Chicago History | Fall 1978

Chicago History $2.00

FALL 1978

Scale · eight feet-one lnc b.

FRONT ELEVATION.

Geo. O. Oamsey, Architec t, Chicago.

HrLL'S NATIO SAL Bt:ILDER Print.

Copyright by Thos . E. HUI .

HANDSOME CITY OR SUBURBAN RESIDENCE. Porches, Verandahs, Bay Windows and Alcove Rooms. For Details, Specifications and Estimate See October Number. lBB7.

Neighborhood photographer Henry R. Koopman photographs his daughter Marie in his Roseland studio , 1895. See page 161. CHS , gift of Paul W. Petraitis.

Chicago History The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society

FALL 1978 VOLUME VII, NUMBER 3

Fannia Weingartner Editor Gail Farr Casterline Assistant Editor Walter W. Krutz Paul W. Petraitis Photography

CONTENTS A HOME IN THE COUNTRY: SUBURBANIZATION IN JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP, 1870-1889/134

by Barbara M. Posadas GRANT AND TWAIN IN CHICAGO: THE 1879 REUNION OF THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE/150

by Charles H. Gold HENRY RALPH KOOPMAN II: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A NEIGHBORHOOD PHOTOGRAPHER/161

by Paul W. Petraitis TAKING THE MEASURE OF THE LAND Two Map Exhibits at the Society/178 LOOKING BACKWARD: My Life in Radio/179

by Sarajane Wells THE SOCIETY/183 A WALK THROUGH THE REINSTALLED AMERICAN HISTORY GALLERIES/184 REVIEWS/189 NOTES/195

Cover: From The National Builder (October 1887), a monthly journal " Devoted to Practical Build ing, Sash , Door and Blind Making , and Interior Furn ishing ," published in Chicago from 1885 to 1924. CHS.

Copyright 1978 by the Chicago Histori cal 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

A Home in the Country: Suburbanization 1n Jefferson Township, 1870-1889

BY BARBARA M. POSADAS

" ... put your money where it will be safe and sure to increase) and buy yourself a residence where the pure air will prolong your lives and make your children strong.))

Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1880

suburbanization is a familiar phenomenon to contemporary Chicagoans. ¡with each passing decade the countryside has grown more distant from the city itself. Once peaceful fields and quiet villages have been transformed into bustling residential, commercial, and industrial entities. Yet Chicago's suburbia is hardly new, for urban expansion ("deconcentration" in technical parlance) has been underway since the nineteenth century when the growth of transportation facilities enabled men to lengthen the distance between their place of work and their residence.

In the years following the Civil ¡war, newly developed horsecar lines and, more importantly, commuter railroads carried passengers in every direction to Chicago's limits and beyond. The cherished histories and traditions of communities such as Evanston, Park Ridge, Oak Park, and Riverside typify today's most familiar links with this suburban past. But other communities also began as suburbs-communities located in the townships which surrounded the much smaller mid-nineteenth century city of Chicago--which was bounded by Fullerton or North avenues (2400 or 1600 North), Crawford Avenue (4000 West), and Egan Avenue (3900 South). The townships of Jefferson to the northwest, Lake to the southwest, Lake View to the

THE PROCESS OF

Barbara i\I. Posadas teaches in the department of history at Northern Illinois University.

134

Chicago History

north , and Hyde Park to the south ultimately became part of Chicago. Few are aware of the suburban beginnings of these areas. ¡whether settling in the townships outside the city which would later be annexed, or in that area which remained autonomous, nineteenth century suburban Chicagoans left the city for a variety of reasons. Culturally they were a people caught between two ideals. One celebrated the benefits of industrial progress; the other celebrated the virtues of an earlier, simpler, "more natural" way of life. Wishing to wed the two ideals, Americans sought ways of working in the city but living in the country.

Their dreams were fed by the popularization of ideas introduced in such books as Andrew .Jackson Downing's Cottage R esidences (1842) and Calvert Vaux's Villas and Cottages (1857).

These seemed to promise that possession of even a modest country cottage would provide an environment conducive to the preservation of virtue and high moral conduct. In such a setting, freed of the constraints and nuisances endemic to the urban industrial environment, families would be able to secure for themselves a morally and physically wholesome and protected existence.

The fact that new homes at a price they could afford were more likely to be found just at and beyond the city limits provided city dwellers with yet another inducement to move out to the suburbs. Here, the availability of vacant Janel provided builders with tracts for development at prices affordable by those with modest means as well as by the more prosperous. But yet another factor entered into the picture.

A Home in the Country

The belief that home ownership beyond the confines of the city provided a refuge from the insecurities and discomforts of urban life gave a powerful impetus to suburban growth . From Illustrated Catalog of S. E. Gross' Lots , Houses and Cottages. CHS.

Chicago History

135

A Home in the Country

l\Iost of the people who wanted to move to the suburbs were dependent on jobs within the central business district or in the shops and factories that pressed outward to the edges of the city.

For them, convenient transportation to their places of employment became an important prerequisite to moving out of the city.

The positive attractions of suburban life were further enhanced by the decreasing attractiveness of city life as a continuing influx of population taxed existing neighborhoods. What had once been desirable areas became more crowded, less pleasant, and less sa[e in the eyes of families with the aspiration and the means to move.

The spread of industry toward the outer edges of the city in the a[termath of the fire of 1871, combined with the prohibition of wood construction within the central city, accelerated the movement of population to the city limits. ¡workingmen seeking jobs and cheap frame dwellings soon bu ilt a belt of plank board structures around the city.

Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, suburban developers beckoned potential cl ients with a variety of incentives, as this advertisement suggests: No city taxes, assessments or ordinances. Can build wooden houses. All lots are in beautiful cultivation , covered with trees, shrubbery, and fruit, and the highest ground near the city. These are the nicest and cheapest lots of the kind in the market, and this sale offers a really rare opportunity to acquire a beautiful and healthy home, with all city advantages, and not far from business. Come out of the slums, put your money where it will be safe and sure to increase, and buy yourselÂŁ a res iden ce where the pure air will prolong your lives and ma ke your ch ildren strong. [Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1880]

Even during the Panic of 1873, when real estate activity in suburban areas slowed down, Chicago's Real Estate and Building Journal cominued to promote the purchase of land as a means of ensuring one's economic security : People of moderate means, who disregarded the real value of money until the late financial stringency came on, are beginning to see the necessity of owning the ir homes, and are making every possible effort to secure that end . [December 13, 1873] 136

Ch icago History

construction of a new family home was beyond their immediate means, the author of this article advocated that the diligent might nonetheless take the first step:

I(

What little fund they possessed was deposited in savings banks, and as fast as they can draw it out, they are making investments in cheap lots, located in the extreme outskirts of the city.

Given the collapse of a number of Chicago area savings banks in 1877, possession of a single lot may well have seemed a wise alternative.

Covering today's entire Northwest Side, and encompassing the area north of North Avenue (1600 North) and west of Western Avenue (2400 West), the farmlands of Jefierson Township lay ripe for development in the years after the Civil War. The township had been settled in the 1830s by native-born, British, and German farmers who brought hay, corn, oats, potatoes, garden produce, and butter down Jefferson's main thoroughfare (an old diagonal trail later named J\[i!waukee Avenue) to the Chicago market. Little occupational diversification occurred in Jefferson before 1850: in that year, 110 of 115 householders were engaged in agriculture. \Vhile farms were scattered throughout, the township had only one center, a village (later called Jefferson Park) located near today's intersection of l\Iilwaukee Avenue and Higgins Road .

The seeds of Jefferson's coming suburbanization were sown during the 1850s and 1860s as new developments modified the pattern of life in the area. Ch ief among these was the diagonal bisection of the township by the Chicago and North Western Railway. This led to an increase in the value of farm land near the railroad and prepared the way for future commuting.

Between 1850 and 1870 the popu lation increased from 744 to 1,813, but by the end of those two decades less than fifty percent of the households in Jefferson were farming. The United States census for that year incl udes the first mention of Jefferson as the site of man ufacturi ng activities. Squire and Samuel D ingee,

As this 1883 map published by the Snyder real estate firm shows, suburban settlement often sprang up along major traffic arteries. CHS.

owners of a pickle and sauce business capitalized at $15,000, employed four men and three youths to turn cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and caulirtower into pickles, catsup, chow chow, and ,,vorcestershire sauce. Another entrepreneur, Charles Morriss, engaged eight females and five males in the production of fireworks of all kinds with the exception of fire crackers.

Subdivision of the township's acreage into blocks a1'1d lots held for investment purposes had also begun. Eighty-seven percent of Jefferson Township's property holders in 1870 were non-resident, clearly people who ¡were confident that Jefferson land was a safe investment which might provide either a financial profit or the site for a home in years to come. Three-quarters o( the land they owned was assessed at less than $500.

During the 1870s parts oE Jefferson became Chicago suburbs. Home building for immediate occupancy further modified the township's initial agrarian character. The population swelled to 4,876 by 1880, providing the basis for several new, ethnically and occupationally diverse enclaves within Jefferson's boundaries. At the same time, non-resident ownership failed to diminish; over 900 men and women held single lots.

Further improvement of transportation facilities made Jefferson attractive to both investors and newcomers. A second railroad, the Chicago, :Milwaukee, and St. Paul entered the township, and new stations serving suburban commuters were opened at various strategic locations of high population density. The Chicago and North Western Railway, for example had stations at the city limits, Maplewood, Irving Park, Chicago History

137

Marti n Kimbell built this home in 1837 on his 160-acre farm just south of the main thoroug hfare (later Milwaukee Avenue) leading into the city. CHS, gift of A nne Binyon.

and Plank Road. The Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul had its stations at the city limits, Pacific J u nction, Grayland, and Montrose.

The extension of the horsecar service, cheaper than the trains, to North Avenue in 1874 proved a boon for less affluent suburban dwellers. The walk from Jefferson's eastern boundary, Western Avenue, to the beginning of the horsecar service was not always short, but it was possible. And it allowed the inhabitants of J efferson to enjoy the benefits of Chicago's transportation system.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, these advantages, those purchas ing homes in Jefferson in the early 1870s paid what must have seemed very high prices for the privilege. Land northwest of North and Western avenues, which had been valued at under $100 per acre at the close of the Civil War, sold for 1,000 to $3,000 per acre in lots in the early 1870s. A typical lot in the southeastern corner of Jefferson brought a minimum of $400 to $450.

Land transactions frequently took place at publ ic auction where crowds, bands, and refreshments added psychological encouragement.

Take an excurs ion; take a chance; take a piece 138

Chicago History

of the countryside! In auction sales, contracts encompassing more than a three-year term were rare. Helen C. Monchow, in her study of subdividing in Chicago, reported as common the arrangements of the Blue Island Land and Building Company south of Chicago between 1869 and 1873. These were: [S]ell to the highest bidder at 10% down , 20% in thirty days, and the balance in one, two, and three years with interest at 7% per year. The interest charge was waived if the buyer would build on the lot within four months.

Closer to Jefferson, just to the east in Lake View Township, promotional literature for the cottages and subdivisions constructed and developed by S. E. Gross & Company ten years later advertised lots ranging in price from $400 to $650 for only a small down payment and the balance monthly over a "long time." o cash payment was required if building began at once. Cross's $1800 frame cottages were offered on the same terms. "Small Cash Payment, balance in Monthly Payments of $20 each." Thus, a family's new lot or home in Jefferson might become theirs within a decade.

New subdivisions were plotted by old settlers

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and new owners alike as the suburban boom developed: competition was keen for the tremendous profits to be made. In 1872 the family farm of one old settler, George Bickerdike, was carved into chunks for business and residential use. Advertisements proclaimed that these lots, located near the Chicago River in the southeastern quarter of Jefferson , were a true value.

Not only were they outside the fire limits; since Bickerclike was selling his own property, buyers would save on commissions as well!

In central Jefferson, Charles T. Race abandoned the idea of engaging in gentleman farming on his recently purchased land and decided to build a town instead. On the condition that the backers of the new development, Irving Park, absorb the cost of a depot, the Chicago and 1 orth Western Railway agreed to ina\lgurate rail service to and from Chicago. Thereafter Race and Company, 167 E. Madison, Chicago, advertised the convenience of commuting from Irving Park-trains every half hour, a twenty-minute ride, a seven cent fare. "Mr. Race will negotiate with any respectable individual who means business, and will become a good citizen."

In 1873 at poetically named Avondale, a mile southwest of Irving Park, banker Brian Philpot constructed "twenty-one exactly similar houses," each of them a two-story Gothic style frame dwelling. Even closer to the city's edge lay an eighty acre unit of land which, until I 870, hosted a single shanty and fields of corn. In that year, its owners, Burling & Davis of New York City, sold it for $200,000 to the firm of Hansbrough & Hess. The latter divided the tract (bounded by today's North Avenue, California Avenue, · Armitage Avenue, and Humboldt Boulevard) into sixteen square blocks and called the area Humboldt for the park just to the south. Four "Very neat two-story frame structures" built by Henry Greenebaum in this ne,,·ly developed location in l 872 were sold with little delay. In that very year an offer of $105,000 for forty acres fronting on Humboldt Park was refused.

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Groups of city dwellers were conducted to new subdivisions by enterprising developers who then auctioned off lots to them. From Tenth Annual Illustrated Catalogue of S. E. Gross' Famous City SubdiVisions and Suburban Towns, 1891. CHS.

As these subdivisions grew and their population increased, newcomers, especially those from Europe, played an increasingly active role in the township's economic life. Some came directly to Jefferson where they established enterprises or found employment in existing businesses.

Others, who had first made their livelihood in Chicago, later moved to the township as opportunities expanded there.

Henry Esdohr, who came to Jefferson from Germany while in his teens, had established a retail liquor business by 1874 when he was twenty-two. During the succeeding decade, in partnership ·with compatriot Henry Wulff, Esdohr sold agricultural implements and sewing machines in the locality. Andrew Esterquist, a blacksmith, came to J efferson in 1875 from Sweden. He was in his mid-thirties. After twelve year in the employ of an English wagonmaker named Goodman, Esterquist joined a fellow employee, a German immigrant named Frederick Schultz, to found a wagonmaking firm bearing their names.

Chicago History

139

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Advertisement from Illustrated Catalog of S. E. Gross' L?ts, Houses and Cottages. CHS.

Other Europeans spent some time in Chicago before being drawn by the auracLions of suburban life in Jefferson . When the fire of 1871 destroyed his home, carpenter Henry Brueshaber fled to the village of Jefferson where he became a successful contractor and lumber dealer during the boom years of the 1870s. The rebuilding of the city and the development of the suburbs stimulated the construction industry and within a decade, according to Andreas' History of Cook County, Brueshaber had "erected some of the most prominent business houses and private residences in the village."

In 1877 German-born Hans Groth moved his five-year-old cigar manufacturing business from Chicago Lo Jefferson. ,vith the assistance of two hired hands he produced 125,000 cigars annually to net a profit of approximately $600. And in 1878, after over a dozen years' experience in operating hotels in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago, John H. Cortes sold his Chicago interests and took over a Jefferson hotel, the Avenue House.

But perhaps the most notable success among the foreign continentals settling in the township 140

Ch icago History

was Peter S. Peterson, who opened a nursery in Bowmanville, one of the township's villages, only ten years after his arrival from Sweden at the age of twenty-two. During the decade prior Lo his move Lo Jefkrson, Peterson had gained experience in a Rochester, New York, nursery and had gone on to serve as an agent for several Rochester nurseries after coming Lo Chicago in 1865. By 1870 Peterson had acquired 175 acres of land in the township's northeastern section . A biographical sketch written in the l 880s noted that Peterson's Rose Hill Nursery grew every kind o[ tree and would carefully pack and ship "the greatest distances without injury."

A volume on Chicago's "leading manufacturers and merchants" reported that Peterson employed between fifty and seventy-five men, ten horses, ancl numerous teams of oxen. By the late 1880s, Peter Peterson had opened a business office clO\rnLO\rn at 161 LaSalle Street.

As the population o[ Jefferson Township rose iLs existing i nsti tu Lions ex paneled to serve the needs o[ newcomers. In 187°1 area residents launched a school building program with the construction of a "costly and commodious" grammar school in the recently formed Maplewood school district. " 7ithin the next decade eight more brick buildings, each accommodating from one hundred to two hundred and fifty pupils, were built to supply the need of new .Jefiersonians for con\'eniently located elementary chools. Secondary educal ion fared less well. Jefierson High School, which had been established in 1869, closed less than a decade later because of a lack of studems. ,\ renewal of interest in secondary education in 1882 led Lo a bond issue for a new building to be erected on donated land. Completion of the structure made high school education available once more, but for some years attendance never rose above seventy-five.

During the same period several Protestant churches joined the decade-and-a-half-old Jefferson Congregational Church in attending Lo the community's spiritual and social needs. Among them were a Baptist, two Congregational, and

two American Re(ormed congregations. The pattern or eLlrnic development in Jefferson was reinforced with the organization oI St. .Johannes' German Evangelical Lutheran Church and parochial school in 1876.

While such developments bespeak in broad terms the general transition from rural to suburban occurring in Jefferson Township in the 1870s, rates and patterns of change within the township were by no means uniform. One of the factors contributing to this internal diversity was the r estructuring o[ the township's government in 1872, when Jefferson took advantage o( an Illinois law enabling territorial segments of less than two square miles and over three hundred people to organi1.e into villages. Five were culled rrom Jefferson's acreage. The newly organi1ed Yillages of .Jefferson, Irving Park, Bowmanville, l\Iaplewood, and Humboldt defined the currem pattern of population concentration . The subsequent development of these villages was such, however, that by 1880 one finds marked differences in social and ethnic composition from one village to the next and in their relationship to the rest or the township. The process through ·which l11is came about illustrates the complexity of the suburban lure and reveals the persistence of the rural in close proximity to the suburban.

Jefferson as a whole contained 946 households in 1880, only 131 (or fourteen percent) of which were located in areas outside the limits of the five village . The enclaves varied in size: faplewood , the largest, contained 295 households; Jeffer on, 222; Humboldt, 133; Irving Park, 100; and Bowmanville, 65. But far more important than distinctions of siLe were the occupatio~al and ethnic Yari a tions the settlements exhibited, and in these the true diversity of late nin eteenth century suburbanization can be clearly discerned.

Farthest from the city lay the most rural of the villages with the fewest observable ties to Chicago: J elferson (Jefferson P ark) and Bowmanville (located northwest of today's Western, Lincoln, and Lawrence avenues). Over 40 per-

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This plan for a $600 cottage appeared in the April 9, 1887, Real Estate and Building Journal (Chicago) as the least expensive in a series of designs for work ing class homeowners. CHS.

cent o( their heads of household either farmed or clicl agriculwral labor in 1880, a figure slightly higher than the 3·1 percent township average .

Reflecting the fact that the village of .Jefferson was the township's oldest ancl most stable center o( settlement, 29 percent o[ Jefferson's agrarians had lived in the , •illage for over twenty years. one of the Bowmanvillc farmers could make this claim.

In contrast, the non-agrarian settlers in Bowmanville proved to be more persistent than those in Jefferson: only 13 percent o[ the nonfanning householders in the village o( Jefferson in 1870 were still there in 1880. In Bowmanville, 33 percent o[ the non-agrarian householders hacl been residents for ten years. Those in Bowmanville arrived just as large-scale enterpri ses emplo)ing both agrarian and non-agrarian workers were being established. Thus, their ties to the village were probably stronger than those of similar men arriving in Jefferson. For example, at the beginning of the 1870s, no single firn1 in the village of Jeffer on employed a significant number of residents with the exception of Goodman's twenty-two year old wagonmaking shop. On the other hand, Bowmanville boasted a pickle factory built in 1869 by Chicago Hist ory

14 1

A Home in the Country

Lyman and Joseph Budlong which by 1880 employed ten workers. The raw materials for pickling were grown on Budlong land nearby. This enterprise, when combined with Peter Peterson's nursery and \,Vendelin Vollmer's recently enlarged brewery and the saloons it supplied, provided work for village residents and gave Bowmanville a small, but perhaps initially more stable non-agrarian core than Jelferson.

To place Jefferson and Bowmanville within a suburbanizing perspective however, it is necessary to remember that the stable core in each village was quite small . Newcomers made up the preponderant majority in both villages.

With their generally high population turnover and many remaining farms, Jefferson and Bow-

manville resembled the township of the past.

But the general increase in the number of manual workers and small-scale enterprises within their borders indicates a decline in agricultural activity, though at a slower rate than that experienced by other villages in Jelferson. l\Iore directly within the city's orbit, the villages of Humboldt and Maplewood nestled near Chicago's northwestern edge. Development at Maplewood (north of Fullerton and west of ¡western Avenue) illustrates the extraordinary profits to be made in land speculation before the Panic of 1873. In 1869 Samuel B. White realized $50,000 on the eighty acres he had originally purchased for approximately $30 per acre and held for twenty-five years. The buyers of the

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' S.E.GROSS' ENTERPRISES

Suburban developers installed water pipes, planted trees, and secured commuter depots for new residents long before they moved in. From Illustrated Catalog of S. E. Gross' Lots, Houses and Cottages. CHS .

14 2

Ch icago History

A Home in the Country

land, Wing & Farlin o( Chicago, divided it into lots and improvecl the acreage by planting severa l thousand elm and maple trees, installing sidewa lks, and drilling an artesian well capable or producing 350 ga llons o[ water per minute.

Hy 1871, 400 lots selling for $100 to $1000 had been purchased at faplcwoocl. The company advanced mortgage money to those pur hasers who wanted to build. Homes in "modern Gothic" style, co ·ting between . 2,000 and $6,500, were made available.

Nearby lay another subdivision. Close to old settler George Powell's inn (at Milwaukee, Western, and Armitage avenues), a stopp ing place ror farmers bound f'or market in the early years, Powell's sons reaped great profit f'rom the development of what remained o( their father's 107 acre estate. Following their father's death in 185 1, the ons' guard ian auctioned 40 percent o[ Powell's land for $200 per a re . In J 871 WilJiam Powell refused a. 75,000 offer for his own .. 8,000 frame home and the five acres on which it stood. Smaller lots carved from Powell land sold for. 1,000 apiece.

In 1880 J\faplcwood's householders were spread fairly evenly through the various occupational categories. The agrarian labor force LOtaled 28 percent; tho e engaged in semi-skilled or skilled o cupations, 33 percent. One-fifth of the re~idents held non-manual positions, and promoters of the suburb adverti ed in the Real Estatr• 1111d Building journal that M. J. Whitman, insurance agent, and David A. Cashman, printer, both ow ned hou cs there and that L. C. Welch, architect, owned three. The advantages or Ji ving in the village were obviou . Only four miles away from the center o( the city, Maplewood offered residents easy access to Chicago's job market. For those desirous of rapid, relatively comfortable transportation, the railroad station was within easy walking distance. For 6½¢ per ride, a man might travel fifteen minutes from peace and home to bustle and work.

Those whose place of labor in the city was inconveniently served by rail might hike to the southeast corner of the village, where, at Armi-

Lage Avenue, the cx1endecl service of the [il waukec A venue street railway made the last stop on its diagonal climb from Chicago's core.

O1hers cou ld walk to the city or to Humboldt where firms such as P. A. Thompson's basket factory wou ld multiply in number a the decade progressed.

In 1880 Humboldt, with a predominantly working class populace, was the least rural o( Jcflerson's villages. Manual workers numbered 62 pcrcem of Humboldt's heads of household; on ly 6 percent (armed. As in Maplewood, Humboldt's residents could use the four passenger trains serving their suburb daily if they were not emp loyed nearby.

Much of the land in the vi llage of Humboldt was sold through the eITorts of the Humboldt Park Residence Association, a German building and loan society which subdivided a forty-acre tract into 360 lots and sold 1,800 shares (or 100 par value each al one-fourth down, and one-fourth annually for three years with interest at 8% per year. Ten lots were reserved to be sold by the Association, the proceeds of which were lO be used LO pay for improvements on the tract. [Monchow, 237].

Prem i urns of l ,000 on a $3,000 hou e were distri bu tcd to the first six owners completing their dwellings.

The activities of Humboldt residents were tho e traditionally associated with a genteel suburban existence, despite the area's proximity to the city. The Humboldt Park Literary and lVfusician's Union gave monthly entertainments, " its aim to be mutual cultivation and refinement and the encouragement of a neighborly socia l feeling." In noting this activity, a Chicago Times reporter added: "Humboldt Park may well challenge any other of Chicago's suburbs for talent, intelligence, good taste, and sociability." [December 1, 1879] Though it is unlikely that everyo:ie participated in these activities, the report describes the type of life which Humboldt's "finer elements" wished their suburb to be identified with and to enjoy and is indicative of the suburban ideals valued within sight of Chicago History

143

A Home in the Country

Chicago's borders.

Irving Park (in Lhe v1cm1ty of Irving Park and Pulaski roads) was Jefferson's most atypical village. In boLh occupaLional strucrnre and social ideals, it resembled suburbs like Evanston and Oak Park raLher Lhan Lhe Lownship which surrounded it. And unlike Jefferson's other villages, which closely paralleled the township as a whole in diverse eLhnic composition, Irving Park heads of households were 78 percent naLive-born. Just under 60 percent of Irving Park's householders held non-manual jobs, many commuting daily Lo Chicago. Among the most prominent commuters were Hiram Holcomb, president of the Holcomb Manufacturing and PlaLing Company, ?II. ,villis, cusL01nhouse auditor, and J. i\1. Fleming, superintendent of Field, Leiter & Company's reLail sLore.

The adverLisements for Irving Park reveal Richard T. Race's desire Lo creaLe a true refuge from Lhe congestion of Chicago. The houses offered by the Irving Park Land Company were all new, and ... more or less expensive and elegant .... As a general thing the class of houses are quite pretty, and appear to have been erected with an eye to the ornamental, as well as to the comfortable, requirements. [Real Estate and Building Journal, September 28, 1872]

New dwellings for sale in early 187 3 boasted seven to ten rooms, marble mantles, closets, water from a good artesian well, and sidewalks, all within a $3,000 to $6,000 price range. OLher homes were valued as high as $20,000. Undoubtedly one of those belonged to Mr. Race, for the Journal described his residence as a large three-story and basement brick, with stone trimming and French roof. It is located on an elevation in the centre of a large lot, in which we believe, the owners intend to have several little fish lakes, and construct gravel walks, carriage ways, lawns, flower gardens, fountains, etc.

For those with similar Lastes and the means to satisfy them, an architect resident in the village furnished specially designed plans to be executed in frame or octagon-front brick. A handsome 144

Chicago History

home might stimulaLe orders for duplication.

Social life in Irving Park reClected the prosperiLy of its residents. According to the "Suburban' ' column of the Chicago Times, which recorded the activities of various communities ouLsicle Chicago, the wealLhiest of Irving Park's householders observed the "seasons," traveling east to the waters at Saratoga and journeying west to look after Colorado mining interests.

Both the wealthy and the less prosperous participaLccl in church activities and joined the social, literary, musical, and young people's clubs in which Irving Park abounded. Business ties linked Irving Park Lo Chicago but for social life the families of Irving Park most frequently turned to other suburbanites. New neighbors, old selllers from the nearby village of Jefferson, and the founding fathers of more recent enclaves were included in the social affairs of the township. On other occasions, visits to Oak Park, EvansLon, Ravenswood, and Norwood Park residenLs were mentioned.

The cherished tranquility of the suburban ideal became a reality in Irving Park where interruption of the usual quiet was an event worth noting. ¡when a picnicking "party of drunken hoodlums from the city" overturned a resident's buggy as he drove past a local cemetery the local citizenry's outrage found expression in no less than the Chicago Times. While it has been suggested by Richard Sennell, author o[ Families Against the City (1970), that middle class families remaining in changing Chicago neighborhoods were sometimes embattled in this era, the families of Irving Park were relatively successful escapees from the disturbances of city living, namely, crowding, the construction of noisy elevated lines, and the intrusion of new commercial structures in residential areas.

By the 1880s the inCluences of previous settlement patterns, transportation, and publicity had made specific areas within the township particularly allractive to individual buyers of lots and homes. Though 117 different subdivisions had already been recorded, much land lying in less

Squire Dingee Company delivery wagon, 1906. This early Jefferson firm grew into a thriving producer of pickles and condiments. Mrs. F. Olney Brown.

favored locales would remain vacant for years to come, preserving the possibility of escape to the countryside for those yet to seek the suburban dream. Numerical differentiation among settled sections had increased tremendously. In 1884 over 8,000 individuals congregated in the southeastern sections of the township containing Humboldt and Maplewood. Irving Park, in contrast, had a population of 640 and Bowmanville claimed 592 inhabitants.

Trade in lots became particularly brisk as a "filling-in" occurred along transportation lines in the areas closest to the city. Small buyers unable to go long distances from the city were attracted to old and new subdivisions. D. Vv. Eldred, a Chicago real estate agent and the owner of over 275 vacant lots in Jefferson Park, in 1880 advertised "Lots for Sale" and "Money Advanced to Build" on every eighth page of Jefferson Township's first directory. A similar advertisement for Chicago broker Henry Greenebaum's property encouraged prospective buyers to "See Greenebaum Sons If You ¡w ant a Home on Easy Terms." Hundreds of homes were built in a one-mile area west of Humboldt Park. And in 1888 at Avondale, S. E. Gross opened first one tract ancl then another. Over 200 lots priced bet ween S150 and $300 were sold for 25 clown and .$10 per month at 6 percent. A number of

dwellings, too, were erected nearby at "Underthe-Linden," where the Gross company promised "substantial improvements being made as fast as possible."

Along the township's southern border, out to the west along the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, new hamlets were centered around various industrial firms.

The southern route of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, along which these communities grew, had been termed the "belt line" by 1889, attesting to the importance of the area as a manufacturing locale rather than as a suburban retreat.

Galewood was the site of the \ Vestern Brick and Tile Manufacturing Company, and Pennock the site o( John Miltmore's factory for manufacturing elastic steel car wheels. Hermosa grew at the juncture of the two lines of the Chicago, l\filwaukee, and St. Paul. There, by 1886, the Expanded :Metal Company, the Eclipse Furnace Company, and the warehouse of the \Vashburn and l\Ioan ?\Ianufacturing Company had been constructed, along with a depot, a school, a post office, and a telegraph station.

Close by, l F. and C. P. Keeney, 94 Washington Street, Chicago, offered 150 fine cottages suitable for workers. The cottages came with a guarantee that should the purchaser die before completing Chicago History

145

A Home in the Country

the contract, his wife or heirs would get the deed to the property free of all encumbrances as well as all money previously paid to the developers.

Cragin, situated farther west along North Avenue at the middle of the township's southern border, was already the site of the Cragin Manufacturing Company in 1889 when 76 acres were sold to a large manufacturer who proposed to locate a plant there. Adjoining lands were purchased by another firm which hoped to divide and sell land to employees of the company.

By 1886 the business section of Jefferson's directory included 632 listings. From art gallery to employment agency to steamship agent, local businessmen could provide for most of J efferson 's needs. If art, employment, and travel were insufficient to occupy an individual's time, he could purchase the ingredients of a meal at one of the township's eighty-five grocery stores or raise a glass at one of its fifty-one saloons.

Despite population growth in the southeast corner of the township and the emergence of a more diversified range of occupations compared with earlier years, change in Jefferson was not pervasive. Perhaps the best single source for determining the extent of Jefferson Township's development is Rascher's Atlas of Chicago, first published in 1886 and continued until 1893.

The atlas is a fire insurance map detailing block by block those areas of the township in which substantial construction had occurred for business purposes.

Only a miniscule portion of Jefferson receives coverage in the atlas: the industrial areas to the west along the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad; Humboldt and Maplewood, the most settled areas in the southeast; and Avondale to the northwest. Areas of purely residential use were omitted. The thorough concentration of manufacturing and industrial firms in the southeast during these years is striking. \Vhile many of the large firms and smaller shops located in this area were of substantial construction, there were few brick homes. Most of the dwellings were detached, frame houses sitting 146

Chicago History

side by side on narrow lots, although a number were so scattered as to preclude a neighbor just next door. Thus, while the blocks pictured in Rascher bear a close resemblance to those just over the township boundary in Chicago, the absence of the rest of the township from the atlas indicates that urban forms had overpowered both the rural countryside and the suburban centers in only a small segment of Jefferson.

Though no specific builders' plans for homes constructed in the township during these years have been located, it is likely that they were similar to those for inexpensive homes published by the R ea l Estate and Building journal during 1886 and 1887. A few remaining Jefferson structures re emble those described in the Journal as appropriate for new working class homeowners.

The cheapest, a one-story frame cottage with parlor, kitchen, and two bedrooms, cost an estimated 600, and provided a total living space of le s than eighteen feet by twenty-eight feet. For slightly more than double the price-$1,400a buyer might secure a two-story home including the amenities of an indoor bath, a fireplace, and three bedrooms-the two upstairs bedrooms of a substantial size. The costlier structure added approximately 350 square feet of living space to the 475 square foot total of the less expensive cottage. The highest priced home, a modern Gothic style dwelling of seven rooms on two floors with an additional tower, included both sitting room and parlor downstairs, as well as a bath with tub on the upper floor. Only in this price range did the new homeowner and his family avoid the monotony of two rows of rooms stretching from front to back. Mindful of the dangers to the social order posed by the labor violence of the previous decade, the Real Estate and Building Journal recommended home ownership as a remedy: "Cheap lots and cheap houses are a sure cure for anarchy and communism." [April 9, 1887] In choosing a home in the suburbs, late nineteenth century Jefferson Township residents acted upon both economic reality and the more intangible social ideals of their day. On the one

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Chicago History

147

George Powell's original investment in a 160-acre tract in Jefferson Township provided his son William with the means to build this mansion at Milwaukee and Armitage. From Chamberlin's Chicago and Its Suburbs , 1874. CHS.

hand they had quick access to jobs in Chicago's offices, shops, and factories. On the other, ownership of a brand new house in a tranquil environment promised familial harmony. Only the employed, whether walking or commuting, need make daily contact with the demanding pace of industrial America and even they would be refreshed by the hours spent at home. For a time life in Jefferson appears to have fulfilled this promise. A strong indication of their satisfaction with their suburban environment can be seen in the fact that 66 percent of the resident property owners in Jefferson in 1880 stayed long enough to be included in the 1886 township directory.

Yet, at the same time, distinct disadvantages in suburban life began to be felt in the township. By the mid-1880s Jefferson experienced problems in providing residents with additional and virtually required services-police and fire protection, water, sewerage, and good roads.

148

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These problems were most pressing in the areas of greatest density such as Humboldt and Maplewood, which had populations of 8,000 by 1886 in contrast to Irving Park's 640 and Bowmanville's 592. In Humboldt and l\Iaplewood the township's often haphazard, often unsuccessful solutions to such problems irritated residents and encouraged them to cast envious glances across the township limits. It seemed to them that the city was more likely to be able to satisfy their need for various services.

One example may serve to illustrate this situation. As buildings and people invaded the sou th east corner of Jefferson, residents whose water supply came in the form of a trickle unsuccessfully petitioned the Chicago City Council again and again for permission to tap city water mains. At one point, in 1883, the township's officers sent a plea to the Chicago City Council citing the fire hazard not only to Jefferson but also to the adjoining city because of a lack of

A Home in the Country

water. Ironically, those who had come to Jefferson to build wooden homes beyond Chicago's fire limits came to fear the consequences of their move to a locale lacking fire protection.

Such problems stimulated sentiment for annexation among the citizens of the township .

Speaking in 1887 before a meeting called to drum up support for joining Chicago, Maplewood resident Freel Salsgeher proclaimed: We want fire protection. We are all poor workmen, have built our homes with the money we earn daily, and can't afford to insure for the full amount . . . H we had a fire here that summer during the dry season where would we have been today-some of us yet in debt for our houses? I don't wish to come home from the city some evening and find my house all burnt up . I was the strongest opponent annexation had til one day I saw two houses burn down. There was a chemical engine in town and an attempt was made to put the fire out with it but it failed. This disgusted all present, and made more friends for annexation than anything else. [Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1887]

The need for fire protection and for other services soon proved more vital to Jefferson residents than the political autonomy which would preserve "suburbia." By 1889 the annexation forces had triumphed; all of Jefferson Township had been annexed, and Jeffersonians had become Chicagoans once again.

Selected Sources Illinois. Cook County. County Clerk. Assessor and Collectors Books, Jefferson Township, 1870 & 1880 (Cook County Records Warehouse, Chicago).

The Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1880.

Rascher's Atlas of Chicago. Vol. 9. 2d ed . revised. Chicago: The Rasche r Insurance i\lap Company, 1891.

Real Estate and Building Journal, CHS .

Snyder's Real Estate Map of Cook County, Illinois. Chicago: L. i\f. Snyder & Company, 1886.

Town of J efferson. Directory, 1886-87. Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, Publishers, 1886.

U.S . Census of 1870. "Manuscript Schedules of Population"; "Manuscript Schedules of the Products of Industry," Jefferson Township, Illinois. CHS. U.S. Census of 1880. "Manuscript Schedules of Population"; " Manuscript Schedules of Manufacturers," Jefferson Township, Illinois. CHS. Van Vechtrn & Snyder's Real E state Map of Cook & DuPage Counties. Chicago: J. Van Vechten & L. M. Snyder, 1875.

Burchard John, and Bush-Brown, Albert. The Architecture of Americll: A. Social and Cultural History . BosLon: Lillie, Brown and Company, 1961.

Chamberlin, Everett. Chicago and Its Suburbs. Chicago: T. A. Hungerford & Co., 1874.

Clark, Clifford E. J. "Domestic Architecture as an Index to Social History: The Romantic Revival and the Cult of Domesticity in America, 1840-1870," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, VII (SuQmer 1976) .

Fellman , Jerome D. "Pre-Building Growth Patterns of Chicago," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, XLVI (September 1956).

Hoyt, Homer. One Handred Years of Land Values in Chicago.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933.

Jackson , Kenneth T. "Urban Deconcentration in the Nineteenth Century: A Statistical Inquiry." In The New Urban History: Qaantitative Exp/orations by American Historians. Edited by Leo F. Schnore. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Monchow, Helen Corbin . Seventy Years of Real Estate Subdividing in the Region of Chicago. Evanston : Northwestern University, 1939.

Posadas, Barbara ~f. °Community Structures of Chicago's Northwest Side: The Transition from Rural to Urban, 18301889." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1976.

Chicago History

149

Ulysses S. Grant with Chinese viceroy Li Hung Chang in Tien Tsin , 1879.

American newspapers reported that the viceroy urged Grant to run for a third term as president. CHS.

150

Chicago History

Grant and Twain in Chicago: The 1879 Reunion of the Army of the Tennessee

BY CHARLES H. GOLD

There wasn)t a soldier on that stage who wasn)t visibly affected) except the man who was being welcomed) Grant. No change of expression crossed his face.)) a

Mark Twain in his Autobiography

in the autumn of 1879. General Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War hero and former president of the United States, had accepted arr invitation to be the guest of honor and featured speaker at the annual reunion of the Army of the Tennessee to be held in Chicago from November 12 through 15. Military reunions were popular and frequent during the postwar period and Grant was still venerated throughout the North, despite two terms in the White House which had shown him less able and heroic as a politician than as a general.

Grant was returning to the United States after a triumphal and highly publicized twoyear tour abroad. Here and there a foreign dignitary had voiced the hope that Grant might become president again and although the general professed to find the idea distasteful there were many Republicans in the United States who wished to see him run for a third term.

Such enthusiasts saw the Chicago reunion as a chance for their man to gain favorable publicity and took pains to make careful preparations for the event. While the Grant-for-President movement died young, the reunion, a splendid success, was a major Chicago event. There was great civic pride in the affair, and the citizens greeted it with a zest reserved in these more jaded times for rock musicians and astronauts.

CHICAGO HAD "GRANT FEVER"

Charles H. Gold, Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Northwestern University, frequently writes and lectures on Mark Twain.

By the encl of September the Executive Committee of the Army of the Tennessee had its plans well in hand. One committee member, General Reynolds, had extracted a promise from Jack Haverly, owner of Haverly's Theatre, to spread a velvet carpet from the theater to the Palmer House, where the Grand Banquet was to be held. President Thomas Hoyne of the Board of Education declared a school holiday.

Sidewalks on Ionroe Street from Fifth Avenue (now Wells Street) east to Michigan Avenue were to be set apart for children and teachers to view the great triumphal procession, led by the general himself. In mid-October a group of prominent Chicagoans which included Tribune editor Joseph Medill, Robert Todd Lincoln, George M. Pullman, and Marshall Field met to form the Citizen's Executive Committee which would make detailed plans for the procession and receptions.

The complete program was announced in the Tribun e of November 11. Grant was scheduled to arrive from Galena, his home town, on Wednesday, November 12. He was to appear at Park Row on the lakefront around 1:00 P.M. where he would board a carriage and head a procession winding through the Loop to the stately Palmer House. After dinner at the home of his son, Colonel Frederick Grant, at 781 Michigan Avenue, where Grant was to stay during his visit, there would be an 8:00 P.l\r. reception at Haverly's Theatre. Festivities would continue for the next three clays, highlighted by the banquet at the Palmer House Thursday evening and ending with a Saturday reception at Potter Palmer's home.

Chicago H ist ory

15 1

Grant and Twain in Chicago

Despite the enthusiasm of local cmzenry, there was some indignation about the lack of an official role for the City of Chicago. On November 1 the Tribune published a letter which referred to the reunion as "a farce" since Grant would receive no "banquet or public reception, either from the city as a municipality or from the citizens." The writer went on to complain that the whole affair h ad been "gobbled up" by the Army of the Tennessee and that the "public at large" was "left out in the cold." There was some truth to this: of the 610 sea ts for the banquet at the Palmer House, 275 were reserved for members of the Society of the Tennessee, 150 were set aside for the military, and the remainder were to be allocated to "representative civilians from abroad and Chicagoans." Clearly this was a blow to local pride.

But there could be no complaint about the committee's choice of speakers for the banquet, announced in the Tribune on ovember 6.

Toasts were a prominent feature of banquet entertainment and there was a general feeling that a distinguished group had been secured.

Grant himself was to reply to the toast "Our Country." The noted orator Robert Ingersoll was to respond to "The Volunteer Soldiers of the ¡western Army." On October 25 the committee also invited Samuel L. Clemens of Hartford, Connecticut, otherwise known as the writer l\lark Twain, to appear on the program.

In his Autobiography, Twain recollected that "The toast committee telegraphed me and asked me if I would be present and respond at the grand banquet to the toast to the ladies." Twain replied that "The Ladies" was a worn-out toast but that he would come if he could respond to a toast to "The Babies." The committee agreed.

From the newspaper announcement it is evident that l\fark Twain was not regarded as one of the major attractions, although he was given a key spot on the program-the last, presumably to keep people from leaving after a long evening of food, drink, and speeches. But Twain p lanned to do more than merely keep the guests 152

Ch icago History

in their seats : he planned to steal the show. He wrote to his friend William Dean Howells that he "was meditating a project to beguile you, and John Hay and Joe Twitchell into a descent upon Chicago which I dream of making, to witness the reunion of the great Commanders of the \Vestern Army corps on the 9th of next month. My sluggish soul needs a fierce upstirring, and if it would not get it when Grant enters the meetingplace I must doubtless 'lay' for the final resurrection." It seems that his original plan was to bring along several of his closest friends to witness what he was sure would be a triumph, but in the end he came alone.

Twain had met Grant for the first time in 1870. In those clays it was not very difficult to drop in on the president of the United States and Twain, who had achieved fame as the author of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and Innocents A broad, arranged to do so. Of the interview, Twain reported that he felt more or less at ease but that Grant was not. ¡writing about the meeting to his wife, Olivia, he recounted that he had said to President Grant, "I seem to be a little embarrassed.

Are you?" Grant only smiled but in Twain's opinion, "the General was fearfully embarrassed himself." This visit to the capital was one of the events which prompted Twain to write The Gilded Age, published in 1872, a savage satire on the government, especially Congress. But he did not satiriLe the person or the office of the presiclen t.

The connection between the two men went back further than 1870, at least in Twain's mind. During the Civil War, Twain joined a Confederate Army company in Ralls County, Missouri, where, according to his autobiography, he "came near having the distinction of being captured by Colonel Ulysses S. Grant." This, of course, is not very accurate historically, for in "A Private History of a Campaign that Failed," Twain himself confessed that he knew more about retreating "than the man who invented retreating. " Never one to shrink from basking

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THE HERO OF A THOUSAND FEEDS. Grant's travel agenda included so many lavish banquets that a Puck cartoonist dubbed him " the hero of a thousand feeds." CHS.

Chicago History

153

Grant and Twain in Chicago

in reflected glory, however, Twain must have been much amused at the prospect of praising his old enemy.

Twain's speeches were distinguished by an air of spontaneity. He generally spoke without notes and his audiences often supposed that the monologues he delivered on lecture tours were essentially off-the-cuff. Actually he was a meticulous craftsman who carefully wrote, rewrote, polished, and memorized his presentations.

Twain often wrote drafts of speeches in his notebooks. Unfortunately there is a lapse of almost a year between Notebook 18, which ends in September 1879, and the beginning of Notebook 19 on July 26, 1880. The Chicago speech was delivered during the hiatus. In any case it is reasonable to assume that Twain set himself to p1eparing for his Chicago speech with his customary care.* In the meantime preparations in Chicago proceeded apace. The decorations committee, which had briefly considered the idea of a series of arches over the streets, finally decided to line State Street between Adams and Monroe with poles twelve feet apart connected with festoons of evergreen and decorated with badges, emblems, and flags. By November 11 all the poles had been set in place and all of the evergreens and bunting hung. Potter Palmer decorated the halls of his hotel with shields on which the names of the battles which Grant had fought were painted in golden letters. There was no shield commemorating Grant's victory over strong drink, although that had been a major triumph.

Palmer also arranged for a canopy of flags thirty feet high to be pasted over the Palmer House entrance on State Street. The flag motif was important for reasons patriotic and otherwise: the front page of the Tribune on Sunday, *Interestingly enough, Notebook 19 contains three drafts of a welcoming address to Grant which Twain delivered in Hartford, Connecticut, in November 1880.

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Ch icago History

November 9, featured an advertisement announcing that "The Grant Procession" would halt in front of The Fair, at State and Adams, where "printed American Flags" were offered to the public at prices ranging from three to twenty-two cents, "just about one half of what others will ask."

Frances Willard, president of the ¡w omen's Christian Temperance Union, sent an urgent letter requesting the committee to "dispense with all intoxicating liquors at the approaching feast." As reported in the Tribune of November 8, Willard and her cohorts felt "impelled to approach you with this earnest appeal by memories of unutterable sorrows which have been the sequel of similar wine banquets." The committee's reply, if any, has been lost, but the grand banquet was not one of which the good ladies would have approved.

A delegation of Chicagoans went to Galena on a special train to meet the general on N ovember 5 and returned the following day. Grant and his party set off for Chicago a few days later but suffered a mishap in Galesburg on November 10 when three thirteen-year old boys spattered the former head of state with eggs. The following day the Tribune published a dispatch decrying this "dastardly act" in "this Republican stronghold." The citizens of Galesburg were equally shocked, but the Tribune is silent on the punishment meted out to the three villains.

At last November 12 arrived. On the morning of the great clay the Tribune devoted its entire front page to a woodcut of Grant, a map of the parade route, and an account of his recently concluded world tour. The procession was to march north on Michigan to Washington and from thence snake west to State, north to Lake, west to Clark, south to Washington, west to Franklin, south to Monroe, east to LaSalle, north to Madison, east to Dearborn, south to Adams, west to Clark, south to Van Buren, east to State, north to Madison, east to Wabash, and finally south to Jackson.

On the morning of Grant's arrival Michigan

Grant and Twain in Chicago

"Let us have Peace."

1879.

Workingmen sported colorful badges to honor the Civil War hero and former president of the United States. CHS.

Avenue was lined with "every class of people from the fine ladies . . . to the scrub-women and the jaunty cocot." Bootblacks and businessmen stood side by side in ankle-deep mud. An arch made of two garrison flags supported by posts had been constructed at the Michigan entrance to Park Row. The post on the right bore the emblem, Science and Literature and the one on the left, Art. In the center of the Row hung a huge cloth which bore the words "Chicago's vVelcome." At the home of Joseph Medill at Park Row and l\Iichigan, the cupola was draped with bunting, a double row of evergreen hung from the roof, ancl five flags graced the front bay window. Other houses on the Row were similarly embellished .

Unfortunately it rained torrents on the morning of November 12 and the huge crowd was soaked. The account of the day in the Tribune of November 13 struck a familiar note, indicating that the weather "changed on an average every fifteen minutes" between 8:00 A.M. and noon. Eventually the rain stopped and a fine rainbow appeared, but everyone was "compelled to wade through the thickest mud which had disgraced Chicago for many a day." All of the flags and bunting were spoiled and had to be hastily replaced_ Grant arrived about 1:00 P.M. Three guns were fired to announce the great moment, the crowd gave a "lusty cheer," and it began to rain again! The long awaited procession, Grant at its head, started on its way. Reporters estimated that there were 3,000 soldiers and 15,000 others in the procession. It arrived at the main entrance to the Palmer House a few minutes after 3:00 P.M. Grant made his way to the reviewing stand at Monroe and State, where many celebrities, including Illinois Governor Shelby Cullom, l\Iayor Carter Harrison, and Mark Twain awaited him. The crowd was so dense that the procession had difficulty getting through. After it had passed Grant was ushered into the rotunda of the hotel for a reception and formal welcome.

Mayor Harrison made a welcoming speech on behalf of the 500-person comm ittee. As Twain remembered the gathering in his autobiography, Grant said to him, "I am not embarrassed, are you?" This, of course, is what Twa in allegedly said to Grant in 1870 when they met for the first time. It makes a fine story but does not seem to have happened quite that way. In a letter to his wife Twain related that Grant stood on "a temporary structure, clothed and canopied with flags" erected in front of the Palmer House.

There were sixteen persons on the platform "besides reporters" and Twain himself. Grant bowed to the people after his carriage ride from Park Row, mounted the platform, and was introduced to Twain by Mayor Harrison. Still exuberant the next day, Twain wrote his wife Chicago History

155

.

Grant's visit to Chicago made national news. The ill ustration appearing in Harper's Weekly (above) was based on original photographs and sketches; the illustration below is from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. CH S.

156

Ch icago History

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"it was dreadfully conspicuous." Then Grant simply "said a word or so-I replied." No menLion in Lhe letLer of the exchange so neaLly echoing Lhe 1870 meeLing. Fiction improves on life, afLer all; it can be arranged artisLically and life usually cannot. NeverLheless, it must have been a fine meeLing, with the sun shining, Lhe hastily replaced flags waving in the freshly washed air, and Twain, feeling "conspicuous," sharing a platform with the man he so much admired.

There was more to it, of course, than Twain wrote to his wife. Grant appeared in the rotunda shortly before 4:00 P.i\r. and Mayor Harrison tendered a "Kentucky flavored" speech of welcome, at the end of which "some incontinent fool " shouted for three cheers for Harrison, a fine and familiar display of local political loyalty. Harrison stilled the crowd and the "aforesaid young man was content to go to the rear and hide his diminished head." Former Chicago mayor Long John V1Tentworth arrived late and inquired in "thunder-tones" about where he was to stand.

After the welcome Grant went to dinner at the home of his son and from there to an evening recept ion at Haverly's Theatre at Monroe and Dearborn. There ·was a fine crowd at Haverly's, and there Mark Twain made his first contribution to the festivities. Someone in the audience called for Twain, who had been seated on the stage, and he came to the front and said, "I have not listened to a bad speech tonight, and I don't propose to be the one to furnish you with one; and I would if I had time and permission, go on and make an excellent speech [laughter]. But I was never happy, could never make a good impromptu speech without several hours to· prepare it [roars]." The reception at Haverly's adjourned just after 11 :00 P.i\L, and Twain went on to a meeting of a group which called itself the Owl Club.

Twain was wonderfully impressed by Grant's remarkable elf-control, a quality in which he himseH was sometimes lacking. In his letter to Olivia he referred to Grant as "an iron man" who showed not the slightest nervousness as ful-

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some praise was heaped on him. Grant did bow once to the crowd, provoking a "storm of applause which swelled into a hurricane." He then sat clown and "froze" into position. early thirty years later, in his Autobiography, Twain again paid tribute to Grant's ability to conceal his emotions. He recalled that : I sat near him on the stage of a theatre which was packed to the ceiling with surviving heroes of that war and their wives. 'i,Vhen General Grant, attended by other illustrious generals of the war, came forward and took his seat the house rose and a deafening storm of welcome burst forth which continued during two or three minutes. There wasn't a soldier on that stage who wasn't visibly affected, except the man who was being welcomed, Grant. No change of expression crossed his face.

Grant's name was everywhere. Reed's Temple of Music, 191-193 State Street, ran an ad in the T1·ibune featuring an American flag and the caption, "Grant for Rebel Forts / Chickering for Piano Fortes." Grant had taken Chicago as thoroughly as he'd taken Richmond a number of years earlier.

The grand banquet was scheduled for Thursday, November 13. Activities began with a reunion of soldiers at 10:00 A.M. at McVicker's Theatre, followed by an afternoon reception and banquet at the Palmer House in the evening. lt seems Lhat Twain was not invited to any Chicago History

157

Grant and Twain in Chicago

of the festivities after the banquet.

The bang uet, the climax of the celebration, ,ms a great success. It was extensively reported in the Tribune the following day. H eadlines fea wred Grant at the head of the "list of orators," an odd description for the taciturn general. Another headline described Twain as telling a " roaring audience something about babies." :\Jore than six hundred guests sat clown to a belt-bursting dinner that included blue point oysters, turtle soup with sherry, salmon, fillet of bee[, saddle of venison , breast of cluck, fillet of wild turkey, chicken croquettes, sweetbreads and spinach, and buffalo steaks with truffle sauce. The meal ended with ice cream, cakes, ices, charlotte russe, meringue , fruit, hardtack, Roquefort, celery, coffee, cognac, and cigars.

On their way to the grand ballroom the men made their way through a dense crowd of women spectators. The Tribune classified the throng as " those (the gentlemen) who were about to enjoy themselves and those (the ladies) who were not about to enjoy themselves." The gentlemen were "radiant" and the excluded ladies were "dejected beyond a doubt." The sight, according to the reporter, was one which "would make a woman's rights advocate boil over with righteous indignation."

After the meal came the speeches, fifteen of them in all. Twain was so carried away by the glory of the evening that he wrote his brother Orion in Keokuk early the next morning, pronouncing it a "memorable night," one whose like he would never see again. The speeches, he declared, were splendid, indeed not to be improved upon. His own role was "a triumph": Grant laughed "until his bones ached," and General¡ Sherman said something "mighty cordial and complimentary."

On November 17, the day of Twain's return to his home in Hartford, Connecticut, he wrote to W. D. Howells that he'd had a "solid week of

Mark Twain (1835-1910). After the publication of Innocents Abroad (1869), Twain was much in demand as a lecturer. CHS.

unparalleled dissipation," having several times been up all night. He was pleased with the speeches, all fifteen of them, especially that of the celebrated Robert Ingersoll, whose "music will sing through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my ears." He heard four other speeches which he thought uncommonly fine, which "carried away all my wits and made me drunk with enthusiasm," but his best pra ise ,va saved for his own effort, the fifteenth and final speech. Grant, he said, listened to the first fourteen without the "faintest suggestion of emotion ," but Twain "shook him up like dynamite and he sat there fifteen minutes and laughed and cried." Grant told Twain he had that day shaken hands with fifteen thousand people without an ache or pain, but Twain's speech "racked all the bones of his body apart."

Twain's speech, in response to his own suggested toast to "The Babies"-surely a deliberately incongruous choice for such an occasionwas intended to provide comic relief at the end of what must have been an evening equally hard upon the digestive tract, the emotions, and the seat of the pants. Like the other speeches, its purpose was to be laudatory, but by "careful timing he contrived a seeming act of lese-majeste that shocked, secretly gratified, and then ultimately reassured an audience satiated with adulation of the hero." [Mark Twain-Howells L ell ers.]

Twain was not an orator in the grand tradition. In speeches and fiction he drew upon the vernacular speech of his Missouri background.

His tribute was from the heart; his language simple, unadorned and, above all, quite unpredictable.

The Tribune reported that Twain was interrupted by "laughter," "roars," and "convulsive screams" more than thirty times in ten minutes.

Then and later, he considered the speech one of his very best. Reading it today one finds it not so much funny as good-humored, spiced with such thigh slappers as "Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection."

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He became serious, and his audience with him, in the final two paragraphs when he said that "Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. In one of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething . . . . " Then came the final paragraph: And in still one more cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious Commander in Chief of the American Armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind, at this moment, to trying to find out someway to get his own big toe into his mouth-an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his whole attention to some fifty-six years ago.

Twain paused significantly and the crowd fell silent, fearful perhaps that the humorist had gone too far, that he was ridiculing Grant. According to his biographer, A. B. Paine, Twain "waited long enough to let the silence become absolute, until the tension was painful. . . . [then] with all the dramatic power of which he was master" he delivered the last line: And if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.

Gram broke up, and so did the audience. It was, as an ecstatic Twain told Howells, "grand times."

The Tribune was enthusiastic, and the New York Tim es of November 15 reported approvingly on the banquet and on Twain's speech.

For Twain the grand celebration was over, but the journalists were to provide the final, and fitting, grace note to an exciting four days. The following evening there was one more reception for Grant, this time at the Chicago Club. According to the Tribun e: Even the aristocratic precincts of the Chicago Club were invaded by the journalistic tramps who have made themselves so numerous and obnoxious during the whole course of the Grant demonstrations.

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One of the species last evening put in an appearance in such a beastly state of intoxication as to render it necessary for a policeman to escort him to the door.

Grant, a h ard drinking man in his time, and Twain, who had been a reporter and who was also known to take a drink, would have liked that.

A Historical Footnote There were striking similarities between Grant and Twain: both were Midwesterners from humble beginnings who had known hard times; both had risen to fame. Both endured spectacular bankruptcies in later life. Ironically, it was Twain who rescued Grant's family from poverty: he published Grant's Memoirs in 1885 and Irs. Grant, by then a widow, collected royalties of n early half a million dollars. Her success, sparked by a great expansion of Twain's publishing company, led to the la tter's downfall and Twain's own business failure in 1894. Twain, prompted by admiration for Grant's sturdy courage in writing an autobiography while he was dying of throat cancer, took very little of the profit for himself, far less than his ordinary business sense would dictate. But then he never thought Grant was an ordinary person.

Selected Sources Record and Correspondence of the Citizen's Executive Committee for the Reception for General Grant, 1879 (2 vols.), U. S. Grant Papers, CHS. R.S. Tuthill to Samuel L. Clemens, October 25, 1879: Samuel Clemens to Orion Clemens, No\"ember 14, 1879, Mark Twain Papers, BancrofL Library , Berkeley, California.

NEWSPAPERS: Chicago Tribune, 1879; Chicago Daily News, Noâ&#x20AC;˘ vember 1879; New York Times, November 1879.

Clemens, Samuel L. [Mark Twain] . The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Edited by Charles Neider. New York: Ha rper, 1959.

- - . "The Babies." In Mark Twai11 Speaking, edited by Paul Falout. Iowa Cily: Universily of Iowa Press. 1976.

- - . Mark Twain's Letters. Edited by A. B. Paine. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers, 191 7.

- - . Mark Twain's Notebooks and Journals, 1855-ISiJ. Edited

by Frederick Anderson et al. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

- - . The Love Letters of Mark Twain. Edited by Dixon Weeter. New York: H arper, 1949.

- - . Mark Twain-Howells Letters. Edited by Henry Nash Smith and William M. Gibson. 2 vols. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960.

Henry Ralph Koopman II: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood Photographer

By PAUL W. PETRAITIS

(( We photographers had to be weather prophets ... we prepared all our own paper) chemicals, etc. and their keeping qualities were not good. Some of them were affected by the air inforty-eight hours.))

Calumet Index, May 23, 1913

sides to the history of professional photography in Chicago. One deals with the work of the well-known downtown studios and such celebrated photographers as Hesler, Copelin, Lawrence, and Brand. The other is the story of the unknowns: the local neighborhood photographers who chronicled the major events and the changes wrought by the passing of time in the lives of families and the community as a whole. Increasingly these photographers are being recognized as having left behind a record of inestimable value to the historian in search of visual documentation for the past.

During the decade of the 1880s the number of professional photographers in the United States doubled as George Eastman's new dry plate process replaced the more cumbersome wet plate negative process and made the practice of the photographer's profession more accessible. But it was not a stable profession, it would seem, for relatively few photographers spent appreciable amounts of time in one location. The Society's List of Chicago Photographers to 1900, compiled from classified directories, not only shows frequent changes of address but indicates that only one in ten of the photographers listed remained in Chicago for ten years or more and fewer than one in twenty-five operated studios for twenty-five years or more. And most of the latter were located in the central city.

THERE ARE TWO

Paul \,V, Petraitis, the Society's Assistant Photographer, grew up and lives in the neighborhoods photographed by Koopman. This article grew out oE a research paper for the late Arthur Siegel oE IIT's Institute of Design.

Although we know a great deal about the equipment these photographers used and about the city they photographed, we know relatively little about the men themselves. Thus we are unusually fortunate to have available not only the photographs but also documented reminiscences of Henry Koopman II, who operated the Leader Studio at the same location in the Roseland community on the Far South Side for thirty years.

During the last decade of his life, 1935 to 1944, Koopman lived with his daughter, Marie Rowlands, an active member of the Calumet Historical Society on whose board Koopman also served . Their mutual interest in history led Koopman to dictate an account of his life and times to his daughter, and this, together with the trove of photographs he had taken not only in his Roseland studio but in the streets and parks of the neighboring communities of Kensington and Pullman, give us an unusual glimpse of these communities over a period of half a century.

Koopman first came to the area as a child.

His father, the Reverend Henry Koopman, had brought his wife and five chi ldren to the United States from Goeginchem in the Netherlands in 1866, part of the migration which scattered a l').Umber of Dutch communities through the Midwest. Henry Koopman II was less than a year old, having been born July 10, 1865. Between 1866 and 1879 the Koopman family moved several times as the father answered calls to preach from various Dutch congregations in the Midwest. It was in the course of these peregrinations that the Koopman family in 1870 Chicago History

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came to High Prairie, Illinois (rechristened Roseland in 1873). Young Henry would live here from the age of four to eleven.

Located thirteen miles south of the Loop, High Prairie had been settled in 1849 by a dozen or so Dutch families who engaged in farming. By 1860 the community had about a hundred inhabitants and a decade later, when the Koopman family arrived, it was a thriving little town. Koopman's memories of his childhood in the parsonage on what is now 107th Street were very pleasant: Some winters the snow drifted on Michigan Avenue, between 103rd and ll l th Streets, eight to ten feet high and hard enough for teams to go right over the top all the way. Where we lived on 107th Street, the boys would make tunnels in which they could walk up straight between 107th and 108th, a block long with one or two openings to get in and out. It was warm in there when zero outside.

At our school on 103rd and Michigan we played ball, Anti-I-over. Two or three times a day teacher would appoint two boys to go for a bucket of drinking water at Mr. Kuyper's home, one block south.

That was fun. Then, of course, we played marbles and flew kites, no wires in the prairies to bother us.

In summer there were so many strawberries in the prairie between Indiana and South Park [now Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive] that we could easily fill our quart tin pails in a short time. We used to go swimming in the Big Ditch (a local drainage project) at 103rd Street. After a long wet spell we could swim there at 107th Street, too . The Big Ditch came down 99th Street (beginning in the vicinity of Michigan Avenue) to South Park Avenue, south to II I th and then east to Lake Calumet to drain the land for the truck farmers .

The Reverend Koopman's congregation grew as the town attracted an increasing number of small businesses. But the Koopmans were not to remain in Roseland. Doctrinal differences within the congregation led a vocal minority to protest the Reverend Koopman's liberal stance to the Classis, the governing body of the Dutch Church. Rather than split the community by starting another congregation, as many of his supporters urged him to do, Reverend Koopman elected to relocate and the family moved to 162

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Steamboat Rock, Wisconsin. Two years later they moved once more, this time to Paterson, New Jersey.

Within the year Henry, now eighteen, had a job with Simpson's Photographic Studio. Part of his job was to deliver finished photographs to clients in New York across the Hudson River.

He m ade the deliveries by buggy and spent most of Saturday doing so since traveling time there and back amounted to six hours. Koopman described his job as follows: The studio did a large business, twelve to fifty sittings a day. We had no artificial light, only sunlight or daylight for our printing department, no fast prepared papers. Our paper came in rolls, 18" x 22" size sheets. They were albumenized, ready for our sensitizing bath of chloride of silver. After paper was ready for use, it was quite necessary that it be used up in three or four days, or it would turn yellow and be a total loss. So it became my purpose to try and solve the possible weather changes each week.

On yet another occasion, elaborating on the difficulty posed by unstable materials, he explained: We photographers had to be weather prophets, too in those days . . . we prepared all of our own papers, chemicals, etc., and their keeping qualities were not good . Some of them were affected by the air in forty-eight hours. So we were compelled to know what the weather would be tomorrow. If we prepared for a sunny day and got a rainy one, we were out the cost of the m .. terial. We grew quite successful at prognosticating, but never sent our forecasts abroad.

Early in 1884 the Reverend Koopman died.

His widow decided to take her children back to the Midwest and moved to Pella, Iowa, to be near two married daughters who had settled there. ineteen year old Henry, however, decided to strike out on his own in the town which he remembered with great fondness. He returned to Roseland with the aim of setting up a photographic studio there.

The area around Roseland had seen some changes since the Koopmans had left. The suburb of Kensington, which had sprung up

Self-portrait of Henry Koopman , ca. 1888. The photographer was a founder of the Roseland Band. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

Koopman's first studio at 11106 S. Michigan in 1886. He subsequently built a three-story house on the same site. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

around a railroad junction in the 1850s, had grown considerably, as had Roseland itself.

Both communities had benefited from the establishment of the neighboring town of Pullman, built by George M. Pullman in 1880 to house both the manufacturing plant and many of the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, established in 1867. By 1884 the company was employing several thousand men and women and in addition to the town of Pullman the new towns of Gano and Fernwood were being laid out west of Kensington and Roseland as more workers moved into the area .

It did not take Koopman long to note the changes in his old home town. He got off the Illinois Central train at the Pullman Station on 111 th Street with the camera and equipment he had purchased in New York and made his way up the hill to Roseland. The town's population had tripled during his seven year absence and Michigan Avenue sported several new stores.

To his delight Koopman discovered that he would not have much competition: William Meyer, who had had a studio on 115th Street in neighboring Kensington the previous year, had moved on and the Pullman photographer, 164

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Thomas S. Johnson, pretty much confined his act ivities to architectural photography within that town. Clearly there was a need for an allpurpose photographer to record such momentous events as confirmations, graduations, weddings, and communal celebrations of all kinds.

At first the young man stayed with some friends, the Ton family, while he negotiated a two-year lease on a plot of land on Michigan Avenue just south of 111th Street for an annual rental of $20.00. Here he built himself a studio and eventually bought the land. As his daughter later described it: And there, under a large cottonwood tree, [he] built a one-story photographic gallery. Since in those days photographers depended on daylight for their work, he had a large skylight of glass built into it, under which he had an elaborate set of cheesecloth curtains strung to regulate the amount of necessary light. ["Down an Indian Trail," Calumet Index, 1949.J

It was in this modest structure that Koopman made his first images. None of the work of the 1884-85 season survives but three photographs taken in 1886 are indicative of the range of

The Koopman house, 1889. The ground floor housed a saloon until 1890 when Koopman , mindful of his young children, rented the space to a more wholesome enterprise-an ice cream parlor. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

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..

Principal George Brennan, teacher Katie Madderom (the future Mrs. Koopman) , and their 71 students behind the one-room schoolhouse at 103rd and Michigan. Koopman soon abandoned these inexpensive hand-lettered mounts in favor of commercially printed ones. CH S, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

Koopman's photography over the next thirty years.

Graduations, confirmations, and portraiture accounted for the bulk of Koopman's work. A good example of the first genre is his photo of the Roseland School's graduating class of 1886.

Typical of his competent, if somewhat uninspired, portrait work is the photograph of the friends he boarded with, Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Ton. Many portraits like this can be found in old family albums in Dutch-American households throughout the southern suburbs.

Koopman was proud to advertise that his photos did not fade, and indeed ninety years later they sti ll have excellent tone. This can be attributed to his careful processing.

A view looking east toward Pullman taken from the roof of the old Vandersyde home in the summer of 1886 is the first of Koopman's documentary photographs. It shows the recently completed model manufacturing town and the lowlands between the Illinois Central tracks and the foot of the Michigan Avenue h ill.

Though it belonged to the Pullman Land Association, portions of the land east of Indiana 166

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Avenue (visible in the middle foreground) were evidently rented out for farming.

Koopman was fascinated by the transformation of the land and found that photographing it from rooftop level was highly effective. In the course of the next five years he chronicled the changing Roseland scene both from rooftop and street level, each photograph providing a different glimpse of street and community life.

The young photographer also participated in other aspects of town life. In addition to his camera equipment, Koopman had brought a large bass drum from the East and soon found companions who shared his desire to make music. They began by vocalizing: We three or four young fellows used to get together and sing. That was about the only amusement we had and it wasn't very long but we thought, "Let's get busy and organize a band."

In her article about her father, his daughter detailed the next part of that story: He talked it up at Lussenhop's Boarding House on 112th; at the Post Office on Saturday nights; at Bickhaus' Drug Store any evening and finally the Roseland Band was organized.

THC

LÂŁADÂŁR STUDIO, H

llt

KOOPM6N

"OSl:I.ANO. CHICAGO, II.Le

Koopman's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ton, a typical cabinet portrait of the time. CHS, gift of Paul W. Petraitis.

One gets a strong sense of how these communities worked, of how one thing led to another, and how makeshift arrangements produced pleasures for the whole community from Koopman's account of his experiences with the Roseland Band.

It was a real band, bass trombone and all. I blew the tuba horn. They soon discovered that I was very accurate on time. The bass drum and the tuba carried the band if they were on time. But, of course, we had to have instructions and that cost money. There was a man by the name of J. B. Cronkite. He was instructing an organization in Pullman, and we had a committee sec him and ask him if he would not come over and instruct our band.

He was also a composer. He composed several easy

pieces for the band. We had to have instruments, of course, so the only thing we could do was go around and get subscriptions. We started out with all the businessmen first and then we went to the private homes and so forth . . . . We used to give concerts every Saturday night. We built a platform for performing. We gave concerts once a week, and then once a year we had a public concert and sold tickets and got money for our music, and maybe to buy an instrument or two for those who couldn't afford to buy them. The band lasted for a number of years .. . . That was part of the music of the town.

After his return to Roseland, Koopman began to court his childhood sweetheart, Katie Madderom, whose family had come to the area around the same time as his. The young lady's Chicago History

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The Pullman Band leads a parade up the hill on 111th Street in 1892.

CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

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A Neighborhood Photographer

father owned a paint store and seems to have had no objections to his daughter's suitor. In spite of the rigorous conventions that regulated courtship in those days there seem to have been plenty of opportunities for young people to spend happy times together. As Koopman recalled these times: When winter came in October, it stayed all through until spring. We had bob-sleds instead of wagons all winter, a few one-horse cutters. There were bobsled parties for young folks to Blue Island or Harvey, sometimes just a long ride out into the country with always a stop for refreshments before turning back. Sleds, team, driver and a good set of sleigh bells were rented at the Livery Stable. When friendship got pretty well along between a young couple, a one-horse cutter and a set of fine bells would be the equipment for a Wednesday or Saturday night out in the open places. I really believe that's where the one-arm driving originated . We could leave it to the horse for safety. You can't say that for the auto.

That winter, perhaps after one of those long rides, Koopman told his bride-to-be of his plans to replace his studio building with a much larger structure. It was to have three stories: the first floor would be rented out as a store for extra income; the second floor would have living quarters for the Koopmans, a reception room for what he fondly called his "victims," and a photo finishing room; and the third floor would have both a studio and darkroom.

On April 12, 1888, the young couple were married and moved to the second floor of what was now the tallest building on "the Avenue."

It was also the first in the area to have a modern bathroom with a toilet and zinc-lined bathtub.

Within a year the Koopmans had a daughter, Marie, and in 1893 a son, Harry. As the children grew their father photographed them in a variety of patriotic and comic poses and in these photographs we see an aspect of his personality that is not evident in his suburban panoramas and commercial portraiture. This personal perspective is also evident in other Koopman photographs in the Society's collection, especially those taken with the stereo camera that he

acquired at this time. Stereo cameras were much in use during the 1880s and 1890s.

The acquisition of a stereo camera and other new equipment had been made possible by the rent that the Koopmans collected from the ice cream parlor installed on the ground floor of their building. Koopman lost no time broadcasting the capability of his new equipment. His letterhead indicated that with "six cameras and nine lenses" he was ready to photograph "anything from a bamam pullet to a 160-ton locomotive." He was now equipped to do his best work.

Koopman had always sought various ways to promote his photography including handbills and special mounts. About 1889 he began his Roseland and Pullman Scenery series. Consisting of 5" x 8" half-plate panoramas, they comprise a travelogue of the neighborhood. He photographed Pullman's athletic island from a boat in Lake Calumet; he photographed the formal gardens around the Pullman Illinois Central Station from the Clock Tower; he captured the small town beauty of Michigan Avenue at 110th Place, and he began shooting the new subdivisions going up along Wentworth Avenue.

His next door neighbor, Van Vlissengen Brothers Realty, which had originally been concerned with the management and rental of the residences in Pullman, had expanded to build, sell, and rent housing throughout the area. The firm used several of Koopman's photos in its 1892 publication, Roseland, Pullman and the Calumet Region, illustrated with a variety of maps, photos, and diagrams. The book combined historical information with a goodly measure of boosterism, enjoining readers to keep in mind that "Roseland is the Center of the Calumet Region!"

In 1893 Koopman published Pullman: The City of Brick which he sold as a souvenir book to Columbian Exposition visitors who visited the model town. In the introduction he explained his aims in putting the book together.

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The enclosed collection of views have been selected from an extensive collection of the most interesting points and buildings within the far-famed Brick City of Pullman during the author's eight years' residence in its immediate vicinity . The pictures are all made from original negatives in my possession and reproduced by the photogravure process.

The different seasons of the year have been specially selected to impress the observer more fully with the beauty and originality of its architecture and general landscape effect. The memories of a visit to this beautiful little city of some twelve thousand inhabitants are not soon forgotten. However, as it is not the privilege of all to see it in the different seasons, if at all, this collection of views from different points and at the different seasons has been made, beginning with the visitor's first arrival at the depot bearing the name of the founder and owner of the town and its extensive works-George M. Pullman-proceeding then to the different points as giyen in rotation in the following pages ....

Koopman would continue to photograph Pullman to the end of his life.

The winter of 1892 had brought a blizzard and a snowfall which had caused considerable hardship in Roseland and Pullman. Koopman later recalled that 111 th Street had been closed for five clays and after the first two or three days "men went to work holding hands in long lines down Florence Boulevard [111 th Street east of Indiana Avenue]-" A shoveling brigade worked for three days to open a path for teams to go through to deliver meat and groceries. By that time, food had grown scarce in Pullman, for the merchants in Roseland had many boarding houses and . . . customers who were dependent on them for food.

These circumstances encouraged Koopman to

Dining room of the Hotel Florence from Koopman's Pullman: The City of Brick (1893). Visitors to the World 's Columbian Exposition bought copies of this book for its views of the model town. CHS.

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A Neighborhood Photographer

Harry and Marie Koopman pose for "Our Beautiful Flag" (1899). one of their father's many patriotic compositions. CHS, gift of Paul W. Petraitis.

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Looking south on Michigan Avenue from 111th Street, 1902. The sign outside Koopman's studio, which was in this block, advertised "Graduate/Confirmation Photos ... All Fadeless." CHS, gift of Michael Cialdella, World Camera Shop.

go into the provisioning business in partnership with his brother-in-law Guy Madderom and one Arthur DeYoung. The three men opened a grocery store in the Madderom Building and for a couple of years photography apparently took a back seat for Koopman, for he was not listed as a photographer in the Chicago classified directory during 1893-94. During the first year the store made money and together with income from the sale of the Pullman book and from rental of the ground floor of his house this provided Koopman with an adequate income.

But a downturn in the economy eventually proved fatal to the new business venture.

The Pullman Palace Car Company, prime employer in the area, responded to the economic situation by cutting wages. Initial cuts were small and occurred in only certain departments, 172

Chicago History

but by 1894 all wages had dropped considerably. On i\1ay 11, 1894, angered by these pay cuts and a rumor of an imminent companywide lockout, four thousand Pullman employees quietly shut off their machinery, laid down their tools, and walked off the job. Before long other workers were dismissed and many families were left without income.

For some time local businessmen had been planning to found an association to forward their interests and on fay 12, the day after the walkout, the organization came into being with Koopman as president. The Pullman strike presented the South Side Merchants' Association (later known as the South Encl Chamber of Commerce) with an immediate challenge. During the critical months that followed, the Merchants' Association distributed food to the

A Neighborhood Photographer

Koopman photographed this steam shovel during the construction of the Michigan Avenue sewer, 1900. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

neediest of the strikers' families.

These circumstances spelled doom for the fledgling grocery store. At the end of the year the business was in the red. The partnership dissolved, Koopman resumed work as a full-time photographer and once more appeared as such in the classified directory.

In 1889 Roseland had been annexed to Chicago and gradually the benefits of this move became apparent. The character of Michigan Avenue in 1890 was little different from what it had been fifty years earlier. In the summer it was veiled in a cloud of dust and in the winter and spring it resembled a sea of mud, the sticky

blue-black soil clogging wagon wheels. As early as 1869 Goris Vandersyde had been paid by the Village of Hyde Park to spread crushed stone from the quarry at nearby Stony Island along the avenue, but in a couple of years the stone had all disappeared, swallowed up by the mud.

In 1881 Henry Myrick was awarded a contract to build a good stone bed for Michigan Avenue and with its layer of bedrock and fine top dressing it lasted somewhat longer than Vandersyde's road. But road problems continued and citizens of Roseland complained about poor drainage as well. The City of Chicago responded in 1900 by laying a big sewer along Michigan Chicag o History

173

Pullman workers on their lunch hour just outside the main gates at 111th and Watt Aven ue (now St. Lawrence Avenue), ca. 1910. Note the street vendor behind the tree. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

Avenue. Shortly thereafter the avenue was paved in brick and cement sidewalks were laid from 103rd Street to 116th Street. Cinder walks were used along side streets.

Perusing the construction photos taken by Koopman and others ¡we can document the evolution of l\Iichigan Avenue from a pioneer wagon road into a major shopp ing district second only to the Loop and 63rd and Halsted.

These photographs show the hay wagons of the 1880s and 1890s gradually being replaced by the automobile. Koopman himself took his first automobile ride on July 17, 1906 and, beset by mechanical problems, didn't return home until midnight. However, soon afterwards he purchased a brand new Hupmobile which he owned for many years and which, according to the family, survived many collisions.

In 1905 the Chicago Park District began construction of Palmer Park on land formerly owned by the Pullman Company. Court rulings 174

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after George l\L Pullman's death in 1898 had forced the company to sell all its interest in the town, retaining only its industrial property. The 40-acre tract bounded by 111 th, 113th, Indiana Avenue, and South Park was empty except for the Elim Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church and some farm buildings near 113th and Indiana. The Park District paid for a corner lot on 113th and Forest and moved the church to its present location. Farmers who had been renting land from the Pullman Land Association also moved.

The South Side Merchants' Association had been in the forefront of those urging the creation of a municipal park and Koopman was proud of the role played by the organization in procuring this public space for residents of the area. Dedicated in October 1905, Palmer Park was practically in the front yard of Koopman's studio and he photographed it for days on end.

His photographs show the ground being graded,

A Neighborhood Photographer

the completed buildings, groups strolling on the walks, children swimming in the pool, and a variety of sports in progress. The residents of Roseland, Kensington, and Pullman flocked to the park to picnic, to attend ball games, and to watch amateur theatrical performances in the fieldhouse.

With the park completed, businessmen began to plan a celebration to commemorate Roseland's 60th birthday on July 5, 1909. Local businesses, schools, and churches joined to plan the great event and appointed committees for games, music, decorations, publicity, and speakers. Koopman served as vice-chairman of the event as a whole as well as chairman of the Printing and Publicity Committee. He contributed many photographs-including portraits of Dutch ancients and two collages of local views before l 900-to the souvenir publication issued for the occasion.

Unlike earlier neighborhood parades which Koopman appears to have photographed in brilliant sunshine, the 60th Anniversary was celebrated in the rain. Stationed on the second floor of the Madderom Building, Koopman shot postcard views of the parade proceeding down l\Iichigan Avenue. They depict a damp scene of drooping flags, umbrellas, and soggy floats manned by wet but gallant citizens. In spite of the weather an estimated 15,000 viewers lined the parade route and the only event canceled was the evening fireworks display in the park.

Koopman, now in his mid-forties, began to put his early work in perspective by creating lantern slide lectures. Using these slides Koopman spoke at graduation exercises and various meetings- throughout the neighborhood. A surviving set of eighteen lantern slides includes many views from the 1860s and 1870s by other photographers as well as examples of Koopman's own photography. Since all the old pictures in the neighborhood passed through Koopman's hands to be copied and reprinted for one reason or another, he had quite a collection.

In May 1913, after twenty-nine years in business, Koopman closed the Leader Studio on doctor's orders. The latter believed that the developing chemicals that Koopman had been inhaling for so many years had impaired his health. Thereafter the photographer practised his life's work only sporadically, but did no more darkroom work. He was only forty-eight.

Definitely against doctor's orders, Koopman made his final panorama from atop Pullman's new 250 foot smokestack using a 5" x 7" view camera.

In 1902 the Koopmans had moved their living quarters from the second floor at 111th Street to a house in the new Van Vlissengen subdivision at 109th Street and Wabash. Now Koopman moved his family to Sheldon Heights, a new Roseland subdivision, and turned to raising fowl. He shipped his fowl all over the Midwest and won many blue ribbons at state fairs.

He also worked part time for the Shell Division Picture Shop in Pullman. The Chicago Historical Society's collection of negatives from the Pullman Company includes one shot of a World War I War Bond rally in 1917 marked with the initials "H.R.K." During the next two decades Koopman began to take a deeper interest in matters historical.

Both he and his daughter, Marie Rowlands, became active in the Calumet Historical Society which now met in the new Pullman Branch of the Chicago Public Library at 110th Street and Indiana.

Koopman sold his remaining photographic equipment during the depression. In 1935 he and his wife moved in with their daughter and her husband just down the block at 11302 Normal. It was during this time that Koopman shared his reminiscences with fellow members of the Calumet Historical Society. His daughter, as recording secretary, transcribed these talks.

One of his last, on fishing in Lake Calumet, pointed to some of the unfortunate changes that "progress" had brought to the region he loved so much: I was one of those who first started fishing in Lake Chicago History

175

In 1905 the City of Chicago built Palmer Park on land which had previously belonged to the Pullman Company. Koopman photographed the construction of the park as well as the activities which took place in it after its completion.

To the left is Holy Rosary Church, to the right Elim Lutheran , both

by Pullman architect Solon S. Beman. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

Calumet. The men would all be standing around but I happened to be one who used to go down to Lake Calumet and fish. It was never very deep, about three or four feet deep with a wonderful sand bottom here and there . . . you could just stand there and watch the fish. You would just lean out the boat and let the worm right down where they could see it, and then we could see whether they were going to bite or were going to fool us. But we would get them. Later on, when the factories began to come around, and pollute the water, we used to detect a peculiar flavor to the fish. When we got them into the pan and after investigation, 'Why, sure that's oil.' vVe could see little scums of oil on the lake and those fish were getting some of that, of course, even if they didn't swallow it, they got it on their fins and bodies, and so it was pretty hard to remove even though we were Yery careful in cleaning them. But we used to catch lots of fish, sun-fish, great big fellows like two hams. And perch, too .... that part of the old time history is pretty well covered up. You don't hear much about it, but there was good fishing in Lake Calumet for years and years .

This man whose rich life spanned the transition from rural to urban living in Roseland 176

Chicago History

clied on April 26, 1944 (one year after his wife's death), but he left a valuable contribution behind. As a local newspaper put it: vVe are indebted to the late H. R. Koopman for [these photographs] ... depicting the early days of our community. It was with foresight that he preserved so m any of these pictures so that we today may know more of the earlier life of the Greater Roseland Area.

Selected Sources Calumet Historical Society Collections at the Pullman Branch of the Chicago Public Library.

1'EWSPAPERS: South End Reporter, June 15, 1949; Calumet Index, June 28, 1964 and June 29, 1969.

Andreas, A. T. History of Cook County, Illinois. Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1884 .

Buder, Stanley. Pullman: An Exf,eriment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880-19}0. New York: Oxford University Press , 1967.

Koopman, H. R. Pullman: The City of Brick. Roseland, Illinois , 1893.

Mayer, Harold M. and Wade, Richard C. Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

Rowlands, ~larie. Down an fodian Trail i11 1849. Chicago: The Calumet Index Inc., 1947.

Taft , Robert. Photography and the American Scene: A Social History, 1839-1889. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1942.

Skating in Palmer Park at 111th and Indiana, ca. 1910. CHS , gift of the South End Chamber of Commerce.

Postcard view of Palmer Park looking northeast toward the water tower and Administration Building in Pullman. Koopman often labeled his photographs by writ ing on the negative itself. CHS, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Gindi.

Taking the Measure of the Land

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on maps and mapping are on view at the Society from November 10 through December 17, 1978. The first, subtitled "Cartographic Images o[ the United States, 1769 to the Present," has been drawn from the vast holdings of the ational Archives. The selections range from rough charts and sketches prepared by early traders and settlers to sophisticated examples of modern cartography reflecting the use of data gathered by satellite. The second, subtitled "Cartographic Images of Chicago, Unusual Maps, 1854 to 1975," gives a local focus to the theme and includes maps which offer unusual and unexpected information about the city.

The illustration above, part of the local exhibit, is a portion of a map drawn in 1858 show ing canals proposed by the real estate firm of Iglehart to improve and help develop the South Side. This map seems especially interesting given that as recently as 1972, the architectural firm of Holabird and Root suggested that TWO EXHIBITS

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Ch icago History

'

.

the construction o[ more waterways and canals and further development o[ the Chicago River would offer a pleasing focus for new housing, business, and recreation in this location. Also planned for the area south of the Loop which is currently being reclaimed from the railroads is the Dearborn Park project which will orient itself to the south branch of the Chicago River.

Indeed, the complex will in part be located on the old riverbec~ for this was the area in which the river was straightened.

Thus, from frontier days through Burnham's Plan of Chicago in 1909 to the present, Chicagoans have never ceased to envision and propose plans that would make Chicago a Venice o[ the New World.

A series of public programs entitled "Maps and Mapping" explores in detail the history, language, uses, and enjoyment of maps.

GRANT T. DEAN REFERENCE LIBRARIAN AND CURATOR OF MAPS

Looking Backward My Life In Radio

A former radio star reminisces about her experiences on a]ack Armstrong) The All-American Boy)) and other serials CHICAGO WAS THE mecca of American radio during the 1930s, and few who lived through that era failed to become devotees of at least one of the many fifteen-minute-a-day, five-day-a-week serials which emanated from the city's studios.

Sponsors and advertising agencies were fond of them too, as Lester Weinrott noted in his article, "Chicago Radio: The Glory Days" in Chicago History, Spring-Summer 1974. There was a time when I knew Les quite well since he was one of the directors I worked with during my career in Chicago radio. I have many memories of those radio days, all of which I truly cherish. l\Iy life in radio began in the summer of 1933 when a call went out to practically every drama teacher in Chicago to send his or her students to read for parts in a "big" radio audition for a series to be called "Jack Armstrong, The AllAmerican Boy." I was then a senior at Senn High School on the North Side, where I had taken part in school plays, and I decided to try out for a part. A few of us were lucky enough to win leading roles, and the drama school which handled the screening promptly took ten percent of our pay checks as soon as the show went on the air. This seemed very unfair, but during the depression a check was a check and nobody complained out loud since there were a hundred kids waiting in line if you didn't like the rules.

For years there was scarcely a radio listener who did not know that "Jack Armstrong" was ponsored by \Vheaties, Breakfast of Champions, a cereal "so full-bodied, delicious, rich in protein, nia<:ine and iron" that it apparently sustained every winning baseball player and football hero in the nation. One ad agency associated with the program was Knox-Reeves of l\Iinneapolis, which was also the home of General i\Iills and its breakfast treats. Blackett, Sample and Hummert was the Chicago agency for the show, and was in itself an elite kind of factory hustling actors and scriptwriters through

auditions and interviews like so many boxes of cereal going down an assembly line.

The setting for the Armstrong story was Hudson High School, which may have been named after the actual Hudson High School in Hudson, ;vrinnesota, near Minneapolis. At first the plots revolved around football games, haunted houses, and other escapades of small town youth but when Talbot fundy took over as writer in 1937, Jack and his comrades began to travel around the world in planes, ships, and submarines. \Ve slogged through jungles, climbed mountains, and hunted big game, fending off every form of menace from Mongol war lords to witch doctors and tsetse flies .

These adventures were exciting and educational for the regular players and a gold mine for character actors who could play villains with or ¡w ithout foreign accents. Being cast for a running part in a thirteen-week episode put bread on the actor's table and gave him instant entree to other shows. Small wonder, then, that actors flocked to Chicago from all parts of the country.

Originally I was cast as Gwendolyn Duval.

Anyone who remembers radio scripts of the period will know that a character with a name like that had to be the villainess of the piece. As fate would have it, Scheindel Kalish, the girl who first played Betty Fairfield, left to take a leading part in a New York play and I assumed the role of Betty, retaining it for some time.

In the years that followed a few of the leading actors stayed on as their original characters; others had to be re-cast for one reason or another. The performers included green kids who grew up with the show as well as seasoned adult actors. John Gannon, who for many years played my brother, Billy Fairfield, had not been trained as a child actor but was quick to learn.

He sounded exactly the way Billy should sound: excitable, talkative, young-a perfect foi l for Jack's cool-headed wisdom. Johnny served in the armed forces during \Vorld vVar II and Chicago History

179

Looking Backward

" Jack Armst rong" di rector Edwi n Morse (left) wit h prog ram announcer Franklyn Maccormack.

Photo co urtesy of the author.

went on to become an attorney. Today he is an Associate Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County.

Don Ameche, the first Coach Hardy on the show, soon went on to greener fields. When the first boy selected to be Jack Armstrong had to be replaced, Don sent word to his younger brother, Jimmy, who won the part. Up to that time Jim had been dutifully struggling with arithmetic in Kenosha, ,visconsin, and his boyish lack of sophistication off the set often amused us. When Jim left the cast, Charlie Flynn took his place as Jack Anderson and stayed for the duration of the show. Jim is now retired and does some part-time broadcasting in Tucson, Arizona; Charlie is with an advertising agency in Albany, New York. The "Jack Armstrong" program ended in 1951.

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Don Ameche's first replacement was Norman Ross, a very dear man who played a slower, older coach for as long as the story was set at Hudson High. Mr. Ross was the father of the Norman Ross who can presently be heard on Chicago radio stations WGN and WFMT. "Uncle Normie," as we called Ross, Sr., had been an Olympic swimming star in his younger days, and until his death in 1953 conducted an early morning program, "The 400 Hour," sponsored by the Chicago and North ¡western Railway. Other adult characters were Betty and Billy's Uncle Jim, a father figure who accompanied the three kids around the world. James Goss, recently deceased, played the role for several years.

There is a long list of character actors, announcers, directors, and other people who left for Hollywood or New York. Others simply wore out: even some veterans of the business found it difficult to keep up with the pace. In fact, it was hard work for all of us. For many years we did three shows a day, Monday through Friday. Before the advent of the tape recorder we rehearsed and cut a disc record every morning, first using the facilities of the old ¡w orld Broadcasting studios atop the Daily News Building and later at the RCA recording studios. The pre-recording was always made, processed, and sent to the vVestern time zones three weeks in advance of the broadcast where it was then played to coincide with the elate and hour o[ the live performance. In addition to pre-recording, on the actual day of the broadcast we performed "Jack Armstrong" twice: at 4:30 P .:M . Central time for East Coast audiences and at 5:30 P.M. for listeners in Chicago and the Midwest.

The show required us to use many vocal techniques. Sound effects men in particular often faced big problems. There were storms on both land and sea, not to mention ships breaking into pieces or planes taking off, landing, or even crashing. If the characters came across a lion it roared; flocks of exotic birds screeched and screamed. Such sounds were in addition to the

Looking Backward

ever present footsteps: sneaky footsteps, noisy footsteps, and "simple" sounds like that. If Jack, Billy, and Betty were supposed to be running during an episode, we literally ran-not around the studio but in front of the microphone as we read our lines. "\Ve'd nearly pass out from lack of oxygen but it added an authenticity that some programs did not achieve.

It was the rich combination of voices, music, and a full complement of other sounds that made radio what it was: images that came to life without the aid of any visual presentation.

Since radio relied so completely on sound, its qualities have rarely been matched in any other medium.

Sound effects that went haywire while the show was on the air were the worst nightmare.

It rarely happened, but in one instance it happened by design. The plot of that afternoon's live broadcast called ÂŁor Jack, Betty, and Billy to go through roaring rapids in a canoe as we shouted our lines above the sound of thundering water. Before the broadcast, Franklyn MacCormack (then our announcer) poured a package of bubble bath into the sound effects water tub. When we went on the air, the sound effects man worked the paddle of the tub harder and faster, but the water grew thicker and more quiet, and then totally silent. As our voices grew louder, the director, Edwin Iorse, frantically signaled "Down! Down!" to the cast. Ad libbing new lines at that stage of the script was well-nigh impossible, and it was the longest fifteen minutes we would ever know. MacCormack owned up, confessing that he had had no idea that his little prank would turn out that way. He nearly lost his job. "\Ve had a forty-five minute break between the two late afternoon broadcasts during which our favorite pastime was playing stud poker. I learned to play to win. In fact, I had to learn to win throughout my career in radio.

Our first director, David Owen, was stern with the cast and there were times when I went home in tears. My father, himself a rather stern figure in my youth, said "If you don't want to

quit, learn to take direction without tears." This advice stood me in good stead, and as a result Mr. Owen called on me to play other roles in the early afternoon show with which he was then involved.

I went on to take other parts in other daytime programs that did not conflict with the Armstrong routine and played ingenues in several of the soap operas then originating in Chicago such as "The Guiding Light," "The Road o[ Life," "The Right to Happiness," and "The Woman in White," all of which were written by Chicagoan Irna Phillips, known as "queen of the soaps." I also had brief roles in "Ma Perkins," "Mary Marlin," and "Helen Trent," and occasionally did some commercials.

Yes, it was hectic-but fun. The income was delightful, to say the least, and my parents were proud and impressed. l\Iy work on the Irna Phillips programs was not as strenuous physically as the Jack Armstrong role but was often emotionally stressful.

As l\Iary Rutledge in "The Guiding Light" and later as the lead in "The '\!\Toman in White," I somet imes had to play an entire broadcast alone. These parts demanded that I throw myself fully into the characterizations, which were developed through long, brooding monologues: "Does John really love me? Why does he treat me like he does? I remember what his mother said ... ," and so forth for the whole program.

Such productions weighed heavily on the interpretation and delivery of the performers but they were also economical to produce since fewer actors had to be paid for their time.

There were usually no more than two performers in any single radio episode of a soap opera and, more than in any medium in which I've worked, including the theater, we played to each other. Even if you didn't have another line to read for the rest of the show and there were five pages left to go, you stayed put as long as your character was in the scene. You were there, you listened, you silently communicated-and our audience sensed this. We were not actors to our listeners: we were real people Ch icago Hist ory

181

Sarajane Wells and John Gannon in the early fort ies. World War 11 and the subsequent relocation of the major studios in other parts of the country redirected the careers of these two radio stars. Photo courtesy of the author.

who stopped in to share our problems with them each day.

By the mid-I 940s the production of many of these programs began to move to Hollywood and the importance of Chicago as a radio cener declined. In 1946 I too went to Hollywood as "The Woman in White." I was shocked to find that most Hollywood actors simply read their lines and then walked away as if the show were over even when the character they played was still in the scene, if only as a silent participant. But I became accustomed to the differences in style and enjoyed meeting many show business personalities.

The top Hollywood stars did not work in daytime radio but many others actively sought radio employment. Howard Duff and the late Jeff Chandler both played leading men on my show. It was in Hollywood that I won a Peabody Award in 1949 for my role as the wife in a dramatization of Ernest Hemingway's story, "The Short Happy Life of Francis MacComber."

Nevertheless, in spite of the glamour of life in Hollywood, I eventually decided to return to Chicago. I joined the staff of the Chicago Historical Society in 1953 and there adapted my experience and dramatic skills to new purposes, primarily in educational programs.

Visitors to the Society have heard my voice in many auditorium programs and as the narrator of the Chicago Fire slide presentation. I am proud to say that although the Fire Gallery was originally planned as a one-year temporary exhibit to commemorate the 1971 hundred-year anniversary of the event, the slide program enjoyed such popularity among our visitors that it stayed open for seven years.

In my later years I've sometimes wished for a different way of life but I've never wished that my youth had been different. Not because it seems good in retrospect, but because it was good. Every day was filled with surprises, with learning, with challenge, and with a throng of lively people: it was fun, it flowed, it lived.

Today's youth, with rare exceptions, think of "old time radio" as a subject for satire and nothing more. Entrepreneurs issue books of radio trivia and replay original broadcasts, but these cannot begin to give young people a true conception of what early radio brought to the world. The real message is that in our time my colleagues and I were advance troops working to clear the way for the tremendous role that electronics and television were destined to play in American life in the years to come.

SARAJANE WELLS CHIEF OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS EMERITUS

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Chicago History

The Society Reinstallation of the American History Galleries

response to my query, "Have you visited the Historical Society recently?" is "I saw it all years ago." This attitude assumes that our exhibits are eternal and unchanging. othing could be further from the truth. Museum exhibits, like everything else, must change and be renewed to reflect new information and insights and the continuing flow of additions to collections. Nowhere can this be better seen than in the Society's American history galleries. In 1932, when the present building in Lincoln Park opened to the public, the Society developed a series of galleries that were a pioneering attempt in the interpretation of the American experience.

Recently the Society has been engaged in replanning and rethinking this series of galleries so that they will more effectively reflect our greatly expanded collections and the new historical perspectives that have emerged since the original installation of these galleries. This summer and fall we have reorganized and renovated several of these.

In the first, the Charles B. Pike Gallery, fine examples of furniture, paintings, and decorative art objects from the early nineteenth century are on display. These remind us of the strong cultural bonds which persisted between the United States and Europe. The English Sta[ordshire plates with American views, imported from the pottery region of Great Britain, are an eloquent testament to the economic ties which continued to bind America to England after the American Revolution. The furniture in almost every case has a clear European precedent or model.

Directly adjacent is an intimate gallery devoted to a display of the Society's superb collection of early daguerreotypes of important national figures. Here it is possible to see the new technology of photography capturing for

AN

OFTEN

REPEATED

the first time a "perfect likeness" of prominent Americans of the period, chiefly political and cultural leaders. Also exhibited in this gallery is a rare daguerreotype camera as well as associated processing apparatus. Not only was this early equipment cumbersome, but the process of developing the image could be extremely hazardous to the photographer because of the chemicals used.

In the next room is the newly designated Charles Butler Price GaJlery, a memorial from Mr. and Mrs. Medard Welch. The exhib its in this area explore some of the important themes of the American Empire period, a time which saw the evolution of new styles based on classical forms but rendered by machine technology.

The furniture, accessories, glass, and silver provide a fine sense of the taste of the period.

It is important to see these objects in the larger context of the times and for this reason we have chosen to focus on several other movements and events that characterize this period.

One of the most important was the development of the uniquely American political campaign, described by one contemporary observer as "the great autumnal madness." On display are materials from early political campaigns as well as other memorabilia with political associations. The growing importance of public events during this era is highlighted by the d isplay of the Society's important collection of materials relating to Lafayette's visit to the United States in 1824-1825. This event attracted great crowds of Americans who paid homage to one of the nation's first heroes.

Among the exhibits is an extremely fine portrait of Lafayette which Rembrandt Peale painted from life during the visit; an elegant silk dressing gown presented to Lafayette in Philadelphia; and other objects relating to his triumphal tour of the United States.

Chicago History

183

The Society

'\l\1hile the Charles Butler Price Gallery fo-

cuses on important stylistic movements and public issues, an adjoining gallery dwells on art in the everyday life of early nineteenth century Americans. Here are displayed a wide variety of objects ranging from Apache playing cards to quilts and coverlets. The utilitarian objects in this gallery were made by Americans who wamecl their surroundings to be pleasing as well as practical. Often known as folk art, objects like these are not only revealing of the daily lives of their owners or creators, but also have an aes thetic appeal in the ir own right.

These galleries, like all our exhibits, collections, publications, and other programs, never remain the same, but grow and change, thus renew ing and enlarging our perspective on the past and providing an always unfinished agenda for the future. For those of you who have not visited our American history galleries lately, I urge you to do so. In this way you can share with us in this constant process of renewal. â&#x20AC;˘ s;;;,

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A Walk through the Reinstalled American History Galleries

Th is painting , U.S. Na vy Yard, Mare Island, Ca lif., exec uted aroun d 1860 by Felix Math ews, re flects the westward ex pansio n o f the nati on during the 19th ce nt ury.

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Ch icago History

~-,;_D~ DIRECTOR

The United States shield and stars adorn the desk and chairs designed in 1857 for ihe House of Representatives by Thomas U. Walter , architect in charge of the expansion of the United States Capitol between 1851 and 1865. CHS , chair gift of Ellen N. Lamotte .

Chicago History

185

This wooden representation of Pocahontas holding a bunch of cigars was purchased by Jacob Benner in 1862 to advertise his store at North Avenue and Sedgwick Street. Afte r the 1871 fire , in which the figure was partially burned , Benner moved it to his new store at Willow near Orchard. CHS , gift of the Benner family.

Little girls were taught to embroider at an early age and such linen samplers served to teach them a variety of stitches. CHS, gift Mrs. P.A. Valentine.

186

Chicago History

American History Galleries

Decorated with Captain Macdonough's Victory pattern commemorating the 1812 Battle of Plattsburg , this teapot was made by Enoch Wood & Sons. CHS, Conover Collection .

Made around 1840, this astral lamp has a frosted and cut " tam-o'-shanter" glass shade.

Chicago History

187

This Wilson Patent stove , an adaptation of the heat-conserving Franklin Stove, was made of cast-iron and brass. Its ornamentation features an eagle and an ellipse of 17 stars above the fireplace opening .

CHS, gift of Dr. Margaret C- L Gildea.

This portrait of Ca roli ne B. daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fai rburn was painted around 1860 by an Americ an art ist.

Bradfo rd M.

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Chicago History

Leadb eater, Leadbeater, unid ent ifie d CHS , gift of Leadbeate r.

Reviews

Jewish Americans in the Midwest oNE DOES NOT Tl-IINK of Jews as frontiersmen for two good reasons: most of them lived in cities and, as Rabbi I. Harold Scharfman shows for the first time, most of those on the frontier lost their religious-ethnic heritage. Thanks to Scharfman's painstaking research-a labor of love spread over years o[ searching archives, scrutinizing synagogue records, and deciphering half-legible documents in musty basemen ts or stuffy courthouse attics-] ews on the frontier have not been completely lost to posterity. From a wide canvass of sources in the Ohio Valley region, Scharfman has unearthed a wealth of new material and has written a series of richly textured vignettes of Jewish frontiersmen.

The story will come as a surprise to many ethnic experts who understand Jews only from their urban experience.

Ray Allen Billington, dean of American frontier historians and apostolic successor to the great Frederick Jackson Turner, has written an enthusiastic and laudatory foreword of lavish praise for Scharfman's work. Billington's foreword also provides Scharfman's book with an interpretive twist and intellectual framework that is otherwise lacking.

Turner argued that the frontier was the region of most rapid Americanization and functioned as a crucible that melted down, fused, and forged a new man, English neither in nationality nor characteristics, but American. Although ancestral traits, habits, practices, and customs were not completely lost, they were robbed of their primary importance on the frontier.

Our knowledge of urban immigrants indicates that the group least likely to abandon its heritage was Jewish. Through twenty troubled centuries of persecution and pogroms Jews had clung tenaciously and stubbornly to their religious and ethnic

Jews on the Frontier: An Account of Jewish Pioneers and Settlers in Early America by I. Harold Scharfman (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1977), 10.95; Rodfei Zcdek: The First Hundred Years by Carole Krucoff (Chi-

cago: Congregation Rodfei Zedek, 1976), available for 7.50 cloth, $4.95 paper by writing the Congregation at 5200 . Hyde Park Boulevard, Chicago 60615; Conflict and Child Care Policy in the Chicago Jewish Community 1893-1942 by Mitchell Alan Horwich (Chicago: Jewish

Children's Bureau of Chicago, 1977), available for $3.50 by writing the Bureau at One South Franklin Street, Chicago 60606.

heritage. Yet such deeply etched and seminally derived loyalties were corroded away in one generation on the American frontier, and as Rabbi Scharf man shows, the Jew of the Ohio wilderness was the "Vanishing Jew." How was that possible? How could the Ohio Valley do what all of the Czars of Russia and monarchs of Spain could not? As Scharfman demonstrates, it was a lack of clergy, teachers, marriage partners, synagogues, and leisure time for the Sabbath that sped up disintegration and assimilation. Most of the frontiersmen were German Jews who, Scharfman writes, had already begun to relinquish their heritage during the Atlantic crossing.

These young men stopped keeping kosher diets and ate salt pork not only on the crossing but on the edges of civilization. In the end few Jews survived the "westering" process. The Jew of the Ohio wilderness stopped observing the Sabbath, took a Christian, Indian, Creole, or Negro wife, baptized his children, and although he may not have converted himself, usually found his final resting place in a church graveyard.

Although Scharfman has no exact count on how many Jews went frontiering, they must have numbered several hundred in the Ohio Valley before the Civil War. Several of whom he writes, such as Daniel Boone's companion, Samuel Sanders; J ean Laffite, the pirate; Judah Benjamin, Confederate statesman; and several merchants, were well known before but an even larger number were not until Scharfman restored them to historical existence. In fact the research was in many cases so demanding of specialized knowledge that only a keen scholar and diligent student of Judaism could have rescued many of these Jewish frontiersmen from the mists o[ the past. Herein lies another irony, that those who abandoned their faith and assimilated should be rediscovered by a third generation rabbi who traces his persistence in the rabbinical tradition back to the eighteenth century. Scharfman's story, although not quite a saga, is a gripping and inter¡ esting one that points up the malleability of human traditions. It also suggests that Jews in the Ohio Valley underwent a transformation similar to the one outl ined by Frederick J ackson Turner in his famous lecture, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair.

The other two books under review make their contributions in different ways. The story of Rodfei Zedek, a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Hyde Park, is told in a loving and tender manner by Carole Krucoff and preserves for future generations a record that might have otherwise been lost. The Chicago History

189

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first quarter century of the congregation's history has already disappeared with the deaths of its troika of founders, all of which indicates the perishability of church histories and the importance of efforts like Krucoff's. In contrast to Scharfman who relates the account of the "Vanishing Jew," Krucoff tells one of persistence, tenacity, and the courage of a congregation to survive against fiscal, demographic, and racial odds. About one half of Krucoff's book is photo essay, containing some familiar oldies as well as some material not published before, most of which lend illumination to the text.

Mitchell Alan Horwich's Conflict and Child Care Policy was an exemplary senior thesis at Northwestern University that carefully chronicles the conflict among German, East European, and professional Jews over child care policies within Chicago's Jewish community. Time and historical changes helped to resolve the conflict. The immigration restriction laws of 1924 cut back on the inflow of newcomers, and new welfare programs inaugurated by the federal and state governments in the 1930s absorbed an increasing number of Jewish children who were then no longer exclusively wards of the ethnic community. F inally, the professional education of Jewish child care workers d iminished the emotional impact of the older ethnic conflict, which appeared increasingly anachronistic.

All three books help shed light on the history of J ewish Americans in the midlands and suggest some measure of the profound historical impact of the city and the frontier on ethnic cultures. l\IELVIN G. HOLLI

The Age of Urban Reform: New Perspectives on the Progressive Era

edited by Michael H. Ebner and Eugene M. Tobin Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1977. Sl2.95 cloth , 7. 95 pa per. complex and difficult areas of historical study has been the nature of urban reform in the Progressive era. The old liberal-historical synthesis that pictured valiant and pure-hearted crusaders battling corrupt and mean-spirited party bosses in the name of the people has been largely rep laced by Samuel Hays' conception (Pacific Northwest Quarterly, October 1964) of elite businessmen attempting to impose a ci ty commission ONE OF THE MOST

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form of government on reluctant lower class immigrants. Although they used the rhetoric of democracy, tl1ese businessmen were simply attempting to seize control of the city for their own interests.

Professor Hays' work stimulated many historians to investigate the topic on their own. One of the difficulties facing researchers in this area is the large number of communities to be studied. Is any one community typical or does any generalization about urban politics need to be tested in some comparative way? Most historians have side-stepped this problem by contenting themselves with a case study approach to a single community. Such studies are valuable in that they illustrate the uniqueness of each local community and warn that hasty and sweeping generalizations will turn out to be more confus ing than enlightening.

The Age of Urban Reform is a collection of such case studies by ten young historians. Each essay explores urban progressive reform from a different perspective and through an analysis of such themes as ideology, bureaucratization, professionalization, voluntarism, and modernization. Although each essay deals with a different city, the manuscripts are tied together by their common assumption that urban growth and the resulting social and economic dislocations were responsible for determining the character of progressive reform.

The value of this book lies in its demonstration that in each city progressive reform was indeed defined in a unique manner depending on political issues, leadership, and social-economic class composition. Few of the generalizations that historians have made a bout urban progressivism can stand in the face of the research generated by these essays.

The chief weakness of this collection is that no higher synthesis is attempted by the editors. Are there no similarities that can be brought together so that we can make some sense of urban politics between 1880 and 1920? Ebner and Tobin are content to remind their readers that the Progressive era's "complexities" and "paradoxes" make it impossible if not "presumptuous" to "conclude with any sweeping generalizations." They may be correct in their judgment, but sooner or later someone must construct a new synthesis of urban political development during these years. The alternative is countless case studies of different cities and towns, each emphasizing the uniqueness of their brand of progressivism.

Despite the caveat this is an extremely valuable book in that all the essays are well-researched, clearly written, and develop some challenging ideas that suggest new dimensions of the phenomenon that need to be considered. Taken as a whole the

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case studies provide proof that existing syntheses concerning urban politics are inadequate because they are unable to handle the complexities of the subject.

According to Michael P. McCarthy, Chicago's version of reform was temporarily successful in bringing more honest government to the city during the J890s, due to the annexation of middle class communities. After 1920, with the decline of the annexation movement and the dispersion of the middle class beyond the city's legal boundaries, urban reform as typified by business-efficient government began to wane. This essay rightly calls attention to the interrelationship of geographic growth and progressive reform.

The role of the municipal bureaucracy and the non-elected experts in urban reform is explored in a number of the essays. Augustus Cerillo, who deals with housing, public health, and utility regulation in New York City, concludes that the professionals whose job it was to handle these problems were more concerned with the institutionalization of reform than humanitarian objectives. Martin I. Schiese, on the other hand, comes to a somewhat different conclusion about the municipal civil service employees of Los Angeles, who between 1900 and 1920 administered the laws in an efficient and impartial manner. John F. Bauman analyzes how men like Lawrence Veiller and Frederick W . Taylor combined the ideals of efficiency and concern with human welfare, whereas Wayne J. Urban traces the careers of Atlanta's progressive educators.

Three other essays examine reform movements in Houston, Seattle, and Chelsea, a suburb of Boston.

Often historians concentrate on the politically successful politician; in contrast l\Tichael H. Ebner examines the career of Fred P. Low, who in his single term as mayor of Passaic attempted to balance the ideal of municipal efficiency with social welfare but failed to maintain himself in office.

The role of state courts in achieving progressive reform has not been previously studied in great depth. Eugene l\I. Tobin examines the unsuccessful attempt of reformers in New Jersey to use the state courts to .gain a more equitable tax on railroads.

Unfortunately, the courts identified more with corporate wealth than the public interest.

One of the most useful parts of the book is its " Bibliographic Guide to Selected Recent Literature." Although not a comprehensive bibliography, it does contain most, if not all, of the more recent books and articles on urban progressivism. It is especially helpful because it lists and evaluates almost all the local studies clone in the last few years.

All in all this composite volume will give both

the specialist and the general reader a good idea of what direction the research of some of the younger scholars in the field of urban politics is taking. We need a new synthesis, but until such a task is attempted case studies will provide the data necessary for creative speculations as well as the basis from which comparative studies will be made.

ANTHONY R. TRAVIS

Mr. Doo ley and the Chicago Irish: A n A nthology edited by Charles Fanning New York: Arno Press, 1976. $25.00.

Mr. Dooley's Chicago

by Barbara C. Schaaf i\"cw York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1977. 9.95.

IT's A GRAND TIME for the friends and relatives of l\Iartin J. Dooley, saloonkeeper, philosopher, and quintessential Irishman of Chicago. For the first time in many years, Dooley's reflections on all manner of things Irish and American have returned to print. As Dooley would say: "Tis har-rd f'r me to Jave off talkin'."

Dooley was the creation of Finley Peter Dunne, a turn-of-the-century Chicago journalist. From 1892 to 1918, Dunne wrote of Dooley's ideas on a wide variety of topics from Andrew Carnegie's libraries to Theodore Roosevelt's "splendid little war" in Cuba . Cast in an Irish dialect, the columns were immensely popular. It was often said that Dooley was better known than the vice president of the United States. A number of the columns were published in book form and each of the volumes was a best seller. But Dunne tired of writing the columns by 1918 and the thoughts of l\Jartin Dooley faded into the past.

It is cause for celebration therefore that two new collections of Dooley columns have been published in the past two years. Barbara C. Schaaf and Charles Fanning have gathered stories which were never published in previous volumes oE Dooley "wisdom." Schaaf, in !',Ir. Dooley's Chicago, and Fanning, in Mr. Dooley and the Chicago Irish, cover much of the same ground but their books differ in several ways. Schaaf writes for the general public and assumes only that her readers have an interest in Chicago, its people, and its history. She provides a context for the Dooley columns by incorporating them into topical chapters and uses Chicago History

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lengthy introductions and notes to guide the reader through the convolutions of turn-of-the-century Chicago life. Stated simply, Schaaf provides a good introduction to the world of Martin J. Dooley.

Fanning has collected these Dooley columns for a more scholarly purpose. His book is part of a series of monographs on the history of Irish-Americans and he assumes that his readers will have a knowledge and understand ing of the work of Finley Peter Dunne . This is not to say that Fanning is negligent in providing introductions and annotations, rather that his additions are not as extensive as Schaaf's.

Fanning's work belongs on the shelves of college and research libraries along with earlier collections of Dooley columns. It is not a book for the reader who has a casua l interest in the Chicago Irish.

Fanning and Schaaf have insured that the memory of J\Iartin Dooley will not slip into the obscurity of the past. It is only fitting, therefore, that this review close with Dooley's own assessment of history. "I know histhry isn't thrue," he observed in 1902, "because it ain't like what I see ivry day in Ha lsted Sthreet. . . . Historyans is like doctors.

They are always look.in' f'r symptoms. Those iv them that writes about their own times examines th' tongue an' fee ls th' pulse an' makes a wrong dygnosis . Th' other kind iv history is a post-mortem examination. It tells ye what a counthry died iv.

But I'd like to know what it lived iv." Amen.

Tha nks to Fa n ning and Schaaf, we know that J\Iartin Dooley stiJI lives!

TIMOTHY WALCH

Ships and Men of the Great Lakes

by Dwight Boyer New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977. $8.95.

LakeCarriers:The Saga of the Great Lakes Fleet

by Jacques LesStrang Seattle: Superior Publish ing Company, 1977. $19.95.

The Faces of the Great Lakes

by Jonathan Ela with photographs by B. A. King San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977. 24.50.

The Shapin g of America ' s Heartland : The Landscape of the Middle West

by Betty Flanders Thomson Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.$11.95. on the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes regio n are very differe n t from each other,

T H ESE FOUR BOOKS

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both in coverage and in quality . Each is a popularization of material which is, in general, not original, but all serve as usefu l introductions to various aspects of the lakes and their immediate h interlands.

Ships and Men of the Great Lakes is anecdotal and deals primarily with ship casualties and disasters. Although a bibliography is included, the individual incidents are not specifically documented.

The individual chapters, each concerned with a specific disaster, are not arranged in chronological sequence, and there is no sense of sequential development of ship types, safety measures or improvements, or of any relationships among the various incidents. The concluding chapter is concerned with the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on November 11, 1975. It is well illustrated with photographs, most of wh ich were originally published in contemporary newspapers or furnished by the U.S . Coast Guard and, like the other chapters, it is written in a journa listic and dramatic style. Another chapter deals with a railroad accident which occurred in 1876 near Ashtabula, Ohio; it is difficult to understand why it was included in a book on lake shipping disasters except, perhaps, that the location was near Lake Erie. The author nowhere states his criteria for selection of the twelve incidents described.

Lake Carriers is a more factual presentation of the evolution and current status of the bulk carrier industry of the Great La kes. It is one of a pair of volumes; the other and earlier book, Seaway, is concerned with the "Sa lties"-vessels and L11eir cargoes which ply between the Great Lakes and overseas.

Lake Carriers deals e pecially with the vessels that carry ore, grain, coal, stone, and other bulk commodi ties within the lakes although, as the author points out, some of them operate to and from the lower St. Lawrence through the seaway.

The author, who is editor of the magazine Seaway Rev iew, emphasizes (sometimes not very subtly) the activities of the two trade association s serving the interests of the owners and operators of the bulk vessels: the Lake Carriers' Association and the Dominion Marine Association. The book contains a current list of vessels of this type, differentiating whether their owners are or are not members of those associations . I n some respects the book may be considered as a public relations document for the industry but on the whole it is well do n e. The text is well written, and the volume is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white photographs as well as maps and charts . Unfortunately some o f the latter are not adequately credited to their original source.

An interesti ng chapter of Lake Carriers is devoted to the curren t efforts to extend the nav igation sea-

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son on the lakes. The chapter could have been improved if it had included more on the economic justifications, if they exist, for expenditure of substantial public funds and the imposition of additional hazards to vessel personnel involved in extension of the season, especially in mid-winter operations. Another aspect which could have received more emphasis is the impact of current and prospective changes in the industries which generate the lake bulk traffic-especially the iron and steel indmtries and the coal industry-upon the future of lake bulk transportation.

Th e Faces of the Great Lakes is a seriously deficient book. Its format, including excellent illustrations, is very attractive but the content and organization of the book fall far below the usual standards of the numerous Sierra Club publications. The book lacks coherence, pulling the reader back and forth both in time and in space. The publication consists of four more-or-less discrete parts. The first, Beginnings, consists of a brief and hardly adequate description of the hydrology of the lakes and the character of their shores, a chapter on the Niagara Escarpment, and one on Indian lore. It is difficult to comprehend why the la tter two topics were selected without giving a balanced view of the geology of the region or of its Indian occupance and culture The second section, Transformations, also consists of arbitrarily selected incidents and historical events which are not placed into context. The third portion, The Legacy, briefly covers a few of the current problems of the lakes: protecting the rural shorelines, lakeshore planning, pollution of the lake waters, and the threatened fisheries. There is a very inadequate treatment of recent legislative enactments designed to attack problems of the lakes as well as discussion of the compromises involved at the Indiana dunes, where conservationists and industrial developers met head-on but eventually ac hieved a mutual adjustment of interests. The final section of the book, The Journeys, consists of a series of black-and-white and color photos arranged in more-or-less consecutive order by location, depicting selected aspects of the shores of each of the lakes. The'photographic reproductions are excellent in spite of the inadequate and, in at least one instance, incorrect, captions. l\Iaps of each "journey" are included. The maps do not have any sca les, and in many cases the locations of the photos, as indicated in their captions, are not shown or identified on the maps. Altogether, this book is one of the poorest in content, organization, and treatment of any of the Sierra Club publications.

In sharp contrast, The Shaping of America's

Hearl/and is a well-organized study of the natural environment and ecology of the l\Iiddle West, which the author defines as extending roughly from western New York to the Great Plains. The geological, glaciological, hydrological, biological, and meteorological processes within the region are explained in a vivid and interesting text. The interrelationships between the several scientific disciplines are especially well developed. The book serves as an introduction to the geography of the region, with emphasis upon the physical rather than the cultural aspects. The treatment of the role of urbanization is somewhat inadequate for man's impacts upon the natural environment have been of major consequence. The book contains a number of photographs and several highly generalized sketch maps. A sequence of maps showing the various successions of natural phenomena through time would have been a useful complement to the text.

HAROLD M. MA YER

The Midland: A Venture in Literary Regionalism

by Milton M. Reigelman Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1975. $4.95. of the 1vficlland, a little magazine published at Iowa City between 1915 and 1933 without outside financial backing, is the story of its editor, John T. Frederick. Milton Reigelman gives us a sympathetic portrait of this sensitive and dedicated man-a critic whom no mass of manuscript could frighten, a publisher who subsidized his magazine by his own writing and lecturing for eighteen years.

Although he printed much unremarkable poetry, Frederick was chiefly motivated by a quest for the native, the natural, and the genuine in the short story. He was concerned to promote literature which expressed the diversity of l\Iiddlewestern life and was free of melodrama and stereotypes. His enemies, in that heyday of big slick weeklies like the Saturday Evening Post, were the commercial publishers centered in New York, who demanded stories written to rigid, optimistic formulas. Frederick also worked to create a J\Iiddlewestern culture in a countryside which he felt was too newly settled , and too raw in its traditions, to express itself adequately in literature. A generation of Midland TIIE HISTORY

Chicago History

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writers would have to mine the raw ore of their experience before great writing could come out of their region. Young writers were exhorted to hold to their roots in the land, to revere their origi ns.

The Midland thus went against the grain of literary fashion in the twenties. It rejected both the corrosive criticism of American life which derived from Sinclair Lewis' Main Street and the literature of experiment and introspection which showed the influence of Henry James and James Joyce. Literary regionalism for Frederick meant the expression of the writer's relation to an established social world which was in harmony with the rhythms of nature-ideally, an agricultural community. This was the very world which the Wasteland generation of the twenties felt it had irretrievably lost. The Midland's ties to recognized l\Iiddlewestern writers of its time were also rather indefinite. Although the magazine praised Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee Masters, it never published any of them, probably because it could not afford to pay contributors. It was by necessity the publisher of struggling young unknowns. Few of them went on to realize Frederick"s ideal and write ep ics of the Midwest: James T. Farrell and Ruth Suckow are among the best of th e people it published. The Midland promoted a high general level of sensibility in the Middle West and its writers, rather than outstanding individual artistic achievement. l\Iilton Reigelman remarks that the work of William Faulkner fulfilled the Midland ideal: Faulkner turned his back on the twenties literary world and its pet subjects to develQp his own countryside and his family traditions. But the Midland did not publish Faulkner or comment upon his early work before it ceased publication in 1933, a victim of the depression. Judging by Reigelman's account of the typical Midland short story, Faulkner would not have been at home in its pages. The Midland tone was even; the view of human life balanced. There was little room for the comic, the grotesque, or the outrageous. Sometimes the Midland seems rather too good and gray, in Reigelman's account.

But most little magazines have aspired to achievements their editors and their contributors never arrived at. The appeal of these small improvident publishing ventures rests in the passionate effort more than in the result. One leaves Reigelman's Midland with an affectionate memory of John T. Frederick, his love of mid-American life, his dedication to honest writing, and his holy war against the money motive in art.

ELLEN WILLIAMS

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Chicago History

Collection , Use, and Care of Historical Photographs

by Robert A. Weinstein and Larry Booth Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1977. $16.00. was specifically written for and is dedicated to the caretakers of historical photographs, anyone interested in the collection and care of such objects or concerned about their use should find it a helpful and informative introductory guide. For those wondering what constitutes a "historical photograph" the following quote, general as it may be, should shed some light on the subject: "A historical photograph, offering a believeable image of times past, is any photograph capable of supporting the study or the interpretation of history."

The book is divided into two main parts. The first is a somewhat philosophical treatise, inspiring at times, overzealous at others, on Collection, Use and Initial Care. The early chapters are the most interesting, especially the section entitled "The Historical Photograph: Evidence Ignored," which discusses the importance of visual literacy and the relevance of photographs as primary source material.

Even though these subjects are not covered as thoroughly as one might wish, there are many thougl:tâ&#x20AC;˘ provoking ideas on the value of photographs m shaping a realistic conception of the past. The authors argue that "I( the burden of what we call evidence is no longer to be borne by the written word, but includes the visual image as well ... the implications of that possibility must be fairly and fully addressed ." And while historians are beginning to devote more serious attention to photographs as documents, they have barely begun to tap that potentially rich mine of information.

Historians who use or want to use photographs as part of their research can gather some helpful tips from the section on historical research. The section on reproduction of photographs in printed form should be read by everyone involved with publications that use photographs as illustrations.

Part Two contains the practical nuts and bolts of "How to Care for Historical Photographs: Some Techniques and Procedures." Although the discussion is redundant at times and would have bene¡ fitted greatly had some of the techniques and procedures been illustrated, it docs contain much w,eful information on the basic principles of caring for pholographs. The authors stress the overriding importance of using only restoration practices that are reversible and leaving any and all difficult or questionable tasks to the experts.

ALTIIOUGII Tl!IS BOOK

Notes

In the final chapter on modern photographic processes we find that the relatively new "polyethylene[resin ]-coated papers are not recommended for museum use or other applications requiring longterm stabi lity," but the authors are optimistic that inexpensive, chemically stable color photographs will become a reality in the not too distant future.

The book contains a bibliography as well as two appendices, one indicating where recommended supplies can be purchased and the other a concise but helpful identification / dating aid table compiled by the staff of the George Eastman House that provides a chronological list of photographic techniques and processes.

JOHNS. TRIS

A letter from Mrs. Walter 0. Wilson of Washington, D.C. reads, "I was so glad to receive your Spring l 978 [magazine] with the article about the Fine Arts Building as my father was Charles C. Curtiss and the building was an important part of my life.

I knew all those artists on the 10th Floor and went to meetings of The Little Room. Ralph Clarkson painted a wonderful portrait of my father, now owned by my niece-I must tell you though that the photograph on page 41 is not a picture of my father as you can see by the enclosed snapshot of him taken about l 9n-I rather think the photograph in your bulletin is of Mr. Chapin." The Chicago Historical Society has corrected the notation on the back of the photograph we printed last spring. Here is the photo sent us by Mrs. Wilson.

The Reviewers - l\felvin G. Holli, coeditor of The Ethnic Frontier (1977), teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

- Harold M. Mayer the associate director of the Center for Great Lakes Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is co-author of Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis.

-Anthony R. Travis is chairman of the department of history at Grand Valley State College, Michigan.

- John S. Tris has served as curator of graphics at the Society.

-Timothy Walch is Director of Special Programs for the Society of American Archivists.

-Ellen Williams is the author of Harriet Monroe and the Poetry Renaissance (1977).

Notes As of September 29, l 978 the Chicago Architecture Foundation's ArchiCenter will once again be offering a variety of programs related to Chicago's architectural lu;ritage at its new quarters at 310 S. l\Iichigan Avenue, Chicago 60604. The ArchiCenter is admission-free and offers a full agenda of exhibits, lectures, and films. Two tours depart regularly: one a walking tour of the Loop and the other a bus tour that visits residential areas, historic districts, and architectural landmarks between Lincoln Park and Hyde Park. The ArchiCenter is open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 A.l\L to 5:00 P.M. For further information and current schedules of activities call 782-1776.

Chicago History

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

OFFICERS

Harold K. Skramstad, Jr.

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

TRUSTEES

MEMBERSHIP

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

Bowen Blair Philip D. Block III Cyrus Colter Emmett Dedmon Stewart S. Dixon James R. Getz Philip W. Hummer Mrs. Frank D. Mayer

John T. l\,fcCutcheon, Jr. Andrew l\fcNally III Arthur E. Osborne, Jr. Bryan S. Reid, Jr. Harold Byron Smith, Jr. Gardner H. Stern Theodore Tieken Mrs. Edgar J. Uihlein

LIFE TRUSTEES

Willard L. King Mrs. C. Phillip Miller Hermon Dunlap Smith HONORARY TRUSTEES

Michael 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 and Governing Annual, $100 a year. 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 9:30 to 4:30; Sunday from 12:00 to 5:00. Library and museum research collections are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 to 4:30 except for July and August when they are open Monday through Friday. The Society is closed on Christmas, New Year's, and Thanksgiving.

EDUCATION AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS

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 S2.25 by mail; $2 at newsstands, bookshops, and the Museum Store.

Original pen and ink caricature of Mark Twain (1835-1910) by John T. Mccutcheon on the occasion of Twa in's seventieth birthday, twenty-six years after his memorable appearance in Chicago in 1879. See page 150. CHS, gift of John T. Mccutcheon.

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