,!\T. Perkins, the outspoken financierformerly of J. P . Morgan & Company-and board member of such giant corporations as U nitecl States Steel and International Harvester. For Merriam and most of the Lafollette Progressives, Perkins was too closely iden tifiecl with big business aml not sufficiently interested in the party's social and economic reform programs. Perkins, however, was a big contributor to the party 's war chest and a close friend of Roosevelt, and Teddy continued to support Perkins against his critics. The simmering controversy, long kept within party circles, finally broke into public view in 19q when newspapers published a confidential letter from Amos Pinchot-brother of Gifford Pinchot, the popular chief of the Forest Service under Roosevelt and Taft, and one of the Progressive Party's leaders-attacking Perkins. By the fall of 19q, the Progressives knew they needed the most able and well -known candidates for the major races if they were to recapture the enthusiasm of the 1912 campaign. For U.S. senator from Illinois, in the first popula~ election since the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment the previous year, the party selected Raymond Robins, the popular state chairman who had a national reputation stemming from his varied career as an Alaskan adventurer, Chicago settlement worker, Evangelical Christian, and labor organizer. In other states, the Progressives chose other equally prominent figures for important races. In Pennsylvania, Gifford Pinchot was running; in California, Gov. Hiram Johnson and the San Francisco graft prosecutor Francis J. Haney; in Indiana, the golden orator, Albert J. Beveridge. They suffered bitter disappointment on election day-all but Johnson of California. In the other states, all the Progressive candidates were defeated. In Illinois, R obins finished a distant

third, and only three Progressives were elected to the state legislature. The Republican voters had returned to their old loyalties en masse. "The Old BulJ Moose certainly got an awful kick in the stomach," a party worker lamented shortly after election day. For all practical purposes, the Progressives were finished. But the party clung to life for the 1916 presidential nominations. Even then, the Colonel was interested in running only i[ he might somehow become the choice of both the Progressive and Republican parties. But when the two parties assembled in Chicago in separate but simultaneously held conventions, it became clear that the GOP wanted no part of Roosevelt or any other Progressive. Instead, they wanted to draft Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, a former governor of New York. Hughe, a reformer, had been appointed by Taft to the court of 1911 before the serious party bloodletting began. Highly respected, he had remained discreetly apolitical

Few knew that the end was near as the Progressives met at the Auditorium Theater for their national convention in 1916. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

since then: in short, he was an ideal fusion candidate. ·w ith Robins as the keynote speaker, the Progressives dutifully went ahead and picked Roosevelt anyway. Hughes was nominated by the Republicans only a few minutes later, and shortly thereafter a telegram from Roosevelt in Oyster Bay arrived at the convention. It read, in part: l Ai\£ VERY GRATEFUL FOR THE HONOR YOU CONFER ON ;\IE BY

NO;\IINATING ;\IE PRESIDENT.

CAN OT ACCEPT IT AT THIS TIME. I DO NOT KNOW 1

THE ATTITUDE OF THE CANDIDATE OF THE REPUB· LICAN PARTY TOWARD THE VITAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. THEREFORE, IF YOU DESIRE AN J;\lMEDIATE DECISION, I MUST DECLINE THE NOi\rINATION.

Chicago Hist o ry

Progressives

Roosevelt and Johnson

"For there is neither East nor West, Border nor Breed nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face Though they come from the ends of the earth." -Kipling Campaign poster for the Progreaelve Party ticket: Teddy Rooaevelt and Gov. Hiram Johneon of California

Chicago History

When Roosevelt's telegram was read to the convention, the delegates realized that this was indeed the encl of the Progressive Party. Many of them felt that Roosevelt had betrayed their trust. William Allan White described the scene in his autobiography: For a moment there was silence. Then there was a roar of rage. It was the cry of a broken heart such as no convention ever had uttered in this land before. Standing there in the box I had tears in my eyes, I am told. I saw hundreds of men tear the Roosevelt picture or the Roosevelt badge from their coats, and throw it on the floor.

None of Illinois' Progressive leaders, however, felt themselves betrayed. Like Roosevelt, they were no longer looking for quixotic crusades; once Hughes issued a statement that satisfied Roosevelt, they agreed that Hughes was acceptable. Ickes and Robins urged them to take no individual action until the national committee reported; then they went to confer with Roosevelt in Oyster Bay. Upon their return, the state central committee met and voted against fielding a ticket if Roosevelt withdrew. Three days later, Ickes and the rest of the national committee accepted Roosevelt's decision and endorsed Hughes by a vote of 32 to 6. Illinois' Progressives were promptly in the Hughes camp "with a bang," and Ickes was appointed to Hughes' national campaign committee. And so, in the summer of 1g16, the Illinois Progressive Party quietly expired. \,Vhere are the Progressives' achievements amid all the squabbling and defeats? Their support of political primaries broadened political derision making. \\'oman's suffrage became a plank in the 1912 platform, and the Illinois ProgressiYe Party saw it enacted into law the following year. Clearly, howeYer, the party's legacy is greater than its legislative record. Perhaps the most important thing about the party were its members them elve , many of whom achieved even great-

er prominence in later years. Merriam, who became an army captain in Italy in World War I, went to Washington during the New Deal. Harold Ickes served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of the interior throughout his four terms in office. Donald Richberg became general counsel for the National Recovery Administration. The Progressives were serious about American principles of government, and they were willing to push and shove our party system in order to make it work. Most were, in one way or another, attracted to the Progressive Party by a belief that democracy required a citizenry active in politics. If not all so outspoken as Ickes, the self-styled curmudgeon, the Progressives sought to serve their country well.

Harold L. Ickes, the old curmudgeon, during his term as secretary of the interior under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Steamships After 1871 BY A. A. DORNFELD

Steamships-particularly freighters-ruled the Great La,kes by the late nineteenth century. Their metal hulls) improved engines) and new deck designs turned the schooner into a recreation ship. which followed the Great Fire of 1871, Chicago's harbor was even more crowded than before with ships of all sorts: passenger vessels and freighters, steamers, schooners, and harbor tugs. Within the next two decades, the freighters became the most numerâ&#x20AC;˘ ous; passenger ships, while showy, were never in great abundance, and the sailing ships had already begun their long slide into oblivion. If the snappy patois of rocketry had been available a century ago, people would have been saying that all the systems were "go" for steamships. Reliable multicylincler engines squeezed far greater mileage out of a ton of coal than their wheezing, one-lunged predecessors. Metal hullsiron at first, steel a little later-were stronger and more durable than wooden ones. Screw propellers gave the ships better thrust than the earlier splashing side wheels. And a deck layout devised on the Great Lakes, which crowded the pilothouse and engine room into the extreme ends of the vessel, leaving a long stretch of deck with readily accessible hatches, was proving its value in fast loading and unloading of ore and grain cargoes. These vessels were called "two-island" ships, because the lofty structures at the bow and stern came into view first as they approached, like separate islands, wh ile the main deck was still hidden behind the bulge of the earth. Most of the mechanical innovations used on freighters were also helpful on the passenger ships, which DURING THE REBUILDING EFFORT

This article continues A. A. Dornfeld's history of steamships on the Great Lakes. His "Steamships: A H undred Years Ago" appeared in the Fall 1975 issue. 12

Chicago History

continued to grow in size and luxury as the years went on, until they almost rivaled the fanciest ocean liners. The passenger business on the Great Lakes also flourished for decades. Along with the growth in the size and reliability of the ships themselves, a number of other factors promoted the development of shipâ&#x20AC;˘ ping on the lakes. As the end of the nineteenth century neared, harbors were being dredged to accept larger and deeper ships. avigation aidslighthouses, bell buoys, light buoys, and lightships-warned of underwater dangers and marked channels. The barge canals- notably the Illinois & Michigan Canal, linking Chicago to the Mississippi River, and the Erie Canal, joining the Hudson River to the Great Lakes at Buffalo-which were too shallow to float a ship brought farm produce from the hinterland to the lake ports, from which it was transshipped. Even more important were the deepwater canals that integrated the lakes. At Sault Sainte ~farie on the U .S.-Canadian border, the Soo Canal bridged the difference in the height of Lake Superior on one hand and lakes Huron and Michigan on the other; the Welland Canal, alongside Niagara Falls, allowed shipping between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and manmade channels around the rapids in the St. Lawrence River provided access, if somewhat cramped, to the salt water beyond. Originally fitted with lock chambers only a hundred feet long, the St. Lawrence Seaway was repeatedly enlarged . Less than two decades ago, it became able to handle huge vessels. Even before the Civil \Var, a few small ships made their way to the Atlantic Ocean from Chicago and the other Great Lakes ports and sailed

to Eur;pe. In the period between the two world wars, a scant but steady flow of ships steamed to and from the ocean . Many flew Dutch or Norwegian colors, and several were enwrapped by tbe pleasant odor of coffee: these came from South America. None, of course, was over two hundred seventy feet long: the old St. Lawrence locks had grown to that size by 1go 1. Much innovative thinking has marked the development of lake ships during the past hundred years. Some of those innovations have remained; others have faded from the picture. The most striking was the "whaleback" steamer, of which almost fifty were built in the 1890s. Devised by a lake shipmaster of Scottish birth named Alexander McDougall, the strangely shaped whalebacks were said to be very economical to build and operate. Whalebacks looked like oversized cigars, with most of their bulk under water. Their engine rooms were propped up on their cone-shaped sterns, and they had a small platform up front, over an alligator-like prow. Sometimes this platform carried a wheelhouse, and sometimes the wheelhouse was well aft. Between the structures stretched a deck with no discernible edges, a deck which rounded downward in gentle curves to become the sides. This feature, it was argued, permitted dangerous waves to sweep harmlessly over the strange craft; moreover, the absence of bulwarks and rails prevented water from accumulating on the deck during storms. Such water could create serious structural suÂˇesses in ordinary ships. To some degree, the whalebacks anticipated the more modern "streamlining." The rounded fronts of the deckhouse cut wind resistance, while their snout-like prows thrust into head seas with little opposition, providing easier steering. Or so it was claimed. Because all the steel frames, or "ribs," of a whaleback were identical in size and shape, except for a few at each end, the ships were relatively cheap to build. In addition, whalebacks were, to a great extent, "seH-trimming." That is, the bulky cargoes dumped into their holds did not form a lofty ridge, as they did in

most steamers. The incurving sides saw to that. In other ships, such ridges necessitated handshoveling, or trimming, to prevent the cargo from shifting dangerously to one side when the waves were high. Trimming used manpower, and that was expensive. Some features of the whaleback were incorporated in subsequent ships even after the construction of the cigar-like craft ceased, such as steel hatch covers in place of the more vulnerable wooden ones. Wooden covers required canvases to achieve watertightness; in bad weather strong beams, or battens, had to be placed over the hatches as a precaution-hence the term, still in use, to "batten down the hatches" when trouble looms. Whalebacks were also equipped with electric deck-lighting systems in a period when electric lights were in their infancy. Most whalebacks had engines, but a few were built without any means of propulsion. These were towed as barges, from port to port behind other ships. Only one whaleback, the famed Christopher Columbus, was a passenger vessel. The Columbus was said to have carried more people in its forty-year life span than any other ship on the Great Lakes. With a passenger capacity sometimes set at 5,000, the ship was pure whaleback right up to the main deck, but upward of that rose two passenger decks, edged by endless verandas in the stratified fashion customarily used on passenger steamers on the Great Lakes. Eventually, a third deck was added. Speedy-the Columbus could cruise at twenty miles an hour-the ship was built to ferry holiday makers from downtown Chicago to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, situated in Jackson Park. After the Exposition ended, the Columbus plied to Milwaukee, making one round trip a day. It was known as a lucky ship because no life was ever lost aboard the vessel. Only one small accident, involving some damage to an upper deck, marred its record. The Columbus was dismantled for scrap in 1936, doomed by the family car and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Chicago History

The Christopher Columbus, the only panenger whaleback, at lta Ruah St. dock In 1905. The Columbus made a dally trip to and from Milwaukee, and a apectal Saturday. night excursion-featuring a dance band and refreshments "of the very best quallty"-cleparted Chicago at 10 P.M. The ship stayed in aervlce unHI 1938, when It waa dismantled for scrap.

One of the laat whalebacka, the Meteor, breaking Ice to enter the 81. Joeeph, Mich., harbor In Jan. 1992 Photo by J. Sherwin Murphy.

;

â&#x20AC;˘r

, â&#x20AC;˘1' ,

Steamships

Va, io.us 1easo11s have been given for the disappearance of freight whalcbacks !tom the lakes. Although they wc1e easily loaded al one time, they had relatively small ca1go capacity because much or thei1 length was wa,tcd on those long tape1i11g ends. ·1 h ir small curving deck op·n i11gs did not lend therm •Ives well Lo the highly mcc hani,cd loading methods which were coming into cv ·1 inn ·asing use. ncl they were 1claLively small their length avcrngcd about three hun ched feet at a time when ships were growing ever longer. Lik · countless other craft passenger and f1eigh1e1, steamer and schooner- a few whalebacks sank in the lakes. One, the Andasf<', filled to suck -,.ind from the lake bottom with a long, vaurum clcanc1 type device, disappca,ed near Chic.1go in a gale in the fall of 1929. But there was 110 question ,,bout thci1 ba,ic scawm 1hiness: n1mt whal ·bac ks ended their clays as scrap steel in a ship lneakc, \ yard. One slllvives as a musc·um ship at Supc1 im, \Vbconsin. ·1 he 1ailrnacl car fc, 1y, an entirely different sort <>f ship also s en fiJSt on the Great Lakes, 1eac heel its high 'S Lclcvelopmcnt here, although a few h;" c been comtr uc tcd cl,cwhe, c. Car re, ries did not mdinarily toud1 at the Pon of Chicago; inde ·d , they had an advers • elfen on the city's pmspe1ity. Freight ntl"'s which 01dinarily would have mmed b} rail arnund Lake l\fichigan's sm11h ·, 11 encl to travel between ,visconsin and ,\11< hig,111\ lowe1 pcnimula w ·re muted di,ectly ac rnss the lake imteacl, thus saving at least one l11111cl1ccl and fifty miles 011 each uip. Th 1c arc no slatistics showing how much f1eigl1L tra!Tic byp,1sscd Chicago in this way, but it was prnbably an imprn tanl amount. At on· time, the1 e wc1 e twenty-three car ferries crossing and recros.5ing Lake Michigan. Impressive, wall-sided craft, the car ferries ran in all sorts of weather, even in winter when the ice stopped other ships cold. Their main decks were only six or eight feet above the water and open al the stern to admit the freight cars. Each car ferry had four parallel sets of tracks running

along its length. Loading them was a tedious, timc-consl11lli11g process. First, one of the innet set of I racks, say the I igh t hand on , rec ivcd tl11 ·e or four cars. Then seven we1c backed onto the lcf1 hand inner track. ext, three or four 111me we,c placed on the I igh1 hand inner set. By this m ·am, the vessel was kept on a nca, ly even keel. Finally, the outside tracks were loaded with f1 eight cars in the same step by step 111a11ner. The nccc.~sity of all this fussiness was demon strated at least t wire, when lopsided car ferries capsi,ed ignominiomly at their do ks during lo.tcling. After all the freight cars were placed on board, they were secuiecl by very strong locking cl ·vices to prevent them from running amok in bad weath r. ;\ "sea gate" was then lowered anoss the open stc111 to p1evcnt waves from sweeping ac rnss the ship from behind. Thi sea gat · was a s ction of steel wall with xtensions ancl hinges by which it could be raised and lowered, somewhat like the visor on a knight's helmet. Because the payload of the car ferries-that is, their fr ·ight car·-stood well above the waterline, it did not- unlike ordinary cargo stowed far clown b low in othe1 vcs.sch help to ~labilize the ~hip. Jt was only theit broad beams and the skill of their ma\ter s that enabled the car ferries to stay upright in bad weather. The la\L generation of these uaft had an exceptionally high c learancc between the car deck and the one above, to admit the tall "piggy-back" freight ca,~ that ca11 iccl the highway trailers which came into wide use niter \Vo, Id \Var TL Many le, 1i('s ca, 1ice! automobiles as well a~ freight cars, and •,omc even hacl cabin~ fo1 pas~ngers. Designed for year-round use, these ships were very strong, and their bows were heavily reinforced so they could ram through massed ice. Their "ice-breaker" bows swept in a long curve from the waterline to the keel, enabling the ferry to drive right up onto the ice and to crush it downward with its weight. The scarred paint on the bows at winter's end demonstrated the Chicago History

Steamships

Navigating the Chicago River was often perilous : the Calcite , loaded with cement, ran aground at the Dearborn St. bridge in 1925. To dislodge the steamer, locks on the Illinois & Michigan Canal had to be closed to raise the water level in the river. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

Chicago History

torture the vessel had suffered, smashing lanes Lhrough ice fields. Changes in railroading, particularly the adoption of very long freight trains hauled by powerful diesel locomotives, are crediLed with making car ferries obsolete. It cost less, railroad men learned, to haul freight cars clear around Lhe southern end of the lake than to break up Lhe trains at lake ports, load the cars onto ships, and later unload them at receiving ports, even though it saved many miles of travel. The ice-breaking abiliLy of the car ferries was only incidental to their main purpose, but another type of icebreaker, whose chief function was to keep harbors and their approaches open as long as possible, was also developed on the lakes. Typical of these was the U.S. Coast Guard culter Escanaba, launched in 1934. The Escanaba struggled through heavy ice each spring to extend the navigation season until the United States entered World War II, when it was sent to the Atlantic. While on submarine patrol duty, it was torpedoed, and all hands except three were lost. Its place on the lakes was taken by the much larger and more powerful cutter Mackinaw, which was fitted with special equipment to fight very deep ice formations. These included a special propeller under the ice-breaking bow to suck water out from under and thus weaken piled-up floes as the vessel rode up onto them. It also had "rolling tanks" installed in each side of the ship. The tanks were crossconnected by large pipes, and the pumping of waler back and forth between them at a predetermined rhythm set the ship rolling from side to side, creating waves which broke the ice ahead. Even then, near the beginning of World Âˇw ar II, steam no longer completely dominated lake shipping-the Mackinaw was fitted with diesel engines. In the old days, steamers sometimes found themselves locked into solid ice when they risked the rigors of the "gambling season"-one last trip in December. In the gambling season, insurance was lifted and cars and trucks often

ventured out to the motionless vessels with supplies if the ice surface was not too hummocky to serve as a roadbed. Initially, the term Port of Chicago meant the docks in the river and the anchorages in the protected waters to the east. Loosely, however, the words came to include such nearby havens as Calumet, Buffington, Gary, Burns, and Indiana harbors. Congressional authorization for Calumet, the first of these, came in 1870. So fast was Calumet's growth, spurred by the burgeoning steel industries in the vicinity, that the tonnage handled there surpassed the downtown harbor's by 1907. As the other ports developed to handle the cargoes of specialized industries-steel, petroleum, and cement-the Chicago River conLinued to decline in importance. !Ls sharp bends embarrassed the longer ships, and its many bridges were hazards which were often rammed and damaged. Still, the river continued to carry a certain amount of salt, cement, newsprint, and miscellaneous material. In both world wars, a number of lake-built ships saw service in the Atlantic. During World War I, several were sent out to the Atlantic after alterations were made in their condensing systems. In World War II, frigates, submarines, patrol craft, and other relatively small vessels were constructed on the Great Lakes and taken to the sea. As the bridges on the Illinois waterway connecting Chicago to the Mississippi offered sufficient clearance for towboats only, special arrangements to lift the bridges had to be made each time a warship with its lofty deckhouse went down to the sea. One lake vessel, the Cleveland and Buffalo Line's Seeandbee, was converted from a luxury excursion vessel to a navy aircraft carrier. After workmen cleared away its many-leveled top decks for a 550-foot long flight deck, it emerged as the U.S.S. Wolverine, a ship used to train fledgling aviators based at Glenview Naval Air Station. Right at Chicago's front door, they learned the tricky technique of using a moving deck as a landing field. A small patrol boat Chicago History

Steamships

chugged along behind the carrier, weaving about in the turbulence of its wake, to pick up any unfortunates who did not quite make it. The eighteen thousand fledgling birdmen who trained on it made sixty-five thousand landings on the Wolverine's flight deck. Handling the improvised carrier--one of the few side-wheelers remaining on the lakes at that time-was slightly outside the scope of the expertise of regular navy personnel, so the ship's civilian skipper remained on board as a navigation officer. The Wolverine plodded its appointed rounds both winter and summer; in winter, a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker crushed a path for its relatively fragile hull. All of Chicago's harbors boomed in 1959, when the enlarged and deepened St. Lawrence Seaway was opened, and vessels flying the colors of nations throughout the world became common sights at all Great Lakes ports. Navy Pier, which projects into the lake near the mouth of the Chicago River, experienced a rebirth after lying dormant for decades after the advent of trucks, automobiles, and the Great Depression of the 1930s killed off the excursion trade and the "package freight" business. For several years after 1959, the use of the Seaway swelled. In the mid-196os, between six and seven hundred ships arrived in downtown Chicago and Calumet Harbor each year. More recently, changes in shipping methods and the continuing growth in the size of ocean ships have reversed this trend. There were fewer than three hundred arrivals in 1975. When the Seaway opened, according to William J. Barry, chief deputy director of the Port of Chicago, it was large enough to float 55 percent of the world's ships. Today, the proportion is much smaller. Calumet Harbor, where grain from America's midlands is transshipped into ocean ships, still does a vast foreign business, however. An important factor diminishing the Seaway traffic was the development of a process called "containerization." Freight is boxed in vast packing crates called "containers," all uniform 18

Chicago History

in size, which can be put directly onto freight cars and thence into ships which are heavily mechanized, automated, and computerized, and therefore incur only small stevedoring charges. Such ships are too large for the Seaway, and most of them unload at Atlantic ports or at Montreal, whence their cargoes are sent on by rail. Around the turn of the century, the larger freighters on the Great Lakes ran about four hundred feet, and their cargo capacity was about four thousand tons. Within a few years, six hundred footers, with three times the load capacity, became common. And the growth of freighters continued after World War II. There are now several lake ships a thousand feet long; others are being built. A somewhat startling recent development was the construction of a "tugbarge," a vessel whose engine room floated in a separate hull attached firmly to the stern of the main hull by clamping devices. The arrangement is said lO provide considerable operating economy. Other savings were effected after "\,Vorld ,var II when "bow thrusters" and "stern thrusters" were installed in freighters to reduce the need for harbor tugboats. Such thrusters are large water pipes set transversely at each end of the ship, well beneath the water line: by squirting heavy jets of water sidewise, they can move the vessel in either direction . The recent lengthening of the Poe Lock at the Soo Canal to 1,200 feet-the lock is named for an army engineer, not the author-poetmade the entry of such lengthy craft possible. Several of the very large ships operating on the Great Lakes were built at salt-water ports during World War II and came here by the Missis ippi River and the Illinois waterway. As the Illinois route was only nine feet deep, the ocean ships were lightened as much as possible, and then buoyed up even higher by flotation tanks attached on their sides. The constantly growing use of the Great Lakes as a highway of commerce has not been devoid of disasters, of course. Strandings, cap-

The Spartan, a railroad-car and automobile ferry, arriving at Ludington , Mich ., in 1965, after a 6Â˝ -hour trip from Milwaukee. Note the raised sea gate. The ferry's icebreaker bow made travel possible on Lake Michigan even in the worst weather. Photo by J . Sherwin Murphy.

A passenger steamer, the Theodore Roosevelt, leaving the Chicago River in 1935. The Great Depression and the family automobile eventually ended the once-popular excursion trade.

Steamships

s1Z1ngs, explosions, fires, "going missing," and b1eaking bodily in two have all taken a toll. While modern building methods and improved navigation have cut the <1nnual toll, some losses sti II oc u r. Terri fie fa 11 gales cause much of the woe. One such struck the l<tke Âˇ on November 9, 1913. It sw<1llowed up 10 ships and drowned 235 men; there were no survivors. And on a pleasant summer day in 1 ~)I 5, the excursion steamer Eastland capsi1.ed at the Clark Street dock, drowning over eight hundred persons, many of them employees of the Western Electric Company setting out on a holiday trip. It was commonly held that mishandling of the ship 's water ballast, plus the sudden rush of passengers to one side when a rain squall struck the other, caused the disaster, but no satisfactory explanation was ever ofiered by any of the many investigations which followed. The extremely long but relatively narrow lake ships repeatedly broke into two during the early days of steel shipbuilding. A close study of the stresses which caused the breakings has reduced the danger considerably, although such ruptures still occur now and then. As recently a 1975, radio signals from the 700-foot Edmund Fitzgcrald halted without warning as it progressed through Lake Superior laden with iron ore. Subsequent investigation, made by means of a remote-control underwater device operating at a depth around five hundred feet, indicated that the Fit zgerald had fractured and broken so swiftly that no distress message cou Id be radioed. In somewhat imilar fashion, the Carl Bradley sank in 1958 1 and the D.]. Morrell in 1968. Lake freighters are not totally rigid structures, odd as this may seem to landsmen, despite the many tons of steel embodied in them. When a lake ship meets a large wave head-on, the wave's

Lengthening the locks on the Great Lakes' canals allowed for larger ships to dock in Chicago. The Joseph F. Young, a rebuilt ocean steamer brought up the Mississippi River and the Illinois waterway for service on the Great Lakes, heads north on the South Branch of the Chicago River in 1957. Photo by Robert D. Stanley.

progress along the length may be followed a Lhe deck line "springs up" in a moving curve, a foot or even more in height. This type of flexibility is beld to be an element of strength rather than weakness by engineers and seamen. A tota II y sti fI ship, they declare, would be brittle as glass and would fracture readily. /\!most a cenwry ago, Rudyard Kipling, writing about this country, expressed admiration for the efficiency of a mechanism which lifted grain out of a lake ship's hold. Since then, highly speciali1.ed loading and unloading equipment at the dockside has kept pace with the improvements i11 ships. One ore-loading machine lifted cars bodily, tilted them, and dumped them into the mouths of chutes which pointed to the steamer's hatches. A typical unloading machine consists of a grab bucket-its capacity, several tons-which is lowered on a Jong vertical beam into a ship's hold . After the bucket takes a bite, it is hoisted up and then carried sideways to dump its load on a dock. Throughout, the operator in charge rides in a cage attached to the bucket-up, down, and sideways-throughout its travels. Cargo can be moved in and out of ships at the rate of 10,000 tons per hour. In less than a day, even the largest, 59,000-capacity vessel can be filled or emptied. One highly specialized type of lake ship, requiring no unloading equipment at dockside at all, was developed several decades ago. The cargo of such ships moves ashore on long conveyor belts, sliding atop a Jong steel boom which normally rides parallel with Lhe kee l but which can be swung out at right angles. A conveyor inside Lhe ship carries the cargo along the ship's length to an elevator inside the hold which feeds the unloading conveyor belts. Invention has contributed much to curbing the dangers and difficulties of guiding ships through the open reaches of the Great Lakes and their often fog-choked narrow passages. Radio-telephone communication between pilothouses of steamers on possible collision courses reduces the chance of disaster. Radar lends an Chicago History

The J. R. Sensibar, a self-loader, in Calumet Harbor, 1962. Photo by J. Sherwin Murphy.

eye to pierce the thickest haze. Gyrocompasses and gyrosteering devices which take no notice of vagaries in the earth's magnetic field and minimize the steering enor which used to harrass ship handlers are now standard. Schools of navigation teach young seamen the elements of their profession . Widely separated directional lanes keep vessels on opposite courses well apart. The thrust of progress has also been felt in the engine room. The "push and pull" engines of the steam locomotive type which doomed the sailing ships a century ago are losing out on the Great Lakes. High-pressure steam turbines, which spin like a windmill but with far more force, are becoming common. So are diesel engines, which operate much like an automobile engine but which burn fuel oil rather than gasoline. It is difficult to predict the future of shipping on the Great Lakes, and even on the Chicago R iver. There is now a petition before the Interstate Commerce Commission to remove the last car ferry on Lake Michigan from service. But chief deputy port director Barry believes that the slump in river traffic has ceased: he holds that such traffic will remain at its present vol ume in the immediate future. For many 22

Ch icago History

years, until the Seaway opened, Navy Pier had been in very little use, except for small pleasure craft. Experiments with smaller container ships have been made in an attempt to maintain the volume of traffic handled by the Seaway. There is also some talk of enlarging and deepening the Seaway, but such talk is very tentative indeed. A presage that the fleet owners' dream of a twelve-month navigation season on the lakes may yet come true occurred during the winters of 1974 and 1975. In each of those years, a fully laden ship, shepherded by two large icebreakers, battered its way through Lakes Superior and Michigan to carry Minnesota ore to local steel mills. Now that seamen have shown that such voyages can be made, accountants are trying to determine if they are economically justified. And Riley O'Brien, who recently retired as boss of Inland Steel's company fleet, states, "No one can say what lies in the future for lake navigation . Maybe there'll be ships 1,100 feet long or even longer. The Poe Lock could take them. The Army Engineers have the last word on that-they run the locks. I can't say what developments are coming. But I am sure of this. It is certain that something exciting lies ahead."

A Temple to Women's Genius: The Woman's Building of 1893 BY JEANNE MADELINE WEIMANN

The w;rld) in a sense) discovered woman at the World)s Columbian Exposition. The Woman)s Building and the exhibits from more than thirty countries were a reality on'{y because of the perseverance and hard work of the "ladies. n than the discovery of Columbus, which we are gathered together to celebrate, is the fact that the General Government has just discovered woman," said Bertha Honore Palmer at the opening ceremonies for the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. And she added in passing that, had it not been for Queen Isabella, Columbus' ships would never even have set sail. Palmer's address was a brilliant coup for the Exposition's Board of Lady Managers, over which she presided. The Board had originally been created as little more than a "gallant gesture." However, now its "ladies" were challenging the chauvinism of the very gentlemen who appointed them, as they propelled forward their plan to turn a world's fair into a world's force for women's rights. Their idea-a brash one for the 189os-found its home in a controversial building designed and managed by women. A showcase for the creative and humanitarian achievements of women from over thirty countries, its ulterior intent was to secure the kind of social changes still being advanced by feminists today. There had been special women's exhibits at two earlier fairs, the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 and the New Orleans Cotton Centenary in "EVEN MORE IMPORTANT

Jeanne 1\ladeline Weimann has written on women 's history for Science Researd1 Associates, the journal Women, and the Chicago Women's Directory, of which she was copublisher and coeditor. Ms. Weimann also conceptualized "Forgotten Contributions," a women 's history show whim toured Illinois last year. She is currently working on an anthology of Woman's Building documents.

1884 and 1885, but the lack of government support had compelled the women to rig up their own "sideshows." Out of such bitter disappointment grew the conviction that women should play a prominent and official part in management of the 1893 fair-and as early as 1889, Susan B. Anthony began agitating to see that it came to pass. Since several influential officials had declared that suffragists should have nothing to do with the fair, the suffragist leader, then nearing seventy and as tactically shrewd as ever, decided to move discreetly. As a result, few knew it was she who was behind the organizing effort. She did not win entirely, however. Anthony had wanted women on the management board, but a commission of men only was established. These men were to appoint 115 women from the various states and territories to a separate Board of Lady Managers, a curious title. And Susan B. Anthony was not among the appointees, although the Lady Managers as a whole were fairly well chosen. As Bertha H onore Palmer wrote: "There has been much unfavorable comment upon the somewhat ridiculous title of the Board, and with justice, but the fault is not with the women. Its membership comprises as many representative workers in the active industries of the country as if it were composed of men." Included were doctors, lawyers, merchants, and farmers, as well as suffragists, temperance workers, and social workers of the Jane Addams School. Since Bertha Palmer was the queen of Chicago's society, people watched skeptically as she moved into the responsible post of president of the new board. It was less well known that she was a forward-thinking philanthropist who used Ch icago History

Woman's Building

her influence to help women's trade unionism and lo advance other reform causes in Chicago. She now saw an opportunity to advance the cause of her less fortunate sisters around the world and brought her brilliant executive ability to the task. Newsmen derided the new Board as an "expensive folly"-a sentiment seconded by the Isabella Society, a radical feminist group incorporated even before the Board's existence that did not want its own plan for a women's fair headquarters pre-empted. Nevertheless, even as the Chicago Herald was recommending that the Board's life be as "brief as it is illusory," Palmer was busily planning how to expand its powers and to make it one of the most important entities of the fair. Its original duty was to appoint one or more jurors to categories in which female labor was represented, but Palmer and her cohorts kept pressing the commission for a further elaboration of their role, until the commission president himself came before the Board. In a speech full of evasive flatteries, he said, "We want you to assert yourselves." And that was just what the Lady Managers did. In short order, they gained jurisdiction over everything to do with women at the fair. But some conflict was inevitable in so diverse a body. A small Palmer-led committee became the de facto power center when the government refused funds for frequent meetings of the "expensive and u nwieldy" 115-woman board. The Board's secretary, Phoebe Couzins-a pioneering suffragist who had hoped that one of her own would be elected to the presidential position-thereafter described Palmer's committee as a "resplendent planet" and her "satellites." In the wake of Couzins' ultimate dismissal, Palmer, with characteristic cool and diplomacy, gently urged the Board onward: Are we great enough to join hands, and move forward like a band of sisters, giving up our own individuality and throwing ourselves into this great movement? Individuals are but insignificant atoms. It is the grand purpose which is everything. 24

Ch icago History

She herself immersed herself in the "grand purpose" tirelessly and, while the newspapers were having a field day with the controversial tidbits Couzins had fed them, Palmer was off to Springfield to get additional funds from the stale for the work. Soon, nearly every state and territory had pledged funds-enough to make the ·woman's Building a reality. A prominent male architect offered to design the building, but the women decided on choosing a member of their own sex and initiated a national contest to find her. Over a d01en designs were submilled, six so good it was difficult lo make a decision. None was by a woman over twenty-five. The plan awarded first prize belonged lo twenty-three year old Sophia Hayden, the first female architecture graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hayden had one of the £air's more challenging architectural assignments. The area she had to work with was 400 by 200 feet, less than two acres, although some of the £air's larger buildings sprawled to over thirty. She had to plan her space economically and still hew to the £air's general architectural theme, which had a rather grand scale-a difficult job. She proved more than equal to the task. Called to Chicago to superintend the execution of her design, she displayed considerable technical skill in complying with the last-minute changes, such as the novel addition of a roof garden, urged upon her by the Lady Managers. Soon the entire building, except for "mere manual labor," could be pointed to as women's handiwork; female sculptors, interior decorators, furniture makers, stained-glass cutlers, woodcarvers, and painters answered the call. After completing her work, the bright, quiet woman of Spanish heritage returned to her Boston architectural career, taking with her a $1,000 honorarium and a medal from the Exposition judges for her building's "delicacy of style, artistic taste, geniality, and elegance of the interior hall." The Ch icago headquarters of the Board of Lady Managers, in its zeal to provide an

Bertha Honore Pal mer, president of the Board of Lady Managers of the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1891. The manuscript collection of the Chicago Historical Society contains the only large collection of the Board 's records, including minute books, correspondence, and reports.

emerging national network with a centralized spur-to-action, quickly developed a volume of correspondence second only to the Exposition's Department of Publicity. "It is intended Lhat the Woman's Building and all its contents shall be the inspiration of women's genius," read one of its first circulars. The president of the Connecticut woman's board, for one, read the edict with dismay but, as the barrage of communications continued, "recommending, urging, outlining, planning, suggesting, and asking questions," she felt compelled to raise her sights. Buoyed by its success with the Woman's Building, the Board expanded its organizing campaign overseas-but its preliminary queries brought "pathetic answers." The Board wondered how governments could admit to conditions that reflected so poorly on themselves, as they learned that various female populaces were forbidden by local prejudice from participating in public affairs; had not the brains to carry on the work; or tended only to ride in the gardens. Another tactic, to have the secretary of state act as personal emissary for its cause, was delayed when he fell ill. And so, in the summer of 1891, Bertha Palmer went very quietly abroad to discuss the possibilities of the Exposition, woman-to-woman. At her first stop, London, she won a private audience with Princess Christian. Though her Royal Highness proved rather Victorian in her views regarding women, Palmer nevertheless persuaded her- along with England's more radical royalty-to rally to the undertaking. In France, she won over an at-first skeptical Madame Carnot, wife of the president, by explaining the idea of the Woman's Building in discreetly worded French. In Austria, which had broken off relations with the United States over a tariff dispute, she managed to gain not only entry, but the support of its Princess Windermere. After Palmer's return, more European leaders were written to, and even more prominent women of " large heart and brain" realized that the fair could open new markets for the work of Chicago History

The Woman's Building under construction, Dec. 16, 1891. View is of the east entrance.

needy craftswomen. Their responses reflected the fact that the needlework arts, largely because of the work of charitable institutions, were experiencing an international revival. For example, women left destitute by the last RussoTurkish war sold their exquisite oriental embroideries through the Turkish Compassion Fund. For impoverished Irish cottage-industry workers, the sale of their "bits of lace" at the fair would mean their daily bread. By the spring of 1892, the ÂŁair's journal Puck was reporting that "From ocean to ocean, [women] are working like Trojans for the Exposition." The fruits of all this industry soon begun pouring into national headquarters, but examples of "rare and unusual" female endeavors were few and far between. The urgent solicitations of the Lady Managers sometimes met with questionable success: for example, they had to politely turn down the female embalmer who wished to exhibit a corpse. Where to put the never-ending stream of women's work became an urgent problem. The Board of Lady Managers had already decided against using the Woman's Building for exhibits; in earlier, segregated exhibits, much valuable female farm and factory work, because done in conjunction with men, had not been credited. The Board had voted, instead, for fair-wide exhibits containing plaques drawing attention to women's share in each, and a question in each application asked what percentage of the proposed exhibit represented female labor. 26

Ch icago Hist ory

However, even though the local women's boards were forwarding only submissions of "marked excellence," the departmental buildings, it seemed, would be able to hold but a fraction of the lovely offerings. The problem was compounded by the giant manufacturers, whose wealth allowed them to take over almost all the available space. For example, the Board had to raise a staunch defense when a female's self-threading needle, though ingenious, was denied a spot because both it and the money its inventor could lavish on its display were relatively small. Finally, as foreign exhibitors became indignant over the complicated set of classifications that did not contain a separate category for "woman," it became necessary to house exhibits in the vVoman's Building. Thi turn of events, the Board now reasoned, was just as well, for the expectations about its building had reached such heights that it would no doubt cause widespread disappointment if womanâ&#x20AC;˘~ work was not shown there. Although the Woman's Building had been the first up on the grounds, the immensity of the work, plus Chicago's capricious weather, held up completion of the interior. Typical was the experience of a decorator who labored for months in her New Haven studio on the Connecticut Room's interior: It took three hundred pounds of white lead to paint the frieze, all of which I mixed, strained, colored, and spread myself because I felt the necessity of its being, so far as possible, the work of a woman's

Woman's Building

hands, ;s well as of a woman's head. When I arrived [in Chicago to place the decorations] I found the roads around the fairgrounds impassible for mud, the building so damp and cold as to benumb the most enthusiastic worker, and the rain pouring down in almost continuous torrents. For 5 weeks I lived in rubber boots and mackintosh, cold, wet, and hungry from morning until night.

As opening day approached, chaos mounted. Up on the roof restaurant, workers perturbed by the lack of storage space and an elevator threatened to build a chute that would deposit all the debris on the lawn below. On the first and second stories, Lady Managers bustled busily about, their words of advice nearly drowned out by the squeal of a Japanese saw here, the pounding of a frontier hammer there. Only the Englishwomen, with an air of illconcealed superiority, had managed to transform a sea of packing boxes into a bright and orderly display. However, the unreadiness was not unique to the Woman's Building, and it did not deter the crowds from the May 1 dedication. Within minutes of its opening, the ceremonial hall was fairly trembling with the ant1opation, expressed in a multitude of tongues, that a new era for woman was about to dawn. On the flower-bedecked platform, surrounded by Board members and international guests, sat Bertha Palmer. , Vhite handkerchiefs fluttered as she rose to give her now-classic speech, in which she noted "freedom and justice for all are infinitely more to be desired than pedestals for a few ." Greetings were then offered by spokeswomen from Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Russia. The ceremony ended with Palmer driving home the Building's la t nail, a golden nail crafted by Montana women, a replica of which later became a favorite fair souvenir. After the last blow, a female minister pronounced the benediction. The ,voman's Bui lding was situated near a main entrance, its pristine presence a soothing retreat from the racy clamor of the nearby inter-

Soph ia Hay den, arch itect of t he Woman 's Bu il ding . Fro m Harper's, November 1892.

national amusement's thoroughfare. Untold female arrivals insisted on making a beeline straight for the "home of my sex," even if it meant abandoning an escort who had designs on the Machinery or Transportation buildings. From a distance, the winged angels on its roof beckoned, representing, to at least one observer, not "female's angelic side" so much as "emancipated womanhood soaring far above the sordid cares and petty trifling things which for centuries past formed the sum and substance of women's lives." A favorite approach to this "flying bui lding" was by gondola, for the lagoon fronting the entrance mirrored the shimmering ivory columns and cast a Venetian-like spell. O n sunny days, visitors promenaded on the airy arcades which ran the length of the building. The roof Ch icago History

garden had to be expanded for the guests who discovered the cafe, originally intended only for Woman's Building personnel, and the pleasure of sipping tea while peering through the hanging vines to the ten-foot-high statues on the roof, sculpted by nineteen-year-old Alice Rideout. The Court of Honor, which soared seventy feet through the full height of the building, was crowned by a richly ornamented skylight that glimmered rays onto the names of female history makers, enscribed in gold on the panels below. Clustered around the central water fountain were the busts of revered female activists, including one that Susan B. Anthony had temporarily balked at sitting for because the sculptor her friend had commissioned, albeit a suffragist, was male. Blanketing the walls were the paintings of women from the best international schools. It was for this room that the famous avant-garde artist Mary Cassatt painted her mural Modern Woman, using a gigantic glass-roof studio she designed especially to facilitate the monumental work. On the opposite tympanum hung a companion mural, Primitive 28

Ch icago Hi story

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies' mural Primitive Woman adorned the north tympanum of the Court of Honor. The names of famous women ringed the Court above the arches.

Woman, painted by another American expatriate in Paris, Mary Fairchild MacMonnies. The reviews of the murals, like the smaller paintings, ranged from congratulatory to disparaging. In general, the critics did not understand Cassatt's feminist allegory of woman pursuing fame and plucking the fruits of knowledge. They opted instead for the "more lucid" depiction of MacMonnies' women evolving from beasts of burden to sowers of grain. One particularly scathing male critic noted that though the two women lived in the same city and were commissioned to do complementary works, "we see nothing but evidences of a desire on the part of each to ignore or even to repulse the other. Mrs. MacMonnies addresses the eye in a gentle and insinuating fashion. Miss Cassatt does not address the eye at all-she

Woman's Building

assaults it." However, Cassatt herself noted that her painting was not intended to show an "impudent disharmony" but, rather, the "charm of womanhood.'' The historic Keppel collection of etchings, where women concentrated on technique rather than color, was more warmly received. However, it was in the needlework arts that women made a truly magnificent showing, the work providing a universal thread drawing together a diverse sisterhood from Sweden to Siam. The crowning exhibit was the Queen of Italy's own collection of handmade heirloom lace, dating back to the ancient Etruscan tombs. It was guarded by a high iron fence and Italian soldiers. There were, as well, the unique offerings of each land, ranging from the stuffed kangaroos of Australian taxidermists to a convent door so elaborately carved that it took cloistered Russian nuns years to complete. The sense of democracy predominated throughout. Japan had sent a full-scale replica of the Fumi-dai, i.e., boudoir, of a lady of leisure; the demonstration by a Welsh peasant woman, working at a loom, paid tribute to those who toiled. In Spain's exhibit, the jeweled sword of Queen Isabella lay near the neatly rolled cigarettes of the Spanish women who made them. Baskets, woven tight enough to hold water by Indian women who were the last of their tribe, sealskins dressed by Eskimos, and African jungle mats graced the ethnological exhibit, where a plaque announced that women were the first inventors of the industrial arts, the men taking up the work only after money could be made from it. A display of modern woman's inventiveness focused upon beef manglers, cake beaters, and other liberating kitchen devices, though one of the most impressive, a dishwasher, was not at the exhibit at all but instead busily at work in restaurant kitchens all around the grounds. Also missing were some cumbersome offerings, including a sofa-bathtub and a haymaker. They

were, however, listed, along with thousands more, in a ledger compiled after a thorough scrutiny of the U.S. Patent Office's records. Spearheads, beads, and gourd utensils were among the curios displayed by African explorer May French-Sheldon. Perturbed by inadequate accounts of female tribal life and spurred on by freely offered advice that it was "outside of women's legitimate province" to do so, she had personally organized and equipped a two hundred-man caravan. After leading it through thirty-five friendly and hostile tribes, she had lost only one man-to a lion- and successfully circumvented the crater-cupped Lake Cha, a feat that had baffled a century of male explorers. Red Cross nurse Kate Marsden exhibited the saddle she sat in and the foul, dry bread she ate on her bumpy, cold journey by sleigh and horseback into outermost Siberia to find a herb reputed to cure leprosy. Also on display was a model of the leper village she had built after discovering the herb to be of no value. Equally dauntless were the expeditionists who furnished the Records R oom exhibit; at the Board's urging, they had crisscrossed their states and countries to unearth data so exhaustive it put professional government statisticians to shame. A sea of wall charts, tables, and albums offered a sweeping indictment of the prejudices that kept female breadwinners doing "the wearying work of the world, at prices that will not support life." At the same time, documents revealed the unheralded accomplishments of those who had founded some of the world's first woman-run schools and charities or ventured into male-dominated fields like blacksmithing and stagecoach driving. Adjoining was the Women's Library, its handcarved English oak bookcases overflowing with titles as varied as The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, Life in the Insect World, H appy Homekeeping, How 6 Women Made Money, and The Familiar Letters of Abigail Adams. The cataloger of the seventy thousand volumes had discovered a persuasive argument for wornCh icago History

The Children's Building, located just south of the Woman's Building, had programs for all ages and lectures for adults. Bertha Palmer's private office. The fish nets were the work of New Jersey anglers.

en to keep their own names as she struggled to index authors who had variously gone by the name of father, mother, and a succession of husbands. The international success of women writers was exemplified by a display of fortyseven editions-in Dutch to Armenian-of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. The reception rooms, meant for private gatherings, had been so imaginatively decorated by various state committees that they were opened for public viewing. The California Room attracted speci;il attention with its cactus-inspired scheme, but perhaps the most unique decor was to be found in Bertha Palmer's private office. She had happily accommodated the New Jersey fisherwoman's display that the Fisheries Building said it could not by having fish nets hung from her ceiling and sinker lines canopied over her desk.

Woman's Building

The loggia on a chilly day in 1893. The statue in the background, one of many that graced the roof, was sculpted by Alice Rideout.

Chicago History

Woman's Building

In the Model Kitchen, where women could ogle a gas range and other newfangled conveniences, corn pudding, muffins, and the like could be sampled each morning while a lecturer explained how any meal might be improved by the addiLion of corn. As the ladies had hoped, Lhe demonstration soon led Lo an unexcelled demand for the overabundant product. The British Training School exhibit displayed the numerous advances made by nurses for the sickroom in the mere twenty years in which the field had been recognized as a profession. The only black Lady Manager on the state boards, Imogene Howard, arranged an exhibit which included native West African jewelery and the first book bound by a black woman. Ironically, the black woman's greatest contribution was not on display; it was Ida Âˇw ells' book-long indictment of the ÂŁair's-and the era's-racism, Th e Reason TVh)' the Colored American is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition. The exh ibits of over fifty women's groups were housed in the Organizations Room: they included displays about civic reform, missionary work, art and science clubs, organizations for "fallen women," and the YWCA, together comprising a crazy quilt of squares and triangles. Robin's-egg blue curtains on brass rails, the sole d ividers, helped to create a sisterly atmosphere, and comfortable settees invited women to sit and chat or read recruiting literature. The largest space was alloted to the largest organization of the day, the , ,voman's Christian Temperance Union, which made worldwide progress in its battle against liquor as thousands of men, women, and children added their names to a mammoth temperance petition. A suffrage exhibit featured a flag with just one star-representing Wyoming, the only state in which women had gained the r ight to vote. "Six months of da ily intellectual feasts for women" were offered in the Assembly R oom, a sympathetic platform for advanced femin ine 32

Chicago History

views at a time when women were still being jeered off the public podium. Susan B. Anthony spoke twice, each time drawing such crowds that the suffragists had to swallow their pride and enlist the aid of men to stem the masses. The theme of women's rights crept into many of the talks. A German professor spoke about the poor prospects of marriage in her land, the result of a scarcity of liberated men. A Chicago home economist complained that though homekeeping involved fourteen to fifteen hours of work a day, it is a "sort of nonentity" with "no money in it." A Stockholm educator advocated needlework classes for boys. A Philadelphia Tim es newswoman reported that she preferred the nightbeat to slaying back at the office pasting fash ion pages. A minister quipped sarcastically that, in a painting titled Th e Landing of the Forefath ers, some of the fathers bore an uncanny resemblance to mothers. The Âˇworld's Congress of Representative , vomen, the largest assemblage of female thought yet convened, packed 600 speakers into one week. Those who elicited greatest interest from the tightly corseted, hoop-skirted female audience were the speakers who "not only advocate dress reform but have donned it." Their waistlines, cut generously to allow breathing room, and their skirts, raised above the ankle to avoid the mud, seemed shocking yet sensible. An innovative annex to the ,,voman's Building was the nearby child-care center. Very early, the Lady Managers foresaw this necessity but, upon inquiry, they discovered that the male commissioners had not. The gentlemen said they would reserve space on the grounds for such a place if the women could, within sixty days, come up with the funds they themselves had neglected to set aside. The women at once embarked on an ambitious fund-raising campaign that brought in donations from parents, educators, even the children themselves. Unlike the notorious "hatcheck for babies" of an earlier Paris expos ition, the Chi ldren's Building was intended to serve as a model that migh t

1/,•/

~JHrn : t'I:::, ~Htu.l.•a.uLH II b,, t Iua Li;-:J ,;11,,

'I',I /tt,/(//11/f 'I',, 1/11/f/.J./II If. '-' · 11 l'l//llr II;/,, (lllif:11·1/1 n,/,1/1i1 ,i ly 1111. ' /,/1/ //,~ rI,; ll'7l'I.J.~ 1///,1 i/;11/N/./~1/t.1 rj.r /11111mr. m,j,n JI,,., Di,loumoftionm.wldlfttdt1ttt //,1 11/1/;

1tjl111

/,1111iy

f I

l,m jtlt1/1n//, ,J1111l0111n/1/rt/,lfl/ //,,1/ 11

11.1

11J.;ol,1/111

1/;;;; 11/,,/1/1/

•

IIJ/tjt111/t

.,/,,//

I.In jir11ltll'h111 HJHIfl//1rlt1 /I

111/111) 1·rn1~·r1/ /hi /!1'11111/ 111111111111/r,1!1111/ //,1 "/1iu/, / ' 1 .1';1111 nil1/;;;/(, ltw1!1i1111: 1jt1.11lti 11. 1 1\ ilJ11'. IJ f/1( lm11,I, rm1/.,,,1/ //,1.J rim; r/ /,1.'~1. rir ;/,,'I rlr rj l./,,i,171. I;..,,,,_.,;, ,j#.,

,,,,,,.,.f/,.

a,."

/.,.,,,,t

i.J ,,,;,t ,. 'l;.,,,.,,l ,;~- ·1,

spur similar ventures in communities back home. Its accommodations, carefully suited to each age group, included a well-tended nursery, a roof-top playpen with international toys, woodworking workshops, lectures on and follow-up tours to foreign exhibits, and a fully equipped gym. Lectures were given daily for parents on the best nineteenth-century childrearing methods. Another project was a dormitory for single working women who might otherwise have been deterred from coming for lack of safe, inexpensive lodging. Set up as a self-sufficient enterprise, it gave women the chance to build their own lodging by investing in shares and later proved so successful that its "stockholders" gained not only roQm and board, but profits as well. Attendance mounted until the Woman's Building swarmed daily with visitors. During the last six weeks, Bertha Palmer had to hold public receptions several times a week to satisfy the visitors' demand to congratulate her personally on the Board's work. umerous awards were presented to the participants themselves. Especially prized was the artisan's "certificate of merit," first proposed by the Board to rectify the practice of giving awards only to manufacturers while those who actually fashioned the objects went unrecognized. Although the manufa cturers lobbied again t the idea, the labor

0· ,,;,. ,.

Certificate of Merit awarded by the Board of Lady Managers to deserving artisans.

unions rallied to it, and the treasured certificates later proudly decorated homes as far away as Japan. As for the eighty thousand exhibit articles, they were-thanks to a female packing-system expert-speedily returned to the four corners of the earth. And the Woman's Building itself, like other fair buildings made of imitation marble staff not meant to endure, soon disappeared into the grassy landscape of Jackson Park. However, the Board was not unaware of its work's historical importance. Books from the library, donations, Bertha Palmer's salary, and the proceeds from the sale of "Isabella" souvenir coins were all set aside for a permanent women's museum. Unfortunately, the Panic of 1893 was already under way, and the memorial building never materialized. Still, the Woman's Building's influence lingered long after. It stimulated over a million women-most from small country towns-to expand their horizons. Susan B. Anthony declared that the six months had perhaps done more for the cause than a half century of agitation. Hopes were high. One Woman's Building speaker proclaimed, " ever in the history of nations has there been such a revelation of women's capabilities and deeds as in this gala year. But commencement is almost over. The world has seen, heard, and applauded. , r\l'ith the end, comes a beginning." Chicago History

Mollie Netcher Newbury: The Merchant Princess BY MARGARET CORWIN

The Boston Store, once one of the Loop's busiest department stores, was run for nearly half a century by the legendary Mollie Netcher Newbury. She went directly from managing her household to administering the multimillion-dollar business.

10, 1904, shortly after the death of Charles Netcher, the Chicago Tribune wrote:

ON JULY

How is it that a woman whose role for fourteen years has been the all-engrossing one of wife, mother and the active head of her own large establishment, can suddenly, without a word of warning take over the management of a business involving millions, with absolute confidence in her ability to succeed and without a single false or hesitating [step] move in grasping the details of the work before her?

Such was the legend of Mollie Netcher Newbury, one of the few influential busines.swomen in Chicago's history. She took over the Boston Store, a large Loop department store, after her husband's death and expanded it until its peak sales volume was five times greater than any under his management. She also became a power in downtown real estate. Mollie Alpiner was born in Chicago on April 15, 1867, to Morris and Ernestine Alpiner. Her father, an Austrian emigrant, was a cigar maker and tobacconist. At sixteen, she was a clerk at the predecessor to the Boston Store, C. W. & E. Pardridge; Charles Netcher was then involved in the store's management. Netcher was a Chicago-style Horatio Alger. Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1852, he worked as a cash boy and bundle wrapper for Edward and C. W. Pardridge, and came to Chicago

Margaret Corwin writes technical reports, publishes a newsletter, and manages a research service for the American Society of Planning Officials. Her avocation is the history of Chicago's women. 34

Ch icago History

with them in 1869. Two years later, when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the entire drygoods inventory, Netcher suggested building a shack at 22nd and State streets to sell their merchandise then en route by rail to the store. In one account of his life, Netcher is quoted as saying, "Everybody in Chicago needs to refurnish, to buy new clothes. This isn't tragedy, but opportunity. Let's reopen, if only in a shack to take advantage of the city's need for what we can find and sell." The South Side enterprise was an immediate success, and N etcher became a partner. The Pardridges soon became more interested in wheat deals, so they left the management of the dry-goods store to Charles. His capacity for work was legendary. When he became manager of the store, etcher was said to have worked eighteen hours a day and slept on the counters so as not to waste time getting to work the next morning. Netcher gradually purchased a larger interest in the enterprise, becoming the sole owner within five years. He named the business the New Store and later the Boston Store, taking advantage of the New England city's reputation as a merchandising center. Mollie first came to Netcher's attention in 1890, when she was the store's chief underwear buyer. Mollie Netcher Bragno quoted her grandmother as saying: One day I was called to Mr. Netcher's office. I was dismayed since my only thought was that I was being called in to be dismissed. Even when he seemed kind, and asked if he might drive me home in his carriage with its spanking team, I told myself "He's only trying to fire me in the easiest way."

Charles and Mollie planned to double the size of his retail business in eight years, and they began purchasing real estate adjacent to the Boston Store. First, they leased the school board property at 77-79 Madison Street, just west of State Street, for $27,000 a year. In 1895, the etchers acquired Hannah and Hogg's ninetynine year lease on the school board property to the we t and, in 1898, the Jones property at 119 Dearborn Street for $115,000. The Champlain Building, at the northwest corner of State and Iadison, and the lease on its site were purchased for . 825,000 in 1901. Two years later, they bought the Manie1Te block on the northeast corner of Madison and Dearborn for $550,000 and a three-fourths interest in the Henning and Speed property to the north for $360,000. By 1905, almost all the property on the south portion of the block had been leased. According to a Daily News article, Mollie "guided her husband in his business career, steering him into several wealth-producing real estate deals."

Charles Natcher. From the History of Chir,ago, published In 1905 by the Chicago Inter Ocean.

That was my first meeting with l\fr. Netcher. He stopped the carriage, halfway home, and asked me if I would marry him. I knew I was plain in appearance. I was flabbergasted. I just nodded my head.

They were married on July 2, 1891. The following fourteen years were spent as a wife and mother at the home Mollie designed at 4427 South Drexel Avenue. Charles etcher, Jr., was born in 1892, Townsend in 1893, Ethel in 1896, and Irving in 1901. Charles Netcher, Sr., frequently discussed the store and its operations with Mollie because he had few outside interests and little social life. She was later to utiliÂŁe this business training in her future position.

Suddenly, Charles came down with appendicitis and died of apoplexy on June 20, 1904. At a time when large life insurance policies were rare, Netcher had insured his life less than a year before for $500,000, with his wife as the beneficiary. Charles had named Mollie executrix and trustee of his estate, valued for probate purposes at 3,540,000. The will specified that their house go to her and the rest of the property be placed in a trust. The income from the trust property was to be divided into three parts. During Mollie's life, one-third of the income was for her, and the remain ing two-thirds was to be divided for the children's trusts. Specified amounts were to be given to the children when they became of age. The principal of the trust was to go to the children or their immediate heirs. The wil!'s provisions for the sale of the Boston Store were ambiguous. In one section, the trustee-Mollie-was expressly permitted "to continue the b usiness in which I may be engaged at the time of my death." The ambiguity Chicago History

Mollie Newbury

arises from the final paragraph of the will, which was devoted to instructions concerning the conduct of the Northern Trust Company, the corporate trustee which was to administer the trust in the event of Mollie's death. The last sentence of this last paragraph directed in unqualified language that the store was to be sold as soon as practicable after Charles' death. Despite the will and her four young children, Mollie took over the six-story Boston Store, which at that time had an annual sales volume of six million dollars. She enlarged the store in 1907 and again in 1912. Then, Mollie commissioned Holabird and Roche to design an expanded store that she and her husband had envisioned, and construction began in 1915. She transformed the old-fashioned dry-goods store into an early competitor of Marshall Field's, Carson Pirie Scott, the Fair, and l\fandel Brothers. The new Bosto!1 Store, completed in 191 7, had seventeen stories and contained twenty acres of floor space at State and Madison streets. Located on what was said to be the world's busiest corner, the Boston Store was a remarkabe institution. The brick and terra-cotla store, once called "the tallest in the world devoted exclusively to the retail business of a single concern," featured an observation tower 325 feet above the street, which was open free to the public. In addition to the traditional departments, several small factories on the upper floors produced goods sold in the store. The seventeenth floor contained a candy factory and a cigar factory capable of manufacturing three m illion cigars annually. Ice cream was made on the fifteenth floor, and baked goods on several other floors. There were soda fountains and restaurants. Chemical laboratories for testing products and manufacturing drugs and toilet articles were also located in the building. The toy department and a children's playroom staffed with attendants occupied the tenth floor. A barber shop was located on the fourth floor, Western Union offices and an emergency hospital on the third. The mezzanine had a post office and a 36

Chicago History

postal savings bank. According to a descriptive pamphlet, the building was the first retail store with moving stairways. The Boston Store had three basements. Amenities were provided to the almost four thousand employees: a full-sized tennis court on the roof, employee lunchrooms, classrooms for employee instruction, billiards and magazine rooms for the men, and reading and writing rooms for the women. A "competent matron," in charge of the women's recreation room, was said to be "willing and anxious to give counsel in both a business and domestic way." A small branch of the Chicago Public Library was also available. Mollie caused a stir in 1916 by providing a summer resort where employees could rent cottages cheaply on a ten-acre estate in Lake Beulah, Wisconsin. Mollie labored long hours to expand the business and acquire contiguous real estate. In a 1904 Tribune article, Mollie discussed her daily routine. First, she supervised her children's departure for school, gave orders to the half-dozen servants, and then rode by carriage to the Boston Store. In a third-floor office, bare except for a big roll-top desk and a green velvet couch, she met with the men who had worked for her husband, reviewing all the store's large financial details. Unlike other businesswomen, Mollie went home at noon for a midday dinner with her children and spent another hour on correspondence and personal matters. After an hour of rest, she would change her gown and receive business callers. Later, she returned to her office and stayed until the store closed. In another article, Mollie explained her philosophy of management. She did not believe in changing successful policies, one of which was operating the business on a cash basis. Even when the Boston Store bought the inventory of the Siegel-Cooper Store in 1918, the bill-over a million dollars-was paid in cash. She considered credit to be a fad. Know your type of business and stick to it was another policy. For that reason, she never expanded the operations to

The newly completed Champlain Building at State and Madison sts. , flanked on both sides by the Boston Store, in 1895. The Netchers later bought the corner building and converted it into part of the store.

Chicago History

Mollie Newbury

The last phase of construction of the Boston Store, Oct. 7, 1915. The old buildings on State and on Madison had been replaced , beginning in 1905, and the Champlain Building was razed to complete the block-long store .

Chicago History

include wholesaling. The third policy was to surround herself with capable people so that she need not be present for the business to run smoothly. Mollie abhored frothy advertising and showy methods used to attract trade. "But why humor or entertainment?" she once said. "Business is not a diversion .... Neither is it a joke. What the merchant needs to tell and the people need to know are the facts." She believed that business entertaining, through increased overhead, only made goods more expensive. Buy wisely and sell at the lowest possible cost, utilizing efficient supervision and cash sales, was her credo. She believed that her store should compete on the basis of the price and quality of goods. Mollie also understood that mass merchandising would bring in quality goods at lower costs. While stressing to women that they could obtain better goods quickly and economically by ordering at large stores, she made the Boston Store more attractive by stocking desirable items and displaying them in appealing ways. Her capacity to manage the store was probably in part the result of her years of employment in it. Mollie credited her ability to instinctive skills and business conversations with her husband: I think the understanding of business matters is instinctive with some few women . If it wasn't more or less so I don't think they could learn it. For instance, I don't believe a woman who has been brought up to society could ever learn it, even by close application. I always liked it and cared more about it a great deal than I did about getting married, even when I was a young girl. And it was because l\Ir. Netcher did, too that I was drawn to him just as he was to me. We talked business just as other people talk love. He intrusted things to me from the first . When he came home tired, even though I might have liked it, I forebore to drag him out to social gatherings or even to have people at the house. I abstained from parties, clubs, dinners, company, and everything of that kind so as to devote myself to him, and the result was that he talked everything over with me. All this has been an invaluable business training for me which I seem to

have absorbed unconsciously, and now the first question I ask myself at every turn is, "What would he have done in this particular instance?" It seems to hold the key to the situation for me if I am at a loss for a minute now.

Under her management, the Boston Store's sales reached almost thirty-three million dollars in 1922, the second highest on State Street that year. However, this had been made possible only because Mollie had made book entries for the money owed from the principal trust-the primary asset of which was the Boston Store-to the trusts for herself and her children. She paid the cash to herself for reinvestment in the store and left the liabilities to the children's trusts on the books. In 1921, the book entries added up to five million dollars. After an audit in 1923, her accountants pointed out the necessity of making the cash payments owed to the other trusts. Instead of liquidating the store's stock and real estate, she had the Boston Store pay a dividend to the principal trust and then distributed the money to the other trusts. To pay this dividend, the store was forced to borrow money. Mollie increased the Boston Store's mortgage from $2,250,000 to $3,750,000, and cashed $200,000 in liberty bonds from the trust. This was a poor decision because annual payments required on the loan were more than the business could afford, and the net profits of the Boston Store dropped in succeeding years. The repercussions of these decisions were not immediately felt, and Mollie became known variously as "the world's most brilliant businesswoman," "Chicago's Merchant Princess," and "the woman apoleon of State Street." The Chicago Inter Ocean's History of Chicago reported that "she has assumed with rare executive ability the active management of his [Netcher's] vast business interests." In July 1913, Mollie was married a second time, to Solomon Neuberger, a childhood sweetheart. Neuberger was variously reported to be a paint sales manager or a "commercial traveler." The couple changed their last name to Ch icago History

Mollie Newbury

Mollie Netcher Newbury. Photo by Rayhuff-Richter Studios.

Newbury in 1918 because, they said, "it was easier to write." Saul Newbury did not become involved in the business, although he was vicepresident of the Netcher Building Corporation. Mollie Netcher Bragno said of them: "Grandmother was a matriarch. It was difficult for her second husband, being married to a woman of her strength and drive. He turned to collecting stamps." Saul Newbury came to work with Mollie every morning and occupied himself with his stamp collection. According to his obituary in the Sun-Times in 1950, he died the city's leading philatelist. Mollie was known for her prowess in Chicago real estate as much as for her management of the Boston Store. Through a spectacular series of real-estate deals, Mollie had by 191 o gained control of almost the entire block on which the store was located, one of the world's most valuable pieces of real estate. She secured a lease on property north of the Boston Store from the Levi Z. Leiter estate in 1910. According to the Tribune, she paid one million of the almost three million dollar first payment in cash. Her fortune was said to have doubled through an increase in real-estate values. She also carried a life insurance policy for $1,000,000 to secure a lease for the Leiter property. The lease was to run 110 years and 6 months, during which 13,000,000 had to be paid to the owners. Mollie increased her policy to $3,000,000 in 1927, making her the most heavily insured woman in the world at that time. The journalist Grace Clarke reported that I\Iollie impressed her as having a perfect repose of manner, an ease o( motion, poise, and a strong, forceful, and well-balanced personality. She was said to be graceful in her movements. Her slow way of talking was "the result of having herself well in hand." Mollie was not active socially, claiming that she did not need the diversions pursued by most women. Others said that she was a good judge of character, had an ability to delegate authority, possessed common

sense, and had a sympathetic ear. She exuded a spirit of good will lo those around her. However, while a former employee remembered her as knowing all the department heads and managers, Time magazine reported that "she kept aloof from her customers, her employes and the press." She ran the Boston Store "with a hand as firm as it was unknown." Charles and Mollie 1etcher placed a high value on their sons growing up to be good businessmen. For example, one of the provisions in Charles' will was that his wife could give each child 25,000 from the trust on or after his or her twenty-fifth birthday and an additional 100,000 at age thirty to establish a business or for other good reasons. Charles Jr., graduated from Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University and worked in the Boston Store until World War I. After the war, he assumed active management of the store. In 1919, he married Gladys Oliver, a daughter of a wealthy realestate broker. Mollie Netcher Bragno was one of his two daughters . After an illness of several months, Charles died on November 4, 1931, at age thirty-nine. At the time of his death, he was

Christmas shopping in 1920. The bargain t hat day was Nofade Shirts, regularly $2 now 98Â˘. Photo by Kaufmann & Fabry.

president of the Boston Store and his mother was chairman of the board of directors. Charles was the only son to show a real interest in the Boston Store. Townsend served as vice-president for a while, but never provided any leadership. Townsend had four wives: movie queens Gertrude Selby and Constance Talmadge, heiress Norma Fletcher Hall, and Harriette Smith. In the 1929 New York Times articles on his proposed marriage to Talmadge, he is referred to only as "the Chicago sportsman" and "the wealthy Chicagoan." Townsend died in 1955. Irving was more active in the store than Townsend, but he also lacked executive abilities. He was both vice-president and president of the store at various times. Irving died of a heart attack in 1953. Although she eventually turned active management of the store over to her sons, Mollie remained chairman of the board. She retained the reputation for having the best business head in the family. Chicago History

A special sale and demonstration of O-Cedar products in the 1930s.

In later years, Mollie's management of the Boston Store was often criticized. Sales declined from almost thirty-three million dollars in 1922 to fifteen and a half million in 1945. The Boston Store and adjoining properties were sold in 1946 for $14,000,000 to a syndicate headed by Edgar L. Schnadig, chairman of Alden's Inc., a mail-order house. The purchase price included $6,500,000 for the real estate. The new owners attributed the store's decline to poor merchandising, adherence to an all-cash policy in the face of credit competition, and the curtailment of food sales. A former employee suggested that other problems were the competition's development of branch stores and Mollie's reluctance to modernize. Time's article on the sale of the store reported "Chicago's seventh biggest department store, the Boston had always reeked with a quaint Victorian mustiness. In its old-fashioned ways, it reflected its owner." The New Boston Store, as it was now called, 42

Ch icago History

The Boston Store featured attractive window displays, such as this 1930s presentation of Carolyn Drew products.

barely stayed open for two years. Banking interests gained control of the board of directors and, feeling unequipped to handle a department store, exercised the right to close the store. The Boston Store closed its doors for the last time on July 31, 1948, and the building was converted to office space. Its original terra-cotta far;ade is currently being restored. Mollie etcher Newbury died on December 12, 1954, at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. She was eighty-seven. Her personal estate was eventually valued at $12,300,000, and her jewelry, furniture, furs, and personal effects were appraised at $43,040. Much of the estate was in stocks, municipal bonds, and other securities. Townsend Netcher and Mollie Netcher Bragno were the chief heirs to the estate. Relatively

Mollie Newbury

smaller amounts of the money were left to business associates, an employee, four nephews, and a niece. Mollie left nothing to her daughter, Ethel Chagnon, and nothing to Francice Bushkin, Charles Netcher, Jr.'s, other daughter. She said in her will that gifts made to them during her lifetime were adequate. While the executors were still evaluating the estate, Townsend Netcher died, leaving Mrs. Bragno as the beneficiary of most of the estate. In addition, she would still inherit a share of the principal of the original Netcher trust. In April 1952, Francice Bushkin had filed suit asking for an accounting of the original Netcher estate of which Mollie was the trustee. She was later joined in the suit by Ethel Chagnon. They contended that the original trust set up by Charles Netcher had been improperly depleted to benefit the Boston Store and Mollie's own estate. Valued at $19,000,000 in 1923, the principal trust realized $960,871 in 1946 from the sale of the Boston Store. During the same period, Mrs. Newbury's own estate increased from ten to twelve million dollars. A report to Judge George M. Fisher by master in chancery Llewellyn Wescott disclosed the existence of Mollie's book entries from 1904 to 1923 and her failure during this time to repay the money owed the other trusts. She also caused the store to pay her a salary of $225,000. The report further concluded that Mollie should have sold the Boston Store in 1923 to pay the money owed to her children's trusts. Only in the case of Charles did she turn over the $25 ,000 when he became twenty-five, as her husband had provided. vVescott's report also made detailed references to Iollie's mismanagement of the store. It pointed out, for example, that sales per square foot at the Boston Store were 28.50, compared with other department stores which averaged , 35 to 40. Although the Boston Store had 25 percent more floor space than the Fair, its net profit in 1923 was $410,500, compared with the Fair's $1,532,000. Wescott particularly men-

tioned a failure to sufficiently mark up the merchandise. There were no charges of fraud or dishonesty, but Wescott concluded that Mollie was guilty of mismanagement of the Netcher estate: Mrs. Newbury . . . at all times acted in good faith. Her actions were no doubt in keeping with what she, as an individual, considered proper at the time. But she disregarded or failed to appreciate the duties and responsibilities with which the law charges a trustee. She disregarded or failed to appreciate the distinction between the duties of a trustee under the law and actions which an individual may take with his own funds, if he desires to take chances and even gambling chances. Ignorance of her duties and responsibilities is no defense to the losses sustained by the principal trust estate of Charles Netcher in this case.

Perhaps a clue to Mollie's mistaken decisions lies in a sentence from a 1912 Hamptons article: "She looks upon the 'Boston Store' as a monument to her husband, her development of the business along the lines planned by him as a trusteeship for her sons, to whom eventually she expects to turn it over, a completed work." The final court decree, reached in 1956, resulted in a judgment for $16,800,000 against what was to have been Mrs. Bragno's $11,500,000 inheritance. The money was returned to the original Netcher trust, with the Northern Trust designated the successor trustee. The nephews, nieces, business associates, and friends still received their bequests. The rest of the estate remained in trust until the death of Ethel Chagnon, the last living child of Charles and l\1ollie, in 1972. The principal is then to be divided among the grandchildren. Mollie was buried in Chicago's R osehill Cemetery. She lies in the etcher plot with her first husband and her three sons. Although judged to have mismanaged her husband's trust, she was at one time a powerful businesswoman, a force in Chicago real estate, the most heavily insured woman in the world, and Chicago's only Merchant Princess. Chi cag o History

The Sweet, Sweet Scent of Soap BY LESTER A. WEINROTT

Trade cards) premiums, outlandish claims-even poetrywere used by early soap manufacturers to promote their products. If the soap didn)t sell) there was always chewing gum.

CHICAGO: THE SOAP CAPITAL OF THE WORLD? It might have been, with the glistening, white Wrigley Building as its headquarters. It might have been, if William Wrigley, Jr., the son of a Philadelphia soapmaker, had stuck with soap instead of switching to chewing gum. The young Mr. Wrigley had much early experience in the soap business. In 1871, when he was ten, he sold soap from a basket on the city streets on Saturdays. He went to work a year later in his father's soap factory, stirring vats of liquid soap for S1.50 a week, and became a salesman at thirteen, traveling the East Coast by train or in a bright red wagon with four horses and tinkling bells. Determined to strike out on his own, Wrigley moved to Chicago in March 1891, to set up his own company. He carried with him $32 and a check for $5,000 from an uncle, William Scatchard, who gave him the money with the proviso that William Scatchard, Jr., who had accompanied Wrigley on some of his sales expeditions, be his partner. The William Wrigley, Jr. Company was established in the offices of Puhl & Webb, a grocers' specialties firm located at 157 (now 112 West) Kinzie Street. For $25 a month, Wrigley rented two desks and enough warehouse space for one carload of soap. The third member of the business was Charles A. Ketchum, a soap salesman he met on the train to Chicago. They hired a wagon and sold the soap to retail grocers. Progress was slow for the fledgling companyit faced stiff competition from Chicago's estab-

Lester A. Weinrott, a public relations consultant and frequent contributor to Chicago History, last wrote on player pianos in the Summer 1975 issue. 44

Chicago History

lished firm s. Wrigley's biggest sale was to a large downtown hotel, which bought a whole carload of soap. The supply lasted, by the way, for an entire year. Billboard advertising-later to become a major part of the Wrigley Company's promotion- failed miserably. To spur sales of his products, Wrigley purchased umbrellas in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for 85 ¢ each and offered one free with ead1 case of soap. He also raised the case price from $1.56 to $3 .34, taking a profit on his popular premium. At about the same time, Wrigley met William Harkness, a salesman for an Indianapolis baking-powder company, whom he put to work selling the soap-and-umbrella combination on a commission basis. Harkness soon convinced Wrigley that baking powder was a better item than soap, and premium offers with the new commodity brought a rapid increase in sales. One of the earliest and fastest moving gifts was a set of six silver-plated spoons with each onepound can of baking powder, which sold for 50¢. Another was the Wrigley Cook Booh, 150 pages of "specially selected recipes. " The book was marked $1, but it came free with the onepound can. Before long, Wrigley was sending out 50,000 books a month. By then, soap was all but forgotten. A new premium, chewing gum, was added in September 1892, when Wrigley ordered a shipment from the Zeno Manufacturing Company of Chicago. The first sales offer-two packages of Lotta chewing gum and a half-pound can of Lotta baking powder for 10¢- never moved well and was discontinued after the Lotta products were sold out. In the meantime, jobbers told Wrigley that they couldn't sell the bakingpowder half of the combination, but that the

William Wrigley, Jr., came to Chicago in 1891 to establish a soap company, which soon thereafter offered chewing gum as a sales premium. Within four years , Wrigley was out of the soap business.

chewing gum was popular. Like soap, baking powder was jettisoned. ew premium offers, for the gum purchases, included rugs, lamps, picture books, and even revolvers. By 1895, William Wrigley, Jr. & Co. had moved to new quarters at 50 Michigan (now 313 West Hubbard) Street and was now listed under "Chewing Gum" as well as "Soap" in the

classified section of the city directory. The old letterhead, featuring a young girl rising from the earth holding a cake of soap, was replaced by packages of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit and Pepsin Chewing Gum and the words "Manufacturers of Chewing Gum." William Wrigley, Jr., became the first magnate of the chewing gum industry, and his days as a manufacturer of soap were left far behind. Actually, Chicago was a natural locale for the soap industry. Animal fat is one of the chief ingredients of soap, and Chicago's stockyards offered an ample supply. James S. Kirk, a Utica, New York, soap manufacturer in business since 1839, moved his company to Chicago in 1859, six years before the Union Stock Yard opened on the South Side. His first factory was located on River Street, the site of old Fort Dearborn. In 1867, he opened a new plant just north of the Chicago River at what was then 362 North Water Street, where the Equitable Building now stands. This building was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire, but James S. Kirk & Co. replaced it with a five-story structure with a 182-foot chimney, once described as "the largest manufactory of its kind in America." James S. Kirk & Co. offered a varied line, which included White Ceylon, Satinet, Calendar, White Russian, Coronet, and many others. Each was advertised on full-color trade cards, featuring Father Time, polar bears, and a Swiss miss. Kirk also sold pamphlets promoting his soaps with such verse as: F stands for foolishYoung people and old Who oftentimes use Nasty soaps that are sold. The company also gave out premiums, which were mostly associated with one of its later products, American Family Soap. Kirk & Co. products were sold in every state and territory in the United States, and one trade card of Eastern agent Mark Torrey proudly proclaimed that Chicago History

Soap

Kirk had an "Annual Production greater than that of any other Soap maker in the WORLD." But its site proved an embarrassment. As North Michigan Avenue was built up during the 1920s, the residents and workers in the area complained of the stench from the giant chimney. The building was finally demolished in 1929; rather than construct a new plant during the Great Depression, the company sold out to Proctor & Gamble in 1930. Other Chicago soap companies also advertised their wares on colorful trade cards. Oberne, Hosick & Co., which also manufactured perfumes, produced "the following Popular Brands of Laundry Soaps": Sweet-16, Daisy, Harclwater, German Mottled, Country Talk, Linen, White Velvet, German Family, Silver Brick, and White Prussian, "Together with a complete line of TOILETS [sic]." The Cosmo Company, maker of Buttermilk Toilet Soap and Buttermilk Shaving Stick, sternly warned "Beware of Imitations" and "Be sure our name is on the wrapper and soap." N. K. Fairbank & Co. urged housewives to "Let the Gold Dust Twins Do Your Work." The tiny black twins were the Fairbank symbol. These busy, industrious, little characters were constantly scouring pots and pans until they were bright enough to reflect the twins' images from their surfaces. Fairbank also sold ·w hite Star and Lakeside, "fine family soap " of which there were "none better or purer made." Various packing houses made and sold soap. Only one national brand today bears the name of a Chicago packer, Armour's Dial Soap, and it now has its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. The company's Armour Soap Works began producing laundry soap in 1896 and toilet soap in 1902. Swift & Company also put its meat byproducts to use as soap. Swift's ·w ashing Powder was advertised for cleaning glass, tin, marble, and wood, as well as clothes and hands-"contains nothing that will injure the finest fabric, or the most delicate skin." It also boasted that its 5¢ and 10¢ packages were "the largest on the market." 46

Ch icago Hi st ory

Soap manufacturers proliferated throughout the Midwest during the late 1800s. The Maple City Soap Works of Monmouth, Illinois, advertised its Self-Washing Soap. G. A. Shoudy & Son of Rockford made a soap modestly labeled Wonderful Soap; moreover, it was "Warranted not to Injure the Clothes." In Rock Island, one could secure soap from vVarnock & Ralston; in Sycamore, from E. B. Shurtleff. James Beach's Laundry and Toilet Soaps of Dubuque, Iowa, had a brand called Legal Tender, while a babe breaking out of an egg touted Water Queen Soap by the Kansas City Soap Co. The local soap manufacturers faced stiff competition from companies on the East Coast. The J. L. Larkin & Co., it seems, did a thriving business in the Midwest. One case of its Sweet Home Family Soap, "with All of the Extras, Etc, Etc.," cost 6 and was sent for a thirty-day home trial. S. B. Baker of Kewanee, Illinois, wrote them that "The soap is first-class, and the extras more than we anticipated." Mrs. D. E. Wenger of Gilman was also pleasantly surprised, stating that "You have treated us handsomely, and the soap, pictures, boraxine, extras, presents, etc., are more than I expected to receive." It did not take long for C. J. orthrop of Bloomington, Illinois, to be convinced: "You say to take 30 clays to try the soap, but I am satisfied the goods are first-class, and the extras all and more than you represented, so here is my check for 6.oo." Other testimonials from users in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey read, nvt unexpectedly, almost the same. Two interesting facts must be noted about the early soap scene in Chicago. In 1884, a calendar was issued by G. A. Wrisley & Co., touting its White Velvet Soap. A coincidence, surely, but a curious resemblance to the Wrigley name. The other curiosity is the reproduction of a poster currently offered by a company in Santa Ana, California. This poster features "Tripolio, the Wonderful Polishing and Scouring Soap." Its manufacturer, as listed on the poster, is the Waters and Wrigley Manufg. Co., Chi-

Workers at Jas. S. Kirk & Co., 1904. The plant on N. Michigan Ave . was finally closed-to the relief of area residents-in the late 1920s.

Chicago History

Soap

cago and New York. The artwork, late nineteenth century vintage, features a kitchen with a wood or coal-burning stove. A little girl is seated on the floor, playing with what seem to be wooden toys. Her mother, hovering over her with a bar of soap, is saying, "Daisy, throw those things away. Henceforth I will use nothing but TRIPOLIO."

Today, soap is one of the most highly advertised and taken-for-granted items in our civilization, but this was not always true. Packaged soap is a comparatively recent addition to daily life. The first American settlers had to make their own soap, and this continued well into the nineteenth century. Looking back into the millenia during which man has inhabited the earth, soap and man certainly did not start out together. How soap originated is buried in history. It may have been discovered by accident. One theory states that the inhabitants of ancient Gaul stumbled upon soap in an effort to extract oil from tallow. Perhaps they experimented by boiling it in water that h ad been leached through beech-tree ashes. T hat happy accident could have produced the first soap. The excavations at Pompeii reveal a complete soap factory, and the Roman historian Pliny recorded that the Romans secured soap from the Gauls. His description, the first on the origin of the product, dates back to the first century A.D.: Passing to the baths proper, the citizen entered the tep idarium-in th is case a warm air room; thence he went to the calidarium, or hot-air room; if he wanted to perspire still more freely, he moved into the lacon ium and gasped in super-heated steam. Then he took a warm bath and washed himself with a novelty learned from the Gauls-soap, made from tallow and the ashes of the beech or elm.

Producing soap at home was-and still is-a cumbersome chore. T herefore, it is not surprising to find this advertisement in the very first issue of Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette: "To be Sold by Edward Shippen, 48

Ch icago History

choice Hard Soap, very Reasonable." Mr. Shippen's soap may have been shipped from England; perhaps it came from Boston, for soap was already being manufactured in the colonies, as is evidenced by notices for the hiring of apprentices. A young man could apprentice himself to any of several trades, including soap boiler. He bound himself to serve for seven years-without pay. If he survived, he could then open his own shop and hire apprentices under the same conditions. The ingredients for soapmaking were very important, particularly to the peddlers who sold their wares from distant farmhouse to even more distant village. When the peddlers began their journeys, they carried certain merchandise which they could barter for lodgings and food at the taverns along the roads. Many carried a pound or two of "perlash," an alkaline mixture made by running water through wood ashes. Tavernkeepers readily accepted perlash in lieu of hard cash. Commercial soap, as we know it, came into national manufacture and distribution with the end of the Civil War. Among the pioneer distributors was Blackwell's Durham Tobacco which gave a twenty-five pound box of soap with each box of Bull Durham smoking tobacco. To farm women, a soap bonanza was ready for discovery with the advent of a cheap factory-made laundry soap. Charles Fels, a country merchant from Yanceyville, North Carolina, introduced Fels-Naptha. Simultaneously, other makers brought out Big Deal, Easy Clean, Yellow Tag, and a flock of brands from Procter & Gamble, Colgate, and others. Soap factories proliferated during the late 1860s. William Colgate's company, founded in New York in 1806, burgeoned into one of the industry's giants. In Cincinnati, Harley T. Procter, sales manager and partner in the firm of Procter & Gamble, pushed his products with vigor. Procter's best seller turned out to be Ivory Soap. It seems that an experimental batch of

Wrapping Kirk's American Family by hand, 1904.

soap came out with no color-it was white. And, wonder of wonders, it floated on the surface of the waler. The company later discovered that a workman assigned to monitor the operation forgot to add the required olive oil to the batch. This omission accounted for the lack of color. He also left the soap-mixing machine on during his lunch hour, which pumped more air into the mixture. The resulting cakes were about to be clumped back into the vat when someone figured out that the floating soap might just be something the public would like. For the want of anything better, the company named it White Soap. Tot long thereafter, Procter was sitting in church on Sunday when he heard Psalm 49: "All thy garments smell o[ myrrh and aloes and cassia out of ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad." The first cakes of the new product, now called Ivory Soap, were sold along the Ohio River valley in October 1879. The soap was an immediate success, and the directors decided that $ 11 ,ooo would be spent on advertising Ivory in 1882 and 1883.

The first ad appeared in December 1882. Its opening line read: The "IVORY" is a Laundry Soap, with all the fine qualities of a choice Toilet Soap, and is 99 44-100 per cent pure." Pure what, the laboratory did not say-99 and 44 / 100 percent pure was enough. The phrase supposedly came from the reply of a college chemistry professor who tested Ivory against castile soaps, then the standard of excellence. Unlike his competitors, Procter eschewed the small business and trade cards of the clay for full-page advertisements touting his float ing soap. He also invited the foremost illustrators of the day to draw Ivory advertisements; sometimes contests with cash prizes were held. By the mid-188os, Procter's salesmen had fanned out across the Midwest, and his advertisements were flooding the publications of the day. While Procter & Gamble touted Ivory's purity and buoyancy, other companies made their own oullandish claims. Lyon's Laundry SulphurBorax Soap, for instance, advertised that it prevented "the contraction of contagious diseases," including diphtheria, typhoid, and all malarial Ch icago History

Soap

Trade cards of soap manufacturers In Chicago and vicinity.

TO SHRINK THE CLOTHES, G. A, MilOUOll' &; !-iON, ROCKFORD,

•

ILL.

From the author's collection

"'u SE FAIR BANKS

S•AP·s

THEY ARE THE BEST."

•JiibJliashi ng

tJl. 'J-

Powder·

From the author's collection l

FAIRBAII~~

·SOAP

Chicago History

Laboratory at Jas. S. Kirk & Co., 1904.

fevers, and was "a special boon to School children who are exposed to the dangers of infection that lurk in every School room. " Poetry was still another advertising device. The chief user of verse was Sapolio, a soap which had its name painted on barns, fences, rocks, or any surface to which a brush could be applied. Sapolio is best remembered, however, for engaging the services of author Bret Harte, who as usual was short of cash. He wrote sardonic verses, mocking the style and meter of Longfellow's "Excelsior": The shades of night were falling fast And through an eastern village passed A Youth who bore, through dust and heat A stencil plate that read complete--sAPOLIO Harte's verses were intended for a dealer pamphlet, but Sapolio soon used the poem in all its advertising. Unfortunately, there is no record of the sum paid Bret Harte. Other manufacturers followed suit. Benjamin T. Babbitt, a friend of P. T. Barnum, was to become the first soap millionaire through his aggressive merchandising. The Babbitt verse for its Best soap proclaimed: Behold! You washing world, the soap, That lightens labor, brightens hope, Begrudge to worthless wares your dimes, And order BABBITr's BEST betimes ...

This writer is unknown to us, as are his contemporaries. Who were they? An educated guess is that anyone who could tum a phrase, make a boast, or decry a competitor was welcome to try his hand. Chicago's G. A. Wrisley Co. contributed the "Song of the White Borax Soap": I pluck a feather from a wild goose wing, The praise of WRISLEY's soap to sing, Says I to myself, says I, what soap Best scatters the dirt and inspires hope? And the answer came as slick as wax, 'Tis WRISLEY's far-famed WHITE BORAX. Then give us Borax day and night, This thing of beauty, this heart's delight, You'll find it plenteous as the sea In every first class grocerie. Then give three cheers for the WHITE BORAX, It hits the dirt such rousing thwacks, It makes the linen clean as wax, This elegant, shining, WHITE BORAX. One of my favorite trade cards contains "A Soapy Story-Mrs. Tippens' Troubles," written by one Melissa Ames. It seems that Mr. Tippens is constantly mistreating his wife and the hired girl, Bridget. Before storming out of the house forever, Bridget tells the Tippens' baby, "Tell your pa to buy HIGGINS' GERMAN LAUNDRY SOAP Chicago History

The Armour Soap Works, 31st St. and the Chicago River, 1951. Photo by R. S. Ciszewski.

for the next one that comes, thin he'll have a chance of kapin' a girl in the house." The story ends happily for Mrs. Tippens, for Higgins' German Laundry Soap brings "a great change over her domestic sky." As a writer and director of radio soap operas in the 1930s, I had believed, with some guilt, that I had a hand in their invention. "Mrs. Tippens' Troubles," I was happy to learn, dated back to the 1880s. Âˇwith the increasing manufacture and nationwide distribution of packaged soap in the 1890s, one might think that home soapmaking ceased. Not so. In 1892, the Chicago publisher Laird and Lee issued Edison's Encyclopedia and Universal Atlas. On page 141 is a detailed formula for "A Good Washing Fluid," the essential part of which reads:

Soap is still being manufactured in the American home. Witness this question addressed to the "Beeline" column of the Chicago Daily N ews, June 11, 1976: "How can I use waste fats from cooking to make soap?-M . K.-Burbank. " The answer contains the detailed procedure, as well as "Soap Making at Home," an instruction sheet published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The reply concludes with the following cavet: "However, as you can see, soaprnaking i n' t easy. Âˇw ant to check today's supermarket ads for specials on soap, instead?" Just one hundred years ago, the United States celebrated its Centennial at the Philadelphia Exposition. Pear's Soap, an English import, was brazenly exhibited under a huge sign:

One pound of concentrated lye, one pound of borax, one pound of salts of tartar, one pound of ammonia (lump, not fluid) , one gallon of rain water. Dissolve the borax, salts of tartar, and ammonia, each separate; put the lye in the gallon of water, and when cool put in the others when well dissolved. Be sure and put the lye in cold water. Put in a stone crock to dissolve, and when done, in a gallon jug.

THIS SOAP IS AS OLD AS THE AMERICAN

Chicago History

CONSTITUTION AND TWICE AS GOOD!

Some ten million Americans visited the Exposition, noticed the sign, and laughed: no oneincluding the British-could hold a candle to Americans, when it came exaggerating the sweet, sweet scent of soap.

Fifty Years Ago

As recorded by newspapers in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society 1927 Mar. 5. Police arrest William "Klondike" O'Donnell of the West Side O'Donnell gang and three others inside a government warehouse containing 500 barrels and 35,800 cases of whiskey. The bootleggers are caught while siphoning the barreled stock, worth $1,250,000. A pressure pump, forgotten during a hasty departure earlier in the week, tipped off inspectors to the culprits' scheme. Mar. 16. Wilbur Glenn Voliva, just back from a five-week Caribbean cruise, confirms that he has sold about 500 acres of land in Zion, of which he is overseer, but denies that the whole town is for sale. Zion was founded in Lake County in the early 1900s by John Alexander Dowie as the official seat of his Christian Catholic Apostolic Church. Mar. 23. The U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the padlocking of three Loop cabarets last year. The court rules that the mere scent of liquor is grounds for closing an establishment. Calling it "a most unjust decision," Jack Denham of the Blackstone Hotel complains, "If a man simply walks in with a flask and draws the cork, we can be held legally responsible." Mar. 24. Two members of the On Leong tong are murdered as the two-year truce with the Hip Sing tong ends. Six other tong members are slain across the country. Police thought that the truce, broken by the Hip Sings, was to have been permanent. Mar. 29. State Director of Public Welfare Chauncey H. Jenkins finally resigns his post. Jenkins' firing was recommended last spring by two grand juries for parole and pardon irregularities.

Wilbur Glenn Voliva, overseer of the town of Zion, in 1923. He announced on Mar. 16 that, contrary to rumor, the religious community was not for sale. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

Chicago History

50 Years Ago

Mar. 30. The annexation of Mt. Greenwood to Chicago is delayed until Apr. 6 after officials of the Southwest Side village miss the ceremonies. Although the excuse given is that the village's books are still being audited, the annexation referendum, which passed by only four votes, is being reviewed by the state supreme court. A wave of bombings also followed the election. Apr. 1. Illinois coal miners join a four-state strike after the United Mine Workers and the Illinois Coal Operators Association fail to reach an agreement. About 72,000 diggers in 150 mines walk out after their old contract, guaranteeing $7.50 a day, is not renewed. Rice Miller of the Coal Operators claims that Illinois has lost half its business to states with nonunion mines, which now produce 70 percent of the nation's soft coal. Apr. 2. Upholding a lower court decision, the U .S. Court of Appeals rules that the William Wrigley, Jr. Company must pay $1,000,000 to the L. P. Larson, Jr. Company for copyright infringement. Larson's suit, which has been in litigation since 1911, argues that Wrigley illegally used his "Spearmint" trademark. Radio station WGN will broadcast all Cubs' and White Sox' home games for the 1927 season. The Sox will be the first American League team on the airwaves since the league recently lifted its ban on radio. Quin Ryan,, who described the Cubs' weekend games last year, will be at the mike for both teams. Apr. 5. Republican William Hale Thompson, mayor of Chicago from 1915 to 1923, wins a third term by defeating Mayor William E. Dever by 83,072 votes, as almost a million voters-go percent of those registered-cast ballots. All 13 bond issues pass, including the $5,900,000 for straightening the Chicago R iver. It was one of the quietest elections in years, as over 5,000 policemen-aided by members of the Cook County Sheriff's Office-patrolled the streets. The election54

Chi cago History

eve slaying of hoodlum Vincent Drucci by a police officer is also believed to have deterred troublemakers. Apr. 6. Prof. Frank O'Hara announces the termination of Th e Phoenix, the University of Chicago student humor magazine, because it has " too many allusions to gin and girls; too many snappy sketches; and too much comment that undergraduate life is wild." The magazine will be replaced by one which depicts "real student life." Apr. 12. The Board of Trade suspends the Armour Grain Company, the largest graintrading company in the world, after a twoyear investigation into dishonest practices involving the establishment of the Grain Marketing Company, a cooperative trading mart created by four large grain companies that went bankrupt after only one year. Armour's first deliveries to Grain Marketing, it is charged, were short and inferior grades were substituted. The company also doctored its books to prevent discovery. Apr. 13. Talk of a mediums' union is rife at the annual convention of the Illinois State Spiritualist Association. " If independent mediums refuse to join . . . they should be barred from our benefits," says Association president C. A. Burgess. Also disclosed is the existence of a psychic radio station, which broadcasts every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday night from 106 Loomis St. The station has no equipment: messages are sent out on a " universal wavelength" and are picked up by those "spiritually attuned." Apr. 15. Ten percent of the city's 226 gangs are girl gangs, according to a Board of Education su::vey. Only 46 gangs are classified as "vicious," as opposed to 109 called "mischievous." The Board hopes that its athletic programs will keep gangs such as the Speed Boys and the Sticky Fingers off the streets. Apr. 21. Thirty bailbondsmen are indicted for conspiracy, perjury, and contempt of court and will appear before Judge Edgar Jones,

William Hale Thompson toots his horn for himself and Chicago on election night, Apr. 5, after winning a third mayoral term. Chicago Dally News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

FARMERS! Do you know that your comrades are now in po11e11ion for you of

the

greatest actually going Grain Marketâ&#x20AC;˘ ing busineu in the United State., that they are handling millions and millions of bushels of your wheat and makinc money for you?

Read What They Are Doing for YOU through the gTeat new co.operaâ&#x20AC;˘ tive, the

GRAIN MARKETING CO.

A flyer issued at the founding of the Grain Marketing Co. The public found out some of the reasons why the cooperative went bankrupt so fast on Apr. 12.

Chicago History

. :

•

1111

I I

• • •• • •

••

...

• _j l • .._

;i :

,. 1,

'II

•

':'

•·.,.... fl

the head of the new Bond Court. The bondsmen-many of whom have bailed out criminals who later skipped town-misrepresented their financial status and have had insufficient funds to cover forfeiture costs. Apr. 22. A mistrial is declared in Aaron Sapiro's $1,000,000 libel suit against Henry Ford after attorneys for the automobile magnate charge jury tampering. Sapiro, a Chicago grain dealer, sued Ford over articles in his Dearborn Independent charging Sapiro with directing a Jewish conspiracy to take over the country's grain marketing. Apr. 24. "This is for what you did to the officers of the Russian army," says a former captain of the czar's forces after slapping Alexander Kerensky while he dined at the Palmer House. Kerensky is in the U.S. promoting the cause of a democratic Russia. 56

Chicago History

The Stevens Hotel on S. Michigan Ave . The 3,000-room hotel, the largest in the world, opened on May 2. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

The slapper, Dr. Boris Telesnitsky, is evicted but will not be prosecuted. Apr. 27. Michael Hughes, Chicago's new chief of police, tells his captains, "Stop kicking in doors of homes, soda parlors, and pool rooms. Go after criminals." His instructions echo Mayor Thompson's pledge to end police snooping on ordinary citizens. Hughes adds, "There have been entirely too many honest, hard-working men and women ... locked up because they had a flask of home brew." May 1. Almost 200,000 Chicagoans change residences, and many are forced to pay double time for moving vans. Despite a 1911 resolution by the Chicago Real Estate Board rec-

50 Years Ago

ommending a different day, May 1 remains the favorite for moving. A Rogers Park mover carrying an armload of clothing is stopped by police for suspicion of burglary. May 2. The Stevens Hotel on S. Michigan Ave., the largest in the world, opens to the public. The hotel, which took nearly two years to construct, contains 3,000 guest rooms, numerous ball rooms, and quarters for pets. May 6. Indian Joe Huzar, the ex-police chief of Broadview known as "the czar of Roosevelt Road," is sentenced to one to fourteen years for assault with intent to kill. Indian .Joe is the first official jailed in a crackdown on suburban speed traps. Huzar was convicted on the testimony of a woman he threatened after a routine traffic violation. May 8. Movies in Chicago this week include McFadden's Flats, with Charlie Murray and Chester Conklin; Mr. Wu, with Lon Chaney and Louise Dresser; Babe Come Home, with Babe Ruth and Anna Q. Nilsson; and Vanity, with Leatrice .Joy and Charles Ray. On stage are Joe E. Brown and Ona Munson in Twinkle, Twinkle, Mitzi, Sydney Greenstreet, and Arthur Treacher in The Madcap, Marilyn Miller and .Jack Donahue in Sunny, and William Boyd and Louis Calhern in Tenth Avenue. Peaches Browning, fresh from her infamous divorce from Daddy, dances at the Rialto in her only Chicago appearance. May 14. Eight of twelve Catholic missionaries who went to China a year ago after training in Norwood Park are believed to be victims of the civil war. The priests refused to leave West Hunan province, where fighting between Communist and Nationalist forces has claimed over 3,000 lives. May 15. The Veterans' Association, a group of 24 surviving policemen of the Haymarket Affair in 1886, vote to move the toppled Haymarket memorial statue into Union Park. The statue had been at the intersection of Ogden Ave. and Randolph St. until it was hit recently by a runaway streetcar.

Peaches Browning, the nation's most famous 16-year old, danced at the Rialto during the week of May 8. Her recent divorce from Daddy Browning, a wealthy New York realtor, was front-page news across the country. Chicago Daily News photo, gift of Field Enterprises.

May 21. Charles A. Lindbergh, who less than a year ago was flying the Chicago-St. Louis mail run, becomes the first person ever to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, setting a longdistance flying record. Lindbergh lands in Paris at 10:21 P.M., 33Â˝ hours after leaving New York. Alighting from his Spirit of St. Louis, Lindy's first words are "Am I in Paris?" May 25 . .J. Lewis Coath, a Thompson ally and enemy of School Supt. William McAndrew, is elected president of the Chicago Board of Education. It is thought that Coath will attempt to carry out the mayor's wish to fire McAndrew-who has been accused of being a pacifist and pro-British-before his contract runs out in .January. F. J. N. Chicago History

The American Revolution Bicentennial and the Writing of Midwestern Community History The American Revolution Bicentennial was the occasion for an outpouring of community histories by amateur historians at the county and town levels. In many communities, the publication of a Bicentennial history was the residents' most significant participation in the national celebration-their link to the sense of national self-examination and renewal of purpose. The community histories of 1976 thus deserve attention as grass-roots statements about American civilization. What do these amateur efforts at community self-scrutiny tell us about the way in which we understand our own past and, thereby, our present and future? Four new Illinois community histories and one reprint typify both the achievements and the shortcomings of grass-roots community hi tory. No local historian can avoid certain puzzling questions. Who is the audience? Should the history puff the community or report accurately on local squabbles and failures? If one pioneer family or J\Iain Street merchant is mentioned by name, must all the others receive mention? Should the book stimulate and perhaps disturb local readers or reinforce their sense of pride? Should it concentrate on the unique aspects of the community or treat local themes as variations on J\Iidwestern regional patterns? To any amateur historian, short of funds and assistance, these are pressing questions. Grass-roots community history becomes still more difficult because many amateurs have had little experience at organizing a work of history. J\Iany apparently accept the Gradgrind view-until recently held by plenty of professional historians-that history consists of digging up the facts, which will then arrange themselves. Hence, we find plenty of community histories full of specific information, but few organized for clear analysis and easy reading-a goodly number, in fact, are organizational disasters. George Bushnell's book on Wilmette seems the most successful of these Bicentennial histories. BushWilmette: A History, by George D. Bushnell, Wilmette Bicentennial Commission, 1976, 7; How It All Began, by Joe Meads, Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society, 1976, S17; Reflections of St . Chades: A History from I 8JJ - I 9 j6, by Ruth Seen Pearson , St. Charles Historical Society, 1976, $5; A History of Plainfield: Then A~d Now Plainfield Bicentennial Commission, 1976, A His-

tory 'of the City of Cairo, Illinois, by John M. Lansden, Southern Illinois University, 1976, 15. 58

Chicago History

nell, a free-lance writer and university administrator, has the wide curiosity of a social historian. He introduces a range of topics; for example, the impact of the automobile on safety, congestion, and the police department during the 1910s and 1920s. Bushnell has the courage to bring his account to the present and does not hesitate to discuss the village's social problems and conflicts, such as the strains brought about by rapid population growth after World War II. The real achievement of Wilmette is its use of photographs. The book reprints a great many, in contrast to the usual community history with its photos of the town founder and the first school building. Wilm ette includes such fascinating photographs as schoolchildren, fire department equipment and milk delivery trucks from the 1890s, interiors of churches and stores, and sunbathers on the beach in 1916. Unfortunately, there are few analytical comments about the photographs, which usually do not explain themselves. For all its virtues, Wilm ette has some limitations. To manage the large amount of data, Bushnell adopts a strict chronological approach, making at times for tedious reading and leaving him unable to treat most subjects in a sustained manner. Like the other community histories, it tends to treat the town as an isolated entity-its place in the larger history of the Chicago metropolitan area is not thoroughly discussed. Still, this is a first-rate amateur community history. A Wilmette resident will understand in some depth how the community has assumed its present economic and social character. How It All Began is a reprinted collection of newspaper articles on nineteenth-century life in parts of Lake County, written between 1960 and 1968. Joe J\Ieads happily chose to focus on the trials and experiences of typical settlers. His articles describe minutely the conditions of their daily lives: diet and cooking utensils, farming practices, coping with the severe winters. Meads also comments shrewdly on the development of roads, canals, and railroad lines in the region. Meads has been poorly served by this reprint edition. The articles are reproduced in the standard newspaper forma t with a very small typeface, resulting in an unwieldy 11 by 15-inch volume. Those who will make the effort to read the book will find some reward, for a number of J\leads' essays are lively, informative, and unsentimental. Ruth Seen Pearson, the author of R efl,ections of St. Charles, is a professional free-lance journalist who handles the challenges of organizing information and adopting an appropria te stance more effectively than many amateur historians. She rejects a rigidly chronological approacl1 and still avoids the throw-up-your-hands attitude of the Plainfield history. Instead, she writes a series of topical essays and simply excludes material not germane to the subject. Her essays on business, education, religion, and recreation contain much readable anecdotal material, and the organization keeps the specifics in a type of framework that usually makes their significance clear. The book is one of the few community histories I have seen which can be read with

pleasure by someone who docs not know the community. If it ultimately seems less absorbing than Wilmette, it is because the St. Charles volume makes almost no use of photographs. Reflections of St. Charles, however, fails in its tone; it is gentle to the point of evasion. For example, Pearson hints more than once at ancient conflicts between residents east and west of the Fox River, but she almost always scurries away from an explanation. We never learn just what the issues were, what .kinds o[ people lived on the opposite banks o[ the stream, or whether these tensions had any larger significance in the development of St. Charles. The coherence of Pearson's book permits this criticism: many books published in 1976 are too primitive for a reviewer to even formulate such a question. The Plainfield volume, which is now out of print, is a random collection of information which I find difficult to describe or comment upon. While it reprints a few good accounts of nineteenth-century life, the book repeatedly misses opportunities for analysis. Churches receive several pages, but most arc given over to lists o[ the pastors; nobody tries to discuss the larger role of the churches in community life. Local manifestations of national movements such as the Chautauqua programs and the Ku Klux Klan arc mentioned, but only in passing. Authors refer to the growth of railroads and the completion of paved highways, but we never learn how these transportation developments altered the economic life of Plainfield. If a coherent attitude about the town emerges, it would be that nothing interesting has happened in Plainfield since World \Var I; nothing outside Plainfield has significantly affected the community; and no conflict has ever occurred there. By contrast, John Lansden's history of Cairo is a reprint first published in 1910. He admittedly had great advantages over most community historians: as a resident o[ Cairo since 1866 and mayor from 1871 to 1873, Lansden knew local politics and economic life in intimate detail. He also had a set of compelling dramas to tell: the unending challenge of keeping the lississippi and Ohio rivers from eroding away the city, and the residents' struggle to wrest control of the city's land and economy from outside corporations such as the Illinois Central Railroad. Lansden concludes, unflinchingly, that Cairo proved a disappointment lo its boosters and that the moment had passed during which the city might have taken off into real growth and prosperity. "1 he Cairo volume di plays a depth of knowledge, a realism, and a historical craftsmanship not o{tcn found in amateur community histories either in 1910 or in 1976. The four recent community histories offer important lessons for other community historian . One is that deep knowledge of the local record may be less imponam than experience in organizing and writing an essay. The successes of Bushnell and Pearson attest to this. Another is that the local historian should do more than research the local record-he or she should read : other community histories, whether good or bad, studies by scholars such as

John Borden Armstrong's Factory under the Elms or .John Baskin's New Burlington, and more general studies of the Midwestern community such as Lewis Atherton's Main Street on the Middle Border or Daniel Elazar's Cities of the Prairie. This simple step will stimulate the creativity of the local historian by suggesting new topics to be investigated, similarities and differences between the local community and other places, and possible ways to organize and present a topic. I am impressed with the enthusiasm and the depth of knowledge of these grass-roots historians, but their books also show that these qualities alone do not ensure the writing of good community history. The small community-the town, suburb, county, or neighborhood-has, until fairly recently at least, been a significant social and cultural unit. For amateur historians, one hopes that it is a manageable unit, because limited size does not dramatically simplify the task of writing. Hence, it remains to be seen whether the grass-roots community history movement, stimulated by the Bicentennial, will produce many local histories which the general public will read and learn from-rather than display as mementos-and which scholars might find helpful in the comparative study of American communities. KIRK JEFFREY

Kirk JclTrey, assistant professor of history at Carleton College in orthfield, Minnesota, is coauthor of Continuw11, a Bicentennial history of Northfield, and an instrucLOr in the Newberry Library-Chicago Historical Society Workshops in Community History.

Culture & the City: Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917 by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz University Press of Kentucky, 1976. 14.75. urban historians have ignored the cultural role of cities. The story of museums, orchestras, and libraries was left to specialists who produced slick popular accounts or arcane monographs. These, in turn, ignored their institutions' urban setting. This was most unfortunate, since only large agglomerations of people can support cultural enterprises which interest only a small portion of the population. Helen Horowitz's book is an important attempt to tell part of that story: the role of large, private philanthropists who bankrolled Chicago's most important cultural institutions. The book's thesis is complex-perhaps too complex for the limited number of words. Briefly, she holds that a small group of men who came to financial maturity in the 1 88os decided to assume the "cultured man's burden" by either founding or taking control of most of Chicago's important cultural FOR TOO MANY YEARS,

Chica go Hi st ory

The Prairie State: A Documentary History of Illinois

Books and scientific institutions. They wished to use the institutions to uplift "worthy" Chicagoans who lacked cultural opportunities. The author explores other subthemes: for instance, the criticism of reformers who felt that the programs did not go far enough. She notes how the cultural philanthropists responded by expanding activities beyond the middle class to include less fortunate Chicagoans. And, in the book's most interesting chapter, Horowitz relates the story of how the growing professionalism among librarians and museum administrators gradually displaced the amateur expertise of the philanthropists. Culture & the City is an important book, but it also has major weaknesses. Perhaps most unfortunate is its myopic view. It is basically the story of the Art Institute and its great benefactor, Charles L. Hutchinson. The Newberry, Crerar, and Chicago Public libraries; the Field Museum ; University of Chicago; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Academy of Sciences; and Hull-House are dealt with to a lesser extent, and the book's cramped format allows only a cursory discussion of each. There are other unfortunate omissions: for example, the Armour Institute, which provided scientific education for the poor along with a religious mission and a model tenement. Likewise, the treatment of settlement-house culture barely extends beyond the oft-studied Hull-House. Chicago's City Beautiful movement, the Benjamin F. Furguson Fund, and the Municipal Art League receive only a misunderstood mumble. Horowitz also falls prey to an error made by too many historians of Chicago: the assumption that everything happened in the Loop or Hull-House. Cultural philanthropy also went on in ethnic neighborhoods, as wealthy members of the German, Polish, Bohemian, and other immigrant communities supported mass-oriented music and art programs. How interesting it would be to compare downtown and neighborhood cultural philanthropy. Documentation is at times irritating. Those familiar with the subject will note the absence of such items as Eugenia Whitridge's excellent dissertation on Chicago art, a work which deals, in part, with the patronage of artists. There was also a major turn-of-the-century survey of Chicago cultural institutions compiled by the Smithsonian Institution and many contemporary magazine articlesFinally, Horowitz might have done a better job of placing the story in the city's cultural milieu . If anything made Chicago an exciting place to live from the 1880s to the First World War, it was the way that many new ideas were communicated to large audiences. There was a sensitivity to human needs, a response to a particularly unlivable city, and even a quest for profit that kept new ideas and products from becoming a monopoly of the wealthy. Horowitz's cultural philanthropists were not only trying to change the world around them; they were responding to it as well. PERRY DUIS

Ch icago History

ed. Robert P . Sutton Eerdmans, 1976.

vols. $5.95 each.

is a disappointment, probably because the reviewer expected more than Sutton intended to give. The subtitle leads one to believe that there would be a few documents official in nature; for example, a quote from the constitution of the state of Illinois or from the Black Code, when discussing the history of blacks in the state. The word "document" here mea ns contemporary narratives and recollections by residents and visitors to the area. Much of this material has already been published in the Illinois Sesquicentennial volume Prairie State : Impressions of Illinois, compiled by Paul M. Angle. Sutton's work has more of the same type of narrative, fleshed out with history written by later historians to provide background . The twovolume set was planned to complement Robert P. Howard's Illinois: A History of the Prairie Stat e, which tends to give it a textbook flavor. Although it can be read without referring to Howard, Th e Prairie Stat e would have been better if planned to stand alone. THIS COLLECTION

GRANT T. DEAN

The Education of an Urban Minority: Catholics in Chicago, 1833-1965

by James W. Sanders Oxford, 1977. 13.95. of Chicago and its sd1ool system is the largest in the United States. Today, nearly two and one-half million Catholics in Cook and Lake counties comprise the membership of 453 parishes. The Archdiocese's 397 elementary schools and 73 high sd1ools enroll almost a quarter of a million students annually. In tracing the development of this extraordinary network of parod1ial schools, Sanders examines the religious, ethnic, and economic underpinnings of the system. From its beginning, the Catholic Church in Chicago has been attuned to the ethnic differences of its people. Schools were organized in each parish to serve the cultural, educational, and religious needs of the many immigrant groups who settled in the city. Of all the dioceses in the United States, the Chicago Archdiocese presently enrolls the highest number of black students. The differences between the public and Catholic school systems in Chicago are also discussed. The author concludes that, while the public schools were highly centralized, Catholic grammar schools functioned within the framework of the parish. The teaching staff in each school reflected the national background of the parishioners, and many parochial schools in Chicago maintained bilingual programs after 1916, when English became the common language of instruction . Sanders recognizes that the parish system in Chicago paralleled the sectional growth of the city, and THE ARCHDIOCESE

he traces the movement of certain ethnic groups from parish to parish on the North, West, and South sides. In his study, he calls attention to the fact that Catholic high schools such as St. Ignatius, which were owned by religious orders, operated as "magnet" schools long before the term was coined. In the Epilogue, Sanders asserts that the Catholic school after 1965 "lost its meaning." On the contrary, Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago continue to support their schools, as evidenced by the increase in first-grade enrollments last Septemberthe first time in twelve years. Catholic parents, through their parish school boards, exert a degree of control impossible in the public school system. ELLEN SKERRETI"

Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary

by Carolyn Ashbaugh Kerr, 1976. S10 cloth, $3.95 paper. Haymarket Revisited

by William]. Adelman Illinois Labor Historical Society, 1976. $8 cloth, $2.95 paper. BOOKS oN Chicago-related subjects have too often focused exclusively upon the city's elites. Carolyn Ashbaugh's biography of Lucy Parsons and William Adelman's Haymarket Revisited run counter to the trend. Lucy Parsons provides a panoramic view of the life of an extremely interesting and seemingly incongruous leader of the struggles for economic, social, and political justice by Chicago's working people. Adelman's work is a welcome and refreshing departure from the ordinary historical-tour guidebook. It places the events, dramatis personae, and important sites connected with the infamous Haymarket Affair of 1886 in an historical and geographical context, dispelling many commonly accepted distortions of fact. Ashbaugh has succeeded in rescuing Lucy Parsons from an undeserved obscurity and restoring her to one of the most significant women in American labor history. In a very readable yet well-documented narrative, Ashbaugh follows Parsons from her arrival in Chicago in the early 1870s until her death at age eighty-nine in 1942. Prior to 1887, Lucy's story is inseparable from that of her companion, Albert Parsons, one of four radical leaders hung on November 11, 1887, for their alleged roles in the bombing incident at Haymarket Square in May 1886. Lucy, a young woman of predominantly black ancestry, first met Albert in Texas, where he was active in Radical Republican circles following the Civil War. With the collapse of Reconstruction and the concomitant rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Lucy and Albert left Texas, arriving in Chicago around 1873. Shortly thereafter, both became leaders in the city's trade-union and socialist movements, initiating, organizing, and participating in virtually every working-class rally, march, or demonstration between 1873 and 1886. Much of their time, however, was devoted to unending debates over strategy,

tactics, and programs that often fragmented and frustrated the Chicago radical movement's struggles against the city's "captains of industry." Lucy had been a leader in her own right before the Haymarket Affair; in fact, her political opinions were often more militant than Albert's. After his death, she became even more active in agitating and organizing for social change. She also traveled extensively, speaking for the working class in support of free speech and the rights of women and blacks. Lucy spent most of her energy during the 1920s working on behalf of the International Labor Defense, an organization that supported political prisoners such as Sacco and Vanzetti and Tom Mooney. Although popularly characterized as an anarchist, Parsons was, as Ashbaugh explains, more properly an eclectic syndicalist with an impassioned commitment to the socialist vision of a world without class oppression. She was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, later joined Eugene Debs' Socialist Party, and shortly before her death became a member of the Communist Party. In Haymarket Revisited, William Adelman of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle puts together 4 historical tours encompassing 124 separate sites connected with Haymarket and Chicago labor history. Each site is accompanied by a thoroughly researched and well-written commentary. Haymarket Revisited should therefore be well received by both the general public and students of labor history. PATRICK M. QUINN

George Rogers Clark and the War in the West

by Lowell H. Harrison University Press of Kentucky, 1976. $3.95. AFTER TRUDGING through this narrative of George Rogers Clark's personal mission to secure the Old Northwest during the American Revolution, the reader will feel as exhausted as Clark's militia. Only the avid military historian can appreciate the detailed accounts of Clark's exploits. Gaining the respect and loyalty of the Indians and settlers through persuasion rather than force, General Clark and his men fortified settlements in the Illinois and Kentucky territories. Inadequate assistance from the eastern states, however, prevented Clark from realizing his dream of capturing Detroit. His career declined, hastened by rumors of incompetence and alcoholism, after the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and Clark spent the last thirty years of his life trying to pay off the debts from his personally financed campaigns. Crippled by three strokes, Clark died at age sixty-six, a bitter and forgotten man. George Rogers Clark is a worthwhile adjunct to any history of the American Revolution. The endnotes and bibliographical essay provide suggestions for further reading. The lack of an index makes it difficult to find specific persons and events. MIRIAM A. BLAZOWSKI

Chicago History

Books

City Families: Chicago and London

by Roslyn Banish Pantheon, 1976. $15 cloth, $7.95 paper. Roslyn Banish persuaded the Arts Council of Great Britain to support her plan to create a series of portraits of typical English families in their homes. Her premise was simple: straightforward photographs of ordinary people taken in the portrait-studio tradition should be as interestiug as those of the socially prominent. These photographs, taken "respectfully" and with the subjects' full cooperation, could stand alone, she felt, as significant artistic and sociological documents. The result was an engaging picture of the residents of Pimlico, a small but heterogeneous central London community. Six months later, however, Banish realized that the photographs raised too many questions. Revisiting each home, she recorded an interview to accompany each portrait. After giving a brief family hijtory, each family was shown its portrait and asked whether it was a fair representation. The reactions are revealing, often amusing and, I think, the best part of the book. Upon her return to the United States, Banish's publisher urged her to repeat the project in an American city for comparison purposes. She chose the neighborhoods near Chicago's Lincoln Park. City Families contains portraits of forty-one Chicago families to contrast with the thirty-nine families in London. As a document, however, the work seldom provides enough data to make real comparative judgements. Still, it is entertaining to examine in detail the eighty-seven well-produced photographs. Ead1 contains a real human-interest story. Recommended. CHICAGO PHOTOGRAPHER

LARRY A. VJSKOCHIL

Ships of the Great Lakes: A Pictorial History

Paintings by Karl Kuttrujf, Introduction by Robert E. Lee, captions by David T. Glick Wayne State, 1976. 25.

If you've wondered what explorer Robert La Salle's pioneering ship, the Griffon, really looked like or if those turn-of-the-century freighters called whalebacks actually resembled an oversized cigar, then this book is for you. The paintings-based on museum models-and captions achieve a considerable degree of authenticity. A.A.DORNFELD

Chicago History

New Exhibitions METALSMITHS: 1804-1970, an exhibit of more th a n two hundred items of metalwork researched and organized by curator of decorative arts Sharon Darling, opens May 21 in the Wrigley Special Exhibits Gallery on the first floor. Photographs, records and journals, design sketches, and tools will also be displayed. Chicago silversmith William Frederick will work in an open workshop, with tools originally owned by some of the city's silversmiths, producing objects for sale. A heavily illustrated book-length catalog of the exhibit, including a history of Chicago metalsmithing and biographical material on Chicago craftsmen, will be published. CIIICAGO

Rece11 t Accessions A copy of the Abraham Lincoln life mask by Clark l\lills was donated to the Society by Ellie Weir. The mask was made about the time of Lincoln's birthday in 1865, shortly before his assassination. Manuscripts recently acquired by the Historical Society, all by gift, include audio taped interviews from 1975 and 1976 of Studs Terkel , Len O'Connor, John l\Iadigan, Jack l\fabley, and eighteen other leading Chicago journalists, a first installment in a continuing series of interviews conducted by students of Professor Richard A. Schwarzlose's History of l\fass Communication course at Northwestern University; minute and correspondence books of th e Trade and Labor Assembly of Chicago, 18871 890; free-lance writer Hal H igdon's correspondence, interviews, and research files concerning his 1975 book on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, The Crime of th e Century; minute books of the Civic Federation of Chicago, 1894-1898 and 19261950. and the Bureau of Public Efficiency, 19101932; University of Chicago Prof. Robert J. Ha\ ighurst's papers relative to his peace, civil liberties, and international relations activities from 1948 to 1960; the working files of the South Shore Commission , 195<1-1972; an 1831-1833 account book from the drug-trade business of Philo Carpenter, a noted Chicago pioneer; Joe Benson's files on his ser\'ice with the Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks, 1960-1972; and a small collection of papers of the Illinois Council to Repeal the Draft and predecessor groups, 19621974Âˇ

Many historians, from Walt Rostow to Alfred Chandler, have argued for the primacy of railroads and for my part l must side with Larsen. Aside from its commercial function, was it not the railroad that brought Chicago its immigrant labor? Without the railroad, Chicago would have become the "second city"-second to Galena, that is.

Letters

PETER N. PERO

University of Illinois at Chicago Circle

Midwest Rivals

Army-Navy Game

In the Fall 1976 issue of Chicago History, I was a bit dismayed at Lawrence Larsen's generalization regarding Cyrus McCormick's reason for coming to Chicago. McCormick did not come to Chicago because it was a successful city; he turned it clown as a possible manufacturing site at least once. Truth was, McCormick had no capital. When he finally came here, he did not move his "business"he joined Charles M. Gray and Seth Warner, who were manufacturing the Virginia Reaper under McCormick's clouded original patent which was soon due for renewal. The patent made the impecunious and imperialistic McCormick a more appealing business associate than most men. Gray and Warner owed Cyrus $2,500 in patent fees at the end of one year, and McCormick assumed a partnership with Gray, supposedly to acquire the money due. Finding McCormick difficult to handle, Gray sold half of his interests to William B. Ogden and William E. Jones. Law suits developed within the year over whether the 2,500 was part of the original capitalization of the Gray-McCormick partner~hip and whether Ogden and Jones could become partners without McCormick's consent. Ogden held the stakes-the accounts receivable totaling $36,000-while the matters were in arbitration. McCormick eventually won, but Gray was probably unable to pay the settlement. He sold the remaining interest to Ogden in 1848, who remained in business for one year before selling out to l\lcCormick. Within three years, McCormick had parlayed a 2,500 debt from a shaky farm-implement firm into sole ownership of a new and successful business, but not because Chicago was a great place to do business. McCormick, who lost his patent fight during this time, was a coldhearted businessman and profiteer. He matched the city of Chicago in the desire to get ahead at any cost; ruthless politics and ruthless businessmen were the order of the day here, as perhaps nowhere else.

Thanks for your letter settling the question of directions in Soldier Field. In an effort to get oriented, I visualized the very scene that you used in the Fall 1976 issue ["Fifty Y cars Ago"] of Chicago History-the Army-Navy game. I was present for the game, arriving at 9 A.M. for the purpose of building a story for the first edition of the Chicago American. I phoned in some purple prose about the gray-and-gold of the Army complemented by the dawn emerging from a cold, cold lake. Pretty lyric, but what do you do on such an occasion? John Bradford Maine, t.he writer on the story, liked the poetic touch so much that it appeared under his by-line in early editions.

EDITH FREUND

Mt. Prospect Lawrence Larsen appears to debate Bessie Pierce over the eliects of the railroad upon the growth of Chicago. Larsen claimed that artificial improvements in transportation, most especially the railroad, helped Chicago to dominate the Midwest. Pierce, prompted by company dollars, concluded that the influence of the railroad was at best secondary.

MILTON FAIRMAN

Stamford, Conn.

Captain Streeter A few months ago, Chicago magazine had Gov. John Peter Altgcld elected mayor of Chicago. Now an article in Chicago History [Fall 1976) has him pardoning Cap Streeter in 1904 or 1905. What bit of misinformation will be published about him next? GUY A. JIOCII

Chicago The associate editor replies: Thank you for pointing out this error; Altgeld was defeated when he ran for reelection in 1896 and died in 1902. The mistake was mine: I took the information out of an article on Streeter in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Errors have a way, as you know, of being passed on.

An Old Friend I just finished perusing the Spring 1976 issue of Chicago History. I found it very interesting and informative. My interest in the Chicago Historical Society dates back to 1902, at which time my family moved to N. Dearborn St., across from your original building.... l\Iy wife and her sister were scheduled to make the trip on the Eastland. That day, their milkman was late in covering his route. Their mother would not permit the girls to leave home until they finished breakfast. They arrived at La Salle Street and the Chicago River soon after the boat had capsized. Best wishes for the continued success of Chicago History. JACK CRAWFORD

Tucson, Ariz. Chicago Hist ory

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

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

Harold K. Skramstad, Jr. TRUSTEES Bowen Blair Philip D. Block III Cyrus Colter Emmett Dedmon Stewart S. Dixon James R. Getz Philip W. Hummer Willard L. King

The Chicago Historical Society is a privately supported 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. MEMBERSHIP

J\,Jrs. Frank B. Mayer Andrew l\fcNally Ill Bryan S. Reid, Jr. Gilbert H. Scribner, Jr. Harold Byron Smith, Jr. Gardner H. Stern Theodore Tieken

LIFE TRUSTEES

Mrs. C. Phillip l\filler Hermon Dunlap Smith Mrs. Philip K. Wrigley HONORARY TRUSTEES J\,Jichael A. Bilandic, Mayor, City of Chicago Patrick L. O'Malley, President, Chicago Park District

Membership is open to anyone interested in the Society's activities and objectives. Classes of membership and dues are as follows: Annual, $20 a year; Governing Annual, $100 a year; Life, $500; and Patron, $1,000 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 purchased in the Museum Store. HOURS Exhibition galleries are open daily from g: 30 to 4: 30; Sundays, from 12:00 to 5:00. Library and museum research collections are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 to 4:30 (Monday through Friday during July and August). The Society is closed on Christmas, New Year's, and Thanksgiving. THE EDUCATION OFFICE offers guided tours, assemblies, slide talks, gallery talks, craft demonstrations, and a variety of special programs for all ages, from pre-school through senior citizen. ADMISSION FEES FOR NON-MEMBERS

Adults $1; Children (6-17), 50¢; Senior Citizens, 25¢. Admission is free on Mondays. Single copies of Chicago History, published quarterly, are $2.25 by mail; $2 at newsstands, bookshops, and the Museum Store .

•

Shoppers jam the Boston Store on Netcher Day, Sept. 16, 1935, for " values that are unequaled."