How well did you find your way around 1955 Chicago?
We are on Western Avenue at the intersection with Lincoln, just north of Lawrence. The Western station of the Ravenswood "L" (Brown Line) is in the distance. The massive building behind the streetcar is now Dank Haus, Chicago's German American cultural center.
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. Chicago first celebrated the holiday 103 years ago Wednesday–May 9, 1909.
The American version of Mother’s Day was started by Anna Marie Jarvis, after the death of her own mother in 1905. To honor all mothers, Jarvis asked people to wear white carnations on the second Sunday in May. The first observances were held in Grafton, West Virginia, where her late mother had lived.
By 1908 Mother’s Day was being celebrated in Philadelphia, San Francisco and a few other places. Meanwhile, Jarvis worked to spread the holiday. She sent pamphlets to women’s clubs in various cities, asking for help.
In Chicago, the Mother’s Day cause was taken up by Sarah Warrell. On May 4, 1909, the Tribune ran a short interview in which she described the holiday.
Warrell called on ministers, teachers, and charitable institutions to get out the word. Wearing the white carnation was the first step. Then people should use the holiday for positive action, to help the aged, the sick, and the needy.
Haymarket Square was located on Randolph Street just east of Halsted, about where the Kennedy now comes through. On this date in 1886, the site became infamous.
Chicago was having labor troubles that spring. On May 3, two striking workers had been killed in a confrontation with police at the McCormick Reaper Works. A local anarchist group called for a mass protest meeting at Haymarket Square the following evening.
Something like 2,000 people came to the rally. Mayor Carter Harrison was one of them. He saw things were peaceful and left.
The speakers continued for three hours. Light rain began falling. People drifted away. By 10:30 about 300 stragglers remained in the square.
Samuel Fielden was the final speaker. He climbed on the wagon that was being used as a stage and began his remarks. A few police officers had been on hand during the rally. Now a larger contingent arrived.
The police halted.
Before Barack Obama, only one U.S. President had called Chicago home. As a boy, Ronald Reagan lived on the first floor of the building at 832 East 57th Street.
The Reagans moved into their apartment in January of 1915. They’d come to the city from the western Illinois village of Tampico. Jack Reagan, Ronald's father, got a job selling shoes in the Loop. His wife, Nelle, stayed home with the two boys, 6-year-old Neil and little Ron–called “Dutch”–who was going on 4.
The University of Chicago was a few blocks east, but the area where the Reagans settled wasn’t fashionable. Nor was the building–their flat was lighted by a single gas lamp, which operated when a quarter was deposited in a timer. They probably picked the location for its easy access to the Cottage Grove streetcar line.
After living in tiny Tampico, Chicago was a brave new world for Dutch Reagan. He was excited to see all the people and activity. When a horse-drawn fire engine clanged by his apartment window, he decided there could be no finer profession than Chicago fireman.
All was not pleasant for Dutch. He came down with bronchial pneumonia and nearly died.
On May 1, 1893, the World's Columbian Exposition opened in Jackson Park. One forgotten story of the fair is the tale of Paderewski's piano.
Ignacy Jan Paderewski was a Polish-born pianist. In 1893, at 32, he was already the world’s most famous musician. But there was more to him than skill at the keyboard. Paderewski had sex appeal.
Women jammed the concert hall for his performances. Some of them fainted when he played. A few even fainted when they saw him on the street. One newspaper came up with a name for the phenomenon–"Paddymania."
At the end of April, Paderewski was just finishing a series of Chicago concerts, and was about to leave for Europe. Conductor Theodore Thomas asked him to stay around for a week to play at the fair. Paderewski agreed to do it, without fee. Everything was set.
Then the fair’s bureaucrats got into the act. Paderewski performed on Steinway pianos. Steinway was not an exhibitor at the fair. Therefore, Paderewski would have to use one of the “official” pianos.
Paderewski refused. He said a musician should be free to select his own instrument. He had signed a contract to use only Steinway pianos.
Thirty-five years ago today, Skokie officials were in court. They were trying to prevent Nazis from holding a rally in their village.
The National Socialist Party of America was a tiny group of perhaps a hundred people. They were led by a man named Frank Collin. The party had headquarters in the Marquette Park area of Chicago, where they’d been protesting African-American presence in the neighborhood.
In the spring of 1977, Chicago officials banned the Nazis from speaking in the park. Looking for publicity, the party then announced it would hold a rally in Skokie on May 1. More than half of the suburb’s 80,000 residents were Jewish.
First you have to know what “portage” means. Think of it as soggy land between two waterways. In our case, we’re talking about the area between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River.
Go back a few hundred years. A traveler would row his canoe up one river, get out and carry it five or so miles across the portage, then plunk the canoe down in the other river and start rowing again. If he was lucky, the portage was flooded. Then he could row that canoe straight through between the two rivers.
Irving Park Road follows the general line of a local portage. So when a park was planned for Irving Park and Central in 1912, it was called Portage Park. That’s also the name of the neighborhood around it, Community Area 15.
Settlement actually began in 1841, when an inn was built along the old trail that became Milwaukee Avenue. Chester Dickinson bought the building a few years later, renamed it Dickinson’s Tavern, and made it into a popular watering hole. In 1850 area residents organized a town called Jefferson.
