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They Made No Little Plans: The Influence of Prairie Avenue on the 1893 Columbian Exposition – Part I

12 Monday Jun 2017

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“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.“

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Daniel H. Burnham, circa 1890

This timeless quote is from Daniel Hudson Burnham, the legendary Chicago architect and urban planner.  Burnham is the author of the Plan of Chicago, a masterful 1909 text that, among other things, helped ensure that Chicago’s miles of lakefront were not only beautiful, but functional and accessible to all. Burnham was also the visionary behind an event that would establish Chicago once and for all as a world-class city, commercial juggernaut, and cultural mecca: The 1893 Columbian Exhibition.

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John B Sherman Home, 2100 S. Prairie Avenue

Like many remarkable Chicagoans profiled in this series, Daniel Burnham was a denizen of Prairie Avenue. One of his first architectural commissions, shared with business partner John Wellborn Root, was a grand home at 2100 S. Prairie Avenue. The fledgling firm of Burnham & Root designed the mansion for John B. Sherman, one of the founding members of the Union Stockyards. While the home was under construction, Burnham met and married Sherman’s daughter, Margaret. At the outset of what would be a long and happy union, Burnham came to live in the house he built for his eventual father-in-law.  Sherman became an avid supporter of Burnham & Root, using his many business connections to generate commissions for the growing firm.

During his time on Prairie Avenue, Burnham made many friendships with Chicago’s elite. His ties to the city’s most wealthy and powerful citizens gave him an edge when the city vied for a most prestigious prize: Hosting a World’s Fair.

There has not been a World’s Fair in the United States since 1984. The last Fair, hosted in New Orleans, entered into bankruptcy before its six-month run ended. More than one generation of Americans has never attended, and perhaps never will attend, a World’s Fair. Remnants of 20th century Fairs, such as New York’s Unisphere and Seattle’s Space Needle, are camp icons. It is easy to forget that World’s Fairs were once huge, heavily attended spectacles, showcasing technological innovation and, if the backers were lucky, generating significant profits.

The first World’s Fairs were mainly industrial exhibitions. Between 1798 and 1851, Paris hosted eleven such shows. Other countries began to take notice. Always one to engage in one-upmanship with its rival nation, Great Britain decided to host its first exhibition on a scale that would dwarf anything France had thus far accomplished. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, and Henry Cole organized the bombastically titled Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations.  The Great Exhibition, now recognized as the first World’s Fair, was housed in a fantastic mega-greenhouse that came to be known as the Crystal Palace. The 1851 London-based event helped to solidify awareness of Britain’s industrial and technological leadership. It was also hugely profitable: Its surplus of what would be more than $22 million in 2017 was used to build several museums, including the Victoria and Albert.  There was even enough leftover money for a trust to fund industrial research grants. The trust is still in existence.

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The London Great Exhibition’s Crystal Palace

The United States did not host a major exposition until 1876, when the Centennial Exposition opened in Philadelphia.  Four years in the making, the event contained some 200 buildings and drew more than 10 million visitors. While it did not achieve a profit for its investors, the Centennial Exposition established the U.S. as a formidable source of manufactured goods. It ultimately enhanced the nation’s viability by helping to spur the growth of exports.

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Stereopticon image of Memorial Hall, Centennial Exhibition, 1876.

Following the success of Philadelphia, it was time for another World’s Fair.  This one would commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the New World. Washington, D.C., St. Louis, New York and Chicago initially vied to host the exhibition. It soon became evident in the timeless “pay to play” scheme of things that only New York and Chicago possessed the necessary financial muscle to host an event of such magnitude. Although Chicago was only some 20 years beyond the 1871 fire that devastated the city, its resurrection was rapid and spectacular. It was, defiant of any odds, a formidable contender. The eyes of the nation focused upon the two great cities: New York, America’s locus of power, longtime financial center, versus aggressive, new-monied Chicago. The U.S. Congress would be the final decision-maker of the Exposition’s venue.

In New York’s corner stood deep-pocketed giants such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan and William W. Astor. In Chicago, however, a few Prairie Avenue neighbors were not about to back down: In an early display of refusal to concede to Second City status,  Philip D. Armour and Marshall Field used their considerable wealth to put Chicago forward. Other major players included Gustavus Swift, Cyrus McCormick and Charles T. Yerkes. Chicagoans of every income level pledged whatever they could to ensure their town would be the next location of a World’s Fair.  New York was still the predicted host until a last-minute funding surge of several million dollars orchestrated by Chicago financier Lyman Gage turned the tables. Congress decided: Chicago would host the 1893 Columbian Exhibition.  And Daniel Burnham would have some very big plans to make.

To be continued.

 

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How Chicago Culture Bloomed on the Prairie (Avenue)

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

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To longtime residents and newcomers alike, Chicago’s cultural institutions seem to have been fixed stars in the city’s firmament. It is almost impossible to imagine a time when Chicagoans and visitors could not delight in the Art Institute, Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera, and countless other venues. The city’s quest for artistic viability started early on:  as soon as the mid-1800s, the city began to establish itself as the Midwest’s mecca of wealth, culture and philanthropic opportunities. The city’s progress in these areas grew exponentially after the Chicago Fire of 1871, when the need for lumber, steel, foodstuffs and department store goods further enriched already prosperous families. Many of these families, such as the Potters, Glessners, Armours, Hamills and Fields, had the prescience to help build prestigious cultural institutions that thrive to this day.

By the 1880s, an inordinately large percentage of Chicago’s monied families chose Prairie Avenue as the place to build their palaces.  Although the phrase “Keeping up with the Jones” refers to the Jones family of New York City that produced novelist Edith Wharton, there were plenty of Jones counterparts residing in the not-so-little houses on the Prairie.

While their spouses were reigning over their factories, stockyards and stores, the ladies of Prairie Avenue sought to create a vibrant, elegant social environment to compete with, if not rival, those of New York, Philadelphia and Boston. The earliest social functions were not entire worthy of the storied gatherings back East.  In Emmett Dedmon’s fascinating book, Chicago, reference is made to one Charles Fenno Hoffman, who described a typical social event: “At these Chicago cotillions, you might see a veteran officer in full uniform balancing a tradesman’s daughter still in her short frock and trousers, while there the golden aiguillette of a handsome surgeon flapped in unison with the glass beads upon a scrawny neck of fifty … the high placed buttons of a linsey woolsey coat would be dos a dos to the elegantly turned shoulders of a delicate southern girl.”  However, what the city may have lacked in pedigree, it more than compensated in money and visionary benefactors.

As Chicago’s elite sought to force showy hothouse flowers from its frontier town roots, they began to cultivate the rudiments of culture on the shores of Lake Michigan. Some of the city’s wealthiest inhabitants had music and art imbued in them from educations in the East; others were ardent students of the city’s early arbiters of taste. One way or another, it became incumbent upon Chicago’s most successful citizens to transform what was once a backwater into a showcase of the arts.

Then, as now, a successful opera company was one of the bellwethers of a young metropolis. Chicago’s first opera house opened in 1865, but was destroyed in the Chicago Fire. Its successor, Louis Sullivan’s extraordinary Auditorium, opened in 1889.  Theodore Thomas founded the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in 1891.  Concurrent with the 1893 Columbian Exposition, an event that signified that Chicago had truly arrived as a world-class city, the Art Institute of Chicago moved into its venerable headquarters on Michigan Avenue at Adams Street.  The Boston architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge provided a Renaissance design so appropriate for Chicago’s rebirth after its devastation by fire only 20 years prior.

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The Art Institute of Chicago rises, ca.1893.

Not surprisingly, the families of Prairie Avenue played significant roles in Chicago’s social and cultural ascendancy. Upon the formation of the CSO, John and Frances Glessner pledged ardent support behind the orchestra and its founder, Theodore Thomas. Mr. Glessner served as one of the original 50 guarantors of the CSO, providing the fledgling organization with $1,000.00 per year against the host of losses it initially incurred. He was instrumental, so to speak, in the construction of the orchestra’s home on Michigan Avenue. Mr. Thomas was a frequent guest at the Glessners’ homes, not only on Prairie Avenue, but in the families’ summer residences in New Hampshire.  The families’ friendship was so strong that upon Mr. Thomas’ death in 1904, Mrs. Thomas presented the Glessners with her husband’s baton.  The precious artifact is on display at the Glessner House Museum.

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Theodore Thomas conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, ca. 1899.

George Armour was one of the initial patrons of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, the predecessor to the Art Institute of Chicago. Countless Prairie Avenue luminaries lended their business acumen and political connections to launch the 1893 Columbian Exposition, which brought an estimated 26 million visitors to Chicago.  Among the Exposition’s major underwriters were Marshall Field, Philp D. Armour and Gustavus Swift.

The Field Museum, another initial outgrowth of the Columbian Exposition, would not have grown into a world-renowned educational institution without the support of its namesake, Marshall Field, or the generosity of his Prairie Avenue friend and neighbor, George Pullman.

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Countless visitors wait in line to visit the new Field Museum.

One of Marshall Field’s most brilliant executives, John G. Shedd, visited fascinating aquariums in his travels through major European cities. He concluded that Chicago should have not only its own institution to house aquatic animals, but one that rivaled all others throughout the world.  He donated at least $2 million toward his masterpiece.  Although Mr. Shedd died before his aquarium was completed, the Shedd Aquarium stands as a beloved, ever-evolving tribute to this Chicagoan’s generosity.

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A bevy of 1920s cuties enjoyed the Shedd.

Even entities as far-flung as the Archaeological Institute of America thrived under the aegis of Prairie Avenue residents.  An 1888 list of its Society members reads like a Who’s Who of Chicago’s upper echelon, including Prairie Avenue residents Armour, Bartlett, Buckingham, Ellis, Field, Frank, Glessner, Hamill, Harvey, Hutchinson and countless more.

As evidenced in previous installments in this series, the contributions of one group of citizens living for a time on one Chicago street cannot be overestimated.

A Prairie Avenue Christmas

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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If the holiday season was embraced with joy by Chicagoans in the late 19th century, it was elevated to an art form by the residents of Prairie Avenue.  With families such as Philip D. Armour and Marshall Field as neighbors, it could be safely assumed that one’s holiday tables would be laden with the finest food, and that exceptional gifts would be placed under the tree.

Since so much of the land surrounding Chicago was still undeveloped, Christmas trees were never in short supply.  Affluent families would often purchase the most stately spruce that could be accommodated under their parlors’ high ceilings. Families loved to adorn their trees with ornaments made of gingerbread, fruit and nuts, as well as garlands strung with popcorn or cranberries. Glass ornaments started being mass-produced in Germany during the 1880s, and it is likely that Chicago retailers started importing the sparkling new baubles concurrently. Trees were lit with small candles that were affixed to tree branches.  Buckets of water or sand were placed closely to the trees in case a candle’s flame ignited the tree.

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Christmas Tree, late 1800s

Speaking of fires, imagine having lost family members, homes and most of the city in what was the conflagration of 1871. Then, consider how Chicago’s citizens rose, Phoenix-like, to rebuild their beloved town.  It must still have seemed miraculous during Prairie Avenue’s heyday in the 1880s and 1890s for Christmas shoppers to be able to wander through palatial department stores such as Marshall Field & Company, Carson Pirie Scott, the Fair, and Schlesinger & Mayer. Department stores were held in reverence, at least by their advertising departments, as evidenced by this ad from the early 1900s:marshall-fields-illustration

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This well-dressed family enjoys a day of shopping in Chicago’s busy streets.

Holiday attire, especially for the ladies of Prairie Avenue, was beyond the comprehension – and comparative budgets – of the average Chicagoan. This dress, now at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, was produced by a team of seamstresses at Marshall Field’s establishment. It would have been perfect for a Christmas celebration.

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Gown created by Marshall Field & Company

Charles Frederick Worth was the couture darling of the late 19th century. Only a handful of Chicago women would have been able to afford one of his creations, but here is a sampling of Worth gowns that make today’s Ugly Christmas Sweaters wither in comparison:

And what good was a Worth gown without the appropriate accessories?  Again, it was Marshall Field & Company to the rescue.

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A Prairie Avenue child would have found delight in presents under the tree.  Gifts included a range from the simple (marbles, jacks, rolling hoops), to dolls and dollhouses, tin soldiers, and toy train sets. A lucky child might have received a puppy. According to the American Kennel Club, the most popular dog breeds of the era included Saint Bernards, English Setters, Cocker Spaniels and Beagles. A Persian kitten, then relatively exotic, would have been a sweet gift.

St. Bernard dog
Blue and Cream Persian cats

One of the most high-tech gifts for people of all ages was a stereopticon, or “magic lantern.” A primitive version of the ViewMaster toy, the stereopticon was a hand-held viewer that contained two lenses arranged to produce a multidimensional view of the slides placed behind them.

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Stereopticon viewer with slides

Places of worship played a major role in the development of the young city of Chicago. Many faiths were represented in the area. They provided essential goods and services for the needy, as well as venues for Chicago’s elite to socialize.  Many Prairie Avenue families, including the Armours, Pullmans, and Cobbs, attended services at Second Presbyterian Church at 1936 South Michigan Avenue.  Arthur Meeker, Jr., son of a prominent Armour executive, used Second Presbyterian as a backdrop for a social encounter in his 1949 novel, Prairie Avenue.  In one chapter, Meeker’s young protagonist, Ned Ramsay, spotted a friend seated with her mother in the family pew, observing the practice of the wealthy in purchasing or renting pews for their exclusive use.  Second Presbyterian and its extraordinary architecture still thrive, as is evidenced by this recent Classic Chicago Magazine article.

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Grace Episcopal Church

Grace Episcopal Church, a popular venue among Prairie Avenue residents, stood at the corner of Eighth Street and Wabash Avenue from 1859 to 1914 when it was destroyed by fire. It was soon rebuilt, and its most modern building continues to be a vibrant faith community.

One of Chicago’s first synagogues, the Sinai Congregation, was located at the corner of 21st Street and Indiana Avenue. The building featured Moorish-inspired architecture from the legendary team of Adler and Sullivan. Sinai was, and continues to be, one of the most socially progressive congregations in the Chicago area.  The Near South Side’s Catholic families, including the countless Irish immigrants who served as maids, cooks and coachmen on Prairie Avenue, attended Mass at Old St. Mary’s Church at 911 S. Wabash Avenue. Old St. Mary’s, founded in 1833, continues to serve as a place of worship and education for South Loop families.

Few could outdo the people of Prairie Avenue in terms of holiday feasts. Christmas dinners would last for hours, from the aperitifs to the postprandial port. Roasted turkeys, geese and pigs were often the main courses.  The Prairie Avenue Cookbook, available at the Glessner House Museum (1800 S. Prairie Avenue), is a fascinating resource for 19th century social history, customs and family recipes that have been modified for current use.  According to a not-updated sidebar menu, “the Christmas turkey should be cooped up and fed well some time before Christmas.  Three days before it is slaughtered, it should have an English walnut forced down its throat three times a day, and a glass of sherry once a day.  The meat will be deliciously tender, and have a fine nutty flavor.”  Cooks were no more merciful to the other birds: “In selecting a goose or duck … take hold of the toes and pull them apart. If the web separates easily, it is young; but if it requires any great amount of physical force to separate, lay it to one side … ‘tis an old fowl, and you will reap no profit from its purchase unless you are keeping boarders.”

Things changed. Prairie Avenue ceased to be a fashionable residential location by the 1920s. Many of the elegant homes have been demolished, and skyscraper apartment buildings stand in their places. The invention of the automobile forever altered Chicago’s thoroughfares. Suburban housing developments replaced farmland as they marched toward the state’s borders.  But some things remain the same as ever: The sun rises magnificently over Lake Michigan, shedding a pink glow over the mosaic of ice caps. Brutal winter winds still roar through the Loop’s skyscraper canyons. The holiday windows at Marshall Field’s (as many Chicagoans still refer to the store purchased by Macy’s in 2006) continue to delight people of all ages. Christmas trees and menorahs continue to light the snowy nights. Children still look for Santa in the midnight starlit skies over Chicago.  We all hope for peace.  We all believe in a better world.