Chicago History | Fall & Winter 1982

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MOTHER GOOSE

IN PROSE

L.FRANK BAUM WAY AND WILLIAMS CHICAGO

Chicago History The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society 1982 Fall and Winter VOLU\rE XI, :\'U\fBER 3

Timothy C. Jacobson Editor

CONTENTS 130

The Marshall Field Annex and the New Urban Order of Daniel Burnham's Chicago

by Ann Lorenz Van Zanten

Russell Lewis Assistant Editor

142

The Blue Sky Press of Hyde Park, 1899-1907

by Paul Kruty

Karen Kohn D esigner

156

Chicagoans Under Wraps

by Elizabeth J achimowicz

Lisa Ginzel D esign Assistant

161

Chicago's City Championship: Northwestern University vs. The University of Chicago, 1892-1905

by John S. Watterson

175

The Thanksgiving Day Race of 1895

by George S. May

184

A Century of Chicago Toys, 1880-1980

by Steven Sommers

198

Illinois Toys: 1880-1980

by Olivia Mahoney

202

Uncle Mistletoe: A Chicago Christmas Tradition

by Robert P. Ledermann

204

Richard Teller Crane's War with the Colleges

by Abigail Loomis and Franklin E. Court

214

Educating "The Whole Boy" at the Chicago Manual Training School

by Nancy Farwell Leman

220

Review Essay: Touring the Great Lakes

223

The Society

Roberta Casey Assistant Editor

·w alter W. Krutz Paul W. Petraitis Photograp hy

Inside co,·ers: Endpapers designed by Will A . Dwiggins for 1902 Blue Sky Press edition of Robert Browning's play, In A Balcony. Paul Kruty.

Cover: Title page of Chicagoan L. Frank Baum's Mother Goose In Prose (1897).

Illustration by Maxfield Parrish . Lent by the Epstein Family.

Copyright I 982 by the Chicago Hi storical Society Clark Street al North A,·cnue Chicago, Illinois 60614 I

N 0272-8540

Articles appearing in this journal arc abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstrncts and America: History and Life

Editor's Note: This fall and winter we are pleased to bring you a larger combined issue of Chicago History . In addition to the regular selection, it contains several articles appropriate to the season and two photographic essays highlighting the Society's latest exhibitions. \Ve hope it will brighten your holidays and sustain even more your interest in Chicago's history.

TCJ

The Marshall Field Annex and the New Urban Order of Daniel Burnham's Chicago

By Ann Lorenz Van Zanten

The palatial form and elaborately modeled details of the Marshall Field Annex are reminders of the grand and gracious air that Daniel Burnham and his partner) Charles Atwood) sought to transfer from Chicago)s World)s Columbian Exposition of 1893 to the Loop.

THE WORLD'S COLUMBIA EXPOSITION of 1893 is generally credited with having brought about a basic shift toward classicism in Chicago architecture. When the fair opened to the public on May 1, 1893, visitors encountered a vast and harmonious ensemble of buildings, most of them based on Imperial Roman models, sumptuously decorated and painted entirely white.

The popular enthusiasm for this "White City" has been thought to have moved Chicago architects to abandon the bold forms and dark materials of the commercial architecture of the previous twenty years in favor of correct classical details and white stone and terra cotta surfaces. In fact, the implementation of the ÂŁair's ideals in Chicago architecture was underway well before the fair opened, in a small number of public and commercial buildings employing classical forms and light-colored materials.

It is not surprising that the building which most subtly and imaginatively transferred the grand style and urban imagery of the "White City" into the commercial context of Chicago came from the office of the ÂŁair's chief of construction, Daniel Hudson Burnham. Before the untimely death in January 1891 of Burnham's design partner, John Wellborn Root, the firm of Burnham and Root had produced a series of imposing and individualistic tall

Ann Lorenz Van Zanten was Curator of the Society's Architectural Collections and co-curator of its exhibition, Barry Byrne and John Lloyd Wright: Architecture and Design. Her essay on Wright appeared in the catalog for the exhibition.

130

buildings in a reel brick, granite, and terra cotta Romanesque idiom. But by early 1892, Burnham already envisioned a transformation of the urban texture and aesthetic character of downtown Chicago. To this end, he directed his new associate, Charles Bowler Atwood, in the de ign of a white, nine-story, Renaissancestyle commercial structure that not only contrasted with most of the Chicago commercial architecture preceding it, but also foreshadowed the busine s and residential blocks of Burnham's Chicago Plan of 1909.

The building that marks this momentous turn in Burnham's thought today largely escapes notice. Originally known as the Marshall Field Annex and now simply a portion of the block- quare Marshall Field and Company retail store, it occupies a lot 108 by 150 feet at the northwest corner of Wabash and Washington streets. It was designed during the spring of 1892 and was completed in August 1893.

The Iarshall Field Annex was the first building designed in Burnham's private practice by Charles Atwood, whose principal occupation since coming into Burnham's employ in the spring of 1891 had been as chief architect of the fair. Atwood had made a brillant debut when he designed the Fine Arts Building in the space of about a month. This was quickly recognized as one of the finest structures at the exposition and became the symbol of the "White City" for many of its visitors. Thus Burnham felt confident in entrusting him with one of the few major commercial commissions accepted by the office during the long and

The Marshall Field Annex designed by Charles B. Atwood. The Art Institute of Chicago.

131

111arshall Field Annex

Daniel H. Burnham (third from left) and Charles B. Atwood (far right) in front of World's Columbian Exposition buildings. Burnham was the /air's chief of co11strurtio11, Atwood his new associate. CHS, JCHi-17093.

hectic preparations for the fair. Indeed, it seems that Burnham recognized Atwood as the ideal instrument for the transformation of the firm's urban and commercial style.

Charles Atwood was an enigmatic and tragic figure. Born in 1849, he joined an architectural firm at the age of sixteen in order to learn the profession. By the time he went to work for Burnham in 1891, he had been active as an architect for some twenty-five years and had designed a number of buildings, including the famous W. H. Vanderbilt houses in Tew York City (1879-1881), and had won several important competitions. He was an imaginative designer who worked freely and competently in a variety of styles.

Despite his architectural successes, Atwood experienced considerable personal misfortune and professional failure. After the death in 1886 of his five-year-old son of typhoid fever, Atwood's productivity declined and his commissions grew more modest. When notices of John Root's death on January 19, 1891, ap132

peared in the New York newspapers, Atwood took the advice of a friend and asked William R. Ware, once his employer and then head of the architecture school at Columbia University, to write Burnham on his behalf. Searching for a new design partner in the first months after Root's death, Burnham had negotiated with several other architects without success. At some point, probably in late March or early April, he heeded Ware's "most emphatic" opinion and made an appointment to meet Atwood in New York. As Burnham later told his biographer, Charles Moore, Atwood did not keep the appointment with me. I waited an hour, then left the Brunswick Hotel. As I was crossing the street a man stepped up and asked if I was l\Ir. Burnham. I told him I was, whereupon he said he was l\fr. Atwood, and asked if I wanted to see him. I told him I was going back to Chicago, that I would think it over and let him know. I did come back, and Atwood came into my office within four hours after I got there.

Despite this awkward beginning, Burnham

Marshall Field Annex

The ex/;osition's Fine Arts Building, designed by Charles B . Atwood, symbolized the "IVhite City." It alone mrvives today as the Museum of Science and Industry . CHS, !CHi-02227, photograph by G.D. Arnold.

decided that he needed Atwood, and he installed Atwood as the ÂŁair's chief architect on April 21, 1891. Apparently he rapidly gained Burnham's complete confidence for he not only designed numerous exposition structures and exercised considerable control over ones by other architects, but he also demonstrated to Burnham that he would make a suitable design partner in private practice. Installed as a partner with a 27 percent share in the new firm of D. H. Burnham and Company on March l, 1894, Atwood went on to produce such major designs as the Reliance and Fisher buildings in Chicago and the Ellicott Square Building in Buffalo. But even the obvious success of his work and Burnham's personal admiration for his abilities did not save Atwood from being fired late in 1895 for absenteeism and general lack of productivity. He died just nine days later on December 19, at age fortysix. Only then, as Burnham later told his friend and biographer Charles Moore, did he realize that his gentle, attractive, and well-spoken

partner had been a drug addict who had gradually Jost his grasp on day-to-clay affairs over the course of the year before his death.

Despite his unhappy end, Atwood was at the height of his powers as a designer during the years that he worked with Burnham, and he clearly had a profound influence on his employer. It is significant that Burnham was open to his influence, which was both eastern and classical. Though John Root's death was surely a severe shock to him at first, Burnham seems to have quickly resolved to take the opportunity to set a new aesthetic course for his firm.

The designs of the East Coast architects who contributed to the fair-Hunt, McKim, Peabody, Post, and Van Brunt-had both shaken and excited him, and it was to easterners that he turned for advice in hiring a new partner.

Atwood had made his reputation primarily as the designer of opulent houses for rich men in New York City and New England, and he was comfortable with the rncabulary of classical forms that Root had shunned but Burnham 133

Marshall Field Annex now yearned to master. Burnham's practical vision and entrepreneurial genius would now serve to mold Atwood's artistic imagination into new and potent architectural forms. With Atwood as his pencil, Burnham began to sketch the elements of the new "White City."

The Marshall Field Annex was an ideal opportunity at that moment for Burnham, because the client apparently envisioned it as being linked to the fair both economically and aesthetically. By the time the fair was planned, Field's was already the premier retail store of Chicago, but its owner saw the promised influx of visitors in 1893 as an opportunity to clinch the store's position and turn a tidy profit. Well before the fair was proposed, Field and his aides had anticipated the need for more retail space than was afforded by the Singer Building at State and Washington streets, where the store had been housed since 1877.

Field began to acquire adjacent lots as early as February 1888, and by February 1892, he had purchased six deeds at a cost of 807,500 in order to assemble a lot measuring 108.6 by 150.7 feet just east of the Singer Building and Holden Court, at the northwest corner of ,i\Tabash and Washington streets. This site was leased to the firm by Field at 6 percent per annum. Negotiations with lessees in the existing buildings on the site were concluded around the beginning of March 1892 and demolition was scheduled to begin May 1. Although it is impossible to pinpoint when the commission for the new building was given to Burnham's office, it is likely to have been awarded just after Field finished securing the land. It was proposed that the firm build a ninestory structure, of which the first four stories would be devoted to retail space and a tea room for Field's, and the remaining five stories to rental as high-class offices. By building this high, but no higher, Field and Company could enjoy substantial rental income without bearing maintenance costs incurred by higher stories or losing too much display space on the lower floors to extensive elevator banks serving the upper floors.

The project proceeded at top speed in order to have the building completed during the fair, if not before. The design was completed

by May 29, 1892, when a perspective was pub134

lished in the Tribune. The new retail store opened in a lavish celebration on August 7, 1893, just over three months after the opening ceremonies of the exposition. The depression of J893 actually caused the retail store's sales to go down rather than up in the wake of the new expansion, and such luxury goods as jewelry and "art, Japanese [wares] and bric-abrac" housed in the new building must have made a particularly poor showing. N evertheless, the speculative portions of the Annex were entirely rented out well before the opening of the store, and the impulse toward expansion was firmly established for Marshall Field and Company. Furthermore, the glowing reports which appeared in the daily press after the store's inauguration were proof that Field's decision to erect a sumptuous new building was approved by local observers. As Field surely hoped, the Annex became an advertisement for his store, a concrete public image of his high-class commercial establishment. For Burnham, it was st-i-ll more: an advertisement for a new type of urban architecture. An article on Field's new project which appeared in the main Chicago business and real estate journal, the Economist, on l\Iarch 22, 1892, leaves little doubt about the connection with the fair sought

by Field's company.

It is of course desirable that the new structure be completed before the vVorld's Fair, and be o ne more ornament to a city which is now cons idered perhaps the most attractive exhibit which visitors will see on coming to the fair. It will be practicable to get l\fr. Field's building ready by that time under the vigorous management of i\[r. Burnham. i\[arshall Field & Co. are now the most widely known dry goods house in the United States, and it is fitting that they should have the most beautiful and most convenient structure devoted to such purposes in the United States. It is evide nt that this is their intention.

Burnham, in turn, must have seen the commission as a providential opportunity to transfer the ideals of the fair to the heart of Chicago. His client was a wealthy and influential individual, one of the class of men who controlled Chicago's destiny. Just as the new Annex would be an advertisement for Field and Company, so would it advertise the new urban image exemplified by the fair and further the association of that image with the name of Daniel

Marshall Field Annex

Although originally planned as part of the Annex building, Marshall Field's tea room (later called the Walnut Room) actually came to be located in the store's State Street building (1907) where from the seventh floor it overlooked the intersection of State and Washington streets. This view dates from 1909.

CHS, ICHi-01617.

Burnham. Burnham had good reason to wish for such an association. Until 1891, he and his then partner, John Root, had been connected with the tough and glowering commercial architecture which impressed Chicago's visitors as "ferocious," "sublime," and "brutal." Red and grey granite, sandstone, brick, and red terra cotta had been the media of their art; massive, rock-faced structures, bristling with turrets and barbaric ornament had been the bold and imposing results. Blackened by Chicago soot, Burnham and Root's buildings took on the intimidating air of ancient fortresses carved out of the cliff faces of city streets. The fair repudiated this image in favor of something expansive, clean, and classical, and Chicago at large spoke of repudiating it as well. Burnham must therefore have been anxious to recast his private practice in the image of the fair.

This was certainly his intention when heappointed Atwood, master of the cool and austere Creco-Ro'man style of the £air's Fine Arts Building, the principal designer for his private practice. But Burnham and Atwood were not so literal-minded as to carry over merely the £air's archaic Roman classicism into their first commercial design. Instead, they incorporated the supple stylistic forms of the Italian Renaissance in to the Chicago grid.

The ~lanhall Field Annex is a rectangular solid nine stories tall, conceived and originally

seen as a fully three-dimensional block. It stands firmly on a three-story creamy yellowwhite granite, with its first two stories joined in a range of rusticated piers flanked at the encls of each side by broad, high, round arches that originally served as entrances to the store and offices. The three stories above the base, executed in a grey-white terra cotta, are united by the three tall arches that run through the center of each facade. The seventh and eighth stories, of grey-white brick and terra cotta, are treated as a single unit articulated by a rapid rhythm of arched openings closely grouped in twos and threes. The low top story, pierced by square window openings corresponding to the arches immediately below, and the deep, elaborate cornice are molded in grey-white terra cotta. The effect is rich but subdued and controlled. Seen from a raking angle along ·washington or ·w abash, the building's surface is richly textured but holds to the edge of the site from ground line to cornice. It is a building with impeccable urban manners, neither protruding into the surrounding space nor impo ing on its neighbors.

Yet the self-containment of the Marshall Field Annex does not prevent it from being both sumptuous and elegant in its demeanor.

There is no mistaking the palatial references of its Italian Renaissance style. As in its Roman and Florentine models, the rusticated granite 135

Marshall Field Annex of the base catches the light and gives the building a vigorous presence at street level without actually intruding on the pedestrian's space, while the expansive display windows seem like a modern twist on the narrow shops which populated the bases of the palazzi. The incorporation of the upper stories into unified and generously proportioned ranges allows the building to address the street on a monumental scale, effectively enlarging the three-storied paradigm of the palazzo to the proportions of a modern office building. The Renaissance forms and decoration of the building, reminiscent not only of the palaces of Italy but also of the monumental public buildings of Paris and the great commercial structures of New York City, could hardly fail to strike a responsive chord in the minds of Field's wealthier and better-traveled patrons.

A comparison to the Rookery, Burnham and Root's famous work of 1885-88, brings into sharper focus the qualities of the Marshall Field Annex that were part of the new urban mentality of the early 1890s. Of all the downtown buildings of the 1880s, the Rookery is one of the most stony and mountainous. At street level, its rough gran i le base is carved away to reveal massive columns and an entrance which is like the mouth of a cave. The upper stories break forward into swelling bays and turrets, illusionistically fastened to the walls with terra cotta bands and bosses. The building's ornament, a bold and barbaric mixture of Romanesque and "Hindoo," is carved out of the surface in places and encrusted over it in others. The whole building asserts itself as a rocky mass, boldly articulated to differentiate it from its surroundings.

By contrast, the surface of the Marshall Field Annex reads as a thin skin wrapped around a cubic volume. This is possible in part because the building is supported by a steel "skyscraper" frame rather than by the walls themselves.

The base asserts its aesthetic function of support by the breadth of its members, not by their depth. The upper stories hold tightly to the plane established by the base. The building's ornament is classical in origin and is cut and molded in regular, continuous patterns, creating horizontal ranges across the surface which are merely interrupted, not inflected, by the 136

Marshall Field's State Street building ttnder constructio,1 in 1907, and A /wood's shorter Annex building (center), which opened in 1893. CHS, Chicago Daily News f1hoto, DN-450-1, gift of Field Enterprises.

entrances and window openings. Only in the great triple arches of the facades is a more three-dimensional ornament introduced, but it is allowed to protrude only slightly beyond the outer wall surface. The building is not self-assertive like the Rookery. It makes no gestures which it might later regret. While the Rookery is active and busy, the Marshall Field Annex is passive and reposeful.

The distinctive appearance of the Marshall Field Annex in its Chicago context resulted from the layering of an essentially East Coast aesthetic over a thin substratum of rectilinear, more or less classical commercial blocks. Burnham and Atwood had several immediate, local models to consider in devising their project.

Most recent were the two huge department stores which Vhlliam LeBaron Jenney had designed for State Street, not far from Field's: Siegel, Cooper and Company, which shortly became known as the Leiter Store, of 1889-91, and the Fair Store, of 1890-91. The Leiter Store was a vast and austere block articulated

Marshall Field Annex

The Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence, whose Italian Renaissance proportions and decoration suggest those that Atwood recaptured in the Marshall Field Annex.

A linari, Florence, Italy.

by massive piers of sparingly carved creamcolored granite. Despite the meclievalism of its few decorative details, the overall effect of the building was one of Greek rectilinearity. The Fair Store (whose name had no connection to the exposition, but elated back to 1875) was equally vast but more florid, with Corinthian capitals and vermiculated blocks scattered across its huge limestone facades.

Burnham and Atwood rejected the literalminded application of rectilinear classical forms to the grid of the steel-frame structure which for Jenney, trained as an engineer, was an obvious solution for both of these buildings.

Instead, they saw the steel frame as a means of freeing the facade to create more varied compositions. They obviously considered more closely another commercial building without a steel frame, the earlier commission of their client, the Marshall Field Wholesale Store designed by Henry Hob on Richardson in 1886.

Though vast, red, and Romanesque in style, it provided an excellent model for the kind of

management of scale through grouping of stories that Atwood exercised in his design.

Louis Sullivan's Auditorium of 1887-89, itself paying homage to Richardson's building, would have further reinforced the paradigm of the arcuated block, now rendered in a light-colored stone and with a clear differentiation between rusticated base and lightly articulated upper walls. But both the "\,Vholesale Store and the Auditorium were too rugged to serve as models for the finest retail department store in Chicago.

For a precedent for the Italian Renaissance style, cubic proportions, thin surface, and coolly elegant manner of the Marshall Field Annex, one must look to the New York firm of McKim, Mead and White and particularly to its club and hotel designs of the early 1890s, which were largely conceived by Charles Fallen McKim. Burnham spoke openly of his respect for the firm, and Atwood was certainly familiar with their work from his years in Boston and New York. McKim, Mead and White's Metropolitan Club, designed in 1891, was a fourstoried white palazzo with a rusticated base and heavy, overhanging cornice which stood on a corner site, entirely disengaged from surrounding buildings. Its style and massing could have provided one model for Atwood in designing the Annex.

Another possible model seems to have been the Imperial Hotel, also of 1891, which had a high, arcaded base and a vermiculated surface on its upper stories, two of which were joined by a central arched opening. In the Marshall Field Annex, Atwood adapted l\IcKim's refined urban gestures and classical compositions to become a corrective to the boldness and brutalism of the Field Wholesale Store and the Auditorium, and to the somewhat graceless literalmindedness of the Leiter and Fair stores. Similarly, the style, composition, and content of the exposition had been thought to promise an aesthetic and social corrective to the gracelessness and brutality of the city at large.

At least one observer, Louis Sullivan, was sensitive to the import of this eastern intrusion.

In his Kindergarten Chats of 1901, he feigned disbelief that the l\larshall Field Annex was not indeed the Imperial Hotel or "the Imperial's long-lost child." "This particular building is, to be sure, not characteristic of the West," he 137

Marshall Field Annex wrote. "It lacks, utterly, Western frankness, directness-crudity, if you will. It is merely a weak-rooted cutting from an eastern hot house; and it languishes in the open air." But while Sullivan treated the building and its models with disdain, Burnham and many of his Chicago contemporaries took pride in a work that compared favorably to the latest thing in New York. As he had been with the Fine Arts Building, Atwood again proved to be the channel of eastern classical influence. Together with Burnham, he also tapped a vein of associations with Europe, New York, and upper-class life, which could only have been welcome to a city anxious to improve its image.

Such was Burnham's own satisfaction with the Renaissance block of the Marshall Field Annex that when the firm was hired in 1893 to design a block-square office building in Buffalo, New York, he persuaded his clients to accept a similar design . The Ellicott Square Building, as it is still known, was designed py Atwood as a ten-story, steel-frame structure clad in greywhite brick and terra cotta. The surface was articulated with vertical piers banded like the granite base of the Marshall Field Annex, and the principal entrances were elaborately modeled in the style of the sixteenth-century Tuileries palace in Paris. Originally, the building also had a complex overhanging cornice. Based on the Rookery in plan, the Ellicott Square Building was wrapped around a light court with a dramatic glass-roofed atrium opening onto the first two stories of shops and banking facilities. But the block-like composition, tight decorative skin, and classical character of the exterior were unquestionably predicated on the Marshall Field Annex.

Burnham took an active role in promoting his design in Buffalo, encouraging his clients to believe that the building would attract more renters than it could accommodate and serve as both a focal point and an "advertisement" for the changing downtown. He made clear at an early presentation his delight with the conditions of the commission, saying in reference to the availability of an entire block for the site: "In no city that I know of could such an opportunity for correct architecture have been secured." A local newspaper also recounted Burnham's assertion that, "He had been engaged in 138

building office blocks for 30 years, and was familiar with all of the office buildings of any prominence in every part of the country. He had observed the instant changes in cities where they had passed from periods of poor buildings into eras of fine buildings. It was the turning point always in a city's destiny." Thus Burnham advanced his belief that a "correct"-that is, classical-building of ample proportions could have a significant impact on the larger city. He was already promoting the ideas that he would develop more comprehensively in the Chicago Plan, nearly fifteen years later.

As Burnham himself noted, it was rare to have the opportunity to build on an unobstructed full-block parcel of land. Most of his firm's buildings in the late l 890s and early 1900s sacrificed the classic proportions of the Marshall Field Annex and Ellicott Square Building for greater height on more limited sites. With Charles Atwood's Reliance Building in Chicago, the firm initiated an era of steelframed towers lightly clad in white or gold terra cotta, and mastered ornate surface decoration in works like the Flatiron Building in New York and the People's Gas Company Building in Chicago.

Burnham did not abandon his vision of "correct architecture" in the form of the great commercial and office block, and after Atwood's death he found others to help carry it forward. From 1906 to 1909, Burnham worked with the Merchant's Club and Commercial Club of Chicago to effect a "turning point" in Chicago's "destiny": Burnham imagined the city reborn in a new form. From the articulated grid of its streets would rise a pattern of harmoniously proportioned, classically ornamented, public, commercial, and residential buildings, creating an entirely new urban texture.

In the text of the Chicago Plan publication, prepared by Burnham and Edward Bennett and edited by Charles Moore, little is said of the design of buildings other than the principal public structures of the Civic Center and Lake Front. But a firm belief in unity, the legacy of the fair and of the model set by contemporary Parisian zoning, is apparent. "Without attempting to secure formality," the book states, "or to insist on uniformity of design on a large scale, there should be a constant display of teamwork,

Marshall Field Annex

Above: The Fair Store, a State Street department store designed by William LeBaron Jenney in 189091, also incorporated classical forms, though less effectively than Atwood's Annex building of two years later. CHS, lCHi01577.

Right: The radical shift

in style represented by the Marshall Field Annex is evident by comparing it with the mountainous Rookery Building designed by Burnham and Root's firm in 1885-88 and shown here between 1910 and 1915. CHS, ICHi-01069, gift of Rand McNally & Company.

139

Marshall Field Annex

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\'n:w OF THE PROPOSED BovLE\'ARD CON:-IECTIKG THE NORTH AND SOUTH SIDES, LOOKIl\G ;\ORTH, SHOWING bf!CIDGAN AVENUE AND BEAUBIEN COURT RAISED TO THE SA.ME LEVEL AS BOULEVARD. Tors BOULEVARD l'OUCUES TUE BoILDTN,GS ON EITITER SIDE AND IS APPROACIIED Fil.Oil TflE CROSS STll.EETS BY INCLINED ROADWAYS.

An illustration of Daniel Burnham's famous Chicago Plan of 1909 mggests that if Burnham had had his way, the classical elegance of the Marshall Field Annex would have been a harbinger of a rather different looking downtown Chicago from the one that in time developed. CHS, ICHi-03456.

140

Marshall Field Annex so to speak, on the part of the architects. The former days when each architect strove to build his cornice higher or more elaborate than the adjoining cornice are giving place, happily, to the saner idea of accepting existing conditions when a reasonable line has been established."

In March 1893, the city of Chicago had in fact adopted a zoning ordinance to prevent the construction of buildings taller than 130 feet (effectively ten stories) on the grounds that taller buildings obstructed the light, posed fire hazards, and unfairly concentrated construction in the Loop. Although the text of the Chicago Plan suggests no specific height for buildings, the drawings reveal a city for the most part modulated between the heights of seven and twelve stories.

Beneath the orderly rooflines, the character of the buildings that carpet the city in the Chicago Plan drawings is unmistakable. They are classically detailed, rectilinear blocks whose regularly gridded and arcaded facades subordinate individual expression to the harmony of the ensemble. Their ground stories are high and open; their upper facades are unbroken by bays or protruding ornamentation. They are discreet and well mannered, with a hint of sumptuousness in the form of rustication and decorative friezes. Sketched out with the aid of French-trained draftsmen more than fifteen years after Atwood conceived the Marshall Field Annex, these projected buildings were modeled in part on the structure of fin-desiecle Paris. But they are descendants of the ideas first posed by Burnham and Atwood in the Annex building.

Walking beside the Marshall Field Annex, one can catch a glimpse of the city envisioned in the Chicago Plan. Its nine-story height is grand without being overpowering; its streetlevel facade is generously open but politely unassertive; its upper stories give pleasure to the eye. It is easy to see how rank on rank of such buildings-creamy-white walls along newly widened streets, which contrasted so sharply with the blackened canyons of the 1880sseemed a pleasant prospect to the businessmen of the Commercial Club. It is also easy to see why graciously proporLioned and subtly adorned blocks might appeal to the corporate architect and the corporate client. Choices

would be clear and errors of taste unlikely. It would be simple to design such buildings by the hundreds, and the illustrations of the Chicago Plan indicate that this is just what Burnham hoped would happen.

Parts of the Chicago Plan did materialize.

The parkland on the lakefront, the public institutions located within it, and the circulation net of the city and its suburbs are all consequences of the ideas of Burnham and the Commercial Club. But the harmonious urban ensemble that Burnham imagined never came to pass. In the Loop, a certain consistency of treatment developed almost by default as architects built more and more simply, clothing the steel frames of their commercial buildings with the thinnest membranes of terra cotta and glass.

Thus only ten or fifteen years later the Marshall Field Annex came to be surrounded by facades that are flatter, cooler, and more open and that harmonize among themselves. Among them, the Annex looks almost Baroque in composition and detail and dated in the concealment of its frame.

The Annex is at once a milestone in Daniel Burnham's own thought and a discarded suggestion in the larger process that brought the Loop to its modern form . But however dated its palatial form and elaborately modeled details, however dwarfed its scale by the high-rise statements of economic reality around it, the Marshall Field Annex retains the grand and gracious air that Burnham and Atwood sought to transfer from the fair to the Loop. Chicago resisted that final reformation. The Annex is proof that Burnham failed not for want of trying.

Suggestions for Further Reading The Architectural Record 38 (July 1915). This special issue was devoted to the work of Daniel Burnham and his firms Burnham and Root, D. H. Burnham & Co., and Graham, Burnham &: Co. Burnham, Daniel H. and Edward Bennett. The Plan of Chicago. Edited by Charles l\foore. Chicago: The Commercial Club, 1909.

Hines, Thomas S. Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. l\foore, Charles. Daniel H. Burnham, Architect, Planner of Cities . 2 vols. Boston and New York: Houghton l\Iiffiin Co., 1921.

141

Thomas Wood Stevens was one of the founders of the Blue Sky Press. His bookplate, which was produced by the newly invented zinc etching process, was designed at the press by Frank B. Rae, Blue Sky's first art director.

142

The Blue Sky Press of Hyde Park, 1899-1907

By Paul Kruty

Drawing from the great number of Chicago artists and writers of the time) three ambitious young men and the circle of hard workers who gathered around them produced almost fifty books and a monthly magazine which form a significant chapter in the history of American fine art printing.

1899, Fred Langworthy, Tom Stevens, and Alden Noble, all students at the new Armour Institute at 33rd and Federal streets, began setting up printing equipment and type in the basement of Stevens's apartment at 5430 Lexington (now University) in Hyde Park.

The three had met in the fall of 1897 when they were, respectively, business manager, editor, and assistant editor of the Armour student publication, The Fulcrum, and they assigned themselves the same functions in their new project. In June, "with a small hand press and a capital of $100," as Langworthy later recalled, work commenced on the first product of the newly founded Blue Sky Press-the magazine Th e Blue Sky, which went on sale in early August for twenty-five cents. The head of the Armour Institute, Frank '"'¡ Gunsaulus, contributed a poem to this first issue, and the art instructor at Armour, Walter Enright, designed the little magazine's cover. In a column in the magazine called "Stray Clouds," Stevens described the modest aims of the three friends: EARLY IN

vVe like to do this. Also some folks we knew said they would subscribe. (Some of them did.)

Printers who set up long, dry things about Problems and Relations and such stuff all day become pessimists. . . . In order to prevent such catastrophes to our cheerful temperament, we shall print things that keep m feeling like a week in the country.

By the encl of August they completed their Paul Kruty , along with Peter Kruty and Douglas S. Wilson , produced an exhibit on the Blue Sky Press which open ed at th e Hyde Park Historical Society in Jun e 198 1. Unless otherwise noted, photos are courtesy of th e author.

first book, Technologie Ballads. The small, plain book, printed in an edition of ninetynine, was a collection of poems by Noble and Stevens, most of which already had been published in Th e Fulcrum. Small literary magazines such as The Blu e Shy commonly appeared and, after a few issues, disappeared; even after the completion of a book, there was certainly nothing to guarantee from this beginning that the "Skyles" (as they referred to themselves in the guest book) would publish twenty-two issues of the magazine and half a hundred books over the next six years.

The renaissance in fine art printing, of which the Blue Sky Press was a part, began in Europe in the 1880s and 1890s. In many ways the innovations in bookmaking m irrored similar movements in art and architecture, with their numerous artistic styles and cultural purposes. In printing, the Aesthetic style, with its emphasis on small format, spare ornamentation, and blank space on the page, was championed by the Chiswick Press in England, while the Art Nouveau style, with its curvilinear Ooral decoration and "sinuous line," was made famous by the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley. In the United States, the new interest in American colonial art was mixed with these European influences in the works of v\Till Bradley.

In addition to stylistic considerations, fine art printers were interested in the quality of the paper, ink, and bindings that went into their newly designed works. The most famous advocate of the cause of "honest printing" and the handmade book was Englishman \'\Tilliam l\forris, who emphasized the manner of working 143

Blue Sky Press and printing as much as the style of the finished product. In America, a great many printers appeared who imitated the methods and appearance, if not necessarily understanding the content, of the Morris doctrine: typefaces derived from medieval script, commonly printed in black and red with elaborate initial letters and surrounded by floral ornament, all handprinted by a group of worker-craftsmen . (Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Press, begun in 1896, is a good example.) Morris himself wrote much of what he published and, though other contemporary authors furnished some of his texts, a sizable number was new printings of older works, often from the ~1 iddle Ages. l n the United States, on the other hand, the early private presses tended to seek out contemporary writers rather than to publish reprints.

This interest in finely printed contemporary literature was firmly established in Chicago in the 1890s. The commercial firms of Stone & Kimball and Way & Williams published works

by Eugene Field, Hamlin Garland, and George Ade, often designed and illustrated by, among others, Will Bradley, Frederic W. Goudy, Bruce Rodgers, and even Maxfield Parrish. From 1894 until l 898 Stone & Kimball published the famous literary magazine, The C hapbooh. In addition, the idea of the hand-printed book appeared as early as 1895 when William Winslow and Chauncey Williams (partner of Irving \Vay) founded the Auvergne Press in River Forest. The following year Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed houses for both Winslow and Williams, designed and, with Winslow, hand-printed the celebrated edition of Gannett's The House Beautiful.

By the time the Blue Sky Press began operation, both Ralph Fletcher Seymour's Alderbrink Press (begun in Chicago in 1897) and the Philosopher Press in " ' ausau, Wisconsin (established in 1896), were printing limited edition works; shortly afterward, in 1901 and 1902, Everett Millard began the Elm Press in Highland Park and Frederic \V. Goudy the Village Press in Park Ridge. Langworthy, Stevens, and Noble quickly became friends and associates of all these printers. Seymour, the first visitor to sign the Blue Sky guest book, contributed artwork to several issues of the magazine, and in return Langworthy and Stev144

Walle,¡ Enright, an art instructor at the Armour Insti tute, designed the cover of the little magazine The Blue Sky, the press's first publication, in 1899.

ens printed at least one book for Seymour (Catcltwords of Cheer by Sara Hubbard, 1900).

Van Vechten and Ellis, publishers of the Philosopher, were also frequent visitors at the Blue Sky Press. Goudy designed a book for Langworthy (In a Balcony, 1902), while Millard was for a time engaged to Belle Silviera, an artist who did work for the Blue Sky Press.

After Stevens joined the staff of the Inland Printer magaLine, he reviewed and critici1.ed scores of private press books, while Langworthy's own library included samples of all the major presses of the day, some with personal dedications.

The cultural threads of turn-of-the-century Chicago intertwined with many of the Blue Sky people as well. Soon, Stevens became a member of the Little Room, the group of artists and writers that met in Ralph Clarkson's sLUdio in the Fine Arts Building (where he joined Elia Peauie and 'Wallace Rice, early members of the club and both much involved

Blue Sky Press with the Blue Sky Press). Blue Sky artist Walter Enright shared a studio with the wellknown mural painter and teacher John Norton, and married Frank Lloyd Wright's sister, Maginel. In 1902 Harriet Monroe approached the press about publishing five plays, The Passing Show (nothing ever came of the project). And the guest book shows that poet Edgar Lee Masters, novelist Henry Blake Fuller, and columnist Franklin P. Adams all visited the Blue Sky Press.

The three moving spirits behind the press shared ordinary beginnings and subsequent distinguished careers, though not all in art.

Born in a small town just south of Rockford, Illinois, Thomas Wood Stevens (1880-1942) attended the Armour Academy before studying at the Armour Institute and at The Art Instiute of Chicago, where he was teaching by 1903.

Stevens designed and co-authored many of the Blue Sky books, wrote a monthly column for the magaLine, and commissioned many of his fellow artists and students to work for the press.

Later, he and his wife, artist Helen Bradshaw, travelled to England to study with Frank Brangwyn. A lifelong member of the Chicago Society of Etchers, he wrote and ilJustrated The Et citing of Cities (1913) and Lettering (1916). His later work was mostly associated with the theater, and from 1913 until 1924 he headed the drama department of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. During this time he wrote numerous historical pageants, many with Kenneth Sawyer Goodman and, after Goodman's early death, was appointed first director of the Goodman Theatre of Chicago. After working in the midwestern WP A theater project, he moved to Tucson to head the drama department of the University of Arizona. During the summers he directed the annual Santa Fe Fiesta.

The second of the three, Alden Charles ' oble (1880-1942), was born and raised in Chicago. Financially involved with the Blue Sky Press for onl) a short time, he also had less to do with the organiLation and production of books than did Stevens. Instead, Noble acted as a kind of "author-in-residence": besides a monthly column and poems and stories for almost every issue of the magazine, Noble wrote one book and, with Stevens, co-authored five

others published by the press. Though he continued to write throughout his life, Noble's main occupation was the insurance business.

He left Chicago in 1906 for the East, and eventually became chairman of the board of directors of the i\Ierchants Fire Assurance Corporation of New York.

It was left to Alfred Gist Langworthy (18751956) to try to find a way to pay the bills, keep work on schedule, and maintain public interest in the trio's venture. The practical mind behind the Blue Sky Press, Langworthy was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and, after his arrival in Chicago at the age of eighteen, lived in Englewood before moving to the House of the Blue Sky. He sold stationery, business cards, and even his own photographs to support himself through school. In addition to being the press's business manager, he often set type and ran the press. \ 1Vhile Stevens may have thought of the Blue Sky Press as but one step in his long career in the arts, for Langworthy it was the central artistic endeavor of his life, and Blue Sky's ultimate failure a source of greater disappointment. For ten years after the final product of the press in 1907, he spent considerable effort trying to dispose properly of the hundreds of unsold remainders. He later worked for various Chicago advertising firms.

Thus in the bustling world of turn-of-thecentury Chicago, Langworthy, Stevens, and Noble launched their enterprise-Stevens and Noble with all the enthusiasm nineteen-yearolds can muster, and Langworthy, a mature twenty-four, trying to keep the operation financially stable. Almost fifty years later, Ralph Fletcher Seymour reminisced about those early days: There was a group of eager, young, idealistic and ambitious craftsmen-artists in a neighboring basement to the Goudys. [Actually, it was several miles from the Goudys.] They issued a little magazine every-once-in-a-while called the "Blue Sky Magazine" and they designed, set in type, printed and sold quite a number of pleasantly designed books .... They meant to be good craftsmen but, much more than that, to be very good in the technique of living. [Some Went This TVay, 1945] Ten of the first eleven books, all pamphletbound, were printed in editions of less than 200 copies and typically sold for $1 apiece.

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Blue Sky Press Stevens and Noble wrote four of these first books; the other seven were short works whose authors had been published in the magazine.

Small, simple books showing traces of the Aesthetic style, they were occasionally illustrated by "\,Valter Enright and Frank Rae, two young artists who were soon to assume great importance to the press.

By the spring of 1900 the basement on Lexington Avenue had become too crowded, and in May, Stevens and Langworthy moved the tons of equipment a block east, to the southwest corner of 55th Street and Woodlawn Avenue. This location, too, only served for a short time; in February 1901 they moved the press and themselves to 4732 Kenwood, the location hence known as the "House of the Blue Sky." At first both Langworthy and Stevens lived in the house and Noble lived next door.* In December 1900, the first of the yearly works published for the holiday season was issued-a "Christmas Greeting" by Noble and Stevens called Mucronis Puerique (The Dagger and the Boy). As though to celebrate the new century, a month later the first major production of the press was published. The 108-page book, Spoil of the North Wind, is a collection of poems written by various authors about Omar Khayyam. The edition of 625 copies was offered to the public with a choice of plain copies, hand-illumined copies, copies on Japan vellum, and, finally, the latter hand-illumined for $10 each. The book sold well, especially after a review appeared in the Chicago literary magazine, The Dial, on March 16. After briefly describing the work, the reviewer commented, "It makes a very pretty book, and all Omarians will be sure to want it. Since the edition is limited, it will be well to put in early applications."

The poems for this, their first success, had been collected by Edward Martin Moore, who acted as secretary to the press, as well as type• setter, printer, and "eccentric." Though this book and two columns of "Book Notes" in 1901 issues of the magazine were his only signed contributions, "Man Jack" Moore, as •Only the first home of the press, 5430 University, stands today. Both the buildings at 55th and Woodlawn and 4732 Kenwood were removed in the Hyde ParkKenwood urban renewal project of the 1960s.

146

In THOMPSON

WCX)D.5

Gi;I

he signed himself in the guest book, worked faithfully for Langworthy during the existence of the press. He later used the experience gained at the Blue Sky Press to found his own press, the Pony Barn Press in Warrenville, Illinois.

The striking cover decoration of Spoil of the North Wind-stylized roses printed in muted red and green-was designed by Frank B. Rae, Jr., the press's first art editor. Rae grew up in Hyde Park, attended the Art Institute, and in 1898 went to New York for further study.

In 1899 he worked for Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Press at East Aurora, New York. When he returned to Chicago in the spring of 1900, Stevens appointed him art editor or, as he wrote in the April issue of the magazine: For that we pitied him the point of becoming him that he was It no ner of the shop to work

for having been reduced to a Roycrofter, and admired longer, we gave him a corin.

That spring and summer Rae shared Stevens's

Blue Shy Press

'

Ab01¡e and left: Harry Townsend's design for In Thompson's Woods, and Walter Enright's cover illustration for Peattie's book, both issued in 1901.

apartment at 5430 Lexington, but by September he again left Chicago and settled in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where he founded the Alwil Shop Press.* During his brief stay in Chicago, Rae had illustrated the book My Ships Aground (August 1900) and two issues of the magazine (May and July, 1900), and he continued to do work for the press after his move.

In addition to this volume, Spoil of the North Wind, Rae also designed Omar Resung (September I 901) and the initial letters for In Thompson's Woods (November 1901) at the same time his Alwil Shop Press was in full production. The favor was reciprocated in 1901 and I 902 when Noble and Stevens provided copy for Rae (The Unsought Shrine and Hold Redmere: A Tale).

With Spoil of the North Wind, the Blue Sky Press entered what may be called its mature period. The problems of bringing their books from conception to completion had been solved •Rae had a studio in Cleveland in the 1920s, but litlle else is kn01rn about this \'crsatile designer.

sufficiently to permit Langworthy and Stevens to produce one beautiful book after another.

The years I 901 and 1902 brought continued success, esteem, and occasionally enough money to make a profit.

How Jaques Came Into the Forest of Arden: An Impertinence by Elia '\V. Peattie is a good example of the high quality book published at this time. "With illustrations by '\,Valter Enright and designs by Harry Everett Townsend, it was issued during August 1901 in the largest edition of any Blue Sky Press book. The regular edition consisted of 700 copies, with an additional twenty-five copies printed on Japan vellum, and three copies on parchment, the latter selling for $50. The reviewer for The Dial, November I, 1901, described it as an attractive little hand-made book lately issued by the Blue Sky Press, Chicago. This "impertinence", as its author, i\frs. Elia ,v. Peattie, modestly calls it, is an original bit of reading between Shakespeare's lines, or rather between his acts . . . . The little idyl is touched throughout with the spirit of Arden Forest. One wishes there were more of this kind of Shakespearean comment. The book is made to fit its contents, with antique board covers, handillumined initials, and some dainty pen drawings, which add much to its quaint charm.

The reviewer most certainly would have been familiar with the work of Elia Peattie for, while she later became a central figure in the Chicago Ii terary establishment of the I 9 l Os and 1920s, Mrs. Peattie was already highly regarded when this book was published. She herself was pleased enough to write in the guest book at the House of the Blue Sky: With the Forest of Arden just at hand and the Blue Sky not only overhead but all 'round about, it is easy to sign Yours happily, Elia W. Peattie Aug.13-1901

Literary critic for the Chicago Tribune from 1901 until 1917, she held many soirees in her house, which still stands at 7660 South Shore Drive. The Blue Sky Press published one other of her books, Castl_e, Knight and Troubador (October 1903), and a poem which appeared in the April 1902 issue of the magazine.

The artists who illustrated Mrs. Peattie's " impertinence," Walter Enright and Harry Townsend, were good friends and worked to147

Blue Sky Press gether on several other Blue Sky Press books.

Early in 1900, along with four other young artists* they organized a weekly sketch club called "the Beetles." Their logo, a stylized beetle, often appears on Blue Sky books, sometimes in place of a signature. For example, the decorated initial letters for this book, according to the colophon, were designed by Townsend, but are "signed" with a beetle. Enright's pen and ink drawings, reminiscent of the better magazine illustrations of the time, contrast well with Townsend's abstracted floral decorations.

For the hand-lettered cover, Enright successfully combined these narrative and decorative styles. \,Valter J. Enright was probably Stevens's first art teacher. Born in Chicago, he studied at the Art Institute and in I 899 was teaching there and at Armour. During 1903 and 1904 he designed most of the covers for the Inland Printer and illustrated many of Stevens's articles for that magazine. For the Blue Sky Press, "Pat" Enright also illustrated In the Sack of the Castle (March 1900) and designed the cover for Studies in Black and White (a privately commissioned book, 1899). He designed two covers and five illustrations for the magazine; in addition there are numerous unsigned decorations on various books which are probably Enright's. He also did work for Rae's Alwil Press Shop in 1901, and illustrated The Hollow Land, published by Goudy's Village Press in 1905. By 1913 he had moved to New York.

Though Enright was an early- and loyal friend of the press, Harry Everett Townsend did more work for the press and was the most important artist of these middle years. Born in western Illinois in 1879, Townsend studied at the Art Institute and was a student of illustrator Howard Pyle. Early in 1901 Stevens appointed Townsend the new art editor, after the departure of Frank Rae the previous fall, and Townsend remained in that position until the end of 1903. He provided illustrations and sometimes covers for eight issues of the magazine, and illustrated seven Blue Sky books pub•John W. Norton, Albert H. Krehbiel, Howard V. Brown, and Loring Gary Calkins. The minutes of the meetings of the Beetles held in I 900, with the artists' sketches tipped in, are presen-ed among the Blue Sky Papers at the Newberry Library, Chicago.

148

lished between February 1901 and October 1903, culminating in the lovely designs for an edition of Milton's L'Allegro and II Penseroso (September 1902). In 1904 he manied Chicago artist Cora Schniedewend and, shortly before World War I, they too moved to New York.

Townsend's initial letters for Mrs. Peattie's book were hand-lettered by the author's daughter Barbara, for those who wished to pay a little extra. The practice of infilling initial letters with watercolor was considered an American addition to the open initials preferred

by William Morris. In the January 190 I issue of the magazine, Stevens announced the formation of an "Illuminating Department" for this purpose.

Townsend's cover for another work issued in fall 1901, In Thompson's Woods, is much more stylized than Enright's work. Townsend's decorative style at this time and his repeated use of the Scottish rose are reminiscent

Blue Sky Press

_,,,

• F./X · L,IBRIS •

Top: Blue Sky published Milto11's "L'Allegro" and " II Penseroso" i11 a single handsome volume in 1902.

Th e design was by Harry Towns end.

Above and left: Amo11g the zinc- etched bookplates p roduced at Blue Sk y, Edward Martin Moore's was designed by H arry Townsend, Robert Burns Peattie's

by Walter Emight. Douglas S. Wilso11.

of contemporary English Arts and Crafts and Scottish Art 1ouveau designs. Published in an edition of 300, this collection of poems was written by Forrest Crissey, for many years an editorial writer for the Saturday Evening Post.

The book was favorably reviewed by ·wallace Rice, literary critic for the Post.

Wallace Rice was often consulted by Stevens and, after Stevens's departure, by Langworthy, on literary matters including the merit of manuscripts submitted for publication. In addition to book reviews and essays in the magazine, the Blue Sky Press privately printed his Memorial Ode for the 50th Anniversary on the Founding of Racine College, Racine, Wisconsin. Stevens wrote Rice a letter concerning the ode on Townsend's Blue Sky stationery.

An additional service provided by the press to interested customers was that of producing bookplates. The invention of the zinc etching process greatly facilitated their creation: every nuance of the artist's original pen drawing could be reproduced on the metal plate. Thus "the tyranny of the wood block is ended," as Stevens himself said in the April I 902 issue of the Inland Printer, which shows five such bookplates: that of R . B. Peattie (Elia's husband)

by Enright was probably a response to the advertisement, while Townsend's designs for Langworthy, Noble, and Moore, as well as Rae's design for Stevens, were apparently "inhouse" favors. ext to Stevens and Noble, the author most published by the press was Charles Granger Blanden, a poet and novelist whose writing career spanned five decades. Born in Marengo, Illinois, Blanden died in California and was, for a time, mayor of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Beginning with Omar Resung (September 1901 ), with designs by Frank Rae, the Blue Sky Press published four books by Blanden-two by Langworthy and Stevens and two by the later Langworthy and Company. The year 1901 ended with publication of the "Christmas Gift Book," as Stevens called it, a small Stevens and Noble collection entitled Our Lady of Rhyme.

The April 1902 issue of the Blue Sky Magazine proved to be the last, for Stevens's health had deteriorated and he was forced to spend the summer in New Mexico; though he returned t.o Chicago in the fall, no new issues of 149

B l ue Sky Press

THE PER:> SON S OF THEDRA MA ARE BE Q.UEEN NORBERT HER.MINI STER.AN) CONSTANCE HR.COUSIN

~==::::----•-->.

-------

In the summer of 1902 the press published a new edition of Robert Browning's play, In A Balcony. Will A. Dwiggins drew the endsheets, and Frederic W. Goudy the hand-lettered title page. Both Goudy and Dwiggins achieved great distinction as designers and typographers.

the magazine were printed. As much as Langworthy seems to have been the organizing force behind book production, so too Stevens's limitless energy was necessary to produce the magazine. In th e final issue, Stevens summarized the story of the first three years of the press: ·when we look back across the glittering ages of the Blue Sky's history we find that the facts are hung on certa in events, such as the arrival of each of the four successive presses, the ·occasion of our moving from Under the Front Stairs, to Upstairs, and thence to the House; and the appearance of the various books. All these define the epochs of our uneventful history.

A depressed Noble wrote: Tomorrow, the shop goes into temporary mourning, save for the occasional flickers of a smile that (we trust) will continue to circulate through the brown 150

ethereal whiskers of the B. I. [business manager, i.e., Langworthy) For on the same day that Rae goes [back) East, the Editor starts for the great expanse of the sage brush and blue sky ... that men call the Southwest.

A number of artists and illustrators did work for the magazine who, unfortunately, never contributed to the Blue Sky Press books, including the well-known poster artists Edward Penfield and Frank Hazenplug, illustrator Grace McClure, and Art Institute teachers John Vanderpoel, John Norton, and Allen Philbrick.

The major production of the summer of 1902 was the first reprint issued by the press-a new edition of Robert Browning's play In a Balcony, with a new introduction by Laura McAdoo Triggs. The best known Blue Sky Press book today, it was the most ambitious

Blue Shy Press

, Sa philosopher, even as a poet, Browning

admits of widely disscntient opinions. As a psychologist hem ust have everywhere and always undis-

puted acknowledgement. Such llill-.=:;::;"-Jl!I!~~~ a playas"lna Balcony" reveals the marvellous profundity of an insight which needs no greater spur to expression than the almost inadequate one ofa mere situation.

It is this superiority to special device or plan that most conspicuously asserts the master-knower of

soul-processes. Condud: tense as life can afford, motive deep as the heart is complex - all this is apelled out in light against a background, not of strenuous conflict or heroic em prise, but of conditionsapparently orderly and pacific. Y ct that these are freighted with the most tragic possibilities, in 17

zine, and Dwiggins provided illustrations for various later issues, including a full-page woodcut of William Morris to illustrate an essay on Morris by Wallace Rice.

Langworthy himself set much of the type.

Before the large sheets were run through the press, they were dampened and left for a night.

This both strengthened the tone of the ink and deepened the impression of the type. Stevens later described the process in a review of the book he wrote for the Inland Printer ("Among the Makers of Books," October 1902): (In a Balcony) is printed in red and black, the only novel feature being the printing on dampened paper, after the old manner. While this method is not easy to manage at first, the results seem to justify the extra effort, and the Press expects to follow it hereafter in all work that it intends to be representative and important.

One of the first admirers of the new book was the famous actor Otis Skinner, who had toured the play during the I 900-1901 season, which included a successful Chicago run. A collector of private press books, Skinner sent the following note to Langworthy on September 25, 1902:

Goudy's elaborate initial letter for the introduction to Browning's In A Balcony repeated the entwined leaf design from the title page.

Gentlemen: I am a perpetual debtor to the Blue Sky Press for its charming compliment.

I have received a copy of "In a Balcony" and shall always be proud of its possession. It is a beautiful piece of bookmaking. ...

Otis Skinner

project for the press to date. With Stevens in Santa Fe, Langworthy called on two men who had done work for the magazine to design the book-two men who were later to achieve international prominence among printers and typographers. That summer, Will A. Dwiggins boarded with Frederic W. Goudy and his wife at 2304 Clarendon. Dwiggins, who had arrived in Chicago three years earlier to study design at the Frank Holmes School of Illustration, later became one of the major American trade book designers; Goudy was already executing the first of his 120 typefaces. For In a Balcony, Dwiggins drew beautiful endsheets and Goudy drew the hand-lettered title page. Though this was the only Blue Sky Press book that Goudy and Dwiggins worked on, they designed the cover for the summer 1901 issue of the maga•

During the fall of 1902, the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society organized its first exhibition at the Art Institute. "\Vhen the show opened in mid-December, the Blue Sky Press presented three of its finest products: In a Balcony, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, and Omar Resung.

In November, the press had issued the last work of the middle years, and the last work published under the name of Langworthy and Stevens. The Morning Road, with designs by Stevens, was Stevens's and Noble's sixth calla¡ boration and the thirteenth regularly issued work of the press since Spoil of the North Wind almost two years earlier. Issued in an edition of 215, its title page is perhaps Stevens's loveliest decorative design for the Blue Sky Press.

In a January 12, 1903, announcement sent to Blue Sky subscribers, Langworthy explained that he had taken over Stevens's share of the 151

Blue Sky Press business. Meanwhile, Stevens resigned as editor and moved out of the House of the Blue Sky. That this was prompted by his mounting commitments at the Art Institute and the Inland Printer and not by any falling out with Langworthy is clear from the fact that Stevens continued to provide decorative designs for books, handle a limited amount of press correspondence, and discuss the latest Blue Sky Press books in his articles. In addition, he started sending some of his Art Institute students to Langworthy to design and illustrate books for the press.

Stevens's replacement as editor was H[erbert] Ivan Swift (1873-1945), a poet and artist from Harbor Springs, Michigan. A student at the Art Institute before serving in the Spanish-American War, Swift already had done work for Langworthy and Stevens in 1900 and 1901, illustrating And the Stars Saw (February 1900) and producing a cover and twelve drawings to illustrate his half-dozen works published in the magazine. Swift had left Chicago in 1902 for New York to teach illustrating; in late winter 1903, he accepted Langworthy's invitation to work at the press and he moved into Stevens's vacated flat. Swift designed and sometimes illustrated the next three Blue Sky books, now published under the name "Langworthy and Swift." The cover for Mistress Alice Jocelyn: Her Letters by C. Emma Cheney is a good example of Swift's lean, brooding work, so very different from the vigorous styles of Enright and Townsend, and Stevens's own comfortable, flowing designs.

On his thirtieth birthday that June, Swift wrote to his mother (published in Nine Lives in Letters, 1930, by Swift's own private press, The Green Bench Shop): I am now part of a splendid circle of worthy and able artists and congenial friends, commanding attention as a publisher ... the books we have made and tried to make honestly, are named in the following pages. l\Iost of them are good books and beautiful ... .

As a pleasant reminder on my birthday I was invited to the Chicago Press Club and met such men as George Ade, Forrest Crissey, Wallace Rice and dozens of other writers of noted books and moulders of public opinion. I was urged to become a member and found several of them familiar with my work.

152

By the fall Swift too was gone to work at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and the single book from late 1903, Castle, Knight and Troubador by Elia Peattie, bears only Langworthy's name as publisher. This was the last Blue Sky Press book with designs by Harry Townsend.

Now solely under Langworthy's control, the press published six books in 1904, though none appeared until June. Langworthy did, however, print two books for private parties and had at least one of them bound at the Monastery Hill Bindery (bringing the¡ number of privately commissioned books printed at the Blue Sky Press to nine).

Most of the artists for the books issued in 1904 were students of Stevens's at the Art Institute, who often illustrated his articles in the Inland Printer. Indeed, according to the 19041905 catalog of The School of the Art Institute, Stevens periodically held drawing competitions in his afternoon illustration class and "the winner is published-and gets the money." The frontispieces for A Cask of Amontillado and Sir Galahad by Roscoe Shrader and \I\Talter Hinton, respectively, were such competition winners. Furthermore, Sir Galahad, a reprint of a Christmas play by William Morris, was practically a class project of Stevens's students; the colophon reads: "This book was designed

by Thomas \I\Toocl Stevens and lettered under his direction." The book was printed from etched plates made from the students' handdrawn letters and, thus, was not printed from set type. \Vi th its black and reel Gothic text, the book is almost a tribute to l\Iorris.

The Burial of Romeo and Juliet (November 1904), a reprint of a work by Richard LeGallienne, wa also printed from etched plates.

This time the hand-lettering was solely the work of one artist, M. Elizabeth Colwell. Several years earlier six poems, a story, and an illustration of hers had been published in The Blue Sky magazine. Born in Michigan, Colwell grew up in Englewood and spent most of her adult life in Hyde Park. Though she studied figure drawing and oil painting at the Art Institute, "Mattie" Colwell turned increasingly to typographical designs. The American Type Foundry cut a typeface of hers called, appropriately, "Colwell Hanel Letter" and Stevens

Blue Sky Press

Cover of Spoil of the North Wind, the first major production of the Blue Sky Press, published in 1901. Design by Frank B. Rae.

153

Blue Sky Press published examples of her work in his book Lettering (The Prang Company, 1916). Several pages from The Burial of Romeo and Juliet were published in The Shetchbook magazine in 1905.

In the spring of 1904 Langworthy, then Lwenty-nine, moved out of Lhe House of the Blue Sky in preparation for his marriage on April 23, and conducted all business from his new home at 5467 Dorchester. On July 6, Stevens, then twenty-four, was also married and he and his wife moved to 5432 Blackstone, where Lhey lived wiLh Stevens's sister, Lonne.

With an eye Lowards turning it commercial but wiLhout changing the basic hand-printing methods, Langworthy incorporaLed Lhe press on September 15, 190':l-, and oflered 100 of Lhe 500 shares of stock for sale at $10 each. In the incorporation announcement, he estimaLed Lhat of Lhe 5000 persons on the Blue Sky mailing list, 2000 were genuinely inLerested in the press, and for Lhis group he proposed to publish four to six new editions annually.

The following year, I 905, however, did not proceed according to this schedule and only late in the year were three books finally issued.

Indeed, these proved to be the last major works of the press. Most of a fourth book, Treasure Island, was set in type and several galley proofs survive in Lhe Newberry Library collection, but for some reason Lhe book was not finished. Sales on all books in 1905 were so poor Lhat before the press published the last book, From Heaven Above (November 1905) by l\1artha Foote Crow with designs by Ivan Swift, the author had Lo advance Langworthy 250.

Also during the year 1905, five broadsides of decorative designs surrounding famous guolations were issued by Lhe press. The border of "The World is too much with us" by Wordsworth was designed by Stevens's wife, Helen Bradshaw. Though advertised and reviewed in the Chicago art journals The Trimmed Lamp and The Sketchbook, many hundreds of the quotations remained unsold. In June of that year Langworthy began a new magazine, The Pageant. Published sporadically until March I 907, its last issue was the final work of the Blue Sky Press.

In December 1907, Langworthy described the situation to Mrs. Crow (author of From Heaven 154

Opposite: Title f;ages from 1904 Blue Sky Press edition of Richard LeGallienne's prose fancy, The Burial of Romeo and Juliet. Hand-lettering by M. Elizabeth Colwell.

Above), ""Te have sent out several thousand of announcements this fall but so far have no sales.

Conditions seem to be bad this year and it will leave us very much in the hole not even making expenses." \Vhen Payne Erskine inquired about royalties from her book, The Harper and the King's Horse (October I 905), Langworthy wrote back on December 16, 1907: I simply have not written to you because I had nothing good to tell. Since our experience 0£ two years ago the business had not only not improved, but has steadily gone clown. We have not sold enough books to pay expenses. Not to mention the original cost 0£ royalty ....

After dismantling the press, probably early the next year, Langworthy was left with the demands of stockholders, creditors, and authors. ·w hen he moved to Winnetka in 1910 the remainders, amounting to several thousand books, were packed in dozens of boxes and moved to Lonne Stevens's basement on Blackstone Avenue. By January of the next year, Lonne thought they had been there long enough and wrote to Langworthy: "I think it's abouL time you and the stockholders got together and divided up the books before they eat Lheir heads. \Vhy not?" However, in 1917 they were sLill Lhere and Lonne was preparing to move. She wrote to Langworthy: "I hope Tom will be in Chicago soon and maybe he can help dispose of Lhe White Elephant." During her move the basement flooded and the empty house was vandalized; hundreds of books were ruined. Finally, Chicago bookdealer Frank J\Iorris agreed to buy the remaining books and Lhe transaction was completed in the summer of 1917. A catalog from the Morris Book Shop lists eight Blue Sky Press titles still available in 1924.

Though it is difficult to understand why the press had so many insurmountable difficulties after 1904, and why public support fell off so sharply, something can be inferred about both the general climate for private presses in Chicago and internal changes within the Blue Sky Press itself. By then the Philosopher Press and

Blue Sky Press

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FANCY. BY RICHARD LE

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the Elm Press had ceased production, Goudy's Village Press had moved to Massachusetts, and Ralph Fletcher Seymour began to turn increasingly towards more commercial work.

While each of these moves and changes had specific causes, together they seem to indicate a lessening of that great excitement about private presses that had gripped the city less than a decade before. The Blue Sky itself began with the complete dedication of its loyal staff; as this began to diminish, it must have seemed harder and harder to get the next book out. By 1904 Langworthy, Stevens, Enright, and Townsend were all married and each was becoming increasingly inyolved with his particular interests and family. The Blue Sky Press was a youthful enterprise that was not able to survive the diverging personalities and burgeoning responsibilities of its principal participants.

Today only the books themselves remain. As recently as 1977, Susan Otis Thompson ( American Book Design and William Morris) wrote of the Blue Sky Press: The Blue Sky books are not at all slavishly imi-

tative of i\forris. Rather they are successful and charming reflections of the coalescence of current typographic trends: Art Nouveau, Aesthetic, and Arts and Crafts.

And as critic Christian Bay wrote in 1922 (Rare and Beautiful Imprints of Chicago): "The format, decorations, and binding of Blue Sky Press books will attract every succeeding generation of booklovers." It proved a sound judgment.

Selected Sources Readers may wish to consult the Blue Sky Collection and the ¡wallace Rice Collection of letters, bills, and ephemera at the Newberry Library; the Blue Sky books, letters, and guest book in the Founders i\lemorial Library, Northern Illinois Unil'ersity; or the collection of Blue Sky books and ephemera in Northwestern University's Deering Library. Other repositories of Blue Sky Press books are the Newberry's \Ving Collection, the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library, and the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center.

Ransom, 'W ill. Private Presses and Their Books.

1929. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1976.

Seymour, Ralph Fletcher. Some Went This Way. Prirntely published, 1945.

155

Two w,¡aps b)' the London firm Liberty and Company, c. 1908. Well known for its decorative objects and fabrics, Liberty's also made clothing designed to be both progressive and functional. The blue velvet is reversible to pale yellow satin and was worn by its donor, Mrs. Frank Pennell Hixon. The yellow satin wrap has decorative applique embroidery in shades of yellow silk floss.

156

Chicagoans Under Wraps

By Elizabeth Jachimowicz

a permanent gallery devoted to the exhibition of costume will open at the Chicago Historical Society. The gallery's first exhibit, CHICAGOANS UNDER WRAPS, includes outerwear in a great variety of cuts and shapes worn in Chicago from 1860 to 1982. Some, like the Liberty and Company wraps, have the simplest cuts-a mere rectangle of fabric artfully arranged-yet their drape implies far more complexity. Others are indeed carefully tailored but deceptively simple in their lines.

The exhibition is divided into six different sections: black and gold brocades; jewel toned velvets and satins; winter woolens; summer whites and dusters; paisleys; and voided velvets (velvet designs on satin grounds). Each section is arranged as a comparison of the wide range of shapes and styles within a given fashion theme. For example, the section with paisley wraps includes both a woven shawl from the mid-nineteenth century and a mantle made from such a shawl in the late 1880s, when shawls were less in vogue but were remade into more fashionable garments. There is also a coat from the 191 Os and an Oscar de Ia Renta coat designed in 1970 whose fabrics take their inspiration from paisley designs.

The section of spring and summer wraps includes garments in cool beiges and ·whites made of lace, linen, pique, and very lightweight wool. The dusters range from those made in the late 1870s to some from the early 1900s when they were worn for motoring.

Especially notable in this section is a white pique coat designed in 1971 by Bill Blass.

The sets for the exhibit were designed to create an outdoor feeling for the garments on display. Porticos, pergolas, wrought-iron fences, and a turn-of-the-century Rambler are backdrops for elegantly clad Chicagoans in their finest outerwear. oN NOVEMBER 20, 19s2,

1982

COSfUME OOMMI'ITEE CHICAGO HISfORICALSOCIErY PHOTOGRA Pll•SKR£llM'.Sl,.I

Renowned fashion photographer Victor Skrebneski took this photograph to mark the opening of the new costwne gallery. H e has donated it to the Society to be used as a poster, the sale of which will benefit th e Costume Collection.

Elizabeth ]achimowicz is Curator of Costumes at the Chicago Historical Society.

157

Costume Ex hibit

Opposi tc: White and metallic gold evening mantle, part of the 1887 trousseau of 1'-frs. F,·ederick R. Schock.

Edged with sheep fur, it is lined with quilted yellow silk. Gift of Mrs . H. E. Foster.

Left: Gown and coat of Irish crochet lace, made in Paris by Maurice Mayer and worn by Mrs . Charles Deering about 1905. Gift of Mrs. Chauncey McCormick .

Below: Fashion illustration printed in 1889 with several gentlemen in full evening dress and one in an Inverness topcoat. Examples of these are featured in the exhibit CH ICAGOANS UNDER WRAPS.

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159

Costume Exhibit

Only a few years apart, these two wraps exemplify the variety of silhouettes fashionable in the early 1920s. The rich red-pink velvet coat c. 1920 is embroidered with metallic gold threads, has a gold lame lining, and is trimmed with luxurious fur . Gift of Mrs. Maurice]. Rosenthal.

The other wrap, made in 1923, was purchased at Liberty and Company for the donor, Mrs. Charles F. Batchelder.

It is of salmon-colored velvet on a b¡lack chiffon ground, with an orange silk lining. The whole is outlined in black satin.

160

Chicago's City Championship: Northwestern University vs. The University of Chicago, 1892-1905

By John S. Watterson

His head was Jammed into the sand, His arms were broke in twain, 1 hree ribs were snapped, four teeth were gone He ne'er would walk again.

His lips moved slow, I stooped to hear The whispers they let fall; His voice was weak, but this I hearda Old man, who got the ball?"

"The Modern Hero," from The Tale of the Wildcats by Walter Paulison, 1951

at the turn of the century was a gaudy and entertaining spectacle. A 1904 issue of the University of Chicago newspaper, Th e Maroon, noted that the spirit of a college was gauged on the athletic field "by the strength and staccato quality of its cheers and the visual stimulus of colored ribbons." An extremely brutal game in its formative years, football was the center of a national debate between students and a small number of faculty who supported the game as an exciting, character-building experience, and a larger group of university scholars who considered it an undesirable addition to college life which threatened to undermine academic standards. The evolution of college football from a controversial, roughand-tumble game to its emergence as an important and integral part of the modem university can be traced through the rivalry that <level-

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

John S. Watterson, who recently taught history at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, now serves as editor for the American D ental Hygien ists' Association and teaches history at the National College of Education in Chicago.

oped in Chicago between the Purple of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Maroons. From 1892 to 1905, these two schools engaged in an unofficial "city championship," their own version of the intense, well-known football rivalry that had grown between Yale and Harvard.

The University of Chicago had barely opened its doors when the first football game was played between these two schools in 1892.

Established in part through a large donation from John D. Rockefeller, Chicago had as its first president William Rainey Harper, a gifted scholar and a talented administrator with a flair for drama. Harper envisioned the University of Chicago as a Yale of the West that would equal and eventually surpass the high academic standards set by the Ivy League schools of the East. His idea of the "great University" was based in part on the belief that a strong athletic program was just as necessary as scholastic achievement to create a prestigious university. Under Harper, the University of Chicago was the first university to make 161

City Championship

athletics a regular and integral part of the academic establishment. "The athletic field, like the gymnasium," Harper declared, "is one of the University's laboratories and by no means the least important one."

Consistent with this philosophy, one of Harper's first acts in forming a faculty was to hire Amos Alonzo Stagg, a former student at the Yale Divinity School and an All-American end in 1889, to serve as football coach and Director of Physical Culture. It was very unusual for a university to create a position that required the dual role of football coach and faculty member-most universities and colleges hired coaches to win games, and they had no academic standing in the institution-but it was a challenge which was well suited to Stagg's strengths and skills. An ardent believer in the moral influence of athletics on the character of young men, Stagg viewed coaching as an opportunity to continue Christian work and prepare young men "to take up life's burden and responsibilities .... " Stagg's educational philosophy complemented Harper's plans to make Chicago a "great University" like Yale. Yet Harper was also fully aware that part of Yale's prestige was due to its popular and extremely successful football team. Under the tutelage of Walter Camp, the Yale team boasted a forty-six game winning streak and an undefeated and unscored-on 1888 season when Stagg played on the team. By appointing Stagg both football coach and Director of Physical Culture, Harper was confident that Chicago would not only have a winning football team comparable to Yale's but would also avoid the criticism of faculty members who felt that colleges and universities should not support intercollegiate football.

From its founding, the University of Chicago challenged the older Northwestern University for students, donations, and prestige. Established in 1851, Northwestern had been gradually shedding its image as a small liberal arts school and transforming itself into a major midwestern university through the addition of affiliated professional schools in the 1890s. With an enrollment of 2,154 in 1892, Northwestern was one of the larger universities in the West.

Northwestern had played intercollegiate football since 1882, occasionally competing against 162

William Rainey Harper, first president of the Uni versity of Chicago, in 1905. CHS, Chicago Daily News photo, SDN-2858, gift of Field Enterprises.

the University of ,visconsin, but more often playing Chicago-area teams, including high schools, over a brief season of three to six games.

Although undergraduate enrollment at the college in Evanston was only 481 in 1892, no rules prevented the team from using graduate and professional students. Despite an advantage in numbers of players and experience, Northwestern never managed to dominate Chicago, even during the initial contests between the two schools. Northwestern had a succession of football coaches over the years and never developed any consistency or any particular style of play, but the University of Chicago retained Amos Alonzo Stagg as head football coach for forty-one years. Stagg's superior coaching methods, his knowledge of football, his personality, and the support he received from the university were decisive factors in the rivalry with Northwestern. Nevertheless, many of the games were close contests, and until 1904, the competition was evenly matched.

City Championship

Admired both for his character and his coaching skills, A mos A Lonzo Stagg was hired by Harper to direct the universit y's athletic program and to coach the football team. Under Stagg's leadership the Maroons consistently defeated rival Northwestern. CHS, Chicago Daily News j;hoto, SDN-4503, gift of Field Enterprises.

Upon his arrival at the University of Chicago in September 1892, Stagg recruited prospective players for the new football team by posting notices on the campus. The thirteen students who responded were generally unimpressive.

Despite the shortage of talented players, Stagg was able to put together a team that was soon scrimmaging with local high schools. On October 22, following six victories against high school and YMCA teams, the University of Chicago l\faroons met the Northwestern Purple at a ballpark on t,he South Side of Chicago. Still lacking experienced players, Stagg was both coach and player in this game. According to The Northwestern, the student newspaper, his play attracted "much attention." The Chicago coach scored a touchdown only to have it called back by a referee who was a former Northwestern coach. The game, which ended in a 0-0 tie, was considered a "moral" victory for the Maroons and earned $265 in gate receipts for the University of Chicago's athletic department.

In the return match at Northwestern's Sheppard Field on November 2, the Purple were able to gain a 6-4 victory following Stagg's failed field goal attempt. Commenting on the game, The Northw estern observed that Stagg was an unusual coach because he refused to hire players, even though it was a common practice at other colleges and Chicago certainly needed better players.

Stagg devised ingenious ways to overcome the problems he faced in coaching a young, inexperienced team and in developing an intercollegiate athletic program. When he advertised for cheers from students and none of those submitted were acceptable, he secretly contributed one of his own. The ample repertoire of Chicago cheers would feature one that extolled the school's patron, John D. Rockefeller. Even more urgent was the need for athletic facilities at the university. In 1893, Marshall Field was persuaded to loan the school a tract of land adjoining the campus. This new playing area 163

City Championship was named, appropriately enough, Marshall Field, after its donor. Stagg and his students constructed a fence with boards and posts provided by two lumber companies-apparently there was not enough lumber to build seatsand then graded the field in preparation for the fall 1893 game against Iorthwestern.

The football players available to Stagg had improved dramatically from the previous season, making it unnecessary for the thirty-oneyear-old coach to play; some members of his team had playing experience at older schools like Princeton and Minnesota. The local rivalry created excitement for the students of both schools, and a large vocal delegation came from Evanston to cheer their team. The Maroons, however, rewarded their fans with their first victory over Northwestern. The 12-6 score, which today might indicate a dearth of "extra points," included three goals and three touchdowns. Under the rules of the early 1890s, a touchdown counted four points, and a goal kick following a touchdown was worth two. Later in the decade, the value of a touchdown would be elevated to five points while a goal was reduced to one. The modern point value for a touch-

down was not established until 1912.

The second game between the two schools that year ended in a tie, and in December 1893, a third game was scheduled to be played at TatLersall's¡ Riding Academy, an indoor facility at Sixteenth and Dearborn streets. Despite the drawbacks of the playing field-Tattersall's tanbark floor was thirty yards shorter and twenty yards narrower than a normal size field-Chicago's first indoor football game was played on December 16 before a crowd of 300 spectators.

The enthusiasm of the Purple supporters was dampened when Northwestern fell behind and seemed unable to overcome the Chicago lead.

A brilliant run by Northwestern's talented black halfback, George Jewett, followed by his failure to put the ball over the posts for a field goal, was not enough to turn the tide, and the Maroons won the game 22-14.

Apart from the shortened playing field and the overhead lights-a lofty punt by the Chicago kicker shattered some of the calcium lights, spraying fragments of glass across the field-the game was not atypical of play in the ] 890s. Influenced by new football tactics developed in the East, both teams employed the

The Purple of Northwestern saimmaging in 1902. The /Jojnilarity of flying wedge formations, mass plays, and "line bucking" strategies du.ring the early )> ears of intercollegiate football made it a pa,rticularly rough game. CHS, Chicago Daily News photo, SDN-882, gift of Field Enterprises.

164

City ChampionshijJ

Jessie Van Doozer (left) and Albert Potter, Northweslern's All Western halfbacks, led the 1896 Purple to a 46-6 upset victory over the University of Chicago team. Northwestern University Archives.

165

City Championship popular wedge plays, including the well-known flying wedge formation. The latter strategy utilized momentum in the same way as a modern screen pass. According to the rules, the team that won the toss of the coin could touch the ball with a player's foot and advance the ball themselves rather than kick it to the opposition. In the flying wedge, two clusters of offensive players converged around the teammate as he put the ball in play, sometimes with arms interlocked or gripping handles on each other's uniforms, and hurled themselves into or through the defense to clear a path for the runner. The same "battering ram" principle was used in line formations, where the ball carrier was pushed or pulled through the opposition in what were then known as "mass" plays or "line bucking." The prevalence of roughness in football was especially evident in this particular contest, and one player was ruled out of the game for slugging. By the next season, the flying wedge was prohibited by the Intercollegiate Rules Committee in an attempt to control the rampant violence and injuries in college football.

A more consistent and regularized style of football under Stagg's direction gave Chicago two lopsided victories over Northwestern in 1894, but in 1895 each team won one of the two games. On December 25, 1896, a revitalized Northwestern team appeared at Marshall Field in distinctive new uniform-suits of brown leather jackets and breeches joined in a single garment topped with bright purple sweaters.

The a ttire helped Northwestern followers identify their mighty tandem runners, Albert Potter and Jessie Van Doozer, who crashed relentlessly through the Chicago defenses. Repeatedly the cry arose from the Purple partisans, "There go Potter and Van Doozer." Just as regularly, the Northwestern students broke into a chorus of cheers:

A Maroon fan c. 1900. The Chicago-Northwestern rivalry attracted enthustiastic crowds who showed their team allegiance by colorful displays of maroon or purple ribbons and flags . CHS, Chicago Daily News photo, SDN-4506, gift of Field Enterprises.

166

N.U. Rahl Rahl N.U. Rah! Rahl 1 .U. Northwestern. Rahl Rahl Wah-hoot Wah-hoo! N.U. N.U .; Chicago's met her waterloo.

The Chicago students responded to Northwestern with a variation of Stagg's cheer:

City Championship

A mos A lo11zo Stagg coaching a practice scrimmage, 1902. Northwestern hired a number of coaches in the 1890s to build a successful football team but not one of them was able to match Stagg's knowledge of football and his winning record. CHS, Chicago Daily News photo, SDN-881, gift of Field Enterprises.

Chicago! Chicago!

Chica-go-go Go it Chicago!

Go it Chicago!

After a close first half, the Potter and Van Doozer team completely overwhelmed Chicago, handing them their worst defeat in the series, 46-6. Upon returning to Evanston, the ecstatic students left no doubt which side had won the game as they invaded downtown restaurants proclaiming the news and then lit bonfires in Fountain Square. Afterwards, they paraded from house to' house demanding speeches from faculty members and prominent citizens. When the football team arrived in Evanston, a jubilant crowd met it at the train station and carried the players to the Square where they were called upon to make brief speeches. Later, a cannon was fired intermittently until midnight, and the college bell, traditionally reserved for solemn occasions, peeled out the joyful news. Celebrations like these were com-

moo in college commu01t1es throughout the country when an important victory was won_ The celebration was premature in one sense, because the following November Northwestern had to play a return match with Chicago in Evanston. The turnout of "society" at this second game demonstrated that the rivalry had become more than a simple sporting event.

The contests at both Marshall Field and in Evanston resembled the lavish displays accompanying games in the East. Decorated carriages with handsome teams surrounded the gridiron in the 1890s version of the "tailgate picnic," and sororities and women's dormitories packed large vehicles known as Tally-hos with twentyfive or more coeds. Each carriage or coach had buglers, and in the case of the Boat Club carriage, a cornet soloist. The spectators wore ribbons bearing the colors of their favorite team, and even the horses and carriage wheel spokes were gaily decorated in purple or maroon.

167

City Championship At 2:45 P.M . the game began, and it was immediately apparent that Stagg had learned from his recent humiliating defeat. Adopting the "line-bucking" tactic that had brought victory to Northwestern as his game strategy, Stagg had his team pushing and pulling their men through the opponent's line. After the Purple scored the first touchdown, Chicago easily matched the score but later in the half fumbled the ball two yards short of the goal line.

Northwestern led at halftime, but in the second half the Maroons continued to press through the Purple line. Chicago backs, including Clarence Herschberger, the Maroons' answer to Potter and Van Doozer, dazzled the spectators with exceptional running and fine kicking. By the end of the game, the November sky had grown so dark that the players could barely follow the ball or distinguish the colors of the players' uniforms. After a brilliant dash by a Chicago back for a third touchdown, Northwestern conceded defeat with four and one-half minutes left in the game.

In 1895, Northwestern and Chicago became charter members of the Western Conference or Big Seven (in 1897 it became the Big Nine).

The seven schools agreed to set common standards for eligibility and pledged to play only college teams on their athletic fields. Dangerous play was forbidden, and players who had received gifts or remuneration for their services were not allowed to play. Most importantly, faculty control over each school's football program was a prerequisite for membership in the conference.

The Western Conference was an outgrowth of the national debate over football in 1894 and 1895, a debate that was particularly important to the fate of Northwestern's football team. Profound doubts among the faculty at Northwestern about the benefits of intercollegiate football to their university led President Henry Wade Rogers seriously to examine the possibility of banishing the game from the Evanston campus. Rogers sent inquiries to other college presidents asking their counsel about eliminating the troublesome pastime from academic life. Most of the presidents, including football's harshest critic, Charles Eliot of Harvard, replied that it would be futile for one school acting alone to attempt to 168

abolish football. President William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago shared none of Rogers's concerns about the sport. He had placed Chicago's football team under the auspices of the university from its inception and made it an integral part of academic life.

In response to Rogers, Harper declared that his institution would persist in intercollegiate football as long as one or two schools remained to make a contest. Rogers was never given the chance to implement this reform because Northwestern 's board of trustees voted to continue sponsoring the school's intercollegiate football program.

With the establishment of the Big Seven Conference and the availability of greater competition, the nature of the rivalry between Chicago and Northwestern changed. By the mid-nineties, it had become obvious that Stagg's team was far superior to Northwestern's. The Maroons played a number of local opponents, including the Armour Institute, Lake Forest, and medical schools such as Rush Medical College in addition to Northwestern.

But it was the major conference rivals such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota that generated the most interest. Together with Chicago, the latter were known as the Big Four, forming a clique that dominated both the play and the decisions of the conference.

Since Northwestern was no longer considered a football power, the meeting with Chicago was not regarded by Maroon supporters as an important game. After 1896, these two teams abandoned twice-a-year meetings in favor of an annual competition. Gradually, the University of Michigan assumed the role of Chicago's principal rival.

The annual contest between Northwestern and Chicago nevertheless continued to arouse interest and speculation, especially in the city newspapers. During the late nineties, University of Chicago students gleefully watched their teams demolish Northwestern. In the 1897 game, Clarence Herschberger overwhelmed Northwestern at Marshall Field with his running and kicking. After the Maroon halfback scored his first touchdown of the game, a Chicago newspaper reported that "hats were smashed, canes were broken, and the yelling mob of students evinced its intense delight by

City Championship ,..•••

Carlisle vs. Chicago, Marshall Field, November 23, 1907. Built on land donated by Chicago merchant Marshall Field in 1893, and named in his honor, Marshall Field hosted crowds of ten thousand or more spectators for Chicago's football games. CHS, ICHi-17147, photograph by George R. Lawrence.

all those exaggerated actions peculiar to college men." In 1899, Northwestern suffered its worst loss to Chicago in the history of the rivalry by the score of 76-0.

By the turn of the century, it was clear that Stagg·s Maroons had become a major sports attraction in the Chicago area. Capacity crowds of ten thousand or more often paid scalper's prices to savor the excitement of big-time college football. Other schools were eager to play to the large crowds at Marshall Field, and Northwestern consistently held its contests with Chicago there from 1897 to 1904. To the dismay of his conference rivals, Stagg insisted on retaining most of the proceeds from the home games rather than splitting the receipts. 'iVith his growing reputation as a winning coach, Stagg had no difficulty in attracting talented athletes such as Herschberger, Walter Eckersall, and Walter Steffen to his teams. The "Old Man ," as he was prematurely known by the late nineties, dominated the sports pages of the Chicago newspapers. In addition to his winning teams, his reputation for sportsmanship and understated flair for publicity made him one of the foremost sports figures in America.

Yet Stagg also engaged in the typical practices employed by gridiron entrepreneurs who desired to build strong athletic programs. In 1897, the university set aside separate quarters

for the players and initiated a tra111111g table like those found at eastern schools. Despite his commitment to amateur athletics, Stagg obtained special employment opportun ities for his athletes and lured high school prospects to the campus by holding interscholastic track meets and other special events. By 1900 Chicago alumni began to assist in the sensitive task of convincing promising athletes to attend the university. With the blessing of President Harper, the enterprising Chicago coach quickly built a powerful athletic machine modeled after that of his alma mater. At times, the ebullient president outdid his own coach and physical culture director in his support for the team. On one occasion when the Maroons were losing at halftime, he burst into the locker room and interrupted Stagg who was speaking to the players. "Boys, Mr. Rockefeller has just announced a gift of $3,000,000 to the university," he said. "He believes that the university is to be great. The way you played in the first half leads me to wonder whether we really have the spirit of greatness in ambition. I wish you would make up your minds to win this game and show that we do have it." The University of Chicago readily triumphed!

Unlike the University of Chicago, Northwestern lacked the determination to build a winning team. Faced with the indifference 169

City Championship

The grandstand at Shepard Field 011 Northwestern's campus was completed in 1892, one year after the dedication of the field. The result of a major fund-raising drive, the new structure was named after Robert D .

Shepard who contributed /umb er for the enclosing fen ce. Northwestern University Archives.

The 1903 Purple held the favored Maroons to a 0-0 tie in their annual contest. It was considered one of Northwestern's greatest performances in the history of the rivalry. Northwestern University Archives.

170

City Championship of university officials over the fate of intercollegiate athletics, Northwestern's football program tottered on the brink of insolvency. In 1898, a mass meeting was called on the eve of the Chicago game to solicit donations from the students in support of the team. Once the team had solved its financial problems, it went on to defeat Chicago by close scores in J 900 and 1901. Ironically, in I 900 Stagg took the game so lightly that he skipped it to travel to Madison to scout the University of Wisconsin.

In 1902, Northwestern hired Foster Sanford, a well-known coach from Columbia University, as an assistant coach for the offense. Sanford brought with him a variety of tandem or mass plays, which were the mainstay of most eastern offenses. In his T-like formations, backs lined up close to the line, and the quarterback took the ball from center and handed it to the halfbacks who plunged into the line. Northwestern lacked the heavy players necessary for this line-oriented strategy-the Northwestern team averaged 167 pounds compared to 178 pounds for the Maroons. Northwestern's outstanding back, Alton Johnson, who had won All-American honors in 1901, weighed a mere 140 pounds. Only occasionally was a team able to recruit a behemoth of modern proportions, such as Chicago's Bob Maxwell, who weighed 238 pounds. The combined weight advantage and astute defensive tactics by Stagg enabled the Maroons to contain the Northwestern offense easily. Even Sanford's most unusual innovation, a hurdling play in which the halfbacks literally threw the quarterback over the defensive line, failed to disturb their opponents, and Chicago won 12-0. Sanford left Northwestern after a single season but later became a successful coach at Rutgers.

In 1903, Northwestern enjoyed one of its greatest performances over the University of Chicago, but the cause for rejoicing was a tie rather than a win. Entering the contest, Chicago's defense had not been scored upon in three games, and they boasted a I 08-0 drubbing of Monmouth College. orthwestern had been only slightly less impressive, allowing its opponents to score just 5 points that season. Ten thousand fans packed Marshall Field to watch the struggle that the Maroons were expected to win easily. Amid great din, Northwestern car-

ried the ball to the Maroon five-yard line.

Attempting to score on the next play, the Northwestern captain, Harry Fleager, dropped the ball, and Chicago recovered the fumble.

Chicago never threatened the Purple goal line and the final score was 0-0. According to one sportswriter, "the score should have been 6-0 in favor of Northwestern. As it was, the game was practically a victory for the Purple." Despite the final score the students at Northwestern felt that they had soundly defeated Chicago and lit the bonfire at Fountain Square in Evanston to proclaim the victory. Their celebration culminated that evening in a "nightshirt" procession through the Northwestern campus.

Students of the University of Chicago, shocked by the outcome of the game, expressed grave doubts about the ability of their team to go on and win the conference championship.

The aftermath of this contest exemplified the seriousness with which students of that era regarded college athletics, especially football.

On another occasion, the student newspaper at the University of Chicago tried to discourage male students from attending the games with coeds for fear that it would distract from the solemn business of cheering for the team.

After successful seasons by both teams in I 903, the University of Chicago dominated the next two years, defeating Northwestern by identical 32-0 scores in 1904 and I 905. The even ts surrounding the 1905 game were typical of the acrimony that often arose from college rivalries. In this instance, a Northwestern player was accused of having been a former professional light-heavyweight prizefight.er in Kentucky, an infraction of the rules which would have made him ineligible to play. The player, twenty-four-year-old David Barry, denied the charge, claiming that the boxer with the same name was actually a distant relative.

The Barry case exemplified the eligibility problems that plagued college football in its formative years. College athletes often played professional baseball during the summer, and some boxed or wrestled for money, usually under assumed names. Others known as "tramp athletes" moved from one school to the next, trading their services for room and board, and occasionally for more lucrative compensation.

171

City Championship

Chicago vs. Haskell Indians, Marshall Field, 1903. An increase in football illjuries and an outcry for its abolition from college campuses led to the formation of a rttles committee in 1906 lo reform the game. CHS, Chicago Daily News photo, SDN-2116, gift of Field Enterprises.

Barry's case fell somewhere between these two categories. He had competed earlier at Lewis Institute, and soon after entering Northwestern as a medical student, switched to law. Although it is unclear whether the charges against Barry were resolved before the game, the Northwestern coach, Walter McCornack, did not attempt to play him .

As it turned out, the twelve thousand fans who watched the contest at the new Northwestern athletic field-on the present-day site of Dyche Stadium-saw the brilliant Chicago backs, led by Walter Eckersall, run and kick Northwestern into oblivion. Ironically, Eckersall, who led the Maroon offense, was chronically in academic trouble during his four-year career at the University of Chicago. Still, his 172

brilliance on the football field led Chicago to a conference championship in 1905 when the l\Iaroons ended l\Iichigan's long reign of dominance by a 2-0 victory in November at Chicago.

During the 1905 season and the months that followed, the debate over college football arose again and nearly proved fatal for both intercollegiate football and the Chicago-Northwestern rivalry. In October, President Theodore Roosevelt denounced football for its brutality and for the unsportsmanlike conduct of the players. Injuries and deaths on the gridiron had increased steadily over the years, leading to a wholesale criticism of the game and demands for reform. Professor Shailer Matthews of the University of Chicago spoke for many football critics when he proclaimed: "From the

City Championship

Walter Eckersall, Chicago's star kicker and running back, appeared in several games against Northwestern. In 1905 he led his team to a conference championship with a 2--{) victory over Michigan. CHS, Chicao-o Daily 'e1\'s photo, 0 SDN-4921, gift of Field Enterprises.

President of the United States to the humblest members of a school and college faculty there arises a general protest against this boy-killing, man-mutilating, money-making, educationprostituting, gladitorial sport." Articles in publications such as McClure's Magazine deplored the commerci~liLation of college football, and one that appeared in Collier's accused Stagg of buying athletes for the Chicago team, a charge that Stagg and his supporters angrily denied.

Alarmed by the increase in injuries and the perceived anti-intellectual thrust of football, a number of critics called for the game's abolition, or at the very least, its reduction to intramural staLUs. In January, a group of representatives from the Big Nine Conference, convened

by President James Angell of Michigan, met in

Chicago to consider the problems of college football. The famed Wisconsin historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, who was an ardent foe of intercollegiate football, tried to convince the conference to suspend football for a trial period of two years. Instead the Big Nine representatives agreed to adopt a number of reforms short of abolition, including outlawing "professional" coaches, eliminating training tables, reducing admissions to 50 cents,-and limiting the season to five games. Later that spring, the reorganized Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee began working on reforming the rules. The committee, which included Stagg as one of its few non-eastern members, legislated what seemed at the time to be far-reaching changes. The forward pass, previously prohibited, was now

173

City Championship allowed, although it was saddled with numerous restrictions. Also, the number of yards required for a first down was increased from five to ten yards which had to be gained in three downs, and a neutral zone was created at the line of scrimmage to allow officials to watch for infractions.

Despite these reforms and rules changes, and the Big Nine Conference's decision not to abolish football, the orthwestern faculty and board of trustees voted to suspend football for a trial period of five years. A residue of opposition to football remained from the 1890s at Northwestern, and the abolition of football represented an opportunity for the faculty to control athletics more effectively. Although Northwestern had lacked the strong commitment to football that had characterized the University of Chicago, it is still surprising that the abolition of the game hardly aroused a murmur from students in Evanston. The mere threat of ending the game was enough to provoke an anguished outcry at Chicago, while Frederick Jackson Turner was hanged in effigy by angry v\Tisconsin students. Perhaps the demoralization caused by mediocre football seasons in I 904 and 1905, or the residue of Methodist piety among students at Northwestern in the early 1900s, explains their docile response. Two years later, however, they petitioned to reinstate the game.

The hiatus from football at Northwesternwhich proved to be two years rather than five-did not improve the school's ability to field a winning football team. Resuming the sport in 1908, the Purple played an abbreviated season of three games that did not include one with the University of Chicago. Playing the Maroons again in 1909, Northwestern did just as poorly as it had in 1905, losing 34-0. The Purple would not win another contest with Stagg's Chicago teams until 1916, although several of the intervening games were fairly close. Despite the five-game season and other limitations, the Stagg-coached teams amassed impressive records, winning or tieing most of their games and going undefeated in 1908.

Even after ,villiam Rainey Harper's death in January 1906, his successor, Harry Pratt Judson, was content to allow his illustrious coach free rein. Only occasionally, notably the 1916 and 1918 games, was there a foreshadowing of an 174

eventual reversal of roles when, in the 1920s, Northwestern gradually replaced the University of Chicago as the city's premier college football attraction.

Yet in their fourteen-season rivalry between 1892 and 1905, Chicago was the undisputed winner of this "city championship" with a record of 12 wins, 5 losses, and 3 ties with Northwestern. The overall excellence of Chicago's teams can be auributed in part to the dream of the school's president, William Rainey Harper, who believed that a strong athletic program helped to build a strong university, and to the energies and abilities of coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. Through their efforts, the University of Chicago's integration of athletics and scholastics became a model for other schools, demonstrating how sports could indeed become a contributing part of a university.

Selected Sources Chicago Inter Ocean, Chicago TimesHerald, Chicago Tribune, The Maroon, The Northwestern.

Danzig, Allison. Oh, How They Played the Game, The Early Days of Football and the Heroes Who Made It Great. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971.

Lawson, Hal and Alan G. Ingham. "Conflicting Ideologies Concerning the University and Intercollegiate Athletics, Harper and Hutchins at Chicago, 1892-1940." Journal of Sport History VII (Winter 1980).

Lester, Robin. "The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Intercollegiate Football at the University of Chicago." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1974. l\Ioore, John Hammond. "Football's Ugly Decades, 1893-1913." The Smithsonian Journal of History 2 (Fall 1967).

Paulison, Walter. The Tale of the Wildcats. Chicago: The Northwestern Club of Chicago, 1951.

Stagg, Amos Alonzo and Wesley Winans Stout.

Touchdown! New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927.

Storr, Richard J. Harper's University: The Beginnings. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966.

Watterson, John S. Ill. "The Football Crisis of 1909-1910: The Response of the Eastern 'Big Three'." Journal of Sport History 8 (Spring 1981).

Williamson, Harold F. and Payson S. Wild. Northwestern University, A History 1850-1975. Evanston: Northwestern University, 1976.

Veysey, Laurence R. The Emergence of the American University . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965.

NEWSPAPERS :

The Thanksgiving Day Race of 1895

By George S. May

Having passed the well traveled roads and finished dinner) the carriage was soon plowing through the heavy slush toward Evanston.)) a

From "An Umpire's Experience in the Times-Herald Race on Nov. 28th," by Charles B. King, 1895

had an inauspicious beginning. Three days of heavy snow and high winds had made Chicago's city streets vinually impassable for the November 28, 1895, Thanksgiving Day road race from Jackson Park to EYanston and back to Jackson Park. A number of entries withdrew from the competition beca use of hazardous driving conditions, and the disabling accidents that several drivers met on their way to the Jackson Park starting line proved just how dangerous the snow-covered streets were. The race was run successfully despite the snow ¡and cold weather, and newspapers across the country praised the feat, declaring that a new era in transportation had been established. By demonstrating to the public the automobile's potential for travelling over long distances, and by convincing automobile designers that their inventions were not whimsical ideas, but wonhy pursuits, the Chicago race was an early and important influence on further development of the automobile industry.

One of the earliest opportunities Americans had had to view horseless carriages had come just two years earlier at Chicago's Columbian Exposition. Charles and Frank Duryea, Ransom Olds, Henry Ford, and Charles King, all pioneers in American automotive development, Yisitcd the fair in search of new ideas. Olds and the Duryea brothers were encouraged by what they aw at the fair to continue working on their motorcar project , and Ford and King were in pired later to begin automotive experiments of their own. Of the many mechanical Ai\fERICA's FIRST AUTOi\IOBILE RACE

George S. May is Professor of History at Eastern .\/ icli igan University and author of R.. E. Olds: Auto Industry Pioneer (1977).

exhibits and demonstrations they saw there, various displays of gasoline engines most impressed them. For most of these inventors, such as Olds who already had experimented with steam and electric cars with unsatisfactory results, recognition that the gasoline engine was probably the best power source for motorcars was a turning point in the development of their own automobiles. They returned home eager to apply what they had seen at the fair to their own projects.

Only a few horseless carriages were actually displayed at the fa ir, and of these the European models were clearly superior to American examples. One American "road carriage," a French automobile, and a British electric car were displayed along with sedan cha irs and bicycles in the exposition's Transportation Building under the heading "steam and electric carriages, and all vehicles for carrying passengers on common roads operated by other than horse-power." A fourth horseless carriage was featured in the German Daimler gasoline engine exhibit. Several motorcars were demonstrated at the fair, but the only motor vehicle operated regularly was the Sturges Electric, an electric car used by the American Battery Company of Chicago to promote its batteries.

Few fair visitors were interested in the motorcar exhibit and it was easily overlooked. The small display of automobiles in the Transportation Building was dwarfed by the size and number of exhibits devoted to the railroad industry. Railway transportation had, already, revolutionized and dominated the nineteenth century, and by the 1890s it provided a cheap, conYenient, comfortable, even luxurious means of traYel. It was commonplace, its virtues self175

T hanhsgiving Day Race

Editor Herman A. Kohlsaat, inspired by an interest in motorcars and a desire to increase his newspaper's circulatinn, promoted the Chicago Times-Herald by sponsoring America's first automobile race in 1895. CHS, ICHi-17159, gift of Marshall Field, Jr. Charles E. Duryea sits at the controls of the Duryea Motor Wagon that his brother, ]. Frank Duryea, drove to victory in the Chicago Times-Herald Race. Smithsonian Institution .

176

Thanksgiving Day Race evident. If Americans in 1893 thought about future changes in transportation, they looked forward to greater improvements in railway travel, not to a new, untested invention. It is not surprising then that there was little interest in experimental horseless carriages among the visitors to the fair.

Herman H. Kohlsaat, publisher of the Chicago Times-Herald, was an early advocate of the automobile. An enthusiastic supporter of the World's Columbian Exposition, Kohlsaat had been disappointed that the fair did not create more public interest in the motorcar. When he learned of the success that French newspapers had had in promoting a Paris-to-Rouen race in l 894 and the more rigorous Paris-toBordeaux race in 1895, Kohlsaat saw an opportunity to combine his interest in automobiles with his desire to boost his newspaper circulation by sponsoring a similar event in America.

On July 9, 1895, a Times-Herald announcement called for entries for "a horseless carriage or vehicle motor race between Milwaukee and Chicago" to be held on November 2, 1895, with 5000 in prizes. The event was promoted as more than a race. Kohlsaat claimed he had organized the con test for the purpose of "stimulating invention and rousing interest" in this new form of transportation. Any vehicle judged to be unsafe or not of "practical utility" was disqualified from entering the competition.

Capitalizing on the interest in international competitions and awards for industrial achievement that had been popularized in Chicago during the fair, Kohlsaat hoped to give his event added legitimacy by devising a similar series of prizes for the best design and for ex_cellence in several other aspects of automotive engineering. The Times-Herald offered a separate prize of $500 to whoever suggested a term to replace "~1orseless carriage." The name "motocycle" won and it was used by the newspaper and those involved in the road race.

By mid-October about eighty individuals and companies had informed the Times-Herald that they hoped to have a motor vehicle at the starting line on ovember 2. But only a few entrants actually had a vehicle that was driveable. The Duryeas had a modified version of their gasoline-powered motor wagon they had tested two years earlier, and Elwood Haynes

and the Apperson brothers were ready with their 1894 gasoline-powered vehicle. Harold Sturges had his company's electric wagon, and Henry G. Morris and Pedro G. Salam of Philadelphia had one or more electric car models ready for the event. Because the distance of the race was far beyond the range of the batteries of these electric cars, they were never considered serious contenders, not even after Kohlsaat reduced the racecourse distance from Chicago to Milwaukee to a less ambitious route from Jackson Park to Evanston and back. Absent from the list of entrants were Ransom Olds and Henry Ford. At the time of the race, Olds was busy producing a new gasoline engine and did not return to automobile design until 1896.

Ford, aware of the competition but without a vehicle, was later to claim, "I could not get anyone to loan me the carfare to Chicago."

In addition to the more experimental American-made motocycles, several European-made Benz automobiles were also present. Hieronymus Mueller, a Decatur, Illinois, brass goods manufacturer, and his son Oscar, had modified their Benz sufficiently to feel justified in claiming the car was partially of their own making.

Two other Benz imports that came to Chicago were apparently the same models that had been successful in the earlier French road competitions. One was entered by New York's De La Vergne Refrigerating Machine Company and the other Benz was entered by Macy's, the New York department store. As a publicity stunt Macy's planned to have its Benz driven from New York to Chicago, but in the end the car had to be shipped by rail after it became stalled by snow and bad roads in Schenectady.

It had been virtually impossible for those entrants without a motorcar to build a working model in the short time span between July when the race was first announced and November when the contest was to be held. Several entrants appealed to Kohlsaat for more time, but it was not until the end of October, when contestants were asked to bring their vehicles to Chicago for three days of tests and only eight motocycles arrived, that a postponement was considered. Kohlsaat had feared that a delay would appear to confirm the charges of his rival Chicago newspapers that the motorcar competition was only a promotional gimmick.

177

Thanhsgiving Day Race He finally agreed to change the date of the race to Thanksgiving Day, November 28, but made a face-saving compromise by inviting those contestants who were on hand on November 2 to take part in a special race from Chicago to v\Taukegan and back. The Mueller-Benz and the Duryea Motor Wagon were the only entries to attempt the course. An accident forced Duryea out of the contest, leaving Oscar Mueller and his Benz to finish the race alone and collect the $500 special prize. The European import was so slow that two reporters covering the event on a tandem bike had to backpedal to avoid passing the motorized vehicle.

The time extension Kohlsaat had granted had not significantly increased the number of contestants for the November 28 race. What had changed dramatically since the postponement were the road conditions. Heavy snowfall on the three days before Thanksgiving Day, driven by sixty-mile-an-hour winds, had left the city's streets in such terrible shape that a number of those who had benefited from the extension decided not to take part in the race.

Having already postponed the race once, and

178

unwilling to face the embarassment of another delay, Kohlsaat insisted that the race go on regardless of the road condi lions.

Early Thanksgiving Day morning a handful of motocycles converged at Jackson Park. Chicago police had earlier ordered both Oscar Mueller's and Elwood Haynes's vehicles off Michigan Avenue, but on the clay of the race the city granted the race contestants special permission to drive their vehicles on public streets. On the way to Jackson Park, however, Haynes's vehicle skidded on the snow-covered streets and broke a wheel, forcing him out of the race. Also eliminated that morning was Max Hertel of Chicago's American Biscuit Company, who broke the steering gear on his gasoline-powered car, and two other local contestants, A. C. Ames and George W. Lewis, who could not get their cars started.

Only six vehicles arrived that morning at Jackson Park to compete in the race. The first across the starting line at 8:55 A.M . was the Duryea Motor Wagon, fully repaired since the November 2 accident. Within the next ten minutes the De La Vergne-Benz, Macy's-Benz,

Thanksgiving Day Race rhe Sturges Electric, and the Morris and Salom "Electrobat" had also started out for Evanston.

The De La Vergne-Benz soon developed mechanical problems and was out of the competition, leaving the driver and his passenger to follow the race in a more conventional fashiona horse-drawn buggy. By noon, both of the electric cars also had been forced to the sidelines, their batteries dead from the difficult driving through the snow.

Oscar Mueller's Benz, the winner of the November 2 race, did not arrive at Jackson Park until more than an hour after the Duryea had already started. Riding with Mueller was a passenger, Charles Reid, and Charles King of Detroit, one of the umpires assigned to each car.

Although Mueller may have felt it was impossible Lo make up the time he had lost by starting late, he was heartened when he drove past the abandoned De La Vergne-Benz and then moved successively around the two electrics, leaving only the Macy's-Benz and Duryea entries ahead of him. Throughout the morning the lead had seesawed back and forth between these two cars. The Duryea had been forced to the side-

lines for nearly an hour to repair a steering arm but took the lead at the turning point in Evanston, and, despite a misreading of directions by Frank Duryea which took him two miles off the as~igned route, the American-made motorcar held the lead for the remainder of the contest, finishing back at Jackson Park at 7: 18 P.l\r.

The Macy's-Benz suffered mishap after mishap-colliding with a streetcar, striking an overturned buggy, and then damaging a wheel in an encounter with a Chicago hack. Frustrated, the driver finally quit the race.

The only other automobile still on the course, the Mueller-Benz, had pressed on, but by the time it made the turn in Evanston it had fallen still further behind the front-running Duryea and had little chance of winning.

After stopping for a repair, King reported, they threw in "the fast speed clutch ... and we went bowling along a t sixteen miles an hour." Racing these early motorcars over bad roads was physically exhausting, and it was especially grueling under these inclement conditions. The strain of riding in an open vehicle through freezing temperatures with little to eat since breakfast

Motocyc/e entries line up in Jackson Park on Thanksgiving Day, 1895, awaiting the start of the Times-Herald Race.

Three days of heavy snowfall had made driving so treacherous that only two of the six starters-were able to finish the race. CHS, ICHi03646.

Oscar B. Mueller (right), driver of the second-place Mueller-Benz car entered by his father, Hieronymus Mueller, of Decatur, Illinois, is shown in the car with race officials.

From Personal Side Lights of America's First Automobile Race, 1945.

179

Thanksgiving Day Race

KEYED

MAP

America's First Automobile Race - Spon.wrtd lry The Ch,cai:u Tun~s-Hcrald, Nuvtm~ 78,

16Qj

This Map commemorates tM Fiftieth Anniversary of the Chicago Tunes-Herald Race. h was prepued bv me as an umpire and driver in the Race using the original map published by the sponsors and adding data from complete. authentic records including. my offiC1al umpire·s report.

TM Race was won by J. Frank Duryea in a car he designed, built and drove . his record being as follows · 10 Hours, 23 Min. Elapsed time ..... ....

Actual running time ....... 7 Hours, SJ Min. Average speed ...• ..

5.05 MPH Average running speed ....

6.66 MPH Official distance of route ...... .. 52.4 'Mil« Second place was won by the MuellerBcru car driven by Oscar B. Mueller As umpire in this qr, I also became its dnver for the last hour of the Race to tM finish-line. due to Oscar Mueller becoming unconscious from oposure. Earher in the afternoon. Charles G. Reid. an observer. also unconscious from exposure, had been lifted out of the car into a sleigh in Riverview Park. The record of the Mueller car was : Elapsed time . . .. 10 Hours. 47 Min. Actual running time 9 Hours. 32 Min. Average speed 4.87 MPH Average runn,ng speed . 5.51 MPH Of the six starters. these were the only two c;ars to finish the Race.

J. Frank Duryea received • cash award of $2.000 . while the Mueller car won $1.500 : and later H. Mueller . Oscars father. who entered the second winning car. presented me with a gold medal ,n apprtc1a11on of my servicrs.

\

180

- • -

Thanksgiving Day Race

The winning time in the fifty-two-and-a-half-mile race was ten hours and twenty-three minutes at an average speed of five miles a1i hour. Charles B. King recreated the highlights of that race in this 1945 map commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the event. From Personal Side Lights of America's lâ&#x20AC;˘irst Automobile Race, 1945.

Top: Elwood P. Haynes was forced to withdraw from the race after his car skidded and broke a wheel on the way to Jackson Park. CHS, ICHi-17151, gift of Marshall Field, Jr. Above: Oscar B. Mueller was unable to complete the race due to exhaustion. Charles B. King, the umpire in his car, drove the Mueller-Benz across the finish line.

CHS, lCHi-17160.

had its effect on the entrants. Mueller's passenger, Charles Reid fainted and was lifted out of the car into a passing wagon. Later in the evening, as the Benz was moving along Garfield near Halsted, Oscar Mueller also fainted. The rules required the driver of the vehicle at the start of the race to be in the car at the finish.

Charles King stopped the vehicle, pushed the unconscious Mueller into the passenger's seat, and drove the remainder of the way to Jackson Park, steering with one hand and holding Mueller with the other arm. The Mueller-Benz finished the race at 8:55 P.M., the only entry other than the Duryea to complete the course.

The fifty-three mile Times-Herald road race received a great deal of attention in local newspapers and the national press. Kohlsaat's rival Chicago newspapers issued fairly negative reviews of the race. They concluded that the race had been less than impressive since only six vehicles had been in the race, in contrast to more than twenty automobiles that had participated in earlier French competitions, and only two had been able to finish. Duryea's average speed was only 7½ miles an hour, barely fast enough to have been able to keep pace with a good marathon runner. Accounts of the race in newspapers outside Chicago were much more positive, with many reporters marveling at the ability of any motor vehicle to operate successfully that day in the face of road conditions that had been more hazardous than many horse-drawn conveyances could handle. In fact, New York and Philadelphia newspapers declared that the events in Chicago in November 1895 marked the end of man's dependence on the horse and the beginning of a new era.

The Thanksgiving Day race was important, not because it was the first motorcar race in America, but rather, for the inspiration and direction it gave to the men building experimental automobiles in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The grueling race testified not only to the endurance of the men who competed, but more importantly, to the quality of their American-made machines, which until then had never been seriously tested. The victory of the Duryea Motor ,vagon over the highly touted European Benz was the first major signal that Americans were beginning to catch up with the established European auto 181

Thanksgiving Day Race

Frank Duryea (right) in the motorcar he designed, built, and drove to win first prize in the Chicago Times-Herald Race. Seated on his left is Arthur W. White, an umpire in the race. Duryea damaged this car in an earlier race won

by Oscar Mueller. CHS, ICHi-09009.

industry, something very encouraging to the men working in this field. Though electricpowered vehicles were produced well into the twentieth century, the race confirmed the superiority of gasoline-powered motorcars over all others, and pointed the way to the future in automotive engineering. The Duryeas sought to capitalize on their newly won reputation by putting their gasoline car into production at their Springfield, Massachusetts plant, and the thirteen Duryea Motor Wagons sold the next year marked the beginning of commercial automobile manufacturing in America .

The most immediate result of the race, however, was the formation of the American Motor League, this country's first automobile association . Impressed with the number of people involved in motor vehicle design, and anxious to meet with them on a regular basis and con182

tinue the exchange o( ideas that the TimesHerald competition had initiated, Charles King had written a letter to the editors of the newspaper on October 8 suggesting the creation of a formal organization.

Realizing the fact that we have already a large number o[ people in this country interested in the coming revolution, the motor vehicle, and in order to pave the way for the early success o[ this vehicle o[ the future, it is proposed to form a National Organization which will have as its object the furtherance of all details connected with this broad subject, and to hold stated meetings, when papers can be read and discussions follow as to the respective merits of all points in question. Such an organization is needed now, and upon its formation would meet with the hearty cooperation of the newspapers, the friends of good roads and the public at large. It is therefore proposed that such an organization be now formed and have as its

Thanhsgiving Day Race

Scene at the Duryea factory, Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1896 dttring the assembling of the first American cars made from the same pattern. The thirteen Motor Wagons sold that year mark the beginning of commercial automobile manufacturing in America. Smithsonian Institution.

name the Ai\IERICAN i\IOTOR LEAGUE. This title is broad and it is well suited to survive any change that the future may bring.

On November 29, 1895, the day following the great Chicago race, the new club was formed with Charles Duryea and Charles King among iLs officers. It had been Herman Kohlsaa t's wish all along that the motorcar compeLition he had organized would be more than just a race. IL was.

Selected Sources Charles B. King, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library.

NEWSPAPERS: Chicago Times-Herald.

The American Car Since 1775. 2nd rev. ed. New York: E.F. Dutton, 1971.

Anderson, Rudolph E. The Story of the American Automobile. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1950. ~tANUSCRIPTS:

Anderson, Russell H. "The First Automobile Race in America," Antique Automobile 35 (1971).

Duryea, Charles E. "It doesn't Pay to Pioneer," Saturday Evening Post 203 (i\Iay 16, 1931).

Ford, Henry. My Life and Work. Garden City: Doubleday, Page&.: Co., 1922.

Horseless Age, 1895.

King, Charles B. Personal Side Lights of America's First Automobile Race. Larchmont, N.Y.: privately published, 1945. i\Iaxim, Hiram Percy. Horseless Carriage Days.

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1937. i\Iay, George S. A Most Unique Machine: The Michigan Origins of the American Automobile Industry. Grand Rapids: \\Tm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975.

- - - - . R.E. Olds: Auto Industry Pioneer.

Grand Rapids. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977.

Sinsabaugh, Chris. Who Me? Forty Years of Automobile History. Detroit: Arnold-Powers Inc., 1940.

183

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$4.00.

\Vide Gauge Tunnel. No. 42.H , $3.00.

No, 253 narrow g.~ .• $1.25.

Terminal Station, Lighted. No. 107. $4.50.

Speed Controlling Transformers. 50 w,ms.i::.c,5 1:2to9volt.S,6spceds.$3.35. 75 w;1 rc ~i.:-c,512 m 14 volts, 1$speeds, SJ.BO. HX) w:.m si:e, 6½. to 24 voh:s, 24 speeds, ..,b.00. Designed for use on A . C. only.

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The first American Flyer trains were cast-iron windups made in Chicago by William F. Hafner and William Ogden Coleman in the 1910s. In the next twenty years, the company produced an expanded line of electric and "wide gauge" models.

184

A Century of Chicago Toys, 1880-1980

By Steven Sommers

Over the past 100 years) the Chicago region has been home to an enormous toy industry.

Scores offirms large and small have manufactured everything from bicycles to electric trains to paper dolls. This article describes some of the most famous.

bring to mind parents, playmates, and toys. While nature gave us the parents and we chose the playmates, Chicago's toy industry provided many of the toys . The electric train at Christmas, the first bicycle, the toy cars and trucks, the building blocks, paper dolls, and plastic models likely said "Illinois" somewhere on the box or body.

To thousands of children across America, Schwinn, American Flyer, Buddy "L", and Tootsietoy were wonderful names that made growing up fun.

Though it had not always been so, the idea that childhood and having fun naturally went together was well established by the nineteenth century. The result was toys. A single newspaper advertisement from Christmas of 1850 offered dozens of choices, including toy towns, pull toys, magic lanterns, woolly dogs, drums, horsemen, boats, and dolls. To the modern eye these wooden and cloth toys look more like their folk art antecedents than products of the industrial age. But toy m aking in the nineteenth century was rapidly becoming a part of the industrial age, and America was taking an early lead.

Building on the mechanical experience gained in New England's clock and lock industry, enterprising Americans were producing a wide array of toys with brass gears and pring clockwork by the Civil War. American dominance of the metal, factory-made toy was brief, however, from 1850 to about 1890. Europeans quickly adopted American techniques,

THE BEST CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

St even Sommers is Chairman of the Department of Histo ry at Th e Latin School of Chicago. H e edits ancl pu blish es th e collector's journal, Old Toy Soldier Newsletter.

and by combining cheaper labor, less expensive parts, and new stamping and lithography techniques, their manufacturers had surpassed the American pioneers by 1890. Unable to best European competition in cheap tin mechanical toys, American manufacturers turned for the next forty years to other materials with which they hoped successfully to produce toys for a domestic market. Chicago was a leader in this second phase of American toy manufacturing.

Roller skates and bicycles were early and lasting mainstays. Roller skating hit America in the 1870s, declined in the 1880s, and rose again at the turn of the century. The Chicago Roller Skate Company was founded by R alph and Walter Ware in I 905 and is still a giant in this industry. But the bicycle craze of the 1880s and 1890s was even more memorable. By the mid-1890s, Chicago wheelmen bent on the pursuit of health and club companionship were biking along the lakefront on a variety of Chicagomade bicycles. A typical young Chicagoan in the 1890s may have owned a Columbia bicycle by the Pope Manufacturing Company, an A. G. Spaulding wheel, or a Schwinn, all of which were made in Chicago.

The Schwinn llecame perhaps the most famous. Its namesake and first builder, Ignaz Schwinn, arrived in Chicago from Germany in 1891. Twenty-nine years old and experienced with cycle manufacturing in Germany, he soon found work with Hill and Moffat, makers of the Fowler bicycle. By 1895 Schwinn joined with Adolph Arnold, a Chicago meat packer, to form a new firm, Arnold, Schwinn and Company, located at Lake and Peoria streets. In 1899 they purchased the failing March-Davis 185

Chicago Toys

Left: By the 1930s, sales of American Flyer trains reached three million and were surpassed only by Lionel trains of New York.

It was little wonder that this Chicago teacher could make good use of them in his class.

Below: The 1935 American Flyer catalog sported a drawing of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's streamlined Zephyr, a train that set a new speed record on its Chicago-toDenver nm in 1933.

186

Chicago Toys The Schwinn Company began to make bicycles in Chicago in 1895. "The Phantom" became one of its most popular items after World War II.

Bicycle Company, and nine years later Schwinn bought out his partner and built a new plant at 1718 North Kildare Avenue. This site, adjacent to the old March-Davis plant, is still part of today's Schwinn facilities.

Until 1905, Schwinn designed and built automobiles as well as bicycles, and from 1914 until 1930, the company was also a major motorcycle manufacturer. When the Depression cut motorcycle sales, the company took a bold step and switched entirely to bicycle production.

They broke with international tradition and broadened tire tubes to two inches, and appealed to the streamlining fad of the decade with names like "aerocycle," "cycleplane," and "autocycle." A streamlined tank with a builtin horn or lock enclosed the center support bar, while a large spring-supported saddle smoothed the. ride even more. The new comfortable, heavyweight Schwinn had arrived.

Today the great heavyweight bicycles of the first half century have given way to new styles: lightweight ten-speeds and children's dirt bikes.

But in the Schwinn plant, tradition lingers. luch of the work is still done by h and, with recent Hispanic immigrants replacing the east European workers of earlier years. The company makes its own wheels and frames, but chains, brakes, and gears now come from Eur-

ope while tires are imported from Japan. Although most sales are by major department stores, there are still 1,700 franchised dealers required to use company-trained mechanics.

And Schwinn remains a family company headed in Chicago by Edward Schwinn, Jr. Unlike Ignaz Schwinn, the inventor of American Flyer trains was a native Chicagoan. The son of a soda fountain manufacturer, William F. Hafner was born in 1870. He attended the West Division High School, married in 1893, and moved to River Forest. Two years later at the age of cwenty-five he began a business selling used wooden packing crates. In 1900 he moved on to better things, establishing Hafner and Company on Indiana and Kingsbury streets, where he manufactured a clockwork swing and a windup toy auto. By 1904, Hafner's windup car was being produced in three body styles and sales were so good that the next year he added a third floor to his factory at 19 South Canal. He needed space to produce a new line of black cast-iron clockwork toy train engines.

The accompanying tin railroad cars were lithographed by the American Can Company's H omewood, Illinois, plant. Even at the expanded factory , there was still a feeling of some home industry. Hafner's son remembers visiting it as a child and being allowed to paint 187

Chicago Toys In 1918 Louis Strohacker began marketing bolt-together metal cars with clockwork motors from his Structo Manufacturing Company plant in Freeport, Illinois. Dump truck and crane, gift of Jevne A. Rhenisch.

detail stripes on the locomotives.

By I 906 Hafner was interested in further expansion, and he convinced another River Forest resident, William Ogden Coleman, to join him. In return for Hafner's guarantee of sales, Coleman would provide factory space and cash for production. In January 1907, Hafner landed a $15,000 order from Steinfield Brothers, New York wholesalers, for four types of cast-iron windup trains. William Coleman agreed to expand production of a new line of toy trains, to be called American Flyer, and within a year Montgomery Ward was selling large numbers. They were so successful that by 1910 Edmonds-Metzel Hardware, in which Coleman held an interest, decided to manufacture toy trains exclusively. As with many hardware companies of the period, what had begun as a secondary line of toys had come to dominate their output.

In 1914 the Hafner and Coleman partnership ended, but Hafner formed his third toy firm, now called Hafner Manufacturing Company, while Coleman continued to head American Flyer. Hafner trains lasted until 1951, when they were bought out by All Metal Products of Wyandotte, Michigan. Throughout Hafner's fifty-year history, the only toy trains his companies made were inexpensive windups with iron and later sheet metal engines.

By the 1930s Chicago's American Flyer had become one of America's two largest toy train manufacturers. To compete¡ with Lionel trains of New York and others, American Flyer broadened their range. Following the lead of others, they began making electric trains in 188

1918, and in 1925 they added very large "wide gauge" trains to compete with Ives's and Lionel's giant standard gauge sets. Children today who are familiar only with HO or tiny N gauge trains would be astounded by iron, diecast and tinplate engines measuring six inches high and over two feet long. In the 1920s Flyer made an exceptionally wide array of passenger and freight cars lithographed with railroad heralds like those of the Great Northern and Pennsylvania railroads. In the 1930s they also produced an O gauge replica in cast aluminum of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's streamlined, diesel-powered Zephyr.

Although sales suffered during the Depression, Flyer's Halsted Street factory in the Bridgeport neighborhood lasted until 1938, when A. C. Gilbert (of Erector Set fame) bought them out and moved the company to its own New Haven, Connecticut, headquarters. Although no longer a Chicago firm, A. C. Gilbert added a new spark to the American Flyer operation by introducing a line of accurately scaled S gauge trains in 1946, which ran on two rails and were midpoint in size between old O gauge and today's HO model railroad scale. But in the 1950s just as America's real railroads struggled with the competition from trucks and automobiles, Gilbert's toy trains had similar problems holding their buyers' interest, and in 1966 American Flyer trains passed into history.

Chicago Toys Toy trains of iron and steel had mirrored the importance of railroads in American commerce in the first two decades of this century.

Toy car manufacturers also caught the imagination of children in the 1920s and '30s when Ford Model Ts and As jammed Chicago streets and began to change the American way of life.

Children wanted to play with a toy car just like Dad's real one, and many American manufacturers responded. Several of the most important companies were located in the Chicago region. Structo Manufacturing Company of Freeport, Illinois, was one. Interestingly, its history is linked to both A. C. Gilbert and American Flyer. Structo's founder, Louis Strohacker, began work in a Chicago garage fixing real cars. After a brief job in Lowell, Massachusetts, he returned to Freeport with a partner to begin the Structo Manufacturing Company in 1908. Strohacker first designed and marketed erector-set-type construction toys. Child builders bolted together nickel-plated beams to make their own mechanical elevators and ferris wheels. In 1923, however, Strohacker sold his patents and dies to A . C. Gilbert, the firm which already dominated the American market for this type of toy with their Gilbert Erector Sets. Structo hence devoted all of its energies to toy mechanical vehicles.

In 19 I 8 Strohacker had marketed a new toy concept: bolt-together metal cars in kit form, powered by a strong clockwork motor. The motors were wound by a separate hand crank like a real car of the 1920s; gears allowed a child to shift his orange and black roadster through three forward speeds. By 1921 Structo kits included trucks and tractors on the same principle. In the decade after 1925, . Structo toys were advertised in American Flyer catalogs and included a wide range of simpler metal push toy vehicles as well. American Flyer personnel had a hand in designing some of the later vehicles. One former Flyer employee, Simon Chaplan, remembers how a powerful Flyer-designed water pump for a Structo fire truck had to be discontinued after a single year because of complaints from parents about soaked living rooms. A squeeze bulb which "could throw no more water than a teaspoon" soon took its place. Structo in Freeport continued to produce toys for the next forty years. In 1975 it

was sold to the Ertl Company of Dyersville, Iowa, a major toy manufacturer specializing in farm machinery toys.

Some other Chicago-region toys were known especially for their size. In the interwar decades, the use of heavy gauge steel in toy manufacturing was uniquely American. ,I\Thile European and Japanese imports in lightweight lithographed tin continued to be attractive and plentiful, several American companies made toys strong enough for adults to stand on. The giant of the American steel toy industry also made giant toys. This innovative company was Freel Lunclahl's Moline Pressed Steel Company of East Moline, Illinois, whose Buddy "L" toys were named for Fred's son. The company began in 1910 by producing steel truck and farm machinery parts for the growing Illinois industry.

Ten years later, it started producing Buddy "L" toy cars and trucks, which quickly became popular with children. Nearly indestructible, they were the forerunners of today's Tonka Toys, but even bigger and stronger. The origin of Lunclahl's first toy has almost become legend.

Personal recollections, newspaper accounts, and company promotional literature agree that in 1920 Fred Lundahl designed a large toy truck as a present for his son. The toy was constructed of steel from the company's scrap pile.

Neighborhood children were understandably envious of Buddy's new black express truck: nine pounds of heavy steel on a red, two-footlong chassis with 4½-inch aluminum wheels.

On his next birthday, Buddy received a clump truck and his father became convinced that such toys had a national market. With orders guaranteed by F.A.O. Schwarz, the big New York toy store, as well as Chicago's Marshall Field and Company, Buddy "L" toys were introduced to the public in September 1921. A stake truck and a steam shovel expanded the line, which became a quick success. After the next year's annual New York toy trade show, the company's products were being handled by more than 300 jobbers and dealers.

New models were added yearly, and in the 1920s, red fire engines, green country buses, ice trucks, coal trucks, and, of course, black tin lizzies headed the line. By 1925 this East :Moline company was producing more than 189

Chicago Toys

STRUCTOfOYS

Tractor, Trailer and Road Scraper

Tractor and Road Grader

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6-fool c,t<'n~ion b.ddcr, rubber hose with bras., nozzle, bra!'-s bl'II and hi;.:: balloon steel tires. Lcn~lh, 24".

A real fire cnsrinC? th:1t put.., out fin•~. Ha:- a b.r?.!t w;tler tank anr1 accurately mJde pump \\ hid1 "-t·ntl-. a ,-tre:i.m nuny fl:c-1 into tlH' air. Carrit!s o-ioot (•'.\'lL·n:-ion faddl•r oi iour 18-inr-h piece:-. Thr brass bell actually rin-gs. Lcn)!th of en!.!inc 21". :Ko. C4--t9. l'ricc_____ . _ _ · -- •

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190

Chicago Toys

The Buddy "L" Outdoor Railroad, manufactured by Freel Lundahl's Moline Pressed Steel Company of East Moline, Illinois, first sold in 1927. A ride-on toy, it required a 26-foot diameter space for its track layout.

200,000 steel toys a year. These were large toys, and at $5 and $10 apiece, expensive ones. But they were made to last. The largest of all was the Buddy "L" Outdoor Railroad, a ride-on push toy which appeared in 1927. It practically filled a small backyard: the engine and tender measured 44 inches; behind trailed three or more 20-inch cars on 3½-inch-wide track made

by Bethlehem Steel. A simple circle of track required a 26-foot diameter.

In 1930, the year he died unexpectedly, Lundahl sold his firm to Iowa businessman J. W. Bettendorf, who officially renamed it the Buddy "L" Manufacturing Company. In the 1930s the company diversified its line, adding some lighter, cheaper toys, while embellishing the heavy steel top-of-the-line models with electric lights, bumpers, opening doors, and rubber tires. Like many makers of expensive toys, however, Buddy "L" did not survive the Depression. Falling sales and tax problems decreed dissolution by the courts in June of 1939.

In 1942 the trade name was purchased by a

New York manufacturer who produced wooden toys under the Buddy "L" logo during World War II. In the postwar period, the name passed through several hands and still appears today on much smaller metal and plastic toy vehicles.

Cast iron is in many ways the most surprising American toy material, and again Chicago firms used much of it. The first Hafner and American Flyer trains had cast-iron engines, and Chicago boasted several manufacturers of cast-iron children's savings banks (the most popular turn-of-the-century toy) like Wing, Nicholet, and White City Puzzles. J. M. Harper banks, produced by the Chicago Hardware Foundry Company of North Chicago in the first two decades of this century, are some of the most important. "I Made Chicago Famous" appears in raised letters down the side of their 1902 pig-shaped bank. Although obviously referring to Chicago's packing industry, the words could have been proclaiming the stature 191

Chicago Toys of iron toys in the Chicago region's industry as well. Today's children, most comfortable with lightweight plastic toys, find iron banks strangely heavy; they are amazed by the sheer weight of cast-iron toy automobiles that were so desired by American children before the Second World War. The Chicago region had three major makers of cast-iron vehicles and other toys: Vindex in Belvidere, and Freidag and Arcade, both in Freeport. Of these, Arcade was the largest and best known.

"They Look Real" not only was Arcade's slogan, it was also the key to their predominance in the industry. Founded in Freeport in 1895 as an outgrowth of the Novelty Iron Works, the Arcade Manufacturing Company produced a broad line of hardware. A fifty-page illustrated catalog indicates that by 1900, toys were a big part of their trade. In 1913 a young lawyer, Isaac Gassman, married Florence Munn, whose father was company secretary. In 1919 Gassman succeeded him in this position and added to it the role of sales manager. Reflecting the new importance of advertising in the 1920s, Gassman hit on a novel scheme. He approached Chicago's Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company in 1921 seeking permission to market a faithful cast-iron replica of their cab. In turn they would be able to use the toy in their advertising. Many other toy companies struck similar bargains with commercial enterprises, but Gassman's company was the most successful. Arcade made replicas of Fords, Chrysler "Airflows," McCormick-Deering and International Harvester farm equipment, Mack and White trucks, and many others. Their cast-iron doll furniture included local products like Thor washing machines, Hotpoint appliances, and Crane bathroom fixtures. And they all looked real, just like the slogan promised.

Arcade built a new Freeport factory in 1927.

Like Buddy "L", toy vehicles made Arcade successful in the 1920s; Chicago's Century of Progress, however, probably kept the company alive in the 1930s. Close to bankruptcy in 1933, Arcade negotiated a contract to make iron replicas of the Century of Progress tour bus.

This white and blue tractor-trailer vehicle was a brightly lettered souvenir toy that sold well to the ÂŁair's visitors. Although Arcade made several other automobile souvenirs for the Chi192

cago fair and repeated their success later in the decade with a toy bus for the New York v\Torld's Fair, their Chicago bus was probably the most popular toy of the period. Like most metal toymakers, Arcade's production was halted by restrictions placed on the use of raw materials during World War II, and shortly after the war it was sold to Rockwell Manufacturing of Pittsburgh. Rockwell moved to Alabama, and Arcade metal toys vanished, a victim of the deluge of plastic toys in the 1950s.

Although Arcade had survived the Depression, many Illinois manufacturers like Buddy "L" had not. Big, expensive toys often failed, and smaller, inexpensive ones were more resilient. The leader of the small toy car industry was and still is a Chicago company. For the price of one Buddy "L", a child could jam a sidewalk highway with a hundred Tootsietoys from the five and ten cent store.

The technological innovation behind Tootsietoys was as important as their immense popularity. At Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, Charles 0. Dowst, publisher of the trade paper National Laundry Journal, saw a new machine known as the Linotype, which cast lines of type from hot metal. He quickly saw the machine's potential not just for typesetting, but for other kinds of metal casting. By the turn of the century, Dowst and Company was casting on a Linotype-like die-casting machine a wide variety of charms and novelties for candy stores and prizes for Chicago's Cracker Jack Company. In 1911 Dowst produced the world's first die-cast miniature (2-inch) toy car, and within a few years the company had become a giant maker of tiny toys. Dowst's second car was a faithfully reproduced Model T Ford, and from then on, Tootsietoys, like Arcade's toys, were intended to look real.

In 1926 the firm was purchased by Nathan Shure's Cosmo Toy and Novelty Company, but the Dowst name remained, as did the influential family member Theodore Dowst. The following year, Tootsietoy introduced replica General Motors products, and in 1928 Henry Ford allowed Dowst to produce a 2-inch toy of Ford's new Model A, which came on the market that same year.

In 1932 and 1933 the Mack Truck Company and the makers of Graham Paige automobiles

Chicago Toys

Right: Tootsietoy airport produced about 1925 by Charles 0. Dowst and Company. Dowst began making die-cast charms at the turn of the century and by 1915 his company was a leader in the manufacture of miniature toys.

Below: Dowst and Company machine shop, c.

1932, where workers fashioned tiny Tootsietoy replicas of real cars, trucks, planes, and furniture.

193

Chicago Toys actually subsidized development of Tootsietoy models of their trucks and cars, in the belief that the toys were good advertising for the full-size vehicles. The Grahams, with separate castings for chassis, body, grill, and wheels, and sporting white rubber tires, were quickly copied by European toy makers like Meccano and Marklin. Like Arcade toys, these trucks were intended to imitate the real thing: one Tootsie Mack Railway Express truck even included a tiny ad for Chicago's Wrigley Spearmint Gum on its side panel. Creative management and a low price allowed Tootsie to thrive in the Depression, span the war years, and continue to grow. In 1964 the company expanded again by purchasing the Strombecker Corporation, and modern Tootsietoys in bubble packages have continued to crowd sales racks across the country.

Blocks have been another favorite children's toy for almost three hundred years. The beginning of this century witnessed an explosion in the manufacture of toy blocks, which had a large place in Chicago's toy industry. Two young men from Chicago's suburbs, Charles H. Pajeau of Evanston and John Lloyd Wright of Oak Park, played key roles. In 1912, Pajeau, a tombstone manufacturer, moved to Evanston from New England, and two years later conceived Tinkertoys, an ingenious improvement on the discarded thread spools and sticks children had played with. Tinkertoy spools had eight holes around the edge and one through the center to fit quarter-inch diameter rods of several lengths. An endless variety of buildings and machines was possible.

Like Fred Lundahl of Buddy "L" would do a few years later, Pajeau went to the New York toy fair in 1914 to promote his product. While there, he persuaded a local druggist to put some Tinkertoy windmills with paper blades into his window. A fan supplied the wind; the blades turned; and Tinkertoys stopped traffic.

Tinkertoys were designed in the early 1900s by Charles H. Pajeau of Evanston, who took discarded spools and sticks and turned them into a popular construction toy. He later marketed several pull toys, but none matched the success of his first product.

194

The toy's success was immediate.

For the first few years Pajeau somehow ran a one-man, one-room shop. After World War I, however, he took a partner and expanded.

Pajeau's Toy Tinkers Company of Evanston introduced several wooden pull toys in the 1920s, but nothing diminished the success of the original Tinkertoys. By their fiftieth anniversary in 1964, the company had produced more than 55 million sets and was selling 2 million annually. Purchased by A. G. Spaulding at the time of Pa jeau's death in 1952, and now a part of the New York-based Questor Corporation, Tinkertoys are still selling. Long before government admonition, these toys were safe, nontoxic, and entertaining.

Another familiar, inventive toy was conceived by John Lloyd Wright. He and his five siblings were raised in the Oak Park home and studio of their famous father, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, where the large playroom was always filled with blocks, games, and mechanical toys. John probably invented Lincoln Logs in 1917 when visiting Japan with his father, where he may have been inspired by the construction techniques used in the foundation of

Chicago Toys his father's Imperial Hotel. (He may also have played as a boy with similar toys that had been available since the nineteenth century.)

Wright's blocks-notched redwood logs, only slightly smaller in diameter from today's Lincoln Logs-were first marketed in 1918 by his own Red Square Toy Company. In addition to logs, the 1918 catalog featured chess pieces, a set of simple square blocks, an "unbreakable" mechanical dog, a pop gun, and a pneumatic cannon. The company's name was soon changed to the John Lloyd Wright Toy Company, and in the 1930s it would produce several other block toys and even toy soldiers.

Names like Lincoln Stones and Lincoln Bricks capitalized on the success of the original toy.

The World War I period was a time when customers were exhorted to buy American, a condition clearly met by a toy named for Abraham Lincoln.

Although .John Lloyd Wright maintained stock in the company until it was sold to Playskool in 1943, his active involvement ended in the early 1920s, and he probably had no hand in designing any of the other "Lincoln" toys.

On his own in California in the 1930s, Wright designed other toys but none approached the popularity of his original Lincoln Logs. Like Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs continue in production in the 1980s.

There were many other Chicago manufacturers of construction toys between 1900 and 1940. Though most firms worked with wood, there were exceptions. The Bilt-Ease Company produced elaborate metal skyscraper construction sets, whose snap-together pieces invited both fun ancl cut fingers. One short-lived company, Toy Crete, supplied young builders with forms, trowel, and cement mix to pour their own building blocks, which, like the massive Buddy "L" railroad, worked better outdoors than indoors. · Most smaller toymakers have faded, but some, like \Vright's company, were absorbed

by Chicago's enormous Playskool Corporation.

Of these companies, one of the most significant but least known by name, is the Halsam Block Company. It elates from just after \Vorlcl ·war I, when Hal Elliot and Sam Goss bought a small Michigan woodworking company and moved it to Chicago. They named it Halsam

Blocks and began producing not only blocks, but checkers, dominoes, and construction sets.

Halsam's Blocks, embossed with brightly colored pictures and letters of the alphabet, were destined to become a part of almost every American nursery. In 1955, its fame well established, Halsam absorbed America's only other block embossing company still in operation, and in 1962 Halsam itself was purchased by Playskool Corporation.

The Playskool Institute, as the company was first called, had been formed in the 1920s by two Wisconsin school teachers interested in improving wooden toys for pre-schoolers.

By 1930 when it was absorbed by Chicago's Thornecraft, Inc. (which retained the Playskool name), Playskool was making over forty items, ranging from blackboards and desks to doll houses and pounding benches. It was purchased twice, in 1938 by the .Joseph Lumber Company, and in 1968 by the Milton Bradley game and toy company. The name remains, however, on a hundred different types of wood and plastic toys manufactured in a large factory on Chicago's Northwest Side.

When the government restricted metal toy production during ·w orld War II, Playskool and smaller Chicago companies, like Comet, which made wooden models, were given a ·lucky boost. Chicago paper doll makers also prospered. Although Chicago was not a center of doll production,* the city can claim to be one for paper dolls because of its large printing industry. At the turn of the century, city news•One Chicago enterprise was briefly important for quality if not quantity of doll production. Jessie McCutcheon Raleigh of Chicago designed and made dolls in the late 1910s and early 1920s. She employee.I students from the Art Institute to paint features on the dolls' heads molded after those of real children. Raleigh and her group of 100 employees worked in a large loft factory on Clybourn A,·enue making dolls out of composition material. Each doll had moveable joints connected with steel spiral springs and was dressed in fine quality clothing. During ,-vorld War I, the gm·ernment, which controlled war production, allowed Raleigh to remain in business probably because she aided the war effort by making prosthetic devices.

Her doll business also prospered; the factory turned out 400-500 dolls a day in 75 different models.

The postwar period brought an end to the Raleigh business when European doll manufacturers, especially in Germany, re-entered the market with less expensive products.

195

Chicago Toys

papers regularly contained pages of cut-out dolls and paper dolls. In the 1910s and '20s, various manufacturing companies, such as Swift & Company meat packers, sold paper doll premiums, which could be obtained for coupons or for cash. During the Depression years, parents often found paper toys for their children to be the only affordable ones. In the 1930s and '40s, publishers in the city recognized the marketability of paper dolls and turned them out by the millions.

The Merrill Publishing Company was the most successful paper doll company in America. Marion Merrill started the company in 1934, joining forces with Regensteiner Printing and Publishing Company of Chicago. By 1944 Merrill was the second largest publisher of children's books in the United States. Capitalizing on the American public's fascination with Hollywood celebrities, the company, which had exclusive contracts with stars like Bette Davis, Jeanette McDonald, and Vivian Leigh, went out of business in 1965.

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Above: Chicago became a leader in the manufacture of paper dolls because of its large printing industry.

Mailbox produced by Playskool Corporation, a company formed in the 1920s by two Wisconsin school teachers trying improve to wooden toys for pre-schoolers.

Left:

If iron, steel, wood, and paper dominated in the manufacture of American toys through World v\Tar II, plastic has been the material of choice in more recent decades. Not only have old firms like Toot ietoy and Playskool used plastic in their products, but the material

Chicago Toys has fostered many new toymakers in the Chicago region. Two companies are typical of this trend. The Processed Plastic Company of Montgomery, Illinois, was founded by its current president, Ross Bergman, in 1948. They make a host of inexpensive injection-molded toys. Vehicles, riding toys, tea sets, and plastic bags of cowboys and Indians are some of their products sold by K Mart, \,Voolworth's, and Ben Franklin stores. Another company, located in Morton Grove, a Chicago suburb, is Monogram Models. Founded in 1945, Monogram is one of the world's largest producers of plastic kits. Their 1982 offerings include cars, army tanks, ships, planes, and a model of the space shuttle Columbia.

There were many successful toy companies scattered all across the eastern half of the nation, and some were as creative and as successful as Chicago's. America never saw the development of any single true toymaker's city like Nuremberg in Germany; in several ways, however, the Chicago region has been something of an American equivalent. Railroads linked suburbs like Evanston and nearby cities like Freeport to Chicago's markets and manufacturers. The major materials of the industrial age-iron, steel, and finally plastic-were all abundant here. In obvious ways, bicycles, train sets, toy cars, paper dolls, and model space ships made in this industrial center have all mirrored changes taking place at large in American culture. They sprang from American tastes and values, which shaped the market that produced them. Lincoln Logs are a good example: patriotic, safe, and, within limits, creative. Successful companies often began with an original idea or a single toy and rose to influence within the industry. Small companies still appear, but absorption by large ones seems the trend.

It is appropriate, therefore, that Chicago is still home for Marvin Glass and Associates, a firm that for the past thirty years has been one of America's most prolific creators of new toy ideas. In an office on North LaSalle Street, inventors develop new ideas and prototype toys, which are licensed for production by other major manufacturers. In thi way, many contemporary toys that are manufactured elsewhere still originate in Chicago.

Toys manufactured by large conglomerates will probably dominate the market for the rest of the century. It certainly seems a world away from Fred Lundahl's present for his son Buddy. But the toys that result will still speak for the culture that made them, and Chicago's toys will speak loudly indeed.

Suggestions for Further Reading Readers interested in the cultural history of childhood should consult Philippe Aries's Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, translated by Robert Baldick (Vintage Books, 1965) or Th e History of Childhood (Harper and Row, 1975) edited by Lloyd de i\fause. A particularly informative short essay on toys and their relationship to the changing nature of American childhood in the past three centuries is John Brewer's "Childhood Revisited: The Genesis o[ the Modern Toy," which appeared in Educational Toys in America: 1800 to the Present (University Press of New England, 1979), the catalog written by Karen Hewitt and Louise Roomet for the exhibit of the same name at the University of Vermont's Robert Hull Fleming J\fuseum.

The only comprehensive study of the history of American toys is Inez and ~Iarshall l\IcClintock's Toys in America (Public Affairs Press, 1962), unfortunately, long out o[ print. American Antique Toys, 1830 to 1900 (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1980)

by Bernard Barenholtz and Inez i\fcClintock is a recent, beautifully illustrated redew of nineteenthcentury American toys. Two equally attractive photo studies concentrating primarily on European toys, but useful to readers interested in American toys, are Jae Remise and Jean Fondin's The Golden Age of Toys (Edita Lausanne, 1967) and Da\'id Pressland's The Art of the Tin Toy (Crown, 1976).

Two companies of the Chicago region have been subjects for collector-oriented books including useful company histories: James 'W ieland and Edward Force's Tootsietoys: The World's First Diecast Models (l\fotorbooks International, 1980) and Albert l\fcCollough's The Complete Book of Buddy "L" Toys (Greenberg Publishing Co., 1982).

The most useful and interesting information on specific toy companies in the Chicago region and elsewhere can be found in magazines aimed at antique collectors. The Toy Train Operators Society Bulletin has frequent articles on American Flyer trains. Spinning IVh eel magazine has featured a number of articles in the past on toys; an excellent article on Tinkertoys appeared in their 1 ovember/ December 1980 issue. The most important source is the Antique To y IVorld magazine published in Chicago by Dale Kelley. It regularly includes important articles and photographs on the broad range of American toys.

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Illinois Toys: 1880-1980

By Olivia Mahoney

an exhibit which will open at the Chicago Historical Society on December 18, 1982, includes more than 300 toys, books, and games manufactured in Chicago and northern Illinois over the past one hundred years. This exhibit has been organized to examine the function and role of toys in children's lives, to document the growth and development of the toy industry in Illinois, and to increase the public's awareness and appreciation of regional products and manufacturers.

Toys function primarily as playthings, and each has an important role in the varied and complex play activities of children. For example, children play with construction sets quite differently than they play with dolls. With these differences in mind, the toys in this exhibition have been grouped into eight categories: educational; books; games; construction; mechanical; dolls; outdoor; and fantasy-reality (such as toy vehicles and dollhouse furniture).

Within each of the eight divisions, the toys are further arranged by company and date of manufacture. Company histories, catalogs, photographs, and patent drawings are included in the exhibition to help explain the growth and development of Illinois's toy industry and to u¡ace changes in material, production, and style. More importantly, visitors will be able to place these regional toys in the context of American mass production in the industrial age.

The toys in the exhibit are among the most popular ever made in America, and some have remained so for fifty to a hundred years. Their manufacturers have developed good designs and innovative production methods; they have promoted their products with imagination and have distributed them efficiently throughout the country. This exhibit recognizes the significant contribution Illinois manufacturers have made to the world of toymaking.

ILLINOIS

TOYS:

1880--1980,

Olivia Mahoney, the Society's Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, is curator of the exhibit Illinois Toys: 1880-1980. The exhibit's assistant curator, Stacey Greenberger, is a volunteer at the Society .

198

Left and below: "Skeezix" and "Pal," two oilcloth dolls made in the 1920s by the Live Long Toy Company of Chicago, captured the charming qualities of Frank King's cartoon characters from the Tribune.

Alphabet blocks helped children learn ABCs, word and picture recognition, simple constrnction skills. For safety's the Halsam Company made these blocks rounded corners.

their and sake, with

To operate "The Chicago," made by the American Flyer Manufacturing Company in 1910, children wound the engine's clockwork motor which propelled the train along metal tracks.

199

Toy Exhibit

Above: Thousands of boys and girls pretended to be adult drivers with the "Flivver," a toy automobile made in the 1920s by the Moline Pressed Steel Company (Buddy "L"). The toy's authentic scale and detail contributed to the fantasy.

Left: An illustration from The Real Mother Goose by Chicago artist Blanche Fisher Wright.

Published in 1916 by Rand McNally & Co., Chicago, it remains one of their best sellers to date.

PE.ASE PORRIDGE I !OT

200

Below: Toddlers enjoyed pull toys because they could walk and play at the same time.

Joseph Wentzel of the Hustler Toy Company understood this principle and designed an entire line of these toys.

Toy Exhibit

Abo\'e: Boys a11d girls learned to manifJttlate objects and improved their ma11ual dexterity by usi11g Playskool's stringing beads and pou11ding be11ch. As childre11 grew in age and skill, they advanced to more challe11ging toys, such as building blocks and tool kits.

Left: Dolls have always given children the chance to imitate parental roles. The Raleigh doll, made i11 the 1920s, had life-like features a11d moveable limbs which made play seem even more realistic.

Below: Children's tricycles i11 the late 1880s were rather u11comfortable to ride. In 1875 George Marble of Chicago desig11ed this version which had a woode11 frame and an iron seat.

201

Uncle Mistletoe: A Chicago Christmas Tradition

By Robert P. Ledermann

'' They hadn't slept long when an odd little guy A-riding a carpet flew in and said Hi! My name's Uncle Mistletoe! Just take my hand We're going on a journey to Santa Claus Land!))

Portion of "A Christmas Dream' ' (7946 display window poem) by Helen McKenna

A TOY-LIKE FIGURE that is a more recent part of Chicago life, especially during the holiday season, is Uncle Mistletoe-a short Pickwickian figure with a jolly round face, fluffy white hair, a red coat, and black top hat. Since the late 1940s he has found his way onto many a Chicago Christmas tree and into the imagination of many Chicagoans young and old.

Uncle Mistletoe was conceived by Johanna Osborne at the behest of John Moss, then an interior and window display manager for Marshall Field's department store on State Street. In the early 1940s, Moss had designed cheerful window displays that featured Clement C. Moore's poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," and in 1946 he gave his assistant, Johanna Osborne, the job of creating an image for the store's Christmas windows which would generate the same delightful response as Moss's earlier efforts. With her ideas in mind, she relayed them to her husband Addis, who taught a children's class at the Art Institute, and Addis then produced sketches of the now familiar figure. Moss and the store vice-president, Lawrence Sizer, received her ideas warmly, and with Helen McKenna (who would write the Uncle Mistletoe poems), they agreed on the name "Uncle Mistletoe" to evoke the spirit of Christmas.

Mistletoe first appeared in Field's Christmas windows in 1946 with McKenna's accompanying story poem entitled, "A Christmas Dream," in which a young boy and girl dream of being transported on Uncle Mistletoe's magic carpet to the North Pole for a visit with Santa. The

Robert P. L edermann resides in Chicago with his wife Annette. A retail credit manager by profession, he is currently writing a book on Uncle Mistletoe.

202

windows were well received, and Uncle Mistletoe later appeared in Field's newspaper ads and became the store's Christmas symbol. Small versions were sold as tree ornaments, and a larger model graced the giant tree in Field's Walnut Room restaurant.

Yet it was not necessary to go shopping on State Street to meet Uncle Mistletoe. In 1948 Field's created a television puppet show based on his adventures. The show featured the voices of Johnny Coons (noted for the "Vic and Sade" and "Ma Perkins" radio shows), Jennifer Holt (daughter of movie cowboy Jack Holt), and later, Doris Larson. From the television show came several popular children's songs about Uncle Mistletoe: "The Kindness Club" (The Kindness Club itself invited children to write to Mistletoe and describe a good deed; in return they would receive a copy of the song and a "Kindness Club Button."); "Welcome to Wonderland" (story and song); "Uncle Mistletoe" ; and "Uncle Mistletoe Christmas" (which featured "We \'\Tish You a Merry Christmas").

The television show lasted only until 1952, but the figure of Uncle Mistletoe long outlived it. Over the years the Ii ttle man and his wife, "Aunt Holly," have appeared in the windows in various settings. One of the most memorable was of the "Cozy Cloud Cottage" on the eighth floor, which they shared with Santa Claus, and where children could meet him. One of Mistletoe's appearances is still an annual event, however. Each year, freshly fitted with a clean suit of clothes, Uncle Mistletoe adorns the Great Tree in Marshall Field's seventh floor restaurant-a reminder of a commercial idea that took on more than a commercial meaning.

Above: In this 1949 photograph, the figure of Uncle Mistletoe appeared both atop and around the base of the great tree in the Walnut Room at Marshall Field's on State Street. Marshall Field & Company.

Right: The figure of Uncle Mistletoe was first introduced to the public in November, 1946 in a Marshall Field's window display entitled, "A Christmas Dream." Marshall Field & Company.

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Portrait of Richard Teller Crane, self-made millionaire and self-appointed foe of higher education. Portrait by A. Zorn. CHS, ICHi-17080, gift of Mrs. R. G. Carlson .

204

Richard Teller Crane's War with the Colleges

By Abigail Loomis and Franklin E. Court

Academic learning beyond the essentials of the grammar grades in public school is waste of time and waste of money for the boy who is to enter commercial life.'' a

R. T. Crane, as quoted by Hollis W. Field in the Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1907

Richard Teller Crane was a classic example of the selfmade man, the rugged American individualist whose ambition and unrelenting drive for success enabled him to create an economic empire out of brass fittings and elevators. By the time he reached his sixty-eighth birthday at the turn of the century, he had amassed a twentymillion-dollar fortune and a great number of factories across the country.

If only he had confined himself to making money and building factories, there would be little reason for recounting the particulars of his long and busy life. But R. T. Crane, called "ironmaster" by his employees, had an overwhelming obsession, one that caused him to undertake one of the most concentrated fanatical campaigns ever launched against the American system of higher education. Crane hated colleges, and he hated philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie, who gave money to build libraries and academic institutions, even more.

(He called Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute of Technology "Carnegie's Twelve-Million Dollar Blunder." Better for the nation, he insisted, if Carnegie had doubled the sum and dropped the whole bundle into the ocean.) Crane's vendetta became public knowledge when he published his firs't attack in 1902, and for the next ten years of his life he dedicated a great deal of his time toward trying to rid the nation of its colleges and universities. In taking this stand, Crane instigated a debate that compelled national figures from education, business, and

MILLIONAIRE

CHICAGO

INDUSTRIALIST

Abigail Loomis is on the staff of Founders M emorial Library, North e rn Illinois University, D eKalb.

Franklin E . Court is Professor of English at Northâ&#x20AC;˘ ern Illinois University.

politics to respond to his charges and publicly to state their views on the purpose of a university education.

Richard Teller Crane was born into a working-class family in Paterson, New Jersey, on May 15, 1832. His father, a builder-architect, "possessed more than an ordinary amount of mechanical ability," which Crane would later claim to have inherited. At the age of nine, after only two or three years of formal schooling, he went to work full-time in a cotton factory. In 1847 he moved to a brass shop in Brooklyn. Despite his natural aptitude, his first year there was not happy, "largely due to my lack of mechanical knowledge, which rendered me extremely awkward in these matters and made my progress during that time very slow."

Two years later he left to work for Hoe and Co. in New York making printing presses.

Crane lost his job during the panic of 1854, and he headed west to Chicago, where his uncle, lumber magnate Martin Ryerson, gave him a small piece of land at Canal and Fulton streets.

There he opened a brass and bell foundry in 1855 when he was twenty-three years old. In 1858 he began making steam heaters; in 1862 he added an iron foundry; and by 1864, he had built a four-story factory. Three years later he started to manufacture freight and passenger elevators. By the 1870s he was a wealthy man with a score of factories all over the country, and he was rapidly becoming one of the era's leading industrialists.

During his lifetime Crane married three times and fathered nine children, two of whom died early in childhood. His first wife, Mary Josephine Prentice, whom he married in 1857, bore all of his children. Two years after her 205

R. T. Crane

Richard and Mary Josephin e Cran e with th eir seven mrvivin g children, 1875. Des pite Crnn e's hatred of college life, his son Richard T., Jr. (center) gradiwted from Yale in 1885 . Portrai t by Th eodore E. Pin e, gi ft of the Richard Teller Crane Family. CHS, ZCHi-17081 .

death in 1885, Crane married her sister, Eliza Ann Prentice. In 1903, the year after Eliza died, the seventy-one-year-old Crane married Emily S. Hutchinson, a woman considerably younger.

In his business life, R. T. Crane was an industrial paternalist who was used to having things his own way, particularly with his workers. In 1886, during a period of widespread labor agitation for a shortened, eight-hour workday, Crane refused to accede to the demand and threatened to close his shop. In 1894 he ordered a whopping fifteen percent reduction in workers' wages in his Chicago plant to compensate for declining market prices. His workers went out on strike and stayed out for several days, but Crane again had his way by enforcing a successful lockout. Crane was also 206

a benevolent autocrat, however, and a good shepherd to his hardworking flock. In 1893, for instance, he generously offered to pay all the expenses for his workers and their families to visit Chicago's World 's Columbian Exposition.

One of Crane's strongest convictions was the need for manual and vocational training, which was to his mind the only useful education after grade school. He gave the Chicago Board of Education large sums of money to equip manual training rooms in Chicago grade schools, and he provided scholarships for prospective teachers of industrial arts. In recognition of his generosity and interest in the public schools, the board named the R. T. Crane Manual Training High School for him.

Although a strong supporter of vocational training for elementary schools, Crane believed

R. T. Crane that any higher form of education was a waste of time-especially college education. In his estimation, college only encouraged and accelerated the moral deterioration of the men who attended. It is not known how long Crane's animosity toward higher education may have been festering, but in 1902 he managed to draw considerable public attention to his feelings with the publication of his book, The Utility of an A cademic or Classical Education for Young Men Who Have to Earn Th eir Own Living and Who Expect to Pursue a Commercial Life. By 1909 the book had gone into a third edition and appeared along with a collection of articles attacking technical and special schools as well. Its new, shorter title was The Utility of All Kinds of Higher Schooling. By this time, Crane had decided that no aspect of higher education would escape his dogged scrutiny.

In the 1909 edition of his book, Crane boasted that his arguments had "knocked out" his opposition. He assured his readers that his criticisms in this book were even more irrefutable in 1909 than they had been when the book originally appeared in 1902, and he also issued the valiant warning to all contenders that his study "can not be ... assailed successfully." Higher education was a waste of time and money, and it inflated the heads of its young students. As he explained it: a young ma n who goes to college . . . comes out so conceited that he is at a great disadvantage in getting into business, and it takes years, and sometimes a lifetime, to get his head back to a normal size . . . . The whole tendency of ... "higher education" is to puff the young man up with vanity, causing him to look with contempt upon labor, and even to despise his parents.

How closely Crane himself still identified with the working class can only be left to conjecture, though he bnce said that "the big men in business today were poor boys of yesterday. The big men of tomorrow are to be found among the poor boys of today."

Crane's book did manage to land a hard blow to the burgeoning agricultural college at the University of ¡w isconsin. In a chapter entitled " How the University of Wisconsin Defrauds the State," he discounted claims that the university's agricultural school had been

re ponsible for increased statewide corn and barley yields between 1904 and 1907. These must be lies, he said, because the yield from the university's experimental fields for that same period had not increased at all. According to Crane, the entire state of vVisconsin had been duped, and it was high time to shut clown the school of agriculture. The university's president, Charles R. Van Hise, did not read the attack, and he insisted, much to Crane's consternation, that he would not do so.

In 1910 Crane answered his detractors by publishing a sequel, R. T. Crane's Reply to Criticisms on His Book The Utility of All Kinds of Higher Schooling. It was evident from his pamphlet that he had established a national image. While cataloging his critics, he ingenuously remarked that "some of them think it is a sufficient answer to call me an ass; others call me an idiot, and say that I am incapable of thinking. Mr. Gunsaulus [Frank ,i\r. Gunsaulus of Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology] calls me a troglodyte." Most of his other, less candid critics, such as Wisconsin's President Van Hise, he simply dismissed with the assertion that they had not read his book. If they had, Crane asserted, they obviously would have agreed with him.

Crane next attacked the agricultural school at the University of Illinois in a March 1911 issue of The Valve World, his privately owned, Chicago-based trade journal. The year before, the New York Evening Post had run an article praising the university for its agronomy research that had helped increase the average corn yield in Illinois by five bushels per acre. Crane labeled these claims fraudulent and concluded that the University of Illinois and its president, Edmund J. James, were "just making a big bluster and humbugging the people of Illinois." In I 9 IO the dean of the agricu Iture school had sent a six-page letter to Crane in which an agronomy professor patiently explained how the increased corn yield had come to pass, but Crane had obstinately refused to have any second thoughts on the question.

Th e Valve World was Crane's forum once again in August 1911 when he published an expose of college life on the basis of data that he had paid a private detective to gather in 1903. He had warned in an earlier pub207

R. T. Crane

Crane denounced claims by the University of Illinois that experimental farms run by its agricultural school had increased the state's com yield. In a letter to the university's president, Crane said the school was "humbugging the people of Illinois." From Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, 1926. CHS, JCHi-17075.

lication that he had hired the investigator to look into the conduct of Harvard students and that the details were just too offensive to be made public at that time. But in 1911 Crane decided to strike the final blow by exposing the fundamental corruption and immorality of college life. It is likely that he also recognized that higher education was gaining ground in the public's esteem despite his efforts, and he thought that the time had come for the coup de grace.

A longer version of the expose appeared in Crane's pamphlet, The Demoralization of College Life. Crane began this piece by restating his stand on higher education: It is well known that I am out of all sympathy with educational institutions, so-called, beyond the common school. I believe that time and money

208

are spent with no adequate return, and that six to eight years of the lives of our boys are worse than wasted through the folly of American parents, who are hoping thereby to equip their sons for a successful business career and to see them in character and purpose a credit to the home and nation.

J\[y investigations have covered several yearsten at least-brought about by my actual sorrow in seeing so many boys and young men a drain and a burden upon society through their inability to achieve success in any creditable calling. I have corresponded with many hundreds of college men; I have watched them in all trades and professions; I have left no stone unturned to ascertain exact facts, to learn the unvarnished truth ....

Crane's correspondence with the students revealed that 90 percent of those polled drank hard liquor in their freshman year; 45 percent had "two or three 'bats' a year"; and no less than 65 percent admitted to combining "wine and bad women." Colleges, Crane insisted,

R. T. Crane

Crane's personal wealth enabled him to publish several attacks on college education and campm life between 1909 and his death in 1912. CHS, ICHi-17101.

were now finally exposed as "nurseries of drunkenness and immorality."

Crane's private detective had gathered even more damaging information by stationing himself in Lhe restaurant of a particular hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for fourteen evenings between the hours of 8 and 12 P.M.-an impressive total of fifty-six hours of sitting and watching. The carefully detailed journal that resulted was ¡ promptly forwarded to Crane's headquarters in Chicago. One particularly entertaining entry documented the scandalous behavior of four students who entered the restaurant, ordered a series of mixed drinks, and then "after a most disgusting exhibition of vomiting, were ejected."

The journal was followed by a detailed account of the rampant dissipation attributed to clubs and fraternities on other eastern cam-

puses. At Yale, where Crane's son, Richard T., Jr., received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1885, the detective reported that the situation was truly grave.* Clubs reserved tables at the saloons where "students carve their initials in the tables and these tables are afterwards preserved." At Princeton, students drank more beer on a regular basis than at Harvard. But the most debauched place of all, according to the detective, was Columbia, as its location was close to the New York bistros.

Most of the information Crane used in his earlier books and in the Valve World articles came from lengthy questionnaires that he composed and sent to prominent educational leaders, businessmen, and college graduates, querying them on the commercial success of college men. One such questionnaire addressed to a selection of college presidents asked, "Is there, in your opinion, any evidence that [a college education] is of any advantage to this class of young men? If so, what evidence?"

The lack of simple, practical replies to the question only confirmed his belief that a college education was a waste of time. Although he was convinced of the soundness of this method because he asked "simple, straightforward questions" to which he expected like answers, Crane found most of the replies too vague or intentionally evasive. He seems to have operated from the peculiar premise that the soundness of his argument was affirmed by the lack of responses or by attempts to convince him of the complexity of some of the issues he raised. On one occasion he sent out 1593 surveys but received only 65 replies. He concluded that the 65 replies constituted "the best showing which can be made on the affirmative side." The 1528 who did not reply failed to do so because they led unsuccessful lives.

The intensity of Crane's attack on the nation's colleges never waned. Later in I9ll he published another of his diatribes, The Futility of Technical Schools in Connection with Mechanics and Manufacturing or Electrical and Civil Engineering. Shortly before his death on January 8, 1912, he wrote the last in his series of published works, an article that he sent to â&#x20AC;˘Richard Crane, Sr., ne,¡er published his reasons for allowing his son to altend an eastern university.

209

R. T. Crane Chicago newspapers urging that the Univer5ity of Illinois be burned to the ground. The article appeared next to his obituary.

The reasons for Richard Teller Crane's hostility toward institutions of higher learning are not known, but there are several possibilities.

His actions may have stemmed from a simple objection to an increase in taxes on his business profits to subsidize colleges. In a letter written to University of Illinois's President Edmund James on March 21, 1911, Crane argued that the university was asking for outrageous tax appropriations from the state legislature, requests "that can not be defended on the ground of what the University has accomplished ... appropriations that the revenues of the State do not warrant." He believed that the money would have been better spent if it had been used instead to improve the elementary schools.

In another letter to President J arnes, Crane argued that he was not opposed to education, but he didn't want educational funds spent on the "trimmings" of "so-called higher education," until "every boy and girl has had or does have an opportunity to get a good elementary education."

Though oversimplified, his argument did have merit. At the time, there was a significant number of children in the country who were not receiving an adequate elementary education. But since the financial assistance that Crane gave to the grade schools did not substantially improve the academic quality of the schools-except to provide for a few manual training instructors and some additional shop facilities-one suspects that Crane's animus against higher education had far more personal than pedagogical origins. He was admittedly more interested in the young students as potential foundry workers than he seems to have been in their abilities to manage the traditional three Rs. Certainly, an educational system geared to manual training would have served his business interests far better than a system based on a state tax structure that encouraged potential workers to aspire to something other than a job in a brass works.

More likely, however, is the possibility that Crane's preoccupation with university pro210

grams-engineering in particular-had roots in his self-image as¡ the "ironmaster" who had built an economic empire without the benefit of formal schooling. At one point in his quarrel with the University of Illinois, he asked for and received a list of graduates from the university's civil engineering program. He promptly sent each of them a questionnaire asking if they had been gainfully employed after college and if they thought their engineering preparation at the university was worth the time and expense. The implication that governed his questioning was that the training was, in fact, worthless. Most of the graduates never replied, and those who did gave Crane little substantive evidence to boost his campaign.

University engineering and agricultural programs were not Crane's only targets; he also believed that law schools were "the great curse of our country." He said that he would rather put his money into a scheme for spreading smallpox than support a law school. One reason he objected to lawyers, he admitted frankly, was because a case involving his company had cost him twelve thousand dollars as a result of "the unscrupulous lawyers and idiotic judges" keeping the case in the courts for more than ten years. The medical profession fared no better. Crane deemed it an outrage to be compelled to support medical schools, let alone have to later pay the "imbeciles, sharks and dead-beats that they turn out." And research was for dreamers, men afflicted with chronic viruses: some had "the astronomy microbe"; some suffered from "the meteorite bacillus" or the "archeological germ"; others were victims of "the north-pole mania"; and yet others were afflicted with "the flying-machine bug."

As intemperate as his criticisms were, the fact that Crane was not summarily dismissed or laughed off as an ill-tempered cr!1nk by the public or the academic world is testimony not only to Richard T. Crane's good business reputation around the country, but also an indication that America's universities were experiencing complex growing pains. Dominating the attitudes of academicians and other supporters of higher education at the turn of the century was an overwhelming sense of the need to justify the utility of a college education to students, state legislatures, prospective em-

R. T. Crane

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Graduate institutions such as Harvard Medical Srhool w ere a special target of Crane's. He resented having lo support the "imbeciles, sharks and dead-beats that they turn out ." CHS, ICHi-17078, gift of Rand McXally & Co111pan)'·

ployers, and tuition-paying parents.

From 1890 until at least 1925, the history of higher education was characterized by efforts on the part of educators to "sell" the idea that college benefited students-practically and socially. There was also a movement to convince wealthy industrialists and the business community in general that colleges actually could make useful economic and social contributions to the nation. Crane's bellicose railing about the uselessness of a college education threatened the new image of the university that educators were trying to project, and their fear of losing newly won ground to their critics caused them to treat Crane in a serious manner.

The danger of Crane's charges was underscored by manufacturer J. V. Schaefer, an 1889 alumnus of the University of Illinois, who wrote to President James warning him of the "harmful influence" Crane's publications exerted when "broadcast over the name of a man who has had a very successful business career."

Schaefer believed that "broadminded men" would not agree with Crane, but his "influence for harm will be great" unless concerned university administrators reacted to him seriously

enough to reply publicly.

Schaefer's fears were well founded, and a considerable number of administrators and professors from all parts of the country did reply publicly. Ironically, many of the responses did more to confirm Crane's doubts about the perspicacity of college men than Crane ever could have hoped to do. For example, in response to the claim that Harvard students wasted valuable time in poolrooms, Dr. R. S. Copeland, president of the University of Michigan Club, countered with the profound observation that if a boy succumbed to the temptation to play billiards in his home town, "he will play billiards in his college town." J. G. Hibben, professor of philosophy and later president of Princeton, responded by assuring the nation that drinking had been steadily decreasing among Princeton's undergraduates. Dean Frederick Jones of Yale responded similarly. Yale was "improving steadily," he said, adding that Crane's attack was unwarranted, as "no man can drink and carouse here." Such defensiveness suggests that these men may have had good reason to question the actual sobriety of their scholars.

211

R. T. Crane President Schurman of Cornell, however, was far more forthright in his response. "Mr. Crane's allegations are a libel and outrage," he declared, "on a group of the ablest, most highminded and devoted citizens of the republic."

He was referring, surprisingly, to the faculty and administrators of the schools in question, not to the students. Schurman felt certain that the morals and behavior of his staff were beyond question. He left the defense of Cornell's students to H. W. Rowlee, chairman of the university's Committee on Student Affairs.

Rowlee argued that Crane did not have the facts, for he was sure that "not more than one percent" of Cornell's students imbibed alcoholic beverages on a regular basis.

FinaIJy, on September 17, 1911, a week after the original news stories startled the nation, Harvard's President A. Lawrence Lowell responded. Although he attacked Crane for his short-sightedness, he did not deny the charges.

Instead, he argued that a whole view of college life must be considered, not just the backside, as Crane seemed to prefer. "One must see the man who, while earning money to put himself through college, is helping to support his mother at home, and his sister at Radcliffe," argued Lowell.

Despite these attempts to refute Crane's attacks, there was a surprising number of academicians who publicly agreed with him. Samuel Avery, for instance, who was chancellor of the University of Nebraska, applauded Crane's crusade against moral decay on campuses-the product of the "idle rich," he concluded. Avery then invoked the wisdom of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany who had openly denounced "the abuse of intoxicants at social functions."

Colonel James B. Curtis, president of Delta Tau Delta, praised Crane's efforts and agreed that colleges could never provide the safeguards of home. He noted that he had also studied the problem and was convinced that the solution was an increase of "athletic sports." If colleges imbued the student "with the fact that he cannot be a great athlete and an immoral youth at the same time," they might solve the problem. If Colonel Curtis had done his homework, however, he would have discovered that R. T. Crane detested collegiate extracurricular activities, especially athletics. He singularly disliked 212

football, which he classified with glee club concerts as prime examples of the really shoddy nature of college life.

The most striking aspect of the controversy was the involvement of national political figures. Woodrow Wilson, who had been elected to the New Jersey governorship in 1910, rose to defend his beloved Princeton, claiming that there was "no truth" in Crane's charges. Princeton students were "a studious, hardworking lot of young men." Wilson, who had served as the university's president between 1902 and 1910, had been largely responsible for "drying up" the campus, so he must have felt more than a small amount of personal annoyance.

Eventually, the fracas reached the White House and President William Howard Taft, who in the faJI of 1911 was in the midst of a nomination campaign. In September he told an audience at the University of Kansas that he personally resented Crane's "muck-raking"; American colleges were not seedbeds of sin and vice, he said, because dissipation and drinking were actually "frowned upon by the public opinion" of the colleges. Taft's response was not extraordinary, but it was amazing that he felt obliged to respond at all. For at least a short time in 19ll, Crane was a national celebrity.

He had succeeded in gaining widespread national publicity for his campaign. The longer he battled, the more serious the whole issue appeared in the eyes of many. But not everyone took him so seriously. While Crane was amassing statistics and lambasting academic institutions with them-and as threatened educators and politicians fought off the onslaught-the Chicago Tribune of September 15, I 91 I, quietly noted that on the previous clay a group of Princeton graduates had gotten together in a Chicago suburb for their annual athletic carnival to play a game of softball. The members of the winning team were given solid gold bats, the gift of a Princeton jeweler. The losers were said to have been consoled with beer mugs, "the gifts of R. T. Crane."

Within a relatively short time after his death in 1912, Crane's campaign was forgotten. All of the time, money, and energy he expended on the battle seem to have had little actual effect on altering the course of American high-

R. T. Crane

Despite his animus toward higher education, Crane had always been a strong advocate of vocational training. In response to his support, the Chicago Board of Education named the Richard Teller Crane Manual Training High School for him in 1903. CHS, ICHi17073.

er education. But he did manage to put educators on the defensive during a crucial period in the development of American universities. The result was that they were obliged to air their case publicly, at a time when an increased public awareness of the goals of higher education actually served their best interest. President James of the University of Illinois explained the ironic phenomenon to a concerned alumnus in a letter which referred specifically to Crane's accusation that the university had defrauded the state:

given the opportunity to gain the kind of education he so strongly opposed. With his vast wealth, he could have given a considerable amount of aid to higher education in those developing years. And, like Andrew Carnegie, he could have been remembered as a great benefactor of education rather than as its self-appoin ted nemesis. But, as Field also pointed out, perhaps if Crane had had the benefit of a formal education, he would not have become a multimillionaire.

Selected Sources

The only effect that I could find of this matter, which was sent to all the newspapers in the state and the members of the legislature, was a loud guffaw wherever it was read by the members of the legislature, an increase in our appropriations, an increase in the number of students in the University, and I rather felt on the whole that the longer Mr. Crane continued with his attacks the better. Perhaps I may be mistaken.

The picture of Crane that emerges is that of an obstinate, irascible old titan trying resolutely to hold back the passage of time. This vision, in one respect, is comical, but it is also, to a large extent, quite sad. In a 1907 Tribune article on Crane, Hollis W. Field noted that Crane was a lonely, almost reclusive man who found contentment in his old age playing solitaire by the hours. Field wondered what Crane might have done with that spare time if he had been

Correspondence with and about R. T. Crane from September 1901 to December 1911, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana.

Crane, R. T. The Utility of All Kinds of Higher Schooling. Chicago: H. 0. Shepard, 1909.

- - - . R. T. Crane's Reply to Criticisms on His Book The Utility of All Kinds of Higher Schooling. 1910.

- - - . The Demoralization of College Life: Report of an Investigation at Harvard and a Reply to My Critics. Chicago: H. 0. Shepard, 1911.

- - - . The Futility of Technical Schools in Connection with Mechanics and Manufacturing or Electrical and Civil Engineering. Chicago, 1911.

- - - . The Autobiography of Richard Teller Crane. Chicago: privately published, 1927.

Rudolph, Frederick. The American College and University: A History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1962.

Veysey, Laurence R. The Emergence of the American University. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965.

MANUSCRIPTS:

213

Looking Backward Educating "The Whole Boy" at the Chicago Manual Training School

By Nancy Farwell Leman

If Stanley Farwelrs career is any measure, Richard T. Crane's support of vocational training was well placed. Yet Farwell, a graduate of the Chicago Manual Training School,found that a university education also had much to offer him in his search for success.

LONG BEFORE Richard Teller Crane began his public campaign for vocational training, there existed in Chicago and elsewhere manual training schools that taught just the kind of useful skills that Crane said were vital for a successful business career. One of the first of these institutions was the Chicago Manual Training School, located at Twelfth Street and Michigan Avenue. The memories of one early student, Stanley Farwell, confirm that the education offered by the school could make a practical difference in the lives of high school boys.

The Chicago Manual Training School was founded in 1883 by the Commercial Club of Chicago, whose members recognized a need for a school that educated "the whole boy," one that offered courses such as carpentry along with a study of academic subjects. At the club's meeting of March 23, 1882, Marshall Field made a "conditional promise" of $20,000, and soon several other businessmen pledged large sums toward the $100,000 goal. A year later the lot at Twelfth and Michigan was purchased and the cornerstone laid. The school's first board of trustees included such notable Chicago businessmen as E. W. Blatchford, John Crerar, Marshall Field, George M. Pullman, and Richard Teller Crane himself.

In June 1883 the club appointed Dr. Henry Holmes Belfield as the school's director. Bel-

Nancy Farwell Leman teaches English at Oregon State University.

214

field had had extensive experience as a principal and superintendent of schools in Dubuque, Iowa, before he joined the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a grammar school principal and then as principal of North Division High School. He was active in the National Education Association and served as a special commissioner for the Department of Labor. In his t,venty-three-year tenure as director of the Chicago Manual Training School, and later as a clean of University High School, his broad views would have a great impact on both slllclents and their studies. "\i\Ti th the help of an excellent staff, Dr. Belfield developed an extensive curriculum in keeping with his concept that the school stood for "accuracy of thought, honesty of work, clear thinking, and the development of judgment and will power." According to its Articles of Incorporation, the school's objective was to give students Instruction and practice in the use of tools, with such instruction as may be deemed necessary in mathematics, drawing, and the English branches of a high school course. The tool instruction as at present contemplated shall include carpentry, wood turning, pattern making, iron chipping and filing, forge work, brazing and soldering, the use of machine shop tools, and such other instruction of a similar character as may be deemed advisable to add to the foregoing from time to time, it being the intention to divide the working hours of the

A wood shop cldss at the Chicago Manual Training School, founded in 1882 by the Commercial Club of Chicago to give boys both an academic and a vocational editcation. From Memories of Chicago Manual, 1940.

students, as nearly as possible, equally between manual and mental exercises.

Students spent a demanding six hours working at school and studied three hours at home, condensing the usual four-year high school academic work and their shop work into a three-year

period. Many times these young men would be awarded advanced placement in college for their work at the Manual Training School.

By 1893 vocational schools had opened in other parts of the city, and enrollment had decreased at the Chicago Manual Training School, causing the trustees to implement a cur215

Chicago Manual

Left: This building at Twelfth Street and Michigan Avenue was the Manual Training School's home from 1884 until 1897, when it merged with two other schools. CHS, ICHi17094, gift of Gerard S. Brown.

Below: Boys learned to fashion furniture and other wrought iron objects in the school's forge shop. From Memories of Chicago Manual, 1940.

216

Chicago 1"\Ianual

Eliphalet W. Blatchford, president of the Chicago White Lead and Oil Company, was also the first president of the school's board of trustees. CHS, ICHi095-16, gift of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Millionaire philanthropist John Crera1¡, who had made his fortune in railway mpplies, was a founder of the Chicago Manual Training School and one of its first trustees. CHS, ICHi-17096.

riculum offering more college preparatory and business courses. These changes did not lessen the student workload, nor did they introduce more than basic subjects. Music education was not offered, and, as the school did not have a gymnasium or playing field, students could not take physical education courses.

By 1897 the declining enrollment at the Chicago Manual Training School forced it to merge with the South Side Academy and John Dewey's University Laboratory School. The merger took place under the auspices of the University of Chicago, and the resulting institution was named the University High School.

This institution, along with two schools for the elementary and middle grades, are now known as the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

Stanley Farwell was a member of the Manual Training School's class of 1900. Born in 1883, he had just completed seventh grade when he took and passed the school's entrance exam, and in September 1897 he began his course of study there. His father, social reformer Arthur Burrage Farwell, could not afford to pay the first-year tuition of $80, so Stanley's aunt and uncle paid the bill.

"I soon found that I could keep up with the rest of my class," Farwell would write many years later in his autobiography. "Class standings were posted monthly. Out of about 100 in my class I usually stood third and once in a while hit first." He spent many hours in the school's workshops fashioning various items for the home: "I made a circular table of quartersawed oak in wood shop. It was so sturdy that at this late date it is located in my living room in Corvallis, Oregon. In my garage is an ornate wrought-iron lamp base which I made in the forge shop. I also have a little brass anvil from the foundry."

After graduating from the Chicago Manual Training School, Farwell found his first job at the Western Electric Company, where he worked at various jobs nine hours a day, six days a week. He was paid $1 a day. Ambitious for something better, he started night classes in electricity at the new Armour Institute.

His years at the Chicago Manual Training School had helped him decide on a career path, and many of the skills he had learned in the 217

Chicago Manual

Above: Stanley P. Farwell graduated from the Chicago Manual Training School in 1900 and went on to receive bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinnois. Photograph by Dan Hardy.

Leff: Shop work consumed one-third of a student's time at the 1'1anual Training School, with one hour daily devoted to mechanical drawing and the remainder of his sixhour clay spent on academics. From Memories of Chicago Manual, 1940.

Below: In this photograph of the school's class of 1900, Stanley Farwell is third from the left in the third row from the top. Clarence Darrow's son Paul is second from the left in the top row.

218

Chicago Manual school's carpentry and machine shops were useful to him in later life. Yet Farwell could not apply Crane's formula-a practical high school education alone leads to success-to his own career. He decided that if he was ever going "to get anywhere in the engineering field," he would have to get a college degree. With the help of Claude Enochs, his supervisor at Western Electric and a graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois (one of Crane's chief targets), Farwell applied and was accepted at the university. He started classes in September 1904 as a sophomore because the university had already given him several credits for his work at the Manual Training School.

Farwell graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1907.

He soon found work with a private utility company in Oklahoma, where he read gas and electric meters in Enid and later in Oklahoma City. During the Panic of 1907, money became scarce, so he returned to Chicago "while I still had [the] money for transportation." He got a job with Commonwealth Edison (where the man he worked for was also a graduate of the University of Illinois), and he was assigned to the Dearborn Street substation in the basement of an office building on Dearborn between Monroe and Madison.

Several months later he received a letter from Professor Morgan Brooks, head of the electrical engineering department of the University of Illinois, asking him if he would be interested in starting a similar department at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. In the fall of 1908, Farwell took the position of assistant professor of electrical engineering at Centre, where he taught mathematics, surveying, and astronomy. The position was to lead him to the next step in his own education, a master's degree.

One of the machines I installed in the electrical engineering laboratory was a rotary converter.

When it was thrown on the alternating current from the local power plant, it "hunted," that is, gave out a regular pulsating sound. I was familiar with this phenomenon and had the idea that I might work up a master's thesis and degree by a study of this "aberration." I wrote the Electrical Engineering Department back at Illinois. They approved the study, I made it, wrote the required thesis, and was awarded an M.S. "in absentia" at the 1910 Commencement.

By this time Farwell had concluded that Centre College could not support an engineering department, and soon thereafter he accepted an offer from Professor Arthur Newell Talbot, head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at the University of Illinois, to teach in that department for a salary of $1,200. He stayed there for three years, and in his last year took a salary cut in order to accept a fellowship in electrical engineering at Illinois.

The subject of my thesis was "The Corona Produced by Continuous Potentials." Corona, by the way, is an electrical phenomenon which appears as a blue haze or spots along a wire charged with a high voltage, either alternating or direct current ....

[My] research was under the direction of Dr. Jacob Kunz, a scientist who had discovered that the brightness of stars could be measured by a selenium cell. ... I wrote a thesis on this research and at Commencement in June, 1914, was awarded the first Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering granted by the University.

His education now completed, Farwell took a job with the newly established State Public Utilities Commission of Illinois in Springfield.

Six months later he married Louise Austin, whom he had met in Champaign, and they moved into their new home in the state's capital. After two years there, they came back to Chicago, and over the next forty years Farwell held a number of positions in the management engineering field, including a job with utilities magnate Samuel Insult. In 1956 he retired from his position as president of the Business Research Corporation and was soon asked to serve as village administrator of Northfield, where he lived. He retired once more in 1963, at the age of eighty, and moved to Oregon to be with his family.

If Stanley Farwell's career is any measure, Richard Crane was probably half wrong and half right: many young men finished high school and worked their way up within a company without the benefit of a college education.

Others, perhaps more ambitious, completed their degrees and traveled through different doors to success. In this education-conscious age, Crane's are not popular views, but as Farwell would testify, the kind of education that Crane did advocate-manual training-at least got many young men off to a good start.

219

Review Essay Touring the Great Lakes IN THIS PERIOD of high travel costs, more people are turning to vacations closer to home. A locale receiving increasing attention is one that previous generations knew and greatly appreciated-the area around Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. Here, not very far from Chicago and Milwaukee, are extensive forests, magnificent waterfalls, mammoth sand dunes, secluded beaches, and rocky precipices and shorelines. And here too are durable ethnic communities, ghost towns reflecting a once much more vigorous mining and lumbering economy, historic sites full of Indian and pioneer lore, and evidence throughout of man's interaction with the environment. Many of the most interesting places in this area are generally well known, such as Door County, Isle Royale National Park, Soo Canal, Mackinac Island, Charlevoix, Holland, and Saugatuck.

But numerous lesser known places amply reward the visitor.

Reflecting the growing interest in the area, four new paperback guidebooks have recently been published; each has a different approach to enjoyable touring in the region. These books differ markedly from the popular oil company and motor club guidebooks. The new guides emphasize the pleasures of vacationing that can be derived from an understanding of the varied historic, cultural, economic, and physical aspects of the area, rather than on its lodging and food facilities. Thus they are excellent supplements to their commercial counterparts.

Around the Shores of Lake Superior: A Guide to Historic Sites by Margaret Beattie Bogue and Virginia A. Palmer (i\Iadison: University of Wisconsin Sea Grant College Program, 1979), $7.95; The Great Lakes Guidebook: Lake Superior and Western Lake Michigan by George Cantor (Ann Arbor: The University of J\fichigan Press, 1979), $5.95; The Great Lakes Guidebook: Lake Huron and Eastern Lake Michigan by George Cantor (Ann Arbor: The University of l\Iichigan Press, 1979), $5 .95; Around Lake Michigan by Jean R. Komaiko, Beverly H. Barsy, and Ruth S. Mackelmann (Boston: Houghton Millin Co., 1980), 7.95.

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Around the Shores of Lake Superior: A Guide to Historic Sites by Margaret Beattie Bogue and Virginia A. Palmer is the most historically oriented of the four guidebooks and one that should appeal to the armchair traveler as well as the tourist. The authors are associated with the University of ,visconsin history program, and the research was funded by the university's Sea Grant College Program. The often overlooked Lake Superior region is a recreational area with vast untramplecl forests where bear, wolf, and moose run wild. It is the traditional home of the Chippewa Indians, thousands of whom still live on local reservations. Europeans in search o( the Northwest Passage explored the area, and they were followed by fur traders, lumberjacks, miners, fishermen, and farmers. Today ships from throughout the world traverse Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake.

The authors guide the reader on a more than 1,000-mile journey from Duluth-Superior, clockwise along the northern shores of the Jake, through southwestern Ontario to Sault Ste. l\Iarie, and then westward across nonhern i\Jichigan and ,visconsin to the starting point.

En route there are II 3 sites of historic or scenic interest, usually near the perimeter of the lake.

The 113 sites include communities, Indian reservations, state and national parks and forests, mining and lumbering facilit ies, lighthouses, portages, geologic feaLUres, and scenic drives. Included among these are the earliest settlement on Lake Superior; the Whaleback Museum; some of the world's largest iron ore docks and grain elevators; amethyst, gold, and uranium mines; Indian rock pictographs; fish hatcheries; Hudson Bay Company facilities; and the highest mountain range in the Midwest-sites often overlooked by most guidebook compilers.

Each of the described sites is keyed to an accompanying fold-out color map. The book contains more than a hundred black and white photographs, paintings, and sketches as well as eleven local maps, including two from the 1600s.

Interspersed among the site descriptions are eight essays, each covering a major historical or resource development theme: Indians, missionaries, fur trading, copper and iron mining, lumbering, fishing, shipping, and colonial conflict.

Large Victorian summer houses attest to Mackinac Island's early attractiveness to vacationers from other parts of the country.

Located just east of the Straits of Mackinac, the island was an important military and fur trading outpost before it became a seasonal retreat for urban Americans. CHS, ICHi07161, photographed by H enry R eichel.

At the southern end of Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes region's most populated and develoj1ed areas, the Indiana Dunes State Park still preserves a dramatic natural landscape. CHS, ICHi-14019.

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Review Essay The Great Lakes Guidebook: Lake Superior and Western Lake Michigan and The Great Lahes Guidebook: Lake Huron and Eastern Lake Michigan are companion books by George Cantor, a travel writer for the Detroit News.

Each volume treats eight important geographical areas, and each chapter contains a few introductory pages on its history and special characteristics of the segment, a fairly detailed description of its three main attractions, and a briefer discussion of "Other Things to See" that is usually followed by interesting side trips within a fifty-mile drive of the lakeshore. The eight chapters in The Great Lakes Guidebook: Lake Superior and Western Lake Michigan cover the general environs of Chicago, l\Iilwaukee, Lake 1ichigan's northern shore, the iron country, the copper country, Duluth, Thunder Bay, and the Soo. The other volume has chapters on the Straits of Mackinac area, the Traverse Bays, the Dutch communities and the dunes, and five chapters on Lake Huron locales.

Among the main attractions that the Lake Superior-Lake Michigan volume treats in some detail are the Algoma Central Railway trip to Agawa Canyon, the twenty-two Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, Isle Royale National Park, the Peshtigo fire area, the Seney \,Vildlife Refuge of the Upper Peninsula, Tahquamenon Falls State Park, and Door County. The other volume is devoted mainly to Lake Huron areas but it also describes as main attractions the eastern Lake Michigan areas around Charlevoix, the Sleeping Bear and Indiana Dunes, and Holland and Saugatuck. Both books contain a few contemporary photos and nineteen current maps. These volumes are good sources for historical background and recent information on well-selected points of interest for a motoring trip. They are written in an entertaining, chatty style.

Around Lake Michigan by Jean R. Komaiko, Beverly H. Barsy, and Ruth S. Mackelmann is about twice as long (448 pages) as each of the other guidebooks and with its many pages of listings it bears a greater resemblance to the oil company and motor club guidebooks than do the other three books. Yet, it is the most comprehensive and functional of the four books for the motorist who wants capsulated informa222

tion on the greatest variety of places to see and things to do.

The 1,000-mile shoreline of Lake Michigan, the only Great Lake entirely within the United States, is traversed clockwise starting with Chicago and ending with the Indiana Dunes and the Calumet Industrial District. About 120 waterfront communities are covered and a few side trips are suggested, such as the birder's paradise of Horicon Marsh, the "Mormon Kingdom" of Beaver Island, the sacred Indian wilderness island of South l\Ianitou, and scenic ¡washington Island with one of the oldest Icelandic settlements in the country-a point the authors fail to mention. Chicago-area residents can make an interesting and relatively economical around-the-lake trip in a few clays, or a more leisurely trip in one to two weeks.

A short but usually good history of each community is followed by a selective listing, usually of architectural and historic sites; recreational facilities including parks, beaches, and those for boating; museums and art centers; theaters; restaurants; shops; tours; and special events. The number of listings range from several hundred for Chicago and almost a hundred for Milwaukee to only a few for some of the smaller communities. Some of the listings are accompanied by comments that may have some evaluative content.

A round Lake Michigan does not contain any detailed maps or lists of accommodations, but like the other three books it provides some brief camping information. The criteria for its restaurant selections are not clear except "if the cuisine is not haute (and it seldom is), at lea t the place is (or was when we visited) clean and as close as possible to a good view of the water."

Each of these four books, although sometimes overlapping in their geographic coverage, has a distinctive approach to parts of the nearby historic, scenic, and recreational wealth of the western Great Lakes. All are useful guides for the enjoyment of this area.

IRVING CUTLER

Irving Cutler is Chairman of the Department of Geography at Chicago State University ancl the author of Chicago: l\Ietropolis of the l\fidContinent (1973).

The Society In the summer of 7787 the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia and drafted the document that would become the fundamental law of the land. The Society now holds a copy of the first public printing of the Constitution.

JOHN DUNLAP founded Th e Pennsy lvania Packet, America's first daily newspaper, in 1771.

David Claypoole, first his apprentice, soon became his partner, and as the 1770s advanced both men became fervent patriots in the cause of American independence. They printed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, a document Lhe Society owns. It was natural Lherefore that Dunlap and Claypoole were selected as prinLers of the official version of the Constitution on behalf of the Constitutional ConvenLion, which met in Philadelphia in the summer and fall of 1787 and drafted the document destined Lo become the fundamental law of the land.

Pledged to secrecy and presided over by George Washington, the convention adopted Lhe final version of the Constitution in September 1787, and the official version was printed for transmission to Congress on SepLember 17 and 18, using the same general type already set up during the course of the debates.

Keeping this type set, on the morning of September 19 Dunlap and Claypoole issued the first public printing, giving over all four pages of the periodical The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser, to the text and its accompanying order of transmittal to the United States Congress (which was then governed by the Articles of Confederation).

The Society recently acquired this document for its collections. It completes a collection of the three mos¡t famous documents in American history, which together set fonh the principles and established the proceclures of democratic government in America. The other two documents are the Declaration of Independence, printecl in broadsicle form by John Dunlap, and the Bill of Rights, printed as the Journal of the first session of the United States Senate meeting in New York City in 1789. Both represenL the first public printings, which Lhe

Society also owns.

Such a collection is unmatched outside the nation's capital. Of the fourteen copies of the Constitution believed to be in public institutions, ten are on the eastern seaboard while only four are in the Midwest. The Society's copy is the only one in Chicago to be on public display.

While the Constitution is currently withheld from exhibition pending sponsorship, it will eventually become the centerpiece of an exhibition of equally remarkable holdings which include a large number of paintings, maps, and artifacts as well as several other rare pieces: the Amos Doolittle engravings of the battles of Lexington and Concord; Paul Revere's engraving of the "Bloody Massacre" (the Boston Massacre); the Federalist, a collection of essays also known as the Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay following and on behalf of the Constitutional Convention's work; the Northwest Ordinance, which established the governance of territory west of the Appalachian Mountains and north of the Ohio River, including the site of Chicago; the Treaty of Greenville, the first United States treaty with a sovereign Indian nation and the result of General Anthony Wayne's negotiations to open the Ohio country to settlement; and George vVashington's farewell address.

These pieces will be displayed with a substantial number of related documents, maps, paintings, and personal objects of the period.

Thus combined, they will provide a powerful means for placing the Society's interpretation of Illinois and Chicago history in a national perspective and of evoking a keen sense of our American heritage.

Ellsworth H. Brown Director

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The Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60614 Telephone: 312-642-4600 Officers Stewart S. Dixon, President Philip W. Hummer, 1st Vice-President Philip D. Block III, 2nd Vice-President Gardner H. Stern, Treasurer Bryan S. Reid, Jr., Secretary Emmett Dedmon, Assistant Secretary-Treasurer Theodore Tieken, Immediate Past President

Director Ellsworth H. Brown

Trustees Bowen Blair Philip D. Block III Cyrus Colter Emmett Dedmon Stewart S. Dixon Mrs. Paul A. Florian III J ames R . Getz Edward Hines Philip W. Hummer

Mrs. Frank D. Mayer l\frs. Brooks McCormick John T. McCutcheon, Jr. Andrew McNally III Arthur E. Osborne, Jr. Bryan S. Reid, Jr. Harold Byron Smith, Jr. Gardner H. Stern Theodore Tieken

The Chicago Historical Society is a privately endowed institution devoted to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history 0£ the city 0£ Chicago, the state 0£ Illinois, and selected areas 0£ American history. It must look to its members and friends for continuing financial support. Contributions to the Society are tax-deductible, and appropriate recognition is accorded major gifts. The Society encourages potential contributors to phone or write the director's office to discuss the Society's needs.

Membership l\fembership is open to anyone interested in the Society's activities and objectives. Classes 0£ annual membership and dues are as follows: Individual, $25; Family, $30. 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. Research collections are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 to 4:30. The Graphics Collection is open from I: 30 to 4: 30. The Society is closed on Christmas, New Year's, and Thanksgiving.

Life Trustees Mrs. C. Phillip Miller Hermon Dunlap Smith

Honorary Trustee Jane Byrne, Mayor, City of Chicago John E. McHugh, President, Chicago Park District

Admission Fees for Non-members Adults, $1; Children (6-17), 50¢; Senior Citizens, 25¢. Admission is free on Mondays.

Single copies 0£ Chicago History, published quarterly, are $3.00 by mail; $2.50 at newsstands, bookshops, and the Museum Store.