The White Slaves of Free America by John T. McEnnis

The White Slaves of Free America: BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE SUFFERINGS, PRIVATIONS AND HARDSHIPS OF THE WEARY TOILERS IN OUR GREAT CITIES as recently exposed by Nell Nelson of the Chicago Timesby John T. McEnnis

Book Location: Harvard University Library     Date: 1888 

 John T. McEnnis (1854-1896) was the city editor of the Chicago Daily Globe. The paper was owned and published by staunch Democrat, and rather notorious, Michael McDonald. Theodore Dreiser worked as a reporter for the Globe and recounts his experiences in his autobiographical book, Newspaper Days. Dreiser covered the 1892 Democratic Convention. Unfortunately, the paper folded in 1893.

John T. McEnnis was a strong advocate of labor reform. In this excerpt from White Slaves of America, McEnnis recounts a day in the life of a poor working girl as reported by Nell Nelson.

 

The working girls in the morning are going to work–
long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores
and factories, thousands with little brick-shaped
lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms.

From “Working Girls” by Carl Sandburg

A  DAY IN A CHICAGO TAILOR-SHOP

NEVER, so long as reason reigns, writes Nell Nelson, shall I forget the day I worked in a Market-street tailor-shop, and never when I pray shall I forget to add “God help the shop girls.”

Thursday morning I stepped from an Ogden avenue car and walked down Market street in search of work. It was boiling hot, and I carried my brown veil on the breeze, and a small pasteboard box containing a cracker and a lemon, a paper of needles, a thimble, and a pair of scissors. The first woman I made inquiry of was carrying a bucket of sawdust from a neighboring ale-house. She didn’t know by name the shop I was looking for, but when I mentioned coats, she grew loquacious. “Oh, yes, the `slave hole’ it’s called; that’s the sheeny tailor’s! Don’t you go to him, my dear; he’ll grind the marrow from your bones. Go to service, girl, go to service. You can have a cot in my room till you find a place. I was with him one fortnight and worked my eyes `most blind, and he paid me $1.75. No, I’m from England, but I never had harder times in the old country than now. There I paid 5.. for lodgings, and here they cost me $4.” She told me she got the sawdust for sweeping out a corner dram-shop, and used it to boil her tea-kettle with.

Instead of a “hole” I found myself entering a large two-story red brick house still in process of construction. I ascended the front steps, and, after the maneuver of the celebrated king of France, marched down again to the basement-to the shop-into the presence of the proprietor. I handed him my letter, and while he read it I took him in-optically. He was an unctuous little fellow, with kinky hair, cunning brown eyes,  hatchet features, and a small mustache the color of roasted coffee. He was attired in two shirts-a nether one of chocolate flannel and a linen one a few shades lighter-a pair of check pantaloons, carpet slippers, and a huge gold ring of Masonic design. He read the letter with a cigar in  his mouth, the smell of which, combined with the flavor of his feet and the exhalations of his toilet, was something preponderant.

He asked me what I had worked at, and, after a few gasps, I gave him some of my history, slightly distorted. I was told to take off my hat, and while doing so he stepped back out in the entry and vacated a hook among the factory girls’ wraps, but, as I did not care to take the chances of tempting the gutter snipes and going home bare-headed, I declined his attention and hung them up in a corner on the floor. All ready, sewing-box in hand, I faced the gaping, silent throng, and was pointed to a chair at a long table, about which ten girls were sewing with a speed and a silence that was terrible to contemplate. They wore cotton dresses of the poorest quality, some of them open at the neck, and nearly all rolled to the elbow. The youngest were four little girls of thirteen, one of whom was operating, two basting, and the fourth finishing a blue cloth cloak. One large Irish hand, possibly twenty-five, sat at the upper end of the table. Of the rest fifteen years would be a fair average age. One poor girl, who was very lame, had a machine, and it made my heart ache to watch her pale face and follow her thin little hands guide coat after coat under the needle. All the girls were pale and haggard, some were very pretty, some few had color in their cheeks, but it was the hectic flush, not the healthy glow of youth and physical strength.

In all we were twenty girls, eight men, and two boys-poor young fellows in their teens, with mealy complexions, wild eyes, hollow cheeks, and sunken chests. Neither weighed a hundred pounds, but both pressed goods with heavy irons, and were cuffed and pushed about by the boss and his assistant. The men worked in slippers and undershirts, without straps or suspenders to keep their trousers in place, and the girls wore heavy peg shoes. I noticed some of the machine hands worked the foot-plate in their stocking feet.

I had taken all this in when the boss came near my chair and threw a plaid sack coat in my lap and without a word walked away. Here was a nice predicament, I thought, as I looked the garment over. I asked the little yellow-haired Swede girl at my right where to begin, but she looked at me and resumed her “felling” without a word of reply. Then I asked a big, yellow-haired, dough-faced German girl on my left, and received the same kind of response. Instantly I realized their position. Compulsory silence.

I put twist in my needle, squeezed on my timble, and selected the side-seam in the farmer satin lining, for if there is any one kind of needle work that I pride myself on it is “felling.” Well, I felled an hour, up one seam and down another, around the collar, and along the bottom of the coat. Then I stitched and tacked the tail pockets, took a deep breath, and settled back in my chair to take a rest. I didn’t take it long, though. Before I could reel off two lines of Hood’s “Song of the Shirt,” the boss was at my elbow looking over my work with his nasty-smelling cigar so near my face that I was obliged to pull back to escape being burned. “Take smaller stitches,” he said. “Don’t `fell’ through. You haven’t, though. Now put in the sleeve-lining,” and he left me muttering inwardly, “Put in the sleeve-lining.” I did. In a great
deal less time I was told to rip it out. I put it in a second time, and a second time did Penelope’s work. The third time was not a charm, and when his unctuous honor, who had been watching me all the time, neared my chair I politely asked him to show me how to arrange the fullness. He grabbed the coat, shook the “muffy” thing in my face, dropped the ashes from his two-for-a-nickel in my hair, and observed:

“I don’t think you’ll do. I want experienced hands,” and although mute I thought-” You monster, to talk about experienced hands, and pay $3.50 a week!”

Well, he showed me how tailors put in sleeve linings, and I showed the merits of his teaching. In future I shall never let a coat-sleeve go about my waist without wanting its owner to unbutton and let me see where the lining is fulled and how the top seam is felled.

At noon we had forty minutes, for-I will not say dinner, because no one had anything that could be so designated. Most of the men had nothing to eat. I only saw two with a lunch. The girls had black bread and a can of cold coffee, which they consumed with evident relish. Not more than five minutes were spent over the repast. I devoured my crackers and gnawed at my lemon by way of desert. In a hurry to get at my work as soon as possible, to make up for lost time, I threw the sucked Messina under the table, and in a few moments saw a little stitcher pick it up and hide it in her pocket.

By a series of questions I got the following information from a pretty Jewess who had been in the shop for three years and was getting $3.50 a week. She said, regarding the salary: “Oh, I don’t care. The boss won’t pay any more. My mother has money and doesn’t mind so long as I learn to sew. I am fifteen in October. I came here at twelve, and don’t know how much longer I will have to stay. The boss thinks women are cows, that they must be driven. So he drives us. We have to be at work at seven in the morning and stay till six in the evening.”

“Half holiday Saturday?”
“Nix.”
“What if you are sick?”
“If you’re sick he `pulls’ you. He `pulled’ me for twenty cents for being late last week. He `pulls’ all the hands when they come late, and he `pulls’ if we talk.”

That’s why I could not get my neighbors to tell me how to start my work. Rosy told me she was thirteen, that her father peddled fish, and that she was the eldest of five sisters and two brothers. She had been in the shop two years, and was getting $2.25 a week. Another girl, whom I dare not indicate, said: “These beggarly Jews and Swedes are robbing honest girls of a living. Most of them have homes and are willing to work for nothing. I live with my mother and brother, and can not make any more than enough to pay our rent, $10 a month. I would go in a family, but my mother needs me; she is sick. The boss is an awful hard man to work for. He steals my hire from me, and I steal his cotton and silk whenever I get a chance.”

During the noon hour the girls played in the front street, and afterwards amused themselves in the back yard with the men. At 12:45 o’clock the “boss” came into the shop, and five minutes later the place was noisy with flying shuttles, clicking needles, and the whizzing wheels of the roaring machinery. Fair young heads and pretty shoulders bent over heavy coats, and faces were so low that they almost touched the sewing in their owners’ laps. The clatter of the machines was deafening, and every now and then the shop resounded with the heavy hot irons wielded by the pressers in the back room. Nobody had any time to hand the work, instead of which the cutter threw it to the trimmer, who in turn threw it to the baster, and so it moved from hand to machine, going the round of the thirty odd workers with such rapidity that the air seemed filled with flying coats. The room was low, and with every passage of coattail muffy clouds of lint seemed floating about in space. Add to that poor light, bad ventilation, the exhalations of so many people, the smell of dye from the cloth, and the noxious odor of that ever-consuming cigar, and you have material for the makeup of this particular coat-shop. All afternoon we sewed; sewed incessantly, without uttering a syllable or resting a moment. The “boss” was building the third story of the house, and every hour or so he would leave the shop in care of an assistant and go up to look after the carpenters. During these intermittent spells the girls took advantage of the substitute and hummed. They didn’t sing; they hummed songs and hymns, marches and waltzes, and when the sub was not looking they actually whispered.

But the absentee possessed marvelous powers of ubiquitousness, and very little time was wasted in this manner. There are some people you would always know were in the room without seeing them. This hardheaded, godless little Jew was a character of that sort. We could feel his presence and a corresponding heaviness of atmosphere. Whenever he caught sight of a momentary idler he would glide up to her elbow and mutter a single word-work! She worked.

At 5 o’clock I was so tired I didn’t know what to do with myself. My hair was matted with moisture and dusted with lint, and my head throbbed with pain. I perspired at every pore, and the steel in my corsets rusted all the front of my nice Hamburg underwaist. I threw the big brown chinchilla overcoat I had finished on the floor, and for a period of three minutes fell into a state of voluptuous inertia. With my sixth sense I saw the “boss” pick up the garment, and the next moment another overcoat came flying across the table and dropped all over me. I threaded my needle preparatory to finishing my ninth garment, and began a light calisthenic movement of my right arm to scatter the pain and limber up my elbow. I went through perhaps seven motions, with my chair tilted back by way of stretching my lower extremities, when I was interrupted by the benevolent young tailor and his incombustible cigar.

Grabbing the frame of my chair, he jammed it down on all fours, and told me to “get to work.”
“How much am I going to get for this work?” I inquired, after recovering from my astonishment and the sudden shock of gravitation.
“Do you want to know?” he asked, with a contemptibly significant laugh.
“If you please.”
“Well, just finish that coat, and at 6 o’clock I’ll tell you.”
“I won’t finish any more. There’s your coat. Pay me.”
“Pay you! For what ?”
“For seven hours’ work; for finishing eight coats.”
“Without further notice of me than an insolent sneer, he picked up the coat, walked back to his cutting-board and began to draft out collars. I went back to the cutting-board, too, and stood at his side till commanded to “get out of his way.” I stepped back enough to give him elbow room, but did not leave the table.
“How long do you expect to annoy me by your presence?”
“I expect to remain where lam till you pay me for my seven hours’ work.”
“Your day isn’t up yet. We don’t quit till 6 o’clock, and it’s only ten minutes after 5.”
I told him I did not want to work for him another minute, and demanded my pay.
“Well, do you want to know what I’d pay you?”
“Yes.”
“One dollar and fifty cents a week, and you aint worth 75 cents.”
“You told me when I started that I would get $3, at least if I could sew.”
“And you can’t. All day you have been sitting up in your chair with your shoulders straight and your chair back as if you had a rocking-chair. There’s what I value you at,” and he threw a 25-cent piece at me. At first I hesitated about touching the money, and, as I looked at him to see whether he was serious or not, my eyes rested on the heavy gold ring he wore.
“Oh, you’re a B’nai Brith man, I see. Will you favor me with your card?”
“What for?”
“I want to send this money to the society for the orphans which you represent, with my compliments.”
“Get out of this shop or I’ll put you out.” Begging him not to go to that trouble, I got.
Whatever opinions I may have entertained about the dignity of labor, respectable poverty and the absurdity of fine feathers, my experience as a factory hand has unfitted me for future service, since in no place that I worked did I see any incentive to decency, honesty, or respectability, or any promise of success that did not carry with it the downfall of blindly climbing hope.

NOTE: The book was sold in many department and book stores in 1888 for 25 cents. I believe “Nell Nelson” to be a pseudonym.

Chicago Humorist and Poet, Eugene Field

From:  The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After by Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

Location: Internet Archive; Google Books      Date: 1922

Today’s selection is about one of Chicago’s great early humorists and poets, Eugene Field (1850-1895). It comes from the Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography Edward Bok, best known as editor of the Ladies Home Journal and a good friend of Field’s.  Field wrote the highly successful column, “Sharps and Flats”, for the Chicago Daily News from 1883 until his untimely death in 1895 at the age of 45. He is also hugly famous for his children’s poetry, which includes the favorite,  ”Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.” Bok, writting in the third person, paints an engaging portrait of Field.

Eugene Field

EUGENE FIELD’S PRACTICAL JOKES

Eugene Field was one of Edward Bok’s close friends and also his despair, as was likely to be the case with those who were intimate with the Western poet. One day Field said to Bok: “I am going to make you the most widely paragraphed man in America.” The editor passed the remark over, but he was to recall it often as his friend set out to make his boast good.

The fact that Bok was unmarried and the editor of a woman’s magazine appealed strongly to Field’s sense of humor. He knew the editor’s opposition to patent medicines, and so he decided to join the two facts in a paragraph, put on the wire at Chicago, to the effect that the editor was engaged to be married to Miss Lavinia Pinkham, the granddaughter of Mrs. Lydia Pinkham, of patent-medicine fame. The paragraph carefully described Miss Pinkham, the school where she had been educated, her talents, her wealth, etc. Field was wise enough to put the paragraph not in his own column in the Chicago News, lest it be considered in the light of one of his practical jokes, but on the news page of the paper, and he had it put on the Associated Press wire.

He followed this up a few days later with a paragraph announcing Bok’s arrival at a Boston hotel. Then came a paragraph saying that Miss Pinkham was sailing for Paris to buy her trousseau. The paragraphs were worded in the most matter-of-fact manner, and completely fooled the newspapers, even those of Boston. Field was delighted at the success of his joke, and the fact that Bok was in despair over the letters that poured in upon him added to Field’s delight.

He now asked Bok to come to Chicago. “I want you to know some of my cronies,” he wrote. “Julia [his wife] is away, so we will shift for ourselves.” Bok arrived in Chicago one Sunday afternoon, and was to dine at Field’s house that evening. He found a jolly company: James Whitcomb Riley, Sol Smith Russell the actor, Opie Read, and a number of Chicago’s literary men.

When seven o’clock came, some one suggested to Field that something to eat might not be amiss.

“Shortly,” answered the poet. “Wife is out; cook is new, and dinner will be a little late. Be patient.” But at eight o’clock there was still no dinner. Riley began to grow suspicious and slipped down-stairs. He found no one in the kitchen and the range cold. He came back and reported. “Nonsense,” said Field. “It can’t be.” All went down-stairs to find out the truth. “Let’s get supper ourselves,” suggested Russell. Then it was discovered that not a morsel of food was to be found in the refrigerator, closet, or cellar. “That’s a joke on us,” said Field. “Julia has left us without a crumb to eat.”

It was then nine o’clock. Riley and Bok held a council of war and decided to slip out and buy some food, only to find that the front, basement, and back doors were locked and the keys missing! Field was very sober. “Thorough woman, that wife of mine,” he commented. But his friends knew better.

Finally, the Hoosier poet and the Philadelphia editor crawled through one of the basement windows and started on a foraging expedition. Of course, Field lived in a residential section where there were few stores, and on Sunday these were closed. There was nothing to do but to board a down-town car. Finally they found a delicatessen shop open, and the two hungry men amazed the proprietor by nearly buying out his stock.

It was after ten o’clock when Riley and Bok got back to the house with their load of provisions to find every door locked, every curtain drawn, and the bolt sprung on every window. Only the cellar grating remained, and through this the two dropped their bundles and themselves, and appeared in the dining-room, dirty and dishevelled, to find the party at table enjoying a supper which Field had carefully hidden and brought out when they had left the house.

Riley, cold and hungry, and before this time the victim of Field’s practical jokes, was not in a merry humor and began to recite paraphrases of Field’s poems. Field retorted by paraphrasing Riley’s poems, and mimicking the marked characteristics of Riley’s speech. This started Sol Smith Russell, who mimicked both. The fun grew fast and furious, the entire company now took part, Mrs. Field’s dresses were laid under contribution, and Field, Russell, and Riley gave an impromptu play. And it was upon this scene that Mrs. Field, after a continuous ringing of the door-bell and nearly battering  down the door, appeared at seven o’clock the next morning!

It was fortunate that Eugene Field had a patient wife; she needed every ounce of patience that she could command. And no one realized this more keenly than did her husband. He once told of a dream he had which illustrated the endurance of his wife.

“I thought,” said Field, “that I had died and gone to heaven. I had some difficulty in getting past St. Peter, who regarded me with doubt and suspicion, and examined my records closely, but finally permitted me to enter the pearly gates. As I walked up the street of the heavenly city, I saw a venerable old man with long gray hair and flowing beard. His benignant face encouraged me to address him. ‘I have just arrived and I am entirely unacquainted,’ I said. ‘May I ask your name ?’

‘”My name,’ he replied, ‘is Job.’

“‘Indeed,’ I exclaimed, ‘are you that Job whom we were taught to revere as the most patient being in the world?’

‘”The same,’ he said, with a shadow of hesitation; ‘I did have quite a reputation for patience once, but I hear that there is a woman now on earth, in Chicago, who has suffered more than I ever did, and she has endured it with great resignation.’

“‘Why,’ said I, ‘that is curious. I am just from earth, and from Chicago, and I do not remember to have heard of her case. What is her name ?’

“‘Mrs. Eugene Field,’ was the reply.

“Just then I awoke,” ended Field.

###

Related selection:  Eugene Field: The Unforgettable Trickster

Photo Credit: DN-0079960, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society

Chicago Antiquities By Henry Higgins Hurlbut

The Kinzie House from the 1856 edition of "Wau-Bun" by Juliet Kinzie.

Full Title: Chicago Antiquities: Comprising Original Items and Relations, Letters, Extracts, and Notes, Pertaining to Early Chicago by Henry Higgins Hurlbut

Book Location: Google Books    Date Published: 1881

A great primary source on early Chicago history. Filled with tales of Indians and the earliest settlers. The book is 673 pages long and does not have a “Contents” page. Thankfully there is an Index in the back. Consider this a must read – or at least browse.

 

FIRST THINGS IN CHICAGO

The first negro slave in Chicago, of which we have heard, was “Black Jim,” owned by John Kinzie, and brought here by him in 1804.

The first coroner’s inquest was over the body of a dead Indian.

The first civil execution among the whites, here, was that of John Stone, who was hanged July 10, 1840, for the murder of Mrs. Thompson. The place of execution was the racecourse, some three miles south from the river, near the lake shore, back of Myrick’s tavern. A portion of Col. Beaubien’s Goth Regiment was improvised as a guard for the occasion, the command of which Col. B. transferred to Lieut. Col. Seth Johnson. The return of the procession brought back the body of Stone, which was given by the sheriff to the doctors for dissection. [We will here refer to what was probably the last execution at this place of an Indian by his comrades. It occurred in the fall of 1832, or the ensuing winter, after a council, or their form of a trial. Being adjudged worthy of death, the man was taken outside, into the brush, south of

Randolph street, near where Market street is now, and executed, probably by shooting. Our informant, who was an early settler here, says such was the statement confidently told at the time, though he had no personal knowledge of the matter beyond the assurance of others.]

The first map of Chicago was by James Thompson, the surveyor employed by the State Canal Commissioners to lay out the town, or rather, village. This map bore date August 4, 1830, and the original was in the Recorder’s Offtce, and was probably burned. It is understood that the first plat of the village gave to Chicago a public levee upon the plan of the western river towns. Our levee, accordingly, was located on the south side, from South Water street to the river. But the lake vessels could not find it expedient to conform to the ways of the shallow craft of the Mississippi valley waters, and so the Chicago levee was abandoned, and the ground was sold, docked, and built upon.

The first street leading to Lake Michigan, was laid out April 25, 1832; it commenced at where was called the east end of Water street, and is described by Jedediah Wooley, surveyor, as follows: “from the east end of Water street” (at the west line of the Reservation, or State street?) “in the town of Chicago, to Lake Michigan; direction of said road is south 88 J^ degrees cast, from the street to the lake, 18 chains 50 links. Said street was laid out 50 feet wide. The viewers on this occasion also believe that said road is of public utility and a convenient passage from the town to the lake.”

THE first extended highway regularly laid out in Chicago. was “The Green Bay Road,” in 1835, under the direction of Gen. Scott, U. S. A.

The first white man’s tannery, was that of John Miller. It stood (1831) near to and on the north side of, his brother Samuel Miller’s tavern, near the Junction.

The first regularly appointed auctioneer was James Kinzie.

THE first debating Society formed here, was organized during the winter 1831-2 comprising nearly all the male

population, mostly within the Fort. Col. J. B. Beaubicn was chosen President.

THE first Druggist was Philo Carpenter, who arrived in Chicago in the month of July, 1832; his store was a small log- building, near where is now the east end of Lake Street Bridge. Mr. C. next occupied a log-building, just vacated by Geo. W. Dole, who had removed into his new store.

THE first steamboat fuel furnished by Chicago, was in 1832, when Captain Walker of the “Sheldon Thompson” bought an old log-cabin and took it on board for his return down the Lake.

The first printed list of Advertised Letters was in number seven of Mr. Calhoun’s paper, the Chicago Democrat, Jan. 7, 1834. The list comprised one letter, namely, for Erastus Bowen.

The first Fair was held by “the ladies of the Protestant Episcopal Church of this Town,” on the 18th June, 1835, and is referred to in the village newspaper, as “a novelty in Chicago.”

NOT in 1835, (as stated Dec. 5, 1875 in one of the Chicago Times articles, headed “By-Gone Days,’‘ those pleasantly told stories, even though occasionally marred with typographical, accidental, or sensational errors, which we shall notice hereafter,) but July 4, 1836, was the first spadeful of earth thrown out in the digging of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

The first ferryman was Mark Beaubien.

THE first rock for the harbor piers was furnished by John K. Boyer.

The first dray in Chicago was shipped from the Hudson, by Philo Carpenter; we think, also, that the first specimen of that renowned pleasure-vehicle of New England, “the one- horse shay,” which appeared here, was when that gentleman and his bride rode into the village in one, in the spring of

owned by Col. J. B. Beaubien, and brought from the East. It is said that the villagers, upon its arrival, paid it distinguished honor, “turning out in procession and parading the streets.”

The first engraver on wood or metal was S. D. Childs, senr.

The first church bell was placed upon the Unitarian Church edifice, 87-93 Washington Street, January, 1845.

The first vessel larger than a “shell” built here was the “Clarissa” launched May, 1836.

The first public edifice erected by the County of Cook, was an Estray Pen.

The first “balloon” built in Chicago or elsewhere, (a popular style of spike-fastened light frame buildings, which astonished by their firmness the old-fashioned mortise and tenon builders,) was erected in the fall of 1832 by Geo. W. Snow, and stood near the Lake shore. It was but a slight affair, yet served for the while, as his place of business, and to protect his goods or freight received by vessel. The greater share of said freight, we may here add, was made up of whisky or other kinds of the ardent.

THE first steam engine built in Chicago, was made and put up by Ira Miltimore. It was used to run a saw-mill located on the north branch, near the residence of the late Archibald Clybourn.

The first suggestion we think on record (or off) by a Chi- cagoan or indeed “any other man” for the establishment, in each of our Collegiate Institutions, of a Professorship to occupy “a Chair of Integrity,” for the teaching of that ancient and important accomplishment honesty, now so rare in our public men or officials, (not to speak of others,) was contained in an address by the late Hon. Wm. B. Ogden, not long since, before the Board of Trustees of the Chicago University.

The first book printed in Chicago was consumed by fire, in the bindery, late in 1840. Scammon’s Reports, vol. I. Four incomplete copies were not in that fire.

The Story of a Theater by Lyman Beecher Glover

Full Title: The Story of a Theater by Lyman B. Glover

Book Location: Internet Archive    Date Published: 1898

A wonderful history of early theater in Chicago, Hooley’s and its evolution into Power’s Theater. Includes recollections by many early actors such as Joseph Jefferson, for whom Chicago’s “Jeff” Awards is named.

It was my fortune to begin writing of the Chicago theaters about the time that Harry J. Powers was first engaged in a minor capacity at Hooley’s. Thus when it happened, after a long course of years, that Mr. Powers, having become master where he once served, invited me to prepare an unpretentious souvenir of this historic house, it seemed an obligation of old friendship and, therefore, a pleasant duty to comply with the request.

The result is offered without apology, since  where there is no pretense there can be no occasion for excuses. Wishing to preserve from oblivion fugitive memories of this famous theater, and signalize not merely its change of  ownership, but also a complete reconstruction, a souvenir of this casual and informal nature was thought to be appropriate.
Perhaps some flying threads and thrums have been rescued and woven together in such a manner that they will be available, one of these days, for some one more apt and patient than I am in the work of writing history. No doubt errors have crept in, which is not strange, since there is no complete repository of facts relating to any of the Chicago theaters upon which one may draw. The chief dependence is and must be upon memory, reinforced by such memoranda as have escaped the envious tooth of time. Nothing is affirmed or promised, therefore, except a few facts and sentiments garnered to honor a theater which has earned an entirely unique reputation. There is no attempt to be literary, profound, or exhaustive. I simply dwell casually upon the record of dear old Uncle Dick Hooley and his achievements in this house, because they are worthy of attention, and for the reason that they form an important chapter in the theatrical history of Chicago. Now that a second chapter in this record has been commenced by Mr. Hooley ‘s successor-in-trust, Harry J. Powers, it seems appropriate to bring the old and the new together in these pages, and thus with a sentiment of tender regret for the past that has drifted away from us, and of hope for the future, which promises so much, I wish the manager and the patrons of Powers’ Theater all happiness and good fortune.

L.B.G.

Deadlines by Henry Justin Smith

Full Title: Deadlines: Being the Quaint, the Amusing, the Tragic Memoirs of a Newsroom by Henry Justin Smith

Book Location: Internet Archive; Google Books   Date Published: 1922

Henry Justin Smith (1875-1936) was Managing Editor of the Chicago Daily News.

The Day 

It  is still dark in the streets, still dark among the fiat roofs of our block, when the day begins.

It is a winter morning before seven o’clock. Night clings to the city. Windows in some of the tall buildings burn with a radiance never extinguished; others spring into color ahead of the belated sun. On street cars and elevated trains
that sail through the darkness like lighted ships the seven o’clock workers are arriving “downtown.”  They are shabbier, more morose, than those who come later. It is hard to be buoyant before seven o’clock in the morning.

In the newspaper office desks and long tables stand in a twilight due to glimmerings that penetrate through the windows. Typewriters, grotesquely hooded, lie in ranks. Waste-baskets yawn. The wires, clinging to the desks, are asleep; telephones have not yet found their tongues. The electric contact with the waking world is in suspension. What happened yesterday? What will happen today? The wires do not care.

A sleepy boy, shivering, his shoes trickling melted snow, enters the spectral room, carrying a bundle of morning newspapers which he lets fall upon a table. He sighs. He turns an electric switch, and the desks and tables spring into
outline. The boy stares about him, stumbles over a waste-basket, kicks it away, sits in a battered chair in front of the mouth of a tarnished copper tube that runs through the ceiling, and drowses, He has barely settled down when he hears men coming in, and starts up. The men are two ; young, but with graying hair. They have not much to say to each other. They do not even glance toward the boy. With a manner somewhat repressed, but alert enough, they go to desks, call out for the morning papers, and start slicing them up with scissors. Ten minutes go by, while the clock ticks serenely and the windows become grey with creeping daylight ; daylight that sifts down among the roofs and through veils of smoke and fog, that comes cold and ashamed and reluctant. It envelops in new shadows the bowed shoulders of the two young men, touching their cheeks with its own pallor, casting pale reminders upon the papers
they are cutting. One man glances over his shoulder at the clock. The clock presently strikes a puny but peremptory “Ping!” It is seven o’clock.
The day has begun.

 

History of the Chicago Police by John J. Flinn

Full Title:  History of the Chicago Police: From the Settlement of the Community to the Present Time, Under Authority of the Mayor and Superintendent of the Force

Book Location: Google Books; Internet Archive     Year Published: 1887

The police force immediately preceding the fire is said by some authorities (notably by James W. Sheahan and George P. Upton, in their book, “Chicago, Its Past, Present and Future”), to have mimbered 400 men; but as the force only numbered 425 in March, 1872, according to Supt. Kennedy’s report, we are led to believe that it was much smaller in October, 1871. All data concerning the principal stations in the 1st and 3d precincts was swept away by the fire, and nothing of an official character was left to tell the story of the quarter of the year ending with Sept. 30th. And for many days succeeding the fire, the policemen of these stations had nowhere to report, except at headquarters, and confusion reigned supreme throughout the burnt district. One hundred and fifty of the police force were left homeless and almost penniless by the fire. Most of these were on duty during the nights of October 8th, 9th and 10th, doing what little they could to assist the firemen, to help the distracted and fleeing people, to protect property and to keep the peaee, while their own houses were being swept away, and their own families were being driven before the flames, to the lake side or the prairie. Testimony is not wanting to prove that many of the officers and men performed heroic service during these dreadful nights, and during many nights afterward, when the city was but a desolate and ghastly waste of ashes. “I desire to bear testimony to the cordial co-operation and efficiency of all branches of the service,” said Supt. Kennedy, in his report to the council, “especially during the trying times succeeding the disastrous conflagration of last October, when about 150 of our men were burned out, and while their families were houseless and homeless they rallied with but few exceptions to their posts of duty immediately after the fire, and did their utmost, along with the balance of the force, in the restoration and maintenance of order. To them and io the entire force, as the executive head of the department, I desire to bear testimony for their faithfulness and coolness in their duties, when so many of our citizens were apparently panic-stricken.‘‘

The fire had done its worst when it consumed everything in its path, but a new and even a more dreadful terror than that just passed seized the public mind when it became rnmored that incendiaries nnd robbers were attempting to complete the disaster which had already befallen the community. Not only the 75,000 homeless people who had fled before the advancing columns of flames, but the thousands who still hail roofs to cover their heads, in the sections that had escaped the calamity, were panic-strickeu by this newly threatened calamity. There was no water, and a fresh outbreak of fire on the West Side, or on the South Side, below the black line of debris, would probably result in the complete annihilation of the city. No wonder, then, that horror seized the people when the rumor spread that incendiaries, with an eye to plunder, were at their devilish work. The citizens at once formed themselves into patrol parties, to protect what little there remained in the burnt district, and to prevent, if possible, the designs of the incendiaries and thieves upon those sections which had escaped the fire. These patrol parties in the main did excellent service, but they did not always act with discretion, and it was popularly believed that many innocent persons met death at their hands. Undisciplined, inexperienced, panicky and inclined to look with suspicion upon every stranger who came along, they served to increase rather than to diminish the alarm of honest people in many quarters.

While the flames were leap.ng from house to house and from block to block on the South Side, and driving thousands of frightened people before them over the bridges and through the tunnel, there were gathered together in a little West Side church a few of the city officials. There, on the night of October 9th, on a coarse piece of paper, was drawn up with a lead pencil the famous proclamation of Chicago to the civilized world. It is preserved in the rooms of the Historical Society, plainly framed, and may now be easily read, for it is as legible as ever. It ought to be encased in a cabinet of solid gold, and placed beyond the possibility of loss or destruction. With many other treasures, above price, it is at the mercy of the first neighborhood fire, in the miserable quarters which are provided for the use of the Historical Society—quarters which, by the way, are a sad commentary on the vaunted public spirit, home pride and culture of our citizens. The proclamation touches upon police matters, but if it did not, it deserves a prominent place in any work which aims to follow the history of this city, no matter how lightly. It runs as follows:

Whereas, in the providence of God, to whose will we humbly submit, a terrible calamity has befallen our city, which demands of us our best efforts for the preservation of order and the relief of the suffering. Be it known that the faith and credit of the city of Chicago is hereby pledged for the necessary expenses for the relief of the suffering. Public order will be preserved. The police and special police now being appointed will be responsible for the maintenance of peace and the protection of property. All officers and men of the fire department and health department will act as special policemen without further notice. The mayor and comptroller will give vouchers for all supplies furnished by the different relief committees. The headquarters of the city government will be at the Congregational Church, corner of West Washington and Ann streets. All persons are warned against any acts tending to endanger property. All persons caught in any depredations will be immediately arrested.

With the help of God order and peace and private property shall be preserved. The city government and committees of citizens pledge themselves to the community to protect them and prepare the way for a restoration of public and private welfare.

It is believed the fire has spent its force and all will soon be well.

R. B. Masox, Mayor.

George Taylor, Comptroller.

Charles C. P. Holden, President Common Council.

T. B. Brown. President Board of Police.

Chicago, October 9th, 1871.

The Columbian Exposition of 1893: Fact and Fiction

One of the most universally popular topics in Chicago history is the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Even today it captures the imagination. The publishing of Devil in the White City by Erik Larson introduced the fair to a whole new generation of readers and history enthusiasts and sparked an interest in all things old Chicago.

Fortunately, many publications concerning the Exposition have survived the decades. The Online Books Page has a comprehensive list of the books now available online. Included are rarities in period fiction such as Three Girls In a Flat by Laura Hayes (1892) and Sweet Clover: A Romance of the White City by Clara Louise Burnham (1895), daughter of the popular late nineteenth century composer George Frederick Root.  

 For the complete selection of  books listed on  The Online Books Page click here.

Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg

Full Title: Chicago Poems

Book location: Questia   Year Published: 1916

GRACELAND

TOMB of a millionaire,
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
Place of the dead where they spend every year
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
For upkeep and flowers
To keep fresh the memory of the dead.
The merchant prince gone to dust
Commanded in his written will
Over the signed name of his last testament
Twenty-five thousand dollars be set aside
For roses, lilacs, hydrangeas, tulips,
For perfume and color, sweetness of remembrance
Around his last long home.

(A hundred cash girls want nickels to go to the movies
to-night.

In the back stalls of a hundred saloons, women are at
tables

Drinking with men or waiting for men jingling loose
silver dollars in their pockets.

In a hundred furnished rooms is a girl who sells silk or
dress goods or leather stuff for six dollars a week
wages

And when she pulls on her stockings in the morning she
is reckless about God and the newspapers and the
police, the talk of her home town or the name
people call her.)

History of Chicago by A. T. Andreas

Full Title: History of Chicago From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

Book Location: Google Books   Year Published: 1884

Volume 1, ending in the year 1857,  of a 3-volume set. One of the most referenced books on early Chicago history. I’ve always been a bit curious about  Andreas’ background and only recently the following:

Biography of Alfred Theodore Andreas (1839-1900):

Died, on February 10, 1900, at New Rochelle, New York, where he was temporarily residing, Alfred  Theodore Andreas, a member of this Commandery since October 4, 1882. He was born at Amity, Orange County, New York, May 29, 1839. Soon after that time his father removed to Chester, in the same county, and engaged in mercantile pursuits, and later, to Holly, Pennsylvania. Having prospered at the latter place, he went to New York City and became a successful merchant. Alfred received his education at Chester Academy. Being of an adventurous and self-reliant disposition, he came Westward, arriving in Dubuque, Iowa, in July, 1857. He soon found employment, first as a clerk, and afterwards as a school teacher, in which latter calling he continued for about three years. In the fall of 1860 he went with an Iowa acquaintance to St. Louis to sell a lot of horses, and while journeying through Missouri,
was first impressed with the evils of slavery. Having completed the business of the trip, he came across into Illinois, stopping near Sparta, Randolph County. Here he found employment during the winter of 1860 and 1861, and up to the beginning of the war. Concerning his employment at that time, he says: “At that time I was little more than a boy. Circumstances had drifted me into a little place in Southern Illinois, some sixteen miles from a railroad, where I was getting a small salary for presiding over the rising generation of the neighborhood. In other words, I was teaching school.”  When the first call for seventy-five thousand troops was made, he made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the army. Later, on July 21, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company G, Twelfth Illinois Infantry, and the next day joined the regiment, then stationed at Cairo. He was with the regiment in its various camps at Cairo, Birdspoint and Paducah, in the summer of 1861, and in the latter part of the year at Smithland, Kentucky, where a detachment of the regiment was stationed. He was, by a singular act of good fortune, both for himself and the command, detailed for duty in the Commissary Department, for the discharge of which he had remarkable aptitude. At the first opportunity, May I, 1862, he was made Commissary Sergeant, a promotion already richly earned. In this position he soon became personally known to every officer and enlisted man in the regiment, numbering them all as his friends. No day was so stormy, no night so dark, no situation so hazardous as to deter him from doing all in his power to promote the  comfort and serve the necessities of the men in the command to which he belonged. January 1, 1863, he was commis-
sioned First Lieutenant and Quartermaster of the regiment, in which position his enlarged opportunities and
duties were met with the same zeal and fidelity that had won him his promotion. Always alert, the men of the regiment never were short in clothing and food, when it was possible for him to procure them. During the Atlanta Campaign he was made Commissary of Division, first on the Staff of General Sweeney and afterwards with General Corse, and held this position on the March to the Sea and through the Carolinas.

Having discharged faithfully and acceptably every duty of a soldier, in every capacity in which it came to him, he was mustered out at Goldsboro, North Carolina, April 1, 1865. He returned home, and on May 31, 1865, was married at Davenport, Iowa, to Miss Sophia Lyter, who made his home happy, and shared his successes and reverses during their nearly thirty-five years of married life, and who with two daughters, Eulalia Lyter Andreas and Elouie Lyter Atherton, survives him.

Returning to civil life with his views broadened and his energies quickened and strengthened by his military ex-
perience, which had been educational to him, he at once sought a field for active enterprise. He had seen great things done and had helped to do them, and he could see no reason why he could not undertake and accomplish great enterprises, as well as other men. He was a pioneer in the county atlas and history work in the West, and in it achieved notable success. This brought him to and identified him with our city, and his history of Chicago will long remain a standard work upon which the student and the future historian must rely.

Success soon crowned his efforts. He took at its flood the tide in the affairs of men which leads on to fortune, but that
same tide in its ebb bore him out on a tempestuous sea where the waves of financial disaster overwhelmed him. Though his energy never flagged and hope never deserted him, he was never able to retrieve his fortune. He envied no man’s good fortune, and in his many enterprises, successful and unsuccessful, we believe it can be truthfully said of him that he never intentionally wronged any man. Wearied with the struggle, he at last laid himself down to rest, and “After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well. ” He was a devoted member of the Loyal Legion and believed in it, not only as a fraternal organization, but as one of the reliable agencies through which the truth concerning the great struggle in which we were engaged shall be transmitted to the future.

Biography Source:  Memorials of deceased companions of the Commandery of the state of Illinois, Military order of the loyal legion of the United States  (1901)