Tag: Chicago

A Wall of Hope: The Berlin Wall in Chicago

On By Kate M.In monuments, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Front view of the wall, facing the west. Photo credit to the LSRCC.

Have you been at the Western Brown Line Station and noticed a large slab of concrete standing near the entrance? Well this 3-ton piece of rock was once a part of the Berlin Wall [1]. The city of Chicago was offered a piece of the wall by the Berlin government back in 2008 [2]. This donation symbolizes a gesture of gratitude towards the United States for helping secure the freedom of Berlin and the reunification process. While this gesture of goodwill is much appreciated, some may wonder why it was placed in a CTA station. Like so many other important historical artifacts, perhaps the wall should be kept at a museum or even a public library. However, the city decided to place it in Lincoln Square, a historically German neighborhood. Today, we’ll be looking at the history of Lincoln Square and why the Berlin Wall was placed there.

Lincoln Square saw its first settlers as far back as 1850 [3]. A majority of the settlers were farmers from Switzerland, Germany, and England. They would grow their produce and drive along Little Fort Road (Lincoln Ave.) to the market in Chicago. With Little Fort being a high traffic area, shops began to appear along the road. It wasn’t long until investors started building up the area and promoting it for commercial use. The area soon grew in popularity and saw tremendous growth in the early 1900s [4]. In 1907 the first elevated train made its way to Lincoln Square [5]. With the new train came even more residents and immigrants to the area. Over time, Lincoln Square was transformed from a small farming town to a thriving metropolitan area. And finally, in 1920 the town was annexed and became a part of the city of Chicago [6].

            During the large influx of immigration, numerous German families moved to Lincoln Square. When the town saw an increase in businesses they were primarily German-owned and operated. This encouraged even more German immigrants to move to the area. It is no surprise that German immigrants would want to move where there was a high concentration of German-Americans. Not only were they able to speak their language among their people, but they were able to shop for the items they used back home. Thus, over the years Lincoln Square earned the reputation as a historically German area. Even as the demographics of the area changed and became more diverse, the city promoted an “Old World flavor with European-style shops” [7]. Lastly, there are multiple German-American events that take place in Lincoln Park. The most famous and popular event that takes place is the German-American Oktoberfest. For one weekend in September, Chicagoans and visitors alike gather in Lincoln Square to celebrate everything German. The goal of the festival is to celebrate German heritage and help keep old traditions and culture alive. From this example it is clear to see just how prevalent German-American history and culture remains in Lincoln Square today. So when it came to the Berlin Wall being put on display, it seemed like the natural choice to place it in Lincoln Square.

            While this explains why the wall is in Lincoln Square, it does not answer why it was placed in the CTA. In 2009, the former Alderman of Lincoln Square, Gene Schulter, was interviewed by the McCormick Freedom Museum. The Alderman explained how he wanted it to be put in a prominent area so that it could inspire future generations. Not only would the monument help kids to understand the importance of the Berlin Wall but also teach them why it should never happen again. In the end, the Berlin Wall Monument is “a celebration of the true meaning of unity and liberty” [8]. Also, the citizens of Lincoln Square were thrilled to have the monument installed in the station. When an important monument, such as this one, is placed in a public area, it feels more accessible to the residents. As the Alderman puts it, having the wall in a public space demonstrates the more human side of it and how the Berlin Wall continues to affect people’s lives.

            This is not the only piece of the wall that was placed in a public area. Ever since its fall in 1989, the Berlin government has divided up the pieces to be donated to countries and cities around the world [9]. As of 2020, the Berlin Wall resides in over 40 different countries [10]. These pieces can be found in museums, libraries, businesses, parks, and even schools. Locations include the Berlin Park in Madrid, the Berlin Plaza in Seoul, and the campus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In this way, the question of why the Berlin Wall is placed on the CTA changes to a question of why not? The Berlin Wall has always been about the people. While it was initially meant to divide the Communist East Berlin from the Democratic West Berlin, it has come to symbolize much more. This symbol of hatred has been re-imagined as its worst fears, a symbol of hope, liberty, and freedom.

           

A segment of the Berlin Wall in New York on East 53rd Street between 5th and Madison Avenues in Paley Park, later relocated to the lobby of the
building to the park’s right. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_Wall_piece_in_New_York.JPG. Gaurav1146, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

To this day, there continue to be celebrations of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and what it means to the city of Chicago. In 2019, the Dank Haus German American Cultural Center hosted a celebration for the 30th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s dismantling [11]. The celebration took place at the Berlin Wall Monument for a rededication ceremony. Speakers included Consul General Wolfang Mössinger from Germany and Dank Haus President Dagmar Freiberger. Once the ceremony concluded guests were invited to share their stories about the events leading up to and eventual collapse of the Berlin Wall. This dedication and remembrance demonstrate the significance the wall has today and why it continues to be important to the city of Chicago.

            If you haven’t seen the wall, you can visit it at 4648 N. Western Ave, the Western Brown Line CTA Station in Lincoln Square.

Jen Cimmarusti, Loyola University Chicago

            [1] McCormick Freedom, “Berlin Wall in Chicago,” produced by the McCormick Freedom Museum, November 9, 2009, accessed November 22, 2020.

            [2] B, Mona,“A Piece of Berlin in Lincoln Square,” Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce (LSRCC), May 28, 2012, https://lincolnsquarecc.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/berlin-in-lincoln-square/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

            [3] “Cultural Information,” Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce, http://lincolnsquare.org/cultural-information/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

            [4] Ibid.

            [5] Ibid.

            [6] Ibid.

            [7] Seligman, Amanda, “Lincoln Square,” Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/747.html/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

            [8] McCormick Freedom, “Berlin Wall in Chicago.”

            [9] Ziv, Stav, “Where in the World Is the Berlin Wall?” Newsweek, November 11, 2014, https://www.newsweek.com/where-world-berlin-wall-283566. Accessed November 22, 2020.

            [10] Hernandez, Alex V, “30th Anniversary of Berlin Wall’s Demise to Be Celebrated At Monument In Lincoln Square,” November 1, 2019, https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/11/01/30th-anniversary-of-berlin-walls-demise-to-be-celebrated-at-monument-in-lincoln-square/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

            [11] Hernandez, Alex V, “30th Anniversary of Berlin Wall’s Demise.”

Bibliography

“About Us.” German-American Fest. Accessed November 23, 2020.

B, Mona.“A Piece of Berlin in Lincoln Square.” Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce. May 28, 2012. https://lincolnsquarecc.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/berlin-in-lincoln-square/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

Chandler, Susan. “A German Flavor Lingers in Lincoln Square.” Chicago Tribune, January 23, 2000. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-01-23-0001230342-story.html. Accessed November 22, 2020.

“Cultural Information.” Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce. http://lincolnsquare.org/cultural-information/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

Hernandez, Alex V. “30th Anniversary of Berlin Wall’s Demise to Be Celebrated At Monument   In Lincoln Square.” November 1, 2019. https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/11/01/30th-anniversary-of-berlin-walls-demise-to-be-celebrated-at-monument-in-lincoln-square/. Accessed November 22, 2020.

McCormick Freedom. “Berlin Wall in Chicago.” Produced by the McCormick Freedom  Museum. November 9, 2009. Accessed November 22, 2020.

Seligman, Amanda. “Lincoln Square.” Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/747.html/. Accessed November 22, 2020.Accessed November 22, 2020.

Ziv, Stav. “Where in the World Is the Berlin Wall?” Newsweek. November 11, 2014. https://www.newsweek.com/where-world-berlin-wall-283566. Accessed November 22, 2020.

Images

“Berlin Wall in Lincoln Square.” Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce. https://lincolnsquarecc.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/berlin-in-lincoln-square/. Accessed December 6, 2020.

A segment of the Berlin Wall in New York on East 53rd Street between 5th and Madison Avenues in Paley Park, later relocated to the lobby of the building to the park’s right. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin_Wall_piece_in_New_York.JPG. Gaurav1146, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Accessed October 17, 2021.

The Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame and the Evolution of Selling

On By Jenny BarryIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

During a 1989 taping of Late Night with David Letterman at the Chicago Theatre, Letterman conducted a tongue-in-cheek Chicago trivia quiz. When a photograph similar to the one below was shown Letterman asked: “Chicagoans recognize this as A) a tribute to Chicago’s historic leaders; B) a salute to the city’s great architects; C) the Pez Hall of Fame” [1]. The Chicago-based audience awarded the punch line referencing the iconic candy dispenser with arguably the largest laugh of the set.

Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame. November 2020. Photo by author.
PEZ candy dispenser.
Photo by author.

Laughs aside, if this had been a straight forward trivia contest, how many in the audience would have guessed the correct answer? Zero. None of the options were correct. The eight bronze busts comprise the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame conceived in 1953 to honor prominent American merchants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Who is included and why tells the story of commerce during those eras.

The Merchandise Mart, 1941. Curt Teich Postcard Archives, Newberry Library. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/nby_1BH2117.

The Merchandise Mart was constructed between 1928 and 1930 by Marshall Field & Co. to house its growing wholesale business [2]. The Chicago architecture firm Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White designed “the world’s largest business building” with nearly 4,000,000 square feet of floor space [3]. Marshall Field’s wholesale operations occupied a portion of the building and the remaining space was leased to a variety of other tenants [4]. Before the end of the decade, Marshall Field reduced its footprint in the building and found managing the real estate burdensome [5].  Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., former U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain and patriarch of the political Kennedy clan, purchased the Merchandise Mart in 1945 [6].

In 1953, Kennedy launched the Merchants of America Hall of Fame, as it was originally known, at a black–tie dinner on the roof of the Merchandise Mart attended by hundreds of businessmen and local dignitaries [7]. The goal was to honor “the outstanding merchants of the past, [thereby] pay[ing] long overdue honor to all merchants and to the unequaled American system of distribution” [8]. One speaker highlighted the role merchants played in western expansion. In a letter read aloud, President Eisenhower anticipated merchants would underpin future economic growth [9]. The Hall of Fame celebrated both salesmanship of the past and the future.

The inaugural class nominated by retailers and voted upon by financial and business writers included Marshall Field (1834-1906), John R. Wanamaker (1838-1922), George Huntington Hartford (1833-1917), and Frank Winfield Woolworth (1852-1919). Marshall Field of Chicago and John R. Wanamaker of Philadelphia revolutionized the shopping experience. Their new late-nineteenth century department store concept offered one-stop shopping, a marked price for each good, and full refunds [10]. Field was one of the first to offer services in addition to quality goods to engender customer loyalty [11]. Wanamaker was a pioneer of retail advertising and is credited with the first store restaurant [12].

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is merchmartfieldbust-1.jpgThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is merchmartwanamakerbust-1.jpgThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is merchmarthartfordbust.jpgThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is merchmartwoolworthbust.jpg
Left to right: Marshall Field, John R. Wanamaker, George H. Hartford, Frank W. Woolworth. Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame. November 2020. Photos by author.


Fellow inductees George Huntington Hartford and Frank Winfield Woolworth, both of New York, perfected the chain store concept which allowed a large number of stores to centrally purchase goods and negotiate better prices. In 1863, Huntington cofounded what would become the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) grocery store chain. Between 1915 and 1965, A&P was the largest retailer in the United States [13]. Woolworth was a pioneer of the five-and-ten cent store and was the first to use self-service display cases [14].

Over the next few years, bronze busts of the initial inductees and new Hall of Fame members were installed across the street from the Merchandise Mart, perhaps, in Kennedy’s view, conveying approval of this palace of consumerism. President Herbert Hoover delivered the keynote address at the unveiling of the busts by sculptors Charles Umlauf, Milton Horn and Lewis Iselin [15]. Kennedy announced the next two inductees: Edward A. Filene (1960-1937) of William Filene’s Sons & Co., Boston, and Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) of Sears Roebuck & Co., Chicago [16].  Henry Rox and Charles Umlauf sculpted the new busts [17].  In 1955, General Robert E. Wood (1879-1970), retired chairman of Sears, became the first living inductee [18]. Minna Harkavy created the Wood bust [19]. The Hall of Fame proved to be a good public relations vehicle and a way to strengthen relationships with the retailers that patronized the Merchandise Mart [20].

General Robert E. Wood and Julius Rosenwald.
Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame.
November 2020. Photo by author.

The Hall of Fame was well received during the initial years of its existence, but almost twenty years passed before Aaron Montgomery Ward (1843-1913), founder of Montgomery Ward & Company, joined the other merchants as the final inductee [21]. Sculptor Milton Horn created the Ward bust in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Ward’s creation of mail order business [22].  One of the reasons for the gap was that the subject matter of the Hall of Fame expressed antiquated values even when it was erected [23].  In honoring these retail giants, the aging Kennedy engaged in a strong nostalgia for the 1920s, a decade of heightened consumerism ushered in by the self-made salesmen of the Hall of Fame [24]. By the mid 1950s, themes of frustration and alienation appeared in literary works such as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and according to historian Timothy J. Garvey, “[A]t a time when the dream of business success seemed remote and the ideal of the self-made man seemed increasingly unrealistic, the modern viewer who was encouraged to look to those portraits [the Hall of Fame busts] for inspiration was, no doubt, a good deal less sanguine about the values they represented” [25].

Hints that a ninth honoree was imminent appeared in a 1977 Chicago Tribune column, but it did not come to be [26]. The Hall of Fame no longer supported the mission of the Merchandise Mart. After having served as a wholesale buying center for retailers, the Merchandise Mart changed focus and became known for its interior design showrooms [27]. The Kennedy family sold the property to the Vornado Realty Trust in 1998 [28].  In 2016 Vornado rebranded the structure as theMART which, in a sign of the times, began offering “lifestyle amenities [to] accommodate[ing] knowledge economy workers” to attract tenants such as Motorola Mobility, Yelp, and a variety of technology startup companies [29]. Brad Zizmor, principal of the New York design firm responsible for the overhaul commented “The shoeshine stands and newsstands of the 1950s are not meaningful anymore” [30]. Neither was the Hall of Fame.

The Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame. November 2020.
Photo by author.

As the Merchandise Mart evolved inside, so did the public space outside. Today, the busts serve as a backdrop to an outdoor restaurant and trash receptacles sit at the base of the columns. The stone marker designating the promenade as the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame has been removed. In 2019 Art on theMART launched a digital art installation using thirty-four projectors to cast images across the river on to the façade of the building on selected evenings, literally overshadowing the monuments [31].

Today, people enjoying a coffee below the busts may recognize a few of the names on the plaques, but it is unlikely they know these men laid the foundation of the modern retail world. Except for struggling Sears, the powerhouse retailers of late 19th and early 20th centuries are gone. They were victims of changing consumer habits including the rise of online shopping – the department store, chain store, and mail order business in one. Who would be inducted in the Hall of Fame today if it was resurrected? Amazon’s Jeff Bezos would likely be at the top of list.

Jenny Barry, Loyola University Chicago

[1] David Letterman, “Chicago Quiz on Letterman, May 2, 1989.” Late Night with David Letterman, May 2, 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTqxGiOV06Y.

[2] “Construction of the Merchandise Mart Started,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1928, https://search.proquest.com/docview/180932278?accountid=44868. Chicago Tribune Historical Database.

[3] Al Chase, “Nearly 80% of World’s Largest Building Rented: Merchandise Mart Breaks Leasing Records,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 2, 1930, https://search.proquest.com/docview/181074423?accountid=44868.

[4] Ibid.

[1] “Field’s Sells Vast Mart to J.P. Kennedy: Price on Second Largest Building Not Given,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22, 1945,  https://search.proquest.com/docview/177143406?accountid=44868.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Philip Hampson, “Four Pioneer Merchants in Hall of Fame: Founder of Fields’s Honored at Mart,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1953, https://search.proquest.com/docview/178528862?accountid=44868.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] “Department Stores and Modern Retailing,” The Great Courses, 2013, Kanopy.

[10] Timothy E. Sullivan, “Field, Marshall (1834-1906), merchant,” in American National Biography. 1 Feb. 2000; https://www-anb-org.ezproxy.cooklib.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1000543.

[11] Edward L. Lach, Jr., “Wanamaker, John (1838-1922), merchant,” in American National Biography. 1 Feb. 2000; https://www-anb-org.ezproxy.cooklib.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1001706.

[12] Geoffrey Gneuhs, “Hartford, George Huntington (05 September 1833–29 August 1917), cofounder of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) grocery store chain,” in American National Biography. 1 Feb. 2000, https://www-anb-org.ezproxy.cooklib.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1000745.

[13] Richard A. Hawkins, “Woolworth, Frank Winfield (1852-1919), retailer,” in  American National Biography. 1 Feb. 2000, https://www-anb-org.ezproxy.cooklib.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1001780.

[14] Clayton Kirkpatrick, “Hoover Calls Nationalism Key to Liberty: Outlines Foreign Policy Guide,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 25, 1954. https://search.proquest.com/docview/178728678?accountid=44868.;  Larry Broutman, Chicago Monumental (Chicago, Illinois : Broutman Photography, LLC, [2016] [Chicago, Illinois] : Lake Claremont Press, a Chicago joint, an imprint of Everything Goes Media, LLC, 2016), p.92.

[15] Kirkpatrick, “Hoover.”

[16] Broutman, Chicago Monumental, p.92.

[17] William Clark, “Wood Named to Merchant Hall of Fame,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 24, 1955, https://search.proquest.com/docview/179477701?accountid=44868.

[18] Broutman, Chicago Monumental, p.92.

[19] Timothy J. Garvey, “Merchants as Models: The Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame and Changing Values in Postwar Chicago,” Illinois Historical Journal 88, No. 3 (Autumn 1995), p. 163, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40192955.

[20] Lynn Taylor, “Dedicate Statuary: Honors for Ward’s Founder.” Chicago Tribune, September 27, 1972. https://search.proquest.com/docview/169208637?accountid=44868.

[21] Ibid.; Broutman, Chicago Monumental, p.92.

[22] Garvey, “Merchants as Models,” p. 169.

[23] David E. Koskoff,  Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), p. 340-341.

[24] Garvey, “Merchants as Models”, p. 172.

[25] “Action Line.” Chicago Tribune, June 7, 1977. https://search.proquest.com/docview/169609690?accountid=44868.

[26] Michael Paul Wakeford, “Merchandise Mart.” In The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/812.html.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Edward Keegan, “Rejuvenating theMART’s public realm,” Contract (July-August 2016), Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A460574477/ITOF?u=ccscm&sid=ITOF&xid=f0b254de.

[28] Ibid.

[29] “Vornado’s theMart: Still relevant at 90,” States News Service (February 3, 2020), Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A613099242/ITOF?u=ccscm&sid=ITOF&xid=7738079f.

The Ugly Duckling Shines in Lincoln Park: The Rich Meaning of the Hans Christian Andersen Monument in Chicago

On By Isabelle SapienzaIn monumentsLeave a comment

From The Little Mermaid to The Ugly Duckling, Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tales are known high and low around the world. His stories have graced pages of books, poems, and art as well as the big screen with movies, TV shows, and even plays and Broadway musicals. The Hans Christian Andersen monument located in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois pays homage to the innovative writer from Denmark [1]. However, the famed Danish man known by many did not start out as a lovely swan. Much like his story The Ugly Duckling, Hans Christian Andersen had to go through a rough life to get to the fame and glory he has now that inspired a group of Danish immigrants to create a monument to represent their country and heritage.

Thora Hallager, “Hans Christian Andersen,” October 1869.

Hans Christian Andersen was born on April 2, 1805 in Odense, Denmark to a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman [2]. The creator and storyteller inside Hans came out at an early age as he was known to tell stories to other children in elementary school [3]. However, Hans had family issues that made him scared to dive completely into his mind of wonder and fantasy. His grandfather, an actor, had gone mad, and Hans was waiting for his time to come where he too would run around the streets in flowers singing at the top of his lungs [4]. His mother, seeing Hans worried and anxious, decided to try to cure him of his worries. She did everything from taking him to a religious well to bringing him to a wise woman who made him wear a bag around his neck “containing some churchyard earth and a mole’s heart” [5]. After his father had died, his step-father, a dull grey man compared to the bright book-loving man his father was, found no use for Hans as he was becoming more in his head as he grew older [6]. Luckily for Hans, a fortune-teller came by the family’s house and read his fortune as: “‘Something great and fine in the world. The time will come when all Odense will be illuminated for him’” [7]. After hearing this, at the ripe age of fourteen, Hans set off to Copenhagen to try to make a mark on the world with his creativity and imagination [8].

While in Copenhagen, Hans tried his luck at almost anything that had to do with the arts. It wasn’t until he met “Jonas Collin, a benevolent Director of the Royal Theatre and one of the King’s Councillors” that Hans’ life in Copenhagen started to look up [9]. Collin had received a grant from the king to send Hans to “the Latin School at Slagelse under Simon Meisling” [10]. At school, Hans learned Latin, German, and French and continuously read in Danish, German, French, and even some English [11]. Hans also continued to write and create stories in his head at school.

After he graduated school, Hans went back to Collins’ family, but ended up traveling around Europe after the king granted him a traveling stipend [12]. When he returned to Denmark, Hans questioned whether he should continue writing or stop for a normal job that would bring him a consistent living. Collins encouraged Hans to continue writing, and after two years, he published his first “Fairy Stories,” a pamphlet containing four stories that would eventually be the first stepping stone on his path to greatness [13]. Hans’ writing only continued from the first pamphlet as his stories exploded onto the writing scene. Eventually, after his famous works of today like The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Nightingale, and more were published, the king of Denmark gave Hans a fixed income for his contribution to the writing world in the name of Denmark [14]. In his old age, Hans returned to Odense to find that the town had transformed into a beacon for him, just as the fortune-teller had predicted when he was fourteen [15]. Finally, the ugly duckling had become the swan he was destined to be.

The monument in Lincoln Park pays homage to Hans and represents more than just his literary mark on the world. After the American Civil War, monuments and statues of influential people were being put up in remembrance and honor of heritage [16]. Immigrants started doing the same as they wanted to remember their homeland and heritage that they had left behind [17]. Danish immigrants were no exception to this, especially as a huge influx of Danish Americans came to Chicago in 1891 [18].

While the Danish immigrants started thinking about ideas for the monument’s specifics, they knew they wanted to place the monument in one of Chicago’s beautiful parks as they had a desire to “give a good account of the culture of their homeland in America” [19]. Hans Christian Andersen was, of course, the first idea that popped into the immigrants’ heads as someone to represent their homeland of Denmark. Not only was Hans an influential writer in Europe, but also in America as his stories had spread across miles of the Atlantic Ocean to grace American homes and libraries [20]. He was the perfect person to showcase and honor Danish heritage and culture, but with the overwhelming certainty that the immigrants, and future immigrants, would keep their culture in America as well as America accepting their culture in return.

In 1981, a committee named “The Hans Christian Andersen Monument Association” was created and set forth on creating the monument that would be a symbol of Danish pride [21]. The committee chose Johannes Gelert, a sculptor who, like Andersen, moved to Copenhagen around the age of fourteen, as the artist for the monument [22]. However, a large problem arose with the monument. As one can expect, an eight foot tall bronze statue on a large granite pedestal is no cheap endeavor [23]. The committee had been getting small donations from Danish circles all across America and even small school-aged children donated with the change they had, but it was not enough and the monument was postponed indefinitely [24]. This did not stop the Danish-American community in Chicago from giving up. New ways to get money for the monument, like bazaars and concerts and new subscription lists, were thought of and executed ending in a possible date for the monument to be announced [25].

Finally, on September 26, 1896, the Hans Christian Andersen monument in Lincoln Park was unveiled to the public [26]. The statue of Hans is made out of bronze, and is a beautiful piece of art. Hans is sitting on a tree stump with a book on his lap. His finger is tucked inside it to hold his place as he looks out into the park. Beside him is a majestic swan. The statue sits atop a large granite pedestal that bears the letters “HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.”

Wikimedia Commons. Accessed November 15, 2020.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Christian_An
dersen_Lincoln_Park.JPG

The monument is an impressive and beautiful reminder to the Danish-American community in Chicago that they did not leave their heritage in Denmark when they left for a new life in America. It was the opposite in fact. Similar to a lot of monuments, this one stands as a physical reminder of something that cannot be seen outright. Sure heritage and culture can be seen from the food that is on the dinner table or the traditions families follow each year, but heritage and culture are like love, sometimes we need a physical reminder that we have it, and it cannot be taken from us. The Hans Christian Andersen monument stands as a beacon for current and new Danish-Americans that they did not leave anything but a country behind. Their costumes, traditions, and way of life are always ingrained in their bodies and minds. Similar to Hans’ story of the ugly duckling, the Danish immigrants felt as if they were an ugly duckling in the country of America in the late 1890s, but it was the opposite. They had finally become the beautiful swan they were meant to be in a new land that promised them a new and better life. The monument reminds them every day that they are not the ugly duckling, they are just like their Danish national treasure who they memorialized in bronze, a swan who needed to break free and soar to reach the place where their inner beauty, imagination, and happiness can shine.

Keeley Shoudel, Loyola University Chicago

[1] Elizabeth Belloc. “Hans Christian Andersen.” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 41, no. 161 (1952): 55.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 56.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 57.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 58.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid., 60.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Larsen, Birgit F. “Hans Christian Andersen’s Statue In Lincoln Park, Chicago.” The Bridge 22, no. 2 (1998): 84.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[29] Ibid., 85.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 86.

[23] “Hans Christian Andersen Monument.” Chicago Park District. Accessed November 15, 2020. https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/hans-christian-andersen-monument.

[24] Larsen, “Hans Christian Andersen’s Statue In Lincoln Park, Chicago,” 88.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid., 89.

Ceres & the Chicago Board of Trade: Women and Industry in 20th Century Chicago

On By Amber MearIn monuments, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Adding to the height of the 45-story Chicago Board of Trade Building on 141 West Jackson at LaSalle is a 30-foot statue of the Roman goddess of agriculture, Ceres. The Ceres statue stands holding a bundle of wheat in one hand, and a pouch of grain in the other [1]. She is made up of various aluminum geometric shapes, without any facial features, and her style resembles the building’s Art Deco architecture [2]. There are still some mysteries surrounding the statue that have not quite been put to rest, but one of great significance is: Why Ceres? Pursuing an answer to this question brings to light an understanding of Ceres’s narrative and the implications both past and present of a mythical female figure made to represent power and industry.

TonyTheTiger (own work) [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D

The statue was sculpted by John H. Storrs in 1930. The artist was born in Chicago and is considered one of the principal American artists to use European and cubist influences in his sculptures. He is sometimes referred to as the “sculptor of the machine age,” foregrounding geometric form and metalwork [3]. Storrs was commissioned to create a sculptural piece for the top of the new Board of Trade Building.

Storrs explained to the Chicago Tribune in 1930 that when he first received the commission, “I had two major points to consider. First, I wanted my work to be in architectural harmony with the building on which it was to stand. Second, I wanted it to be symbolical of the business of the organization the structure was to house.” [4] The modern style of the statue and the use of vertical lines mirrors the Art Deco style of the building. Using the image of Ceres, however, nods to the traditional grain industry. At the time of its construction, the Board of Trade Building was the tallest in Chicago, so Storrs made the choice to simply imply a female figure and included little detail, assuming it would not be viewed up close. The building as a whole is still highly regarded as a great example of Art Deco style and of Chicago architecture in general, and the faceless Ceres statue itself has become an iconic image for Chicagoans [5].

Chicago’s location at the base of the Great Lakes, in close proximity to fertile Midwestern farmlands, combined with the city’s rapid growth and development as a grain hub made it a logical place for a central marketplace: the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Founded by 82 Chicago merchants in 1848, the CBOT was first housed above a flour store on South Water Street. As the industry expanded over the next several decades and European buyers began to come to Chicago for grain rather than New York, the CBOT occupied various locations on or around South Water Street. Finally, in 1930, after suffering damage from the Great Fire in 1871 and other financial ups and downs, the CBOT settled at its current location at LaSalle and Jackson [6]. At the time, the 45-story structure commanded the Chicago skyline with the figure of Ceres towering above all.

Daniel Schwen (own work) [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D

Although Storrs and members of the CBOT may not have considered the tricky power dynamics at play when choosing Ceres as their mascot, this choice is significant to women’s labor history. Women in agriculture have been underrepresented in history and research; and in the case of US-based first-generation women farmers, the representation that does exist needs reevaluating. Today, women are uniquely positioned to create positive change through agriculture. This sentiment is mostly promoted internationally as programs focus on women in “‘developing countries’ who are responsible for 60 percent to 80 percent of food-crop production” [7]. While women in farming and other trades attempted to reclaim the standard narrative about their roles and usefulness in agriculture and trade, the dominant narrative of women as passive participants in agriculture won yet again when the CBOT chose Ceres to represent their industry.

From the National Archives, Identifier: 175539335. Creator: Department of Agriculture. Office of the Secretary. Office of Information. 1925-ca. 1981.

Stakeholders of the CBOT declared Ceres as the example and protector of their industry, prioritizing a mythology of womanhood instead of actual Chicago working women in their narrative. In the early nineteenth century, the geography of and trade around Chicago created an agriculture that was market- and production-oriented. Women were seen as “less scientific, less efficient and less well suited to modernity,” which marginalized their relevance in the contemporary agricultural system [8]. The emergence of social feminism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries empowered women to counteract this and similar narratives via labor movements. The Women’s Trade Union League of Chicago formed in 1904 to combat issues facing working-class women and address the significance women attached to traditional institutions. The relationship between women and institutions as these groups understood it served as the foundation for addressing the needs of working women in Chicago. The Chicago chapter of the WTUL continues to be involved in labor struggles. Today, it benefits from the city’s traditions of labor activism and cooperation among women across classes, both of which prove useful when working with male-dominated institutions such as the CBOT [9]. The narrative of women in trade is shifting, but the old narrative is still tied to Ceres, and she still stands tall at the top of the Board of Trade Building.

The goddess Ceres, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Rural Midwestern women play a small role in farm labor but are idealized in their representation as nurturing and non-threatening. This image is quite appealing to conventional agricultural and industrial groups, not unlike those housed in the Board of Trade Building at the time of Ceres’s construction. Women, especially rural white women, are essentialized as “gentle, virtuous and closer-to-nature,” a notion that is not new or harmless [10]. The narrative around Ceres simplifies a key message for the CBOT, which is that the messiness and grit of agriculture can be boiled down to a faceless, larger than life, industrial mythical figure. This simplification is in some way representative of the industrialization of agriculture, which happened in the 1920s as larger farms utilizing machinery became the standard in farming. Also, Ceres’s placement above all the action seems poignant and slightly unsettling. She is isolated at the top of the former tallest building in Chicago, passively representing an industry whose power and narrative were both largely untouchable for women at the time of her construction and for many decades since.

Karis Blaker, Loyola University Chicago

[1] Bach, Ira J., Mary L. Gray, and Mary Alice. Molloy. A Guide to Chicago’s Public Sculpture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

[2] Storrs, John Bradley. “Ceres.” The Art Institute of Chicago. Arts of the Americas, January 1, 1970. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/63178/ceres.

[3] Bach, Ira J., Mary L. Gray, and Mary Alice. Molloy. A Guide to Chicago’s Public Sculpture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

[4] Hampson, Philip. “Ancient Goddess in Modern Form to Command City.” The Chicago Tribune. May 4, 1930.

[5] “Ceres by John H. Storrs.” WTTW Chicago, April 17, 2018. https://interactive.wttw.com/loop/art/ceres-john-h-storrs.

[6] Trade, Chicago Board of. “Our History.” CBOT – Our History, 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20040111141647/http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,942,00.html.

[7] Larmer, Megan. “Cultivating the Edge: An Ethnography of First-Generation Women Farmers in the American Midwest.” Feminist review 114, no. 114 (January 1, 2016): 91–111.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Milkman, Ruth, ed. “Labor organizing and female institution-building: The Chicago Women’s Trade Union League, 1904-24.” Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of U. S. Women’s Labor History. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. Accessed November 15, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.

[10] Larmer, “Cultivating the Edge.

Banking on Baseball: The Legend We Call Ernie Banks

On By Jenny BarryIn monumentsLeave a comment
Image of Ernie Banks published in Chicago Sun Times

What makes someone beloved? Is that even something we can answer? I found myself asking this question about shortstop and first baseman Ernie Banks. “Mr. Cub,” as he was dubbed by Chicago newspaper writer Jim Enright, became Banks’ go-to nickname during his time with the Chicago Cubs [1]. He played his entire nineteen-year career in the Major League with the Cubs and stayed with them as a coach and ambassador after he retired from playing in 1971. Ernie Banks is the one player who “thoroughly and completely identified with the Cubs…[and] represented the franchise with class and enthusiasm” [2]. Despite his career as a player having ended nearly 50 years ago, Chicagoans of all ages seem to know and love Ernie Banks for what he represents as a person and baseball player.

Ernie Banks Statue outside Wrigley Field, dedicated on March 31, 2008

Teammates and non-teammates alike do not hesitate to express their appreciation for Banks. For that reason, on March 31, 2008, opening day for the Chicago Cubs’ baseball season, a statue was unveiled right outside the Clark street entrance to Wrigley Field of Ernie Banks. At the unveiling of his statue, other famous and well-respected baseball players including Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo spoke to highlight the spirit Ernie Banks embodied that made him the perfect ballplayer [3]. If you know Ernie Banks, you know his most-quoted phrase, “Let’s play two.” His love for the game and the Cubs, his incredible skill, and his positive energy are what drew people to him, even those who didn’t grow up watching him play. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Banks noted after being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, “Barack Obama gave it to me; he’d never seen me play!” [4]. But having a statue outside Wrigley Field showing him waiting for a pitch and engraved with his nickname, favorite phrase, and career accomplishments is a way for his legacy to live on and communicate to passersby who he was, what he did, and what he means to so many people.


With all the love Banks receives from fans past and present, one would think he grew up living and breathing Chicago and baseball. However, he grew up in Dallas, Texas and played football and basketball for his high school teams and softball on the community team. It was on the community softball team where Banks was recognized for his potential to play baseball as a career. In 1948, Bill Blair noticed seventeen-year-old Banks and recruited him for the Negro Baseball League. Blair was a pitcher and outfielder in the Negro League in the late 1940s and at the time he saw Banks playing, he was scouting for new players in Amarillo, Texas.


The Negro Leagues was a product of the racial segregation that characterized America after the Civil War. According to Edward White, “[n]o stated policy or written rule existed that barred blacks from participating in Organized Baseball. It was nonetheless apparent that no blacks could participate” [5]. By 1903, segregated baseball leagues for whites and Blacks were firmly established. This did not change until 1947 when Jackie Robinson was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers, making him the first person to break the color barrier. However, it took another twelve years for every team in the Major League to include Black players in their lineups, with the Boston Red Sox being the last team to sign a black player in 1959 [6].


Ernie Banks, who had played in the Negro League for the Kansas City Monarchs, broke the color barrier for the Chicago Cubs, as he was the first Black player they signed in 1953. He would go on to have an incredible career of hitting 512 home runs, hitting five grand slams in a single season (1955), setting a Major League record as a shortstop that same season by hitting forty-four homeruns in a season—then breaking his own record with forty-seven homeruns in 1958—and being the first National League player to be named MVP two years in a row (1958 and 1959) [7]. Banks accomplished all this without ever playing in a post-season game. Ernie’s nineteen years with the Cubs was during their 37-year losing streak that kept them from making it to the post-season. During Banks’ residency from 1953-1971, the Cubs hadn’t competed in the post-season since they lost to the Detroit Tigers in 1945 for the World Series, and it would still be another twelve years after Banks retired that the Cubs would make it to the League Championship Series, where they would lose to the San Diego Padres in 1984.


Perhaps that is what makes it even more remarkable that Ernie Banks is so beloved by Chicagoans despite their losing record throughout Banks’ career as a Chicago Cub. Being known and loved for his enthusiasm for a game and a team that could not seem to have a winning season for the entirety of his career is a remarkable quality and a testament to Banks’ character. Honoring Banks and his legacy with his statue outside the main entrance of the “friendly confines” of Wrigley Field is a show of respect and appreciation of his positive devotion to the Cubs franchise throughout his life [8].


The outpouring of love for Ernie online and in print is undeniable. YouTube clips about Ernie or interviews with him always come with comments from viewers describing a memory of watching Ernie play, an interaction they had with him, or what he meant to them and their family. In books and articles about him, the authors always share the impact Banks had on their lives. A couple who both love the Cubs and live in Lakeview, even decided to name their dog after Ernie Banks and devote an Instagram page to @Erniethe_doodle.

@erniethe_doodle visiting his namesake outside Wrigley Field and playing ball. Permission for using these images granted by his owners.


Statues are built for a reason. The person embodied in the statue made an impact in some way and is therefore thought to be deserving of such immortalization to remind current and future generations of their accomplishments and worthiness of being remembered. With all the controversy and politicization surrounding other statues and monuments to long dead influencers of history, it is hard to imagine Ernie Banks’ statue could ever follow in those footsteps. His goodness has been recognized for over sixty years now, and his statue will continue to remind Chicago baseball fans what it means to love the game.

Melissa Newman, Loyola University Chicago


[1] Freedman, Lew. Ernie Banks: the Life and Career of “Mr. Cub.” (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2019), 11.

[2] Freedman, 3.

[3] “Cubs Legend Banks Honored With Statue Outside Wrigley Field”. 2008. ESPN.Com. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3322443.

[4] Chicago Tribune. “Mr. Cub.” 2014. YouTube video, 4:07. April 3, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQL-F61pg78.

[5] White, G. Edward. “The Negro Leagues” in Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself, 1903-1953. Pp.128. Princeton University Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0sm0.9.

[6] Rapoport, Ron. Let’s Play Two: the Legend of “Mr. Cub,” the Life of Ernie Banks. (New York: Hachette Books, 2019), 71.

[7] “Banks, Ernest (Ernie).” Oxford African American Studies Center. 1 Dec. 2006; Accessed 22 Nov. 2020. https://oxfordaasc-com.dom.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-40156.

[8] Banks coined the now famous title that refers to Wrigley Field as “the Friendly Confines” after the Cubs were on the road for a while: “He was noting how good it felt to be home again for the Cubs’ next games.” Freedman, 4.


List of Images (in order of appearance):

Greenberg, Steve. 2020. “Touch ’em all, Ernie Banks: It’s the 50-year anniversary of home run No. 500 for Mr. Cub.” Chicago Sun-Times. https://chicago.suntimes.com/cubs/2020/5/12/21255604/cubs-ernie-banks-500-home-run-mr-cub.

“Ernie Banks Statue.” Photographs taken by Erik Newman, November 14, 2020.

Davie, Ryan and Sarah (@erniethe_doodle). “Just chilling with my namesake, Ernie Banks. I wonder if one day they will put a statue of me next to his…” Instagram. April 25, 2017. https://www.instagram.com/p/BTUDSIYBCmy/

Davie, Ryan and Sarah (@erniethe_doodle). “Smile! It’s Friday! #itsthefreakinweekend” Instagram. November 2, 2018. https://www.instagram.com/p/BprjaDmlgNP/

Davie, Ryan and Sarah (@erniethe_doodle). “Happy Opening Day!!! So excited for baseball to be back in Wrigley Field! Let’s go Cubbies!!” Instagram. April 9, 2018. https://www.instagram.com/p/BhWWN8JjA2Q/

Helping Hands: A Memorial to Jane Addams

On By Amber MearIn monumentsLeave a comment

The “Helping Hands” memorial to Jane Addams is situated within the Chicago Women’s Park & Gardens near the Prairie Historic District. Louise Bourgeois created the sculpture in 1993 to commemorate the life and works of Jane Addams, founder of Hull House and renowned advocate for women’s rights.[1] It is one of the first monuments in Chicago to memorialize a woman.

“Helping Hands,” by Louise Bergeron.[2]

“Helping Hands” is a series of sculptures made from black granite. Each one of the six is in the shape of a hand or hands and rests on a stone pedestal. The monument was originally situated in the Addams (Jane) Memorial Park near Navy Pier, but after being vandalized several times, it was taken down in 2006. After Bourgeois resculpted parts that had been damaged, the sculpture was moved to its present location in 2011, at the behest of the Art Institute and the Chicago Park District.[3]

Chicago was well overdue for a monument memorializing a woman’s contributions by the time “Helping Hands” came to fruition. It makes sense, too, for the subject to be Jane Addams, whose work with the Hull House advocating for women, laborers, and so many others, places her at the center of Chicago’s rich history of advocacy. Indeed, the six carved hands on their pedestals represent the many people Addams helped throughout her life, without thought to race, gender, or occupation, recalling what Addams herself said in her autobiographical notes: “Perhaps nothing is so fraught with significance as the human hand.”[4]

Part of “Helping Hands,” two sets of hands intertwined.[5]

While perhaps not as common as memorializing generals or statesmen, memorializing advocates who cared for and made the world a better place is worthwhile. The symbolism of “Helping Hands” is lovely and evocative, and sitting in the Chicago Women’s Park & Gardens is a suitable context (though the Hull House Museum, located a short distance away, also seems

like it would have been a good choice), even if it was not the originally intended location. It is interesting to note that one of the few monuments to a woman in the city of Chicago is symbolic in its form rather than literal; with so few memorials to women and their work, perhaps “Helping Hands” should be more literal and straightforward. Disassociating Addam’s work from a corporeal form might serve to place the focus on her acts, but when women have so few monuments to them for their actions, it is somewhat unsatisfying. Given her own words, though, Addams probably would have liked “Helping Hands.”

Hands coming together. [6]

Following the removal of “Helping Hands” from its original location at Addams Memorial Park, the Art Institute and the Chicago Park District worked together to find a new location to place the sculpture. The Art Institute commissioned the piece in the first place (and still retains the maquettes for “Helping Hands” in its collection), so the Institute clearly retained the role of a stakeholder.[7] The Chicago Park District is another clear stakeholder, wishing to both beautify the parks it oversees and have monuments that will please visitors to the parks and not cause too much controversy.[8] Given the events of the last couple of years, with monuments coming down due to public outcry, the public itself is a stakeholder in “Helping Hands.”

Remembering the legacies of Jane Addams and Louis Bourgeois. [9]

“Helping Hands” does not court controversy. There is no evidence that the vandalism it experienced while at the Addams Memorial Park was due to objection to its form or what it stood for, but rather that the vandalism occurred because the monument was low-lying in a place that saw a lot of traffic.[10] While the symbolic nature of the memorial may give pause to those concerned about how few monuments there are to women within Chicago, the sculpture itself is not particularly controversial. With all its pieces carved out of black granite, it is difficult to differentiate the differences between the hands, placing the focus solely on the idea of reaching out to help others. While that focus may problematize the “Helping Hands” for a select few, the monument is unlikely to rouse ire the same way a more contested monument would.

The sculptor, Louise Bourgeois, is well-known for making symbolic pieces that depict abstract ideas. Her input about what “Helping Hands” meant to her—Addam’s compassion and willingness to reach out to those who needed help—probably was mostly responsible for driving the narrative surrounding the monument for quite some time.[11] Following her death, it is harder to say who controls the narrative about “Helping Hands.” As the Art Institute commissioned the piece, they undoubtedly do now and did even when Bourgeois was creating the sculpture. The Chicago Park District, too, has a voice in contextualizing the piece, having played a central role in relocating “Helping Hands.” The two institutions that provide commentary, both in the form of a plaque describing the memorial and a digital resource (originally designed to be scanned at the monument, but also available for the general public on Statue Stories Chicago), continue to drive the narrative about this memorial to Jane Addams, and perhaps thus some of the narrative surrounding Jane Addams, too.[12]

Describing and memorializing Jane Addams. [13]

Despite the way institutions have driven the narrative surrounding the sculpture, there is a power to the monument. Not only is it to be hoped that “Helping Hands,” still too new to have made a lasting mark on the city, will do so over the coming years, but that the memorial will spark more memorials to worthwhile citizens of Chicago who are not white or male. Indeed, perhaps the monument, with its decontextualized hands and emphasis on collaboration and reaching out to help one’s community, will inspire more collaboration and more unity. Perhaps it might even provoke questions about who “Helping Hands” truly memorializes and who deserves to be memorialized.

Amber Mear, Loyola University Chicago

[1] Chicago Park District. “Helping Hands.” Last modified July 21, 2015. https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/helping-hands.

[2] “Helping Hands.”

[3] Glessner House Museum. “Helping Hands…That Talk!” Last modified August 10, 2015. https://www.glessnerhouse.org/story-of-a-house/2015/08/helping-hands-that-talk.html.

[4] Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull House. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912.

[5]Statue Stories Chicago. “Helping Hands Jane Addams Memorial.” Accessed November 20, 2020. http://www.statuestorieschicago.com/statue-helping-hands.php.

[6] “Helping Hands…That Talk!”

[7] Ibid.

[8] Chicago Park District. “Chicago Women’s Park & Gardens.” Accessed November 20, 2020. https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/chicago-womens-park-and-gardens.

[9] “Helping Hands…That Talk!”

[10] Ibid.

[11] Waller, Mary. “Jane Addams’ “Helping Hands.”” Last modified February 17, 2019. https://janeaddams.ramapo.edu/2019/02/jane-addams-helping-hands/.

[12] “Helping Hands Jane Addams Memorial.”

[13] “Helping Hands…That Talk!”

New Book Reveals Whaling in Chicago and Questions of Public History

On By lakefrontadminIn Reviews, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Daniel Gifford

Imagine a museum dedicated to whaling, set on a venerable old whaling ship from New Bedford, floating majestically in Chicago—first at the foot of the State Street Bridge, and later in the gleaming White City of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Whenever I tell people this is the subject of my new book, The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress: New Bedford, Chicago and the Twilight of an Industry (McFarland Press, 2020), they invariably say how cool it all sounds.

Figure 1: The Progress in the South Pond of the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893. Book of the Fair, Fin de Siècle Edition, Section Three. Hubert Howe Bancroft. (Chicago: The Bancroft Company, 1893).

The Progress was conceived as New Bedford’s paean to American whaling. Thousands turned out for her departure from the Massachusetts city as she began her journey across North America to Chicago. On that blustery day in June 1892 few would have questioned the assumption that the whaling industry would be gloriously represented and lauded at the most important world’s fair in the nation’s history.

Instead, the Progress was a failed sideshow of marine curiosities, a metaphor for a dying industry out of step with Gilded Age America, and an unmitigated disaster. The enterprise lost her investors a significant fortune, especially Chicago coal baron Henry Weaver. The Progress became a running joke in the final years of the nineteenth century. At one point the once-proud whaling bark was advertised for sale in the classified ads of the Chicago Tribune, just above the notice, “Wanted—A well trained driving goat.” Fire and dynamite eventually sent her to the bottom of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Calumet River.

What does it mean to transform a dying industry into “a museum piece”? That ultimately was the question I kept returning to as I researched and wrote about this strange moment when the history of the American whaling industry intersected with the 1890’s most celebrated freshwater metropolis. It remains a decidedly relevant question today as modern museums strive to preserve, interpret, and contextualize industries such as coal, steel, and manufacturing. Like those industries now, whaling was not dead by the 1890s, just greatly reduced. But it did still continue, remaining a way of life for a cadre of men and their families.

Discovering the ignominious fate of the Progress in Chicago thus opened doors to a decidedly contemporary set of lessons for museum practitioners today. What, exactly, went wrong? And what, if anything, can we learn from those failures over 100 years later? To answer those questions, I realized that I needed to go back much further than the heady months of the Columbian Exposition. That is why my book starts in 1850s New Bedford—the golden age of American whaling. Just like many industries and communities today, New Bedford had developed its own historical memory around whaling’s place in the American narrative. In the case of New Bedford, this blossomed into a literal religious zeal for the industry. The illuminative products of whaling—lamp fuel, lighthouse oil, clean-burning candles—became infused with the Quaker faith, built upon a foundation of light-versus-dark metaphors, beliefs, and practices. When New Bedford’s motto declared Lucem Diffundo— “we diffuse light”—it was both a civic statement and an evangelical claim.

This sort of industrial pride can be incredibly useful for conceiving and executing a museum. That instinct fed the idea of a whaling museum at the Columbian Exposition. The problem is that it can also create blind spots and tunnel vision. Over and over I found a disconnect between New Bedford’s inherent belief in whaling’s relevance and romance, and the way the trade was perceived by others. This included the Chicago syndicate that ultimately funded and ran the museum.

As the Progress journeyed across North America to Chicago via a network of rivers, canals, and finally the Great Lakes, she made a series of intermediate stops as a ticketed attraction. Curious sightseers in Montreal, Buffalo, Racine, and Milwaukee all got a chance to visit the whaling museum before her grand debut in Chicago in July 1892. Tracing that journey as a public historian was especially illuminating because it also showed how the museum changed the further away from New Bedford it went. Today, public historians take it as an article of faith that a museum needs to be connected to its community. The Progress is a terrific case study in this concept, or more accurately, its opposite. The further from whaling’s heart the bark traveled, the more it was severed from its community—a community that was already a shadow of what it had once been.

Figure 2: “The Arctic Whaler Progress.” G.A. Coffin. “There She Blows.” (Chicago: Arctic Whaling Exhibit Co., 1893).

Each stop on the way to Chicago seemed to push the Progress further and further away from the concept of a faithful representation of whaling and the whaling industry. When the whaleship arrived in the waters of Lake Michigan, the transformation into a museum of exotica, curiosities, and maritime hodgepodge was nearly complete. By the time she was moored on the Chicago River, even her New Bedford whaling crew had been replaced with freshwater sailors from Chicago’s schooners. My book explores this tension between an educational experience emphasizing completeness and authenticity, and an entertaining experience emphasizing crowd-pleasing spectacle. This push-and-pull dynamic from more than a century ago is surely not lost on museum practitioners today.

Figure 3: Cover, Souvenir Brochure, State Street Bridge, Chicago. 1892.

The Progress’ years in Chicago up until the fiery dynamiting in 1902 are filled with stories both hair-raising and sad, all of which I trust will be fascinating to any Chicago history aficionado. She sank in the Chicago River with 200 schoolchildren aboard. (Spoiler alert: they escaped!) She sat encased in ice on the Columbian Exposition fairgrounds while workers built the White City around her. Henry Weaver—whose coal money brought the Progress to Chicago and funded the eventual “Arctic Whaling Museum and 10,000 Marine Curiosities Between Decks”—went into receivership. The brand-new Field Columbian Museum bought and displayed the Progress’ vast collection in its first year, only to have museum curators rebel and unceremoniously kick the whaling artifacts out of Chicago at the first opportunity.

By the time I had worked my way to the end of the story, I was fully conscious of the temptation to point fingers and cast blame. Was Henry Weaver the villain here, or perhaps Chicago itself? Did the city’s Gilded Age love of everything modern and profitable make a whaling museum doomed from the beginning? Ultimately, I leave it up to the reader to decide, but I believe simple answers are elusive. Instead, I hope that my book sparks conversations about how to honor communities that may not be ready for their final eulogy or want a museum to become their mausoleum. The story of the Progress is a microhistory for those interested in commemoration, speaking to us over a hundred years later about how to value an industry. All we need do is listen.

The Last Voyage of the Whaling Bark Progress: New Bedford, Chicago and the Twilight of an Industry by Daniel Gifford is available on Amazon.com and other online vendors: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08945YF7F/

Daniel Gifford, Ph.D.’s career spans academia and public history, including George Mason University, George Washington University, and the Smithsonian Institution. A scholar of American popular culture and museums studies, he currently teaches at several universities near his home in Louisville, Kentucky.

Chicago’s Innovative Sisters of Theater: A Reflection on the Mundelein College Drama Department

On By matthewamyxIn Features, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Chicago has made a name for itself in live theater and the performing arts, as a hub for off-broadway plays, epicenter of the Little Theater Movement, and with students from its improv comedy schools ascending to fame on Saturday Night Live. But with all the ink spent on Chicago theater, very little has splashed for the rich history of college drama departments in the Windy City. These institutions have not only trained up many of America’s stars of stage and screen, but also feed into the important local arts and multimedia production sectors, raising up the next generation of high school drama coaches and local television producers. We can see an amazing example of such an institution in the drama department at Mundelein College, which lasted from 1930 to 1991 as one of the first – and also the last – private Catholic women’s colleges in Illinois. Far from an insular, strictly academic program, the theater department at Mundelein College shone brightly as both very communal and highly innovative.

A still from a performance of Twelfth Night taken from the Chicago Tribune

While Mundelein College was named for Cardinal George Mundelein, the funding, planning, and administration of the school came from the dedicated Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the BVMs, led by the school’s first president Sister Mary Justitia Coffey. They chose a modern design, with the school primarily comprised of a tall skyscraper adjacent to Loyola University in Rogers Park so the two schools could share lecturers and access to the Red Line Train stop. (The Mundelein building primarily serves as classrooms for Loyola University today.)

Early photo of Mundelein Skyscraper, built 1930

The building featured excellent theater space according to a 1932 pamphlett: “The entire eighth floor of the college building is devoted to drama and art. At one end of the broad corridor which leads from the elevators is the Little Theatre. Complete in its equipment, the stage furnishes an excellent workshop for the drama student.” The floor also included studios “for private instruction”, ventilation, mirrors, “other necessary equipment”, and a club room with “modernistic furniture and attractive window hangings”. The Little Theatre was sufficient for smaller productions, including one-act plays, student-written scripts, and events like teas and revues. For larger productions, the young thespians worked their magic in the large auditorium on the ground floor of the skyscraper campus. It offered patrons of the arts 925 floor seats and 325 balcony seats. “Beautiful in its simplicity,” one pamphlet reads, “it carries out the architecture of the rest of the college in the long lines of its mural decorations and in the immense chandeliers which epitomize the structure of the building… The stage has the distinction of having the first successfully-operated electrical rigging in this country.”

The Little Theater at Mundelein

In addition to its modern construction, the auditorium, in the words of alumni and Academy Award-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge, possessed strange aural properties:

When empty the auditorium at Mundelein College was acoustically quite unsound… When it was full of people, the acoustics were great. But in the emptiness there was booming and echo… a perfect place for me to work on my voice… I literally learned to play my instrument by ear. The reverberations that hit back at me from the walls and the deep hole of the balcony let me know that nasal tones are scarcely ever effective, that each word deserves its completeness or it is received as garbled garbage…

Sister Mary Leola Oliver served as the department’s first director from 1930-1938, and began the program’s long history of innovation. She not only produced an impressive array of productions ranging from Shakespeare to the tragicomedies of Henri Gheon, but also organized her students into a verse-speaking choir, a new concept from Europe where combinations of light and dark voices performed texts in half-spoken, half-sung arrangements. The program proved so successful that Sister Leola won her choir a 5-year radio contract with NBC, exposing Mundelein Drama to millions of listeners and giving students like Mercedes McCambridge a jump-start to their acting careers. The much-loved Sister Leola counted famous thespians – including Ethel Barrymore and Claude Rains – among her friends, leading to exciting guest speakers for her students.

Photo of Sister Leola and her most famous pupil after Mercedes McCambridge won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in All the King’s Men, 1949.

From 1938 to 1960, Sister Carmelia Hanses directed the department, which contained both the drama and speech programs at Mundelein. Sister Carmelia innovated by using theater to treat speech disorders, much as Viola Spolin created improv theater (also in Chicago) to help children develop socialization skills through play. Under Sister Carmelia’s leadership, the Mundelein students coached a theater program for the children of Chicago, and many went on to work in the field of speech pathology.

A Mundelein student leading a speech clinic for children.

Although Sister Carmelia technically directed the program until 1960, the real director of the drama portion of the program from 1952 to 1980 was Sister Jeanelle Bergen, who prolifically produced three major plays a year in addition to smaller reviews and mosaics written by her students. Sister Jeanelle, while still incorporating the classics, also introduced her students to post-modern theater and plays with controversial topics, such as her 1968 production of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey which tackles subjects including alcoholism, racism, and homosexuality.

But perhaps Sister Jeanelle’s most innovative contribution to the program was her commitment to preparing her students for the television age. Despite a dearth of equipment, she arranged classes on television production, created local television programs related to the Catholic church, and even took a summer internship at a game show so she could learn the tricks of the trade to teach her students. Once an executive hoping to score complimentary tickets called her “Jeanie Baby” on the phone, shocked to find on his arrival that “Jeanie Baby” was a nun in full habit, holding a clipboard while helping film “The Match Game”.

Sister Jeanelle learning the ropes of television production while interning at a game show.

Much work remains for cultural historians in studying both the Mundelein College Drama Department and the history of Chicago academic theater departments generally. Scholars should particularly consider the outcomes of these programs for women seeking careers in fields such as drama pedagogy, performance, television production, and speech therapy. For those of you interested in the Mundelein College Drama Department, please reach out to me at mamyx@luc.edu and I will send you my entire paper on the subject, or visit the Women and Leadership Archives at Loyola University and ask to see the Mundelein Drama Department files. (Ask nicely, and maybe they’ll show you Mercedes McCambridge’s Academy Award.)