This issue of Chicago History focuses on the exhibit, Folk Art of Illinois, develo/Jed at the Laheview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, and scheduled to be shown at the Chicago Historical Society from AjJril 17 to May 31, 1982.
Rcprcsentati1·e items from the exhibition. Photo by Steve Huey, B & [ Studio, Pekin.
In every way, this publication is the product of close collaboration between Lakeview Mu sellln and the Chicago Historical Society. Merle Glick, guest curator of the exhibit, provided the list of authors and many of the photogTaphs appearing in the issue, and Lakeview Museum made a contribution for the use of color and the printing of additional copies. The Society supplied the services of its publications, curatorial, and photography staff and the pages of the magazine. The editors added one author to the list to carry the story of folk art in Illinois to our own city and our own time. The enthusiastic support of John Peterson, director of the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, and of Ellsworth H. Brown, director of the Chicago Historical Society, contributed much to the project. In addition to the rewards to the staff of getting to know and work with colleagues at a sister institution, this pooling of efforts has benefited both museums by enabling them to produce jointly a more ambitious publication than either one could have done on its own. \Ve hope it will bring pleasure to the Society's members and other readers. The Editors
Chicago History The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Society Winter 1981-1982
Fannia ·weingartner Editor Gail Farr Casterline Associate Editor
VOLUl\lE X, NUJ\IBER 4
co TENTS 194 Introduction by Merle Glick
Roberta Casey Assistant Editor
198 The Folk Arts of Illinois
Karen Kohn Designer
205
Walter "\,V. Krutz Paul W. Petraitis Photography
212 EmstDamitz
by C. Kurt Dewhurst and Marsha MacDowell Quilted Messages from the Midwest by Susan Murphy
by Esther Sparks
218
The Gallery: A Sampling of Objects and Paintings in the Exhibit
227
Illinois Decoys by Donn a Tonelli
232 Coverlet Weavers by Olivia ·M ahoney and
239
ancy Glick
Illinois Pottery by Robert W. Sherman
Cover: The Sew ing Club of Mrs. Malcolm McNeil of Chicago put together this richly colored Crazy Quilt of silk , satin, velvet, and cotton , c. 1885. Quilt, CHS, gift of Mrs. Woodbury S. Agar. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
Copyright 1982 by the Chicago Historical Society Clark trcet at North Avenue Chicago, Jllinois 60614 ISSN 0272-8540 Articles appearing in this journal arc abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History a11d Life
244 Olof Krans by Anna Wadsworth Murray
248
Ethnic Folk Art in Contemporary Chicago by Bruce Hatton Boyer
Joseph Sierp of Aurora handcarved this wooden tableau of a mountain man and his dog in the early 1900s. Carving, Aurora Historical Society. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
194
Folk Art of Illinois Introduction to an Exhibit By Merle Glick
Fifty years ago, Holger Cahill of the Newark (New Jersey) Museum published an article in American Merwry entitled "American Folk Art." He had just completed an exhibit of folk paintings and was preparing another of folk sculpture. These were among the very first American folk art exhibitions organized in the United States. In that article, Cahill defined folk art as "art which is produced by people who have little book learning in art techniques and no academic training, whose work is not related to established schools, and is, in most instances, anonymous." Cahill's 1931 article could be reprinted today with few changes. He cited the public's lack of familiarity with folk art, described the various categories of that art, and predicted an increasing interest in the subject. Although this prophecy has indeed been fulfilled in recent years, folk art is still not a household subject in the Midwest. Perhaps it's just the term "folk art" that is confusing, because there is usually immediate comprehension when one mentions decoys, quilts, coverlets, primitive paintings, carvings, etc. While several exhibits of folk art have come to Illinois from Eastern museums, and many exhibits have featured a single category of folk art such as decoys, quilts, or paintings, a comprehensive exhibit of Illinois folk art has never before been assembled. Inspired by some of the exhibitions focusing on single states staged in nearby Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, we set out to survey the Prairie State, building upon the well-known collections of Olof Krans's paintings, Illinois decoys, and quilts. This exhibit spans the years from statehood (1818) to the early twentieth century. In contrast to Eastern states, where considerable folk art was produced in the eighteenth century, very little was produced in Illinois before 1850. While a few portraits, quilts, and coverlets survive, most Illinoisans were too busy between statehood and 1850 breaking the prairie sod, building roads and farmhouses, establishing towns and villages, and, until 1832, fending off Indians. Not many had time for, or were concerned with, the things which have been termed as "beyond necessity." Folk art created before 1850 was produced, in most instances, by immigrants from Eastern states, mainly painters and coverlet weavers. One of Illinois's best-known folk painters, Sheldon Peck (1797-1868), came to Chicago from New York about 1837 and A native of Havana, Illinois, Merle Glick is a graduate of Knox College and the Harvard Business School. He is Manager of the Compensation Department of Caterpillar Tractor Co., Peoria. His role as guest curator of this exhibit is the culmination of years of discovering and learning about folk art in Illinois. 195
Introduction
Embroidered on linen , this sampler was the work of Julia Narcissa Moss of Peoria, c. 1848. Julia later graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Chicago and became a physician. Sampler, CHS, gift of Cecil Moss. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
produced many portraits until the 1850s, ·when photography put him and many of the other portrait artists out of business. A few coverlet weavers came from Ohio and Pennsylvania in the 1840s, but, again , modern technology-power looms-and the public's changing taste reduced the demand for handwoven products. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Illinois men and women produced a variety of utilitarian and decorative artifacts as part of their everyday life. Many of these are now treasured by historians and folklorists as examples of folk art. As a youth living on an Illinois farm , I slept under patchwork quilts, hunted over duck decoys, and took for granted the weathervanes and birdhouses about me. Not until I saw these familiar objects of my childhood exhibited in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg did I realize that they were part of an important "artistic" tradition. Recognition of this led to my collecting folk art, and then to the idea of organizing this exhibit, a project further inspired by Betty Madden's pioneering work Art, Crafts, and Architecture in Early Illinois , published in 1974. The most pleasurable part of this task has been the opportunity to discover and examine the collections of individuals and institutions-museums and historical societies-throughout the state and beyond. Their willingness to lend their treasures to the exhibit has made this whole undertaking possible. But to make a permanent record , a publication seemed desirable. Hence this issue of Chicago History-a joint venture between the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria and the Chicago Historical Society, which will host the exhibit in the Spring of 1982. The essays in this issue are written by professional folklorists, curators, and collectors, who offer a variety of views on folk art, individual artists, and on special subjects. In addition to these articles, the publication includes a section entitled The Gallery, which illustrates, in some cases in color, a sampling of the artifacts and paint196
Introduction
ings displayed in this exhibition. Among them are weathervanes, ·windmill weights, trade signs, and woodcarvings. Few can fail to respond to the warmth, freshness, and vitality conveyed by these objects of everyday life in Illinois. While much scholarly research needs to be done in order to answer the questions posed by the folklorists, the exhibition and essays should serve to make viewers and readers aware that the particular category of folk art in which they are interested is only part of a much broader stream of creativity. We hope that they will derive as much pleasure from these objects as did those Illinoisans who painted, carved, wove, formed, and stitched fifty to a hundred and fifty years ago.
Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge and thank the following persons and institutions who have generously consented to lend their folk art treasures to this exhibition : Patricia Adams, Evanston; Adelmann Family Collection, Lockport; The Art Institute of Chicago; Aurora Historical Museum; James Barnett, York, Pa.; Dan Barringer, Springfield; John H. Bereman , Geneva; l\Ir. and i\Irs. Edwin Braman, St. Paul, i\finnesota; Victor Carapella, Glen Ellyn; William S. Carr, Chicago; Chicago Historical Society; Don Clark, Henry; Mr. and Mrs. Ridgely Cook; i\Irs. Eula Damitz, Bushnell; Henry Ford i\Iuseum, Dearborn, Michigan; Dr. Ruth i\I. Freyberger, Normal; Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Fried, Glencoe; Galesburg Historical Society; Herman A. Glick, Havana; i\fr. and l\Irs. Dick Herm, ·washington; Ken Hodorowski , Chicago; Illinois Department of Conservation, Bishop Hill; Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield; Illinois State Museum, Springfield; Mark Jackson, Chicago; Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York City; fr. and ivirs. Burdette Kenner, Jacksonville; l\Ir. and Mrs. George Knisley, Jacksonville; Knox College, Galesburg; LaSalle Co. Historical Society Museum, Utica; l\fr. and l\[rs. Randall Lowery, Mt. Prospect; i\Ir. and l\Irs. Edward Mallicoat, Jacksonville; Frank Mason, Springfield; l\Irs. L. F. McClure, Highland Park; McLean Co. Historical Society, Bloomington; The Museum, l\Iichigan State University, East Lansing; l\Ir. and l\Irs. R. L. Moore, Rochester; i\frs. 'i\Tilliam i\Iorthland, Kingston, N.Y.; Naper Settlement, Naperville; Charles Nelson, Decatur; John Paul, Springfield; Frank and Barbara Pollack, Highland Park; Putnam Co. Histori cal Society, Hennepin; Richard Raymond, Springfield; Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia; Helen R. Sailer, A\'on; Elsie 0 . and Philip D. Sang Foundation, Chicago; Robert Sherman, Springfield; John Simmermaker, 'iVinamac, Indi ana; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Kathleen Stanfield; Nancy Starr, New York City; Gary and Nancy Stass, New Canaan, Connecticut; l\Ir. and Mrs. Vernon C. Thomson, Sr., Table Grove; Time 'iVas Village Museum, Mendota; Joe Tonelli, Spring Valley; Western Illinois University l\Iuseum, Macomb, and other lenders who wish to remain anonymous. Special appi'eciation is also extended to Caterpillar Tractor Co. and the following individuals who assisted in many ways to make this exhibition and publication a success (with apologies to any who might have been overlooked inadvertently): Bob Bishop, Len Carlson, l\Irs. Robert Clausen, Sharon S. Darling, Lois Blahnik, Kurt Dewhurst, Bob Evans, John and Nancy Glick, Steve and Claudie Huey, l\Iarsha 1acDowell, Olivia Mahoney, Susan l\Iurphy, Anna v\Tadsworth Murray, Ron Nelson, John Peterson, Beatrix Rumford, Robert Sherman, Esther Sparks, Donna Tonelli, and Fannia 'iVeingartner. I am grateful for their help. Merle H. Glick Guest Curator 197
The Folk Arts of Illinois By C. Kurt Dewhurst and Marsha MacDowell
'' Folk art ... is not the uninspired or naive production of items that might have been done better had the artisan only been properly trained. ... The folk artist is usually guided by a sense of community aesthetic which is often unspoken because it is functional) not intellectualized.)) Barre Toelken, in Webfoots and Bunchgrassers: Folk Art of the Oregon Country (1980)
THE EXHIBITION OF FOLK ART in Illinois organ-
ized by Merle Glick for the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, and slated to be shown as well at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield and at the Chicago Historical Society, is bound to stimulate interest in the folkways of the nineteenth century. It is important to remember, however, that the selection of a sampling of objects to represent a greater whole is risky, and particularly so in the case of folk art. Folkli[e does not flow out of broad-based, regionally shared beliefs and values; it is the by-product of distinct group experiences that occur within cultural regions. Thus, the currents of Illinois folklife are diverse, and sometimes even at odds with one another. Whether informed by patterns of V,Testern migration, immigrant settlements, occupational opportunities, geographic resources, or social and religious experiences, the folklife of the Illinois region has been extremely vital and remains very much alive today. This exhibition provides insights into the experiences not only of individual artists but also of various groups, because art, in its truest form, is the product of shared experiences that have shaped patterns of behavior, communication, and customs. In her work Oregon Folklore, Suzi Jones wrote, "Folklore usually expresses C. Kurt Dewhurst and A1arsha MacDowell are curators in the Folk Arts Division of The Museum of Michigan State University. They have written several books, including Artists and Aprons: Folk Art by American Women (£. P. Dutton, 1979) which th ey co-au thored wit h Betty MacDowell.
198
community values and it varies slightly, but constantly, as it is transmitted from generation to generation or from friend to friend." Like folklore, folk art can well be described as the traditional expressions and behavior which have been learned informally. By examining examples of folk art-the material culture of the folk--one can begin to discern the many facets o[ Illinois's rich folk culture. While most of the articles in this publication deal with particular categories of folk artquilts, pottery, decoys, coverlets-or the work of specific folk artists-Olof Krans and Ernst Damitz- this piece will deal with questions that are relevant to all categories of folk art. Pattern and Place The approach of this exhibition has been to rely upon examples of folk art from throughout Illinois rather than from the broader folkcultural context that shaped the Prairie State. For as Henry Glassie* points out, the state of Illinois encompasses at least three distinct folkcultural regions: that of Northern Illinois, which has its roots in ew England; that of Central Illinois, which might be termed Midwestern , and is part of the same region as most of Ohio and Indiana; and Southern Illinois, which is part of the upland South folk-cultural region that includes most of Kentucky, Tennessee, ·west Virginia, and parts of Indiana, Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, and Georgia. The folklife of Illinois has been dramatically influenced by all three of these distinctive •In Patt ern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States.
Combining the functions of a weathervane and lightning rod, this graceful metal horse came from Havana, Illinois. Weathervane, Private Collect io n. Photo by Steve Huey, B & M Studio, Pekin.
cultural-geographic regions, which, in turn, were influenced by paLterns of culture from other regions of the country and overseas. In American Folklore and th e Historian, Richard M. Dorson encouraged systematic investigation of regional folk cultures and his challenge has been accepted by many folklorists during the past decade. Due to funding patterns, howevf:r, these investigations have been conducted primarily by state rather than by folk-culture region . Utah, Michigan , Oklahoma, Georgia , Mississippi, Oregon, Louisiana, Connecticut, and Kentucky, among others, have each undertaken a major survey and exhibition. Their efforts have been especially well received by the general public, but they are only a beginning. Clearly, additional research
and scholarship must follow as a by-product of such public appeal.
The Appeal and the Real l\Iuch of the scholarship that accompanied the initial exhibitions of American folk art at New York art galleries and museums in the I 920s ancl 1930s stressed the aesthetic appeal of [olk art to the uninitiated. The oft-quoted words of Holger Cahill in the 1932 exhibition catalog entitled American Folk Art: The Art of the Common J\IIan in America, 1750-1900, demonstrate this appeal: "Folk art" is the most nearly exact term so far used to describe this material. . . . The work of these men is folk art because it is the expression of common people, made by them and intended for
199
Folk Arts of 1 llinois
Still Life with Eggs, oil on canvas, c. 1895-1900, is one of several such works with a rural theme painted by Alfred Montgomery. Painting , John R. Paul. Photo, Illinois State Museum, by Marlin Roos.
their use and enjoyment. It is not the expression of professional artists made for a small cultured class, and it has little to do with the fashionable art of its period. It does not come out of an academic tradition passed on by schools, but out of craft tradition plus the personal quality of the rare craftsman who is an artist.
These comments reflect a decidedly romantic view of folk art as a manifestation of a simpler and purer form of expression that is peculiar to the "common man." But this perspective is in itself naive. While the viewer can find aesthetic principles and values in folk art that conform to the values of the academically trained artists, such a view often inverts the original intention and expression of the folk artist. Barre Toelken, in an essay entitled "In the Stream of Life," written for the catalog, Web-
200
foots and Bunchgrassers, that accompanied the Oregon folk art exhibition, wrote a passionate plea for a fuller understanding of folk art as a complex cultural phenomenon: Folk art, of whatever genre, is not the uninspired or naive production of items that might have been done better had the artisan only been properly trained. It is not the humble outpouring of rural, backward, or underdeveloped genius, nor is it the coincidentally attractive making o f practical items by people unaware of what they are doing. Rather, folk artists are likely to be fiercely aware of what is good and beautiful in their areas of expression, and even more aware of what their community will think about it. The folk artist is usually guided by a sense of community aesthetic which is often unspoken because it is functional, not intellectualized; he or she may also subscribe to a sense of decorum which prevents bragging and discourages the overarticulation of the obvious.
Folk Arts of Illinois
Various traditions mingle in this Boston rocker made by Phineas Young of Nauvoo (at one time a Mormon settlement) c. 1850. The decorations include a beehive, the Mormon symbol for industriousness. Rocker, Mr. and Mrs. Randall L. Lowery. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
This bent willow rocking chair, made by an unknown craftsman c. 1895, was found in the town of Anna. Rustic furniture of this kind was very popular in the late nineteenth century. Chair, Ken Hodorowski and Mark Jackson . Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
Toelken's words remind us that to discover fully the meanings that reside in all material culture we must begin by coming to understand the culture itself. To embark on such an investigative journey, we must not only have a grasp of customs, beliefs, language, and physical context but must also know what questions to ask. Only then can we transcend the initial visual appeal of an object and understand the process involv.ed in its creation and use.
fore, we should not consider folk art as a mere reflection of human behavior put should realize that it is, in fact, part of human behavior.* Thus a full understanding of the objects in this exhibition should help us see how people in Illinois have responded to the various circumstances of their lives. The probing of a folk art object for a deeper meaning can best be realized by understanding that the life of the folk artist shapes the folk object; and that the folk object has a life span beyond the artist. This publication tries to communicate an awareness of both dimensions, presenting, where possible, an account of the experiences that shaped the lives of the folk
"Art is a doing . . ." Describing the creative process, John F. A. Taylor in Design and Expression in the Visual Arts wrote, "Art is a doing-an active doing, not a passive dumb arrest." All art, whether of the folk, popular, or elite variety, is the result of the organized behavior of man. There-
•Simon J. Bronner, "Premises and Promises of Material Culture Research in American Studies and Folklife Sciences."
201
Folk Arts of Illinois
artists whose work is represented in the exhibition. Such opportunities to connect objects to the artist as caretaker of a community folk aesthetic are central to expanding understanding. William Ferris, in an essay entitled "Local Color: Memory and Sense of Place in Folk Art," in Made by Hand: Mississippi Folk Art, wrote of this approach: The life and work of a folk artist must be considered together because each deepens our understanding of the other. Artists' voices are an important counterpart to their art, and as they weave our thoughts with their own, we unfold a closer sense of their vision and allay [their] fear that [their] work may be interpreted apart from the vision that inspired it.
Yet another approach to the study of folk art revolves around the ability to reconstruct the way in which the object originated, functioned, and continues to function today. Indeed, in cases where nothing is known about the age or context, that may be the only option open. Such an approach must seek to answer three basic questions: (1) Can the object be identified as the product of a folk group? (2) Was there a distinct pattern of transmission of expressions, behaviors, and forms that were primarily learned informally and conveyed orally? (3) Was there a clearly identifiable traditional community aesthetic that governed this process of folk expression? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, the folklorist can go on to draw conclusions as to whether the object is truly folk art. However, where possible, folklorists also attempt to build upon the more generalized notions of folk craftsmanship to establish operative definitions of folk artistry. In an article entitled "Mr. Westfall's Baskets: Traditional Craftsmanship in Northcentral Missouri," Howard Wight Marshall has employed the criteria for traditional country craftsmanship established by folklorist J. Geraint .Jenkins. Although biased in favor of rural folk artistry, they do convey the folklorist's concern for utility, conservative techniques, and operative tradition: (1) The craftsman is able to marry beauty and utility, combining good taste and usefulness. (2) The true craftsman does not depend on complex machinery and equipment to complete his work. 202
(3) The true craftsman is not only able to work in an ancient tradition, but he is able to build on the foundation of history. The past provides a solid basis for his work. [J. Geraint Jen kins, Traditional Country Craftsman]
Appreciation for these traditional cultural values has been a strong guiding force in the selection of objects for this exhibition. The consideration of how a folk object continues to function today requires an alternative approach. Conventional folkloristic fieldwork can record: first, how an object is used today, comparing it to past usage (often relying on historical reconstruction of the earlier context); second, how an object form has varied or has been retained; and third, what changes have occurred in the context of its place of origin. All of this information is valuable and necessary for the student of folk culture. However, a new approach now being advocated by folklorists goes much further by exploring the full life cycle of the folk object. These folklorists suggest that the study of the maker's motivation, the maker's rewards, and the intended uses of the object can reveal much about the man as object-maker / object-user. Simon Bronner has written of this approach: By studying material aspects of American folk culture in terms of human behavior as it relates to experiences, researchers can avoid the methodological pitfalls of considering artifacts and cultures as insular entities. Instead, they can begin to evalu a te the human element in the processes associated with creating objects; they can evaluate the reifications of personal identities and the manipulations of creative expressions. We may thus effectively gain insight into the diverse nature of human conduct and communication, motivation and meaning. ("Investigating Identity and Expression in Folk Art"]
Thus the researcher may choose to probe the early life of a folk object by exploring the creative experience of the maker of a functionally equivalent object today. One may find that though today's maker of decoys may have retired his handmade decoy rig to his mantlepiece, his treatment of and attitude toward those decoys can tell us much both about the character of human experience and about the life cycle of the folk object. Clearly, there still is much to be learned from this same decoymaker as tradition bearer, even if the decoys
Folk Arts of 1 llinois
The them es expressed in folk art often transcend locality. This oak fireplace screen, carved in 1888 by Frank Richards of Springfield, depicts the temptation of Adam and Eve. Screen and photo, Illinois State Museum . Photo by Charles W. Hodge.
203
Folk Arts of Illinois
he continues to make do not conform to the "pure" folk processes-of a past time and context. This approach to the study of folk art may therefore yield a significant new body of knowledge for those interested in folk art as a creative process. Such an approach fully acknowledges that "art is a doing." Conclusion The search for cultural patterns within geographic regions requires more than a sampling of objects and a careful physical description of each object. Folklorists such as Jan Harold Brunvand have advised against the survey and exhibition approaches used in the early exhibitions of folk art that rely upon organization by media. In The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction, Brunvand writes: "the classification of the works by media (oil, pastel, water-color, velvet painting, wood sculpture, etc.) suggested that folk art, like academic art (as distinguished from 'design'), was 'creative' rather than utilitarian." That is, the artifacts chosen for display were judged significant for their decorative, not their functional qualities. Yet, many initial state surveys have had to resort to this tactic not out of lack of appreciation of folk art as an expression of folk groups and community experience, but because much more fieldwork must be carried out to correctly identify cultural streams of folklife and to distinguish them from mere currents. It is to be hoped that such work will follow in Illinois and that this initial exhibition will contribute to the recognition of the cultural regions in the American Midwest. As Henry Classie has noted: In general, folk material exhibits major variation over space and minor variation through time, while the products of popular or academic culture exhibit minor variation over space and major variation through time. The natural divisions of folk material are, then , spatial, where the natural di\'isions of popular material are temporal; that is, a search for patterns in folk material yields regions, where a search for patterns in popular material yields periods. [Pal/em in the Material Folk Cul-
ture of the Eastern United States]
This exhibition, in concert with other state folk art exhibitions, seeks to celebrate the creativity of folk artists who express the community 204
aesthetic of their families, friends, and neighbors. It also attempts to begin to find folk patterns in the human experiences that take place within the boundaries of Illinois-the place that is best known to its people. And lastly, this exhibition invites the viewer to realize the living character of Illinois folklife and to look for and seek out its dynamic meaning in everyday experience. Selected Sources Bronner, Simon J. "Investigating Identity and Expression in Folk Art." Winterthur Portfolio 16 (Spring 1981). - - - . " Premises and Promises of Material Culture Research in American Studies and Folklife Sciences." In A 111erica11 Mat erial Culture and Folklife: A Symposiwn, edi tcd by Simon J- Bronner. Coopersto\\'n, 1.Y.: Cooperstown Graduate Association, forthcoming. Brun\'and , Jan Harold. The Study of American Folklore: An lntrocluction. New York: ,v. W. Norton , 1968. Cahill, Holger. American Folk A,·t: The Art of the Common Man, 1750-1900. New York: Museum of Modern Art, I 932. Dewhurst, C. Kurt, and Marsha MacDowell. Michigan Folk Art: Its Beginnings to 19-11. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 19i6. Dorson , Richard M. American Folklore and the Historicm. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971. Ferris, William. "Local Color: Memory and Sense of Place in Folk An." In l\Jade by Ha11d: MississipfJi Folk Art. Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1980. Classic, Henry. Pal/ em in the Material Folk Cultrll"e of the East ern Unit ed States. Philadelphia: University of Pcnnsyh·ania Press, I 968. Jenkins, J. Geraint. Traditional Country Craftsman. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965. Jones , Suzi. Oregon Folklore. Eugene: Uni\'ersity of Oregon and the Oregon Arts Commis ion, 1977. Marshall, Howard Wight. "Mr. Westfall 's Baskets: Traditional Craftsmanship in 1orthcentral Missouri." In Readings in American Folklore, edited by Jan Harold Brun\'and. New York: ,v. ,v. Norton , 1979. Taylor, John F. A. Design a11<l Expression in the Vimal Arts. New York: Do,·er Publications, 1964. Toelken , Barre. "In the Stream of Life." In Webfools and Brmchgrassen: Folk Art of the Oregon Country , edited by Suzi Jones. Salem: Oregon Arts Commission , 1980. In addition , the authors wish to refer readers to the following exhibition catalogs: Utah Folk A,·t, edited by Hal Cannon (Provo: Brigham Young Uni\'ersity Press, 1980); Folk Art in Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Museum Association , 1981); Three Centuries of Connecticut Folk Art by Alexandra Gra,·e (New Haven: Art Resources of Connecticut, 1979); Louisiana Folk Art (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Uni\'ersity Press, 1972; and Missing Pieces: Georgia Folk Ari, 1770-1976 (Atlanta: Georgia Council for Arts and Humanities, 1976).
Quilted Messages from the Midwest By Susan Murphy
Each quilt contains several different levels of meaning and can be examined as an art object) a household necessity) a family tradition) and even as an important form of social interaction.
rs A celebrated form of folk activity that has busied the fingers and filled the hearts and minds of American women for the past three hundred years. Most folk artists centered their work around the details of everyday living, and quiltmakers were no exception, recording their observations in patterns, fabric, ancl stitching. As with most folk art, the precise origin of quiltmaking remains unknown . We do know that the expression first entered the English language in the thirteenth century and can be traced to the Latin word culcita, meaning a stuffed sack, mattress, or cushion . Quilts were used for warmth or decoration, and both patchwork and quilting were incorporated in the clothing and household textiles of many of the earliest cultures. American bed quilts evolved into elaborate and unique visual statements. A homemade bed was the focal point of the pioneer cabin and the reason that each quilt was created. Christiana Holmes Tillson, traveling through southern Illinois in 1822 on her way to a new home near Vandalia, took shelter in a cabin one evening. She later recalled: QUILTMAKING
There was but one room in the main cabin, which I at once perceived was unusuall y clea n for an establishment of that kind. There were two beds nicely made, with clean pillows and h a ndsome bed quilts, the flobr clean , and the coarse chairs look-
Susan Murphy is a former Chicagoan with an l\f.F.A. in painting and filmma.king from the School of the Art Institute. She became interested in quillma.king while teaching in southern Kentucky and went on to do extensive research in the subject. She is /he producer of the film In Praise of Patchwork, and is current ly preparing a film on Mid west quilts of the 1930s.
ing as if they had just been scrubbed. [A Woman's Story of Pion eer Illinois (1919)]
Severe winters required that four to five quilts be used to comfort families during the coldest months. In rural communities these conditions existed well into the twentieth century, and one elderly Illinois quilter remembered "you had so many quilts on, you almost had to get up out of bed to turn over! " [Interview with Lottie Buhrman, Nashville, Illinois, 1979] In Illinois the tradition of quiltmaking was probably first practiced at the southern tip of the state where initial settlement took place before 1800. Many pioneer women wove their own cloth from home-grown flax and wool into a cloth commonly called " linsey-woolsey." The founder of Carbondale, merchant Daniel Harmon Brush, reminiscing in his diary wrote: Cotton ya rn for warp was a main article of trade, as almost every family, especially farmers, made Jeans for m en 's wear, and striped and checked homespun for women's dresses, all cotton: while linsey-woolsey, haH linen and ha!£ wool spun at home, was very much made and worn. [Growing Up with Southern 1/linois (1944)]
\Varm bed coverings were also made from this rather plain home-woven cloth. The linsey-woolsey quilt top required two equal pieces sewn down the middle to provide enough width to cover a bed. The cloth might be solid, striped, or plain in weave and almost all the color was obtained from home-grown dye stuff from the garden or wooded vicinity. The filling was a thick wool batting or, sometimes, an old quilt tha t was being recycled. Homespun thread, dyed to match, was used to quilt the coarse top, filler, and backing. Close, precise 205
Quilts
Quilting bees served an important social function in rural Illinois. This Crazy Quilt of cotton, satin, velvet, and other fabrics was made by the Ladies Aid of the Christian Church of Putnam, c. 1890. Quilt, Putnam County Historical Society. Photo by Merle Glick, Peoria.
206
Quilts stitching wasn ' t possible, but carefully planned vines, elegant plumed feathers, stylized flowers and hearts were often stitched into the heavy fabric sandwich. Each quilted cover contained a three-part formation: a top, a filler, and a backing, all carefully joined with thousands of close running stitches that held all three layers together. Because of the quilter's limited materials, the top construction was a challenge to resourceful needlewomen. A top might be pieced by joining geometric patches into blocks, appliqued by sewing layers of fabric onto a backing, embroidered with colored threads, or stuffed to create a sculptured surface design. Combining two or more of these techniques added to the endless array of patchwork ingenuity. In addition to the linsey-woolsey quilts, pioneer women also made quilts out of their carefully hoarded stock of fabric scraps. With limited access to areas outside Illinois and little or no money to spend, the women of rural Illinois guarded the fabrics they had brought with them or woven at home, or the calico they had purchased for 25 to 50 cents per yard. Friends and neighbors traded fabric pieces back and forth and the treasures yielded by the scrap bag accounted for the vibrancy of the early quilts and for the wonderful sense of order created by the collision of dots, checks, stripes, and floral prints. The earliest quilts made in America in every frontier community were the "crazy patch" quilts that grew out of the need to conserve warm bed covers and recycle the bits and pieces of the scrap bag. The name "crazy" did not refer to the maker's sanity, but came from the eighteenth-century term for fragmented formation or structure, as in "crazed glass." The abstract design of these "Crazy Quilts" often gives the impression of an aerial photograph 0£ planted farm fields. The Crazy. Quilt probably first appeared when the fine European spreads and coverlets brought by the pioneers needed repair. A treasured coverlet would eventually be entirely filled in with oddly shaped patches of various sizes and colors, all pulled from the scrap bag. Characteristic of every Crazy Quilt was the added embroidery that embellished the edges of each tiny piece. During the last quarter of the
nineteenth century the Victorian quilter promoted her utilitarian Crazy Quilt into an elegant decoration for the parlor. "Too much is never enough" best describes the Victorian parlor, and the elegant silk, satin, and velvet scraps were carefully stitched together by a splendid variety of embroidered stitches and images. A thread-filled sketchbook of birds, fans, animals, flowers, letters of the alphabet, and even verses from the Bible could be found combined with the plush scraps. The pieced quilt achieved a high degree of originality in nineteenth-century America and occupied a special place in the Illinois prairie log house. Quilters practiced and perfected their work until it surpassed the delicate, formalized needlework traditions that they had brought with them from Europe. New methods of putting their limited materials together and a demonstrable sense of humor helped these women formulate patterns that recorded what they saw around them. The new sources of inspiration were right outside their cabin doors. Rebecca Burlend came to Illinois in November 1831 and settled with her family near Alton. She was a keen observer of nature, as her reminiscences of her first winter in Illinois clemonstra te: The nights in winter are at once inexpressibly cold, and poetically fine. The sky is almost invariably clear, and the stars shine with a brilliancy entirely unknown in the humid atmosphere of England. Cold as it was, often did I, during the first winter, stand at the door of our cabin, admiring their lustre and listening to the wolves. [A True Picture of Emigration U848)]
There was no more popular American quilt pattern than the star, and Mrs. Burlend's comment suggests the source of the multi-variations of that pattern. Her account is filled with descriptions of fruits, flowers, vegetables, trees, birds, and snakes-all part of the nature that surrounded her and inspired her contemporaries to translate what they saw into the secret language contained in every patchwork quilt. Quilt historian Ruth Finley remarked in 1929: There is perhaps no more faithful record of bygone clays in America than patchwork quilts, both because they represent a craft practiced exclusively in the home for more than two centuries and because their designers gave them symbolic mean207
Quilts
One of the most popular quilt patterns in the nineteenth century was the "Log Cabin" in which a central square, representing the cabin's hearth, was surrounded by rectangular strips of cloth overlapped at the edges, like log walls. Quilt, Putnam County Historical Society, gift of Mrs. Marvin McKirgin. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria.
ing. [Old Patchwork Quilts and the H'omen Who Made Them (1929)]
,vhile men were keeping careful records and writing histories, women were recording the settlement of the American continent with their hands. The patchwork pattern that best exemplifies this homesteading is known as "Log Cabin." Composed of a central square surrounded by a series of rectangular strips, this pattern was a popular quilt design in the nineteenth century. In a sense it is a literal geometric interpretation of the structure of a cabin. Traditionally, the central square was red and represented the hearth, while the strips overlapped at the edges just as the logs in a cabin would dovetail at the corners. "Barn Raising," "Straight Furrow," "Sunshine and Shadow," "Courthouse Steps," and "Pineapple" were a few of the favorite variations of this basic pattern. Each modification depended upon the manner in which the light and dark strips of each block were set together across the quilt top. Strange as it may seem, both the Log 208
Cabin and the Crazy Quilt were almost ne\'er quilted but were tied together with yarn or thread because the hundreds of tiny scraps made the top too heavy for quilting. The preservation of memories was important to survival in frontier Illinois and guilts became a special kind of family album long before the advent of photographs. Scraps from the handmade clothing of the entire family found their way into more than one quilt and served to evoke memories of a dress their mother wore, a blouse their sister had, and e\'en the shirts and ties that fathers and brothers used. Most quilts were made by one person, but the quilting bee pro\'ided an opportunity for women to come together to share ideas, see new quiltwork, and exchange patterns and recipes. The day often ended with a dance. Daniel Brush recalled: ,ve had social dancing parties frequently, sometimes in the town at Francis i\feeha's hotel at a dollar a couple. sometimes at farmers' houses in the country after a chopping match by the neighboring men and a quilting party by the women
Quilts
This detail from a cotton patchwork quilt made by Elizabeth Polk of Moweaqua, c. 1875, shows a version of the star pattern. Quilt, Kathleen Stanfield . Photo by Merle Glick, Peoria.
209
Quills
The theme of Civil War heroes remained popu lar in the decorative arts for several decades after the war ended. This cotton applique quilt, c. 1879, comes from Nunda Townsh ip, McHenry County. Quilt, CHS, gift of Colonial Williamsbu rg. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
210
Quilts winding up with contre dances by the girls and boys in the evening. [Growing Up with Southern
Illinois (1944)]
Thus the quilting bee served more than one purpose, not only offering an occasion for the exchange of gossip but also the opportunity for courtship. Just as many women attended a quilting party for enjoyment as attended to avoid being talked about in their absence. What makes a quilt an Illinois quilt? Those quilts made in the state from start to finish deserve that designation. But that would not begin to account for the quilts brought to the state, those made en route to and completed in Illinois, and the hundreds of quilts made here and carried further west as the prairie frontier expanded. While women did sign and date many quilts and specify in their wills who was to inherit their precious needlework, the anonymity of many of the quiltmakers frustrates even the most persistent historians. Distant relatives failed to keep records and ask questions about the makers, and as quilts fell out of fashion they were relegated to cedar chests or linen closets until no one could remember where these family heirlooms had come from. Perhaps the best way to start examining the characteristics of Illinois quilts is with the designs and styles developed by individual quiltmakers. No two quilts have ever been exactly alike-they are as different as the women who made them. Each woman had her own particular style and might have made more than a hundred quilts to warm and comfort her family. Pattern choice is a feature that can help identify a quilter because each quiltmaker had favorite patterns. Although popular patterns migrated from one end of the country to the other, women working in a pioneer home might chang~ a pattern by enlarging or reducing it. A quilter would create fifty or more quilts digressing on one pattern. Often she would give these designs new names to indicate her claim to a contribution. "Prairie Star," "Lincoln's Platform," and "Little Giant" are all patterns that have a strong Illinois connotation, but no one quiltmaker or location of origin can be verified for these.
Color and fabric were other important personal choices for a quilter. Genevieve Bake!, a gifted quilter from Mt. Vernon, Illinois, has reminded me: "The colors have to be right for you or be the right colors for your room. They don't have to please anybody but you." Making a "pleasing" quilt might have required saving scraps, trading pieces of material with friends and neighbors, and even hoarding store-bought fabric until there was enough to complete the desired effect for a top. There was nothing haphazard about this selection process, and painting with fabric produced color combinations that were rhythmic as well as vibrant. Marking the top to be quilted was another kind of visual signature that each quilter developed. The size of a cardboard template collection was a source of pride for each quilter, and the patterns were carefully traced over and over with a pencil. Quilters carefully sorted through their collections for the floral ancl geometric designs that they knew could be stitched into the latest creation to make it better than the last. Binding the edges was the final part of the process after the cover had been taken from the quilting frame. Even up till this last detail, women were making choices about the strongest and most attractive way to put the finishing touch on their works of art. The fact that quilts are now recognized, collected, and exhibited as works of art does not mean that they have been removed from their folk art roots as part of everyday life. Magnificent quilts are still to be found draped over many a bed in Illinois homes. The heritage these women left continues to warm and delight their grateful descendants.
Selected Sources Author's interviews with Lottie Buhrman, Naslwille, Illinois, and Genevie,·c Bake!, Mt. Vernon , Illinois, in the film In Praise of Patchwork, 1979. Brush , Daniel Harmon. Growing Up with Southern Illinois. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 1944. Burlcnd, Rebecca. A True Picture of Emigration. London: G. Berger, 1848. Finley, Ruth. Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1929. Tillson, Christiana Holmes. A Wo111an's Story of Pioneer Illinois. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 1919. INTERVIEWS:
211
Ernst Damitz By Esther Sparks
A farmer, a "healer," and a captivating story-teller, Ernst Damitz of Greenbush Township was also a painter of considerable power.
THOUSANDS OF PICTURES survive from
the nineteenth century, painted by untutored artists who worked out a painting formula by which they are instantly recognizable. This was not the case with Ernst Damitz, who moved beyond painting pictures that were merely legible or decorative to creating vivid scenes of everyday life and romantic renderings of faraway places inspired by his reading of travel books. Born in Prussia in 1805, Ernst Damitz emigrated to Illinois with his wife and eleven children in 1847. Little is known of his early life in Europe, but we do know that he was a descendant of Pomeranian nobility and that he signed the contract for his new farm in Greenbush Township, a part of Warren County, Illinois, as Ernst Damitz. "We were no longer van Damitz," he t0ld his children. "There is no titled gentry here! " The farm Damitz bought for $574 included 80 cleared acres and 20 acres of virgin timber in the region between Galesburg and the Mississippi River. The whole county seemed to have a promising future-the soil was good and the terrain was amenable to cultivation by Cyrus McCormick's new reapers. Greenbush Township had coal and clay deposits, stone for building, and plenty of timber, and the town of Greenbush was "q uite a trading point," according to one local history, which noted a continuing growth in population and business throughout the 1850s. The Damitz family prospered and in 1856 Ernst bought a larger farm where he planted Esth er Sparks is associate curator of Prints and Drawings at The Art Institut e of Chicago and the author of, among other works, the catalog which accompanied the 1977 ex hibit of Damitz's paintings at the Art Institute. 212
one of the county's first vineyards. The portrait he painted of his second farm (facing page) shows his house, a group of small buildings for animals, a distant house where his son Oskar lived, and two quite curious features: a "storm cave" and the vineyard. The "storm cave" is the mound in the center of the yard, named for its function as an underground shelter from summer storms. The door in the middle of the mound could be closed from the inside as well as the outside. Most of the time, it was (and is) used to store food. Behind the fence lies the vineyard, a fia t field with vines which have been tied to wooden tripods in the North German fashion. Damitz painted his house and vineyard twice, and the picture in this exhibition is the more polished of the two. The main elements are present in both paintings: the artist's house, the vineyard, and Oskar's house. But the earlier and cruder version also shows a road leading to the property. v\lhen the artist stood in his yard and looked at the scene in the picture, he would have had to look behind himself to see the road. Nor are the vineyard and Oskar's house painted in their true aspect. The vineyard was planted on a terraced hill below and to the north of the painter's position. Oskar's house is really three hills to the northeast. Th e Artist's House and Vineyard is the landscape of the artist's imagination. Damitz's letters to his children, written after they had established households of their own, describe pains in his hands and back which prompted him to turn over the greater part of his farm to Oskar around 1860. It was then, at about the age of 55, that he began to paint in earnest. ,vhen Damitz started to paint, using small
The Artist's Farm and Vineyard, watercolor on paper. This is the second of the two versions painted by Damitz. In the foreground is the storm cave, used for storage. The house on the right belonged to his son Oskar. Painting and photo, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Bond Cemetery at Sunset I, watercolor on paper. The artist often visited this cemetery, where his wife Paul ine had been buried in 1866. He produced three versions of this scene, all of which differ from the actual landscape. Painting , Eula Damitz. Photo, The Art Institute of Chicago.
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Ernst Damitz
The Andrew Sailer farmhouse, painted by Damitz more than a century ago (see below) is still standing in Greenbush Township . This photo was taken in October 1975. Photo, The Art Institute of Chicago.
pieces of poor quality paper and watercolors, he chose subjects his descendants described as "old country pictures": depictions of familiar scenes in Prussia, the room in which Damitz Jived while attending military school, and several typical (if not precisely identifiable) German landscapes. There are also a few pictures that relate old family legends. During the period when he was developing his technical competence, his pictures were primarily nostalgic and autobiographical in spirit. It is at this point that most naive artists stop developing, both stylistically and imaginatively, but Damitz's work continued to evolve. Using better colors and sheets of paper, he began to paint the scenes of his daily life. Worthy of Edward Hopper, his portrait of Andrew Sailer's Farm is the largest and most colorful example of Damitz's essay into realism . Its front door slightly off-center, Sailer's house
Andrew Sailer's Farm, watercolor on paper. Sailer, who produced wine and cider on his farm, married Damitz's daughter in 1859. Painting, Helen R. Sailer. Photo, The Art Institute of Chicago.
214
Ernst Damitz
Bayard Taylor's Midnight Sun in Lapland, Norway, Europe , watercolor on paper. Bayard Taylor's travel books inspired much of Damitz's fantasy painting. Often the artist's imagination supplied elements that the writer's account lacked , in this case the Lapp tents on the cliff. Painting, Private Collection. Photo, The Art Institute of Ch icago .
The Rope Bridge , watercolor on paper. Damitz may have modeled this bridge after the one that Alexander von Humboldt described in an account of his travels along the Rio Chambo in Peru. Painting, Helen R. Sailer. Photo, The Art Institute of Chicago.
21 5
Ernst Damilz
still stands. Like the picture of the artist's farm, and others painted in the neighborhood, its clements have been re-arranged to designate \'alue rather than just retinal truth. 0( all the paintings Damitz did [rom nature, none is more poignant than that of Bond Cemetery, where his wife was buried in 1866. Darnitz visited the cemetery often " to be beside his loved one," and spent many solitary hours painting on the hill. Three versions of Bond Cemetery survive-none of which agrees with the topography of the actual site. There was never a fence as elegant nor gravestones as imposing as the ones we see in these portraits. In each version, his wife's grave is marked with flowers of one color while the flowers on all the other graves are another, less brilliant, color. Damitz would join his wife in that cemetery in 1883. The autobiographical works were soon eclipsed numerically and technically, however, by splendid works of fantasy-The Rope Bridge, The Funeral Procession at Night, paintings of Burma, Lapland, Siberia, Chile, San Francisco, and Mount Vesuvius-a veritable atlas of exotic places. The Rope Bridge depicts a scene described by Alexander von Humboldt, one of the most intrepid travel reporters of the nineteenth century, whose account of the rocky falls and broad jungle-lined banks of the Rio Chambo in Peru might well have provided the script for Damitz's painted scenery. Indeed, many of these landscapes were inspired by illustrated travel books, which were a popular form of entertainment throughout the nineteenth century. All of the pictures which Damitz titled, or which have subsequently been identified, can be traced to books in the Warren County Library in Monmouth, thirty miles from the Damitz farm. In 1879 the library's catalog listed more than 9,000 volumes, one-third of which were devoted to "history, travel and biography," and many of which circulated through the mail to farm dwellers in outlying parts of the county. The ideas and illustrations in these books provided a rich selection for Damitz. With only one exception, a picture of San Francisco in Bayard Taylor's Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path 216
of E111pire (1850), Damitz did not copy other people's pictures. Taylor (1825-1878), an American of German ancestry who wrote fiction and poetry as well as critical and biographical works, had a special affinity for Norway, which was the setting for his novel, Lars: A Pastoral of Norway (1873). One of Damitz's paintings, Bayard Taylor's 1U ett ernacht Sonne in Lappi and Norwegen Europa depicts a scene in which a brightly colored sailboat travels across a choppy sea toward Lapland. Although Damitz adhered to Taylor's description of the coast and its clouds, he departed from the text by adding Lapp tents, which were only mentioned-not described-in the book, and by including a stave church: a structure only found, according to Taylor, in the western half of the country. One of Damitz's finest paintings, a dramatic and well-preserved work entitled Th e Funeral Procession at Night, was inspired by a passage from another of Taylor's books, Pedestrian Tour in Europe (1848): While we were in Heidelberg, a student was buried by torchlight. This is done when particular honor is shown to the memory of the departed brother. They assembled at dark in the University square, each with a blazing torch three feet long, and formed into a double line. Between the files walked at short distances an officer, who with his sword, broad lace collar and black and white plumes in his cap looked like a cavalier of olden time. Persons with torches walked on each side of the hearse, and the band played a lament so deeply mournful that the scene, notwithstanding its singularity, was very sad and touching.
Damitz's painting of this scene, with its starstudded sky of lapis-lazuli blue, its somber torchbearers, and brilliantly lit buildings, is an excellent example of his narrative skill. Damitz went on to paint views of many 1aples, Geneva, European cities-Salzburg, and others. All the watercolors that can be compared to actual views of these places, however, show too many errors of placement, scale, and emphasis for Damitz to have copied trueto-life depictions. But a vigorous and romantic imagination can build pictures from words and memories. The adventures may have belonged to other men, but the pictures were uniquely, innocently, and often splendidly, his own.
Ernsl Damilz
Funeral Procession at Night , watercolor on paper. Another of Bayard Taylor's books, Pedestrian Tour of Europe , appears to have been the source for this painting. In that book, Taylor describes the burial of a student in Heidelberg which included a double line of mourners, "each with a blazing pine torch three feet long." Painting, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Fried. Photo, The Art Institute of Chicago.
217
The Gallery
Stoneware owl decorated with brown glaze, black paint , and green gl ass eyes. Attributed to Wallace Kirkpatrick of the Kirkpatrick Pottery in Anna, c. 1893. Owl , CHS , gift of John Kirkpatrick. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS. Almira Nickols , a teacher of instrumental mus ic, drawing , and painting at the Academy of Higher Learning in Dover, Illinois, painted this work in oil on fabric c . 1896. It was a tribute to her nephew, Parrish C. Allen, who died after rescuing his cousin from drowning. Painting , Mr. and Mrs. Ridgely Cook . Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
220
Th e Gallery
Entitled Our Country is Free , this watercolor, c. 1870, is attributed to Joe Miller of Preemption , Mercer County. Other works in the exhibit thought to be by him include a a portrait in a similar vein of General Ulysses S. Grant and still life watercolors of flowers and fruit. Painting, John H. Bereman. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS. Joseph Sierp of Aurora carved and painted this wooden team of oxen pulling a wagon. Carving , Aurora Historical Museum. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
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221
The Gallery
Born in Vermont, Sheldon Peck (1797-1868) came to Chicago from New York in 1837 but soon moved to Lombard , where he became a successful farmer. He also painted portraits, including this oil of Miss Dodge, thought to have been a member of a pioneering family in Glen Ellyn. Portrait, Frank and Barbara Pollack. See also page 226.
222
Th e Gallery
Charles Walker's decoys are easily identified by the alert set of the head and the fine feathering techniques used to decorate the body. This is one of his mallard drakes, c. 1928. Decoy, Donald Clark. Photo by Brooke Lemburg , Peoria. See pages 227-31 .
An unknown artist at Bishop Hill created this intriguing carved wooden tableau. Carving , Mrs. Lawrence F. McClure. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
223
The Gallery
This portrait of his mother, Beata Krans, c. 1899 by Bishop Hill artist Olof Krans is unusual in that it included her whole figure. Most of Krans's portraits showed only head and shoulders. Painting, CHS. Photo by Walter W. Krutz , CHS. See pages 244-47.
Olof Krans, best known for his paintings about Bishop Hill, earned his livelihood as a decorator and painter of trade signs like this one, made for a shoe store. Sign, Private Collection. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria.
224
J.A.NOYI I I
The Gallery
Detail from a Crazy Quilt of wool, si lk, and rich embroidery made c . 1880 by Mary T. H. Willard , mother of Frances Willard of Evanston, a leader of the National Woman 's Christian Temperance Union and the woman suffrage movement. Quilt, Nancy Starr. Photo by Merle Glick. Peoria.
225
Th e Gallery
Sheldon Peck is known to have traveled as far afield as Alton to paint his portraits. This oil on canvas, 1849, is of Mr. Ross Houck of Bunker Hill , Illinois. The frame is painted on canvas. Painting, Nancy and Gary Stass. Designed by Blanche Blackstone Grieves and hooked by her mother, Eleanor Blackstone, this hooked rug of wool and cotton on burlap depicts a family group, including the author of the design (the grandmother) . Made in Lacon, Illinois, in 1890, it is 112" by 93 ". Rug and photo, The Edison Institute, Henry Ford Museum .
226
Illinois Decoys By Donna Tonelli
aof all our folk arts) none is more strikingly American than the decoy. Indigenous to this country) popular in use) created out of native woods and natural formationswhat could be more expressive of the people) their need) and their individuality?)) From The Art of the Decoy by Adele Earnest (1965)
ALTHOUGH MANY HAVE REGARDED decoy carving
as little more than a hobby, during the last few decades America's wooden decoys have received recognition as an important element of our folk art heritage. Decoy carvers worked hard to create lifelike decoys, continually striving for greater verisimilitude, and the variations in the position of the head, the size and shape of the body, the coloring, and the feathering effects were endless. Thus a carver could produce more than a thousand decoys in his lifetime, each one different from the rest, each one different from those of his fellow carvers. Unfortunately, wooden decoys became obsolete with the advent of the lighter and less expensive plastic models in the late 1940s, and many of the earlier wooden decoys were destroyed. The wooden decoy is uniquely American, for American Indians were the first to devise decoys that were replicas of live waterfowl. The earliest known example was the Tule decoy, found in the Lovelock Caves of Nevada in 1924. Carbon dating established that this decoy elated from 1100 A.D. Made of bulrushes (also known as tule) and twine, it was dyed and accented with actual feathers. European hunters did not use replicas. To them, a decoy was an elaborate trap which used domesticated live waterfowl inhabiting a small body of water, surrounded by a system of fences and gradually narrowing net-covered channels. Immigrants to America learned from Donna Ton elli is a contributing editor and column writer for Midwest Outdoors magazine. She and her husband Jose ph, a noted authority on Illinois River decoys, have been collecting American decoys for more than 16 years.
the Indi ans and adopted the latter's custom of using replicas of waterfowl as decoys. Illinois has a rich history of decoy carving, as the Illinois River lies along one of the four major migratory routes for waterfowl. Hunting waterfowl was a particularly lucrative sport between 1870 and the early 1900s. Until 1918, when federal regulation began setting limits on hunting fowl for money, hunters in the Illinois River region-heedless of the damage to the species-killed thousands of ducks and other wildlife each year. Demand for meat in nearby Chicago, Peoria, and St. Louis created fierce competition among hunters, and lifelike decoys were much sought after. Since factory-made decoys, which began to become available in the 1870s, were relatively costly, many hunters continued to produce their own. Illinois boasts more than 140 decoy carvers, many of whom are now well known to professional collectors. Decoys from certain regions . share common traits by which they can be recognized, and Illinois River decoys tend to have several distinct characteristics. The body of the decoy is usually made of two boards laminated together after the centers have been hollowed out to create a lighter piece. The body is rounded and sanded smooth, with a V-shaped bottom (like a boat) and a long lead strip mounted as a balancing weight. The heads are finely carved with detailed bills and glass eyes. The birds are painted with richly colored lead-base oil paints and fine feathering techniques. Hunters often used several types of decoys at a time to create a "decoy rig." Most rigs consisted of a group of decoys with straight heads, portraying alert, swimming waterfowl. A few 227
Decoys
Decoy carver Bert Graves (1887-1956) was known for his fine combing and texturing techniques, evident in the pintail decoy on the left. The mallard decoy demonstrates the painting skill of Charles Perdew (1874-1969). Graves decoy, Private Collection; Perdew decoy, Donald Clark. Photo by Brooke Lemburg , Peoria.
228
Decoys sleepers and preeners were interspersed among these to give a natural appearance to the group. Sleepers were a specialty of Illinois River carvers. The head faced backward, pointing towards the tail of the decoy, with the bill actually resting on the back. A preener's head, however, was tipped downward, with the bill almost touching the breast or side of the bird. Hunters rounded out their rigs with tip-up decoys, replicas of feeding birds whose tails were all that was visible above the water. Yet another decoy type was the feeder, whose outstretched bill touched the water. Decoy carvers have usually been hunters who have embodied their observation and knowledge of the birds they hunt in their carvings, o(ten adding individual touches. The decoys of Charles Walker (1876-1954) of Princeton, Illinois, are an example. His mallard and pintail ducks--considered classics-have a regal look, with high, alert heads and sleek bodies. A blend of sculptural form and subtle coloration, they personify the waterfowl swimming in the marshy backwaters o( the river. Although carvers rarely signed their work because they were making the decoys for their own use, many pieces are recognizable by individual styles. Decoys carved by Robert Elliston (1849-1915) of Bureau, Illinois, one of the major Jllinois River carvers, for example, are marked by one unusual characteristic: their eyes are placed on top of their heads. This has caused collectors to lovingly nickname his birds "frog eyes." Charles Schoenheider, Sr. (1854-1944), of Peoria, Illinois, specialized in carving standing decoys Lo be used in ice. Standing, or field decoys, used primarily for goose hunting, had full bodies and stood on legs or on a stake. Hunters used them in cornfields or at the water's edge near a rig of floating decoys. Schoenheider's stood on a single metal leg with a large foot that could be heated to melt the ice. After placement, the ice would refreeze around the foot and hold the decoy securely. Schoenheider's rig of ice geese (one dozen including two floaters) is considered the finest example of goose decoys made in Illinois. Another type of decoy, used primarily in goose hunting, was a silhouette, but most of these are of little artistic significance. One ex-
ception is a rig of floating silhouettes made by Charles Walker. The decoys were hinged to a wooden oval so they could be used on water or ice and folded fer storage. Their regal Jines and paint patterns are reminiscent of Walker's other decoys. Unfortunately the work of some carvers cannot be identified, and the "Mr. X" decoys in this exhibit are one example. These were discovered in the 1950s by Joseph French, a researcher and collector who traveled the Illinois River region. "Mr. X" decoys possess a unique method of weighting: a groove was hollowed out of the bottom of the body and molten lead was poured in, creating a finely balanced, selfrighting decoy. The whole piece has a fine form with a flat, wide body. Most importantly, the bill is mitered into the head, facilitating easy replacement since the bill is often the first part to break on a hunting decoy. It is believed that these decoys were sold in the Portman hardware store in Peoria, Illinois, during the early J900s. The carver did not sign his work and the only mark was a rubber stamped patent-applied-for number. Another example of an unsigned work is that of a heron, used as what is known as a "confidence" decoy at the Grand Isle Hunting Club in Bath, Illinois. Confidence decoys, especially herons, were placed near rigs of duck decoys to convince wary waterfowl that the decoys were indeed alive. The form of this particular heron, one of three used by club members, is exquisite, with a mitered head that could be removed for carrying, and a bill and legs made of walnut for added strength. The pine body had carved wings and a tail with copper inserts. Carvers developed their own painting patterns and color combinations, and these can also be used to identify a maker with his work. For the most part, Illinois River decoys were brightly colored so they could be seen in the marshes from a distance. Most carvers used a lead-base oil paint that held up under heavy usage, and the paint jobs of many surviving decoys are in mint or near-mint condition. (During the long life of most wooden decoys, repainting was common, but the repainted decoy has little collecting value.) A common painting technique in Illinois was "combing," clone with a graining comb, a flat piece 229
Decoys
This flying mallard drake decoy has a wooden body and metal wings . Hunters would rig these decoys in trees and, when birds approached, release them to "fly" towards the water, creating the illusion of a live duck in flight. Decoy, Herman Glick. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria. Silhouette decoys, such as this one carved c. 1908 by Herman Glick of Havana, were used primarily by goose hunters. Decoy, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia . Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria.
Mallard hen sleeper decoy carved by Robert Elliston of Bureau, c. 1900. Elliston 's decoys are distinguished by bright colors and the unusually high placement of their eyes. Decoy, Private Collection . Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
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Decoys of metal with notches cut into one end like broad teeth. The painter placed the comb against the decoy's body and combed small loops into the heavy wet paint. This gave the bird a textured, "feathered" look. Some of the master decoy artists of Illinois were women. Among them was Edna Perdew, whose husband Charles (1874-1969) is well known for his decoys with full, cheeky heads. Edna painted many of her husband's pieces before 1941, when she became ill from the lead paint. She swirled and blended the rich colors to create a soft, feathery look, while Charles used bolder patterns, making the work of each easily distinguishable. Bert Graves (1887-1956), of Peoria, Illinois, also had his decoys painted by women. Since Graves emulated the carving style of Robert Elliston, it seems only fitting that Mrs. Catherine Elliston, along with Mrs. Orville (Millie) Graves, should have painted Graves's birds. The styles of the two women were similar, although Catherine's decoys were somewhat lighter in color. They painted wet on wet with oil paints, using the combing technique and achieving fine textured effects. Graves was one of the few Illinois carvers to produce oversized decoys, including one dozen large mallards. The Piolotti brothers, Mario (1900- 1964), and Henry (1901-1961), from Spring Valley, Illinois, specialized in lifelike painting patterns that made each duck's feathers seem three-dimensional. Because few of their decoys are in collections, the Piolottis are relatively unknown. They made a few oversize decoys and only one decoy rig, and most of their work is still owned by family members. Decoy carvers created a functional hunting tool that is now hailed as a unique art form. More importantly, they translated their love for the waterfowl they hunted into a beautiful blend of woodcarving and painting worthy of exhibition in museums. Top: Crow decoys made by Charles Perdew of Henry, c. 1945. Perdew is better known for his duck decoys, which have full , cheeky heads and bold painting patterns. Decoys, Private Collection . Photo by Brooke Lemburg , Peoria.
Charles Schoenheider, Sr., of Peoria, is best known for the standing decoys he created to be used on ice. The decoy's cast iron leg was heated to melt the ice, which would then refreeze and hold the bird in place. Decoy, Private Collection. Photo by Brooke Lemburg , Peoria.
Selected Sources Earnest, Adele. The Art of the Decoy: American Bird earnings. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1965. New Hunter's Encyclopedia. 3rd ed. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1966. Parmalee, Paul W. and Forrest D . Loomis. Decoys and Decoy earners of Illi11ois. DeKalb: orthern Illinois University Press, 1969.
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Made of natural cotton and wool , th is coverlet by William Fasig , c . 1859, member of a fam ily of weavers who practiced their craft in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, -shows Jacquard weaving at its best. Coverlet, Kathleen Stanfield . Photo by Steve Huey, B & M Studio, Pekin.
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Coverlet Weavers By Olivia Mahoney and Nancy Glick
Handwoven coverlets have brought beauty and comfort to many Illinois homes.
WEAVERS IN ILLINOIS and across America main-
tained a strong tradition 0£ craftsmanship until the mid-nineteenth century. They produced a variety of textiles for the home, including the coverlet (or bed cover) made 0£ wool and strong cotton fibers. Survivi ng coverlets now serve as cultural artifacts from this period, providing us with valuable information on weaving techniques, patterns and styles, as well as on the craftsmen and women who made them. The coverlets in this exhibit represent the work of both known and anonymous Illinois weavers. The early Illinois weavers were home craftsmen who produced textiles for use by their own families. In her book, Art, Crafts, and Architecture in Early Illinois (1974), Betty Madden estimates that in 1810, eight years before Illinois attained statehood, home weavers in the area produced more than 90,000 yards 0£ cloth, which made weaving the leading frontier industry. As settlements grew in size and number, professional weavers-primarily from Ohio and Pennsylvania-moved westward to capitalize on the expanding market. They generally arrived in the 1840s, set up business, and wove up to the time of the Civil War. Home weaving continued during this period but after the war, mechanized looms and mass production replaced both the domestic and the professional weavers. The work of Mary Fisher Kee, who made the blue and white overshot coverlet in the exhibit, typifies home weaving in Illinois. Born in Pennsylvania in 1807, she lived there until her marOlivia Mahon ey, a graduate of the Program in American Folk Culture and Museum Studies at Coop erstown, N ew York, is curatorial assistant of Decorative Arts at the Society . Nancy Glick, a weaver in the traditional style, lives in Havana, Illinois, and continues to research coverlet weavers of lllinois.
riage in 1830 to William Kee, a farmer from Maryland. After a brief stay in Virginia, the Kees moved to Ohio where they lived for twenty-two years. During that time, they raised seven children.* In 1853, the Kees moved to Illinois and settled near the town of Industry in McDonough Coumy. The U.S . census for 1860 lists them as owning 180 acres of land valued at $2,000 and livestock worth $300; by 1870 the farm had doubled in value. Its income supported Mary after she was widowed in 1882 until her own death eight years later. Mary Kee wove her coverlets following one of the oldest traditions, the overshot pattern, developed from British and Continental styles brought to America by the early settlers. In the overshot coverlet, the weft (horizontal) threads cross-or shoot over-the plain, woven base fabric warp threads to create geometric patterns. Weavers used linen or cotton for the plain weave and wool for the overshot pattern threads. Linen coverlets are rare, however, since the process of making linen from flax is tedious and once commercial cotton became readily available in the 1820s weavers were quick to take advantage of that convenience. The Kee coverlet is made of commercial cotton and natural wool. Although we know from the census reports that the Kees did not raise sheep, wool would have been obtainable from neighbors who did. Mary used commercial indigo blue dye to color the wool, commercial dyes having been available and widely used since 1800. To make the coverlet, Mary Kee used a standard four-harness loom, threaded or "set up " according to verbal or written instructions. These instructions, called "drafts," determined •The history of the family has been passed on by a descendant, Mrs. Gerald Redman, owner of the coverlet.
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Coverlets the eventual design; weavers traded written instructions among themselves and passed them on to the next generation. Overshot patterns spread and reappeared across the country with only slight variation. Illinois weavers, Mary Kee included, adhered to the tradition so that their coverlets are unique neither in construction nor design. Rather, they belong to a larger body of traditional folk art. Clara Whitaker, to whom the blue and white double weave coverlet in the exhibit is attributed, also worked in a very traditional manner. She lived in Illinois from her birth in 1858 to her death in 1929. Her father, John I. Whitaker, moved to La Salle County, Illinois, from New Jersey in 1843. Eleven years later he married Wilhelmina Schoettler, a German immigrant. The Whitakers owned 200 acres of land worth $10,000 and almost $2,000 worth of livestock. Two of their six children, Clara and Eugenia, never married and after their parents' deaths, took over the farm . Throughout the years, the Whitaker sisters produced and preserved most of their own food while a neighbor farmed the fields. Clara, a skilled seamstress and knitter, either learned to weave from her mother or taught herself. Double weave coverlets, structurally more complex than the overshot, originated in Germany or Scotland. They consist of two distinct layers of cloth, each made of cotton and wool woven simultaneously on a loom with four or more harnesses. Although double weaves called for the skill and equipment of a professional weaver, trained home craftsmen could also produce them. The Whitaker coverlet is a striking example of the double weave style. Its bold, geometric patterns reflect a Germanic influence, brought to America in the early 1800s. Of greater interest is the date of the coverlet. Most double weave coverlets date from the 1820s through the 1840s, but Clara probably wove this coverlet in the 1880s, some twenty years after the decline of hand weaving in America. Why she wove in the old style remains unknown. Professional weavers who worked in Illinois left more clues than the home weavers. Most professional weavers wove their names into the corner of the coverlet. Valuable in itself, the identification usually leads to further informa234
tion. Names can be traced and data gathered from census records, county histories, and family descendants. Although some weavers are easier to trace than others, the work and lives of each acid depth to our knowledge of weaving in America. Given the mores of the nineteenth century it is not surprising to find that more men than women worked as professional weavers. Selling to local customers, they wove tablecloths, carpets, and fabric, as well as coverlets, using multi-harness hand looms with Jacquard attachments. This equipment was far more sophisticated and costly than the kind used by home weavers. The Jacquard attachment, perfected by Joseph Jacquard in France during the early 1800s and brought to America in 1824, revolutionized weaving. It partially mechanized the loom by using a series of punched cards that automatically controlled the warp threads, a change that greatly expanded design possibilities. Weavers purchased the attachments and Mary Fisher Kee (1807-1890) of McDonough County wove this overshot coverlet c. 1855 in what was known as the Nine Snowball design. Coverlet, Private Collection. Photo by Steve Huey, B & M Studio, Pekin.
Coverlets cards from East coast manufacturers. Though they sometimes altered the cards or made their own to add variety to their product, their designs basically followed a standard format, so that weavers in the Midwest used the same patterns as weavers in the East. In the mid-1800s, influenced by Victorian taste and anxious to please their customers, Jacquard weavers began to adopt floral and geometric designs popular in Europe and America. Coverlets become much more elaborate and pictorial than the overshot or double weave and also came to serve a more decorative function. Customers ordered them for special occasions, such as weddings, and generally regarded them as prestige items, often displaying them in prominent places. Despite the influence of high culture, Jacquard weavers did use some traditional, or folk motifs. Distlefinks (thistle finch), hearts, tulips, and thistles all appear in their coverlets, and although these designs are usually associated with the Pennsylvania Germans, other Consisting of two layers of cloth woven simultaneously, this double weave coverlet, c. 1880, is attributed to Clara Whitaker (1858-1929) Coverlet, Putnam County Historical Society. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria.
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weavers used them as well. However, they all tended to confine these folk elements to the borders of the coverlets rather than using them for center designs. To identify the product, professional weavers reserved one corner of the coverlet for their name, date, location, and at times, their customer's name. Some weavers adopted their own trademark design to accompany their name or to stand on its own. Undoubtedly, weavers used the signature blocks to attract customers and promote business; in doing so, they also guaranteed recognition for themselves among future generations. William and Christian Fasig are two weavers whose names are found in more than one state, thus providing a good example of the westward migration of craftsmen from the MidAtlantic states to Illinois. The story of the Fasigs also demonstrates how weavers maintained their skills as a family tradition. William Fasig, born in 1801, was Christian's uncle and later his father-in-law. Both Fasigs were born in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, a predominately German community, their grandparents having come from Darmstadt in I 754. Although Lebanon County supported an active and extensive weaving tradition, the Fasigs sought their opportunity elsewhere. In 1834, they moved to Ohio where they lived for twenty-three years, establishing themselves as professional weavers. In 1847, the Fasigs moved to Illinois with other members of the Church of God, a small, fundamentalist Protestant seq. with origins in Ohio. They settled in Martinsville, a settlement along the National Road, and started to weave and farm. By 1850, William owned 100 acres of land worth $1,000 and $180 worth of livestock. The latter included ten sheep which produced the wool he needed for weaving. He also raised fifty pounds of flax, from which he could make linen. Christian and Catherine Fasig (William's daughter) lived next door to William, and probably helped with the farm work. They did not own their own land but Christian had personal property worth $200, perhaps the value of his loom and weaving equipment. Martinsville proved an ideal place for the Fasigs' craft. Local farmers sheared more than 3,500 pounds of wool in 1850 and the town had
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Coverlets its own steam-powered carding mill, which turned out 17,500 pounds of wool in one year alone. As weavers, the Fasigs made Jacquard Beitlerwand coverlets. The Beiderwand, which originated in Germany, is distinguished by a pattern which is vertically aligned. Its colors are reversible. The Fasigs used standard design patterns including elaborate flowers and scrolls; for the borders, they used distlefink, tulip, rose, grape, and lily motifs, and in the signature blocks they included their names, date, location, and a potted flower trademark. J. M. Sayler, another Jacquard weaver, worked in Fulton (1846) and Knox (1850-51) counties in central Illinois. Born in Ohio, Sayler moved to Illinois as a young man of twenty-two, accompanied by his wife Prissilla, aged twenty, and two-year-old daughter Catherine. Sayler was a skilled weaver who soon established himself. Eventually he moved to Knox County, where the 1850 census reports him as owning property worth $350. By now he had two more children to support. Knox County gave Sayler a good base for his professional activities. Neighboring farmers and the county's horse-powered carding machine provided him with an ample supply of wool. In one year alone, the carding machine produced more than 8,000 pounds. After 1850, he does not appear in the Illinois census and additional information can only be gathered from his coverlets. Like other Jacquard weavers, Sayler used standard patterns to create central floral motifs bordered by birds, roses, tulips, stars, and stepped pyramid shapes, which served as a trademark of sorts. In the signature block, Sayler included his name, elate, and location which trace his movements within the state. Five Sayler coverlets are known to exist, each a tribute to its maker's skill. The Meilys, an American family which produced three generations of prolific and skillful weavers, are represented in Illinois by Charles and Samuel. Emanuel Meily, Jr., the first recorded weaver of that name, lived in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, from his birth in 1805 to his death in 1869. He worked as a weaver during the 1830s and '40s and trained his sons Samuel and John Henry in the trade. John Henry later moved to Lima, Ohio, and operated 236
a coverlet and carpet factory from 1842 to at least 1850. Samuel moved to Mansfield, Ohio, and kept a shop from 1839 to 1857. Samuel also had two sons, John and Samuel; in 1850, at age 16, .John worked as a weaver in his father's shop, thus becoming the third generation of the family to work in the weaving trade. The Cedarville coverlet in the exhibit, dated 1856, was woven by one of the Samuels, but whether by the father or the son has not been determined. It is a .Jacquard Beiclerwand with large fioral motifs trimmed with a border of eight-pointed stars and is clearly the work of a highly skilled weaver. Charles Meily, whose exact relationship to the other Meilys cannot by determined from available records, moved from Pennsylvania, the place of his birth, to Mansfield, Ohio (where Samuel, Sr., also lived). He stayed there until at least 1848, then moved west to Illinois where he settled in Honey Creek Township, Crawford County. He took his wife and twelveyear-old daughter Mary with him. In 1855, Francis, his second and last child, was born. In the 1860 census, Charles listed his occupation as weaver owning $600 worth of real estate and $200 worth of personal property. At this time he was a widower with two children, aged 17 and 5. During the 1860s, when weaving declined, Charles turned his attention to farming and within ten years had quadrupled the value of his estate. He owned I 30 worth of livestock (mostly swine, which he butchered for profit) and grew oats, Indian corn, wheat, and hay, staple crops of the Midwest. In later life he Jived with his daughter and son-in-law, David McCombs, and their four young children. He does not appear in the 1880 census. While sixteen of Charles Meily's Ohio coverlets are known, only one from Illinois has come to light. Like the others it is a .Jacquard Beiderwand made of indigo wool and natural cotton. Ieily's signature block, featuring crosses, resembles those of Samuel Meily of Illinois. All three also used eight-pointed stars in their borders. Little is known about Christian Wagner, who worked as a weaver in Peoria and Tazewell counties. During his active years of weaving, from 1845 to 1850, he does not appear in the census, but in 1860 he is listed as a laborer
Coverlets living with his two sons, David, aged 9, and Jonas, aged 5. During the Civil Vilar, Wagner served with the 3rd Cavalry of the United States Army. Discharged in May of 1865, Wagner returned to Pekin and sold the property he had owned there for thirteen years. Nothing is known of his later life, but his coverlets are eloguen t testimony to his skill. Like the other professional weavers in Illinois, Wagner made Beiderwand coverlets, using rich floral patterns for the center and traditional border motifs in graduated stripes. His signature blocks contain his name, location, date, and sometimes his customer's name. The Peoria Democratic Press, November 11, 1846, advertised his work as follows: PATENT COVERLETS.
The subscriber respectfully informs the public, that he is making all kinds of patent right Cover-
lets, &c., of the latest fashion at the lowest prices; and he weaves and colors these by any pattern, which the customer may desire, if they furnish the wool. Also, the. subscriber has a machine for all kinds of coverlets and carpets for sale. This machine can be seen at the residence of the German wagon maker, l\lr. John Naganth, near the ferry. Peoria, Sept. 2, 1846. CHRISTIAN WAGNER
Although professional weavers continued to make coverlets up to the outbreak of the Civil v\lar, technological changes that would eventually put them out of business were already under way two decades earlier. Textile factories equipped with steam- and water-powered looms began to produce textiles at a rate and for a price that the hand weaver could not hope to match. This development is clearly illustrated by what happened when two power mills were established in St. Clair County, Illinois, in the
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Coverlets 1840s.Replacing the cotton and carding machines that had previously made this an ideal area for weavers, these new mills began to manufacture great quantities of cloth at such low prices that craftsmen like John Philip Seewald* were soon put out of business. Similarly, J.M. Sayler could not keep up with the production rate of a nearby mill which produced over 17,000 yards of woven cloth a year. He too stopped weaving around 1850. Finally the Meilys, who had maintained weaving as a family tradition for three generations, also relinquished their trade. None of their coverlets bears a date later than 1856. Perhaps the most telling example of the decline of weaving is the fate of the Fasigs. Because the family established itself firmly in Martinsville and stayed for generations, their story can be more completely documented. The population of Martinsville doubled in size between 1850 and 1870, reaching 18,698 in that year. Its economy expanded with this growth and a multitude of small businesses sprang up. When the Vandalia railroad completed its line to Martinsville in 1870, the town began to trade more extensively with manufacturing centers in the East. No longer did the people of Martinsville depend mainly on each other for goods and services. The Fasigs adapted to the changing times. By 1860 they had stopped raising flax and their sheep flock dwindled from 19 in 1860 to 5 in 1870. William supplemented his income by working as a bricklayer and grocer between 1860 and 1880. Christian had acquired his own farm by 1860, but to support his wife and seven children he went into partnership and bought the town's flour mill. The mill, remodeled with material from the old wool carding mill which had been torn down in 1859, ground corn and wheat into flour and eventually became one of the largest in the area. William's son, W. H. Fasig, followed his cousin's lead and became a miller rather than a weaver, obviously a wise choice given the times. The Fasigs' story repeated itself countless times across the nation. The 1876 Centennial exposition in Philadelphia stimulated a revived interest in coverlets. American textiles manufacturers tried to •see Betty Madden's Art, Crafts, and Architecture in Early Illinois.
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revive coverlet weaving, using power looms and reprocessed, chemically dyed wool. For designs, they used commemorative scenes, patriotic motifs, and even carpet designs, some of which were poorly suited to this medium. The mediocre quality of the manufactured coverlets may well explain why they did not become very popular. Moreover, American tastes had changed; people no longer favored the homemade look of handwoven fabric. Instead, they enjoyed the fancy silks and brocades which became available after the Civil War. Poor imitations of old styles were unable to halt this trend, and coverlets disappeared from view. Recently, coverlets have received the attention they deserve. With a renewed appreciation for the handcrafted item, Americans have once again given the coverlet a place of honor. It is entirely fitting that the men and women who made them be recognized, for they have indeed left us a legacy of valuable information and lasting beauty. Selected Sources HISTORIES: Fasig family history and genealogy supplied by Agnes Fasig and Ellen Zschau of Martinsville, Illinois; Kee family history supplied by Mrs. Gerald Redman of Macomb, Illinois; Vance Cemetery records, Industry, Illinois; Land deed issued lo Christian Wagner, November 27 , 1865, Pekin, Tazewell County, Illinois; Whitaker family history supplied by Joel Whitaker of Granville, Iliinois, lo the Putnam County Historical Society, 1981. COUNTY HISTORIES: History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois , edited by William H. Perrin (Chicago: 0. L. Baskin & Co., 1883); History of La Salle County, Illinois, by U. J. Hoffman (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1906); St. Clair County, Illinois Naturalization Index, 1816-1905, by Robert Buecher (Thomson, Illinois : Heritage House Press, 1976); History of Tazewell County, Illinois (Chicago: Charles C. Chapman & Co., 1879); Biographical Annals of Lebanon. County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1904). Da,·ison, Mildred and Christa C. Mayer-Thurman. Coverlets: A Handbook on the Collection of Woven Coverlets in The Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1973. Heisey, John W. A Checklist of American Coverlet Weavers. Compiled for the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1978. Madden, Betty I. Art, Crafts, and Architecture in Early Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974. U.S. Census for Clark, Crawford, Knox, La Salle, McDonough, St. Clair, and Tazewell counties, 1850, 1860, 1870. FAMILY
Illinois Pottery By Robert W. Sherman
Rich deposits of clay in various regions of the state attracted many potters to Illinois in the nineteenth century. As many as seven hundred have been identified to date. THE EXAMPLES OF Illinois pottery in this exhibit
include traditional utilitarian ware as well as unique i terns reflecting the predilections of individual craftsmen. The forms of the utilitarian ware were dictated by the marketplace. As craftsmen who had to make a living, the potters who made this ware were less interested in the sculpting possibilities of their medium than in producing well-made saleable pottery. On the side, however, when their daily work was done, some of the potters made what are often referred to as "end of day whimsies." In time, much of their output, utilitarian and otherwise, came to be labeled as folk art. Potters were active in Illinois from the 1820s to the 1940s and played an important part in the early economies of some ninety towns within the state. One reason for this was the availability of good pottery clay in several regions of the state. This, in turn, encouraged the migration of potters from other states to Illinois. These artisans settled near the clay deposits, in some cases in the northern parts of Illinois along riverbanks in Chicago and Galena, and in other cases in the southern and western parts of the state-in communities like Peoria, Macomb, Monmouth, and White Hall-which were also rich in clay deposits. To date, this writer has uncovered the names of seven hundred potters who plied their trade in Illinois. :for the most part, the industry began with the making of redware or earthenware (out of low-firing clay with a high iron oxide content), and some stoneware (an opaque, high-fired, well vitrified clay). By 1840, acRobert W. Sherman is a cultural historian who is completing research on Illinois potteries of the nineteenth century under a grant from the Early American Industries Association.
cording to the census, Illinois's pottery production was about evenly divided between the· two, but within the next decade the production of stoneware overtook the output of redware to such a degree that by the 1880s only a few redware shops, located in the northwestern corner of the state, were still in operation. It is no accident that the western part of the state, where the clay suitable for making stoneware was found in conjunction with coal seams, became the site of large pottery manufactories. The availability of coal to fuel the kilns in which the pottery was fired and easy access to good railroad connections for marketing the pottery provided additional stimuli to the growth of the industry in this region. By midcentury pottery production in Illinois was thriving, outranked only by that of Ohio. Many of the craftsmen who, worked in the state had been trained in the English-German traditions of pottery making and brought these traditions with them to their new home in the west. They produced chiefly functional pottery-bowls, crocks, jars, jugs, and pitchersused to store and serve foodstuffs as well as garden wares, flowerpots, and tombstones. They soon learned the importance of good design. No matter how pleasing the texture or the color of a piece of pottery might be, a pitcher that poured well would quickly outsell one with a dripping spout or a handle too small to be conveniently held. Utility and marketability rather than aesthetic considerations dictated the form of the pottery made. For the most part, ornamentation followed function and form as a consideration. Most of the Illinois pottery was decorated with incised lines grooved onto the surface of the pot while it was still on the wheel. Other 239
Pottery
Since Wallace Kirkpatrick of the Kirkpatrick Pottery in Anna is known to have had a lively interest in snakes as well as in the temperance movement, he is thought to have been the creator of th is sa lt glazed and painted stoneware jug made c . 1880. Jug , CHS. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.
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Pottery modes of decoration included the addition of a colored slip (colored liquid clay) such as cobalt blue slips on stoneware and manganese spattered on the handles of redware. Sometimes Lhe colored slip was dripped onlo the pot to form swirls; at other times it was used to handpaint figures onto the pottery. In laLer years, stencils were used to decorate pouery with a varieLy of motifs-chickens, wreaLhs, eagles-and Lhe maker's name or mark. The most prolific folk artists ·working in clay in Illinois were members of the KirkpaLri ck family, who established a pottery in the town of Anna, Union Coumy, in 1859. The faLher, Andrew Kirkpatrick, had operated pottery shops in western Pennsylvania and southwestern Ohio before moving to Vermillionville, Illinois. The older son, Cornwall, apprenticed himself to his father; the younger, 'il\Tallace, served his apprenticeship with Cornwall. In 1857, Cornwall built a large pottery in Mound City, Illinois, where his faLher and broLher joined him. This operaLion turned out to be financially unsuccessful, but two years later the brothers Lried again and built a pottery in the town of Anna, close to the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad which would carry Lheir wares to markets beyond the immediate vicinity. The new venture began auspiciously. A repon which appeared 111 the Jon esboro Gazette of December 3, 1859, ranked the pottery as equal to any we have seen anywhere. It is composed of the best clay, well gotten up by neat and skillful workmen; the patterns are of the most improved style, well burned, and showing generally that the workmen by whom it was made thoroughly understand the business.
Like most Illinois pottery firms, the Kirkpatricks produced: everything in the line of churns, crocks, jugs, plates, pipes for drai"ning, funnels, chimney flues, pitchers, milk pens, fruit jars, fire bricks, flower pots, cemetery urns, and buckets as well as reed stemmed smoking pipes and architectural pieces / and are recommended by all who have used them, equal in every respect to the celebrated Ohio Stoneware.
In addition to this utilitarian ware, much of which was unmarked, the Kirkpatricks produced a variety of ceramic novelties that re-
fleeted both their personal interests and their political commiunenLs. Both men were active in the affairs of their community. Cornwall Kirkpatrick (1814-1890), Lhe business manager of the pottery, belonged to two fraternal lodges, was active in the temperance movement, and held several public offices, including that of mayor of Anna for three terms. As a hobby he gardened. 'i,Vallace Kirkpatrick (1828-1896), who was the chief designer and salesman, was active in the same lodges, supported Lhe United Friends of Temperance, and also held public office. His recreational activities were hunting, fishing, and collecting and exhibiting live snakes. As the principal salesman for the pottery, 'iVallace often organized pottery-making demonstrations at local fairs and larger expositions held in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Chicago. It was he who designed the novelties to be shown on these occasions. Although Cornwall created commemorative jugs, umbrella stands, and huge cemetery urns, most of the folk pottery from Anna is attributed to 'i,Vallace and reflects his inventiveness and love of nature. vVallace creaLed owls, owl whistles, frogs, turtles, snakes, monkeys, railroad map pigs, and sows with piglets. His famous snake jugs reflect his views on the evils of drink and its association with political corruption. 'iVallace also created two farmsteads entirely made of pottery for expositions. Both of these are now lost. While Lhe utilitarian ware produced by the Kirkpatricks appear to have been typical of that manufactured by the other Illinois potteries, novelty pieces like the snake jugs were recognized as uniquely expressive of their makers' views and personalities by their contemporaries. They remain examples of excepLional Illinois folk art. Among the other novelty items in the exhibit is a covered jar whose decorations commemorate the 1876 Centennial and include applied busts of George Washington, cornucopias, and stars with an eagle finial serving as the lid handle. This jar comes from the town of Ripley in Brown County. The exhibit also includes a spotted clog made by an anisan employed in one of the seven potteries known to have operated in 'i!\Thite Hall, Illinois. Descended from the ceramic 241
Pottery
Decorated with a cobalt blue dragonfly design, this threegallon churn is attributed to one of the potteries operating in Ripley after the midnineteenth century . The lid and interior are covered with brown Albany slip. Churn , Robert W. Sherman Collection. Photo by Merle Glick, Peoria.
Above felt: All three of these stoneware sewer pipe birdhouses are thought to have been made by the same potter at one of the White Hall potteries in the early twentieth century. They are hand decorated with incised lines. Birdhouses, left and right, Mr. and Mrs. Burdette Kenner; center, Mr. and Mrs. George Knisley. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria.
Made to resemble a pig on a pie crust platter, this stoneware flower frog is hand decorated with cobalt blue highlights and covered with a rich blue glaze. It was made at the Kirkpatrick Pottery in Anna , probably by Wallace Kirkpatrick, in the late 1880s. Flower frog and photo, Illinois State Museum. Photo by Marlin Roos .
This spaniel dog doorstop of stoneware clay was decorated with a brown glaze applied by hand in a random dotted pattern on the unglazed body. It has been attributed to one of the White Hall potteries, Greene County, c . 1880. Dog , Mr. and Mrs. Burdette Kenner. Photo by Brooke Lemburg , Peoria.
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Pottery spaniel dogs produced in profusion m the Staffordshire region of England, these molded figures were executed in redware in Galena and in stoneware at Galesburg, Anna, Ripley, and White Hall. Probably intended for use as a doorstop, the White Hall clog stands out from others of its kind because it sports brown slip spots rather than being thoroughly glazed in one color. Other items in the exhibit produced by anonymous White Hall potters include birdhouses made out of clay sewer pipes, a striking doll's head of solid clay, and a white owl with rich blue spots. Peoria was the site of one of the largest pottery ventures in the state. The American Pottery Company was established in 1859-60 through the initiative of a group of Peoria businessmen who sought out an established New England potter and persuaded him to locate in their town. Christopher Webber Fenton, descendant of a family of New England potters, had established a pottery in Bennington, Vermont, and, until forced out of business by financial reverses, had gained a reputation for his brown, speckled Rockingham ware and Flint enamel ware. With Fenton came Decius W. Clark, former superintendent in his Bennington pottery, and his designer Daniel Greatbach. The pottery firm manufactured an assortment of items including glazed yellow and white ware and brown Rockingham. It was cast in molds created by Greatbach, who had been trained as a moldmaster in England. The American Pottery was put out of business by the Civil War but reopened under new owners and a new name, Peoria Pottery Company, in 1873. Many new items expanded the previous line of stoneware attractively glazed with dark brown Albany slip. In the town of Macomb there were some fourteen potteries. Among them was the Buckeye Pottery owned by ,iVashington J. Peck, who had been a potter in Wisconsin and Ohio before coming to Macomb. Alston W. Eddy's pottery in the same town eventually became the Macomb Pottery Company. The Stoffer family, which had operated potteries in the 1llinois towns of Ripley and Tennessee, also produced ware in Macomb, as did the Eagle Pottery Company, run by William l\I. Ragon. While the pottery in this exhibit comes
mainly from potteries in White Hall, Ripley, Anna, Alton, and Peoria, it is important to remember that pottery was being manufactured throughout the state, and parti cularly in the northern counties of Jo Daviess, Cook, and La Salle; in the western counties of Rock Island, Knox, Hancock, Warren, McDonough, Peoria, Brown, Greene, and Madison; and in the southern counties of Edwards, St. Clair, Union, and Alexander. A great deal of information is available about the redware potters of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania because of the writings of Laura Woodside Watkins and others. Research has also been published on stoneware from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio. Written works on the folk potters of the Shenandoah Valley, Georgia, the Carolinas, and the mountainous areas of western Pennsylvania are available as well. Little had been published, however, on the folk potters of the Midwest until the works of Betty Madden and Charles Van Ravenswaay appeared in the 1970s. Research is currently under way on the Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin potteries with more work still to be done on Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Kentucky. All of the pottery pieces produced in the l\fidwestern states are related to one another to some degree because the potters who settled in the Midwest had followed similar patterns of migration. Like the Illinois potters, those who settled elsewhere in the Midwest came from New England, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Kentucky. This similarity in cultural background among the potters is reflected in the ceramic wares produced throughout the Midwest in the nineteenth century.
Selected Sources NEWSPAPERS: Jonesborough Gazette, 1859-1898. Denker, Ellen Paul. "The Kirkpatricks' Anna Pottery." Th e A ntique Trader Weekly, January 12, 1977. - - . "Forever Getting Up Something New: The Kirkpatricks' Pottery at Anna, Illinois 1859-1896." Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1978. Fells, James K., Sr. "The Anna Pottery." Chicago History 3 (Spring-Summer 1974). Horney, Wayne B. Pottery of the Galena Area. East Dubuque, Illinois: Telegraph Herald, 1965. Madden , Betty I. "Jug Towns." The Living Muse-um 29 (January 1968) . Rosenow, Jane. " Peoria Pottery and How it Grew." The Antiques Journal (December 1969). U.S. Census for Illinois. 1830-1880.
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Olof Krans By Anna Wadsworth Murray
Although Olof Krans had no formal training as an artist~ his depictions of life at Bishop Hill and of many of the commune's residents evoke a strong sense of that community.
EVERY VISITOR to Bishop Hill, the commune founded in 1846 by Swedish evangelist Eric Jansson, has seen the impressive body of paintings by Olof Krans, a one-time resident of the community. Numbering close to a hundred, they portray the everyday life of Bishop Hillmen and women at work in the fields planting, harvesting, and tending ·c attle-the town itself, and many of its residents. The Krans paintings in this exhibit, from Bishop Hill and other collections, are typical of the work that has established his reputation as one of our country's most talented naive artists. Born Olof Olsson, Krans emigrated to the United States in 1850 with his parents, Eric and Beata, and siblings. They were part of a group of dissenters from the established church in Sweden. The Olssons' destination, the commune at Bishop Hill, had been founded four years earlier by the charismatic Jansson. By the time the Olssons arrived, Jansson had been shot in a personal dispute, but the community had survived the loss of its founder and continued to grow. Thus the Olssons found a flourishing town in which women worked alongside men producing wheat, rye, corn, flax, and broomcorn (used to make brooms), and building the town's living quarters and other structures. The colony had attracted many craftsmen, including tanners, carpenters, goldsmiths, tailors, and shoemakers. While Eric worked at Bishop Hill's Red Oak settlement chopping wood and preaching, Beata's job in the commune's diverse textile industry was to prepare cloth clippings which
Anna Wadsworth Murray is a writer and editor at the Denver Art Museum. From 1977-80 she was executive director of the Bishop Hill Heritage Association and produced an award-winning film entitled Bishop Hill.
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were then woven in strips to make rag rugs, echoing a traditional Swedish folk craft. At day's end the Olssons ate with other members of the community in "the Big Brick," an enormous four-story residence hall with a basement dining room, said to be the largest apartment building between Chicago and the West Coast until its destruction by fire in 1928. Reporting home to relatives in Sweden in 1851, Eric Olsson wrote: "The Lord himself is the watchman at this Holy Zion's Mountain. It is never going to be plated with silver or gold, but with peace and power from the Holy Ghost." Olof attended the colony's English school, where he learned to speak the language of his new country. "Olof speaks it often already," his father wrote in their first year there. The following year Olof was enrolled in "painter's training" under Olof Hansson of Hogsbo, from whom he probably learned the Swedish methods of painting furniture with fancy graining, and spatter painting walls. The latter was accomplished by dipping visps-bundles of twigs-into paint and flicking them to decorate walls. Olof may have helped with such work in the colonists' hotel and in the Steeple Building, a large residence hall, where examples of paint spattering have survived. Walls in Bishop Hill buildings were usually decorated with three or more colors against a background of gray. Olof also learned blacksmithing, working in the town's carriage and wagon shop. Later in life he painted wagons at his own paint shop in a converted saloon. In 1861 he joined the Union Army and, as his father had done while in the Swedish army, changed his name to a more uncommon one, "Krans," which his family adopted permanently. After training at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Krans's regiment fought in several battles, in-
Bishop Hill in 1846, oil on canvas, c. 1896. Although Krans did not come to Bishop Hill until 1850, he probably relied on the reminiscences of the original settlers for the details of this painting. Founder Jansson named the settlement after Biskopskulla, his home in Sweden. Painting, Illinois Department of Conservation, Bishop Hill Historic Site. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria.
eluding Fort Donelson and Shiloh. In mid1862 Krans became ill and was transferred to Louisville, Kentucky, where he was discharged for "chronic bronchitis and functional disease of the heart." A year earlier Bishop Hill's collectively owned property had been divided among the individual colony members, who then had to find private means of supporting themselves. Krans, returning from war service, took a job as a clerk in the local general store and also did some house painting. For a while he had charge of a photograph gallery on wheels. Not long after his return to Bishop Hill, Krans moved to Galesburg, where he met and married Christina Aspequist. They were to have three sons, Frank, Carl, and Ole, and a daughter who died in infancy. In 1867 the couple moved about seven miles from Bishop Hill, to Galva, Illinois, where Krans worked at house painting and interior
decorating. Colony descendant Margaret E. Jacobson wrote that in Galva [he] did a great deal of graining, which he frequently augmented by a finely detailed design of something which simulated inlay. A vine pattern also pleased him. In one home he made vines grow on all the sills and panels of wood, while the ceiling was painted to represent a series of arches ... the Old Swedish Lutheran Church was arched by a ceiling of azure blue, studded with gold stars, done by Krans.
In addition to this work Krans painted roadside advertisements, theater scenery for the Galva Opera House, and store signs. It is not known when Krans began channeling his talents into painting landscapes and portraits, but one painting in Bishop Hill's Old Colony Church, Village in Sweden, is dated 1875. The Galva News and Galva Standard of the 1880s contained several references to that "wizzard [sic] of the brush, Mr. Krans." And
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Olaf Krans
Typical of Krans's depiction of his memory of life at Bishop Hill, Women Planting Corn was painted in the 1890s. Painting, Illinois Department of Conservation Bishop Hill Historic Site. Photo by Brooke Lemburg, Peoria. Detail from a portrait of Jonas Olsson, a lay preacher and Bishop Hill trustee. Painting, Illinois Department of Conservation, Bishop Hill Historic Site. Photo by Merle Glick, Peoria.
as early as 1880 he had developed a reputation beyond Galva. Svenskarne i Illinois by Eric Johnson and C. F. Peterson, published that year in Chicago, remarked, "Krans has become known for his good portrait and landscape paintings." In 1896 the Bishop Hill Old Settlers had their first reunion, and Krans was on hand to present several of his paintings to the group for permanent local exhibition. At each annual gathering for some years after that, he continued to unveil more of his works. These were placed in the Old Colony Church, where many of them can still be seen. The collection, including more than sixty portraits of colonists painted mostly from photographs, is now owned by the Illinois Department of Conservation which operates the church as a museum. Some of Krans's commemorative paintings, created from memory, depict communal farming methods used by the colonists to cultivate thousands of acres. One of his best-known pieces is Women Planting Corn. In her article on Krans's work, Margaret Jacobson gave a detailed explanation of the subject of this painting: Two sharp sticks, joined by a rope of a certain length, and each with a projecting prong to reach forward and mark the next row, are carried by two men who plunge them into the earth and thus mark the row to be planted. At regular spaces on the rope, twenty-four little knots of colored cotton 246
are tied, which indicate to each woman where to make her hole with her hoe, drop in her three or four kernels, and cover them up before the men move forward with the rope for a repetition of the process.
Krans chose to record Bishop Hill's impressive architecture by painting at least two scenes depicting the village as it appeared in 1855. The first of these, according to George Swank, author of Painter Krans, was commissioned in 1894-95 as a backdrop for the stage in the community's auditorium, a building originally constructed by the colonists as a bakery and brewery. The scene was painted on several strips of canvas which together measured IO feet by 15½ feet. In I9ll, working from graph lines drawn on a photograph of the original painting, he reproduced the piece on a smaller scale. Across the foreground of this second version he lettered, "Bishop Hill as seen from north of the Edwards in 1855." Both paintings show a hog lot on the left with a barn and various outbuildings, the brick building where unmarried dairy maids lived, and the Steeple Building. The panoramic view moves next across the carriage and wagon shop and the blacksmith shop where Krans had worked, the Colony Store, the white, gambrel-roofed church, and, by the bank of the Edwards River, a mill which could grind a hundred barrels of flour a day. Bricks for these buildings were hand molded by the colonists
Olaf Krans
and fired in their kiln. Though the farmyard and mill have disappeared, the central buildings have survived, grouped around the park and interspersed now with a few turn-of-thecentury shop buildings. Krans painted several portraits of his mother, Beata Krans, from photographs (see page 224) . Two of these show her seated in a rocking chair, knitting, which is unusual, since Krans's portraits rarely included the entire human form, and they were usually of men. A more typical example of his portraiture is his painting of Jonas Olsson, a lay preacher and Bishop Hill trustee who was elected to lead the community after Jansson 's death . According to Svenskarne i Illinois, Olsson was thought to be " the most capable and was considered the colony's both spiritual and wordly head." He presided over several years of prosperity before the communalists became dissatisfied with the trustees ' mismanagement and over-extended investments. Olof Johnson , another trustee whose portrait was painted· by Krans, had played a major role in organizing groups of Janssonists to emmigrate. After J ansson's death, Johnson assumed much of the responsibility for handling the colony's finances. He made several large investments in banks and railway stocks and eventually was accused by the other trustees of having acted without their approval. As one unfortunate venture after another
failed and debts mounted, the colonists became increasingly disenchanted with the "speculating gentlemen." This was why in 1861 equipment, land, and rooms within the buildings were parceled out to individuals, with shares based on age and length of residency in the colony. Some former colonists moved away, but many continued to live in or near Bishop Hill. Having been among the earliest local pioneers, the "Ole! Settlers" developed a growing sense of their own historical significance. Krans's painting became more sporadic as he grew older and his bronchitis worsened, but he continued to expand his painted record of colony history until 1915, the year before his death . In the 1930s artists employed by the Works Progress Administration copied Krans's paintings and made drawings of Bishop Hill Colony artifacts for the Index of American Design. By 1950, Antiques magazine ranked Krans's art with the most interesting paintings by self-taught American artists. A decade later paintings by Krans were shipped to Stockholm to be shown in a traveling exhibition about the history of Bishop Hill. Long before the artist's work was heralded by scholars and collectors, however, a local journalist in Galva summarized the painter's character and accomplishments in Krans's obituary: "He was a man of jovial disposition and made friends wherever he went . . . . By profession he was a painter and decorator of more than ordinary ability."
Selected Sources MANUSCRIPTS: Twenty-one emigrant letters depicting Bishop Hill, Illinois, written by Janssonists from Nora Parish, Uppland, Sweden, 1847-1856, including five letters from Eric Olsson, translated and edited by Lilly Setterdahl, on deposit at the Bishop Hill Heritage Association Research Collection. A published version of this manuscript is available in Western Illinois Regional Studies I (Fall 1978). NEWSPAPERS: The Geneseo R epublic, October II, 1907 . Isaksson, Olov and Soren Hallgren. Bishop Hill: A Utopia on the Prairie. Stockholm: L. T. Publishing House, 1969. Jacobson , Margaret E . " The Painted Record of a Community Experiment." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 34 (June 1941). Johnson, Eric and C. F . Peterson. Svenskarne i Illinois. Chicago: 1880. Murray, Anna Wadsworth. " Olof Krans 's View of Bishop Hill Colony." Th e Clarion (Spring-Summer 1981). Swank, George. Painter Krans . Galva, Illinois: Galvaland Press, I 976.
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Ethnic Folk Art in Contemporary Chicago By Bruce Hatton Boyer
In 7977) the American Folk life Center of the Library of Congress undertook a massive survey of the ethnic arts in Chicago andfound that folk art was alive and well in this great urban center.
"HELL, THERE AIN'T NO notes to a banjo ! You just play it!" Pete Seeger collected this remark some forty years ago about an anonymous mountain musician who was answering a question as to how well he read music. Its simple charm suggests that quality which we have come to call "folk": a rural plainness which all of us associate with a golden bygone era, a pastoral time in historical America when life was simple and amusemen ts were homemade. One of the profound sadnesses of modern technological life is that, for a large number of urban people, the practice of folk art has disappeared, to be replaced by mass-produced objects, or to be ridiculed by self-styled sophisticates who decry the folk arts as "square" or, worse yet, as boring. Fortunately, just like l\fark Twain's demise, reports of the death of folk arts have been greatly exaggerated. Not only are they surviving-they are in many places thriving, and not just in the small towns where we would most expect to find them. Most of us, not incorrectly, think of "folk art" as being grandmother's quilt, or that quaint butter churn we bought at an antique store during a weekend trip to Galena; in short, for many people folk art consists of relics from a bygone era. But while age does have something to do with folk art, it is in itself hardly a reliable determinant. None of us would, for example, call a Chippendale table or Jaco bean sideboard folk art.
Bruce Hatton Boyer is a Chicago writer who served as program director for Folk and Ethnic Arts at the Illinois Arts Council during the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project in 1977. Author of The Solstice Cipher, he is working on another novel.
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More important by far in establishing a definition of folk art is the role which tradition plays in the creation of an art object, or of a musical or theatrical performance. Indeed, tradition is paramount. Folk art is infused with a sense of the unchanging past, that is, things are done the way they are done because they have always been clone that way. The predominance of traditional forms and methods in turn suggests why we associate folk art with rural sett ings. ·warren E. Roberts has written: In times past, prior to the Industrial R evolution, [olk cra[ts pla yed an immensely important role in traditional society, for practically everything the individual could not produce for himsel£ was produced by craftsmen living in his own locality. It would be fair to say that the folk society 0£ Europe was characterized by the extended family unit, the self-sufficient farm, and traditional crafts. ["Folk Crafts," in Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction]
In short, folk art was rooted in peasant, or rural, society. Such closed societies are sheltered from change, and so successive generations draw inspiration from shared tradition. This kind of rural isolation is often intensified by differences in language and religion- the Moravians in what is now Czechoslovakia, or the Jews in the Ukraine-which only increases communal bonding. Such strong forces of tradition inform the folk craftsman's work, so that individuality of artistic expression becomes far less important in folk art than does accepted traditional style. Our banjo player is a perfect example of this: he instinctively knows that formal artistic systems are less necessary to his art than are traditional methods. But-and this is at the core of modern folklore workthe ruralness which we associate with folk art
is the source of tradition, not merely the accidental locale of production. And as tradition is not a thing but a state of mind, it should not surprise us that tradition travels wherever the "folk" travel. In America that journey has led straight to the big cities. Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit, to name but a few, have become centers of folk art in our day because America has undergone a profound demographic shift. Whereas seventy percent of Americans lived in rural or small town settings prior to World War II, that ratio has neatly reversed, with seventy percent of the population now living in metropolitan areas. The dean of American folklorists, Richard M. Dorson, has said it well: "Folk" need not apply exclusively to country folk, but rather signifies anonymous masses of tradition-oriented people. If country folk move to the city-and in the past decades the metropolises of the world have swelled from the inflow of rural populations-they do not thereby forfeit the interest of the folklorist. Nor do generations born within city l imits necessarily fail to qualify as folk groups, for their Jives too may be shaped by traditional codes of behavior, dress, cuisine, expression, world view. [Folklore and Folk/if e: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies]
The implication of all this is clear. Folk art is not just something deriving from the AngloGerman-Scandinavian farm tradition; it comes from any source of tradition. In the modern American city, folk art often becomes interchangeable with ethnic art, for more of the rural cultural baggage that has been brought to our cities has come from Serbia or Poland or Japan or Haiti than has come from Mattoon or Carbondale. Chicago, the destination of many thousands of immigrants, is a city rich in folk and ethnic arts. Much has been said and written about Chicago's "neighborhoods," a great deal of it affectionate, and much of it false. Some neighborhoods are'Iargely memories today-building projects and expressways have paved over many traditional enclaves. The neighborhoods have also eroded as economic forces, abundant higher education, and changing job markets have drawn younger generations away from the old communities. But strong vestiges still remain, as a stroll through the Lithuanian areas of Marquette Park, or the Ukrainian area around
Oakley and Division, or the Polish centers along Milwaukee Avenue, will reveal. These areas 2re not as quaint anymore, for they have all discovered neon and Muzak, but such things are only the signs of an adaptive exterior. Strong bonds continue to underpin life in these districts. The parish church in this, the largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States, often remains a center of organization and recreation, as do the Greek Orthodox and Jewish congregations. Musical groups like the Ukrainian Bandurist Youth Group, the Chicago Zither Club, and the Irish Musicians' Association still play the old music to appreciative audiences. Saturday schools still teach Polish, Hebrew, Lithuanian, and Greek. The Old World ways are still practiced, both as a tribute to a life gone by, and as a practical means of bonding within the framework of a sprawling metropolis. For the few of us who have looked for it, folk art in Chicago has been sometimes difficult to find for a simple reason: it is intended for local consumption, as all folk art is. To be sure, there are stores where one can buy decorated Easter eggs or dirndl dresses, but by and large, folk art stays within the borders of the community which gave it birth. As a result, there is a danger that much of it will die out. That portion which does not die out may become so diluted as a result of other influences-most particularly mass media-as to lose much of its uniqueness and aesthetic impact. Older craftsmen often have difficulty finding younger people interested in apprenticing with them; popular American culture is an enticing alternative, and, sadly, many ethnic American children have felt compelled to bury their heritage instead of enjoying it. Recognition would be a major force in keeping many of these crafts alive, and it was to this end that the Illinois Arts Council and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress undertook, in 1977, a massive survey of the ethnic arts in Chicago. The project culminated in a 561-page report to the Illinois Arts Council from the Folklife Center which summarized the cunent conditions and folk art needs in the Greek, Lithuanian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, .Jewish, 1ative American, Chicano, Puerto 249
Folk Art in Chicago Rican, Cuban, Central and South American, German, Austrian, Polish, Ukrainian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Czech, Slovak, Italian, Afro-American, Irish, and Russian communities. The project itself used fourteen professional folklorists, each of whom spent from seven to twenty-one days working in the communities, interviewing artists, talking with community leaders, and, best of all, documenting the arts in these areas. This documentation took the form of still photographs and audio tape recordings of the artists working, as well as talking about themselves and their crafts. It was a unique "freeze-frame" view of the ever-changing folk and ethnic arts in our city. The most immediate result of the work done by the Folklife Center was a series of festivals in areas outside of Chicago which were sponsored and coordinated by the Arts Council itself. These festivals-in Bloomington, Mt. Vernon, and Bishop Hill---0ccurred during the
late summer and fall of 1977, and were aimed at bringing Chicago-area folk arts and downstate folk arts together. These festivals, in turn, served to spawn similar events across the state. The work of the Arts Council fieldworkers and the festivals themselves were documented on over one hundred reels of both black-and-white and color videotape. A cornucopia of material was assembled in the space of six months. In addition to the videotapes, the Folklife Center fieldworkers filled 95 reels and 239 cassettes of audio tape, and shot some 14,000 still photographs, of which over 3,000 were in color. Most of the materials are now being catalogued at the Library of Congress, and the remainder are at the offices of the Arts Council in Chicago. A few quick glances at some of this material-all that is possible in this space-will suggest some of the variety which this effort uncovered. More significantly, it will suggest the vitality with which the ethnic and folk arts are practiced in present-day Chicago.
Some traditional crafts have taken on special significance among practitioners in the New World. These wooden shrines, carved by Chicagoan Antanas Posko~imas, are typical of those once found throughout rural Lithuania. American Folklife Center, photo by Jonas Dovydenas.
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Folk Art in Chicago Chicago has the largest concentration of Lithuanians outside of the now-occupied homeland on the Baltic Coast; the 1970 census recorded just under 50,000 Chicagoans alone who regarded Lithuanian as their mother tongue. The suppression of Lithuanian nationalism by the Soviets has served only to kindle such flames abroad, and today the Lithuanian community in Chicago has one of the strongest and most varied educational programs of all ethnic groups in the city. One prominent example of this is seen in the Museum of Lithuanian Culture on South Archer Avenue, founded by Stanley Balzekas, Jr., a prominent figure in the Lithuanian community and a long-time member of the Chicago Public Library Board. One curious aspect of the Lithuanian immigration to America was that it occurred essentially in two stages. The first wave came here in the early years of the century, before World War I, and consisted for the most part of rural folk who carried with them a strong identification with traditional peasant culture. The second great wave occurred during and immediately after World War II, and included a disproportionately high number of educated and middle-class persons, all of whom felt it unwise to return to Lithuania following the Soviet occupation. This latter group, it may be safely said, probably encountered more traditional Lithuanian culture in refugee camps after the war, and in America, than they had ever clone in the Old Country. To quote Elena Bradunas, the director of the American Folklife Center Project, and herself a Chicagoan of Lithuanian descent: When the Lithuanian refugees came to America, they brought with them a strong consciousness and appreciation of certain folk art genres, some of which they now have passed along to the second and third generation immigrants. This awareness was a result of their experiences in independent Lithuania, and in the refugee camps. The two most popular genres are woodcarving and textile arts. [A Report on th e Chicago Ethnic Arts Project, p. 316]
One of the most distinctive forms of Lithuanian woodcarving is the roadside shrine. These elaborate structures, whether in the form of crosses or of chapels mounted on poles, were placed near homesteads and along roadways in
that overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, in a fashion not unlike the stone crosses in Brittany. It was a strictly rural phenomenon, one which never moved to the cities in Lithuania itself. With the removal to the ew World, however, and the subsequent loss of the homeland to Soviet occupation, the roadside shrines took on a special significance. They become symbols of the lost country, and began to flourish precisely in the kind of urban settings that they had never enjoyed in Lithuania. One of the several woodcarvers in Chicago discovered by the Ethnic Arts Project was Antanas Poskoc1mas, who at the age of seventytwo was still making elaborate sixteen-foot crosses and chapels. Since his retirement from a job as an industrial draftsman, he had been more prolific than ever. Through the years, he had never taken on an apprentice, believing that the revival in carved crosses was a result of the experiences immediately after World ,var II which would soon wither away. However, in 1976 a young third-generation Lithuanian-American came to Mr. Poskocimas and asked to learn this traditional craft. The latter was delighted and has not only instructed the young man, but has promised him his tools. "If he promises to continue, I will give him everything, for nothing." A more classic example of generational transmission of a skill or art within a community cannot be found. The experience of the Ukrainian-Americans is not unlike that of the Lithuanians, in that both societies encountered massive immigration following World War II and the suppression of their homelands by the Soviets. Like the Lithuanians, the Ukrainians regard the native soil even today as an illegally occupied country. Maintenance of tradition, therefore, has become a particularly important issue in Ukrainian-American communities because it is the colonies in the New World that must preserve what the Old Country has lost. There have been several disputes over issues of traditionalism in Chicago's Ukrainian community, some of which have been bitter and longlasting, but the goals of the entire community, as fieldworker Robert Klymasz explains, remain simple: The paramount concern within the Ukrainian
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Folk Art in Chicago community today is to find ways to maintain the community as a physical entity. The old folk are concerned with the exodus of younger famil ies to the suburbs, which leaves behind a dwindling enrollment at the Ukrainian parish elementary school and businesses that must learn to cater to non-Ukrainian clients. Currently the Ukrainian commun ity and its leaders are struggling to pour all available resources into maintaining a physical hold on the area, which they wish to be developed into a kind of ethnic reserve for Ukrainians. [A Report on the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project, p. 470]
The struggle to adapt to the new ways while preserving the old is vividly illustrated by the proximity of two buildings within the Ukrainian enclave on the near West Side. The first structure is the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, a stunning contemporary edifice which hosts impressive shows of Ukrainian Internationalist art. The second is St. Nicholas Cathedral, a traditional church with onion dome architecture which serves as an anchor to the neighborhood. This church was built in 1913 and has been maintained throughout the years with loving care. In I 977, fieldworker Klymasz and American Folklife Center photographer Carl Fleischauer happened into St. Nicholas when the interior was being repainted. They discovered a team of young Ukrainian-Americans working on forty-foot scaffolds, in the fashion of Michelangelo, repairing the elaborate icons on the cathedral ceiling. It was painstaking work which required thorough knowledge of the religious traditions of the Russian Orthodox church. Perhaps no other photograph taken during the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project sums up the combination of old and new as does Fleischauer's picture of Bohdan Matusiak wearing a contemporary T-shirt and using a wax paper cup to hold his paint while working in a religious tradition thousands of years old. The situation of the Greek-Americans in Chicago is in marked contrast to that of the Lithuanians and Ukrainians. Not that the Greek community is small; it is the third largest in the world, with only Athens and Thessalonika ahead. Immigration patterns once again account for the unique qualities of Greek-American folk art. In contrast to the emigrations caused by massive upheavals of war in the northern part of Europe, the flow of Greeks to America has 252
been steady over the past century. As a result, there has been a high degree of assimilation of Greek-Americans, with a corresponding dispersion of families. The construction of the University of Illinois campus at what had been a heavily Greek neighborhood did irreparable harm to Old Greek Town and was in large measure responsible for the establishment of New Greek Town at the triple intersection of Lawrence, Lincoln, and Western avenues on the Near Northwest Side. Regional as opposed to national loyalties have also hindered the development of unified community groups which could foster the folk arts. But let there be no mistake, the GreekAmericans are proud of their traditional culture, and support it with enthusiasm. The Church, as in so many ethnic communities, is a strong organizing force and an inherently strong source of tradition. For example, fieldworker Peter Bartis located John Terzis, an elderly Greek-American who specialized in
Bohdan Matusiak restoring icons on the ceiling of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church on the Near West Side. American Folklife Center, photo by Carl Fleischauer.
Folk Art in Chicago iconographic church painting and who has redone entire churches in Greece. In 1977 he had taken on an apprentice, a young graduate of the School of the Art Institute, who has continued his work by herself, specializing in icon painting. Traditional crafts are more difficult to find among Greek-Americans for several reasons, as Bartis points out: Since traditional arts are generally associated with community expression as opposed to fine arts which purport the artist's individual abilities, a parallel can be drawn between traditional and ethnic arts when ethnic arts appear in a polycultural, New World milieu. 1n such a situation, when boundary maintenance is of primary importance, the concept of "the traditional" is subsumed under the larger term "ethnic culture." In short, anything that expresses "Greekness" is lumped together. [A Report on the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project, pp. 154-5]
In other words, Greek-Americans tend to lump together everything from Hellenic vases in the
Art Institute to bastardized bouzouki music in a Greek nightclub. Nonetheless, Bartis found exquisite examples of folk craft, particularly needlework. One contact he made was with an elderly Cretan woman who not only created traditional functional items-pieces designed to ward off the evil eye, or wedding aprons, or special pieces for baby swaddling-but who even claimed to have raised the silkworms to make the fabric herself! Scandinavian immigrants were among the first peoples to settle in Chicago in any numbers, and their presence has long been felt in the history of the city. (For purposes of discussion here, that term includes the Finnish, even though the Finns belong to a distinctly separate linguistic and cultural grouping.) The tendency of the Scandinavians to assimilate quickly has to some degree hindered the nurturing of folk art which so typifies more enclosed communities, such as the Lithuanian. But there is another, more fundamental prob-
Folklorist Peter Bartis with Greek-American embroideresses on Chicago's West Side, 1977. American Folklife Center, photo by Jonas Dovydenas.
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Folk Art in Chicago lem in the identification of Scandinavian folk art, one which stems from the social structures of the countries in the Old World. Scandinavia had had a middle class-as opposed to a peasant-culture far longer than any other region of Europe. Since peasant and rural cultures are the usual sources of what we call "folk" art, it becomes difficult to define just what Scandinavian folk art is. Fortunately, Jens Lund, who handled the Scandinavian fieldwork for the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project, arrived at a simple yet elegant solution to this potential sticking point: It is evident to me that domestic traditionsboth everyday and holiday-are the most tenacious folk traditions among Scandinavian-Americans and may be the only truly folk (in the sense of traditional, informally communicated, and communitybounded) traditions extant in this community. [A Report on the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project, p. 383]
Just what is a domestic tradition? Cooking is certainly one, and may help account for the prominence of the Scandinavians in the baking and pastry businesses. Another area where Scandinavians have been dominant is in the building trades, particularly as carpenters, cabinetmakers, and painters, a field which certainly has strong domestic connotations.
Needlework and quilting are also pronounced traditions. One vivid example among the crafted folk arts which suggests the strength of these traditions is Rosemaling. As the name implies, this is the Norwegian craft of decorative flower painting. It has undergone a tremendous revival in the last few decades, and there may be hundreds of Rosemalere in the greater Chicago area. Reidar Rosenvinge is their dean and mentor. Born in Norway, Rosenvinge studied to be an artist at the Tekniske Institute in Oslo. After emigrating to America, he worked as a specialty painter, doing such work as antiquing, gilding, graining, marbleizing, mural-painting, and stenciling for several companies, including Marshall Field's. He turned to Rosemaling in the 1960s, and since then has not only practiced it but has taught it on a daily basis at the Norway Center on North Kedzie Boulevard. As these pictures show, the baroque designs can be applied in a number of styles on a variety of surfaces. What is also clear, and more significant, is the organized effort on the part of Norwegian-Americans of all ages to keep this traditional art alive. What did the American Folklife Center
Reider Rosenvinge has taught many fellow Scandinavian-Americans the Norwegian craft of Rosemaling. American Folklife Center, photo by Jonas Dovydenas.
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Folk Art in Chicago Ethnic Arts Project accomplish? In the immediate and most tangible ways, it taught the Illinois Arts Council and similar organizations a great deal about the size, shape, scope, and diversity of ethnic and folk arts within the urban setting of Chicago; and it fostered a show of the photographs which Jonas Dovydenas, the Project's principal photographer, had taken over the course of four months. The show, entitled INSIDE OUR HOMES, OUTSIDE OUR WINDOWS: PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHICAGO'S ETHNIC COMMUNITIES, has been shown at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, the Library of Congress, the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, the War Memorial in Milwaukee, and even in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (as part of a conference there on ethnicity). More importantly, it helped to confirm in a methodical manner what folklorists, sociologists, and art historians have always suspected: modern ethnoreligious communities are still strong sources of stability and culture within the anonymous sprawl of industrial centers such as Chicago. These communities are complex organisms, always growing and changing, with many life-support systems including churches, fraternal organizations, newspapers and radio stations, and artistic outlets. The
interaction between these systems is only now beginning to be understood, especially the crucial role which each of them plays in the transmission of cultural values and ethics to the younger generations. Amidst these systems, the folk arts remain a precious treasure. They represent the distillation of centuries of artistic inheritance. They are perhaps the final remainders of the peasant cultures which are disappearing all over the world, but which nevertheless continue to be a strong part of the consciousness of every culture. The folk arts, and particularly the ethnic arts in our cities, may in the last analysis be our final link with the rural life which so many Americans have abandoned for the necessities and pleasures of the city. Selected Sources Dorson, Richard M. Folklore and Folklife: Essays toward a Discipline of Folk Studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976. A Report on the Chicago Ethnic Arts Project. Washington, D.C.: American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, 1978. Roberts, Warren E. "Folk Crafts." In Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, edited by Richard M. Dorson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Seeger; Pete. How to Play the Five-String Banjo. 3rd ed. Beacon, N.Y.: Privately published, 1962.
This Rosemaler, shown at work at the Norway Center, 2350 N. Kedzie Avenue, is one of Reider Rosenvinge's students. American Folklife Center, photo by Jonas Dovydenas.
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The Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60614 Telephone: 312-642-4600 Officers Theodore Tieken, President Stewart S. Dixon, 1st Vice-President Philip W. Hummer, 2nd Vice-President Gardner H. Stern, Treasurer Bryan S. Reid, Jr., Secretary Director Ellsworth H. Brown
Trustees Bowen Blair Philip D. Block III Cyrus Colter Emmett Dedmon Stewart S. Dixon l\frs. Paul A. Florian III James R. Getz Edward Hines Philip W. Hummer
i\frs. Frank D. Mayer Mrs. Brooks i\IcCormick John T. McCutcheon, Jr. Andrew McNally III Arthur E. Osborne, Jr. Bryan S. Reid, Jr. Harold Byron Smith, Jr. Gardner H. Stern Theodore Tieken
Life Trustees Mrs. C. Phillip Miller Hermon Dunlap Smith
Honorary Trustees Jane Byrne, Mayor, City of Chicago Raymond F. Simon, President, Chicago Park District
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Frank Pierce Richards of Rochester, Illinois, is represented in this exhibit by several painted wood carvings of historica l figures. Shown here is his General Grant on Horseback, c . 1880s. Carving and photo, Illinois State Museum. This oil on canvas, entitled Schooner in Distress off Belmont Harbor, painted in Ch icago and dated 1873, is by an unknown art ist. Pa inting , Victor P. Carapella. Photo by Walter W. Krutz, CHS.