Chicago History | Spring 1995 by Chicago History Museum

CHICAG ,,

CHICAGO

HISTORY

The Magazine of the Chicago Historica l Society

Chicago Historical Society OFFICERS

Philip W. Hummer, Chair Sharon Gist Gilliam, Treasurer Richard M.Jaffee, Vice-Chair R. Eden Martin, Secretary Charles T. Brumback, Vice-Chair Philip D. Block III, Immediate Past Chair Douglas Greenberg, Presidentand Director T R USTEES

W. Paul Krauss Fred A. Krehbiel Joseph H. Levy Jr. Mrs.John]. LouisJr. R. Eden Martin Wayne A. McCoy Robert Meers Mrs. ewton . Minow Potter Palmer Margarita Perez Arthur F. Quern Gordon I. Segal Edward Byron Sm ith Jr. Mrs. Thomas J. Tausche James R. Thompson

Lerone Bennett Jr. Philip D. Block III Laurence Booth Charles T. Brumback Robert N . Burt Michelle L. Co llin s Mrs. Gary C. Comer John W. Croghan Stewart S. Dixon Michael H. Ebner Sharon Gist Gilliam Philip W. Hummer Richard M. Jaffee Edgar D.Jannotta Barbara Levy Kipper LIFE

TRUSTEES

Bowen Blair Philip E. Kelley Mrs. Frank D. Mayer John McCutcheon Andrew McNally III Bryan S. Reid Jr. Gardner H. Stern Dempsey J. Travis HONORARY

T R USTEES

Richard M. Daley, Mayor, City of Chicago John W. Rogers Jr., President,ChicagoPark District The Chicago HisLOrical Society is a privately endowed, independent institution devoted to collecting , interpreting , and presenting the rich multicultural hisLOryof Chicago and Illinois, as well as selected areas of American history, to the public through exhibitions, program , research collection , and publications. It must look to its members and friends for continuing financia l support. Contributions to the Historical Society are tax-deductib le, and appropriate recognition i accorded major gifts. The Chicago Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the Chicago Park District 's generous support of all of the Historical Society 's act ivities. Membership Benefits include free admission to the Historical Society, invitations to special events, ChiragoHistory magazine, Past Times, and discounts on all special programs and Museum Sw, -e purcha es. Family / Dual Âˇ 35 ; Student/Senior Family $30; Individual $30; Student/Senior Individual $25. Hours The Museum is open dai ly from 9:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.; Sunday from L 2:00 OON to 5:00 P.M. The Library and the Archives and Manuscripts Co llection are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 A.M . to 4:30 P. M . All other research collect ions are open by appointment . The CHS is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's days. Education and Public Programs Guided tours, slide lectures, gallery talks, craft demonstrations, and a variety of special programs for all ages, from preschool through senior citizen, are offered . Suggested Admission Fees for Nonmembers Adults, 3; Students ( 1 7-2 $ 2; Chi ldr en (6-1 7 ), $1. Admission is free on Mondays. Chicago Historical Society

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with valid school

ID)

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and Senior Citizens,

CHICAGO HISTORY The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society

Spring 1995

EDITOR ROS E MARY

ADAMS

Volume xxrv,

Number

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS LYDIA

FIELD

L E SLEY MARTI

CONTENTS

DESIGN STUDIO

BL U E

PHOTOGRAPHY JOH N ALD E RSON

SUSAN

JAY CRAWFORD

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture K. APPEL

20 The Past and the Promise OLIVIA

MAHONEY

ISSN 02 7 2-8540 Articl es app ea rin g in this journ al are abstr acted and ind exed in f-fistorica/Abstracts a nd America:History and Life.

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless Half-Orphans JOAN

Footnoted manuscript s of the articl es app ea rin g in thi s issue are availabl e from th e Chicago Hi sto rical Socie ty's Publi cations Office . Cove r : Photograph of the Williamsfamily. Courtesyof j. L. Williams.

GITTENS

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture Susan K. Appe l

At the turn of the century, Chicago became headquarters to many architects specializing in brewery architecture, a field that faded with the dawn of Prohibition.

Ch icago has been a world -famous center of architectura l innovation since the later n ineteenth century, and traditional histories have heroicized many of the city's fine designers. Others, howeve1~ have been nearly forgotten, sometimes because th eir efforts were concentrated in branches of architecture that have not remained vital over the ens uing years. Such is the case for the many brew ery architects who were based in Chicago in the One of many Chicago breweries operating al the turn of the cent ury, the Kl'flry Brewing Company stood at Twenty-E igh th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

period between the Civil War and the start of Prohibition in 1920. During those years, increasing scale and sophistication in brewing operations combined with growing aspirations among brewers to encourage more impressive brewery architecture . These factors made it difficult for brewers to rely on ordinary builders to construct suitable brewery structures, creating the need for a new professional , the brewery architectengineer. These designers, most of whom came from a background closer to engineer ing than the fine arts , played a major role in shaping the ever more refined nature of brewery architecture. They never achieved recognition outside the industry they served, but they did much to create an approach to industrial building that balanced functionalism and aesthetics in often quite remarkable ways. While specialists in brewery design could be found throughout the nation, an unusually large number of them made their headquarters in Chicago. Their prominence was such that Chicago's brewery designers produced fully half of the approximately twenty-four hundred projects known to have been undertaken by American brewery architects. Making use of the latest architectural and engineering technology, these designers benefited from and helped to bolster Chicago's reputation for progressive architecture. What accounts for the prominence of Chica go 's brewery architects? To begin with, Chicago had fifty or more breweries in the later n ineSusan K. Appel is associate prof essor of art history at Illinois Stat e University. H er interest in brewery architects is part of a lmg er stud y of brewery architecture, which she is pr eparing for jJUblication in bookform .

Chicago History, Spring r995

teen th century, clear evidence of brewing 's emergence as an important part of the American industrial scene after the Civil War. The great majority of Chicago 's firms, as was the case nationwide, were by this time run by brewers of German background, and the large numbers of German immigrants settling in Chicago provided a ready market for their German-style brews. Prosperity stimulated the updating of older breweries and the birth of new ones, thus offering substantial opportunities for brewery architects. Chicago, however, was hardly the largest beerproducing city, and other American cities also had major concentrations of both Germans and breweries. Perhaps , tl1en, Chicago owes its significance as a center for brewery designers to geography. Undoubtedly, the city's central midwestern location conuÂˇibuted to its usefulness as a headquarters. The boom in brewing experienced in Chicago was echoed throughout the Midwest, and the decades saw extensive growth among established firms and the foundation and rapid development of many more. There was work to be had, and easy access to it from Chicago, thanks to the transportation and communications networks of which Chicago was so famously the hub. A further advantage was Chicago's legendary role in developing new building technologies and architectural ideas. These often proved as important to breweries as to other building types. Chicago's brewery architects had the right training and were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of such developments. They were 6

often well educated in German polytechnic schools, and thus they were ready and able to wrestle with the challenge of applying new ideas to the changing needs of a burgeoning industry. Indeed , the largest ethnic group among Chicago architects in this period was German. Perhaps it was only natural that architects of German background should emerge from this place to serve a German-dominated industry. Whatever the reasons for their concentration in Chicago, these brewery architects were responsible for making the architectural environment of this one industry both functional and aesthetically pleasing, far beyond what had been typical in earlier times. Long before the appearance of the brewery architect, American breweries had been rather small vernacular structures, which sometimes grew into extensive complexes of modest buildings, but which seldom made any pretension to "style." In the 1860s, however, a new concern for style arose, and brewery buildings began to take on an American form of the German Rundbogenstil ("round-arched style"). This version of the Romanesque Revival gave both a greater size and a more impressive look to the factories of German brewers. Although the grander appearance suggests the possible involvement of professional designers, no architects' names have as yet been associated with these buildings. This change in architectural style in the 1860s expressed the increasi _ng prosperity of brewers. It also expressed the "Ger manizing " of the industry, as German-style lager brewing gained popularity at the expense of the previously dominant English manner ofbreÂźri.ng. Brewed witl1 a different yeast and requiring an extended period of rest and maturing, lager beer was much lighter, more effervescent, and lower in alcohol content than heavier, more alcoholic English ales and other brews. Lager 's ascendancy over ale began in the 1840s and was nearly complete by the 1870s. As the dominance of lager grew, so too did the chance for architects, especially those of German heritage, to design the buildings in which this golden liquid would be brewed. One of Chicago's early brewery architects was Frederick Baumann , the first German-born architect in Chicago. When the brewing trade journal The Western Brewer began publication in Chicago

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture

age lager beer. His proposed solution underscores the importance of the ice house in a brewery of that era. Baumann 's drawing also features a vertical and very compact brew house, which forecast correctly the industrywide adoption of a gravity-flow method of brewing. This system log ically p laced raw materia ls at the top of the brew house, letting malt and water flow downward to be mixed and heated in the mash tun, the resulting pulpy mixture ("wort") then flowing down

in 1876, Baumann was the first architect to advertise in its pages, referr ing to himself as a "Techn ical Architect" who cou ld "be consulted as to the proper construction and arrangement of Breweries, Ma lt-houses and Ice houses." Baumann also contributed articles on brewery design to this journal. A section drawing from 1876 shows Baumann's involvement with one of the larger issues of the day: how best to design an above-ground ice house in which to ferment and

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again to the brew kettle. There the wort was boiled with hops, then strained before being pumped to the ice house, where it was cooled and where yeast was added to begin the fermenting process. Baumann's activity and the appearance of The Western Brewer heralded the rising importance of Chicago as a center of experimental brewery design. Evidence of the city's drawing power can be seen in the case of Theodor Krausch, another German-born brewery architect-engineer, who worked in New York until 1877, but who then uÂˇansferred his practice to Chicago. Krausch became particularly well known for his early artificial refrigeration system, which he first demonstrated in 1877 in the Ziegele brewery in Buffalo. One of many refrigeration experiments of this period, K.rausch 's system helped usher in the age of artificial cooling, doing away with the expense and mess of using natural ice. Krausch was also active as an architect, although many of the architectural projects he claimed were actually collaborations with Edmundjungenfeld, an important early brewery architect based in St. Louis. Between 1878 and 1880, the Krausch8

To/J:The Foss-Schneider Brewery of Cincinnati exemplifies the work of Frederick Wolf (opposite), an influential brewery architect. Bottom: The interiors as well as the exteriors of the breweries required the architects' attention.

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture

Jungenfeld partnership designed between twentyfive and thirty-five projects. Probably the most notable of these was an 1879 brew house for the E. Anheuser Brewing Association of St. Louis. According to The Western Brewer, this wasjungenfeld's design alone. Jungenfeld was one of four architects seen as the pioneers of this field by a later St. Louis brewery designer, Frederick Widmann. The other three were Charles Stoll, based in Brooklyn, New York; Anthony Pfund, based in New York City; and Frederick W. Wolf, based in Chicago. Research shows that Widmann's assessment was correct and that Fred Wolf was indeed the first strong figure in Chicago to dedicate himself to brewery design; his office also served as the starting point for several other brewery architects. Germanborn, as many of his clients were, Wolf had studied at a technical school in Karlsruhe, Germany, apprenticed as an architect and mechanical engineer in Magdeburg, Germany, and worked at those professions for at least ten years before coming to the United States in 1866. He established an office in Chicago in 1867, initially working as a mechanical engineer and inventor of brewing improvements. He was also adept at securing the American rights to important European inven-

tions. The most famous of these was the Linde refrigerating machine, which he built and distributed throughout the United States from 1882 on. But most notable were Wolf's endeavors as an architect. As early as 1874, he began a long and fruitful association with the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, and from the late 1870s Wolf was the designer of record for so many plants that by mid-1881, he was reported to be recovering from "a severe prostration, caused by ovenvork." Wolf's practice in the 1880s continued to be vigorous, producing breweries, elements of breweries, and other related industrial buildings over a widespread area, including fifteen states and territories and two Canadian provinces . The sheer volume of high -quality work he produced made Fred W. Wolf an influential figure in brewery design across the nation. A study of Wolf's works of the 1880s reveals the American brewery evolving rapidly into a far grander kind of building than it had ever been before. Still essentially Romanesque Revival in style, it was now more polychromatic and muscular than in the earlier Rundbogenstil phase. The brewery was also becoming much more efficiently organized, with the architect exploiting new building technologies, such as metal framing and fireproofing . The adoption of the latest brewing and malting equipment, scientific advances, and labor-saving mechanical devices further irn proved efficiency. Distinct building types appeared, designed to serve specific purposes and making the brewery a collection of more specialized struc tures. What is especially interesting about this evolution is that, as often as not, it revealed a double purpose: to be as up-to-date technically as possible, but also to bring a decided element of beauty into industrial architectural design . Wolf fulfilled both of these purposes in his many designs and won prestige and honor for himself, at least within this industry. Undoubtedly, it was early in his career that Wolf began enlarging his office, employing other architects and draftsmen to assist with his increasing volume of work. An 1887 notice refers to the existence within Wolf's company of an "architectural and engineering department," which Wolf himself controlled, but in which he was "ably assisted by Mr. L. Lehle, who has been with him 9

Chicago History, Spring I995

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for many years." Leh le, who was later to become a prominent brewery designer on his own, had likely worked with Wolf since 1874, when he began collaborating on projects for the Joseph Schlitz Brewery of Milwaukee . No information has surfaced on how many other draftsmen or assistants may have worked there, although a number went on from Wolf's office to successful careers of their own. Louis Lehle eventually took over management of Wolf's architectural and engineering business, and was referred to as Wolf's partner as early as 1889 ; their partnership was officially incorporated as the Wolf & Lehle Co. in April 1891. The lengthy and close relationship between these two men throughout a period when such volumes of work were produced calls into ques tion whether all that work can legitimately be attributed to Wolf alone. It seems more reasonable to assume that much ofit was Lehle's, if overseen by Wolf at first, and then produced under both names. Although the precise nature of Lehle's contributions until the late 1880s will probably never be known, his experience with Wolf would prove to be of tremendous value to his own career after the breakup of their partnership in March 1894. As with Leh le, Fred Wolfs office clearly served as the spawning ground for a number of younger brewery designers , several of whom became major figures in brewery architecture in succeeding decades. Lehle himself developed into probably the finest and most energetic Chicago-based brewery designer of the turn-of-the-century period . Among others emerging from Wolf's office was August Maritzen. Maritzen 's brief partnership (1888-90) with Wilhelm G1iesser brought him together with a prolific brewery designer who had started out in St. Louis with Edmundjungenfeld. (After Griesser and Maritzen dissolved their partner hip , Griesser went on to open offices in other cities, from ew York to Denver , carrying through a wide geographical region ideas on brewery design originating, more or less, in Chicago.) Even Otto C. Wolf of Philadelphia, the dominant force in brewery architecture on the East Coast from the mid-188os until his death in 1917, had worked for three years in Chicago with Fred Wolf. There was thus a direct link

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture

between the East and the Midwest, with Chicago, specifically , serving as a wellspring for brewery designers. Griesser, Maritzen, and Lehle were significant members ofa kind of second generation of brewery architects. Their work overlapped that of the first generation, but they were grounded in the work of the pioneer brewery designers of the 1870s and early 1880s. The second generation, though, pushed brewery architecture into its golden age in the late 1880s and 1890s. This period was marked by great prosperity in the brewing industry and continuing progress in architectural and brewing technology, factors expressed very directly in buildings notable not only for their efficiency, but also for their dynamic visual presence. Griesser and Maritzen 's Park Brewery for Gerhard Lang, Buffalo ( 1890), was a case in point. Once they went their separate ways, Griesser and Maritzen individually designed breweries of note. For example, Griesser's new brewery for the Sioux City (Iowa) Brewing Co. ( 1898), and Maritzen's 1891 design for the Val. Blatz Brewing Company, Milwaukee, both demonstrate how brewery designers modified the Romanesque

Revival style in this period. Using the style in a heavier, bolder manner, akin to its handling by Henry Hobson Richardson, they brought drama and visual richness to these industrial sites. They also used the variety that was characteristic oftl1is style to distinguish the specialized functions of different parts of a plant. An example of this is the openness of the many-windowed brew houses, versus the blind arcades and closed walls of the stock houses, successors to the old ice houses, where beer now rested in artificially cooled darkness as it aged. Regardless of such distinctions, all parts of these breweries acquired ornamen ta! texture, pattern, and color that made them lively and decorative, as well as functional. By 1891, Maritzen 's prominence was apparent from the fact that he was here producing a major design for one of the largest national brewers of the day. A report from the September 1891 Western Brewer makes clear his level of activity at this time: [Maritzen is] very busy preparing plans and specifications , and supervising constructive work in his line. He has eighteen draughtsmen at work, and has breweries in various stages of constn1ction in Boston, Mex-

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While Griesser and Maritzen were at work on the Blatz and Sioux City projects, Louis Leh le was a partner in the firm of Wolf & Lehle. After the firm's break-up in 1894, Fred Wolf seems to have been rather less active as an architect, his attention diverted by his refrigeration business. By contrast, Louis Lehle entered his most fruitful period, developing an extensive body of work totaling more than two hundred known projects over the next twenty years. He, too, must have had an office of some size, and he designed for many clients initially encountered while working with Wolf. A prime example is Lehle'sworkfor the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company, Milwaukee. Over the preceding twenty years, Wolf & Lehle had created almost all of the buildings at this plant. After the firm's dissolution, Leh le took over as principal designer. While he pursued numerous other commissions elsewhere, he also worked for Schl itz until at least 19n. Lehle's designs at Schlitz both complemented the earlier buildings and forged ahead, their growing scale and new technologie reflecting the brewery's ongoing success and its need to be up-to-date to remain competitive. During the fiveyear period from 1896 to 1902 alone, Lehle's additions to the Milwaukee plant included a large stable, a stock house capable of storing fifty thousand barrels of beer, additions to the brew and mill houses, a new cooper shop, wash house, and boiler house, and a magnificent fermenting stock house. In the next two years, Lehle updated Schlitz's malting technology with an important drum-type pneumatic malting plant in a new ma! t house, and he built a tile storage elevator, representative ofa significant transition between frame and reinforced concrete construction in grain elevator design. Louis Leh le was by no means confined to projects for former clients of Wolf & Lehle. Instead, he developed a clientele that ranged throughout the Midwe t and well beyond. Leh le projects have been located as far west as Montana and California, as far east as Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and as far south as Louisiana, Texas, and even Mexico.

Opposite: Frederick Wolf provided Linde refrigeration machinery for many breweries. Top: This refrigeration unit served Chicago's Manhattan Brewery. Bottom: The stock house for the Hamm Brewery in St. Paul shows Louis Lehle's innovative use of reinforced concrete.

Leh le also pushed brewery architecture into new technological realms, becoming, for example, one of the first specialists in this field to utilize reinforced concrete to replace older struc13

Chicago History, Spring r995 tural systems . He experimented with this new material as early as 1908, demonstrating its effectiveness particularly well in a 1911 stock house for the Theo. Hamm Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota. This building was "perhaps the first brewery stock house to be constructed wholly of reinforced concrete." For its columns Lehle used the "mushroom" construction system patented by C. A. P. Turner of Minneapolis . Publication of this project in the pages of The Western Brewer helped spread knowledge of how this new way of building could be adapted to brewery needs. Brewery projects like these show that Chicago continued to hold a position of leadership in brewery architecture to the turn of the century and beyond. Perhaps inspired by that success, still younger designers took up this specialty as well, forming something of a third generation of brewery architects and enriching the field until Prohibition brought it crashing down. While numbers of brewery architects worked out of Chicago in this period, the most prominent of them again had ties to leading figures of preceding decades. Working in the older designers' offices gave the younger ones vital firsthand experience. They emerged from that training knowledgeable about the brewing industry and its functional needs, aware of the challenge of coming to terms with new technologies in both brewing and architecture, and sensitive to the aesthetic concern with creating handsome industrial buildings. Leading this third group in Chicago, at least in numbers of projects known, were Oscar Beyer and Fred Rautert , Bernard Barthel , and Richard Griesser. In 1893, Beyer and Rautert formed a partnership that lasted until 1898. Beyer had worked for Fred Wolf for a number of years, was later a foreman for Griesser & Maritzen, and then worked for August Maritzen alone. Rautert had also worked with Griesser & Maritzen, as well as other local firms. After dissolving their partnership in 1898 , both Beyer and Rautert practiced independently as well. Bernard Barthel trained in Germany, then spent ten years as an architect with the Fred W. Wolf Company before opening his own office in 1901. Richard Griesser had still another advantage; he was the son of Wilhelm Griesser . The younger Griesser's study of architecture and engineering in Germany 14

was augmented by practical exper ience in his father's Chicago office, which he took over in January 1900 . While this third group of architects would seem to have been in a good position to prosper in an established profession, they faced somewhat different conditions than those who began working earlier. Because to some extent they arrived in the wake of a tremendous period of brewery construction, they tended to find themselves working for smaller, rather than larger , brewing firms. The large companies already had estab-

lished relationships with older architects and had recently built up their plants. Smaller firmseither those that had been more conservative earlier or those that, arriving somewhat belatedly, hoped to capitalize on the industry's prosperitywere more likely to require the services of these younger architects. Beyer & Rautert's largest commission was probably that of the Best Brewing Company of Chicago (1895), where the architects built a brewery capable of producing 150,000 barrels of beer per year. (For comparison, at the same time industry leader Pabst in

In 1890 , during the "golden age" of brewery design, Wilhelm Griesser and August Maritzen created the Park Brewery in Buffalo, shown in this engraving.

Milwaukee was producing more than one million barrels annually.) Fred Rautert's later design for the fifteen-thousand-barre l plant of the Fresno Brewing Company in California (1901) demonstrates both his wide-ranging geographical scope and the relatively small size of his commissions. Beyer's 1898 plant for the Sioux Falls Brewing Company in South Dakota brings up another fac15

Chicago History, Spring I995

tor that would increasingly weigh on all those involved with brewing and brewery architecture -the threat of prohibition. This plant, begun by Beyer & Rau ten before the dissolution of their partnership, then completed by Beyer, was built for Moriz Levinger. A year before construction began, Levinger had successfully waged a strong campaign against state prohibition laws. Such laws existed in various states for various lengths of time throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. They were a preview of things to come, as the drive for a national law prohibiting intoxicating beverages gained momentum as the turn of the century approached. Beyer's design for Levinger's Sioux Falls brewery called for

As the brewing industry expanded, the opposition grew as well. The eventual arrival of Prohibition led to the decline of brewery architecture. Above: Members of the Anti-Saloon League look over a petition. Right: Crowds gather to watch a 1908 temperance parade. Opposite: Adolph Keitel's book, Government by the Brewers? (19I8),

depicted the brewing industry with a stranglehold on the ballot box.

buildings of rough-faced local stone rather than the more common brick, and the expressive result of this change was a fortresslike design, one that seems to echo Levinger's staunch resistance to prohibition threats. If Beyer or Levinger intended such a message, they were unusually alert. Although the industry at large in the 1890s found attempts to pass prohibition laws annoying or worse, there was little comprehension of the true nature of the clouds gathering on the horizon. Despite these threats, the very active careers of Chicagoans Bernard Barthel and Richard Griesser certainly demonstrate that brewery architecture was still vital up to the period ofWorld War I. Barthel was busy witl1 commissions that took him throughout the Midwest, the West, and, several times, to Canada. Generally, his plants were small to medium in size, but they could be very ornamental, such as the Moehn Brewery at Burlington, Iowa, of 1903. Barthel also knew how to use a site to advantage, as at the 1907 Popel-Giller brewery in Warsaw, Illinois, set dramatically on a hill overlooking the Mississippi River. Richard Griesser's projects were likewise spread across the map, from Pennsylvania to California, and from Canada to Mexico, but again, they were not usually of great size. Many of his buildings were in the general style developing in the industry's architecture by the early twentieth

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture

A Menace to Good Government century. This was a somewhat more flattened and simplified version of the Romanesque-inspired designs of earlier days. However, Richard Griesser could also be more eclectic, for instance, in the rather more Flemish flavor of his gables at the Garden City Brewing Company, Chicago ( 1902). This design proved so popular that Griesser repeated it, in variation, for breweries in Winona, Minnesota, and Cincinnati (both 1904), and in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (1911). For the Bay City Brewing Company in San Diego ( 1912), Griesser created a mission-style building described then as "a new departure for breweries and very appropriate for Southern California, especially for San Diego." These projects aside, World War I was approaching, and with it the leverage needed by the growing forces of Prohibition. What began long before as a temperance movement, intended to curtail excessive drinking, had resulted in many state and loca l laws entirely prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and / or use of alcoholic beverages. The next step for Prohibition advocates was to extend this ban to the national level, a goal that became achievable in the wake of the war. While in touch with this movement all along, brewers only began to recognize the seriousness of the situation when it was too late to counteract it. The impact of the darkening mood can be seen most extremely in the story of Fred Rautert. Rautert had apparently retired from his architectural practice about 1907 to take up brewing in Ster-

ling, Illinois. After business reverses closed his brewery, and a local election turned Sterling into a "dry " town, Rautert committed suicide in 1914. On the national level, the Anti-Saloon League successfully used the in tensely an ti-Gennan sentiment common among Americans during the war to cast suspicion on the loyalty of the predominantly German brewers. The group further used wartime grain and labor shortages to encourage legislation curtailing production of liquor and beer. Finally, the league spearheaded ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, achieved in 1919, which outlawed the production or sale of such beverages one year later. This development not only gutted the brewing industry, but also effectively legislated out of existence an entire branch of the architectura l profession. Until Congress repealed the amendment in 1933, there was no longer any need for the expertise developed by brewery architects over the preceding five decades , and by 1933, most of Chicago's principal brewery designers were dead. Of the architects discussed here, only Richard Griesser is known to have been involved in post-Prohibition brewery design. In about 1932, he helped to convert a former tire factory in San Diego into a brewery. Unfortunately, the physical evidence of the conu-ibutions of Griesser and his fellow designers is rapidly disappearing. This almost inevitable outcome results both from the long interruption of Prohibition and from decades of change since. Many breweries were abandoned in the 1920s, and in recent decades, more have closed as the brewing industry has become concenu-ated into the hands of fewer and fewer companies. Some older complexes have been converted to other purposes, occasiona lly finding adaptive reuses that retain, at least to a degree, some semblance of their former glory. Among the breweries adapted for housing of various sorts are the Best Brewing Co., Chicago, the Val. Blatz plant in Milwaukee, and the Bergdoll brewery plant in Philadelphia. Schlitz's Milwaukee plant has been partially demolished, the remainder being developed as a complex of offices and related businesses. The former Lone Star brewery in San Antonio has become an art museum, while the Tivoli in Denver has been converted into restaurants and shops. More often, these buildings

Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture The Atlas Brewing Company presented an imfJressive front at its location on 2 107 Blue Island Avenue.

are used piecemeal by other industries or for storage, or left to deteriorate, or demolished outright. These facts, if familiar reflections of latetwentieth-cen tury deindustrialization, further obscure the significant contributions that brewery architects and Chicago made to shaping the architecture of an important American industry in the period before 1920.

For Further Reading For an overview of the brewery industry in genera l, see Stanley Baron's Brewed in America: a History of Beer and Ale in the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1962). A full discussion ofmidwestern brewery architecture is provided in Susan Appel's doctoral dissertation, "The Midwestern Brewery Before Prohibition: Deve lopment of an American Industrial Building Type" (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1990). Roula M. Geraniotis's chapter "An Early German Contribution to Chicago's Modernism," in Chicago Architecture 1872-1922, (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1987) provides information on Ch icago's German architects in general and Frederick Baumann in particular. For primary source material on the brewing industry, see The Western Brewer and its successor, The Beverage journal, published in Chicago beginning in 1876.

Illustration Credits 4-5, CHS, ICHi-23892; 6,from WesternBrewerQanuary 1882),John M. Wing Foundation, The Newberry Library; 7, from Western Brewer (September 1898), CHS Library; 8, top and bottom, The Cincinnati Historical Society (top B-94 -023); 9, from Notable Men of Chicago and Their City ( 191o), CHS Library; 10, from One Hundred Years of Brewing ( 197 4), CHS Library; 11, from Western Brewer (May 1892), CHS Library; 12, from WesternBrewer(November 1886), CI-IS Library; 13 top, CHS ICH1-22877; 13 bottom, from Western Brewer (April 1911 ), CHS Library; 14-15, from WesternBrewer(August 1890), CI-IS Library; 16 left, CI-IS, DN-8122; 16 right, CHS, ICI-Ii-24829; 17, from Government by the Brewers? (1918), CI-IS Library; 18-19, CHS, ICI-Ii-23899. 19

The Past and the Promise Douglas/ Grand Boulevard, located on the city's Near South Side, has enjoyed a long and vibrant history from its early settlement in the 1850s to the present day, as residents plan for the future. Olivia Mahoney

Step hen A. Douglas (left), c. 186 0. In

1852 , Stephen A. Douglas , the pow erful Democratic senator from Illinois, purchased seventy acres along Lake Michigan between what is now Thirtyfirst and Thirty-fifth Streets. Douglas developed his holdings by establishing two residential porks , Groveland and Woodland , and by donating land

Like many othe r Amer ican cities, Chicago is known for its neighborhoods ,

for Chicago University, the precursor of the University of Chicago. In 1856 , Douglas built a home for himself at 34

each w ith its own rich history that contributes to our knowledge and

East Thirty-fifth Street. In add ition, Douglas sold lokefront property to the

understanding of the larger city. In keeping with its mission to interpret

Illinois Central Railroad for the con-

the history of all Chicagoa ns, the

struction of a roil line into the city.

Chicago Historical Society has recently

Shortly ofter he lost to Abraham

embarked on a pro ject to documen t

Lincoln in the presidential election of

the history of four neighborhoods ,

1860 , Douglas died at the age of

beginning with Douglas IGrand

forty-Bight. Douglas 's tomb is located

Boulevard on the city's Nea r South Side .

at Thirty-fifth and Lake Pork Streets,

Douglas IGrand Boulevard has

overlooking the area of Chicago he helped to establish.

undergone tremendous change over the past one hundred years . A wealthy , wh ite resident ial area dur ing the late nineteenth century , Douglas

Grand Boulevard became Chicago 's largest black commun ity around the time of World Wa r I, when the Great M igration brought an estimated

fifty

thousand Afr ican Amer icans ta the city. As Afr ican Ameri cans moved in, white residents began to move out, and , by 1925 , Douglas I Grand Boulevard had become a predom inantly black , racially segregated community w ith many businesses, institutions, and civic organ izat io ns owned and opera ted by Afr ican American s for their commun ity. Around 1930 , this (continued)

Confederate prisoners of wa r at Camp Douglas (oppos ite), c. 1864 .

During the Civil War , Comp Douglas, originally constructed at Thirty-first Street and Cottage Grove Avenue as a Union Army training post, served as a Confederate prisoner-of-war comp. Between 1862 and 1865 , the comp housed about twenty-six thousand prisoners in temporary, wooden barracks. As a result of harsh conditions, some four thousand men died at the comp ; they were buried in unmarked paupers' groves in Chicago 's City Cemetery , located at the southeast corner of what is now Lincoln Pork. In 1867 , the remains were reburied at Oak Woods Cemetery , about five miles south of the comp .

Olivio Mahoney is curator of decora tive and industrial arts at the Chicago Historical Society. The exhibition Douglas IGrand Boulevard: The Post and the Promise opens at the CHS on

April 30 , 1995 .

THE PAST AND THE PROMISE

...

(continued) "city within a city" became known as "Bronzeville," and it remained intact until after World War

II, when a combination of factors, including public housing, urban renewal, and the city's changing economy brought great change. Today, as members of the community work to revitalize the area, Douglas IGrand Boulevard faces an uncertain future. Will it become, as some hope, a new "Black Metropolis," with revitalized businesses and residential districts, or will it remain largely an impoverished area, beset with the problems of urban America? This selection of photographs, drawn from the collections of the Historical Society, presents a brief history of the neighborhood since the 1860s, with particular emphasis on the African American community, and some of the issues that have shaped the lives of its residents. The history of Douglas IGrand Boulevard will be treated in more depth in an exhibition opening at the Historical Society on April 30, 1995, and traveling to the Du Sable Museum of African American History in October 1995. In addition, video interpretations, oral histories collected from neighborhood residents, and a wide array of school and public programs will further expand our awareness of Douglas IGrand Boulevard's rich legacy and its future.

Left: 3300-3500

South Michigan

Avenue, c. 1890. During the 1870s

and 1880s , the Douglas IGrand Boulevard area developed into a white residential neighborhood , with an upper and middle class living east of State Street, and working-class poor living west of State Street. By the 1890s , some of Chicago 's most prominent citizens lived in stone mansions along broad , tree-lined avenues. Members of the elite included salt merchant Joy Morton , industrialist Richard Crane , brewer Conrad Seipp , and meatpackersJohn and Michael Cudahy . During this time , African Americans began to settle in the area. Many worked as domestic servants; others established a professional class of doctors , lawyers , and clergy .

ARMO·UR

I NSTITUTE

Thirty-Third

Street

TECHNOLOGY and Armour

A venue

CHICAGO

E\·E .. I~G

CL.\SSES

i!l!Hi-l!lll'j

C<H'RSES

OFFhREI>

1:-;

\Jechanical Engineering, Electri1 · al Eni,:incerin!,!, TelephonL' Engi1w1•ring, Ci\'il Engincerin", Chemical En~in1•t~ring, Fm· I rotection En gineering. I>rawing. Shop \\"ork. ~lathem;uics ancl l~nglish

THE PAST AND THE PROMISE

Opposite: Catalogue of evening

could enroll in cooking and sewing

classes at the Armour Institute, 1897.

classes offered by the domestic arts

Below: The interior of the Armour

deportment , which operated until

Institute, 1897. In 1892 , Chicago

1905 . In 1940 , Armour merged with

meotpacker Philip D. Armour estab-

Lewis University to become the Illinois

lished the Armour Institute to train

Institute ofTechnology (IIT). Several

young men in mechanical and electri -

other institutions still located in the

cal engineering , architecture , mathe-

area were founded in the late nine-

matics, and physics. Young women

teenth century , including Michael Reese Hospital , De Lo Salle Institute, and Provident Hospital.

C HI CAGO

HI ST ORY , SPRING

1995

Opposite: Daniel Hale Williams, c.

tional fame by performing the world 's

1900. Below: Provident nurses, 1904.

first successful heart surgery at

One of the first black surgeons in

Provident. Although Williams left the

America , Daniel Hale Williams helped

hospital in 1913 , Provident continued

found Provident Hospital in Chicago

to provide services to the African

in 1891 as an interracial institution

American community until 1987 , when

where black doctors and nurses,

finan cial difficulties forced a tempor-

denied access to white institutions ,

ary closing . The hospital currently

could receive medical training , and

operates under the auspices of Cook

where members of Chicago 's growing

County Hospital.

black community could receive care . In 1893 , Williams achieved interna -

I t

CHICAGO

HI ST O RY , S PRIN G 1 995

The Reverend and Mrs. Reverdy Cassius Ranson, c. 1900. Following a tradition established in the late eigh teenth century, African American s living in Chicago around the turn of the century established their own churches . In 1896 , the Reverend Reverdy Cassius Ranson of Ohio came to Chicago to become minister of Bethel Afr ican Methodist Episcopal Church . In 1900 , with the help of social reformers Jane Addams and Clarence Darrow , Ranson established the Institutional Church and Social Settlement at 3825 South Dearborn Street. As Chicago 's first settlement house established for African Americans , it offered a full program of social services, including a day nursery, a kindergarten , a mother 's club , an employment bureau , classes in cooking , sewing , and music, as well as public lectures by leading white and black speakers and a fully equipped gymnasium . Under Ranson's leadership and that of his successor, Archibald Carey Sr., the church thrived as a community center until the World War I era , when secular agen cies assumed its social functions .

THE PA S T AN D T HE PR O MI S E

The Original Creole Orchestra,

the Grand Terrace Ballroom on South

c. 1914. Beginning in 1914 , with the

Parkway . King Oliver , Jelly Roll

arrival of the Original Creole

Morton , Louis Armstrong , Earl Hines,

Or chestra of New Orlean s led by

and Benny Goodman were among

James Palao (front row , center) and

the many great jazz musicians who

continuing through the 1940s , the

played in Chicago over the years.

South Side of Chicago swung with the

"Chicago jazz" had a significant

sounds of jazz. Dozens of jazz

impact on the development and evolu-

clubs operated in the Douglas IGrand

tion of jazz as a unique American art

Boulevard area, including the Lincoln

form. (Photograph courtesy of Clotile

Gardens and the Midway Gardens

Palao Wilson)

Ballroom , both on Cottage Grove Avenue , and the Regal Theater and

C HI CAGO

H IS TO RY, S PRING

1 995

Morris and Annie Williams and their

arrivals found work and more free-

children, Morris Jr., Levi, and Willa,

dom , but they also encountered a new

c. 1920. During World War I, when the

set of racial barrier s that restricted

demands of a wartime economy cre-

them to living in area s that already

ated new job opportunities , tens of

included African Americans , most

thousands of African Americans

notably Douglas IGrand Boulevard .

migrated to Chicago seeking a better

As more blocks moved into the area ,

life for themselves and their children .

white residents moved out , and by

Most of these newcomers come from

1925 , Douglas IGrand Boulevard

the South , where Jim Crow legislation

hod become a predominately

hod denied them some basic rights

community .

of citizenship , including the right to vote. In Chicago , most of the recent

block

Member of the EighthRegimentwith

regiment to be entirely commanded by

their lives in the war ; ano ther 370 men

his family, c. 1918 . Originally orga â&#x20AC;˘

blacks and headquartered at the only

were wou nded . In 1927 , the black

nized as a volunteer regiment during

black armory in the United States ot

community succeeded in having a

the Spanish-American War in 1898 ,

the corner of Thirty-fifth Street and

commemo rative sculpture honoring

the Eighth Regiment of the Illinois

Forest Avenue (now Giles Avenue), the

the Eighth Regiment erected at the cor-

National Guard achieved its greatest

" Fighting 8th " served with distinction

ner of Grand Boulevard (now King

fame during World War I. The only

in France. One hundred and forty â&#x20AC;˘

Drive) and Thirty-fifth Street.

three members of the regiment lost

C H ICAGO

HI STO RY, SP RING

1995

Left and below: The Overton Building,

National Bank, and the Victory Life

exterior and interior views, 1925.

Insurance Company . The building also

Beginning in the teens and continuing

rented off ice space to black profes-

through the 1920s , African American

sionals . The area reached its height in

entrepreneurs , denied access to the

the mid-l 920s and served as a

city 's main business district , built a

national model of black achievement ,

thriving business center of their own in

but the district began to decline in the

the vicinity of Thirty-fifth and State

late 1920s and never recovered from

Streets. This self.contained community

the drastic losses suffered during the

included several new buildings con-

Great Depression of the 1930s .

structed with black capital , like the

Although a number of buildings in the

Overton Hygien ic IDouglass National

area have been destroyed , the

Bank Building. Erected in 1922-23 ,

Overton Hygienic Building still stands.

the building housed several business enterpri ses owned by Anthony Overton , including the Overton Hygienic Company , which special ized in black cosmetics, the Douglass

Above: Afr ican American residential

A frican Americans , rega rd less of

neighborhood , Forty-ninth Street and

income , the area included wealt hy,

Champla in Avenue, c. 1925 . By

middle class, and poor living in close

1925 , the Douglas IGrand Boulevard

proximity . The more affluent residents

area , known as Chicago's " black

lived in homes east of State Street,

belt ," contained nearly two hundred

while the laboring class and poor

thousand people , hundreds of black-

lived west af State in worker cottages

owned businesses, and dozens of

once occupied by Irish immigrants .

churches , institut ions, and socia l organizations estab lished by A fr ica n Americans to meet the needs of the community. Because Chicago 's restrictive housing policies segregated all

Above: Deteriorated neighborhood

codes , members of the black middle

conditions, c. 1950. During World

class began to move out of Douglas

War II, on estimated sixty thousand

Grand Boulevard into neighborhoods

additional African Americans moved to Chicago , settling in the Douglas

further south . In addition , Chi cago 's wartime economy slowed , resulting in

Grand Boulevard neighborhood and

unemployment for many inner-city resi-

on the West Side . A lock of adequate

dents. As a result, Chicago 's inner

housing , combined with restrictive

core became increasingly poor , and ,

covenants that prohibited blocks from

although some residential areas of

mov ing into surrounding neighbor-

Douglas IGrand Boulevard remained

hoods , resulted in seriously over-

viable , the overall state of deteriora -

crowded conditions. After the war ,

tion convinced city officials of the need

with the easing of Chicago 's housing

for urban renewal as a means to revitalize and save the inner core of the city. Photograph by Mildred Mead .

THE PAST AND THE PROMISE

Below: Mecca Tenants' Fight, 1950 .

first clearing nearby blighted oreos .

As port of Chicago 's overall pion to

Port of IIT's pion included the razing of

revitalize the city, set forth in the

the Mecca oportment building , origi -

Mosler Pion of Residential Use ( 1943),

nally designed by Doniel Burnham to

Michae l Reese Hosp ital and the Illinois

accommoda te visitors to the 1893

Institute of Technology (IIT) decided to

World 's Columbian Exposi tion. IIT hod

remain on the South Side , and they

originally planned to raze the building

began to expand their facilities by

in 194 1, but o tenants' protest hod delayed the action . In 1950 , tenants once again protested evict ion by filing petitions with city and state offic ials .

Razing of the Mecca Building, 1952.

Despite the tenants ' efforts , IIT razed the Mecca and other neighborhood buildings to make way for new campus structures designed by internation ally renowned architect Mies Van der Rohe. As Chicago's plans for urban renewal proceeded during the 1950s and the early 1960s , the wrecker 's ball became a familiar sight on the South Side . Several hundred acres were cleared for the expansion of Michael Reese and Mercy Hospitals , IIT, and the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway. Photograph by Barn ice R. Davis.

massive neighbor to the so uth, the

Dearborn Street looking north to

rehouse d ispla ced resident s. Early

Stateway Gardens , 1959 . In addition

projects , like the low-rise Ida B. Wells

Robert Taylor Homes ( 1962) , rose

to the Meece , hundreds of residential

Homes completed in 1941 , were

along the forme r site of the Federal

structures that provided housing for

generally regarded as successful in

Street slum . Together , these two pro -

thousands of Chicagoans in the

terms of livability , but they did not pro -

jects contained more than six

Douglas IGrand Boulevard area were

vide enough housing . City officials

thousand apartments managed by the

demolished during urba n renewal.

considered high-rise buildings to be

Chicago Housing Authority (CHA).

Using federal funds, the city con-

the solution, and , in quick succession ,

Photograph by Clarence W . Hines.

structed public housing projects to

Stateway Gardens ( 1958) and its

THE PA S T AND THE PR O MI S E

Below: Aerial view of Stateway

Illustration Credits

Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes

20 top, CHS, ICHi-l 0086 ; 20-2 l , CHS,

alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway,

ICHi-01800 ; 22 , CHS, ICHi-17438 ; 24 ,

1964. Although the construction of

from Armour Instituteof Technology course

high-rise public housing provided new

cotalogue ( 1906-07), CHS Library; 25 ,

homes, many community residents objected to displacement and to the fact that large scale public housing projects were confined to the black belt , in effect replacing one "ghetto " with another. Today the projects are

from Armour Instituteof Technology course catologue ( 1906-07), CHS Library ; 26 , CHS Library ; 27 , CHS, ICHi-21719 ; 28 , CHS, DN-555 ; 29 , Courtesy of Clotile Palao Wilson; 30, Courtesy of J. L. Williams; 31, CHS, DN 69075; 32-33 , from The Souvenir of Negro Progress,

beset with myriad problems involving

Chicago 1779-1925 (l 925), CHS Library;

poverty , drugs , gangs, and violence,

34 , CHS, ICHi-00809; 35 , CHS, ICHi-

and the future of public housing is

24830 ; 36-37 , CHS, ICHi-2483 l; 38-39 ,

hotly debated. Some proponents call

CHS, ICHi-23483 ; 39 , CHS, ICHi-23505.

for tenant control , including ownership, of the buildings, while others call for their demolition and replacement with scattered-site housing on a much smaller scale. Whatever solution is found, it will surely have a great impact on the Douglas IGrand Boulevard neighborhood and its residents , as well as on the city in general.

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless Half-Orph ans Joan Gittens

In nineteenth-centuryChicago,the debateoverthe careof needychildrenraised issues of governmentversusprivate controland institutional versusfamily care.

Editor's note: The debate over the care of dependent children is not new. In the following excerpt, Joan Gittens explores nineteenth-century attitudes towards child care in Illinois and Chicago.

There is perhaps no greater catastrophe for chi ldren than when their families, for whatever reason, no longer function for them . Not on ly must they contend with emotiona l upheava l; they are left without caretakers and must look to the broader society for sustenance and protection. If they arc fortunate, re latives or friends will step in and fill the gap-if not emotionally, at least on a practica l level. The chi ldren unlucky enough to h ave no surrogate parents must look to the society at large to take an interest in their wellbeing. Thal this is at best a tenuous situation for a ch ild is demonstrated by th e preva lence of the pathetic and mistreated orphan in fo lk and popu lar cu lture.

Yet fo lklore cou ld scarcely exaggerate life's hazards for chi ldren dependent on pub lic bounty in Ill inois. Despite the citizenry's occasiona l in ten e regard-usually when a part icu larly brutal story h it the newspapers-dependenL chi ldren have been generally isolated, remote from pub lic consciousness, and without natural allies. "Their very innocence and inoffensiveness leads to their disregard," wrote one observer b itterly. "T h ey make no loud o u tcry and menace no one. Since there are so few voices raised in their beha lf, it is not surpr ising that the persons charged with their care should be ignorant of any prob lems they present, and blind to their real interests." Exce,pt from Poor Relations : The Children of the State

in Illinois ,

1818-1900.

Trustees of the University of Illinois. Published with the permission of the University of Illinois Press.

The devastating fffects of rapid urban development were partirnlarly roident in children. O/Jposite: This boy /Jarticij){tted in a 1904 stockyard strike, the result of labor unrest in the meatpacking industry. Right: Children stand with a Christmas tree in a Back of the )'ards d111np,c. 19 r 4.

Chicago History, Spring r995

Besides being easy to ignore, dependent children ha, Âˇe historically been costly to the state, requiring years of expense before they could become self-sufficient. How much the issue of their poverty has shaped their prospects the State Board of Charities noted late in the nineteenth century, citing the telling fact tl1al as early as 1795 the territory of Illinois had created an orphans' court to deal with the estates of children who had lost their parents. The children most desperately in need, children without means or property, had no court to watch over their interests. They had instead the overseer of the poor, who could apprentice children from destitute families even over their parents' objections. Another territorial law underscored the inferior protection accorded to dependent children. The law provided that apprentices and masters could take grievances to a justice of the peace to rule on, th us enforcing on the one hand the master's right to obedience and hard work and on the other the apprentice's right lo decent treatment and competent education. The law specifically excluded from protection children apprenticed by the local poor law officials. The conscious separation of "the state's children" from those with parenL5 continued in the Poor Law of 1819, the social welfare law passed the year after Illinois auained statehood. But revisions of apprenticeship and poor laws in tJ1e next fifteen years reflected a growing sense that the state owed a more even-handed treatment to the vulnerable children who looked to them for support. The Apprenticeship Law of 1826 and the Poor Law of 1833 made it the concern of the state that dependent children's apprenticeships be monitored to some extent by the probate judge, who was charged to keep the bonds of indenture in his office and to investigate indentured children's siLUations from time to time. The laws also articulated some of the expectations that the children might have: tJ1e right to decent treatment, adequate education, a new Bible, and two suits of clothe (suitable to their station in life) at the end of the apprenticeship. Masters still had great discretion to decide what was fit and proper treatment, but there was at least some sense that children dependent on the tate had a right to proper care.

Law of 1826, in addition of dependent children, gave a further indication of an increasing sense of' state responsibility by expanding the definition of children requiring state attention. This law gave wide latitude to the overseer of the poor in indenturing children whom he deemed to be inadequately cared for, like the children of beggars, habitual drunkards, and widows of"bad character." This was the first recognition that the state might need to interThe Apprenticeship

to voicing some concerns about the protection

Frimdless Foundlings and llomeless Half01plw11s

cede even in families who had not turned Lo the overseers of the poor for help. And it was the first articulation that the state had an interest in doing more than warding off imminent starvation, that iLalso had an interest in the proper rearing of children and an obligation on some level to step in if such proper rearing was not going forward. This concern about proper child rearing was a nineteenth-cen wry phenomenon all across Western culture, but in the United States it wa especially Lied LO the republican experiment that

Until the reform efforts of the late nineleenlh century, the public largely ignored the plight of destitute children. Barefoot children wandering about the streets (opj;osite), boys selling newspapers (toj;), and ÂˇÂˇstreet arabs" sleej;ing on top of each othnfor warmth, c. 1889 (bollom), were among the realities that forced charitiPs lo u nderlake measure.\ to protect orphaned and abandoned children.

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless HalfO,phans must have been very much on citizens' minds in year of the Dec1826, that fiftieth-anniversary laration of Independence. The adequate raising of chi ldr en was a humanitarian concern, but it was also a practical matter for the survival of the noble but risky political enterprise Lhat was the focus of so much anxiety and so much international attention. In the 1840s, the Illinois Supreme Court gave this rationale for the state's presumption to interfere in fami ly life: The power of chancery to interfere with and control , not only the estates but the persons and custody of all minors within the limits of its jurisdiction, is of very ancient origin, and can not now be questioned. This is a power which must neces arily exist somewhere in every well regulated soc iety, and more especially in a republican government, where each man shou ld be reared and educated under such influences that he may be qualified to exercise the rights ofa freeman and take part in the government of the country . It is a duty, then, which the country owes as well to itself, as to the infant, to see that he is not abused , defrauded or neglected, and the infant has a right to this protection.

To some extent the laws dealing with the adu lt poor reflected increased humanitarian concern as well-Illinois outlawed the practice of auctioning off the destitute to the lowest bidder in 1827, for examp le-but itis striking that in its increased concern about neglected children, the state paid little or no heed to the rights of poor parents. Earlier poor laws had given the overseer of the poor the right to indenture chi ldr en without parental consent if the family had become a charge upon the state, even if their poverty was only a temporary catastrophe. The 1826 law expanded the overseer's discretionary powers to decide on the fiu1ess of parents, and while on the one hand that showed an increased concern for the well-being of children, it also reflected a callousness toward the civil rights of poor parents Lhat had always pervaded American poor laws. This cavalier approach toward destitute families remained characteristic of those engaged in child welfare right through the nineteenth century, a striking anomaly in a society where the sanctity of family tics was a paramount value. It

Nineteenth-century society romanticized childhood as a carefree, innocent time, ignoring urban realities. Above: These advertising cards portrayed idyllic childhood. O/JjJosite:The reality: children playing in a dirty puddle in Chicago.

was not until the encl of the nineteenth century that some child welfare theorists would begin to argue for Lhe rights of poor parents and to insist 45

Chirngo History, SjJring 199 5 thaL the besL care ociety could offer for children was Lo support them in Lheir homes rather than remming them.

Urbanization and the Growth of lhf Child Welfrm Probfrm The growing awareness of children in need was a key characteristic of nineteenth-cenwry social welfare endeavors. In Illinois, as in other areas of the country, this concern had its roots in a mix of philosophical , socia l, and practical considerations. The years before the Civil War saw an ouLpouring of reform effort on all levels, and because of their vulnerability and dependence on adults, children were prime subjecLs of this heightened

humanitarian sense. They appealed further because during the course of the nineteenth cenLUryLhe concept of chi ldh ood as a specia l stage of development grew apace, drawing the auent.ion of everyone from popular novelists Lo learned theologians. Nineteenth-century cu ltur e ce lebrated chi ldhood's intuiLive goodness and innocence , in contrast to the gloomy assessmenL of earl ier centuries, which had seen ch ildr en al best as profoundly ignoram and al worst as little bundles of depraviLy . AnoLher reason for the auent ion Lo children 's needs was the abiding concern LhaL Lhey be trained lo be independenL, responsib le ciLizens , not merely for Lheir own sake buL for Lhe healLh of the republic. Finally, auenLion Lurned to dependenL chi ldr en because their numbers swe lled so markedly wiLh the rapid growLh of urban centers during the nineteenth century. Chicago, a frontier ou Lpost at its incorporaLion in 1833, grew in the next sixty-seven years LObe Lhe second largesL ciLy in th e United States, an industrial center LhaLattracted immigrants from all over Lhe world. According Lothe national census, the populaLion of Chicago wa '-J,.,170 people in 1840; 298,977 in 1870; and 1,698,575 in 1900. The rapid growth of the ciLybroughL great wealth to some, buL iLbrought in its wake much suffering as well. Immigrants who came Lo the ciLyseeking a beLter life someLimes found Chicago Lo be a place of opportunity, but many found Lhemsel\'es enmeshed in a web of poverty, desperation, and squalor , and the devasLating effects of urban life were particularly visible in children. In 1851 the city charter noted a group that greatly concerned officials: "children who are des ti tu Le or proper parental care , wandering about the streets, commiuing mischief, and growing up in mendicancy. ignorance, idleness, and vice." These chi ldr en , popularly called "streeL arabs,' ' were ,Âˇiewed as potential trouble makers and therefore recei\'ed official attention early . In addition LOthese children there were others affected by the disruption of city life. The legislature had made minimal legal provisions for illegitimate ch ildr en, for example, in the ear ly years of statehood; the presumption was that the mother would keep her baby and the town would support her and her chi ld at subsistence level

Immigrants who sought a belier li[Pin Chicago often found themselves Living in /Joverty and desperation. The interior of this immigrant's home ( 1898) (Left) was typical of rrowcled tenements like the one pictured opposite, c. 19r1. Oppositebottom: Children play on a dumpster in the Seventeenth Ward, c. 1908.

(and with the most grudging of allitudes) if the father could not be held to account and she could not manage for herse-lf. But in the va t, anonymous city, a desperate mother could simply abandon her baby on the streets without busy neighbors discovering the desertion , as they would inevitably have done in a small town or rural selling. The increase of this phenomenon of deserted children, liulc "foundlings" as they were called, was a gruesome measure of the hazards that the city could hold in store for young women and their unwanted children.

Orphans as a group grew in number as well. All the dangers of disease were compounded by crowded city life, by filthy tenements and equally filthy and dangerous work places. Children could lose one or both parents to a host of diseases uch as cholera, small pox, and tuberculosis. The nited States suffered through three cholera epidemics, in 1832 and again in the 1840s and 1850s, and the fact that the disease was waterborne insured that the poor , crowded into tenements and using the foulest of water , were among the hardest hit by the recurring plagues.

Chirago History, Spring r995 "Half-orphans," (Lhe standard term for children who had losL one parenL) also claimed Lhe reluctanL attenLion of the sLaLe. If the mother died, Lhe children might come LoLhe auention of Lhe larger society because Lhey sLood in need of care and nurturing. It was possible LhaL they would Lurn into some of Lhe liule "streeL arabs" abolll whom Chicago ciLyofficials expressed such concern. BuLa faLher's death , on a pracLical level, was even more caLasLrophic. MosL poor families paLched LOgether Lheir meager income from money brought in by faLhers , moLhers, and children; working men, alLhough they were paid very liLLle,were routinely paid more Lhan women and children, and they made the largesL contribution Lo Lhe family income. Widowed moLhers, illequipped Loprovide for their families, mighL find Lhemselves Lurning Lo Lhe ciLyor county for help to suppon Lheir children. Children were also lcfL "half-orphaned"' in facL, allhough not in law, by Lheir father ' desenion of the family. Sometimes Lhis desenion was absolute; but Hull-House residemjulia LaLl1rop wryly noLed "Lhe masculine expedient of temporary disappearance in Lhe face of nonemploymen tor domestic complexity, or boLh," con Lending Lhat "Lhe intermiuenL husband is a constanL factor in the economic problem of many a household." Natural catastrophes like the Great Fire of 1871 were another cause of dependency in children, and family problems and the stresses of urban life were compounded as well by the labor unrest that characterized the last twenty-five years of the century. In addition, the country experienced a financial panic approximately every twent:yyears: in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873 and 1893. In Chicago, the Panic of 1893 was delayed for a time by the Columbian Exposition, but with Lhe close of the exhibition,jobs di appeared and all the severity of that worst of nineteenth-century depressions was visited on the city. The year 1894 was in many ways a terrible Lime for the poor of Chicago. Compounding the depression was the violence and bitterness of the Pullman Strike, and the ultimate defeat of organized labor in the prolonged struggle. A small-pox epidemic struck Ll1e city; and the winter was one of the worst on record. The dependency rate soared. Families who had never been able to save enough to have

a cushion against disaster were uuerly destroyed by such compounded misfortune and had Loturn to the city and county for help.

The State Re "fJonseto Dependent Children Although the vicissitudes of urban life and economic instability throughout the century greatly expanded both the number and types of children in need of help, public officials resisted innovation in dealing with Lhe needs of dependent children , lumping them wiLh the re t of the dependent population rather than addressing their particular needs as did the private organizations that began to nourish in Chicago in the 1850s. In downstate Illinois, dependent children were still primarily indentured Lhrough the middle years of the century. An 1854 revision of the apprenticeship law manifested some special attention to children's needs, strengthening their right to basic education and protection by Poor Law officials who were to monitor their treatment and LO"defend them from all cruelty, neglect, and

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless Half01phans breach of co nt ract on the part of their masters." An 1874 law further defined t11ech ild 's rights to proper care, specifica lly forb iddin g "u nd eserved or immoderate correct ion, unwholesome food, insufficient allowance of food, ra im ent or lodging, want of sufficient care or physic in sickness, want of instruction in the ir trade." Such bad behavior on t11epart of the master gave the state sufficient cause to end indentures. These rev isions oft11e orig in al apprent icesh ip law renected the state's amb ivalence about parental rights . The 1854 rev ision deleted t11eclause auth or izin g t11e removal of ch ild ren from parents whom the over-

seer of the poor deemed unfit. But the 1874 law restored intervention to some degree, allowing the overseers of the poor to apprentice witho ut parenta l consent any ch ild "who habitually begs for alm s." Although the basic concept of apprenticeship for dependent chi ldr en was shortly to reappear in social welfare par lance as t11einn ovative notion of "free foster homes," the whole system of formal, legal apprenticesh ip as a means of car ing for dependent chi ld ren was beginning to die out in nineteenth-century Amer ica. In northern Illin ois counties, particularly Cook Co un ty, poor law Opposite: This engraving appeared in The Ch icago Found lings' Home Christmas Greeting, a promotional boo/1-

ASYLUM CHILDREN!

let published in 1886. The Foundlings' Horne, which was

A Companyof Children,mostly Boys, from the New York JuvenileAsylum,willarrive in

founded in r87 I, sought homes for babies who were being abandon.Pdin record numbers in the r89os. Left: The harsh conditions of city life sparked institutions like the New Yorkjuvenile Asylum to remove poor urban children to rural areas, where

ROCKFORD, attheHotel Holland, THURSD~Y MORNING,SEPT. 6, 1888, And RemainUntil Evening. They are from 7 to 15 Years of age. Homes are wanted for these children wit i, farmers, where they will auvantages. They have been in the asylum from one to two years, and have received instruction and training preparatory to a term of apprenticeship, and being mostly of respectahle parentage, they are desirable children and worthy of good homes. receive kind treatment and enjoy fair

they woitld participate in apprenticeships in exchange for "'1ind treatment." This r910 broadside announced the arrival of New York City children in Rockford, Illinois.

They may be taken at first upon trial for four weeks, and afterwards, if all partie:s are satisfied, under iudentures,-girls until 18, aud boys until 21 years of age. The indenture provides for four mouths schooling each year , until the child has advnnced through compound interest, and at the expirat.ion of the term of apprenticeship, two new suits of clothes, and the payment to the girls of fifty, and to the boys of one hundred and fifty dollars. All expen888 for transportation will be assumed by the Asylum, and the ohildren will be placed on trial and ind entured free of ch11rge. Thoee who deeire to take children on trial are requested to meet them at the hotel at the time above specified.

E. WRIGHT, Agent PL••··

axTallD

THl8

llll'ORMATI0II.

Chicago History, Spring

99 5

officials instead placed children in the poorhouse , and this trend became state-wide by the end of the century. Most often children were in the poorhouse with their mothers , but a few orphans and illegitimate children ended up there as well. The presence of children in the almshouse was an enduring affront to reformers. [n 1853 a Cook County grand jury found the almshouse to be grossly inadequate , noting with disapproval that "the section devoted to women and children is so crowded as to be very offensive." The physical conditions of this particular poorhouse did improve somewhat O\'er time, but those who concerned themselves with child welfare universally accepted the maxim that the poorhouse was no fit place for children. Forty years and much reform agitation later, the situation was not ign ifican tly better.Julia Lathrop , who toured the Cook County poorhouse many times as a member of the State Board of Chari tie , wrote this description of the children there in 1894: There are usually from fifty to seventy-five children, of whom a large proportion are young children with their mothers, a very few of whom are for adoption. The remainder, perhaps a third, are the residuum of all the orphan asylums and hospitals, children whom no one cares LO adopt because they are unattractive or scarred or sickly. These children are sem to the public schools aero s the street from the poor-farm. Of course they wear hideous clothes , and of course the outside children sometimes jeer at them.

These children, as part of the poorhouse population, were among the most stigmatized and outcast members of nineteenth-century society. obodywent to the poorhouse if they could help it. These institutions were deliberately set up to be as unattractive as possible , a meager social mechanism intended merely to sustain life in the dependent population. The poor, who could pay with no other currency, were expected to pay with their dignity for their board and room. Lathrop spoke of"the absolute lack of privacy, the monotony and du! [I] ness , the discipline, the enforced cleanliness." Nor was enforced cleanliness always the problem. The poorhouse superintendent in Coles County reported in 1880, apparently witl1out embarrassment, that he could not remember

one bath having been taken in his sixteen years in charge. The institution's surroundings reOected his laissez faire approach to hygiene. It was still po sible for poor families to receive some mea ure of "o utdoor relief ' in most cotmties of the state in the mid to late nineteenth century, but such support was \'ery limited. Nineteenth-century economic theory , reinforcing the already parsimonious attitude of Americans, posited that handouts merely increased dependency and led to the "pauperizing" of families , destroying their initiative and drive to do better. Poorhouses were et up LOreplace most outdoor relief, created with the notion that they must not be too attractive or they would be crowded with shiftless types simply trying to live on the bounty of the town. In reality, authorities need not have feared such a thing. Anyone who could possibly manage it stayed out of the poorhouse. Those who entered were the unfortunate souls who had no one to protect them or find them a tolerable situation in the outside world. Children shared the poorhouse with tl1e chronically sick, the elderly poor, the insane , and the mentally and phy ically disabled , as well as the

Frimdless Foundlings and Homeless Half01plwns

"paupers" who simply could not make an economic go of it on the outside. In Cook County, and elsewhere on a less grand scale, the essential misery of the poorhouse was compounded by corruption. The staff jobs were filled by patronage, and those in charge ofthe"arious wards were thus unlikely LO be much exercised about the humane care of inmates. One of the most critical voices raised against the abuses of the poorhouse and the presence of children there was that of the Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities, established by the legislature in 1869 to monitor and coordinate the various social welfare efforts throughout the state. The board's power was originally very restricted. "The duties required of the commission arc quite onerous," the First Biennial Report stated ruefully. "The powers gran Led are very limited. The board has unlimited power of inspection , suggestion and recommendation, but no L eft and below: Children play and dig through Chicago 's streets, c. 1890.

The Board a/State Commis sionf'I'.\ of Public Charities. f'stablishr'd in I869, was the first official agency in thr, state to tabulalf' information about dependmt children.

These children stand alone with mixf'd Pxpressions.

1900.

Chicago History, S/1ring 1995 Left: TJu, jJOOrhouse i 11 Dunning, Illinois , 1910. Although jJoorhou.1Âˇe.1/Jrovided most of the Jn1blir rn refor de~titute children, J;rivate institutions began lo tai<eres/1onsibility for selecting ho111es for rhildren. OJ1/1osite: The

r88--1Annual Report of the Chicago Ho111e for thl' Frimd less ex/1/ained how to adojJl a child from the home. Below: Childrm sit on a unidmtijied building stoo/1.

administraLive power whaLsoever." SLill, Lhe SLaLe Board could and did regisLer vigorous disapproval, and it made enough impact so Lhat a bill Lodissolve the new moniLOring agency was introduced inLo Lhe legislature almost immediately. The bill failed, but hostile legislators were able to limit inspection dramatically at one point by cutting off all travel funds for the commissioners. DespiLe such constraints, the St.ate Board fulfilled an important funcLion as the first official agency in the state to collect and tabulate information about the actual living conditions of dependenL members ofsocieLy, including children. For example, the board reponed LhaLin 1880 Illinois almshouses housed 386 children; forty were assessed as feebleminded, twenty-four diseased, fourteen defective, and eighty-Lhree had been born in the almshouse. OfLhaL eigh Ly-Lhree, seYenty-nine were illegitimaLe, a fact pointed to by almshouse criLic to illustraLe Lheir concern abouL the inadequate separation of the sexes in Lhe institutions. Some poorhouses had schools or arranged Lhat children should auend the public schools in Lhe vicinity; but in many counLy almshouses, Lhe children did noL go to school at all. Still, Lhere was no doubL in anyone's mind thaL these children were geLting an education, a thorough grounding in the seamier side of life. In 1879 there was a movemem in Cook County to get children out of Lhe almshouse and in Loprivate child care institutions. This effort revealed

the prevailing attitudes of reformers LOward the parents of children who were dependent because ofpoven:y. Much negoLiation was necessary to setLie which orphanages were LOLake the children, since religious groups insisLed Lhat the children's religious affiliations be respected. Yet in all the negotiations, no one considered that the poorhouse mothers might have an opinion about the removal ofLheirchildren. The privaLe instiLULions

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless HalfOrphans involved required Lhe termination of parental rights before they would Lake Lhe children. When the mothers in the Cook County poorhouse learned LhaL their children's well-being was to be bought al the expense of their paremhood, they protested vigorously but without success. Some reformers, in fact, expressed Lhe view Lhat the mothers' unwillingness Lo give up their children demonsLrated Lheir lack of affection for their families . But in the end, the mothers succeeded in making an eloquem statement about these high-handed methods. When Lhe officials from Lhe child care institutions arrived to pick up the children, they found that most of them were gone. To prevent their removal to the orphanages, the mothers had managed lo find places outside the poorhouse for all buL seventeen out of seventy-five children. The Cook Coumy poorhouse had a rule LhaLno parents who refused to give consent to the adoption of their children could enter the poorhouse, buL in t88o, the county agent objected to the rule as inhumane and cruel. He refused to enforce the policy, and his stance meant that children began Loenter the Cook County poorhouse again, with and without parents, less than a year after the "rescue operation" of 1879. The concern that children were growing up in such a wretched seuing did noL disappear, des pi Le the limited success ofthe Cook County effort, buL it took another forty years for the Illinois legislature LO close aim houses Lochildren. In 1895 a law provided LhaLorphan children could be removed from the poorhouse and placed in private homes, but only when a private charity or individual would assume the expenses connected wilh such placemenL. By 1900 a dozen states, beginning with Michigan in 1869, had ended the practice of pulling children in the poorhouse, but Illinois proved more resistant to thoroughgoing reform . Finally, in 1919 the legislature passed a law limiting the time in the poorhouse to thirty days for girls under eighteen and boys under seventeen, after which other arrangements would have to be made for them. This effectively ended Lhe use of the poorhouse as a child welfare institution. By Lhat time the number of children in Illinois poorhouses had shrunk considerably: Lo 17 t children in 1918 compared to47oal the peak, 1886.

HOW TO OBTAIN A CHILD FROM THE .. HOME." Any perSon desiring to take a child from the" Home/' for adoption! or to bring up to maturity, must commun~ icate in person, or by writing, with the Superintendent, giving a full statement of the circumstances in which the child will be placed 1 if transferred from the II Home::" to his or her care-what position in the family such

child will hold-wh,t

labor will be required-what

ad-

vantages for education will be given, and what will be

the religious privileges and training. These facts must always he accompanied with good andÂˇ satisfactory recommendations, or the request can re. ceive no attention fron.1 the committee charged by the

Board with the responsibihty of selecting homes for the children.

Child Care Institutions under Public Auspices Although the county poorhouses provided most of the public care of destitute children in nineteenth-century Illinois, no one made much ofan argument to counter the accu ations leveled again t them of pinch-penny meannes and spiritual demoralization. In reality, they existed as the most frankly minimal of offerings for children in need, with a policy set far more bya consciousnes of county expenditures than of children's welfare. Noted social welfare thinker Homer Folks remarked in 1900 that "the states of Illinois and Missouri, notwithstanding their large cities have been singularly backward in making public provisions for desLitute and neglected children." In fact, Illinois had only two child welfare institutions under public auspices during the nine55

• Chicago History, Spring r995 teenth century, both far more specialized than the catch -all poorhouses provided by most counties. These institutions were the Soldiers' Orphans ' Horne and, until 1870 , the Chicago Reform School. The Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home, founded in 1865 in Normal, Illinois , was a statefunded institution for the care of children whose fathers had been killed or disabled in the Civil War. An institution with a limited purpose, the Soldiers' Orphans' Horne was meant to close once its original population had been cared for. But in the 1870s the eligibility for care was broadened to include children of all Civi I War veterans, an act that established the institution on a more permanent basis. Frequently the children were half-orphans whose mothers simply could not feed them any more. In 1872 , for example, 532 out of 642 children had living mothers. In 1879, the superintendent gave this description of the newly arrived children for that year: "T he class now entering are, for the most part, young and in particularly destitute circumstances-those whom their mothers have struggled long and

-lit

hard to keep, but who now find themselves, at the commencement of winter, without the means for support, and know they must either send them away to be cared for elsewhere, or permit them to remain at home to suffer. The state must now take these burdens of care and responsibility where the weary mothers lay them clown." The separation of children from mothers unable to provide for them financially was a tragic constan Lin nineteenth-century children's institutions . At least at the Soldiers' Orphans' Home there was some connection maintained between children and their families; mothers were not required to terminate their parental rights when they placed their children there , and it was not uncommon for the children in th e institution to spend time, sometimes whole summers, with their mothers. The population of the home fluctuated with the season and with the economic climate of the times. This enlightened aspect of the place , how ever, was not typical of the administration. The Soldiers' Orphans' Home was often plagued by scandals and investigations , and the treatment of

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th e childr e n was very ha rsh . Th e fact th at it was a pub licly fund ed instilllti o n m ea nt th at it was scrntini ze d fa irl y int e nsively by th e Sta te Boar d of Ch ariti es, and th e boa rd found liu le to pra ise in th e or ph an age. T he qu ality of ad m ini strato rs varied widely, since th ey were app o inte d by th e govern o r. Th e first sup e rint e nd e n t, Mrs . Ohr , was a Civil War co lo ne l's widow with small chil dre n b ul no business ca pac ity an d a rapacio us app et ite for elega nce, furni shed at th e expe nse of th e sta te . In 1869 , ear ly in he r ten u re, bo th th e Springfield Rf'gislna nd th e Chicago Tfotf's vo iced acc usa tio ns abo ut se r io us m i. trea tmen t of th e ch ild re n . Alth o ugh Mrs. Ohr a nd h er staff we re exo n erate d , o ne steward was di mi ssed o n th e gro un ds

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th a Lhe had m ad e sex ual advan ces to a n umber o f liLtle girl s in th e insLitu tion. Mrs. Ohr weat here d thi s upse t, kept o n beca use she was "a moth er to th ese o rp han s," in the wor ds of th e invest iga Ling co mmiu ee. But eve nw a lly sh e went too fa r ; a co mbin at io n of tota lly ign o r ing th e tru stees' instru ction s, kee pin g th e childr e n fr o m schoo l in ord e r to perfo rm cho res aro und th e institu tio n , and th o ro ughl y pro fligate spendin g finally end ed h er career al th e So ldi e rs' O rph a ns' H o me om e twenty years af ter she had laun ched it. T h e two sup e rint e nd e nt s wh o fo llowed Mr s. Oh r were mo re b usin ess-like in th e ir ap pr oac h , but th ey had no tra in in g in th e care of child re n , orphan or n ot; they were stri ctly po liti ca l ap-

Chicago History, Spring 1995 pointments. The most difficulL regime for the children up Lo the Lurn of Lhe century was that of a Republican politician named_). L. Magner, who was nicknamed "the caLtle driver" by some of the Bloomington / Normal locals because of his harsh treatment of the children. There was consistent criticism thaL the children were made to work too hard, at tasks that were sometimes beyond them, and they were often kept home from school to work. One particularly distressing instance of work beyond the children's capaci t)' was the scalding death of a three-year-old child, burned while being bathed by ome of the older children of the institution. Nor were the superintendents and their policies the only difficulty. The building, planned by a board of trustees with a poetical turn, was gracef u 11y adorned with turrets and "crowned wiLh a tasteful observatory." But Frederick Vl'ines, secretary of the State Board of Charities, assessed tl1e bui lding as a thoroughgoing failure on a practical level. There were no closets, no playgrounds, only two bathrooms for over three hundred children, no infirmary, and no private quarters for thf' superintendent's family. Perhaps worst of all, there was no deep wellspring to supply water. The well went dry after Lhe first year, and water had to

be brought in by railroad. The Soldiers' Orphans' Home, beset by scandals and mismanagemem, conjured up the worst fears of lllinois citizens about public institutions run badly because of patronage appointments. The Chicago Reform School, also a public institution, won approval from most critics for efficient management and humane treatment or its inmates. But the school's involvement with predelinquent boys ended with the noted O 'Connell decision of 1870, aucl the institution closed shortly after this. With the exception or the inadequate provision of the poorhouse , the responsibility for dependent children in Chicago, from 1871 to Lhe encl of the century, was under private auspices.

The Growth of Private Institutions Nineteenth Cenlury

The state's minimal response LO dependent children was an obdurate problem in the nineteenth century. An equally disorgani;,ing feature of child welfare in Illinois resulting from state reluctance was the proliferation orprivate agencies to care for children. These institutions mushroomed in the state (particularly in Chicago) in the last half

Right: An August 29, 1897 , Chicago Tribune article announced that two hundred or more "bright little wards of /Jily" romped th rough the corridor of llu new Chicago Home for lhe Friendless. The English gothic-slyle structure al Fifly-jirsl Stm l and Vincennes Avenue ( o/J/Josite) served as a lfm/Jorary abode for homeless and battered women and children . 1

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of the nineteenth century, offering a wide variety of services Lochildren, based in pan on their religious and cultural identificaLion and in part on the variety of n e eds that the complex crises of urban life created. These agencies, originally meant to fill the gap left by the inadequacy of state responses , quickly became entrenched in Lhe public life of the city. Their presence contributed to the fragmentation that would plague child welfar e efforts in Illinois through the twentieth century, resulting in a lack of coordination that left man y dependent children unserved. By the end of the nineteenth cenwry , critics in Illinois and around the country began LOsee the dominance of private agencies as a negaLive and talk in terms of a stronger slate organization; but in the midnineteenth century , the private child welfare instiLLllion were autonomous , both organizationally and financially , not always by their own choo ing. The Chicago Orphan A~ylum , founded in 1848 Lorespond LO the crisis of the cholera epidemic of that year, was the first orphanage in Cook Count y. It was followed in 1849 by the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, which aimed LO se rve Catholic

children and keep them out of the Protestant Chicago Orphan Asylum. This carving out ofreligious turf, begun so early in the history of child care institutions, was to be a major factor in the development of orphanages in Chicago . In add ition to a competition among religions for the care of children, a strong sense of ethnicity motivated founders of these institutions. Chicago had insLiLLJtionsrepresenting all nationalities; there were German orphanages, Irish orphanages , Swedish, Polish, Lithuanian, and.Jewish orphanages, as well as insLitutions founded by "native Americans" of English stock. Besides motives of religion and ethnicity, instillltions developed to respond to a variety of needs among children. Many of them took in the children of the poor buL insisted that parents relinquish their rights to Lhe children before they were accepted. A few, like the Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum, were founded to offer support LO working mother who could noL keep their children at home, yet wanted to preserve their families. The children lived al the institution , but mothers were expected to visit them reg59

Chicago History, Spring 1995 ularly and contribute something toward their children's support. The Chicago Home for the Friendless originally took in homeless and battered women as well as children but soon revised its mission to focus only on children. The Chicago Foundling Hospital specialized in caring for the abandoned infants found with such appalling regularity on the streets and brought by the police to the institution for what care and comfort it could offer. The mortality rate in foundling hospitals was always shockingly high; the babies had frequently suffered from exposure, and feeding them adequately and safely, in the days before infant formula and pasteurized milk, posed a major problem. The desertion of infants was a disturbing and highly visible form of child mistreatment, provoking an 1887 law that made such abandonment a crime resulting in automatically terminated parental rights. But not all children left at the foundling hospital were abandoned on the streets. Dr. William Shipman, founder of the hospital, witnessed a poignant scene in which a mother and her little boy said a heartbroken farewell to their baby before placing it in the champagne basket used as a receptacle outside the foundling hospital. In typical nineteenth century fashion, Shipman sympatl1ized with a mother pushed to such lengths, yet his assistance took the form of only taking tl1e baby, not of investigating ways that the family might stay togetl1er. One development among private institutions that especially reflected the growing awareness of children and their needs was the Illinois Humane Society, which began itschildsavingwork in 1877. By the time the population of Cook County had begun its phenomenal growth, going from 43,383 people in 1850 to 607,524 in 1880. Both the suÂˇesses of city life and its anonymity provoked child abuse, according to Oscar Dudley , director of the Illinois Humane Society, who observed that "what is everybody's business is nobody's business"; and thus children could be terribly treated Although nineteenth-century reformers claimed to sympathize with families who wereforced to give up their children to the state, they paid little attention tofinding ways to keep the families togethei: Right: Children from the Chicago Nursery and Half Orphan Asylum play in the jJark.

--Chicago History, Spring 1995 by parents and guardians even though there were laws in effect to protect them. The Humane Society originally began as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but in 1877, Director Dudley transferred the society 's attention to cruelty against children by arresting an abusive guardian. There was, he wrote, "no reason that a child should not be entitled to as much protection under the law as a dumb animal." The Illinois Society for the prevention of Cruelty to Animals changed its name to the Illinois Humane Society in 1881, recognizing that over two-thirds of its investigations involved cruelty against children rather than animals. Dudley asserted that from 1881, when the Humane Society began to keep records, until the time that he was writing ( 1893), over ten thousand children had been rescued. The rescue operations were broadened from cases of abuse to the protection of children exploited by tl1eiremployers, particularly when children were forced to beg or were entertainers or victims of the infamous padrone sy Lem. Dudley reported great success in finding asylums and homes for these children, a situation receiving tacit approval from the slate, which did not at this point assume responsibility for neglected or abused children or supervise private child placement activities.

State Involvement in the Late Nineteenth Century The only real state or city involvement with private institutions originally was that the mayor, acting as guardian for dependent children, had the power to place them in child care institutions. The city of Chicago (where most of the children's institutions flourished), the surrounding counties, and the state of Illinois all proved very reluctant to contribute financially to private institutions. The city did give very occasional assistance, in times of real crisis like the cholera epidemics or the Great Fire of 1871, but it was limited in quantity and very episodic. The most the city would do for the Chicago Nursery and HalfOrphan Asylum, for exam pie, was to provide that the city could buy or lease the land upon which the asy lum would be built. For the Englewood

Infant Nursery, the assistance was even more meager: in 1893 the city provided ten tons of hard coal and burial space for dead babies. For the children who managed to survive, the funding had Lo come from other sources. The stale did make one major concession in funding when it agreed to provide subsidies for the industrial schools that developed in the last years of the century. The chools were modeled after English institutions made famous by the renowned English reformer Mary Carpenter , who in the 1870s and 1880s enjoyed considerable influence in the United States. The primary point of the schools , reflecting the use of the word "industrial," was Lo train children to earn their own living in later life, although in fact the training tended to be geared much more toward a traditional agriculLUral economy than toward anything having LOdo with industry. Boys learned farming , some shoe and broommaking , woodcarving and academic subjects. Girls were primarily given a common school education and taught domestic skills. The willingness to fund the industrial schools was traceable to tl1eir mission: tl1ey were founded to deal with older, predelinquent street children

Friendless Foimdlings and Homeless Half01phan~

Opposite:julia Lathro/1, socialservice worker al f-1 ull-House, member of I he St ale Board of Charities, founder of the Chicago Ins lit ute of Social Science, and first chief of the U. S. Department of Labor's Children's Bureau , advorated child welfare reform in Chicago. Successful reform efforts s/1arked the stale lo Jund industrial schools, where boys learned a trad e and girls were taught domestic skills. Left: These boys learn woodworking in a settlement workshop.

who threatened the public order by begging , consorting with objectional characters, or living in houses of ill-fame. The law establishing industrial schools added that children in the poorhouse were propersubjectsfor the schools, which meant that in practice there was a mix of younger children in with the more canny and seasoned veterans of the street. The State Board of Charities, which inspected the schools, objected to this mix, but th e industrial schools survi,Âˇed this criticism, as well as a series of court challenges ranging from civil liberties concerns to objections that the schools were sectarian institutions and therefore not appropriate recipients of state funds. The development of the subsidy system, the state fundingofprirnte institutions on an amount-

per-child basi , was a phenomenon noted by Homer Folks in The Care of the Destitute, Neglected and Dependent Children, his end-of-the-century assessment of child care trends in the United States. Neither Folk nor other observers of current philanthropic trends, groups like the national Conference of Charities and the Illinois State Board of Charities, really approved of such an arrangement. They urged Illinois to move in the direction of states like Kansas and Iowa , which had converted veterans' orphans' homes similar to the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans ' Home to state institutions that served all dependent children, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or parental status. These states and others around the country were moving toward a point where the state 63

Chicago History, Spring 1995

assumed primary responsibility for dependent children, not by warehousing them in local poorhouses but by placing them in state-run, central institutions from which they were placed out into foster and adoptive homes. Thi system of central state control wa known as the "Michigan Plan," after the first tate to enact the policy. Illinois 's neighbors vVisconsin and Minnesota, as well as Michigan , had stale institutions for dependent children, winning the approval of child welfare theorists who applauded such cenuÂˇalization. It was, they argued, more efficiem and economical, providing children with far beuer, more consistent care than Illinois's system, where a child might be placed with a uperb private agency but might also be made to endure the grim inadequacies of the poorhouse. "The real contest, if such it ma y be called," wrote Folk in 1900, "will be between the state and the contract or ubsidy system . To put it plainly, the question now being decided is this-is our public administration sufficiently honest and

efficient to be entrusted with the management of a system for the care of destitute children, or must we turn that branch of public service O\'er to pri\'ate charitable corporations, leaving to public officials the functions of paying the bills; and of exerci ing such supen 1ision O\'er the workings of the plan as may be possible?" Illinois was seen as nonprogressi\'e in its increasing use of the subsidy system, allowing private agencies to dominate the field while the state remained relati\'ely uninvolved in the care and protection of dependent children. This minimal level of state invoh Âˇement offended against another philanthropic tenet , the idea that the state should have a monitoring function over all agencies, public and private, as well as keeping in touch with children who had been placed in families. The State Board of Chari ties did visit the industrial schools, which got public funds , but it was not until the Juvenile Court Act was passed in 1899 that the State Board was gi\'en responsibilit y for inspect.ion of private

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless l lalf01j1hans

as well as public agencies for children. Another significant change from an earlier view, at least among the more "advanced" thinkers, was a rejection of institutions as the best substitute for a child's family. In the nineteenth century, institutions and asylums of all kinds had sprung up, not only in Illinois but all across the United States. Asylums were not intended to be a dumping ground for society's unfortunates, as the county poorhouses were, but were rather supposed to be a specialized environment in which the needs of a particular dependent population could be met most effectively. But it was not long before a set of critics arose who stressed the negative effects of institutions and urged that institutional life should be resorted to only under special circumstances or on a very temporary basis. For special cases, like the handicapped, perhaps institutions could provide resources and u-aining that they would not receive elsewhere, these critics agreed; but for children whose greatest problem was that for one reason or another their families were not functioning, the negative effects of institutions far outweighed the positive aspects. According to the anti-institutional analysis, the regimentation in institutions was destructive of Religion and ethnicity heavily influenced the creation of many of Chicago's child rare institutions. Above: Larliin Children's Home in Elgin, Illinois, 1 9 ÂŁ 2. Photograph by Elmer Gylleck. Right: Mealtime at lllf New Yori! Foundling Hospital, c. r900 .

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Frimdless Foundlings and Hom eless Half-Orphans initiative and individua lity. The qualities that brought rewards in an institutional settingmindless obedience, dependence, obsequiousness-were the very traits that all agreed were destructive to the forming of a hea lthy, independent adult citizen. Furthermore , institutions by their nature seemed to foster abuse and bad treatment. Exposes and investigations of various institutions featured accusations of physica l cruelty and psycho log ical debasement. Institutions were expensive, physically and psychologically barren, and downright unnatura l for children, according to Charles Loring Brace, a minister who worked for the Chi ldren's Aid Soc iety of New York. Brace began a program that took the street ch ildren of New York City and sought to improve their lives not by placing them in the high ly con trolled environment of an insti tution but by resettling them in homes in midwestern and western states such as Illinois. He was convinced that the best solution for chi ldren in need of placement was to provide homes in the simplest and most direct way, re lying as much as possible on the bas ic goodness that he believed informed the souls of most Americans, especially those who still lived away from the corrupting city in the virtue-producing agricu ltural heartland of the nation. The methods of the Children's Aid Society reflected the simplicity of Brace's moral equation . Brace and his associates would arrive in a western town with a trainload of children, and using the medium of the local churches, would call upon citizens to give these needy young people a home. The entire plan of"free foster homes" was really only an updated version of apprenticeship, in which the child agreed to work in exchange for care and training, except that this child-placing organization, aided by such techno logical developments as the railroads, reached much farther afield than the overseers of the poor had done in earlier times. Free foster homes differed further in that they were no legal bonds struck at all between the child and his foster family. Brace firmly believed that a child who brought a willing pair of hands to a family would be valued accordingly and cou ld safely counL on good treatmenL in his new home. This notion proved, not surprisingly, lo be over ly sanguine, as th e Children's Aid Society

Of1posite: This August r873 Harper 's engraving entitled "Worh of the Children's Aid Society'' illustrated the transformation of street waifs to f1rodurlive new members ofmidwesternfamilies . Below: Thi broadside announced the arrival of the Children's Aid Society in Troy, Missouri .

came to discover when the accusations began LO grow in the later years of the century that New York was not really solving children's problems by the use of its "Children We t" program but was merely dumping one of its troub lesome populations on to other states. At various times the Children's Aid Society conducted surveys and studies of its "alumni," claiming a very high success rate for the program , but critics questioned the quality of these studies, and opposition to Brace 's program continued. The 1899 Illinois Juvenile Court Act forbade any agencies LO bring

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Chicago History, Spring 1995 children unaccompanied by their parents or guardians, without the approval of the State Board of Charities. This was partly a protection against the importing of child labor in Illinois, but it was a response as well to organizations like the Children's Aid Society. The law incluclecl the provision that any child who became a public charge with in five years of arrival in mi nois should be removed to his or her home state. The notion of placing children in families and the belief that normal family life was a far healthier situation than institutions was firmly entrenched in child welfare thinking by the encl of the century. But the earlier , more naive, notion that foster families could be trusted to care for dependent children without supervision had been replaced in philanthropic thinking by a belief that it was important for an outside agency regular ly to check on the child and act in his behalf. Coupled with this was the beginning ofa move away from "free" foster homes to the belief that boarding homes, foste1- homes in which a family got payment for keeping the foster chilcl , were most productive of humane treatment. Child welfare theorists and practitioners worried that if a family's greatest inducement to take a foster chi ld was the child's potential economic contr ibution, there might be a strong incentive for them to over-burden him with work, at the expense of his academic education, which reformers were coming more and more to see as the true and proper occupation of chilclhoocl. One final change in philanthropic theory that saw little reflection in practice but was to bring about a revolution in twentieth-century social welfare was the growing conviction that the best thing that could be clone for children was LO keep them with their families whenever possible. Students of society came increasingly LO regard poverty as a result of faulty economic and social structure rather than of personal failings of [eekBy the end of the nineleenlh century, some child welfare theorists began to argue that the best care sociely could offer for children was to support them in their homes rather than remove them to new families or instilutions. The lnfanl Welfare Society was founded in I 9 I

to offer

instruction lo mothers on how to carefor !heir babies. Righi: Infant Welfare Society nurses , no date.

less or lazy individuals, and they disapproved of the kind of casual invasion of poor families' lives that could demand the sacrifice of parental rights in return for assistance. This belief in the preservation of the family became a basic underpinning of the social welfare faith as it was articulated in the next fifty years, and the state of fllinois , with its experiment in mothers ' pension programs , was to be in the forefron L of progressive practice in this area . In the last clecacle of the nineteen th century, though , the innovations that would make Illinois notable a few years later were nowhere in sight. Surrounded by vigorous neighbors, Jllinois was considered conservative in iL~reluctance to deal with its child welfare functions and in its willingness Lo relinquish the charge LO private agencies. In fact, the state's altitude toward dependent children had changed very little in the course of the nineteenth century. The first laws and provisions for clepenclent children had reflected a lack of

Friendless Foundlings and Homeless HalJ-Orj1hans Between ro11fere11res about child care, infant IVeljare Society nurses, li/1ethe one pictured here (left), visited the homes of/Joor mothers to see that babies were being properlycaredfor and that sanitary conditions were being maintained.

ardor bordering on indifference, and at the end of the century, the state's engagement in child welfare, despite the crisis engendered by rapid growth and economic stress, was tepid at best. The combination of fiscal conservatism and ethnic and religious tensions meant that state action was regarded with suspicion in many quarters and kept efforts fragmented and inadequate to the need. There was also a fear that the patronage and corruption for which Illinois was already famous might make state administration of programs for dependent children less effective than privately run efforts. Ironically, it was in part this very disorganization and inaction that would lead to the founding of the Juvenile Court and bring Illinois , however briefly, within the pale of reformers' approval.

For Further Reading The Ilistorical Society Library has numerous pamphlets, annual reports, and other materials from institutions such as the Chicago Nursery and HalfOrphan Asylum, the Chicago Home for the Friendless, and the Chicago Foundlings' Hospital. For a broad historical perspective on the nited States's 71

Chicago History, S/Jring 1995 Work in the United States ( ew York: Columbia University Press, 1978). To learn more about child welfare reform between the Progressive era and the New Deal, see Mina Carson's Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the Arn erican Settlement Movrmen t, 1 8 85r93 o (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990) and Robyn Muncy' Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 ( ew York: Oxford University P1-ess,1991). Marilyn Jrvin Holt's The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1992) discusses one nineteenth-century solution Lo the plight of urban orphans.

Illustration Credits

This photograph of a child standing alonr romPsfrom the Chicago Commons Association collection. Like man)' private agencies, the Chicago Commons selllrment educated and nurtured children. By the end of the nineteenth century, howeve,; critics in Illinois and around the country began to question the effectiveness of private-care instit-i1tions. These criticisms eventually led to the state's rentralized efforts to carefor destitute children.

care for needy chilcl1-en, see Joseph Hawes's The Children's Rights Movement: A History of Advocacy and Protection (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991) and James Leiby's A History of Social Welfare and Social 72

40, CHS, DN-L019; 41, CHS Prints and Photographs; 4 2-43, CHS, ICI-Ii-23821; 43 top, Photography Collection, University of Maryland Baltimore County; 43 bottom, The Jacob A. Riis Collection, #122, Museum ofche City of New York; 44, CHS, ICHi-23817; 45, CHS Library; 46 top, CHS, ICHi00800; 46 bottom, CHS, ICHi-03808; 47 , CHS, ICHi-03821; 48, from Chicago Home for the Friendle s Annual Report (1884), CHS Library; 49, Illinois State Historical Library; 50-51, CIIS, ICHi-03889; 51 bottom, CHS, ICHi-23821; 52-53, CHS, ICHi24067; 54 top, CHS, D L56107; 54 bottom, CHS, ICHi-21785; 55, from TheFoundlings'f-fomeChristmas Greeting ( 1886), CHS Library; 56 left, from Chicago Foundling' Home Annual Rr/Jort ( 1881 ), CHS Library; 56 right, from Chicago Nur ery and Half Orphan Asylum AnnualRPpor/ ( 1874 ), CHS Library; 57, CI IS Archives and ManuscripL~; 58, from Chicago Tribune (August 29, 1897), CHS Library; 59, CHS, ICHi-17618; 60-61, CHS, ICHi-236 "19; 62, CHS, ICI-Ji-20368; 63, CHS, ICHi-24905; 64-65, CHS, ICHi-24905; 65 bottom, The Byron Collection , Museum of the City of ewYork; 67-68, The Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas; 68, The ewberry Library; 69, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia; 70-71, CHS, ICI-Ii-03840; 71 top, CHS, ICHi-03844; 72, CHS, ICHi-16133.

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Like many other American cities , Chicago is for its neighborh with its own rich that contributes tmmr ------.

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knowledge and under · standing of the larger city. In keeping with its mission to interpret the history of all Chicagoans , the Chicago Historical Society has recently embarked on a project to document the history of four neighborhoods , beginning with Douglas Grand Boulevard on the city's Near South Side .

Property of the CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY