Chicago History | Spring 1997

CHICAGO HISTORY

HEALTH-BTR,ENGTH-BE..AU~-

M ERIC N SO OL GYMNASTIC FETIVAL Ju.n.e

25.26.27.28-1925

GRA T PARKSTADIUM CHIC.AGO

S3.50

CHICAGO HISTORY The Magazine of the Chicago Historical Societ y

Spring 1997

EDIT OR R OSEMA RY

K. AD AMS

Volum e XX VI, N umb er 1

ASSISTAN T EDITORS L ESL EY A. M A RT I L YN

E N ccE

T

DESIGNE R

CON T ENTS

B I LL V AN N IMIV EC.EN

PH OTOGRAPHY .) 011 1\' ALDER SON

4

J AY CR AWFORD

Copy righ1 1997 by the Ch icago I fo to rica l Society Clark S1ree t at No nh Avenu e Chicago, IL 606 14-6099

O LIVIA MAH ONEY

22 "We Do Ha ve to Work Hard " K ATH ERINE

ISS, 0272-8540 .\n ide, appea ri ng in thi jo u111a l arc ab1.itratted a nd indexed in / hslnnrnl Ab,tmcts and A menca: I h sl01Jand Life.

Expanding Empire: Chicago and the West

40

R. M ORGA1

Pilsen/Little Village RALP H P UGH

Foo tn oted rnanw,cr ipt s of the arti cle; ap pear ing in thi s issue a re ava ilab le from the Chicago I li,to rica l Society's Pub licat ions Of1icc.

Cmc 1· l'o.,ter fnr the , l111encanSokol (,y11111a1//r Fe,twal 111 1925. Cow/e1y nf !he. l111n1rn11 Sokol Orgam::.atwn.

DEPARTME 3

TS

From the Editor

62 Making History

Ch icago Historica l Society OFFICERS R. Eden Martin, Chair Sharon Gist Gilliam, Treasurer Potter Pa lmer, Vice Chair Joseph H. Levy Jr., Secretary Charles T. Brumback, Vice Chair Phi lip W. Hummer, Immediate Pa t Chair Douglas Greenberg, President and Director

Lerone Bennett Jr. Phi lip D. Block III Laurence Booth Char les T. Brumback Mrs. Ann Middleton Buck ley Robert N. Burt Michelle L. Co llins Mrs. Cary C . Comer John W. Croghan Mrs. Owen Deutsch Stewart S. Dixon Michae l H. Ebner

TRUSTEES Sharon Gist Gilliam M. Hi ll Hammock Arny R. Hecker Harry Howe ll Phi lip W. Hummer Richard M. Jaffee Edgar D. J annotta Barbara Levy Kipper W. Paul Krauss Fred A. Krehbiel Joseph H. Levy Jr.

Mrs.John]. Lou is Jr .

R. Eden Martin Wayne A. McCoy Robert Meers Mrs. Newton N. Minow Potter Pa lmer Margarita Perez Arthur F. Quern Ken Rakowski Cordon I. Segal Edward Byron Smith Jr. James R. Thompson

LIFE TRUSTEES Bowen Blair Philip E. Kelley Mrs. Frank D. Mayer John McCutcheon Andrew Mc ally III Bryan S. Reid Jr. Dempsey J. Travi HONORARY TRUSTEES Richard M. Daley, Mayor, City of Chicago John W. Roger Jr., President, ChicagoPark District The Chicago Historical Society is a privately endowed, independent institution devoted to collecting, interpreting, and presenting the rich multicultural history of Chicago and Illinois , as well as ¡elected areas of American history, to the public through exhibitions , programs, research collections, and publications. It must look LO its members and friends for continuing financial support. Contribution to the Historical Society are taxdeductible, and appropriate recognition is accorded major gift .

The Chicago Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the Chicago Park District's generous support of all of the Historica l Society's activities.

Membership Benefits include free admission to the Historical Society, invitations to special events, Chicago Histo1ymagazine, Past Times, and discounts on all special programs and Museum Store purchases. Family/Dual $50; Student/Senior Family 45; Individual 40; Student/Senior Individual 35.

Hour s The Museum is open daily from 9 :30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.; Sunday from 12:00 NOON to 5:00 P.M. The Library and the Archives and Manuscripts Collection are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 A .M. to 4:30 P.M. The Prints and Photographs Collection is open from I :00 to 4:30 P.M. Tuesday through Thursday and on Saturday. All other re earch collections are open by appointment. The CHS is clo eel on Thanksgiving, Chr istmas, and ew Year' days.

Suggested Adm iss ion Fees for Nonmemb ers Adults, 3; Students (13-22) and Senior Citizens (65 and older), $2; Children (6-12), 1. Admission is free on Mondays.

Web site : http: //www.chicagohs .org Chicago Historical Societ y

Clark Street at North Avenu e

Chica go, Illinoi s 6061 4-6099

3 12-642 -4600

From the Editor In commemoration of the recent 125th ann iversary of the Great Chicago Fire, the staff of the Ch icago Historical Society gathered over pizza and screened the 1938 movie In Old Chicago,a production that climaxes with the blaze that has become legendary. Reactions among the staff were mixed. Although many had seen the film before, some were dismayed by the historical liberties the filmmakers took in telling the story. During the climactic fire scene, for examp le, frightened cattle from the stockyards stampede through downtown Ch icago. A dramatic cinematic moment, to be sure, except that the stockyards were located more than three miles from the fire district and were not even singed by the blaze. My colleagues are not alone in their disapproval of such revisionist history. In the fascinating book Past Imperfect:HistoryAccordingto the Movies, Richard White contributes a scath in g commentary on historical inaccuracies that riddle the 1992 version of The Last of the Mahicans. He notes: "It is not that all the details are wrong; it is that they never were comb ined in this fashion. It is like having George Washington , properly costumed, throwing out the first ball for a 1843 Washington Senators baseball season opener. Sure, there was a George Washington; sure there once were Washington Senators; sure, the president throws out the first ball; sure there was an 1843.

So what's the problem? " I cannot argue with White's cata logue of inaccuracies or his dead-on portrayal of the rationalization process of many a Hollywood filmmaker. But when it comes to historically themed movies, I tend to subscr ibe to movie producer Darryl Zanuck's op ini on that "there is nothing duller on the screen than being accurate but not dramatic. " My biggest objection to In Old Chicagowas not that it was historically inaccurate, but that it did not tell a good story. If its lack lu ster plot had been set against any other backdrop , I would not have watched it for more than fifteen minutes. Historical movies have always encouraged me to "read more about it." When I first saw Gone with the Wind at the impressionable age of twelve, 1 was not only swept up in the romance of Scarlett and Rhett, but also fascinated by the Civil War; the movie (as had the novel) made the war live for me in a way that my textbooks had not. Yet I cou ld not accept the movie's history as the whole history-I went to the libr ary and read books about the period and learned to make a sharper distinction between reality and fiction. The movie came to repre ent to me one perspective of the war, not its definitive history.

When I took American history again in high school, the Civil War held far more meaning for me than what was offered in my textbook.

Many movie have spurred such interest for me. In a high school English class I first saw the brilliant Lion in Winter, which features Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn as Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, a wonderfully witty script, and many historical inaccuracies and inventions. It piqued my interest in twelfth-century England and set me on the road to Anglophilia. More recently, I saw CamilleClaude[,which concern the relation hip between sculptors Claude! and Auguste Rodin. It is one of my favorite movies, but I know quite well that it took dramatic liberties with the real-life story of these two artists. Much to my frustration, I have had a difficult time finding a biography of Claude! that would tell me more about their story.

The most successful historical movies are those that manage to both entertain and teach. While dry history textbooks bore man y students to tears (often with good reason), movies such as Glorycapwr e their imaginations . Although that film also contains some minor historical inaccuracies (see James McPherson' s e say in Past lrnpe1fect),it revea ls to viewers an important and little-known chapter of the experience of African Americans in the Civil War, reaching more individuals than a scholarly journal, book, or a mu eum exhibition ever would. And alth ough some historians may respond to ¡inemati c history a they do to nails on a cha lkboard, as long as Hollywood continues to make mon ) off such mo\ ¡ies, Americans will profit from viewing the pa ton the big screen.

RKA

Expanding Empire: Chicago and the West With its strategiclocationand industrial capabilities,Chicagoplayed an important role in settlementand developmentof the J;-#st.

Olivia Mahoney

Editor 's Note: The subject of this article will be explored morefully in an upcoming exhibition at the Chicago Historical Society, tentatively titled Expand ing Empire: Chicago and the West and scheduledto open in 1998.

After the Civi l War , Chicago played a major role in the conquest and settlement of the Amer ican West. Chicago's role in national expansion fueled the city's phenomenal growth dur ing the late nineteenth century and contributed to its rise as a major metropolis.

Strategica lly located in what Americans then considered the \\'est , and aggressively expanding its ra ilroads and industrie , Chicago became the central link in the nation 's tran portation and communication systems, military headquarters for the United States government's campaigns to subjugate ative Americans living in the West, gateway city for one of the largest migrations in world history, major producer of supplies required for survival on the frontier , and principal marketplace for goods exchanged between the ea tern and western United States. Most of Chicago's major industries, including railroads, meatpacking, agricultural machinery , and mail order merchandise grew as a result of western expansion, and they continued to re ly upon the West as a major market well into the twentieth century.

Although Chicago's role in western expansion reached its culmination after the Civil War, its origins date to the late 1600s when Europeans first explored the area. Indeed, the entire process of American expansion can be Olivia Mahoney is curatorof decorativeand industrialarts at the Chicago Historical Society and curator of the ujJcorningexhibitionon the to/Jicof this article.

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Thi.1 cm1.1 nmr Dr111w11 1h1rnue and the South Branch of 1 the Chica~o River (.1holl'11 here c. 1918) marks t/11 area H•herethe Frenchjell(it mis.1101101) ' Phej11rq11e1 t\1r11q11elll' and Loui.1} 0/iet.1/Jentthe ll 1i11terof 1674.

con id ered a continuation of European expansion into th e ew World , with Chicago as o ne of its central gateways. Strategically located at the confluence of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers , Chicago served as the link between the ea tern and western halves of' North America .

In 167 3, France, having claimed a huge empire in North America known as ew France , consisting of the St. Lawrence River Valley, the pper Great Lake and Canada, sent fur trader Louis Joliet and Pere Jacques Marquette, ajesuit mis ionary , on ajourney to locate the Mississippi River. At the time , many believed the Mis issippi River flowed into the Pacific Ocean , providing a direct route to the lucrative markets of the Far East.

After the Civil War, the rapidlyexpanding railroadsystem gave the city unjJaralleledaccesslo the West.By 1870, three Chicagorailroads-the Chicago& North Western; the Chicago,Rock Island & Pacific;and the Chicago, Burlington & Quine~ had direct routesto Omaha, Nebraska,railheadof the Union Pacific,the eastern half of the nation's new transcontinentalrailroad.

5

Ent.-rcd ft<"--:o rding to Act of Cong,-e" io the year 18:17, io lerks Offi for Nort.bcrnDi&trictof Illinois.

for the District Court of U. S.

For 1110.1t of the 11i11l'lee11th fflll111y, Chirago ro11.11dered il.1elfpart oft he West, a r>il'wthat [;radually rha11gedas the nation exj){/ndedwes/il'([rr/ajier the Ci11i/ll'ar. Dw711{{ this jJenod, i111age.1 oj/l111erirnn Indians and mi/roads becm11efc1111iliar .1ymbo/.1 ofthe.fro11Lier.

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Expanding Empire Starting on May 17 from the mission of St. Ignatius at Michilimackinac, Joliet, Marquette, another Frenchman, and four Native Americans canoed down Lake Michigan to the Fox River, which took them southwest to an overland portage leading to the Wisconsin River.

After reaching the Mississippi River on June 17, Joliet and Marquette headed south, canoed twelve hundred mi les to the Arkansas River, and claimed the entire Mississippi River Val ley for France. On their return voyage, they reached the Illinois River, which led them northeast to the Des Plaines River and the Chicago Portage, a land bridge to the South Branch of the Chicago River, and on to Lake Michigan.

In his report to French authorities, Joliet confirmed the existence of a water route from Lake Erie to the Mississippi River with "Checagou" as the central link . To expedite travel, Joliet suggested that " there would be but one canal to make, by cutting half a league of prairie to pass from the Lake of Illinois [now Lake Michigan], into the St. Louis River [now the Illinois River], which empties into the Mississippi. " Although Joliet 's contemporaries, including the French explorer Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle, scoffed at the idea of a canal linking Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River, Joliet anticipated a project that wou ld be brought to fruition nearly two hundred years later , with the building of the Illinois & Michigan Canal during the American phase of continental expansion. Meanwhile, as part of the French Empire, the Chicago Portage became an important crossroa ds for travel and trade as French fur trapper and ative Americans harvested huge quantities of animal pelts from area rivers and shipped them to Europe via the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers.

France remained the largest colonial power in the ew World until its defeat by its great rival Britain in the French and Indian War ( 175-1-60). B)' the 176 3 Treat)' of Paris , France ceded all of its lands ea t of the ri sissippi River to Great Britain, while pain received the uncharted we tern territories.

Under British rule, Chicago remained part of the international trade network with the Ilud so n Bay's Company, and its rival , the

orthwest Fur Company, controlling the lucrative traffic in furs. British comrol of its American empire collapsed with the American Revolution , and by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the entire area north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River passed to the new nation of the United States of America.

To stake its claim to the riches of the West , the newly formed American government, two years old at the time and desperate for income, adopted the Ordinance of 1785, which provided for the sale of western land .

Two years later , Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, landmark legislation that provided for the political organization of the territory and for all future possessions of the United States. As thousands of settlers poured west, the American government staked its claim to the territory by establishing a line of military forts, including Fort Dearborn on the future site of Chicago. The fort lay within an area still under the influence of Great Britain , which controlled much of the Great Lakes fur trade from Canada via a complex partnership with regional ative American . Life at Fort Dearborn remained relatively quiet until the War of 1812, when Great Britain, waging war with the United States over who would control the lucrative trade of the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes , enlisted a band of Potawatomi Indians to attack and destroy the fort.

Although Chicago remained unsettled by whites until 1816 when American soldiers rebuilt Fort Dearborn, it future as a gateway to the , Vest had not been forgotten.

In fact, its potential seemed even greater, for in 1803 Thoma Jefferson had purchased (i¡om France an immense tract of western land containing some 828,000 acres of land west of In 1803, Thomasjej]erson oversaw the purcha:ieof the Louisiana Tnrilmy from France, allowing the United Stales lo e-cpandwest of the Mississippi.

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C!iirngoHi.1/01)',Spring 1997 the Mississippi River and cast of the Rocky Mountains. Known as the Louisiana Purchase, the area doubled the siLe of the young republic.

Because the Constitution said nothing about acquiring foreign territory, many Americans likened.Jefferson¡s actions to a European quest for empire. In making the purchase, Jefferson conceded that he had stretched the Constitution to the "breaking point," but clefendecl his motives by

8

describing the newly expanded country as "an empire of'liberty."

To impro\'e internal trade and provide access to its western territories, the U.S. government clevelopecl a comprehensive plan of roads and canals known as The Gallatin Plan. It identified several connections between the eastern and western United States, including a canal linking Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River via the Chicago and Illinois River ¡. The Gallatin Plan

Exjxwdi11gE111jJire

echoed Joliet 's, but this time authorities took action. In 1830, the State of Illinois Canal Commissioners devised a plan to construct the Illinois & Michigan Canal. As part of their plan, the commissioners laid out the town of Chicago and sold lots to generate income for the construction of the canal. Chicago boomed and was incorporated as a city in 1833 with a population of one hundred and fifty people. In the same year, by the terms of the Treaty of Chicago, the last of

Above: Stock certificatesjimded the constructionof the Illinois & Mirhigrm Canal. Left: This lithogm/Jhby Currier and Iv es, c. 1845, ro11u111lically /Jortrayecla canal by 1110011/ight.

At the lime, canalsJnovided the.fc,stestand most economimlmodeoftmnsportotion.

the remaining ative Americans left the area, forced westward across the Mississippi by the federal government to live on reservations in the unsettled te1Titory of Iowa.

Chicago's canal workers broke ground in 1836 but financial difficulties delayed the canal's completion until 1848. The Illinois & Michigan Canal provided Chicago with direct access to the Mississippi River, and operated as a profitable trade route between the city and its western hinterlands for more than twenty years.

The canal became Chicago's lifeline, with the city supplying consumer goods to smaller outlying communities and receiving agricultural products for consumption and trade.

Chicago's future as gateway to the West, however, lay with the railroads. In 18..J:8,the same year as the Illinois & Michigan Canal opened, Chicago's first railway, the Galena & Chicago Union, began operations with a line along Kinzie Street to Maywood. Originally founded in 1837 to connect Chicago with the booming lead mine district near Galena in northwest Illinoi , the Galena & Chicago Union had failed in its first year, largely as a result of the Great Panic of 1837. Reorganized by energetic entrepreneur William Butler Ogden , the railway quickly turned a profit.

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ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997 Ogden, originally from New York, moved to Chicago in 1835. He made extensive real estate investments and became active in local politics. In 1836, al the age of thirty-one, Ogden became Chicago's first mayor and sen¡ed a one-year term. Ogden also backed the Illinois & Michigan Canal, constructed over one hundred mi !es of city streets, and built the first swing bridge over the Chicago River at Clark Street.

Perhaps no person labored more intently than Ogden to transform Chicago into a great city. Described by a contemporary as someone who "seemed to have the whole land within his brain ," Ogden strongly supported western expansion and became a leading spokesman for the construction of a transcontinental railroad to link the growing nation together. Like other promoters of the "Iron Horse," Ogden viewed the railroad as "the great work of the age," one that would elevate America to greatness by stimulating trade.

By the late 1840s, America had become a transcontinental empire. Between 1845 and 1848, the nited States had acquired an aclclitional 1.2 million qua re miles of territory, or nearly one-third of its total area. This phase of American expansion occurred through a series of disputed acquisitions, including the Texas Annexation from Mexico (1845), the Oregon Purchase from Britain (1846), and the Treaty of

Incorporated in 183 7, the Ga/ma & Chicago U11io11 Railway officially began operations i111850 with a line extendi11gto Elgi11,Jortymiles west of Chicago.in 1864, the company merged with the Chicago & North Western Railway. Above: The passenger depot al the corner of North Wellsand North Water Streets,c. 1880.

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William Buller Ogrlf11,Chirago'sflnt mayor, built two i111porla11/ mi/roadsand /1/ayeda keyroll'in developi11g the nation'.1 f1nt lra11 ,1ro11ti11e11tal mi/road. Painting by G. P. ;I_ Healy, 1855.

Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican \Var (1848). This va t region included the present states of Texas, New Mexico , AriLona, parts of Colorado and Wyoming , tah, cvada, California , Oregon, Washington, Idaho , and a portion of Montana.

Although most mid-nineteenth century Americans believed in ~lanilcst Destiny, which purported that they had a God-given right to spread their institution and way of life over the entire continent, a host of troubling question a1¡ose concerning the western territories.

What was their place in the Union? Would the slave system of the South extend westward, or would it be barred as it had been in the Old Northwest? Finally, how could such a large country with competing sectional interests be held together?

For many Americans, technology provided the means to unify the count1-y. They believed that con tructing a tran continental railroad would physically and spiritually unite the nation. Although many Chicagoans at the time failed to recognize the importance of the railroad to the city's future, those who dreamt

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Above: Chicago's railroad indusl1yspawned dozens of localsubsidiaries,inr/11 ding the J ames F. Griffin Company, man11facturers of railway lanterns. Around the time of its me,ga with the ChicagoNorth Western Railway in 1864, the Galnw & Chicago Union presented this silve1jJlated oil lantern lo its assistant su/Jerintendenl, Edward H. Williams, in recognition of his serviceto the com/Jany.

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Lefl: This 185 7 broadside advertises the Galena & Chicago Union Railway's various /Jassen.ger lines.

The com/Jany also maintained extmsive freig ht o/Jerations,shipping tons of goods between the city and its hinterlands.

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11

C:liiragoJ-Iisl01) ', S/Hing J 997

This 111a/J ji-0,11the Burlington Roule Guide, jJllbfohedin 1885, 1hmrnlumâ&#x20AC;¢.far the Chiwgo, 8urli11gto11 , & Q11i11cy Railroad had swpassed its early ro11te1 co1111ffling !lli11oi.1(I/Idlmu(I. 12

Expa11di11g EllljJirP

13

ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997

This 111a/J fimn AppleLon 's Illustrated Railroad Guide , r. I 858, illustrates !he Jl/inois Centra/ 's route between Cairoand Chicago.Afin the Civil War, the Jllinois Central e.\/Hmdedwestward acros.1!ht' 1\/ississi/JjJiinto Imm.

of building a Lran continental railroad factored Chicago directly into their plans. Asa Whitney of ew York, an early champion of Lhe Lranscontinental railroad, identified Chicago as a "Lerminus on Lake Michigan " from which a line would extend across Lhe Great Plains, through the south pass of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean , providing access not only to the American \\'est, but to the Far East as well. As a route Lo the fabled East, Whitney's plan recalled the early European explorers as they searched the ew World for a water route to Asia. In 18-16, Senator Sidney Breese or Illinois submitted to Congress a favorable report on WhiLney's plan. Breese 's report alluded to Chicago as the "grand central junction point" from where materials, particularly timber for the rail tics, could be found and shipped westward. Its water connections to the East would allow for the shipment of laborers, settlers, and supplies from the "Atlantic cities ... to the starting point." Located in the center of a global transportation web, Chicago could be reached from either coast in four days and from China in thirty days.

Although Breese failed to persuade Congress, he and Whitney had laid the groundwork for the foture. During the late 1840s, talk of a transcontinental railroad filled the air. In Chicago, se\'eral thousand delegates attending the 184 7 River and Harbor Con\'ention heard William M. Hall of Buffalo extol the virtues of a "national road to the Pacific." Like Whitney and Breese, Hall identified the Far East as the ultimate destination: 14

"This, sir , is Lhe road to India! This is Lhe great 'western passage' for which contending nations ha\'e struggled for centuries. " Among those attending the convention were '" 'illiarn B. Ogden and Abraham Lincoln, then a )'Oung congressman from Springfield, Illinois.

In time, both men would help complete the dream ofa transcontinental railroad.

At the second annual meeting of the Pacific Railroad Convention held in Philadelphia in Apri I 1850, delegates elected Chicagoan William 8. Ogden as president. Addressing the convention, Ogden supported WhiLney 's plan and encouraged the federal government to fund the project. Like other railroad men , Ogden belie\'ed that national expansion and the building of the transcontinental railroad would offer security, permanency, and profit to the young nation and its citizens. In addition to their commercial importance , Ogden believed that railroads provided for the "more rapid diffusion of light and knowledge, " increased Lhe "personal relations and friendly feeling of the people of the same country ," and promoted "kindl)' intercourse and better acquaintance and understanding between Lhe people of neighboring , tales and countries."

By 1850, Ogden's railroad , the Galena & Chicago Union, had reached Elgin , a small town located on the Fox River , forty miles west of Chicago. ,\ journer that once took a full clay by horse and wagon now took less than two hours. The rail line became an important trade route as city merchants shipped their goods westward to rural areas while \\'estern farmer~ ~ent their grain and livestock eastward lo Chicago.

A decade of furious railroad expansion in Illinois followed. In 1851, the state chartered two major rail lines: the Illinois Central , a north-south line running between Chicago and Cairo , Illinois, and the Chicago 8:.Rock Island , an east-west line linking Chicago to the Mississippi River and its lucrati, e river boat traffic.

Employing large crews of Irish laborers, the Chicago & Rock Island completed its 181-rnile line to the Mis issippi within three years. The new line provided a faster and cheaper route to the Mississippi River than the parallel routes of the Illinois & Michigan Canal and the Illinois River. In 1855 , the Galena & Chicago Union

Ex/x111di11p; E111/ Jire reac h ed th e Mississ ippi a t Fult o n , Iowa, fo rsa kin g it s o ri g in a l d es tin a ti o n o f"Ga le n a in n o rthw es t Illin o is for m o re lu cra ti\ 'e co nn ec tions in easte rn Iowa . Th e yea r 1856 pro ved to be m o me nt ou s f"o r C hi cago ra ilroa d s: th e Illino is Ce ntral co mpl eted its 70::i-lllile lo ng lin e (re port edl y th e lo n ges t in th e wo rld ), th e Chi cago, Burlin g ton & Quin cy Ra ilro a d , a m,~or lin e with ex te nsive wes te rn conn ec tio n s in Iowa, beca me incorp orated , and th e C hicago & Rock Isla nd co mpl e ted th e fir st ra ilroa d brid ge ove r th e Mississippi Ri\'e r. T he d eca d e close d with th e fcmn a tio n o f th e C hicago No rth Western Ra ilway. Its o rig ina l rout e co nsisted o f J 77 mil es o r lin e be twee n C hi cago a nd Fo nd du Lac, Wisco nsin , but durin g th e nex t deca d e, und e r th e d yn a mi c lea d e rship o f Willi a m B. O g d e n (form er ly th e h ea d o f th e Ga le n a & Chicago Unio n), th e co lllpan y grew into o ne o r Ame rica's m ajor lin es with additi o na l ex te nsio ns in Wisco nsin a nd Iowa .

An ex p a ndin g colllrnuni ca ti o n s ne two rk acco lllp a nied Chi cag o 's ra pidl )' gro win g tra nsp o rt a ti o n indu str y. Durin g th e 18::i0s, .Jo hn Dea n Ca to n o r C hi cag o , a n e nt e rpri sin g Supr e m e Co urt Ju stice o f Illin o is, o rga ni1.ed th e Illin o is & Mississippi T e leg ra ph Co mp a ny.

Cat o n sec ur ed co ntr ac ts with a ll o f C hi cago's rrnuo r ra ilro ad co mp a ni es , includin g th e

Abo<11': Chirngo \ /1n/ lorn111otive. · rh e Pio nee r, r. I 865.

1 11' in Cm tmfia, JlfiBe/011 .1r :e11traffoco111oti1 : , 111l ffi11oi 1wi.1, I 860 .

T/11.11 '1t,l!,1m1mg ofi\lichiga11, lvmue/ro111R11/l/lof/1h Stf'l'l'i by R.0011/1·11ri11(a/11'111 lithogmJ;h by.fr1•11i& , l/111i11i). r. 1865, of the l //11101 .1 r:e11tmlR11ifm11d, u•hidt ro1111nted dm1•11.1/all' l !li11oi., u•ith c:f1irngo.

1/11111• .1 the lmrk1

15

Chirago Hislo1y, Spring 1997

J ohn Dea11Ca/011,l//inoi.1S11/ne111e Courl.Jtl.\liceand organizer of the !lli1wi.1& Mi.1.1issi/J/JiTelegm/J/zCom/H111y.

LI 11dated photogm/Jhby J.,e11i D. Boo11e .

Chi cago & No nh \\' es te rn Ra ilway, th e Chicago, Burlin gton &.:Quin cy, and the Illino is Ce mr al. Within a few yea rs, th e Illin ois &.:Mississippi Te legraph Co m pa ny beca me one of th e na tio n 's larges t te leg ra ph syste m s with a n ext ensive network o f lines thr oug hout th e Mississippi River Valley.

T hu s, by th e tim e of th e Ci,¡il War , Chicago had beco me a maj or tr a nsport atio n and co mmuni ca ti o ns ce nt e r. T h e wa r ac tu ally be nefit ed Chi cago by stimul a tin g its 1m~jor indu stri es. C hi cago r a ilroa d s humm ed wit h ac tivit y as th ey tr a n sp o rt ed troo p s an d su ppli es to th e fro nt lin ei>. T he m ea tpac kin g indu st ry, a lo ng with th e p rod uctio n o r mec hanica l harvesters, boo med in response to a n in cr ease d d e ma nd for foo d . T h e wa r a lso se ttl ed seve ral issues re lated to th e We t a nd th e futur e o f Chicago .

Th e Wes t had fig ur ed p ro min e nll y in th e cri ses th a t led to th e war. Beg innin g in the l 82 0s a nd co ntinuin g thr o ug h th e 1850s, Am eri ca n s p ass io na te ly d e ba ted th e sla,¡er y issu e as it re la ted to t he \\' es t. Ma ny No rthe rn e r s want ed to kee p sla\'er y o ut o r th e wes te rn territ ori es, be liev in g th a t th e We t sho uld be pr ese rved fc:>r whit es see kin g new 16

o pp o rtuni ties, a n outl e t," in th e word s o r Abr a ha m Lin co ln , " for free whit e p eo pl e eve rywh e re, th e wo rld ove r- in whi ch H a ns, and Ba pti ste, a nd Pa tri ck, and a ll oth er me n from all the world , may find hom es and better th e ir co nditi on in life." So uth e rn e rs, m ea n whil e, be lieve d th at th ey had a co nstituti o na l ri g ht to ex te nd th e ir eco no mi c syste m o r slave ry as th ey mo ve d wes twa rd. Eve ntu a lly, th e debate ove r slave ry a nd its ex tensio n int o th e wes te rn territ o ri es led to th e cri ses th a t pr o du ced th e C i\'il Wa r . Afte r fo ur yea r s o r bloo dy conf-lic t, No rth ern \'ictory and the abolitio n o f slave r y g ua ra nt ee d th a t th e \Ves t would re main free. o rt hern victory also ensur ed th e pr ese nce o f a stro ng, ce ntr a l gove rnm e nt. Durin g th e war, th e size a nd powe r o r th e fed eral gove rn ment had gro wn , re plac ing a form er uni on o f states th a t e nj oye d co nsid era ble pow e r at th e loca l leve l. After the So uth 's surr e nd e r , th e co nsolidatio n of power co ntinu ed as Co ngress auth o ri1,ed m ass ive new pr og ra m s for de \'e l-

Ex/Ja11di11g E111/Jir1 ' opmenL in the South and \Vest. ln the South, the government's plan, known as Reconstruction, was aimed at granting citi,:enship rights for rorrner slaves and in rebuilding a society shattered by war. In the \\'esL, Lhe rederal government rocused on opening the region to seLLlernent and econon11c development.

Together, 1\merica's rederal programs or the postwar period attempted to restore, unify, and renew the counLry along the lines or Northern socieLy with its emphasis on the virtues of free labor and capitalism. A new form or American nationalism had arrived.

Two important measures passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Lincoln during the Civil \\'ar provided the means to settle the \\'est. The HomesLead Act, passed in 1862, provided thaL any man or woman over the age of twenty-one who headed a family could obtain Litle to 160 acres or public land provided he or she lived on the land for five years and made improvements. The Union Pacific Act, also passed in

1862, authorized the construction ora rail line from Omaha, ebraska, Lo Utah, where it would meet Lhe Central Pacific Railroad from California. The ambitious plan, based on earlier plans from the 1840s, entailed crossing some of the counLry's mosL rugged terrain and iL had more than its share of skcpLics who doubted such a feat could ever be accornplishecl. The transcolllinental railroad, however, had strong backing in Chicago.

A Republican stronghold throughout the Civil War and its arLcrrmllh, Chicago had a sLrong presence in \\'ashington, D.C., wiLh SenaLor Lyman H. Trumbull and Representative Isaac . Arnold. Adhering to the Republican Party plaLform, boL11Trumbull and Arnold supported the transcontinental railroad and worked Lo secure a route favorable Lo Chicago.

Right: A I 9 I 2 111odeljor Do11iel C:.French\ .1/o/11e o/ 11/mtl1a111

f,inm/11ff/'/'led ol the rn/1itolin U11t0l11, Ne/1m.1/w. U11co/11, a lo11gti111!' .111/1/}0rfer of the /ra11.11011/i11mtal mi/rood, .1ig11ed thP l '11io11 Pori/u Art i111862.

t,jt: The M1Com1irk 11u11111/artured i11C:hirngo,b1'f11111e 011eof the /Jri11wrr/Jiffe1 o/ogrirn/tural 1'q11iJ;111e11/ wed in the We.1/. It n1obledjon11ers 011t/11 , (;rm/ P/11i11 .1 lo /Jrod11ffgmi11011a 11111 .1.1 .1mle jar ll'Olld COll.\l/ lll/J/io11.

L'11dotedlithogmj,/i. //o11w1/a,

17

ChicagoHisto1y,Spring 1997 On September 3, I 862, shortly after Lincoln signed the bill authorizing construction of the Union Pacific, the Union Pacific Company held its first meeting in Chicago at Bryan Hall , and elected Chicago's leading railroad promoter , William B. Ogden, as its first president. As a state railroad commissioner appointed by Congress, Ogden had the authority to sell two million dollars worth of stock to private investors to "aid in the construction of a Rail Road and Telegraph Line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean."

After serving for one year, Ogden resigned from the Union Paci fie to concen trace his energies on the Chicago & North Western Railway. Although the war had delayed construction of the Union Pacific, it had not stopped Chicago railroads from marching westward. Anticipating the construction of the Union Pacific 's rail head al Omaha, ebraska, the Chicago & North Western , the newly renamed Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific , and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad companies raced one another to reach Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the eastern banks of the Mis ouri River, opposite Omaha.

In better financial shape than its competitors, the Chicago & North Western reached Council Bluffs first in December 1867. By

then, the Union Pacific had completed its line lo North Platte , 291 miles beyond Omaha.

Chicago now stood in the unique and lucrative position of being the only city with a direct line to the transcontinental railroad (St. Louis , Chicago's great rival, did not complete its line to the Union Pacific until July 1869). As victor, the Chicago & orth Western won the coveted prize of supplying the Union Pacific with construction supplies, including rails, timber , and iron for bridges. As a re ult of the Chicago connection, co nstruction 011 the Union Pacific line accelerated. Previously , construction supplies had been shipped up the Missouri River, a wide but shallow stream, navigable for only three to four months of the year.

On May 10, 1869, little mor e than nve nty years after its inception, the transcontinental railroad became a reality with the driving of the golden pike joining the Central Pacific with the Union Pacific al Promontory, Utah. Chicago joined the nation in marking the momentous occasion with a "spontaneous and grand" celebration. According to the Chirngo Tribune, fifty thousand people lined Michigan and \\'abash t\\'enues lo watch a SC\'en-milc-long parade that lasted four hours. The celebration, "free from the atmosphere of'warlike energy and suggestions of suffering, clanger, and death ... that

A.1ml'111bn.1 of Unroln ¡.1 Rej)l{/J/ira11 Congre.1 .1, Snwtor i ,_)'111a11Trumbull 1e Isaac Arnold (left) and Repre.1entalii of lllin o11 (abo,ie) 111pj1ortedthe building of the tramcontinental railroad along a route Jiwomble to lheir amstiluem)'¡

18

[

Exjx111dingEmpire

Abmw: Completedin 1869, the 11alio11\lm111rn11/i11e11/a/ mi/road, ojie11referredlo a.1 llze '/!:,eatnational highway," linked C:hirngo1111d the W1,.1/i11a rn111plnl'l'latio111hi/1 //wt 11/jffledthe ffo1wmil, /10/itiml,1111d rnlluml life ojllze rnlire nation. Maj) Ji-om Union Pacific Railroad.

Right: Thi' 1111lio11 ce/ebm/1'(/lhl' 1110111e11lol/.\co111/Jielw11 of!he lm11.1wnli11mlalmi/road wilh som 11'11il'I .111ch a,1lhi.1gla.1.1 j1/a/l1 'rfea/11ring a Union Pr1t1/I( lorn111ol11lf.

Far 1ighl: !n11111gm11/ lahoren, /11w/011111111l1 '/_\'C:hml's1 ' 1111d lmh. rn11,/111( i!'d !hi' lm11,t011/1111 '11i11I 1111/m11d. '/11i., rn111111e111om// 11f'/11rk1111d .,hml/'I, 11 .,1'd 011!hi' l 111w11 Pao/tr Hr11/rn11d 111 1862, h1¡rn1111' /)(11/ of !hi' (,'/11rngo //i.1/m1rn/ Soul'ly\ rnlln//011111/920.

19

Chirngo Hi:,lory,S/J1i11g1997 threw their oppressive shadow over the celebration of our victories during the war for the Union" see111edto be "Ii.illof peace and glorious in its promise of enlarged prosperity and happiness.'' Many believed that, thanks to the railroad, a great future lay ahead for the nation and for Chicago. r\s expressed in The Great U11io11

ParificRailroad/E,;;nmio11 to the H1111dreth Meridian in 1867: The adl'antages of'the railroad are as g,·eat politically and socially. The)' dirri.,se information and promote intercourse and \\'ill band the State, of' the Union together so clm,ely that they cannot be ,unclerecl by treason .... ,\nd Chicago, ho\\' proudly \\'ill he gr<J\\ in the fuLU1·e1 • • She stands no\\' a young giant, and " ·ill Lmrer cenlllries in Lhe ruture ,till ll1(ffe p1·oudlr and grandl)', extending her innuence rrom the Atlamic LO \\'here the golden 11 ·m-c, of the Pacific lash the shores of California.

Beyond the parades and rhetoric, completing the transcontinental railroad marked a watershed for r\111erica and opened up vast new possibilities for an expanding nation.

Referred to as the national highway, the transcontinental railroad prO\·ided fast, cheap transportation to distant places. encouraged 111ass migration from the eastern United States and Europe to the \\'est, and stimulated commerce and trade.

11': I larper\ \\'eckly d1'fnrtl'IIth,, rnmJJ/1 . 11Hn ,tion of the l'111011 Pari/1cin the May 29, I 869 i.111w, l111rrirr1111 co111ir/1 'll'rl the rn111JJ/1 ,11011 o/ the tm11.1ro11/i111 '11/a/mihoud /Jmof of the 11alio11 '.1 /Jrog//'11 . Till'_)' al10 ;111 '11'('(/ the 1wlmr11/ {/\ II //l( ' /111.\ lo (/)/1/li ' Ci , lllll'nrn l/ 1/h £11111/)( ' /llld thefr1bled11/(IJ"kl'i.1 1if,-J.11a.

1

Left: 011th,, 1'J11 '11i11g o/May /0, 1869, The Chicago I'ribunc, 1/a1111ch 111J1J1orln of th1' rm/road inr/111/1)'and 11ation11I l'\/11111 .1io11,il/11111i1111ted its neu• building on !hi' 1011/heaslcorner of Dmrbom and ,\lad1.,m1 Streets in honor 1j the ro111JJll'lio11 oft he tm111co11/i11e11/al railroad. J!/111lmtio11 fro111Harper's \\'eek I), May 22, I 869.

20

Ex/1rmdi11g Empire

By the late 1860s, the Chirngo & North Wes/em Railway J1remierrailroads;like other had becomeone of the 11alio11's Chiragomi/mods, ii Jm1speredlwgely as a resultof its co11nerlio11slo the flle.1/.

Yale Uni\'ersity Press, 1993). A. T. Andreas's l-listo1yof Chicago(New York: Arno Press, 1973, reprint of 1884 edition) provides a contemporary view. For detailed information on two of the railroad lines that helped open communications between Chicago and the West, see Richard Ovenon's Burlington Roule:A Hist01yof the BurlingtonUnes ( ew York: AJfrecL\. Knopf, 1965) and Roger Grant's The North Western:A Hislo,y ofthe Chicago and North We.1tl'rnRailway (DeKa lb: Nonhern Illinois University Press, 1996).

For Chicago, having access to the transcontinental railroad and to the West ushered in an era or rapid growth. By 1870, two more Chicago lines-the Chicago, Rock Island &:.Pacific and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy-had made connections with the Union Pacific, giving Chicago three direct line s to the \\'est. Most or the nation 's passenger and freight traflic now flowed through Chicago, supplying it with a steady ~ource or income and igniting a period of tremendous growth. Chicago, as envisioned by two centuries of explorers and entrepreneurs, had indeed become America's gateway to the West and kc)' to a New \\'oriel empire. fC)R fl ' IUIIER RF..\DI:--i(; For an men ie\1 of the relation,hip of Chicago and the \\'e,1, read \\'illiam Cronon\ Nu/1111'\,\letmpoli.1:C:himgo and //11 , G11 't// 11'1',I( 'e11York: \\ '. \\ '. Norton &: Co., 1991) and ,olume '.!of the ,erie, 1111 >Shup111g o/A111e1ica: 1I Grngm/1l11ml Pl'/sperti111 ' 011500 ) 1,an o/l-li1/01y,D. \\ '. r.!einig\ Co11li111'11/al , l111erirn 1800-1867 (Ne11 1Ja,¡en:

I LLUSTRAT! 0 l\S 4, CHS Prints and Photographs Collection; 5, from Ho w lo Go I Vest( 1872), CHS Library; 6, from Chicago Alagazine: The IVeslas fl f , (March 1837), CHS Library; 7, CJ-IS, ICJ-Ii-23257; 8-9, ICJ-Ii-220 IO; 9 Lop, ICI-Iil--!131; 10 top, CJ-IS Paintings and Sculpture Collection; IO bottom, CJ-IS, ICHi-14973; 11 left , CHS, lCJ-Ii-14973; 11 right, CHS Decorati\'e and Industrial Ans Collection; 12-1 3, from The Burlington Route Guidf ( 1883 ), CHS Libra11¡; 14, from Aj1plelo11 's lllu slmted Railroad Guide (April 1838), CHS Library; 13 top, CIJS, ICHi-03212 ; 15 middle, Cl-IS Prints and Phot0gi-aphs Collection; 13 bottom, CHS, ICHi06861; 16 top, er IS, ICHi-22323; 16--17, CHS, ICJ--Ii14890; 17, CHS Paintings and Sculpture Collection; 18 left, Cl IS, ICHi-2--1883;18 right, Cl-IS Prints and Photographs Collection; 19 top, from Union Pacific Railroad, ( 1867), Cl IS Library; 19 left and 19 right, CJ-IS DecoraLi\'e and Industrial Ans Collection; 20-21. from l-ltnjJer's Weekly (May 29, 1869) , CHS Library; 20 bouom, from l-lmj1er's Weekly (Ma)' 22, 1869), CI IS Libra,)"; 21 top, CHS, ICHi-2168--!

21

"We Do Have to Work Hard" A young schoolteacher'slettershomeprovide a glimpse into public schools and everydayl~fein 1870s Chicago.

Katherine R. Morgan "I feel now as if 4 years was long enough Lo Leach but suppose, I shall be rea dy for work again when the Lime comes." Writing these words in 1872, Chicagoan Mary Towne resigned herself to another year of teaching, noL suspeCLing thaL she would go on Lo teach for ten more )'ears. 1ary's career renecls the feminization of th e teaching profession: belween 1840 and 1880 , two years before she would gel married and encl her teac hing career, women came Lo comprise 80 percenL or Lhe elemenlary school Leac hing force.

Women had alwa)'s be e n Leachers within Lhe family circle, bul it wasn 't ulllil the early nin eteenth century that women began to tea c h professionally in positions created by the prolif-

eration o["common" (public) schools. A confluence of events set the stage for teaching to become a rn,ijor profession for women. Early in th e century, Catharine Beecher, daughter of the famous preacher Lyman Beecher and a philosopher in her own right, wrote that teac hing in public schools was the natural out-

Katherine Morga11, grl'{//-gmnddo11ghter ofMa,y Tmune, .1Choo/ /earhn in D11rha111, N1ri.1â&#x20AC;˘ is a u riter and .1eco11(/a1y f-lamp.,hirl'. She i., also th,, l'ditor of My E\'er Dea1¡ Daughter , My 011n Dear Mother: The Correspondence of'Julia Sterne Towne a nd Ma1-yJulia Towne, I 868-1882 (Univnii ty of / 0tl'(t Pre.1.1,1996).

1

Mary Towne, .1'1011 11 at lejt u ith her .1011 i111888, wor/1erl a.1a schoo/tearherfor jo11rtn11year.1b11/ore111an)'i111;. .1.

1im11o/Jenlo women at Tmr/1i11gwa:, one of the fi,11fmifi> the ti11111.

1

1

1

22

arowth of women's roles as mothers and moral t, leaders in the domestic realm. Suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others argued for women's voices in the political realm and for expanded participation of women in public life in general. Women played a significant role in the abolitionist movement, and immediately after the Civil War, young Northern women went LO the South to educate the newly freed African Americans. The growth of the western frontier, the business opportunities created by this growth, and increasing industrialization in the onheast drew young men out of the teaching profession, thus creating a need that women were quick to fill.

One young woman who took adnrntage of these social trends was l\1ary Julia Towne.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 18-l-6, she attended Bradford ,\cademy in Bradford, Massachusetts, for two years beginning in 1863. Bradford offered a four-year course of study to women identical to that offered at Princeton University. By the time she finished at Bradford, Mary's father, a Brooklyn merchant, had moved his family to his childhood home in Topsfield, Massachusetts. His business had been in an area of Manhattan where the Union Conscription Act of 1863 provoked widespread opposition by workingmen who could not afford to buy their way out of the

.lh01't': : I k111dr1grirten r/u.1.1 at C/11rng11\ll'illurd Srhoo/ 011 Sheldon St1n'I i111885. Pr1111111y .1rh110l.1 uâ&#x20AC;˘ere rn11.1idered r111

l'\lm .1w11ofth1' do11w.1/ir .1JJl1ell' and th11 .1uj1Jm1J11-iale workjJ/ace1 for uâ&#x20AC;˘o1111 '1/.

23

Chirago History, SjJring 1997

., .

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Po.1tage and writing /Ja/H 'I' wne /u\ ·//ril' .1/hr a yo1111g11'1}rl<i11g 11 •0111r111 i11I 868. Ill lhe.11 ' lelln .1 lo hl'I' 11wlhl'I'all(/ /Jmihl'I', /\/my Towne 111£1Yi111i ud hl'r writing 1/Jare.

draft. Four days of Draft Riots destroyed life and propeny and may hm ·e forced Ezra Towne to close his business.

In 1868, after spending t\\'O years with her family in Topsfield, Mary journeyed Lo Chicago in search of better health and gain(i.d employment. \\'ork on the farm at Topsfield sapped her strength, and Chicago was believed to be a healthy city as a result of the constant winds off the lake that \\'ere thought to cleanse the air . Moreover, she had purchased a piano on credit from her uncle, a Boston piano maker, but could not earn enough money in rural Topsfield to pay for it.

Her cousin Maria Noyes had alread)' settled in Chicago as a teacher, and another cousin, Perley Collings, \\'Orkecl in a lumberyard, so Mary had an establi heel kinship network.

Chicago was booming, and Mary soon found work teaching in the evening schools that

sc,ved the rapidly growing immigrant population-both adults and children-who had to \\'Ork during the cla)'. In addition, Mar')' substituted in day schooh until ,he obtained an appointment as a fi.dl-time teacher. She \\'rote regular!) to her mother, and through her letters, we can see that early Chicago education was highly innm ·ati\'e in respon,e LO the needs of a growing immigrant population, as well as already strnggling with issues such as paying salaries on time, large class si1es, and training teachers Lo beuer meet student needs. Mary began her correspondence on September 23, 1868: Dea1· folbPerhap, ,·ou may think i1 fimli,h and thoughtle~~ to \\'rite home so ofien but I am earning enough to wa1Tan1 one letler a week. I commenced teaching Monday E\'e-As a 1·e\\'ard or rc~ult of' m)· good

,

"We Do Ha ve lo Work Hard " exa mination I was a ppointed LO the high est ro o m.

J had some twe nt y scholars among th e m cle,·ks, artists, book-keepers &c eve n to some aged 30 who wished lo imp, -ove themselv es in so me particular bi-anch. I did not much else but organize classes &c. & iryou co uld see me sta lking around th e room dir ecting th ese, advising tho se, & exercising co ntrol over all you would think m e quit e changed. The Principa l visits my room and mak es some complimentary remarks as lo the general appearance & progress.

In order to teach in Chicago, Mat-y had to pass an examination that qualified her for a "partial" certificate. She received he r certificate September 29, 1868. A printed note on the bottom or the certificate indicat e d that th e holder would receive a "full " certificate when "the holder prov es specially successful in all matLers or instruction and discipline. " Knowing her famil y would be concerned about her financial situation, Mary informed the m th at a fter he r appointment as a substitute teacher , she would earn $2.20 p er clay in addition to her eve ning school pa y of$2.00 per clay.

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i\Jrny Towne loo//on examination lo eam her 'Teacher'.1 Partial Cn!if1cate(ahove);after successful classroome-.:perience, Mrny gained herfull certifirate (he/ow).

23

Chicago Histo,y, S/Jring 1997

EXERCISE AN~

46.-READING AND

TIER

LESSON. BIRD.

Ann had a bird by the name of Ned, which she kept in a neat wire cage.

Ann was quite fond of Ned . Ile would hop round his cage, and sing for an hour at a time.

One day, when Ann went to feed Ned, and give him some drink, she left tho door o~e cage open, and went out in tl.te yard to plij. , Ned flew down on the floor to pick up the J crumbs of bread, and the sly old gray cat caught ! him, and ran off with him . .Ann heard the cry of her bi rd, and ran to save his life ; but she was too late. Her poor bird was <lead l f Tho blood mn out of the wounds which had , been made by the sharp nails and teeth of the cat. f Ann took poor Ned, and sat down and wept $ for a long time, to think she should no more ! hear the sweet song of her dear bird, and that

l

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26

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"We Do Have to Work Hard "

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SECTION

VIII. EXERCISE 47.

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1

Ea~y words of t"·o sylln!:>les,.fu1-ther illustrating the first sound of • aI c, i, o, and u, arranged prnuns cuously.

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i

du.' ty fu cl ga la ha lo ha zy he ro JU ry la <ly

bi' as

: bo ny I ca ny

1

: co ny j <li al l di et ! du el s du ly

s

!

ExEncrsE

a,' corn a pril 'i bak er bi b1e bi son i bu gle $ cam bric chi na 1 f;I

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al' bum al um f an vil J ap p 1e at las asp en bagpipe i; i,,

po' ny po $y pu ny re al ri ot ro $y ru by sa go

lit' ma Ji on 1111 ca mi v:; p~ an p1 ca .po cm po et

cI' der clo ver co Ion era dle en er <lfv er fly ~g go mg

EXERcrsE

l' f

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m::i:'ple mu $ic pa per pok er rid er shav er smok y spi der as in at. dan'' gle flan nel gal Ion gan der gar ret grav el ham, mer

What sound has s in the words posy, ros.11 , and l hard or soft sound, in the word tiger 1 Why is a double acceut l

f

I I

ston' y ti ger to per tru ant tu lip vot er wa fer ze bra

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Fourth sound of A, band' box cam' let bar rel can dlc blad der can dy . bran d,v cat tlc cab bage chap cl cab in chap ter cam el damp er

f marked with

!

so' da so fa so lo au et ti dy to ry ve to z1 on

48.

grit' vy gro ccr gru el i' cy la cllc Ii lac lo cust mak er

!

hand' y hat ter lad der Ian cet : land ing Ian tern lap dog

.

1 Has g a J

music 1 the word dangle

See page 17.

+• •••••-• •• •• •• •• • •• • 2* ••

,

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J\JaryTowne /nobably used a textbooksimilar lo this 1856 reading /Jrimer,Sande1-s' New Speller , Definer , a nd Analyzer , by Charles W. Sanders, in her classroom.

27

Chirngo Histo,y, Spring 1997 H er d aily ca rfar e Loa nd fi·om schoo l was twent y ce nt s. Durin g th e tim e sh e La ug hL in bo th clay a nd eve nin g sc hoo ls, sh e wr o te, "s ta rt e d thi s ,\..\1. al 7 ½ & ha\'e j usLr e LUrned al 5 :i; 1. Sha ll ju st h a\'e tim e Lo eat a h ea n y supp er o f poac hed o r fried eggs & co ld h am and leave in Lime Lo r eac h sc h oo l-h o u se al 7 . Pr e ll )' cl ose work isn·t it?, buL p ays we ll ... Ca n 't I a ffo rd Lo writ e a le tt e r h o m e if r a m ca r e ful o f m o n ey elsewise ::-"ILcos l Mary two ce nt s Lo ma il a leLter h o m e, but until sh e ha d stea d y wo rk , sh e a pp a r e ntl y co u11Le d eve ry p e nn y. Sh e co n tinu ed in Lhis le u er Lo d esc ri be her sub sLiLuL e Leac hin g ex pe rie nce in th e clay choo l: \\'h e 1·e I now a m in schoo l, th ey had a sub,t itu te all a lo ng who co ttld n 't ma nage the you ng~ters a l a ll. T here are 60 abo ut IO 8.: 12 )'r~. o ld . Ha\'e ha d goo d di sciplin e bu t , h e wa , un expe ri e n ced and th ey nm aro und an d sho u ted as th ey p lca~ed in spit e of her remo nstr a nces &c. No such work ha\·e I ha d. T he Prin cipa l ca m e in thi s r\.\l. a nd app ea 1·ed mu ch p lease d to find the roo m so quiet a nd or d e rly & to ld o ne of th e teac he rs wh o to ld

me th at "h e had a sub. now wh o was equ a l to th e p lace." 1\.ncl not only do I have no tro ubl e but l am e njoy ing su ch good h ea lth n ow th a t I fee l lik e teac hin g a nd ca n do a grea t d ea l m o re th an I've bee n ab le to do for mo nth s pas t. l\ fa t) 1 's nex Llcu er h o me, writt e n Lo her old er br o th er C har les, re nec Ls a slig ht rev isio n o f her ea rli e r m o n e La r y ex p ec La Lio n s. Sh e wr o le: " I we nL Lo ge l my sub sLiLuLing p ay on Sa turd ay. I had bee n mi sinfo rm ed abo uL Lhe a m oun t. Sub sLiLuLes have o nl y $ 1.50 pr . clay so my 3 clays a m ount ed Lo $4.50. T eac he rs in ig hL schoo ls d o no L r ece ive Lhe ir p ay imm edi a te ly. I h ave a lr ea d y ea rn ed $ I O o nl y Leac hin g two h o ur s p e r eve." Sh e was, n eve nh e less, still p os iti ve, say in g Lo C ha rl es, "Ca n 't yo u co ng ra tul a Le m e up o n my goo d success in be in g exa min ed and obLainin g siLUaLio n so soo n ?"

On O cto be r I , l 8G8, sh e wr o te Lo h er bro th er Eel Lha t she had clec iclecl aga insLp ay ing Lhe a nnu a l rifLy-ce nL charge Lo use Lhe C hicago libr ary beca use she h ad " 110 m o n ey co rnin g Lo [he r] wee kly or m o nthl y as d ay-sc hoo l teac he rs

WELLS 'S SCHOOL GRAMMAR.REVISEDEDITION. A

GRA ·MMAR O P TQS

ENGLISH FOR

THE

L1NGUAGE. USE OF SCHOOLS.

BT

W. 11. W E LL , M.A. ,

TWI HUID I EI 410 TWEITT·F IFTN TWII SAID.

ll'il/ia111 Hcuwy ll'ell.1 (abm1e), Chirnio:1 Sffo11d.111/mmte11dentofschool!,,was a teachl'rand an e,11,,gptic arh,ornte ofpublir edurntion. Se,1m ymr.1b1jilre Mal)' Towne began working in Chirngo, he dicided 1t11dmt.1into grade.1and instituted a 1mijon11rnrrirn/11111.

1-fp also wrote a /JojJ11lar grammar book (right).

1

28

C HICA G O: S. C. GRI GGS ,t; CO., 39 ,t; 41 LAKE ST. NEW YO&K: IVl~O!j, l'UlS.SE'f J. COllP U Y. -~;

•sow--1", TJ."'-'J.au

• {OJJl,K, t-1111.,.1.>IUIIIIA : a.JW.L •'-••IJ.<l. C:Ul<:l),!U.Tt; »•oU• I, ll lUTACH, II ,v,,,.u ...uu. .,. LOU!&: -.i:.i TII

• Ou., A.!'11.1I. L Ul'l'L•l::VTT4

u n .. tl<.>.

UYA:,'ll,L.ll:"

• "''...UM. )/ • W VIU,«.A~.s.: 111.WIU'l&U>, IT&U. .. 00 un11o.11T: r, un1,,.1<0 ..cu.

1 8 0 o.

"f!Ve Do E-/ml(' lo ll'ork /lard"

"Thne llfl ' IHI hurlboys"read.1the rlia/libormlin this 1111dated plwtogmj1h0/11 srlwolroo111.

An 1863 lau•.1egregati11g Chirago .,r!wo/.171'(/ .1 re/N11led in 1865 d11eto Jm1te.1t .1.fro111 , lfi"imn1l111nican1.

ha\'e," but,"[ am obliged Lo wail Lhe convenience or Lhe City for pay or Evening Schools."

E\·ening schools began in Chicago in 1857 when a teacher nJluntcerecl to Leach English to immigrants and children who wanted to come af"Lcrworking all clay. The Board or Education allowed the use or a schoolroom, and in 186-+, Superintendent William I Iarve)' \\'ells obtained approval to pay night-school teachers. In that year, five C\'ening schoob admitted thirty-eight hundred sllldents. During the year that Mary Towne began teaching night school, e\'ening high ~chool classe . were aclclecl. Perhaps the \'olumeer effort in the early years of night school created a situation in which the Board of Education, e\-Cn after granting pay, looked upon the whole effort as a subsidiary occupation fiJr most teachers, and fimded it, therefore , on a cliffcrcnt basis from regular clay schools. '.\lary', earl) letters home reveal that excellence on Llie certification c:-..am led to a good teaching a,~ignment-a cla,woom with fewer pupil, and fewer disciplinary problems. Her comin ;\(aria No)-CSwa\ ,ulh a poor ,cholar and made ,11ch a poor i111prl',,ion 011 the Supt. 1hat ,he ha, a \Cry uncle-

,irable place and can get no ,ympathy from Mr .

[Josiah I Pickard (the Supt.) or the principal in the same ,chool. She has a larger room, 3 grades, and about 20 pupils more than the Principal and her assistant have in their room. She scolds a good deal but it has no effect. It is just wch a place as they put the poorest teacher~ as no good teacher will be induced LO star in such a roomand l\l[ariaj know~ it but knows bette1 · than to give it up entirely.

Similarly, she says orher roommate, "Gene has the lo\\'eSt room which just suits her . No discipline is enforced. Those who won't behave arc immediately suspended."

Poor behavior was not the only offense that led to suspension. "No scholar is allowed who comes with dirty face or hands or clothes. The hair must be combed, clothes whole and clean or they arc sent home to be put in order and if repeated ~itimes they are suspended."

The Chicago chools were noted for their strict discipline . The Chicago Tribune of December 30, 1868, included in an article on the regular meeting of the Board of Education a report from Inspector Eastman of the Committee on Corporal Punishment.

He

29

ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997 indicated that "the teachers from a single school for the month of November reported that the total number of corporal punishments were 31. There were 77 blows on the naked hand with the ruler, besides two cases reported as 'thorough,' two as 'seve re,' four as 'medium,' three as 'slight."'

Inspector Eastman reminded the Board that in late autumn they had been informed that there was an average of twenty Aoggings per day in the city schools, and that his present report indicated that the average was increasing.

The Board then passed a resolution that they would not tolerate any acts of brutality by any teacher in the city. Discussion followed, however, to the effect that earlier articles about teacher brutality had been made up by the Tribune for the sake of having some "news. " The matter was referred to the Committee on Corporal Punishment for discussion.

In late January of 1869, the matter was still being discussed in the pre s. Mary warned her mother, "Perhaps you will see something about 'inhuman treatment in our P.S.' this week. The '[Chicago] Times' of Sunday ha quite an article under that heading against Mr. Spofford, Gene's principal, every word of which is a lie. There is no truth or foundation for it. The 'Times' will be prosecuted by the Board, who are determined to put a stop to these libels against teachers, as no one is secure from them now."

Until receiving her appointment to a fulltime position in a day school, Mary continued teaching in the night school and substituting during the day. She found great satisfaction in night school teaching, writing to her mother after only a few weeks on the job: I like my eve. school more & mo,-e every night and would not willingly give it up. I have such good ucces and Mr. Cuuer [the principal] is well pleased with the advancement of pupils. Men , who could not ta lk English and did not unde, -stand anything I said at first, now read, write and converse intelligibly in English. I commenced with the first lesson in Colburn 's [the tandard arithmetic textbook] and am more than 1/2way through the book though only 15 minutes per eve. is devoted to it. It is really wonderful how these boys & men learn. Maria has spent one eve. in my room and

30

thought the order was pe,fect & lessons good. lt does seem strange that I should be successful and have no trouble anyway.

ln her day school, where she substituted in the eighth grade (the approximate equivalent of modern second grade), Mary was impressed by the inclusion of music in the curriculum . Mary Herrick , in The ChicagoSchools: A Social and Political HislOJy, identifies 1869 as the elate that a graded course in music was added to the curriculum , but Mary Towne's lelter of October 19 , 1868, clearly indicates that music was already being taught in some

"We Do Have lo I VorkHard" schools: "Mu sic is Laught in a ll gr ad es. Th ere is not on e in my room (th e 8th grade ) who can not give th e sound o f 'Do ' in a ll Lhe keys and skip or sing by notes da ily for 1/2 h our. I have to writ e th e mu sic o n th e boa rd a t r ecess tim e[;] th e sc ho lar s co p y o r ta ke it o ra lly o n th eir sla tes[.]" (If th e teac her didn 't have Lime to writ e th e mu sic o n th e boa rd , th e stud ent s mu st have writt e n th e mu sic o n th e ir sla tes whil e th e teac he r di cta ted. ) In kee pin g with th e stri ct di sciplin e in C hi cago schoo ls, Ma ry continu ed , " If a mi sta ke is mad e th ey are ke pt to writ e it ove r 10 tim es. Thi s m a kes th e m excee din g ly care ful. "

A child\ slatef,-0,11 arowid 1870, never era-11,d, berm a recordof it.1last les.1011.

Ma,y Towne wrote, "J\lusir is taught in all grades. ... The scholrm ro/Jyor take it orallyon their slates."

Schoolchildren pose on the sle/Js of their school in l 883 (leji).

Teachers and classroomassistants were oflen of high school age the11 i1elves;1Wa1y Towne was a comparatively mature twenty-two when size began teaching.

31

ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997

"We Do Have lo Work Hard "

33

Chicago H istory, S/1ri11g1997

In late 1868, Jmblic schooltead1l'I~had their montli(v 111 el'li111; in Cm.1/~v\ 0/Jna Home (abm,e), whne the .11 1/1e1m te11dm t "c11111 /1li111 ented us 011 mirfre.1h and ro11 te11t ed-looki11gjr1ce s, '"uâ&#x20AC;˘role J\lmy . The building W(/.1 destroyedi11the Great C/1imw1Vire of 187 1.

In additi o n Lo admirin g Lhe teac hin g o f music, Mar y was inLrigued by "o ra l instruCLio n ," an educati o na l str a Legy pion ee re d in Lhe Chicago schools. Accordin g to H errick, "By thi s method tea che r s we re LO int er es t childr e n by telling th e m facts a bo ut Lhe wo rld a ro und them . . . . Th e pr aCLice wa ju stified in curr ent p e dagog y as h e lpin g childr e n 'LO culLi\'a te ob se rvation and sec ur e acc ur a te u se of la n guage."' Mary wro Le: Lhe o ral exe rci,es sur pas , a nyth ing I kn o\\' o L 111 thi s g rad e , a ll ove r th e city, th e w bj ects a re th e p1-imar)' & seco nda ry co lors, ho\\' th ey unit e etc.(,) division s of tim e, seaso ns, month s & clavs; vegetables , th eir co lo rs, use, ma nn e r o r g rowth , \\'a)' o r coo kin g , n atiYiLy etc.. ga rde n & house pla nt s, cultur e, co lOJ-s, etc.; \'arie ties o r fish etc.; beas ts, bi1-cb re ptil es & all co nn ec te d 11 ith th e m a 1¡e ta ug ht to th e pupil s so th ey ga in m o re rea l k110\\'lecige o r co mm o n thin gs tha n most in eas tern schoo ls.

Mar y sound s surpri sin g ly m o d e rn in h e r comm e nts a bo ut Lhis Leac hin g m e thod: "We 34

nev er te ll a bo y o r g irl a nythin g th a t th ey ca n te ll u s. Th ey ar e mad e to think ." Sh e a dd s, howeve r , th a t thou g h "th e o ral is in stru cti ve and inter est in g to [Lhe stud e nt s], it is ha rd for th e teac her to a rran ge it be fc>re h a nd , co n sult boo b & pi ck up a ll th e prin cip a l a nd mu ch o f th e minuti ae o n th e diff e re nt subj ec ts o uL of schoo l." Durin g th e tim e th a t she was a sub stitut e teac her, ~far y did no t ha\'e to worr y about p re p a rin g th e o ra l. Sh e no te d : "Thi s roo m is we ll in sLructecl in a ll th e o ra l be lo ng in g to th e g rad e so I a m p a red th a t tr o ubl e." It may be that Ma ry ta ug ht o nl y mu sic in h er clay schoo l al thi s p o int , as sh e m e ntion e d la te r in th e le tt er , "r have to pra ctice co n sid e rable to kee p up my m a rches & p o lkas for ~choo l." fn a lette r writt e n later in th e m o nth , she me nLio n s a co mm e nd a tio n fro m Sup e rint e nd e nt Picka rd , in whi ch he ays th at "(s he] stoo d hi g h in exa min a ti o n a nd und ers ta nd s Mu sic bOLh in sLrume nLa l & voca l."

Alth oug h Ma ry indi ca ted th at pr epar atio n of Lhe o ra l requir ed mu ch tim e, Lhe ciLy was pr o -

"We Do Have to Work Hard"

viding regular "institutes," similar to modernday in-service workshops, to help, as Mary put it, "a teacher instruct her pupils aright."

Among Superintendent Wells's other innovations, he reduced the Saturday morning teachers' meetings from every Saturday to one Saturday a month, and gave the teachers something worth coming for, accord ing to Herrick's history of the Chicago schools. Mary, whose mother wanted her to improve every moment," wrote home in high praise of the Saturday institutes and the lectures that occasionally occurred on regular school days. On December 15, 1868, she described one of the half-day lectures.

School was closed at noon. All teachers took pains to look nicely and quite a good appearance we made when all the 450 teache1¡s were seated at 2 in the Opera House. Mr. Pickard opened the meeting with some remarks and directions to teachers about care of young children during cold weather, complimented us on our fresh and contented-looking faces &c. all in hi inimitable way.

Then a song was sung by 4 of the gentlemen Principals led by the music teacher. It was the be t musical performance I've heard since I've been he1¡e. Mr . Briggs , vice-president of the Board (I believe) delivered the lecture on "What's your hobby. " It was capital. Three reporters took it down "verbatim." The members of the Board and all present "hung on his lips. " It was for the benefit of teachers of course, and could not have been improved. Two hours long. Then followed programme of lessons for next Institute a month hen ce. Teachers of each grade meet in separate rooms, one of the Board presides over each room and hears the lesson. [ inth-grade teachers have Lolearn] all about the 3 Kingdoms of Nature.

The following month, Mat)' reported that all the teachers attended a morning meeting and then adjourned to the high school on Adams near Des Plaines Street. "There the grades separated and went by themselves in different rooms where the rolls were called and work begun. In our room ," she wrote, "we had a writing lesson on the board by one of the teachers. Then different ones were called upon to give th e ir methods of teaching numbers , spelling etc. The next hour was occupied by a gent who gave us quite a learned dissertation

on subjects considered in our 'Oral.' It was quite interesting & very profitable. He called water belonging to the mineral kingdom!!

What does father say of it?"

On December 15, 1868, Mary informed her family that she had received an appointment as a permanent teacher and had given up her evening school position . She wrote, "my big boys expressed considerable sorrow at my leaving and asked me to come & see them some eve . I guess I shall go Thurs. eve."

Mary indicated the simplicity with which appointments were made in Chicago at the time. She told her mother, "Miss [Tammie] Flowers (the principal) set me at ease about the means of my appointment to-day . It seems that Mr. Pickard when visiting the school, last Monday, asked Miss. F. who she would like to have take the place soon to be vacant. She spoke of me and he nominated me. " In January , after about a month as Miss Flowers 's assistant at the DeKoven Street School, Mr. Guilford, a member of the school board, wrote Mary a letter informing her that her sala1)' was to be raised in February, if"[she was] willing." She wrote her mother that the letter was in Mr. G. 's quaint printing and his expressions would sound undignified to those who do not know him .... I did not know what to do at first and remembering Mr. Cutter's advice I took it to Miss Flowers . She laughed at it again & again, said "twas just like him" [and] told me to answer it affirmatively. She said she had been mistrusting that such was his intention, as he asked her two weeks ago how I was getting along & she told him "finely, I couldn 't ask for a better helper ," and he told her he wanted Lo raise my salary. She replied that I de erved it as I worked with all my powers while in school. Am I not fortunate? Only to think, $65 per month! I don't say anything to any other teachers about it. Ma1¡ia would go crazy if she knew I had more than she.

Urban teachers faced certain health hazards in the nineteenth century, and Mary frequently consulted her mother on treatment . To the letter in which she wrote exuberantly about her raise, she added a postscript: "I just combed my head with fine comb this morn. and found eight little tiny creatures just hatched . The other 35

Mary Towne boarded at the Hull mansion in 1871. The building, at 335 South Halsted Street, was converted into a boarding house after its owner, Charles Hull, moved out; later, in 1889, Jane Addams chose it for her famous settlement, Hull-House. This painting by George Yelich depicts the mansion in 1860.

ChicagoHistory, SjJring 1997 teachers find the same often-we take them from the clothes of the children." In another letter she asked: "What can I do for my hands?

The backs are so chapped I am ashamed to show them. If I did not wa h them they would improve but they get so dirty I must use soap & water every two hours. You can form no idea of the dirt one catches here. My [clothes] are more soiled when exposed to the air in one day than in one week at home! ... All are troubled to keep clean. Small pox has made its appearance and we are having the children at our school examined & vaccinated. A doctor is to be in attendance tomorrow morning .... I have been advised to be vaccinated again but am afraid to risk it here. What do you advise?" Mary 's fear of vaccination possibly had to do with what might happen if she received the smallpox virus through vaccination and was also exposed lo il through contact with a sludenl who might be ill.

In late January of her first year, Mary wrote that she was reading over the rules for teachers, and came to the conclusion that "we are expected to do more than almost anyone else. I wish you could read all the directions and regulations to govern our conduct." In her next letter she again commented that the day has been a hard one, scholars noisy, idle and requiring constant supervision and exercise of tact on my part Lokeep all employed and quiet. I was determined to succeed and did, finally have perfect order and study. I think MissFlowersappreciates any efforts made by the teachers towards maintaining quiet in the room and to-night I was not included in the request made to the teachers LO keep beue1-order and more quiet to-morrow. We do have to work hard. I wish you could spend one day in the school and see what an amount of work the teacher perform.... I should wear out soon if I did not leave all ca1-eand thought of my work at the school-house.As it is, I don't think of the school outside school hours, except when w1-iting about it.

Mary returned to Topsfield each summer to help her mother with farm chores and to rest after her year of teaching. In the fall of 1871, Mary boarded in the Charles Hull mansion located at 335 South Halsted Street. Hull , a wealthy real tor, built his home on the western outskirts of Chicago only to see the city expand to surround him. He moved out of the hou e 38

KenwoodSchooli11l 880. Schoolbuildings were ~mrcein Chicago i11the late 11inelee11/h rmtwy. Mmy Towne's fellow tearher;,ofien had to hold classesin rentedspacesi11 rhurchesand otherbuildings.

after his wife and two children died. For a short period the mansion became a boarding house (later, in 1889, il became Hull-House, Jane Addams's famous seuleme11t house). In October of 1871, Mary and her fellow boarders watched the progress of the Great Chicago Fire from the roof of the house. The morning following the fire, Mary left the city with her roommate, Gene, to board temporarily with Gene's relatives in Denmark, Iowa. Not only had many schoolhouses been comumed in the fire, but lhe remaining structures were used lo hou e the thousands rendered dc~titule by the blaze. The Chicago Board of Education held a meeting of teachers shortly after the fire, and established a recall policy that placed Mary and Gene in the final group of teachers to be recalled .

Using Denmark as home ba c, Mary began Lo search for jobs in Iowa. She secured a Leaching position in Keokuk, located in the southeast corner of the state. Her experience and fine recommendations from Chicago made her an attractive candidate in the small urban community on the Mississippi River. She wrote to her mother, 171ere are 7 other teacher~ in our building and the Prin. Mr. Bede, having visited the Chi. schools, sees the difference between those &:.these. He has been here only this year & expresses a hope that I will

"We Do Have to Work Hard" introduce some or Lhe features of Lhe Chi. sysLemof teaching into my room. They have no singing by noLe, no physical exercises, no order in halls at recess, no rules abouL absences or ta,-dinesses , none of Lhat feeling of ,-ivalry between teachers or scholars for superiority or atLainmenL in any Lhing, that adds so much to the inLerest ofLhe school-room.

As of April 28, 1872, after a successful and ei:joyable year in Keokuk, Mary sLillhad no recall notice from Chicago and wrote her mother: "Don'L expect to hear from Chicago Lill the last moment & may have a very shorL Lime to get ready to go. I see by the papers Lhey have hard work to rent any building for schools and [I] may noLbe wanted till September." Before she actually reLurned to Chicago, she was in Lhe enviable posiLionof trying to decide between staying in Keokuk and accepting an offer from the Des Moines school system. In the end, a letter from SuperintendenL Pickard enticed her back to Chicago in time Loteach in the summer Lenn for two months.

Those two months led Mary to ten more years of Leaching in the Chicago schools.

Mary Towne began her teaching career in Chicago in 1868, ,md with the exception of her year in Iowa, taught in Chicago until her marriage in 1882 to Edward D. Redington. In 1884, she and her husband moved Lo Evanston, Illinois, where they raised his three children from a previous marriage and their son, Theodore Towne Redington. In Evanston, Ma1y was active in tbe Woman's ChrisLian Temperance Union, the

A11 1875 1"1 '/Jorl rnrdfor Chm/i,, Uoy/es, u /Jll/Jil 11/ Sk111nn Schoof in C/11rn go. I Ii.I r1'gular atle11dan a helj){'(//Jilthim al the top '11Iof rlti/drenl'llrol!ed of the du .1.1:al the time, only /--I /Jerr1 i11/Jllblic.1choo/al/ended regularly.

Daughters or the American ReYolution, and Lhe First Congregational Church. She died on overnber 29, 1930.

In addition to providing a glimpse of the world or urban education in an era of rapid change, Mary Towne's letters paint a portraiL or a working woman in the nineteenth century.

Her firsthand account or her life and work in Chicago reveals a woman prepared to manage her own affairs and expand her cultural and educational horizons, all the while maintaining close touch with the family back home. The letters enable us to revise our view of nineLecnthcentury women as acLive only in the domestic sphere, as they pro\'ide a glimpse of women seeking a career outside the home before marriage. Though not active in the women's rights movemenL, Mary Towne was, nevertheless, caught up in the tide of events that swepLwomen out of the home and into the world of work.

FOR FURTHER READ! re; For a historical survey of Chicago public education starting with the fi·omier schools of the 1830s, see Mary Hen-ick's The ChicagoSchool,:A Socialand PoliticalHi.1tmy (Be,·erly Hills: Sage Publications, 1971). The memo,·ial book Willia111 I Iruw-y Well,, Sketchesof His l,ife and Charactn (Chicago: Fergus Printing Company, 1887) details the accomplishments of Chicago's second supe,-intendent or schools. John T. McManis's Ella FlaggYoungand a I-lalj-Centuryof the r:/1icagoSchools (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1916) explores Young's early clays as a prim,uy schcx>Iteacher and her appoin011ent as the city's first wo,mm superimcndent of schools.

lLLUSTRt\TIOl\'S 22, courtesy ofKaLherine Morgan: 22-23 , CHS Prints and Photographs Collenion; 2-1 left and right, courtesy or Kathe, ·ine Morgan; 25 top and bottom, courtesy of Katherine Morgan; 26-27 , from Sa11rln1·New S/Jel/n, Def111er, and Analyzer ( 1856), CHS Library; 28 leli., from William f-lr11wyWell,, Sketchesof His Ufe and Character ( 1887), CHS Librnry; 28 right, from A Crr1111111arofthe E1114li.lh l.£mguage(1860), CHS Library: 29, Cl IS, ICI li-19388; 30-31, CHS Prints and Photograph, Collection; 31 top , CHS Decorative and Industrial Am Collection; 32-33, CHS, !Cl Ii-265-18: 34, CIIS, ICI-li-01727; 36-37, CHS Prints and PhoLographs Collcnion; 38, CHS PrinLs and PhoLOgraphs Collection; 39, CI IS Archives and rllanusc, -ipts CollecLion, Charle, C. Boyles Papers 39

Pilsen/Little

Village

RalphPugh ilsen/LittleVillage,on Chicago's LowerWest Side, is a neighborhood of remarkable continuities. Once part of a trade route between important waterways, the area has a long history of commercial importance. Here, from the 1670s to the 1830s, Native Americansand Europeans traded in times of peace and clashed in times of war. And here stands what is arguablyChicago's oldest working-classneighborhood, with roots stretching back to the 1830s. Its residents' unending struggle for economic and social justice has led to some of the best-known episodes in American labor history: the Battle of the Viaduct in 1877, the Haymarket Riot in 1886, and the garment workers' strike of 1910. Later, in the 1960s, residents worked

P

in support of labor activist Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.

Politically,Pilsen/LittleVillage has long commanded clout far beyond the size of its population.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Anton Cermak founded the city's Democratic Machine in Little Village'sTwenty-second Ward. Fiftyyears later, Rudy Lozanowaged an aldermanic campaignin the same ward that galvanizedMexican Americans and made the Latinovote central to Chicago's mayoralpolitics.

Pilsen/LittleVillage'sstrong ethnic solidarityhas been a model for communities across the nation. When Czechs dominated the neighborhood, their newspapers, fraternal organiza-

tions, and artistic groups were leaders in the national Czech and pan-Slaviccommunity. Today, the Mexican Americanartists and activists of Pilsen/LittleVillage are at the forefront of Latino politicaland social consciousness in this country.

Pilsen/LittleVillageis now one of the largest Mexican American communities in the United States, and its residents continue to fight for political representation, educational reform, social justice, and workers' rights.

Pilsen/LittleVillage:Our Home, Our Struggle,the title chosen by neighborhood residents for a current exhibition at the Chicago HistoricalSociety, reflects the same strong desire for neighborhood autonomy as was held by previousgenerations.

RalphPughis associatecuratorof archivesand manuscriptsat the ChicagoHistoricalSociety.

40

he commercial importance of Pilsen/LittleVillageas a trade route between the Great Lakesand the MississippiRiver predates the permanent settlement of the area. For centuries NativeAmericangroups struggled for control of the route, and by the mid- eighteenth century the Potawatomination was dominant in the area. In 1816, Europeans gained control when a treaty signed by an alliance of the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatominations (left, in a lunette by Lawrence Carmichael Earle)granted the U.S. a strip of land along the South Branch of the Chicago Riverfor the construction of a canal. The Potawatomiremained in the region until 1833, when a subsequent treaty surrendered the rest of their land in Illinois.Shabbona, a Potawatomichief (right, in an 1859 portrait by E. S. Webber), signed numerous treaties on behalf of his nation.

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CHICAGO

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HISTORY , SPRING 199 7

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his map (left) shows the area now known as Pilsen/Little Villageon the verge of rapid and massivechange. Before the 1830s, there were only a handful of settlements in the area, among them Charles Lee's farm, "Hardscrabble," built on the north side of the South Branch of the ChicagoRivershortly after the construction of the first Fort Dearborn in 1803. Because Hardscrabblewas far from the protected environs of the fort, Lee did not choose to live there, but rather hired men to manage it. Two of these men were killed in the spring of 1812 when Native Americansof the Winnebago nation attacked the farm, an event that foreshadowed the attack on Fort Dearborn a few months later.

T

he construction of the Illinois & Michigan Canal (below, in an 1871 engravingin Harper's Weekly),beginning in 1836, greatly changed the physical environment and permanently settled the area with laboring people. Most of these newcomers were Irish and German immigrants.They brought to the area not only their skillsas dock workers, blacksmiths, millers, and railroad workers, but also their religious faiths and ethnic customs.

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PILSEN/LI

TTLE V ILL AG E

43

44

CHICAGO

HISTORY , SPRING

1997

n 1848 the Illinois& Michigan Canal was completed, linking the Chicago Riverwith the Illinois Riverand thus creating a continuous water route between the MississippiValleyand the East. Soon after the canal's completion, plank roads sprang up in the Pilsen/LittleVillagearea, chief of which was the Southwestern Plank Road (later named Ogden Avenue). Railroadssoon followed: in 1863, the Chicago, Burlington& Quincy Railroad (left, in an undated photograph) extended its line into Chicago along Sixteenth Street. Docks were constructed by 1857 on the north bank of the South Branch of the Chicago Riverto permit direct movement of goods between land-basedtransportation and ships. These improvements facilitated commerce, but they also surrounded the Pilsen/LittleVillagearea with physicalbarriers, isolating it from the rest of the city.

I

PILSEN / LITTLE

VILLAGE

45

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HISTORY , SPRING

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1997

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he Great Chicago Fire of 1871 accelerated the pace of people and industry entering Pilsenand land to its west. Czech workers settled in the area and gave it its name, Pilsen (after the second-largestcity in their native Bohemia),and soon were at the forefront of efforts to secure decent wages and shorter working hours. Their efforts often met with violence. During the railroad strike of 1877, police

T

officers killed nearly thirty workers at the Battle of the Viaduct on Halsted Street near Sixteenth Street (left). On May 3, 1886, police action against a labor gathering outside the McCormickReaper Works (at Blue Island and Western Avenues)resulted in at least two deaths and prompted the famous protest meeting at Haymarket Square the followingday, in which a bomb blast touched

y the turn of the century, Pilsen had become a congested neighborhood.Though its neighbor to the west, South Lawndale(later renamed Little Village),was less congested and more "upscale," both areas suffered from poor public trans-

B

off a police riot. The neighborhood continued to be a center of labor activisminto the twentieth century: in 1910, workers at Hart, Schaffner & Marx's Shop No. 5 (at Eighteenth and Halsted Streets) began a strike that ultimately numbered more than thirty-fivethousand participants citywide and shut down Chicago'sgarment industry_

portation links to the rest of Chicago.The Blue Island cable car line (above,in a 1929 photograph) was the only streetcar line to unite both of these neighborhoods with the downtown area, and busy street traffic often impeded its progress.

PILSEN / LITTLE

VILLAGE

47

ZDEN~A ERNY THE

n the early years of the twentieth century, the pride of the Czech community was musical prodigyZdenka Cerny.

Born in l 895, Zdenka was trained by her father, A. V. Cerny, the founder of the First BohemianConservatory of Music (2347 South LawndaleAvenue). By the age of ten Zdenka was a concert pianist, and by the age of seventeen she was an accomplished cellist. Alphonse Mucha, the Czech-born artist and designer who helped popularize the art nouveau style, designed this poster (left) of Zdenka during a visit to Chicago in 1913.

I

GREATEST BOlfEMfAN

VJO~ONCELLlST 48

C HI CAGO

HISTORY,

SPRING 1997

he compact, populous, working-classwards of Pilsen and Little Villageprovided an excellent power base for ambitious politicians. Chief among these was Czech-bornAnton J. Cermak of South Lawndale,who by 1929 possessed sufficient citywide clout as president of the Cook County Boardof Commissioners to get the new Criminal Court Buildingbuilt in his ward (at Twenty-sixthStreet and California Avenue). Elected Chicago's first foreign-bornmayor in 1931 (above,at right, taking the oath of office), Cermak was assassinated just two years later, but his Democratic Machine survived for decades. Vito Marzullo, elected alderman of the Twenty-fifth Ward in 1953 [left, holding phone), served until 1986, alwaysan unabashed advocate of the Democratic Machine.

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PILSEN / LITTLE

VILLAGE

49

50

CHICAGO

HISTORY , SPRING 1997

hese women, posing for photographer Francis Nemecek at the Nemecek Studio (I 439 West Eighteenth Street) in the 1920s, belonged to the PlzenskySokol, one of the dozens of Chicago-areaorganizationsthat were devoted to physicalfitness and Czech culture. The sokols conducted annual calisthenic competitions (slets) in Pilsen/Little Villagefor decades.

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PILSEN / LITTLE

VILLAGE

51

exicans began moving n large numbers to Pilsen/Little Village in the late 1950s. Many came from the Near West Side, where they had been establishedin the parish of St. Francisof Assisi Church (813 West RooseveltRoad)since the

M

52

C HI CAGO

H I ST ORY,

SPR I NG 1997

Congressional Medal of Honor Awarded Posthumously Private First Class Manuel Perez 0- al Hi. Buddiu Depict•

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independent and set its own policies. In August 1945, the Crier celebrated neighborhoodWorld War II hero Manuel Perez (above right),who was posthumously awarded the CongressionalMedal of Honor for single-handedly eliminating twelveJapanese machine

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gun positions in the Philippines.

The Mexican community around St. Francis of AssisiChurch was displacedin the 1950s by "urban renewal" and by the construction of the University of Illinois's Chicago campus, and many of its residents moved south to Pilsen.

PILSEN / LITTLE

V I LLAGE

53

B

were the preponderant ethnic group in Pilsen. Former Near West Side residents were joined by new immigrantsfrom Mexicowho had experienced its recent politicaland economic dislocations. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mexicans nationwide participated in the Chicano movement, a MexicanAmerican civilrights struggle that also pro-

Untdos anaremos

54

CHICAGO

HISTORY,

y the mid-I 960s, Mexicans

SPRING 1997

moted cultural awareness and labor activism. In Chicago, Mario Castillo's mural, Metaphysics (Peace}, sparked a revivalof Mexican mural painting (opposite, standing at left, he works on a mural in 1969). The work of muralist and linoleum block printer Carlos Cortez abounded in images linking heroic figures in Mexico's past with modern struggles (at right is his I 984 print We Are From the Earth, We Are Not Illegal.'). New institutions arose to give a voice to the disadvantaged.Casa Aztlan (next page, in a 1996 photograph), originallyfounded in 1896 as the BohemianSettlement House, was renamed in 1970 and serves as a center for social and educational services and as a meeting place for labor activists. Pilsen/ Little Villagehas strongly supported national Mexican labor crusades, such as those led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW).In the mid-l 970s, local activists in sympathywith the UFWhelped organize pickets against retailers who sold non-union produce.

Buttons (opposite) from 1975 link Chicagowith Coachella Valley,the heart of the lettuce and grape regions in California, and support the UFW's grape boycott.

PILSEN / LITTLE

VILLAGE

55

58

CHICAGO

HISTORY,

SPRING

1997

he relative isolation of Pilsen/LittleVillagefrom the rest of Chicago has provided a friendly environment for protest marches, parades, and religious observances. The Via Crucis (Wayof the Cross) procession, left, in a photograph by John Boozfrom the early 1990s, retells the story of Christ's suffering and death: every Good Friday,a young man chosen from the community portrays Christ and carries a cross. Surrounded by men dressed as Romansoldiers, he walks from Providence of God Church (717 West Eighteenth Street) to Harrison Park, where the crucifixionof Christ is reenacted. Protest marches also are a tradition in the neighborhood, dating back to its famous labor disputes at the turn of the century and continuing today with protests over the treatment of undocumented workers and other Mexican immigrant groups.

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PILSEN / LITTLE

VILLAGE

59

-

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n many ways, Pilsen/LittleVillage is a world apart from the rest of Chicago. Its strong sense of identity has often resulted in resistance to outside forces, such as outside control over schools.

BenitoJuarez High School (yearbook from 1980, above left) opened in 1977 when neighborhood parents organized to give their teenage children an alternative to distant high schools with high dropout rates.

At the same time, Pilsen/Little Villagehas become one of the most politicallydecisive areas 60

CHICAGO

HISTORY,

of the city, due in part to its strong grassroots activism.

Politicianssuch as RudyLozano (who challenged Frank Stemberk's long-heldaldermanic seat in 1983; shown above right with HaroldWashington),Juan Velasquez,and Jesus Garcia have been instrumental in claiming political power for Latinosin the Twenty-second(LittleVillage) and Twenty-fifth(Pilsen)Wards.

These wards are now kingmakers in city politics: swing areas, they elected Harold Washington mayor in 1983

SPRING

1997

and RichardM. Daley mayor in 1989. In state and national elections as well, the Mexican American voters of Pilsen/LittleVillage will be strongly courted by all major political movements for years to come. Mayor Cermak would feel right at home.

ILLUSTRATION S 40, CHS Paintingsand Sculpture Collection;41, CHS Paintingsand Sculpture Collection;42, fromHistory of Chicago:From the EarliestPeriod to the Present,Volume I ( 1884), CHS Library;43, from Harper's WeeklyUuly22, 1871), courtesy of LewisUniversityCanalCollection;44-45, CHS, ICHi-05208;46, CHS,JCHi-04892;47, CHS Printsand PhotographsCollection;48, CHS, lCHi-06258; 49 top, CHS Prints and PhotographsCollection;49 bottom, CHS Prints and PhotographsCollection;50-5 1, courtesy of Paul Nemecek; 52, courtesy of Tony and Lupe Hernandez; 53, from St. Francis Crier (August 1945), courtesy of Vince Barba;54 top, courtesy of Mario E. Castillo;54 bottom left and right, courtesy of Jose Gonzales;55, courtesy of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum; 56- 57, CHS Prints and PhotographsCollection;58- 59, courtesy of John Booz;60, courtesy of the Enriquezfamily;60- 61, courtesy of Raul Pena Ross

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MAKING HISTORY A Chicago School of LiteratureGwendolyn Brooks and Studs Terkel Timothy

J. Gilfoyle

A uthor's Note: Scheduling conflicts and the death of lier hllsband Henry Blakely onJuly 3, 1996, prevented an interview with GwendolynBrooks for this article. Quotes are.from earlier interviews and aulobiogra/Jhies cited in "ForFurther Reading."

Gwendolyn Brooks and Studs Terkel have more in common than just Pulitzer Prizes , honorary degrees , and Chicago pedigrees. For some, their accomplishments have come to define certain genres of twentieth-century Amer ican litera ture . Brooks's poetry epitomizes not only the evolution of African American writing in the twentieth century, but man y of the changing perceptions and dimensions of American city life. Terkel has almost single-handedly u¡ansformed "oral history" into one of the most important and popular of American literary genres.

Both share a distinctive urban realism anchored in the daily experiences of their "ordinar y" Chica.go subjects.

Brooks and Terkel are only the most recent writers in an extensive literary tradition that sees Chicago as the quintessential American city-more "American" than New York , less glitzy than Los Angeles.

Brooks 's In the M ecca ( 1968 ) transformed a single South Side apartment building into an emblem of African American life and urban renewal. Terkel's Division Street (1967) mad e LhaLlocal thoroughfare a symbolic divide in notjust Chica.go but the United States. Employing Chicago as the empirical gri t in their writing mills , Brooks and Terkel have made the Midwestern rneLropolis representative of twentieth-century America. Their work co nfirms H. L. Mencken's early twentieth century statement, "Find a writer

62

Tnkel , 111111 ,1,,vifly /mown a1 'Studs."

l , 011i1

who has something new and particularly American to say and says it in an unmistakably Amer ican way, and 9 times out of l O you will find he has some sort of connection with the gargantuan abattoir

by Lake Michigan."

Initial impr essions reveal few of the fami liar themes these wr iters share . The first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry (1950), Brooks has spent nearly all of her life on the South Side. Terkel, the offspr ing of Jewish immigrants , is a Nort h Sider. Described as "shy" and "rese rved by temperament," Brooks is noted for her quiet, dignified manner.

Terke l, always talkative and frequently disheveled, has been described as "a scho lar disguised as a leprechaun, " and as looking like someone born too late to be a vaudev ille stand-up com ic. Dressed in a tuxedo, claimed one reporter, he looks "lik e a bookie going to his sister's wedding. " Terke l himself resorts to self-effac in g invect ive, describing himself as look in g like "a minor mob figure the day after he died."

Ironically these most "C hicago" of twentieth-century writers are not natives of the city. On.June 7, 1917, Gwendolyn Brooks was born in her grandparents' home in Topeka, Kansas , where her mother , Keziah Brooks, had returned to have her baby.

Short ly thereafter, her family returned to Chicago where Brooks has lived most of her life. Louis "Studs" Terke l was born in the Bronx on May 16, 1912, to Polish Jewish immigrants who later moved to Chicago. He literally grew up in hote l lobbies. Because his father 's health was poor , his mother ran boarding houses, fir t at Ashland A.venue and Flournoy Street and later at the \Velis-Grand Hotel (at Wells Street and Grand Avenue). "Fat her was a tailor, a very ski lled craftsman but had a bad heart. And mother had a considerab le burden. She became a seamstress to help. And then finally we come to Chicago, ... becau e of a rich relative who's going to sponsor us to run a roominghouse." His fam ily eventua lly paid back hi ¡ pon oring relatives, Terkel satirically notes, "with interest, of course."

GwendolynBrooks,c. 1990.

Timothy]. Gilfoyleis rm associate/Jl'oJessorof histo1Jal Loyola University Chicago,a scholar-in-residenceal the Newbe!'I)'Libr{ll)', and the author of City of Eros : 'e w York City, Prostitution and Lhe Comme1¡c ia lization of Sex, 1790-1920 (W. W. Norton, 1992).

63

ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997 Despite their modest origins, both benefited from devoted parents and loving families. Brooks grew up in a secure, protected household , first at 5626 South Lake Park Avenue and then 4332 South Champlain. Her father, David Brooks, attended Fisk University for one year, came to Chicago in 1910, and worked as porter for McKinle y Music Publishing Company on East Fifty-fifth Street. Brooks published her first poem in American Childhoodmagazine in 1930. As a teen , she attended Hyde Park , Wendell Phillips, and Englewood High Schools before graduating from the latter in 1934 . That same yea r, the Chicago Defender began publishing her poems regularl y.

She eventually completed a course of study at Wilson Junior College (now Kennedy-King College) in 1936. Throughout her youth, her parents actively fostered her aspirations to write poetr y, encouraging her to read Shakespeare, William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Burns, John Keats , and Emily Dickinson.

On one occasion, her mother propheticall y announced: "You are going to be the lad y Paul Laurence Dunbar."

Terkel admits that "I was sort of the family pet, " who was, because of an asthmatic condition, showered with affection and "loved by my brothers and my father and mother. I was the one, the favorite child." Terkel eventually graduated from McKinley High School in 1928 and went on to earn a bachelor 's (1932) and a law degree ( 1934) from the University of Chicago. Like Brooks, Terkel was greatly influenced by so-called canonical writers. Terkel not only recalls reading Treasure Island and I vanhoe in high school, h e remembers the "border ballads " of Scottish and English poets. Seventy years later , on a moment' s notice , Terkel will break into verse:

"The king sits in Dumferline town, Drinking his bloodred wine: 'Oh where can I find a good sailor to sail this ship of mine?'

Up and spak an elderknight Sat at the king's right knee: 'Sir Patrick Spens is the bestsailor who sails upon the sea.'

And the king written a braid letter And signed it wi' his hand And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, Was walking on the sand.

64

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The C hi cago Daily ews jJrofiled Gwendolyn Brooks when she won the Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen in 1950.

Making History

("I love that, " proclaims Terkel, before launching into the second verse.)

Terkel followed an indirect route to writing, beginning as an actor (he recently had roles in the movies The Dollmakn [1984] and Eight Men Out [l 988]) before becoming a radio and television talk show host. In 1937, he joined the Chicago Repertory Theater, where he received his nickname because he loved the novel Studs Lanigan so much that he carried it with him wherever he went. A year later, he worked in the Radio Division of the Works Progress Administration Writers ' Project.

Terkel remembers first acting in Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty. "We would do stuff, acts, skits, sketches, and all kinds of routine[s] in front of picket lines or soup kitchens during strikes.

Then I became a gangster in soap operas in Chicago. 1 was always playing the same role. It was great except it would end when you got killed, and you got killed very often.

One thing led to another-someone liked my style and I became a disc jockey and then a newscaster, and that's how it all began."

After college, poverty forced Brooks to work as a domestic servant (in the Drexel Avenue area and on the North Shore) and as an assistant to "spiritual advisor" E. N. French in the Mecca apartment building on south State Street. French proved to be the inspiration for Prophet Williams in her poem In the Mecca.

Soon after, she served as publicity director for the ational Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( AACP) Youth Council, then one of the most militant black youth groups. In 1939, she married Henry Blakely , also an aspiring writer and later known as "the poet of 63rd Street."

Terkel married Ida Goldberg that same year, which marked the beginning of World War II. When the United States entered the war in 1941, a perforated eardrum kept Terkel out of combat, forcing him to serve as a troop entertainer in the special ervices agency of the Army. He continued working in radio after the war until 1950, when he starred in his own television show, the nationally televised Studs Place on 1BC-TV . Terkel admits that much of the show was improvised. "We'd rehear e it, but the dialogue was our own. By the time we came on, we had it set, but it was called 'TV Chicago Style.' It was a lot like jazz."

Terkel has long cham/Jioned liberal causes. He is seen here with I Vi/limn Kunst/er, attorneyfor clients such as the Chicago Seven. Photogra/Jhby Stephen Deutch.

65

ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997 Studs Place was removed in 1952 because of Terkel's left-wing sympathies. "Officials from NBC came to Chicago to see me," remembers Terkel. "T hey said, 'We're going to do something about these-your name 's on all these petitions-since communists started a lot of them. ' And I said, 'T hey probabl y did. ' And I'm making a joke. I'm saying, 'Suppos e the cornrnuni ts come out against cancer. Do we come out for cancer?' They said, 'We don 't think that's very funny, becau e you're a Yaluable prop e rty. We want to save you . Say you were duped. You were a fool. ' Well, I said, 'No. I'm not going to do that.' Some peo ple say, 'Studs , )'Ou were so courageous.' That had nothing to do with it. I wasn't. I was scared stiff. What made me that stubborn is my ego. It was my vanity. It was my ego that mad e me say no , not my hero ism, of which I had absolutely none ."

Right-wing groups proceeded to attac k Terkel from 1952 to 1954 . A former acquaintance, Owen Vincent, e\'en testified before the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee that Terkel invited him to join the Communist Party in the 1930s. Terkel quickly became a victim of Senator Joseph McCarthy 's "red scare" and was blacklisted.

"There was a certain American legionnaire, who has since gone to the great legion post across the sky, and his name was Ed Clamage," recalls Terkel. "H e was [a] clown figure, but he cared a lot of people. " Terkel jokes about the era today. 'Tm not in the magazine called Red Channels, which named people.

I wasn't in that. And I was angry because my best friends were in it; people I admired were in it. I never made it! It 's like not making the SocialRegister, and I objected. I attributed that to ew York parochialism."

Banned from network television, Terkel went back to radio , first writing for Mahalia Jackson's radio gospel show in 1953 and 1954. He was then hired at WFMT radio , where he worked for more than forty years, and where he developed his unique brand of oral history. "Whil e there , I started interviewing people, and some appeared in the [station 's] magazin e, Pe1;5JJec66

Terkel (left) /Jose.1 with folk singers IVin Stracke, Big Bill lfroo11zy,and Lany Lane. Photogra/Jhby Sle/1he11 Deutch.

Making Histo1y tive." The interviews proved popular and "a man out East, a young publisher, Andre Schiffrin, saw those, and he liked that, and he asked if I would do some books based on interviews like that. and that 's more or less how these oral histories , as they're called, came into being. " Similarly, Brooks never avoided controversy. Her early poetry explicitly discussed racial themes even though postwar African American intellectuals like Alain Locke, Hugh Gloster, and writers in Phylon argued that they should avoid themes of "race defense, protest and glorification" in favor of more "universal" themes.

Brooks even wrote about intraracial prejudice in the African American community. Some biographies point out that the first form of racial discrimination she experienced was intraracial prejudice by other blacks during her childhood, a phenomenon she addressed in some early poems , such as "A Street in Bronzeville, " and "The Bean Eaters." ot until she attended Hyde Park High School did she encounter significant interracial discrimination.

Later, during the 1960s and 1970s, youth gangs like the Blackstone Rangers not only became a subject in her poetry, but an active part of her audience.

Chicago's importance in much of both authors' works transcends geography. The city was their inspiration.

Brooks admits that "I wrote about what I saw and heard in the street. I lived in a small second-floor apartment at the corner, and I could look first on one side and then on the other. There was my material."

Indeed , the titles of her books evoke the Chicago neighborhood: A Street in Bronzeville (1945), the Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Allen ( 1949), Bronzeville Boys and Girls (1956), The Bean Eaters ( 1960), and In the Mecca (1968). In sharp, sympathetic language, Brooks offers telling vignettes about the "ghetto people " she encountered in her South Side neighborhoods. In the Mecca, for example, describes an 1891 apartment complex that became a slum before its destruction in 1951 as part of the South Side's urban renewal. Readers meet a faith healer and a gun collector, mothers and children, a poet and a debutante. Richard Wright, the author who assisted the young Brooks in getting published, recognized the importance of her poetry early on. Brooks "eas ily catches the pathos of petty destinies, the whimper of the wounded, the tiny incidents that plague the lives of the desperately poor , and the problem of common prejudice ," wrote Wright, "a n honest human reaction to the pain that lurks so carefully in the Black Belt."

The details of urban life have consistently remained at the center of Brooks 's poetry. "There is no life that we run into or encounter that couldn't be made into a wonderful poem , granted the poet 's expertise!" she told one interviewer. 'That i really where l get my material from: people. I feel nature is incidental to the story I'm telling. " In looking back at more than half a century of writing, Brooks sounds like a social historian or urban sociologist. "l feel now that it was better for me to have grown up in

1'"38JN

Bl7

t.JWEBD~DOlYN nOOKS

Above: The poems 1nahingup In the Mecca explore the lives of tenants of the Mecca apartment building on Chicago'sSouth Side. Below: Broohs in 1960.

67

ChicagoHistory, Spring 1997 Chicago because in my writing I am proud to feature people and their concerns-their troubles as well as their joys. " Terkel is even more emphatic-Chicago is the world. "Chicago is the metaphor for all America-for all cities. It's the most American of cities," he insists. "Here people came from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, before that from Ireland and Germany.

Here's where steel came into being, and the skyscrapers came into being and the dreams of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright and railroads. Sandburg was right when he called it 'Center of the nation's railroads, stacker of wheat, hog butcher of the world.' All this was Chicago. It's kind of lusty-I know it sounds romantic as I say it and exaggerate it, but it's all true. And so it represents, you might say, the American city."

Beginning with the publication of The Bean Eaters ( 1960) , Brooks's writing went through several transformations . She later categorized her work into three stages with different perspectives. Her poetry from 1945 to 1960 renected her early education and its Euro-American inAuences. During the 1960s , she went through a transitional period. After 1968, she was heavily influenced by the Black Arts Movement and the Chicago-based Organization of Black American Culture. Since then, her writing not only proved more "militant," but reflected more African motifs.

Abandoning her earlier Euro-American inAuences, Brooks also left her publisher , Harper & Row, and began working with African American publishers in order to help them grow and develop.

Ironically, while acknowledging African inAuences with greater frequency, Brooks-wittingly or not-drew upon themes reminiscent of the writings of Frank Norris, Carl Sandburg, elson Algren, and even Terkel. With surprisingly little fanfare, Brooks summoned the motifs that often characterize the Chicago literary tradition. Her poetry confronts readers with the gripping, unrefined, violent qualities of urban life. In the poem '¡The Blackstone Rangers," she describes the street gang:

There theyare.

Thirty at the corner.

Black, raw, ready.

Sores in the city that do not want lo heal.

Brooks has said, in words that evoke urban sociologist Louis Wirth: "The city is the place to observe man en masseand in his infinite variety. " The rough-hewn quality of industrial Chicago produced this distinctive literary culture. "Someone says, 'Chicago!' when you go to a

68

Brooks'sTo Disembark, jJllblishedin 1981, is a co111jlilatio11 of some oflzer earlier works, including Riot and Family Pictures.

Maki'llgHistory European city, anywhere, they always go 'Boom , boom,' like that," says Terkel, firing his fingers like a pistol. "And the respectable didn 't mind that at all. The respectable didn't mind being part of something colorful, because their own lives were so drab. It isn't that Chicago's more corrupt than other cities, but it was the 'big daddy ' of corrupt cities. It was more proud of its corruption." To Terkel, the literature of Theodore Dreiser, Frank 1orris, and Sherwood Anderson describes this Chicago, "the seedbed of American culture. " Chicago "became the subject, because of the rawness of it. It came out of the fire. It came out of mud. " For these reasons , Terkel's oral histories and Brooks 's poetry represent the most recent manifestations of a Chicago literary tradition emphasizing realism. Terkel's work, in particular, might best be labelled "oral sociology"-studying so-called ordinary city residents by listening to them tell their own stories. This research strategy, pioneered by Robert Park, W. I. Thomas, and Louis Wirth at the nation 's first department of sociology at the University of Chicago, blossomed during the first third of the twentieth century. After World War II , the tradition continued with Edward Shils, Terkel, and most recently, with Mitchell Duneier 's S!im's

Terkel's Hard Times createsa portrait of the Great De/Jression through hundreds of personalaccounts.

Table.

Frequently criticized by academic sociologists for lacking focus and objectivity, these writers all remain resoundingly popular with the general public. All of them presume truth is defined by their subjects, not the observer or interviewer. All of them assume, in Terkel's words, that "Chicago is the world." Critics argue that this literature , relying on observation and oral tradition, perpetuates myths and stereotypes. Some even classify books such as Hard Times as literature rather than history , comparing them to Oscar Lewis and Truman Capote. The difficulty of categorizing such literature provoked writer Willie Morris to insightfully describe Terkel as a "nonfiction John Dos Passos."

Terkel believes there is a Chicago school of literature. "Certainly Nelson Algren represents that to me more than anybody.

Saul Bellow is more East, I'd say. He could be East as well as West.

But Algren represents certain lyricism through roughness, lyricism thrnugh toughness." Terkel himself quote Mencken in support: "T here 's no literature worth discussing that did not come out of the Palatinate , that is, Chicago."

While the University of Chicago sociologists followed Park's advice to "go and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses, " and Nelson Algren hung out in bars and opium dens in search of material, Terkel's primary method of research is the tape recorder. "I tape, therefore I am," he proclaims in a self-admitted mixture of Rene Descartes and Richard M. ixon. "I call ixon and myself ' eocartesians'-\Ve tape, therefore we are. He did , and so do I. But to me , the tape recorder has become part of my life, but there' an irony connected with this," pointing to a tape recorder , "s ince I'm terrible technologically. I goof up, and I can't drive a car."

On several occa ions , after recording Martha Graham and

69

Chicago History, Spring 1997

Michael Redgrave, for example, "I lost them. As I pressed the wrong button , I erased them."

Terkel dismisses claims that he "invented " oral histo1¡y. "T he people say, 'Well, gee, you started a new genre,' which is ridi culous ." Oral history, claim Terkel, preceded th e printing pr ess by centuries, if not millennia. "T he first history ever told was oral, passed from generation to another." Alex Hale y's Ro ots was oral history. "What we're lacking are stories told. That's why Carrison Keillor is so good, because he finds a hunger among certain listeners he has. He's telling a tory! And peopl e have a story, and he 's a remarkab ly good sto1yteller. That explains a lot of hi s popularity among a certain group of Americans."

Terkel believes his critics exaggerate th e weaknesse of oral history . Some , like Herbert Mitgang , criticized Division Street for being "excellent resear ch in search of a book ." Bernard Weisberger complained that "Hard Times was not reall y hi stor y but merely a loose grouping of memories with low organization and cohesion," possessing the formlessness of an "uncut script of a T.V. or radio documentary show." Some subjects, like "Ca thleen Moran" in Working, later claimed that Terkel wanted her to tell negative stories about her work, so she did.

Anato le Broyard even asserts that Terkel's work is "made up, " that his unstated and unconscious biases create the responses he wanes.

Terkel acknowledges that historians bent on rigorous academic standards will never be satisfied. 'Tm not a scholar, and I don 't pretend to be. " As for charges that he encourages certain responses, Terkel adamantly maintains that is "absolutely untrue-I don't. I just ask questions of all sorts, and if I hear something that seems interesting, I have them follow through on it. I want to get peoples' thoughts down. But as far as inducing people to say certain things-to assume what I'm saying-is quite unfair . All they have to do is read the raw transcripts," which he plans to deposit in the collections of the Chicago Historical Society. Terkel insists that "I like to recount , recreate that sense of history from the bottom up , what it's like to be that ordinary person. " Terkel's work has been inconsistentl y received by Americans. As historian Michael Frisch points out, reviewers in Time, Newsweek, the New Yorker, the Nation, and the New York R eview of Books describ ed Hard Times as an anthem of praise of the American spirit, as representative of the vitality, inspiration, and startling decency of the Ameri ca n people. Yet the stories found in Hard Times are highly negative depictions of the destructive results of the Great Depression. Terkel sanguinely recognizes 70

Terhel 11.sed oral histories lo examine the Americanexperimceduring World War ll i11'T he Good War".

Making History

the paradox. "One of the ironie of the whole thing . . . is the absence of history. That's what I meant by the national Alzheimer's disease. People condemn government, erase the whole idea of the New Deal and what it did."

Terkel, author of eleven books , possesses a healthy level of selfdoubt. "One of the things I have bothering me is: am I a writer?

These are the words of other people, although in there I do have these long introductions. A lot of these books deal with other peoples' voices, but there's a question of introductions and the editing and the working. I suppose you'd say I am, but I always have these doubts."

Terkel's audience harbors few doubts about his writing ability.

Indeed, his popularity represent a paradox in recent American culture. Terkel never disavowed his beliefs in socialism, or at least collective solutions to the social problems of American society.

Even as the United States grew more conservative after 1980 and moved politically to the right, Terkel never circumscribed his liberal or left-wing political views. Yet, he remains admired by Chicagoans .

Terkel quickly dismisse his fame. "I fall in what they call a character type because I do clown around a lot," he retorts. "I do that because I'm never sure of myself, so I clown a great deal. But as far as celebrity, a half-ass celebrity. Just as the word 'refugee' became the word of the thirties and forties, the words 'ce lebrity' and 'trivia ' have become the words of today."

While ne\ ¡er wavering his critical eye, Terkel remain optimi tic about the American future. "The key word to me is 'e ncla\'e,' the enclaves of people who think this way, who do think of alternatives. They're in e\'ery community. You'll find them in Dallas. I've found them. And there's certain kinds of people-they 're small

Slurls Terkel and Gwendolyn Brooks together al the Chicago Historical Society's1995 Making HistoryAwards Ceremony.Terkel receivedtheJoseph Medill HistOI)'Jvlaker Award for Distinction in journali sm and Comnwnicalions, and Brooks received the Richard Wright Hislo1yl\llakerAward for Distinctionin literature.

71

Chicago History, Spring 1997

but they're there, but there's been no coalescence of them, and that's the thing. But they 're around and about. Some might be environmental. Some might be peace or anti-waste management or whatever it might be, but they're around and about a number of issues. And also there's no dough, not the dough that others have, nor the means of communication [with] the media controlled so narrowly. So these are the issues being battled. The cards, the deck is stacked. It 's a question of unstacking the deck to some extent. Basically , that's what it's about, so that's one of the things I work on, I suppose."

FOR F

RTHER READING

The best place to learn about Gwendolyn Brooks and Studs Terkel is in their extensive writings. Brooks has authored two autobiographies: Report from Part One (Detroit: Broadside Press, 1972) and Report from Part Two (Chicago : Third World Press , 1996). Her most famous and influential poetry-"A Street in Bronzeville" (1945), "Annie Allen " (1949), "In tbe Mecca" ( 1964) and other writings-have been collected in Blacks (Chicago: Third World Press, 1987). Brooks has already been the ubject of numernus studies, interviews, and biographies. The most recent include Stephen Caldwell Wright, ed., On Gwendolyn Brooks: Reliant Contemplation (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996). Also informative are Martha Satz, "Honest Reporting: An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks," Southwest R eview, 74 (Winter 1989); George Kent , A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks (Lexington: Univ. of Kentuck y Press , 1990); D.H. Melhem, Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the H eroic Voice (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1987); and Harry B. Shaw, Gwendolyn Brooks (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980). Maria K. Moony and Gary Smith, eds., A Life Distilled: Gwendolyn Brooks, H er Poetry and Fiction (Urbana: University of Illinois Press , 1987) bas an extensive bibliography. Terkel has written what some might call a "postmodern" autobiography in Talking To Myself: A Memoir of My Times ( ew York: Pantheon , 1977). His other major works include: Division Street: America (New York: Pantheon, 1967); Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression ( ew York: Pantheon, 1970 ); Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (New York: Pantheon , 1974) ; American Dreams: Lost and Found (New York: Pantheon , 1980) ; "The Good War": An Oral H istory of World War II (New York: Pantheon , 1984); Chicago (New York: Pantheon, 1986); The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream ( ew York: Pantheon, 1988); Ra ce: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession (New York: New Press , 1992); Coming of Age ( ew York: ew Press, 1995). The only biog1-aphy ofTerkel is James T. Baker , Studs Terkel (New York: Twayne, 1992). lLLUSTRATIO S

62, CHS Prints and Photographs Collection; 63, Courtesy of Gwendolyn Brooks; 64, from the Chicago Daily News (May 2, 1950), CHS Library; 65, CHS, ICHi-23625; 66, CHS, ICHi-25635 ; 67 top, from In the Mecca ( 1968), CHS Library; 67 bottom, CHS, ON-Alpha; 68, from To Disembark (1981 ), CHS Library; 69, from Hard Times ( 1970), CHS Library; 70, from ''The Good War" (1985) , CHS Library; 71, CHS 72