Chicago History | Winter 2010

W I N T E R 2 0 1 0 | $4 .9 9

C H I C AG O H I S T O RY Editor-in-Chief Rosemary K. Adams Associate Editors Emily H. Nordstrom Amanda B. Stenlund Designer Bill Van Nimwegen Photography John Alderson Jay Crawford Publications Interns Eva K. Breitenbach Amanda R. Tanney

Copyright 2010 by the Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago, IL 60614-6038 312.642.4600 www.chicagohistory.org ISSN 0272-8540 Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.

Footnoted manuscripts of the articles appearing in this issue are available from the Chicago History Museum’s Publications Office.

On the cover: Queen Elizabeth II and Mayor Richard J. Daley arrive at the Conrad Hilton Hotel, July 6, 1959. A full account of the queen’s day in Chicago begins on page 18.

C H I C AG O H I S T O R I C A L S O C I E T Y OFFICERS

TRUSTEES

Sharon Gist Gilliam Chair

James L. Alexander David P. Bolger Warren K. Chapman Patrick F. Daly T. Bondurant French Sallie L. Gaines Timothy J. Gilfoyle Thomas M. Goldstein Cynthia Greenleaf David A. Gupta Barbara A. Hamel David D. Hiller Dennis H. Holtschneider Tobin E. Hopkins Daniel S. Jaffee Falona Joy Barbara Levy Kipper Randye A. Kogan Judith Konen Paul R. Lovejoy

John W. Rowe Chairman Emeritus John W. Croghan Vice Chair Walter C. Carlson Vice Chair Patrick W. Dolan Treasurer Paul H. Dykstra Secretary Gary T. Johnson President Russell L. Lewis Executive Vice President and Chief Historian

Erica C. Meyer Timothy P. Moen Robert J. Moore Jesse H. Ruiz Gordon I. Segal Larry Selander Samuel J. Tinaglia Noren Ungaretti Jeffrey W. Yingling LIFE TRUSTEES

Lerone Bennett Jr. Philip D. Block III Laurence O. Booth Stanley J. Calderon Alison Campbell de Frise Stewart S. Dixon Michael H. Ebner M. Hill Hammock Susan S. Higinbotham

Henry W. Howell Jr. Philip W. Hummer Richard M. Jaffee Edgar D. Jannotta W. Paul Krauss Fred A. Krehbiel Joseph H. Levy Jr. Josephine Louis R. Eden Martin Robert Meers Josephine Baskin Minow Potter Palmer Bryan S. Reid Jr. Paul L. Snyder HONORARY TRUSTEE

Richard M. Daley Mayor, City of Chicago

The Chicago History Museum is easily accessible via public transportation. CTA buses nos. 11, 22, 36, 72, 73, 151, and 156 stop nearby. For travel information, visit www.transitchicago.com.

The Chicago History Museum gratefully acknowledges the Chicago Park District’s generous support of all of the Museum’s activities.

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM

Winter 2010 VOLUME XXXVI, NUMBER 3

Contents

4 18 36 52

Taking the Plunge into Civil Rights Ellen Skerrett with Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, Barry Hillenbrand, and Peter Steinfels

An Unforgettable Day: Queen Elizabeth Visits Chicago Rosemary K. Adams

Departments Yesterday’s City John H. White Jr.

Making History Timothy J. Gilfoyle

Taking the Plu nge into Civil Rights A student campaign to integrate a Catholic club brings nuns and a priest to a picket line on Michigan Avenue.

ELLEN SKERRETT with Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, Barry Hillenbrand, and Peter Steinfels

The march is widely thought to be the first time the religious appeared in a picket line in traditional dress. Newspapers and magazines around the world printed photographs of Franciscan sisters, Loyola students, lay people, and a lone priest, Daniel J. Mallette (center).

The July 1, 1963, march around Lewis Towers, part of Loyola University’s downtown campus at 820 North Michigan Avenue, cast the school in the throes of the civil rights movement. Within days, international newspapers carried images of Franciscan sisters in traditional habit— and a lone Catholic priest—carrying signs on a picket line protesting the segregated practices of one of the building’s tenants, the Illinois Club for Catholic Women.

As the author of Loyola University’s first published history, I invited three members of the class of 1963—Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, Barry Hillenbrand, and Peter Steinfels—to share firstperson behind-the-scenes experiences of this extraordinary event.

Their essay, reprinted here with photographs and documents 4 | Chicago History | Winter 2010

from the Chicago History Museum’s collection, is a classic example of how history is made, remembered, and written.

As Margaret, Barry, and Peter worked on their narrative throughout the summer of 2007, I sent them copies of 1963 correspondence from John McDermott, executive director of Chicago’s Catholic Interracial Council; Monsignor Daniel M. Cantwell, the Council’s chaplain; and Mary Dolan and Betty Plank of Friendship House that revealed the drama surrounding the Loyola march. All of this was unbeknownst to the undergraduates; their editorials and test of the club’s admission policy having set in motion a chain of events that reached influencial Chicago Catholics at a pivotal yet precarious time in the civil rights movement.

Catholic Interracial Council board of directors with Albert Cardinal Meyer. Left to right: Archibald Le Cesne, Dr. Deton Brooks, Geraldine (Jerry) Sexton, John J. Farrell, Cardinal Meyer, John McDermott, Msgr. Daniel M. Cantwell, Dr. Charles Proctor, and Matthew Ahmann.

Box after box of correspondence expose the tensions that existed among Catholics over how to promote racial integration: direct action, such as peaceful demonstrations, versus traditional, closed-door methods. The voices emerging from the dusty pages of carbon copies are by turns full of anger or praise for the protesters and often bewilderment at why women religious would march against one of Chicago’s— and Loyola’s—most generous benefactors. Not only had Frank Lewis donated the building to the school, but Mrs. Lewis was president of the offending club.

This was not the kind of publicity Loyola anticipated in the wake of its basketball team’s stunning NCAA victory three months earlier against the University of Cincinnati in Louisville, Kentucky. With its controversial starting lineup of one white and four black players, the Ramblers became the only team in Illinois ever to achieve the national championship. Yet the contrast between Loyola’s integrated team

and the exclusionary policy of the university’s wealthy tenant on Michigan Avenue could not be ignored. In the words of McDermott, the club’s membership policy was “immoral and unchristian, a tragic scandal . . . [that] must be corrected.”

The Franciscan sisters, by marching with Loyola students and members of the Catholic Interracial Council, accepted the challenge laid down by civil rights activist Dora du Pont Williams. During interracial workshops sponsored by Friendship House in the spring of 1963, Williams asked why the nuns allowed themselves to be photographed on merrygo-rounds and roller coasters at amusement parks but not at significant social events. The protest at Lewis Towers, two years before the famous civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, sent a clear signal that in the battle for racial justice, Catholic sisters would no longer remain out of sight behind classroom doors.

Many people were outraged that nuns publicly protested racial segregation. Catholics volleyed the issue back and forth in the pages of the New World, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

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The following is an excerpt from Born in Chicago: A History of Chicago’s Jesuit University.

A

While a sophomore at Loyola, G. Marie (Micki) Leaner was the first “tester” denied admission to the ICCW’s pool.

ll Micki Leaner wanted to do was to learn to swim. Why not, she thought, use the pool open to Loyola coeds on the seventeenth floor at Lewis Towers? There was only one obstacle. . . . Micki Leaner was black. The Illinois Club for Catholic Women (ICCW), which operated the pool, turned her away. But it was 1963; civil rights protests around the country had swept up students in sit-ins, wade-ins, and demonstrations. Leaner took her case to friends at the Loyola Student Union.

What Leaner triggered was transformed a few months later from a local affair into a national story when seven Franciscan sisters and a priest joined the student protests in front of Lewis Towers on July 1. The nuns, the first ever to picket in habits, made history.

After four decades, it may be difficult to summon the outrage created by the nuns’ picketing. Most still lived quasi-cloistered lives, surrounded by a Victorian sense of decorum. The strong commitment of at least some nuns to social justice and racial justice, in particular, came as a shock—and not only to Catholics.

The ICCW’s pool was built in 1926 originally as part of the Illinois Women’s Athletic Club.

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Our recollections of these events were colored by the role we played as editors and writers of the Loyola News in reporting Leaner’s protest and the ICCW’s policy of racial discrimination. Over the years, the details have been shaped into a “story” in our minds and in our conversations. But, as we discovered in writing this piece, not all the facts were known, certainly not in 1963. The story, as it turns out, was far more complex, with many more actors than we remembered from our perspective at the university newspaper.

We first heard of Leaner’s failed attempt to use the pool sometime in April from our friend and fellow student Nancy Amidei, who told us that the women’s club did not allow African American coeds to use the pool (the fact that the club itself was segregated was known to a number of Chicago Catholics opposed to the policy).

On April 25, a column by Barry Hillenbrand in the News made a brief reference to the problem, concluding with “Anyone for a wade-in?”

This was followed on May 9 by a lengthy editorial that charged the ICCW with discriminating against blacks and cited several cases proving the point. (During the events that followed, the unsigned editorial was attributed to Hillenbrand; a few characteristic touches of

A series of editorials in the Loyola student newspaper was the beginning of a chain of events that led to a student picket line in June 1963.

Peter Steinfels’s prose suggest he might have had a hand in it; neither recalls writing it.) In particular, the editors had arranged a test to verify the club’s membership policy. The editorial reported that on May 7, “a Negro male student [Warren Bracy] from Loyola requested

Tom Cook (center) of Friendship House asked Sister Angelica Seng to organize fellow Franciscan sisters to join the protest against the ICCW. Civil Rights | 7

information on application forms at the club for his sister but was refused them on the grounds that ‘there were no more left.’ However, just an hour before, a white Loyola coed [Amidei] was given two pamphlets and an application for the club by the same club employee.” Though the university did not have control over the ICCW, the editorial found it “incongruous to be teaching social justice on the ninth floor of Lewis Towers and to have social injustice being practiced on the seventeenth floor.” The editorial ended by calling on Loyola’s administration to protest the ICCW’s racial practices, suggesting that “perhaps some good old-fashioned picketing would help.” It was 1963.

One more foray was made to the seventeenth floor, this time by Leaner and Amidei, who attempted to use the pool. As Amidei recalls the scene, “An angry woman told us that we were not going to trick her, she was not going to let us in and that she knew what we were up to.

The woman also told us that this does not make her a bigot.” Amidei and Leaner then returned to the groundfloor lobby of Lewis Towers to report the result to members of the Loyola News staff. Hillenbrand commented further in a May 16 column.

An ad hoc group of students, mostly from Loyola, formed themselves into the grandly titled Student Action 8 | Chicago History | Winter 2010

Frank and Julia Lewis were among Loyola’s largest benefactors in the 1940s and 1950s.

Six of the participating Franciscan nuns, left to right: Sister Edgar Woefel, Sister Andrina Miller, Sister Anthony Claret Sparks, Sister Angelica Seng, Sister Marita Joseph Kanaly, and Sister Cecilia Marie Day.

Committee of Greater Chicago and began issuing statements “deploring all forms of racism.” Picketing began on a small scale in the Lewis Towers lobby and spilled out onto Michigan Avenue. Small demonstrations took place on May 17 and May 25. They grew in size during June and generated increasing coverage in the Chicago press and on TV. But things were stuck there until July 1, when seven Franciscan sisters and a priest joined the picket line. The Chicago press—especially the Chicago Defender—the African American paper, and the Chicago Daily News, gave the story prominent coverage. Photos of the nuns and their signs on the picket line began appearing everywhere. The New York Times and Time magazine ran the same picture with stories about religious participation in the civil rights movement. That seemed to turn the tide: Mrs. Lewis conceded on July 9, promising to open the club to all.

We graduated from Loyola in June 1963 and went off with memories of a local skirmish in a great national battle. The rest was history. Or so we thought. Forty-five years later, as we began to reconstruct these events, it became clear that the reports in the Loyola News, which sparked the initial protest, were only part of a multifaceted story. Leaner, who was a sophomore in 1963, in a 2007 e-mail to us, framed the events in a larger context.

Top: The weeks-long protest was revitalized by the nuns. Above: Prominent laymen joined the cause, too. Pictured left to right are Dan Herr, president of the Thomas More Association; Matt Ahmann, executive director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; and John McCudden, who call attention to the limitations of the ICCW’s good will.

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Peter Praetz (right) invoked Pope John XXIII’s statement on the Catholic Church’s opposition to racial segregation with fellow Loyola marcher Phil Tracy.

Civil Rights | 11

She recalled that after she was refused use awkward bind. It did not want to appear of the ICCW pool, “I borrowed a page from ungrateful to the Lewis family, among its the open housing efforts (where black applimost generous donors. Frank J. Lewis cants would attempt to rent only to be (1867–1960) had purchased the Tower denied, followed immediately by whites who Court Building at 820 North Michigan would be accepted) and decided to make Avenue in December 1945 for Loyola with a statement. My godfather, John L. Yancey, the provision that his wife, Julia Deal an official with the American Federation Lewis, would retain the right to use the top of Labor and Congress of Industrial eight floors for her Illinois Club for Organizations, was a director of the Catholic Catholic Women. The irony of the univerInterracial Council in 1963, so I felt empowsity’s position was caught in a statement ered and bold. I told everyone who would

by Harry L. McCloskey, dean of students, Together with Leaner, Nancy listen, including Nancy, and enlisted my who said that the university “recognizes Amidei rallied students to Student Union buddies to picket.” She the right of private citizens to protest challenge the segregated policy added, “The initial picket lines were puny against practices to which they are of the ICCW. but grew steadily. When the nuns joined folopposed. . . . It would be regrettable, howlowed by the priest . . . the pressure was on.” ever, if protests against the membership policy of the As the archives of both the university and the Catholic Illinois Club for Catholic Women were to obscure the Interracial Council confirm, the pressure was felt by a charitable work which this club and its president, Mrs. number of groups. The university was in a particularly Frank J. Lewis, have been doing for many years.”

The first National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, 1958. Left to right: Bishop Emmanuel Mabathoana OMI of South Africa; labor leader John L. Yancey; Archbishop Owen McCann of South Africa; Sister Ann Ida Gannon BVM, president of Mundelein College; Fr. John LaFarge SJ, founder of the first Catholic Interracial Council in New York City; and Sargent Shriver, president of the Chicago chapter.

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A Catholic interracial ministry since 1938, Friendship House was a leader in the heyday of social activism. The nuns who joined the picket line had attended its workshops on race relations. Above: A Friendship House meeting led by Mary Dolan (center).

McCloskey also noted that the university itself, from its founding in 1870, had never discriminated on the basis of race, color, or creed. Even so, black students, such as Bracy and Leaner, were a relative rarity on campus in 1963. The most prominent blacks were members of the Ramblers, Loyola’s basketball team, who gained fame for the university when they won the NCAA championship in March 1963.

As much as the university, in its official statement on the ICCW, tried to distance itself from the “private citizens”— who happened to be their own protesting students—and the racial practices of its tenant and benefactor, reaction was immediate and contradictory. Letters, memos, and reports indicate the alumni, officials of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and donors were jolted to attention by the nuns on the picket line; and many were none too happy. On the other hand, some Loyola faculty and administrators, as well as several influential Chicago Catholics, supported the students and their protest and applauded the nuns for their unprecedented action. John McDermott, executive

director of the Catholic Interracial Council, asserted that the university “comes close to condoning immorality by its refusal to speak on this problem.”

On June 26, Tom Cook, a staff member at Friendship House, called Sister Angelica Seng, OSF, who was attending summer school at Loyola, and asked whether she and her Franciscan colleagues could help. The sisters had been drawn into a more activist orbit through the interracial workshops sponsored by Friendship House, 4233 South Indiana Avenue. Sister Angelica took the matter in hand, first paying a visit to Mrs. Lewis, who was unavailable. They later spoke on the phone. After a half-hour conversation, Sister Angelica recalled that Mrs. Lewis “certainly made it very clear to me that she did not intend to change the policy of the club. It was a courteous conversation, but she was very definite. Had I felt there was the least possibility that she would change, I don’t think we would have participated in the demonstrations.” On July 1, Sister Angelica and six other Franciscans appeared on the picket line.

Civil Rights | 13

Just a few weeks before the religious joined the picket line, President Kennedy had delivered a televised address to push for civil rights legislation.

Members of the Kennedy family were important members of the Catholic community actively campaigning for social justice. Above: Joseph Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Sargent Shriver at a benefit for the Catholic Interracial Council, 1958. Below: A CIC banquet, 1963.

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Leaner too had been busy, mobilizing media attention to the student picketing. Her friends at the Sun-Times and the Daily News, where she worked as a tour guide, also gave her a quick lesson in PR. In addition, Leaner and other Loyola students “marched to and picketed the cardinal’s [Albert G. Meyer] mansion,” demanding that he admonish Mrs. Lewis. But it was the photo in Time magazine of the nuns picketing Lewis Towers that Leaner believes made history: “the first time that religious . . . were openly engaged in protest. It was a historic event.” (The nuns may have set an example for Chicago Catholic clergy who joined the Selma march in 1965.) Loyola and the ICCW were a small part of the big national story that summer. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met in Chicago the first week in July, and preparations got underway for the massive March on Washington in August, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech.

Above all, pressure was on Mrs. Lewis. Her defense of the ICCW’s policies in an editorial in the June 1963 issue of the club’s publication evoked the racial clichés and stereotypes that once passed muster—at least in some white circles. She claimed to have “probably . . . dealt with more Negroes than the local rabble rousers and I know that the really sensible and sincere ones [Negroes] are not interested in associating with other than their own race. A fine colored housekeeper who was with me for twenty years said to me on one occasion . . .

‘What they all talking about! I don’t want to mix socially with the whites. I like my own people. They know how to enjoy themselves better than the whites. I loves [sic] my people.’” Mrs. Lewis went on to argue that the ICCW, “as a private club, [has] every right to decide who shall be our members.” In the racial climate of 1963, such views could only undermine her position.

That the nuns decided to picket deeply affected Mrs. Lewis; according to her son, Edward Deal Lewis, “I don’t

Betty Plank of Friendship House coordinated the race relations workshops that brought together Catholic religious and lay people involved in desegregating Chicago institutions.

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A crowd following Mass at Loyola’s Madonna Della Strada Chapel during the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, 1958.

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On October 11, Mrs. Lewis, in an interview with the Chicago American, said that applications from two Negro girls “have been approved. We are waiting for them to come in and pay their $10 dues.”

Leaner has a different memory. “Mrs. Lewis never integrated the pool. Au contraire, she closed the damn thing for repairs. It stayed closed for some time and I don’t know that it reopened before I left Loyola. I never did learn to swim.”

Ellen Skerrett is a historian of Chicago and a researcher on the Jane Addams Papers Project. Her books include Born in Chicago: A History of Chicago’s Jesuit University, Chicago: City of Neighborhoods, and Old Saint Patrick’s and the Chicago Irish.

Barry Hillenbrand is a former Time correspondent. Margaret O’Brien Steinfels and Peter Steinfels are codirectors of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.

A Winnetka member of the CIC, Dora du Pont Williams questioned the lighthearted public image of nuns and challenged them to be seen engaged in more serious endeavors. Williams, herself, is among the crowd of protesters pictured on this cover.

recall a single incident, other than the death of my father that hurt my mother as much as having the religious turn on her by picketing.” Nonetheless, in a statement released on July 9, Mrs. Lewis announced a change in club policy: “We open our door to welcome in, without restriction, any woman who can and has the desire to serve in this good cause with us.”

The clear relief of Loyola and the Jesuits is reflected in an editorial comment in America, the Jesuit weekly. It was “typical” of Mrs. Lewis, the editorial noted, to have “promptly and graciously” abandoned her club’s “policy on restricted membership.” Mrs. Lewis was congratulated for giving “strong and inspiring leadership to all who are responsible for making policy in the nation’s private clubs.” Students, picketing nuns, or, for that matter, African Americans were not mentioned.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S | All illustrations are from the collection of the Chicago History Museum unless otherwise noted. 4, i51779; 5, top: i61568, bottom: reprinted with permission from the Catholic New World; 6, top: courtesy of Marie Leaner, bottom: courtesy of Loyola University Chicago Archives and Special Collections; 7, top: courtesy of Barry Hillenbrand, bottom: i51780; 8, top: courtesy of Loyola University Chicago Archives and Special Collections, bottom: Chicago Daily News November 20, 1963; 9, top: i61567, bottom: i61566; 10–11, i61565; 12, top: courtesy of Nancy Amidei, Civic Engagement Project, University of Washington, bottom: i61564; 13, i61569; 14, top: i61562, bottom: i61563; 15, i61567; 16, i61561; 17, reproduced from the original held by the Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame F O R F U RT H E R R E A D I N G | Suellen Hoy, Good Hearts: Catholic Sisters in Chicago’s Past (University of Illinois Press, 2006); John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (University of Chicago Press, 1996); Scott Stossel, Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver (Smithsonian Books, 2004); for firsthand accounts of the march around Lewis Towers, see Angelica Seng OSF and Anthony Claret Sparks OSF, “The Nun’s [sic] Story: Why We Picketed,” Community (September 1963); and Peter Steinfels, “The Students and Mrs. Lewis,” New City (July 15, 1963).

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An Unforgettable Day:

QueenElizabeth VisitsChicago Rosemary K. Adams

On July 6, 1959, only days after celebrating Independence Day, Chicagoans welcomed Elizabeth II for a whirlwind thirteen-hour visit.

A week earlier, the young queen had joined President Dwight D. Eisenhower in opening the St. Lawrence seaway. She and her husband, Prince Philip, then sailed the new seaway on the Britannia, the royal yacht, alighting in Chicago at what was later named Queen’s Landing. The only U.S. stop on the couple’s North American tour, the occasion also marked the first time a reigning British monarch visited the city.

Chicagoans turned out in droves for the historic event. Some set up lawn chairs on Michigan Avenue to secure a close-up view of the royal party. More than two thousand police officers lined the streets and directed the crowds. Newspapers offered complete coverage before, during, and after the event.

Opposite: The queen views the crowds near Buckingham Fountain. While an estimated one million people cheered the queen during her visit, only a lucky few received an official invitation (above). One bystander commented “She is beautiful. . . . She is prettier than her pictures, which don’t show up her beautiful complexion.”

Reporters had a chance to taste the meals served to the queen, offering a preview of the royal menu.

Not all Chicagoans celebrated: One reporter demanded to know who was paying for the visit; another quoted an unimpressed bystander, “Seems like an awful lot of fuss. . . . I bet they wouldn’t do it if the Lord Himself came back.”

Some society women who did not receive invitations to the official events reported that they had no intention of trying to glimpse Her Majesty from the streets and would be staying at home that day.

With stops at the International Trade Fair, the Art Institute, and the Museum of Science and Industry, the queen and her prince dazzled the city. Chicagoans may have celebrated independence from King George and British tyranny only days earlier, but they happily welcomed his descendant.

All illustrations come from the Chicago History Museum collection, unless otherwise noted.

Queen Elizabeth II | 19

Above: Not content to wait for the queen’s arrival, newspapers published advanced information about the royal couple’s visit. Right: Reporters attended a preview luncheon to sample the delicacies that awaited the queen.

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The queen with Mayor Richard J. Daley (above). Right: A press pass for television workers. National coverage of the royal visit began in mid-June with the launch of her North American tour and continued with her Windy City visit.

WGN planned a ninety-minute broadcast of the queen’s arrival.

Queen Elizabeth II | 21

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Opposite: The invitation to the official reception welcoming the queen.

Left: Police officers watch as the royal yacht Britannia approaches. Below: News crews document the royal visit.

Queen Elizabeth II | 23

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The queen with Governor Stratton and the mayor on the procession route.

During the visit, the governor presented the royal visitor with a six-volume edition of Carl Sandburg’s biography of Abraham Lincoln. The author had inscribed “To her majesty, Queen Elizabeth, with the salutations, reverence, and deep good wishes of the American people and your humble scrivener.”

Queen Elizabeth II | 25

The mayor, the queen, and the prince at the Chicago International Trade Fair.

The fair emphasized the city’s global connections and international importance.

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Above: Prince Philip shared a car with Mrs. Stratton and Mrs. Daley.

The prince received polo mallets and a copy of The Civil War: The American Iliad and the Picture Chronicle by Ralph G. Newman, Otto Eisenschiml, and E.B. Long as gifts.

Left: The queen’s visit covered the front page of nearly every newspaper in town; journalists and readers alike seemingly could not get enough of the royal pair.

Queen Elizabeth II | 27

Above: Crowds at Monroe Street and Michigan Avenue awaited the queen’s exit from the Art Institute.

Photograph by M. J. Schmidt, taken from the second floor of 30 South Michigan Avenue, looking south.

Right and opposite: Adults and children lined up to view the queen’s procession.

Some set up chairs along Lake Shore Drive to get a comfortable, up-close view. Photographs by M. J. Schmidt.

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Queen Elizabeth II | 29

Above: A reporter sent a weather report back to England, noting the welcoming weather Chicago offered the queen: “the temperature did not go over seventy four . . . there was hardly [any] cloud in the sky.�

Opposite: Military bands and an array of international flags lined the procession route.

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Queen Elizabeth II | 31

Above: An invitation to Governor William Stratton’s luncheon at the Ambassador Hotel.

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Above: Approximately one thousand people attended the banquet given for the queen by Mayor Daley. Right: Her Majesty and His Honor arrive at the dinner at the Conrad Hilton Hotel.

The queen wore a white satin dress with diamond and emerald jewelry.

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Opposite: The head table at the banquet. Above: Transcript of the queen’s speech, in which she recognized the city as the “crossroads of North America” and expressed regret that her children (Prince Charles and Princess Anne) missed out on the exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry. She also thanked the city for its warm welcome and hospitality.

I LLUSTRATION C REDITS : 18, i61437; 19, i61442; 20, Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1959; 21, top: i59857, bottom: i61446; 22, i61441; 23, top: i61530, bottom, i61431; 24–25, i30171; 26, i59855; 27, top: i59859, bottom: Chicago Defender, July 7, 1959; 28, top: i61533, bottom: i61531; 29, i61532; 30, i61436; 31, i61438; 32, left: i61444, right: i61445; 32–33, i61439; 34, i59852; 35, i61443.

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The title page for the 1883 volume of Railway Age lists E. H. Talbott as president and manager.

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Y E S T E R D AY ’ S C I T Y

Elisha Talbott and the Railway Age J O H N H. W H I T E J R .

P

erhaps more than any In 1876, Talbott joined other city, Chicago capiGeorge S. Bangs, the energetic talized on the birth and and extremely capable former development of the railway manager of the U.S Railway Mail industry. During the second half Service, in founding Railway Age of the nineteenth century, a netmagazine in Chicago. Bangs served work of railway lines facilitated the as president and Talbott as manager movement of passengers and freight. and editor of the new enterprise. They Railroads enabled Chi cagoans to ex planned the magazine as a weekly and pand their regional and national influestablished their offices in the Grand Pacific ence, earning their city the title of America’s Elisha H. Talbott, 1883 Hotel. Bangs’s first editorial, published on rail capital.

June 17, said in part, “If we shall succeed in It is no surprise that Chicago attracted the busiproducing a railway journal comprehensive without diffunessmen and entrepreneurs of the railroad industry. siveness, practical without dryness, solid without heaviRailway Age magazine, first published here, became the ness, and of value both to those who build and operate our dominant news source for American railroads for well railroads . . . we shall feel assured of abundant success.” over a century. The National Exposition of Railway After Bangs died unexpectedly during a visit to Appliances, a Victorian-age extravaganza held in Chicago Washington, D.C., in November 1877, Talbott took over in 1883, attracted widespread attention. Yet, the initiator as president and began to search for more talent to keep of these noteworthy projects, Elisha Hollingsworth the paper going. He found a very capable assistant Talbott, is all but forgotten today. editor in Horace R. Hobart, who would remain active on Talbott was born in McConnelsville, a small town in the staff of Railway Age as a vice president until 1907. southeastern Ohio, on August 9, 1839. He attended Early in September 1891, Talbott sold the magazine to Iowa State University and established a newspaper in H. P. Robinson, publisher of the NorthWestern Winterset, Iowa, in about 1859. During the Civil War, he Railroader, for $75,000. He used these funds to concenserved as secretary to U.S. Senator James Harlan and trate on his business affairs in New York City. Talbott, later to a congressman from his former district in Ohio. ever ready to start a new business, went on to establish After the war, he moved to Illinois, where he was other journals such as Iron Age, the Great West, and the admitted to the bar and also served briefly in the state Club Woman’s Magazine. legislature. He remained active in publishing and newsLate in 1881, while still serving as president of Railway paper work throughout his career and recognized the Age, Talbott began talking to prominent railway supply need for a better trade paper in the railroad field. men in Chicago about a national exposition to reflect the Yesterday’s City | 37

In 1882, the commissioners of the National Exposition of Railway Appliances printed a booklet (left) to promote the fair and solicit exhibit proposals and commitments. The subsequent fair guide included many advertisements, such as this one from George Westinghouse’s company (right).

incredible growth and progress of the railway industry.

He envisioned a trade fair featuring the latest locomotives and railway cars together with office furniture, tickets, signals, and the hundreds of other items needed by modern railways. Older examples of the same hardware would be shown to emphasize the progress made since the birth of the industry in the 1830s. J. McGregor Adams, a partner in Adams and Westlake, manufacturer of lanterns and car lamps, immediately recognized the advertising potential and joined Talbott to promote the idea. In the months that followed, others signed on as sponsors of the projected exhibition, including George Pullman and George Westinghouse. Modern audiences would likely be unfamiliar with the other sponsors’ names, but they represented some of the larger supply companies in the nation, such as the Baldwin Locomotive Works and Michigan Car Company.

By early December 1882, the commissioners of the National Exposition of Railway Appliances were selected; each served on a voluntary basis, without receiving com38 | Chicago History | Winter 2010

pensation. The commissioners issued a circular that outlined a general plan for a one-month exhibition that would open in Chicago at the end of May 1883. The circular explained that a large guarantee fund had been raised to cover start-up costs and other contingencies and directed interested parties to send correspondence to Talbott’s office in the Grand Pacific Hotel, as he would serve as secretary of the fair.

The time was right for such a show. The economy was good, the railroad industry was flourishing, and the public surely had a curiosity about this basic form of transportation. The American railroads operated 121,422 miles of line, represented an investment of nearly six billion dollars, and employed more than 400,000. Railroads, the nation’s first big business, had magically transformed the sleeping energy of the land into an industrial power. The days of rude transit by stagecoach were replaced by express trains, steam-heated cars, soft seats, and thousands of ingenious devices invented to make railway travel safer and more secure.

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company issued this travel broadside in 1870. It illustrated how passengers departing from Chicago could travel around the world, using railway and steamer routes.

Yesterday’s City | 39

It was the time to celebrate the achievements of American inventors, engineers, and industrialists, and Chicago was the place to host such a fair.

Chicago sat where the American east met the west.

Seventeen main lines controlling 31,000 miles of track served the city, making it an easy destination for millions of Americans; additionally, most transcontinental passengers were routed through Chicago. Western wheat and cattle were also shipped through the city to eastern ports, where they were transferred to ocean steamers and sent around world.

Because of this vast trade, Chicago had quickly grown from a tiny lakeside village to a metropolis with a population of 560,000. It was the city of the future and destined to grow even bigger. Chicago would soon have the largest cable railway system in the United States, and just a few years later, workers would begin constructing the elevated railway system that continues to serve Chicagoans of the present age.

Talbott and his enthusiastic supporters found an excellent home for their big train show—the Inter-State Exposition Building. Constructed in 1873 to host exhibi-

tions for products ranging from machinery to art, the building was intended as a temporary structure; it was built on piles and “made ground” in what had been part of Lake Michigan. Potter Palmer was a major sponsor of the building, which was completed remarkably quickly—in only eighty-eight days.

Set on the lakefront between Monroe and Van Buren Streets, the building faced Michigan Avenue and was near most railroad stations; the Illinois Central tracks ran immediately behind it on a causeway built along the lakeshore. Many locals referred to the building as the Glass Palace, because it was a large, odd-looking structure with many window panels built into the roof. It measured 800 feet long by 220 feet wide. The central tower rose 200 feet above the sidewalk. Elaborate wooden trusses made the main gallery a large open space with a high ceiling. One writer described the building as handsome and imposing, but it was in truth something of a wooden firetrap; the fire department kept an engine and a full company of firemen on special duty when the building was in use.

By the fall of 1891, city officials announced that the

The Inter-State Exposition Building (pictured above in the 1880s) hosted many notable events, including the 1880 Republican National Convention, during which delegates nominated James Garfield for president. Top: This depiction of the building was printed on the back of an envelope used to advertise the Inter-State Industrial Exposition of 1875.

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building would be replaced by a proper masonry structure to house the Art Institute of Chicago.

Talbott hoped for a good reaction but was unprepared for the overwhelming response from exhibitors requesting space. As the letters and telegrams poured in, he realized that more exhibition space was needed. With the support of his commissioners, Talbott began plans for adding to the main building in a large fashion. The addition tripled the exhibition capacity and included a new and much larger restaurant. Two pavilions were put up just south of the building. Each was 400 feet long; the east pavilion was ninety feet deep and the west, seventy feet. Both were built as a series of sixteen-foot-wide, peaked-roof stalls intended to house rolling stock (locomotives and cars). A large open court sat between the pavilions, complete with a transfer table to move the rolling stock between stalls and a bandstand for afternoon or evening concerts.

As construction progressed, exhibit materials began arriving in boxes and barrels. Some southern lines sent carloads of tropical plants and shrubs to be placed around the grounds and inside the buildings. Not to be outdone, the northwestern railroads sent live fish.

Housed in large, plate-glass tanks, the fish were placed around the central fountain located below the tower of the main building. Enthusiastic exhibitors sent goods on a scale exceeding even the organizers’ expectations.

On any given day, someone might have to figure out where to place a thirty-ton locomotive or a snowplow that had unexpectedly arrived.

A special building for antique locomotives, cars, and other relics sat at the southern end of the courtyard to celebrate the beginning of the railway era. The South Kensington Museum in London promised to lend Stephenson’s famous 1829 Rocket locomotive.

Considered the first modern locomotive, the Rocket had set a pattern for all subsequent steam engines. When the museum reneged, private owners in Liverpool lent the Locomotion, an even earlier engine from 1825, instead.

The engine arrived in New York after a five-day journey at sea and would be brought to Chicago on the Erie Railway.

The exhibition was not ready by a long measure but invitations went out nonetheless. Two days before the opening, another sixty freight cars of apparatus arrived; a typical boxcar of the time carried twenty tons of cargo. Just where to place the additional car wheels, coach seats, steam gauges, or track tools needed to be settled quickly. Mother Nature was not cooperating either. A gale blew in off of the lake a week before the scheduled opening and damaged several of the stalls.

Organizers hired a gang of carpenters to make repairs.

Six to seven hundred men were busy setting things up.

The gas lights burned late into the night in an effort to finish the work.

Ticket sales resulted in a crowd of several thousand for the opening festivities. Railway Age boasted, “The character as well as the size of the gathering attested the deep interest which the Exposition has excited among the most influential and intelligent people.”

Yesterday’s City | 41

The May 31, 1883, issue of Railway Age included this map of the exposition. The following week, the editors printed “a classified list of the exhibits and exhibitors.” This “required a large amount of labor,” because in the end, the fair included more than a thousand exhibits.

The grand opening of the National Exposition of Railway Appliances took place on the evening of May 24, 1883. Professor David Swing offered a prayer, and Mayor Carter Harrison welcomed the five thousand visitors in attendance. The vice president of the exhibition, Aaron French of the Pittsburgh Car Spring Company, gave a long speech recounting the history of the project and thanked its supporters and volunteers.

Talbott was asked to address the gathering; as secretary he had born the major work of putting the exhibition 42 | Chicago History | Winter 2010

together, but he wearily declined, stating that he was much too tired to say even a few words. It happened to be Queen Victoria’s birthday, so the ceremony concluded with the orchestra playing “God Save the Queen.” A local reporter complained that the noise of workmen and machinery made it impossible to hear the speakers. The plan was for complete silence during the ceremony and then the machinery was to start up at a given signal. As is true with many good plans, this did not happen.

The doors opened to the public the next morning and the exhibits, even in their incomplete state, were enough to keep visitors busy for days. There was nothing sparse or restrained about this Victorian extravaganza. Cases were jammed with objects, so many that some pieces were partially hidden. Rather than exhibit select samples of his wares, for example, a grindstone maker showed hundreds of pieces, stacked in columns towering above the heads of visitors.

Smaller and midsize items—including machine tools, handcars, uniforms, and tickets—were displayed in the main building. Large eastern firms, such as William Sellers and Company of Philadelphia and Pratt and Whitney of Hartford, Connecticut, took over the northern part of the Inter-State Exposition Building, exhibiting drill presses, lathes, steam hammers, and cutoff machines. One of the metal planers was sixteen feet long and weighed ten tons. The centerpiece of the machinery department was a huge water tank and windmill made by Fairbanks, Morse and Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The firm, established in 1824, was well known for its industrial scales and handcars.

A large display by the Union Switch and Signal Company dominated the south end of the building. It featured a model railroad with working electric signals and track switches. Although the monster layout delighted young visitors, founder George Westinghouse would wait many years before American railways took serious interest in his automatic signaling system. The display also included Saxby and Farmer’s interlocking plant. The British apparatus connected switches and signals at junctures and placed them in the control of one man, significantly reducing the likelihood of collisions.

The Brooks exhibit was noteworthy for its “seven fine locomotives,” including the one pictured above. Railway Age magazine reported that the brand-new engines “[made] an imposing and creditable display, of which the manufacturers may well feel proud.”

The device had been used with great success on many English railways since the 1860s and was already employed at a few busy junctions in the United States.

Most of the bigger items were placed in the pavilions south of the main building. Some twenty-seven new locomotives were shown by several builders. Brooks had the largest exhibit with seven engines; two of these were narrow gauge, which were popular at the time for secondary lines but would become obsolete within two decades. Baldwin, Pittsburgh, Rogers, Cooke, Rhode Island, and Mount Savage were present with one to four engines each.

Cooke’s entry was a giant twelve-wheeler designed to move trains over the Rocky Mountains on the Central Pacific Railroad. One of the largest locomotives in the world, it was built to the design of Central Pacific master mechanic A. J. Stevens. It weighed sixty-six tons, ninetyseven if the weight of the tender was included. Cooke built twenty-five engines of this design from 1882 to 1883.

Small engines were on display, too, and were appealing because of their more human scale. Mount Savage Works, located in a town of the same name in western Maryland, was the newest railway engine builder in the nation; it started operations in July 1881. The company presented two small narrow-gauge locomotives, each weighing slightly more than twenty tons. The H. K. Porter Company of Pittsburgh specialized in tiny engines for industrial railroads. Some of Porter’s production Yesterday’s City | 43

models were as small as three tons and accordingly named Midget, Baby, and Ant. The company selected a somewhat larger specimen for the Chicago show: a fourwheel tank engine with a pair of trailing wheels destined for the St. Helen logging railroad in Minnesota at the close of the fair. It weighed about 13.5 tons and carried water in the saddle tank draped over the boiler. It was capable of moving a five-car train over steep grades and around sharp curves. On a more level track, it could move eighty tons and run ninety-eight miles a day. At the time of the fair, Porter was the largest builder of industrial engines in the United States. The company exported many of its machines to countries around the world, including some of the first locomotives used in Japan.

Lima Machine Works of Ohio displayed a less conventional industrial locomotive. Named after its designer, Ephraim Shay of Haring, Michigan, the Shay was a geared engine capable of heavy hauling at low speeds. It was complex and costly to repair but able to pull large loads of logs over rickety, backwoods track that a normal locomotive could not traverse. The engine shown was the sixty-fourth built by Lima. It was completed in March 1883 for Seaman and Webster loggers of Chase, Michigan. It could haul sixteen cars, each weighing from twenty-four to twenty-nine tons when loaded. The normal running speed was twelve to fifteen miles per hour, yet there was no cheaper or faster way to get logs out of the forest at this time. Shay locomotives were used

all over the United States, and by 1945, Lima had built more than 3,300.

Because the Victorian public liked futuristic displays, the National Exposition of Railway Appliances included two experimental locomotives. The more conventional of the pair was the brainchild of Henry F. Shaw of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Shaw claimed to have designed a perfectly balanced steam locomotive that would not oscillate or pound the track. He accomplished this by building two cylinders on each side of the engine. In 1881, the Hinkley Locomotive Works of Boston built a demonstration model named for the inventor that traveled around the nation to promote the production of such machines.

Although the design created a well-running engine, Shaw’s arrangement could not deal with natural variances in speed, which greatly contributed to the imbalance problems. As a result, most practical mechanics were unimpressed by his invention.

The second of the experimental engines was the product of Chicago resident Dr. Charles Holland. He had patented a water-powered locomotive that would reduce operating costs to an absolute minimum—if it could be made to work. Holland’s company was attempting to separate hydrogen from water and use it to fuel the engine. Grant Locomotive Works in Paterson, New Jersey, built a prototype that was remarkably normal looking for such a bizarre scheme. It was completed in 1881 and sent off to tour the nation.

The editors of Railway Age spoke highly of the St. Helen logging locomotive: “A wonderful impetus has been given to the business of lumbering by the happy thought of building light railways into the forests, to haul the logs out of the streams or mills.”

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At the fair, visitors delighted in both the old and the new of the railroad industry. Railway Age described the Arabian (above) as “a veritable curiosity” and the Hawley Steam Snow Plow (below) as “one of the most interesting pieces . . . in the entire exposition.”

The latter was capable of running at 350 revolutions per minute and throwing packed snow and ice as far as sixty feet.

By 1883, Holland’s experiments had resulted in a fearful stink and very little steam. The engine could never generate enough power to move a train of any size. After repeated trials, the demonstration model was parked in a scrapyard to rust away in its final years. The dilemma of how to economically free hydrogen from water remains unresolved.

Steam shovels, cranes, and excavating machinery were placed in the south yard, because most were too large to fit inside the main building or pavilions and all were sturdy enough to withstand the weather. Industrial Works of Bay City, Michigan, displayed a heavy wrecking crane. Instead of a lifting chain, the crane was fitted with a hemp rope 2.75 inches in diameter, and with a lifting

capacity of forty-five tons, it was also useful for bridge building. The crane cost eight thousand dollars, almost as much as a locomotive, and was surely as complex.

Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company in Ohio exhibited a well-built steam shovel. Steam shovels had been used in this country since the 1830s, and while they could outperform a small army of men, they tended to break down frequently. Aiming to produce a shovel that could take the punishment of heavy digging, Bucyrus built this model with an iron frame, a crane post of the finest charcoal iron, and a lifting chain of the best English manufacture. The unit weighed thirty-three tons and could remove six cubic yards of earth per minute.

It was capable of loading two hundred cars per day.

The old curiosity shop, standing at the south end of the property, proved to be one of the most popular galleries.

Railroads were no longer new or unproven. In 1883, they were the dominant form of transportation, and new lines were being built all over the world. As such, the industry was becoming history minded, and obsolete machinery and paper items were now seen as relics of an earlier time—curious, sentimental, or even humorous.

From the early planning stages of the exhibit, space was set aside for history. Most of the rolling stock from the industry’s infancy was already gone, but the organizers were able to secure a few pieces for display. The B & O railroad had a few of its grasshopper engines in service as shop switchers, using the old locomotives to move rolling stock around repair facilities. One was temporarily retired and repainted to represent an even earlier sister engine, the Arabian of 1834. Veteran engineer William Galloway, who started service with the B & O in 1833, was reassigned to accompany the Arabian to Chicago and operate it for the pleasure of visitors.

Galloway’s first-hand knowledge of early railroad service made him the best possible interpreter for the exhibition.

After the fair, Galloway worked for another four years and died in Baltimore in April 1890, at the age of eighty-one.

Nova Scotia sent the Samson, its pioneer locomotive, to Chicago accompanied by its recently retired engineer George Davidson. The engine was built by Timothy Hackworth in England in 1838. Davidson had traveled with the Samson on her voyage to America and remained with her until her retirement in 1882. She, too, was operated for the pleasure of the crowd. The Samson and the Locomotion shared the stage with a third old-fashioned British locomotive—the John Bull—another Stephenson product that was sent to New Jersey in 1831. A few years after the Chicago exposition closed, she was given to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where she may still be seen. But, perhaps the relic that meant the most to the local audience was the Pioneer, the first locomotive to enter Chicago.

This early Baldwin six wheeler was a secondhand Yesterday’s City | 45

Built in England in 1838, the Samson was “among the very first [locomotives] introduced upon the American continent.� It was used in the Albion coal mines in Nova Scotia, Canada. This picture, taken at the 1883 railway fair, shows the Samson sitting on a transfer table at the south end of the fairground. The Inter-State Exposition Building is visible in the background, and engineer George Davidson stands at the far right.

46 | Chicago History | Winter 2010

Yesterday’s City | 47

Above: Displayed at the 1883 exposition, this geared logging locomotive was capable of heavy hauling at low speeds. Below: The Pioneer, Chicago’s first locomotive, sparked a boom that made the city a national transportation hub. Officially retired in 1874, the engine is pictured at the 1883 fair. It is currently on display at the Chicago History Museum.

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machine that came by ship from Buffalo, New York, in 1848. It operated for many years on the Galena and Chicago Union Railway and later the Chicago and North Western. Retired in 1874, the Pioneer was pulled out of storage and steamed up for the fair. Nearly a century later, the locomotive was donated to the Chicago History Museum, where it remains on display. Other relics in the curiosity shop included two early railway cars: a tiny four-wheel coach that came with the Samson from Canada (it is now owned by the B & O Museum in Baltimore) and a fine eight-wheel coach from the Tioga Railroad dating from 1840 (it was lost in a fire in 1893).

Pullman dominated the car department with a full train of matched cars from the Erie Railway. The Northern Pacific emigrant sleeper was an impressive gesture to the comfort of the poorest class of traveler. The most elegant form of railway travel was represented by a private car named Railway Age. In an interview with a New York Sun reporter, George Pullman explained that the car was one of the most luxurious ever placed on a pair of trucks (or wheel sets). The car incorporated the best-of-the-best wheels, paneling, and lamps. It was painted Talbott blue, a special blend of exterior paint mixed by Sherwin, Williams and Company and named in honor of the exposition’s secretary and chief organizer.

The observation room was paneled in oak, the floor cov-

ered in velvet carpets. The parlor was mahogany with inlaid panels and carvings from rare woods imported from all over the world. The bedroom was paneled in maple, the floor covered with amaranth (a purplish red) carpet. It would cost $75,000 to reproduce the car, and it was given to Talbot as a thank you by the exhibitors.

The gift was too expensive for him to keep up, so within in a few years, Talbot sold it back to the Pullman Company, where it was used as a rental car.

Elsewhere in the car department was a broad selection of refrigeration cars that had effectively expanded the American diet. Ice bunker cars made it possible to ship meat and fresh fruits and vegetables across the United States throughout the year. Such specialized cars were around as early as 1842 but were not generally accepted until the 1870s. By the time of the 1883 fair, about five thousand were in service.

Another much anticipated feature was a marvelous electric railway, offering visitors a ride into the future of American railroading. In 1883, the public believed that the new invention of electricity would remake the world over the next few years. Time would prove that this optimistic notion was true for lighting, communications, and travel. Thomas Edison and Stephen D. Field had formed a company to develop electric railway traction. For the fair, they designed a demonstration

In August 1883, Railway Age reprinted a story from the Inter Ocean about a reporter’s visit to the Railway Age car (above). After a detailed inspection, the reporter had “found it to be all that is popularly pronounced—a perfect palace on wheels.” Shortly after the interview, Talbott and his wife took the car on a trip to Yellowstone and the Pacific Northwest.

Yesterday’s City | 49

Above: On Sunday, June 17, this advertisement ran on the front page of the Inter Ocean. Below: Railway Age magazine published a facsimile of the silver and bronze medals awarded to “the successful competitors” at the fair. The writer commented, “It is believed that both the design and execution will be entirely satisfactory to all.”

railway but underestimated the time needed for assembly. As a result, the project was not ready for the May 24 opening. The oval-shaped three-foot-gauge track mounted above the floor of the main building was part of the problem. It was difficult to build, and the curves were slightly too tight, even for the tiny locomotive designed to pull a single car. A third rail provided 75 volts of direct current to the curious looking three-ton locomotive that did not emit smoke or cinders. The inventors named the remarkable little engine the Judge in honor of Field’s uncle, a justice on the Supreme Court. Every day reporters heard the same story: All will be ready in twentyfour hours. Finally on June 9, the little electric line opened. The small train ran but never in a satisfactory manner.

Yet, it proved very popular. The public was delighted to roll along, high over the exhibit cases, at speeds of up to nine miles an hour. More than 26,000 passengers rode behind the Judge during the two weeks the line was open.

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Several railway groups staged their annual conventions in Chicago to coincide with the exposition, including the Railway Master Mechanics Association and the Master Car Builders. The Telegraph Superintendents’ Association and the much larger American Society of Civil Engineers also organized their annual gatherings in Chicago during Talbott’s grand fair. It is likely that these groups reasoned that the exposition—including the thousand exhibitions and half a million square feet of space—would provide much to see and study. Perhaps the most endearing of those visiting the fair was a small group of boys from Dunkirk, New York. Horatio Brooks, president of the Brooks Locomotive Works, sent several of his apprentices to Chicago. Selected from a night school established

by Brooks, the apprentices most likely couldn’t afford the luxury of travel, so the excursion to Chicago was surely a welcome holiday.

General attendance at the fair was good. On an average day, four thousand came through the gates. On the last, 26,000 attended before the site was cleared. At the close of the fair, organizers awarded five hundred medals in gold, silver, and bronze. The top prize, the Grand Gold Medal, went to the Brooks Locomotive Works for the best overall exhibit. The financial results were less favorable. The show cost approximately $60,000, and revenue was just half of that figure, resulting in a loss of about $30,000. Yet because the sponsors had agreed in advance to guarantee it, no vendor or supplier would lose a cent. Talbott was likely happy that this month-long extravaganza had gone as well as it had but was probably uninterested in repeating his success. It would be ten years before another large railway exhibition would be staged in Chicago, and it was part of the World’s Columbian Exposition.

The great 1883 National Exposition of Railway Appliances was soon forgotten and few modern residents of Chicago are aware that such an event was staged in what is now part of Grant Park. Some of Talbott’s other enterprises continue to this day, even if he, too, is largely forgotten. Railway Age is still published but as a monthly rather than a weekly. The managers moved it to New York, and in 1908, the publication merged with the Railroad Gazette. Like Railway Age, the Gazette was originally published in Chicago but moved to New York after the Great Chicago Fire.

William H. Boardman (1846–1914) and Edward A. Simmons (1875–1931) became the new managers of Railway Age.

After the fair, the Railway Age editors announced their plan to relocate their offices from the Grand Pacific Hotel (above) to a newly constructed building at 103 Adams Street (below). An article described the layout of the new building in great detail and the location as “an exceedingly favorable one in all respects.”

Together they developed the Railway Age Company into a near monopoly of professional railway communications by offering specialized journals on locomotives, cars, track, and signaling. In 1912, they established the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Company complete with the slogan the “House of Transportation.” The company soon validated the phrase by acquiring journals devoted to the maritime and airline industries.

Talbott continued working until the end of his long life. His career involved regular railway travel, and he generally traveled as a coach passenger finding it preferable to the comforts of a sleeping car. In September 1893, he was aboard the Boston and Albany train involved in the bridge collapse near Springfield, Massachusetts, and helped some of the injured out of the wrecked cars. The accident killed fifteen passengers.

He later explained to a reporter that he rode in the rear coach whenever possible, feeling it was safer than the forward cars; apparently he did not consider rear-end collisions as much of a danger.

Late in his life, Talbott developed a fascination with Mexico. In 1923, he was planning another trip south to gather material for a series of magazine articles. A week before his scheduled departure, Talbott died on May 22, in his New York townhouse. He was not wealthy or a celebrity, but Talbott had every reason to die a happy man. He had outlived most of his contemporaries and was known and respected within the railroad and publishing fields. A poor boy from Appalachian Ohio, Talbott had built a comfortable life and a quiet but lasting legacy.

John H. White Jr. has written thirteen books on transportation history. He is currently completing a study of Victorian travel.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S | Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are from the Chicago History Museum collection. 36, i61363; 37, reprinted from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, June 2, 1883; 38, left: i61370, right: i61366; 39, i31192; 40, top: i61375, bottom: i05719; 41, left: i61369, right: i61371; 42, i61259; 43, reprinted with permission of ALCO Historic Photos, negative B174; 44, i61260; 45, top: CHM, bottom: i61257; 46–47, reprinted from the John H. White, Jr., Railroad Reference Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, used with permission; 48, top: reprinted from Engineer, August 17, 1883, bottom: i40636; 49, reprinted from The Railway Age Car, author’s collection; 50, top: reprinted from the Chicago Inter Ocean, June 17, 1883, center and bottom: i61254; 51, top: i61368, bottom: i61255.

Yesterday’s City | 51

M A K I N G H I S T O RY I

Cu ltu re Makers: Interviews with Timu el Black and Margaret Bu rrou ghs T I M O T H Y J . G I L F OY L E

T

he 2008 election of Chicagoan Barack Obama as president of the United States revived interest in the city’s African American heritage. Among the most influential chroniclers of Chicago’s rich African American past are Timuel Black and Margaret Burroughs. Black’s projected three-volume Bridges of Memory is a landmark publication and one of the most ambitious oral history projects on the history of Chicago. Burroughs is best known as the founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History, the first museum in the United States dedicated to the history of African American life and culture. The legacies of both Black and Burroughs, however, extend beyond the study of history. They are historians but also artists, educators, writers, civil rights activists, and institution builders.

Margaret Taylor Burroughs was born on November 1, 1917, in St. Rose, Louisiana, just west of New Orleans.

Her parents, Christopher Alexander Taylor and Octavia Pierre Taylor, moved their family to Chicago in search of a better life. “My family decided to come because one of my uncles had been in World War I,” Burroughs recounts. “When he got out of the army, he stopped off in Chicago and saw that there were schools and places you could get jobs.

That’s why they decided to join the migration and go north.”

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Margaret Burroughs and Timuel Black both consider their efforts to preserve and interpret the history of Chicago’s African American community to be among their greatest achievements.

Left: Margaret, age five. Above: Margaret’s parents, Christopher Alexander and Octavia Taylor.

Housing conditions were crowded when the Taylors arrived in the 1920s.

“We moved in with [my uncle] and his family in what they called kitchenettes,” she remembers. “There was one kitchen, and people used the living room and the dining room for sleeping quarters.”

Black’s family followed a similar trajectory. Eight months after his birth on December 7, 1918, in Birmingham, Alabama, Black’s family migrated north.

His parents, Timuel Dixon Black Sr. and Mattie McConner Black, were native Alabamians, and the senior Black quickly found employment in Chicago’s stockyards. Like Burroughs, Black remembers crowded living conditions throughout his childhood. “A new form of housing called kitchenettes was common,” he explains. “An apartment of three bedrooms and two baths would house maybe three or four families.”

For both families, Chicago represented a new world. One of the most noticeable differences was education. “The first school I went to was the Doolittle School, where we had white teachers, and that was a different experience,” notes Burroughs. “In St. Rose, we [African Americans] did not have a school of our own. We had school in the back room of one of the churches.”

She admits that her parents and other African American migrants believed that “one of the advantages of coming north was the fact that we were in an actual school of our own [with] a teacher for every grade.”

After attending Doolittle Elementary at Thirty-fifth Street and Rhodes Avenue, Burroughs went to St. Elizabeth’s Catholic School for third and fourth grades and Carter Elementary thereafter. At Carter, she met Mary L. Ryan, an Irish Catholic teacher who took a personal interest in her young student. Ryan was “a wonderful teacher who has had a great influence on me,” Burroughs recalls. “She followed me and encouraged me all the way through high school.” Indeed, when Burroughs graduated from Englewood High School in 1933, Ryan helped her find funding to attend Chicago Normal College (today known as Chicago State University), where Burroughs completed a teaching certificate. She later earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the School of the Art Institute.

Black grew up at Fifty-first Street and Michigan Avenue. He attended Burke Elementary School in the 1920s and Englewood and Wendell Phillips (renamed DuSable while he was a student) high schools in the 1930s. Black now admits that he left Englewood because of the racism he encountered, but his experience at Phillips/DuSable was entirely different. His schoolmates included Nathaniel Cole (later known as Nat “King” Cole), Dempsey Travis, and Harold Washington. He was also a member of the school’s historic 1935–36 basketball team, the first African

Top: Tim’s parents, Timuel Sr. and Mattie Black. Above: Black (left) with a friend from Burke Elementary School, c. 1930.

Making History | 53

Burroughs at DuSable High School in 1957. She spent more than twenty years of her teaching career at DuSable.

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American team to compete in the Illinois state playoffs. More important, Black describes DuSable’s teachers as “just phenomenal.” Mary J. Herrick, later the author of The Chicago Schools: A Social and Political History (1971), was particularly influential. “She was a great teacher,” extols Black. “She taught everything. She was a great organizer, too.”

While Black was completing high school, Burroughs joined the Arts Craft Guild, an active group of African American visual artists. Members included some of the most influential artists of the twentieth century: Archibald Motley Jr., Charles White, Joseph Kersey, William Carter, Eldzier Cortor, and Bernard Goss, to whom Burroughs was briefly married. When Burroughs and other Guild members learned that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was interested in promoting the arts, they acted. “The WPA was starting these [community] centers, and we got the word that if we could get a place, they would come in, set up programs, and staff it,” recounts Burroughs.

The fundraising efforts of Burroughs and her colleagues culminated in the founding of the South Side Community Art Center in 1940. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated the facility in May 1941; the ceremony reached listeners nationwide via the Columbia Broadcasting System. During the ensuing decades, the center served as both an art gallery and a workshop, showcasing artists, from emerging to well known, and offering classes in drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and crafts. The organization sponsored writers’ forums, which attracted Willard Motley, Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, and other noteworthy authors. The Nat King Cole Trio occasionally played there on weekend nights. The South Side Community Art Center remains the oldest African American art center in the United States.

Black followed a different artistic path. After high school, he worked in a variety of jobs: as a field representative for Robert A. Cole and the Chicago Metropolitan Funeral System Association, a tannery worker in Milwaukee, a research assistant to the famed sociologist St. Clair Drake, and an underpaid store clerk, the last proving to be the most influential. At the store, he was introduced to labor organizing by J. Levert Kelly, president of the Waiters and Bartenders Union. Black describes Kelly as a “really good organizer and a tough guy.” With his help, Black and his coworkers negotiated with their employers, resulting in a weekly pay increase from $4.50 to $17.50, with a day off.

With the outbreak of World War II, Black was drafted into the armed forces. In Europe, he participated in the Battle of the Bulge and was present at the liberation of Buchenwald, one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. For his service, Black received four bronze battle stars. Shortly after returning home, Black enrolled at Roosevelt University where he earned his undergraduate

As a young man, Black taught at Gary’s Roosevelt High School. Former students have spoken of him as “a teacher who opened their minds, broadened their world, and helped redirect their lives.”

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degree in 1952; he would later receive a master’s degree in the social sciences from the University of Chicago. He remained in the field of education for thirtyseven years, teaching first at his alma mater DuSable High School (1954), then Roosevelt High School in Gary, Indiana (1955–56), and eventually at Dunbar, Farragut, and Hyde Park high schools in Chicago (1950s–66).

Black was also a pioneer in the independent black political movement. As a civil rights activist and proponent of social justice, he threw himself into Chicago politics. In 1958, he worked as an organizer in Dr. T. R. M. Howard’s electoral challenge against Congressman William Dawson and Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political machine. Black later ran for elective office several times, including campaigns for seats in the Chicago City Council, Illinois Senate, and Illinois House of Representatives. He is often credited with coining the phrase “plantation politics,” a reference to the isolating and discriminatory practices used to manipulate African American voters.

Similar to Black, Burroughs supported herself by teaching. She taught elementary school during the early 1940s before moving to DuSable High School, where she worked from 1946 to 1968. In 1968, Burroughs was invited to teach humanities at Wilson Junior College (later Kennedy-King College) where she remained, in her words, for “ten wonderful years.”

Burroughs’s career complemented her art. She recalls, “I was teaching at an elementary school, and there was this young man who was always drumming on the desk.” Observing him inspired her to write her first book, Jasper, the 56 | Chicago History | Winter 2010

In the 1963 municipal elections, Black was part of a group of independent candidates who challenged incumbent African American aldermen aligned with Mayor Richard J. Daley. Above: Black (right) speaks to a prospective supporter.

Black’s 1963 campaign materials included this flyer. Residents of the Fourth Ward could flip up each category to learn how Black fought for them.

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Burroughs (seated, center) and her friends and colleagues pose outside the South Side Community Art Center. This photograph was later titled, “Great Day in Bronzeville.�

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Drummin’ Boy (1947). She describes her time teaching in the Chicago public schools: “I had wonderful students, and I learned a lot because teaching is a two-way street.

You’re teaching the students, but they’re also teaching and molding you.”

In 1952, Burroughs received a yearlong sabbatical and traveled to Mexico City where she was exposed to the work of Mexican muralists, including José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. At the same time, she began experimenting with linocuts, a new artistic medium for her. “You take a piece of linoleum, battleship linoleum, just like we have on the floor,” she explains, “and you have these sharp tools, and you make your drawing on linoleum.” After cutting the linoleum, Burroughs applied ink and paper to create a distinctive print.

Mexico sparked Burroughs’s creative energies, and the years following her return to Chicago were among her most productive. Among her most significant visual artworks are the Ribbon Man, Mexico City Market, a watercolor inspired by her study at the Institute of Printing and Sculpture in New Mexico; Insect (oil painting, 1963); Black Queen and Head (bronze sculptures, 1963); and Head (marble sculpture, 1965). She also published two more children’s books: Did You Feed My Cow? Rhymes and Games from City Streets and Country Lanes (1956) and Whip Me Whop Me Pudding, and Other Stories of Riley Rabbit and His Fabulous Friends (1966).

While Burroughs was creating her oeuvre, Black was challenging traditional ways of teaching American history. He was an early proponent of the study of African American history. “When I was teaching at the high-school level, I was one of those who initiated the idea of African American history,” he remembers. “I was teaching it even when I was teaching white students.”

Black’s enthusiasm for and interest in African American history made him popular. “Pretty soon my class was overloaded,” he beams. “In the 1950s, we began to believe that there should be courses in African American history available in public schools.”

The slow pace of change and his frustration with administrators, however, convinced Black to leave the Chicago public school system. He briefly worked as an assistant coordinator of the National Teacher Corps, a federal program that recruited young college graduates to teach in troubled schools. He then taught at Roosevelt University, Columbia College, and in the City Colleges of Chicago system. He served as a dean at Wilbur Wright College, vice president of Olive-Harvey College, and chairperson of Community Affairs of the City Colleges of Chicago.

Burroughs experienced similar feelings of dissatisfaction: “Very little was taught in the Chicago public schools about the positive contributions of people of African descent.” She wanted to make art, history, and literature on the African American experience accessible to a wider community, so she turned her frustration into action. “A group of us who were teachers were interested in black history, and we started speaking about it, seeing what we could do about it.”

The South Side Community Art Center proved inspirational, providing “the idea of starting the first black history museum in the country.” The Quincy Club, an African American men’s club and boarding house for railroad workers on South Michigan Avenue, became available. Burroughs and her

Burroughs lent this print to the Chicago History Museum for display in the exhibition Catholic Chicago. Although recognized as one of Chicago’s first Catholics, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable is more openly celebrated by the city’s African American community. Above: DuSable, 2004.

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This building at 3806 South Michigan Avenue was the first location of the DuSable Museum of African American History.

Formerly the Quincy Club, the structure was originally the home of Chicago contractor John Griffith and his family.

husband, Charles Gordon Burroughs, a poet and founder of the Associated Negro Press, were residing in the club’s coach house at the time. She recalls, “Since I was in the back and had made repairs, they gave me the first chance to buy it.” She jumped at the opportunity.

In 1961, the Ebony Museum of Negro History opened at 3806 South Michigan Avenue. The basement and the first floor were used for exhibitions, the second floor was designated for offices, and the third floor housed visiting scholars. Burroughs recalls how the new museum ran on a shoestring budget.

“After we first got started, I was the lecturer, the journalist, the reporter, and everything else,” she admits. “My husband was the janitor and the librarian.”

Over time, the couple gained experience. “I learned how to write proposals, and we were able to get our first grant, which was about $10,000.”

The museum proved so successful that when a Chicago Park District facility in Washington Park became available, Burroughs and her colleagues petitioned for it. Burroughs proved instrumental in convincing city officials to give them the space. The new DuSable Museum of African American History opened in 1973 with Burroughs as the executive director. The move stimulated more growth. In 1993, they added a 25,000-square-foot wing named after the late Mayor Harold Washington. The museum now houses more than thirteen thousand artifacts, artworks, and books, making it an internationally recognized resource for African American culture.

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While Burroughs was establishing the DuSable Museum, Black was at the forefront of the civil rights movement in Chicago. His activism was fueled, in part, by his parents. After arriving in Chicago, Black’s father was involved in the Back-to-Africa movement of the 1920s, while his mother was an active integrationist. In 1955, Black participated in the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, where he first met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Black later served as president of the Chicago chapter of the Negro American Labor Council, and in 1963, he led local efforts for the famed March on Washington.

Black’s activism led to his involvement in King’s move to Chicago in January 1966. Black remembers that he initially advised against the move.

“Dr. King had been rebuffed by both Adam Clayton Powell [in New York City] and the black mayor of Cleveland,” Black explains. “He thought of Chicago because he’d had so much success here. In 1964, he’d had one of those big rallies out at Soldier Field. He’d raised a lot of money.” Black’s concern stemmed from divisions among the African American community and local civil rights groups. “On the big issues, we were together,” remembers Black, but they were divided over strategy. “I wrote him a letter, saying, ‘Think about it. Don’t come.’” Black explains. “I knew he would run into trouble.” When King arrived in Chicago, according to Black, those divisions “split wide open.”

The DuSable Museum’s success inspired imitation. Burroughs frequently traveled throughout the United States as well as to Europe, Africa, Central America, South America, the South Pacific, China, Australia, and the former Soviet Union, offering advice to community groups hoping to establish black

A. Philip Randolph selected Black as the Chicago coordinator for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Black activated his network of friends in Chicago’s schools, churches, and trade unions to achieve results “successful beyond all expectations.” Above: Black (left) prepares students to attend the March on Washington.

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Above: Founders Charles and Margaret Burroughs photographed in the original DuSable Museum. Left: The DuSable Museum of African American History, 2009.

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Through a “host of voter registration campaigns,” Black helped hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans participate in the city’s elections. His most notable efforts supported Harold Washington’s mayoral campaigns. Left: Washington and Black.

history museums and cultural centers. Today more than 250 African American history museums exist in the United States.

In addition to her work at the museum, Burroughs began serving as a Chicago Park District Commissioner in 1986. Although her service attracts little attention, she speaks with pride about her success in changing the direction of the Park District. “When I came on the Park Board, the main programs were football, basketball, and other team sports,” she explains. “But I have been able to work to bring in more cultural programs, so that we have South Shore Cultural Center, and at least twenty of our park facilities are cultural: dancing, art, painting, music, theater, drama, creative writing, things like that, which I think has enriched the whole park programming.”

Her accomplishments are widely regarded, exemplified by honorary degrees from ten colleges and universities. President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the National Commission on African American History and Culture, and in 1986, Mayor Harold Washington dedicated February 1 in her honor.

In 2005, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Illinois State Historical Society.

Black has been similarly honored. He was inducted into the DuSable High School Hall of Fame in 1985. The Chicago Urban League (1986) and the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (1990) have recognized Black for his devotion to social justice. He is a recipient of the International House of Blues Foundation Living Legends Award (1998) and the City Club Making History | 63

of Chicago Gwendolyn Brooks Award for Achievement in the Arts and Letters (2004). He was named a Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune in 2005 and Chicago magazine in 2008.

Burroughs and Black consider their efforts to preserve and interpret the history of Chicago’s African American community to be among their greatest feats. For Burroughs, founding the DuSable Museum and the South Side Community Art Center are her primary legacies. For Black, the Bridges of Memory series stands as one of his most significant achievements. These contributions in public history will continue to shape the perceptions of Chicago for decades to come.

Timothy J. Gilfoyle is the author of A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of NineteenthCentury New York (W. W. Norton, 2006) and Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark (University of Chicago Press, 2006). He teaches American history at Loyola University Chicago.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S | Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are from the Timuel D. Black, Jr. Papers (TB) in the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Chicago Public Library. 52, top: TB image number 210, bottom: both photographs are reprinted from Burroughs’s autobiography Life with Margaret, Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Chicago Public Library; 53, top: TB #1019, bottom: TB #123; 54, TB #1305; 55, TB #1309; 56, TB #484; 57, TB #1065; 58, courtesy of the South Side Community Art Center; 59, lent by Margaret Burroughs for use in the Museum’s Catholic Chicago exhibition; 60, reprinted from The Birth and the Building of the DuSable Museum, CHM collection, i61550; 61, TB #171; 62, left: CHM, photograph by Jay Crawford, right: reprinted from The Birth and the Building of the DuSable Museum, CHM collection, i61549; 63, TB #118; 64, top: TB #674, bottom: CHM, photograph by Dan Rest.

F O R F U RT H E R R E A D I N G | Timuel D. Black’s Bridges of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Black Migration (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2003) and Bridges of Memory: Chicago’s Second Generation of Black Migration (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2007) include biographical information on Black.

Studs Terkel interviewed Black for his book Race and the transcript is available online at Terkel’s “Conversations with America” at http://www.studsterkel.org/race.php.

Other oral history memoirs are available in the collections of the Chicago History Museum and Chicago Public Radio at: http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/ programs/848/series_features/848_personal.asp The best place to begin any study of Margaret Burroughs is with her autobiography, Life with Margaret: The Official Autobiography (Chicago: In Time Publishing, 2003). Burroughs and Dudley Randall have edited an anthology of poems by black writers and leaders: For Malcolm: Poems on the Life and the Death of Malcolm X (Detroit: Broadside Press, 1967). Burroughs published several volumes of poems, including What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black? (1968); and Africa, My Africa (1970). Examples of her art can be found at: http:// negroartist.com/negro%20artist/margaret%20burroughs/index.htm. The most recent interpretation of Chicago’s African American community is Adam Green, Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

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Above: In 2003, Black (left) and Studs Terkel (right) served as the keynote speakers at the Storytelling at the Crossroads Conference. The program described the men as “honoring the richness of tradition” and “unearthing the treasures of experience and wisdom.” Below: Burroughs accepts the Chicago History Museum’s Harold Washington History Maker Award for Distinction in Public Service in 2007.