Newsletters 1998

Winter 1997-1998

Spring 1998

Summer/Fall 1998

Winter 1998-1999

Volume 19, Number 4

HPHS Headquarters Building Becomes Less Endangered by Alta Blakely

Board members are breathing sighs of relief now that the shoring up of the Metra embankment behind our building has been completed.

Bert Benade, Board member in charge of the physical plant, had been particularly concerned that the embankment  had been pushing on our roof and gutter on the east side. About sixteen years ago the Illinois Central Railroad had shored up the embankment,  but the job had been done with only  wood  pilings-and those not driven deeply enough into the ground. They have continued to rot away. Devereaux Bowly, co-chair with Bert on the physical plant, had been after the railroad, now Metra, for about four years to replace the rotting pilings. Work was begun last October. For many weeks a large truck crane (and a Port-o-Let) stood on the street in front of headquarters, dwarfing it in size. (The construction work meant that the October 19th program on Robie House had to be postponed.)

The large sign south of Headquarters proclaims  that this

"HydeParkRetainingWallRehabilitation"isa"Federal TransitAdministration Project... sponsored bythe NortheasternIllinois Regional Commuter R.A.CorporationD/BIA Metra the U.S. Department ofTransport; and the Regional Transportation Authority(RTA)." It is "Federal Project No. IL-03-0194, RTAProgramNo.CRD-034.}

On   one mid-week day in October, when a Board  member was entering headquarters, two of the construction crew members asked if they could look around inside. Bob Pritchard, of Hickory Hills, whose job it was to run the air compressor was excited by what he saw. Later, when Bea Blackiston was on duty on Sunday,  November  2nd, Mr.  Pritchard  came in and carefully removed all our pictures off the walls and gently and neatly laid them on a table. He  was afraid that the vibrations from  his  air  compressor would shake the pictures off the walls and shatter the glass. "I like things old to be preserved," he said. (The Board, at its November meeting, asked Secretary Margaret Matchett to send him a  letter  of  thanks, which she has subsequently done.)

 Thanks to Mr. Pritchard, we were able to contact Harenfra Namgrola of the Sumit Construction Company of Skokie, in charge of the project. He told us that the work on the embankment behind our building amounted to the sum of $150,000. They had been allowed sixty-five working days for the job; however, he said, they finished in far less time. The final phase, the cement work, was laid during Thanksgiving week. The question in our minds has been whether or not this job was part of the larger Hyde Park Retaining-Wall Rehabilitation, --including the Metra embankment  from  47th  to 57th Street. Mr. Margrola seemed to think not.

Looking our from the windows on the east side of headquarters one dark evening, Dev. Bowly was delighted: "There's a foot of space between the embankment and our roof! I can see the stars!" !

Follow Up:

The Shooting Lodge

The feature on the South Shore Country Club's Shooting Club in our last issue brought forth some relevant material sent to us by Leon Despres. The area where the Country Club was built, around 71st Street and Lake Michigan, was once considered a hunter's paradise said to be virtually unique along the lake shore. Immense flocks of migrating pigeons flew past along with jacksnipe, plover, wild duck and Canadian brant.

When the Club was built in 1906,  a small shack was built to accommodate shot gun enthusiasts among its members. A wooden cottage replaced it in 1908 but was razed eight years later for construction of the more permanent and stylish brick "shooting lodge" illustrated in our Fall, 1997-, issue. Reflecting the site's link to an earlier era, the walls of the lodge were hung with antlers, stuffed animal heads and similar trophies. Club members, however, confined  themselves to trap shooting, targeting only clay pigeons. This activity lasted until quite late in the history of the club.

Mayor Harold Washington, 1922-1987 On the Tenth Anniversary of his Death

 by Stephen Treffman

These political pins from our archival collection date from the triumphant 1983

and 1987 mayoral campaigns  of  the late Mayor Harold Washington. Mayor

Washington,   the   only sitting mayor of Chicago ever

resident in the community of Hyde Park, made his home in Apartment 66 of the Hampton House Condominium, 5300 South Shore Drive. Across from that building is Hyde Park's oldest park, established by Paul Cornell, Hyde Park's founder. Originally called East End Park, it was renamed in memory of the late Mayor after his death. Washington  had a very substantial and enthusiastic base of supporters from our community's diverse racial, social and economic groups. A number of persons from Hyde Park-Kenwood were recruited into high level administrative, advisory and policy-making roles in city government during his administration.

One of Harold Washington's essential characteristics was his capacity to reach out and engage persons and groups not necessarily considered part of the historic political mainstream but whose goals and principles intersected at some point practically or symbolically with his. It should not be surprising, then, that among his last official acts before his sudden death on November 25, 1987, was a proclamation      issued on November 18 declaring November 21 "Oliver Law

andAbrahamLincolnBrigadeDayinChicago."The letter,reproducedonthenextpage,waspublishedinthe program for a 50th Anniversary memorial

celebration of the Brigade held that day in Chicago.

In 193 7, three thousand Americans calling themselves the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (ALB) volunteered to join an international force in defense of Spain's elected government against insurgent Fascist forces militarily supported by Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. Two hundred of the volunteers came from Chicago,  including  at least one long-time Hyde Park resident, the late Milton Cohen (1915-1996?), and an African-American by the name of Oliver Law (born c.1900).

Law was one of some one hundred black Americans to join the ABL. He had served six years as a private in the segregated U.S. Army during and after World  War I.  He  then  moved to Chicago where he  worked  as  a  stevedore, cab driver and small restaurant manager.  With the  onset  of  the  Depression  he  was  attracted to various organizing efforts among the unemployed in Chicago, ultimately  joining the Communist Party and leading public protests of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. He left with the Brigade for Spain in January, 1937. His previous military experience and demonstrated  valor in  battle led to his appointment as commander of an ALB battalion made up mostly of white Americans, the historic symbolism of which he was fully aware and to which Washington alludes in his proclamation. On July 9, nearly six months after his arrival in Spain, Law was mortally wounded while leading his forces in a battle near the town of Brunete.

Eight hundred ALB volunteers died in the Spanish conflict. Although many surviving ALB volunteers went on to serve with the American armed forces in World War II, they were deemed suspect by the U. S. government duri,ng and after the war for having been "premature" in their enthusiastic antifascism and, in some cases, their real or supposed radical ideological and political commitments.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine any post-war Chicago mayor before Washington, himself a World War II veteran, issuing such a letter. The proclamation reflects some of the profound values and aspirations that characterized Harold

Washington and made his administration so unusual in Chicago history.

OFFICE OF THE  MAYOR

CITY OF CHICAGO

HAROLD WASHINGTON

MAYOR

P R O C L A M A T I O N

WHEREAS, this year marks the 50th Anniversary of the entrance of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade as volunteers in defense of democracy in the Spanish Civil War; and

WHEREAS, over 200 Chicagoans joined this international movement to stop the spread of fascism; and

WHEREAS, Oliver Law, a leader of movements for relief of t-h---ec---p"'o=or crm:t eor pu-litical rights for Bracks and working people in Chicago in the early 1930's, was a commander in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, thus becoming the first Black American to lead an integrated military force in the history of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the long-neglected historical significance of Oliver Law is being recognized in a program on November 21, 1987, sponsored by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the 50th Anniversary Committee, which will honor the continuing legacy of international solidarity represented by Oliver Law and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Harold Washington, Mayor of the City of Chicago, do hereby proclaim  November  21, 1987, to be OLIVER LAW AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE DAY IN CHICAGO and urge

all citizens to be cognizant of the special events arranged for this time and the importance of this history. Dated this day of November, 1987

Sources: Peter N. Carroll, The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, Stanford, 1994; John Gerassi, The Premature Antifascists: North American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39, An Oral History, New York, 1986; Arthur H. Landis, The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, New York, 1967. Thanks also to

Alderman Toni Preckwinkle for her assistance in providing information about Mayor Washington's residence.

 Letter to the Editor...

We are very grateful to Jim Stronks, author of many outstanding articles which have appeared in this publication, for the delightful and touching letter below:

Dear Edi tor:

I don't know if it is Hyde Park History, exactly, but then isn't almost everything history in some sense? I hope so, because I have read something that I think your readers would find interesting.

In 1895 William Rainey Harper hired a young professor-poet named William Vaughan Moody for the new university on the Midway. And that is where Moody, a bachelor of twenty-seven, lived at first-on the Midway, in the old Del Prado Hotel on 59th Street, where International House stands today.

Late in the afternoon of February 15, 1896, Moody escaped his office for an hour of ice-skating. Later he wrote about it to a friend in a paragraph that reaches across one hundred years to touch us with its humanity.

"DearDan,"Moodybegan."YesterdayIwasskatingonapatchoficeinthepark,underapoverty-strickenskyflyingaragofsunset.Somelittlemuckerswereguyingaslimraw-bonedIrishgirloffifteen,whocircledanddartedunde their banter with complete unconcern. She was in the fledgling stage, all legs and arms, tall and adorably awkward, with a huge hat full of rusty feathers, thin skirts tucked up above spindling ankles, and a gay aplomb and swing in the body that was ravishing. We caught hands in mid­

/light, and skated for an hour, almost alone and quite silent, while the rag of a sunset rotted to pieces. I have had few sensations in life that I would exchange for the warmth of her hand through the ragged glove, and the pathetic curve of the half-formed breast where the back of my wrist touched her body. I came away mystically shaken and elate. It is thus the angels converse. She was something absolutely authentic, new, and inexpressible, something which only nature could mix for the heart's intoxication, a compound of ragamuffin, pal, mistress, nun, sister, harlequin, outcast, and bird of God, - with something else bafflingly suffused, something ridiculous and frail and tender."

Fortunately Dan did  not  throw  away  the letter, and that young girl is as alive today as she was that afternoon in 1896-because a poet captured her on the head of a pin.

Moody died in 19101   aged 41.

 Yours   truly, Jim Stronks Iowa City, Iowa

You are cordially invited to attend The Annual Members' Meeting

of

The Hyde Park Historical Society

Saturday, February 21, 1998 'the Quadrangle  Club

57th Street & University Avenue

Paul Cornell will speak about his grandfather:

PaulCornell,VisionaryFatherofHydePark

Special Events coming up:

Robie House: Its History and Its Future

Sunday, March 1st, at 2pm HPHS Headquarters

A slide presentation by Jay Champelli, long-time member of the Speakers' Bureau of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation.

Join us to learn more about this historical and architectural treasure presently being restored to its former glory here in Hyde Park.

 Free Tours of Robie House for Hyde Park Residents

Saturday & Sunday, February 14 & 15

A Valentine event to convey "Heartfelt Thanks to the Community," tours will be offered continuously from 11am to 3:30pm on each day.
Exhibits in the Months Ahead

An exhibit entitled Hyde  Park's  Hotels: The Golden Age, 1888-1940 will be opening soon at our headquarters. An exhibit on the White City Amusement Park is also planned for later in 1998. Curated by our archivist Stephen Treffman, both exhibits will be accompanied by programs presented by various members of our board. Further information on these and other events will be forthcoming in Hyde Park History and in other commumty sources.

Readers who have photographs, printed materials or other memorabilia related to any of Hyde Park's hotels or to the White City Amusement park are encouraged to write or to leave a message at our headquarters. Our phone number is 773-493-1893.

Volume 20, Number 1

Mary Todd Lincoln’s Sad Summer in Hyde Park

Abraham Lincoln died April 15, 1865. When Mary Todd Lincoln had to vacate the White House she came to Hyde Park. She arrived in Chicago on May 24. With her on the exhausting 54-hour train trip from Washington came her sons Robert (22) and Tad(12),her dressmaker/confidante Elizabeth Keckley(born a slave), old friend Dr. Anson Henry, and two White House guards, Thomas Cross and William Crook.

The Lincoln parry checked into the Tremont House on Lake Street at Dearborn. When Cross and Crook went back to the White House Mary Todd Lincoln's percs and power as First Lady were suddenly over. Lake Street was populous and loud; Mary Todd Lincoln needed peace and quiet. Io her anguish as widow she felt she could  not bear to return to her house on 8th Street in Springfield and its associations. Yet the Tremont House was too expensive for more than a week's stay. Someone evidently gave  the Lincolns a good  tip,  because  four days later she wrote to a friend that "Robert went out yesterday to a place called  'Hyde  Park,'  a  beautiful  new Hotel, rooms exquisitely clean  &  even luxuriously fitted up, seven miles from the City-Cars passing every hour of the day "

An advertisement in the Tribune on May 19 tells us more:

 HYDE PARK HOTEL Kept by A.H. Dunton

 This Hotel has  been put  in complete order, and is now open, and will be kept, in all respects, as a first-class Hotel.

 Persons desirous of making arrangements for the summer months, will find this a very agreeable place. It has all the advantages of a Watering Place Hotel, with almost hourly communication with Chicago  by  rail, while the distance by the traveled road from the Court House is less than seven miles. Mr. Dunton refers, by permission, to Gov. Gilmore of New Hampshire; Hon. T.F. Chandler, U.S. Navy Agent, Boston; Messrs. W.R. Doggett, S.F. Farrington, and  Hoo J.T. Scammon, Chicago.

 No doubt Paul Cornell, who had built the hotel, was pleased that the First Family had come to live in his village, and conceivably he had something to do with it. A Chicago lawyer and suburban developer (for whomAbraham Lincoln had done some legal work), Cornell owned 300 lakeshore :acres which he had coolly advertised as "beautifully situated on high ground." In a deal which was all important to Hyde Park, he gave the Illinois Central Railroad sixty acres for its right of way, and in return the ICRR began a commuter service in July 1856 by  running  the "Hyde  Park Special" out to a little frame depot on the east side of the 53rd Street grade crossing. Here, in the summer of 1865, Robert Lincoln would catch the 8:52 mornings for the 30- minute ride in to Water Street and the offices of Scammon, McCagg & Fuller, where he would be reading law.

"This quiet retreat," as Mary Lincoln soon called the hotel, stood near the lake shore at 53rd Street, about where the Hampton House stands today, except that the shore was closer in at that time. (It is not to be confused  with  the later  Hyde Park Hotel standing on the south side of 51st between Harper and Lake Park from 1887 co 1963.)"It almost appears to me that I am on the Sea Shore,'' wrote Mary Lincoln from the hotel; "land cannot be discerned across the Lake, some seventy-five miles in breadth. My friends thought I would be more quiet here during the summer months than in the City."

But in coming to Hyde Park she could not escape her sorrows. "Tell me, how can I live without my Husband any longer?" she cries in a letter at  this time. "This is my first awakening thought each morning, & as I watch the waves of the turbulent lake under our windows I sometimes feel I should like to go under them."

At first she had the comfort of her friend Elizabeth Keckley beside her, but Lizzie had to return to Washington and her business of making dresses for wives of cabinet officers.

Soon Mary Lincoln was writing, "I still remain closeted in my rooms, take an occasional walk in the park & as usual see no one." It is not surprising that she adds later in the same letter, "I cannot express how lonely we are." Without TV or rental movies, what did Mary Lincoln- intelligent, nervous,  excitable-do with herself through her long weeks shut up in

the Hyde Park Hotel? The answer is, she'. read the newspapers and wrote letters;.

A political wife, she devoL1,ed  the gossip frorr. Capitol  Hill  in  the half dozen New York and Chicago papers she regularly

saw. By early June their front pages were black with "The Conspiracy Trial,"and judging from the Chicago Tribune were full of lurid details about the conspirators' planning of her husband's murder-yet she mentions none of this in writing to friends.

For four years Mary Lincoln had been veritably catnip to the gossip columnists, but Chicago papers seem to have ignored her during the summer of 1865, perhaps because she had buried herself out in Hyde Park. There was one unhappy exception on June 14 when she read a spiteful paragraph in the Chicago Journal which said she had

threatened to whip little Tad for damaging his boots. It was untrue-and one more thing to resent in a letter to a friend the next day.

Her letters were many and long. They must have made fat envelopes. When they are printed in a book today, something she never expected, and God forgive us for reading her private mail, some letters fill two pages, and obviously account for hours daily at her desk. They are written, and well written, on black-bordered paper abouc the size of a postcard, showing excellent vocabulary and spelling, with tight, nervous punctuation (which is being edited here for the sake of clearness).

Mary Lincoln may have over-praised the Hyde Park Hotel to her correspondents. Lizzie Keckley claimed later that the Lincolns' rooms were "not first-class" but "small and plainly furnished," with meals sent up from the kitchen. It was far from the Executive Mansion. "I assure you," snaps the First Lady as

early as June 27, "I am growing very  weary of  boarding. It is very unbecoming when it is remembered  from whence we have just come."

She never once complains of summer heat. Hyde Park, at the lakeshore, can be degrees cooler than central Chicago-important in 1865, before electric fans. Already the village, numbering some 500 population, had become a summer escape for affluent Chicagoans. On July 11 Mary Lincoln writes, apparently with approval, that the hotel "has become crowded with some of the very best Chicago people, each family keeping their carriages; & I have, as you may suppose, indulged in my privilege of being very quiet & retired." Virtually a recluse, she did sometimes walk in "the beautiful park adjoining the place"­ referring to that space now lying between Harold's Playlot and the boulder inscribed to Paul Cornell. She added  that "persons drive out  [from Chicago} every day to see me; I receive but very few; I am too miserable to pass through such an ordeal as yet. Day by day I miss my beloved husband more & more "

Two weeks later, another mood: "This place has become a complete Babel & I grieve that necessity requires us to live in this way...." No doubt she  shunned  the hotel's social event of the season on August 11 when, said the Tribune the next day, "the musical elite of Chicago took turns performing." It was fortunate for this Victorian widow of forty­ seven in deep mourning that she had a grown son at her side. Robert Todd Lincoln had split no rails but instead attended Phillips Exeter, was a Harvard graduate, had been four months at Harvard Law, and briefly, for a few weeks near the end of the war, a captain on Ulysses S. Grant's staff. With  the change     in  his        family's fortunes, and in view of his unstable   mother's   need   of him, he would have to forego i- a Harvard  LLD.  He was  the J man  in  the  house now, and since it was the impatient, high-tempered  Mary Todd Lincoln's house it was certain to be difficult.

"Robert is so worried chat I am sick so much that he has purchased a neat covered buggy," she writes on July 17. Perhaps Robert took her for soothing rides to see the  fine homes in the village, or for a view of the mysterious white rollers off 49th Street. He would have sold his horse as an economy move, she writes, but "as it was his father's last gift, I would not consent to this, although I expect we shall hear remarks about our purchasing a buggy"-a reference to her (justified) reputation in eastern newspapers for mad extravagance.

On July26 she writes of her other son, Tad, until recently the irrepressible imp of the White House. "Taddie has made many  warm  friends,"  but  because there is Scarlet Fever  in  the hotel she  has sent  him  to live with friends in  the country. Not  Scarlet  Fever  bur TB would kill Tad only six years later, making him the third boy Mary Lincoln had lost.

By late summer 1865 the  Hyde  Park  Hotel  was no longer where the Lincolns wanted to be. Indeed Robert  was  said  to  have  grumbled  to  Lizzie Keckley as early as his first week there that "I

would almost as soon be dead as be compelled to remain three months in this dreary house." They actually stayed only 2 1/2 months.

In mid-August Mary Lincoln moved into the Clifton House at Wabash and Madison. The Palmer House it was not, but she felt poor. It had in fact become an obsession with her. At his death Abraham Lincoln left some

$80,000 in  cash  and  U.S.  bonds,  mainly salary from four years as President, but it was not in the widow's hands. Lawyer Lincoln had died without leaving a will, and his estate was

being   administered   by   his   old   Illinois  friend Judge David Davis, against  whom  Mary  Lincoln fumed because of his firm control of the money. Mary,

Robert, and Tad were living on theinterest, split equally among the three of them, and the widow was living on

$1500 to $1800 annually at this time.

On August 17 she wrote angrily about a sense of injury which her letters show had become another mania. "I explain

                                                                                       to you, exactly &

truly, how we are

circumstanced. A greater portion of our means is unavailable, consisting of a house in S. [Springfield] & some wild lands in Iowa. Notwithstanding my great & good husband's life was sacrificed for his country, we are left to struggle in a manner. .. of life  undeserved. Roving Generals have elegant mansions showered upon them, and the American people leave the family of the Martyred President to struggle as best they  may! Strange justice this." She refers to U.S. Grant, war hero, who was presented with homes in Galena, Philadelphia, and Washington.

So ended Mary Lincoln's sad summer onEast 53rd. Street in Hyde Park. A year later she would settle into a home of her own in Chicago, a row house on West Washington, between Ann and Elizabeth streets, no longer standing. Erratic, she did not stay there long. Scheming ceaselessly to raise cash to pay off $20,000 in shopping debts which she had concealed from her husband, who had been busy with the Civil War, she would later sell some of her Washington Street furniture to the Hyde Park Hotel for $2094.50. Mind the fifty cents. The furniture probably burned up with the hotel in the late 1870s. Mary Todd Lincoln, dressed always in high-fashion black, lived seventeen unhappy,  troubled  years  as  a  widow. A pathetic  ruin  by  1882,  when  she was 64, she died in Springfield in the home of her sister, who had urged her not to marry Abraham Lincoln  in the first place.

As Mary Lincoln read the Chicago Tribune in the Hyde Park Hotel in the summer of 1865, her eyes could not have escaped front-page advertisements exploiting her husband's murder. There was an ad for the "New and Beautiful Music" of "Abraham Lincoln's Funeral March." Also a "Beautiful Lithograph," one yard square, of "The Dying President" surrounded by his cabinet (one dollar). She would also see that, despite the nation's woe, the Italian Opera opened in Crosby's Opera House on June 5 with "Faust," followed on the 6th with "Norma." And there was grave news about the national debt.  After four years of war it had risen to $2.6 billion. -J.S. When Robert Lincoln rode the ICRR from Hyde Park to downtown Chicago daily in the summer of 1865 he could look out the window at 33rd Street and see Camp Douglas, the Civil War prison where 4500 Confederate soldiers had died in the last 31/2 years.   (See Hyde Park History, March 1994.) Six months after Appomattox, 6000 POWs were still there. On May 9 the Tribune claimed that "They have nearly all signified their wish to take the oath of allegiance, and it is expected that all but about 200will   be  allowed   to   do  so   and   be discharged." On May 17th the Trib's Camp Douglas reporter, who had been often wrong but never in doubt, added that "Quietly but surely the inculcation of right and patriotic principles is going on among the prisoners of war confined in our /word illegible/ camp. Out of the whole six thousand rebels in the prisoners' square, there are not half a dozen who have not given up every rebel hope and are ready to abandon treason and come out." -J.S.

Hyde Park Hotels: The Early Years, 1880-1915

A New Exhibit

at HPHS Headquarters

On display are 27 large format views of hotels that were once landmark institutions in the communities of Hyde Park, Kenwood and Woodlawn. Many were built for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Some became elegant centers of social and cultural life in their communities and resort destinations for visitors  to Chicago from all over the world. Featured are such hotels as the first Chicago Beach Hotel, the early Del Prado and the original Windermere.

The sources of the views used in this exhibit are photographic and printed postcards, most of which were composed and published from the  years  around  1907 until  about  1915.   The photographer  most  represented by these images is Charles R. Childs, one of the more prolific and able photographers and postcard publishers of his day in the Chicago area. They have been enlarged for easier viewing through the use of a laser print copier.

StephenTreffman, HPHSArchivist, prepared this exhibit, and will present a program on Early Hyde ParkHotels on Sunday, June 21, at 2pm.Do plan to come and get acquainted with early HydePark…

by Stephen Treffman, HPHS Archivist

Paul Robeson (1898-1976)

The100th anniversary of the April 9, 1898 birth of the famous African-American singer, actor, and activist is being celebrated throughout the year at hundreds of sites in Chicago and other cities around the world. From 1945 until 1958 Robeson often appeared on stages in or near Hyde Park.Five of his concerts were presented at the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall, 57th Street and University. Four were under the auspices of various student groups and a fifth was sponsored by Earl B. Dickerson (1891-1986) who was an African-American alumnus of the University's LawSchool(1920), Supreme Life Insurance Company executive and a civil rights lawyer who played an historically significant role in overturning the legal basis for racially restrictive covenants.

On September 1, 1940, at the Chicago Coliseum,!Robeson sang for theAmericanNegro Exposition,:major organizers for which had been Dickerson and his!wife,Kathryn. Robeson also performed at several concerts in Washington Park at 53rd Street near Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Drive and in such settings as the Corpus Christi Auditorium at 4600 S. King Drive, the Rose Ballroom at 4724 South Cottage Grove Avenue, Du Sable High School at 4934 S. Wabash Avenue, and the Pershing Hotel at 64th and Cottage Grove Avenue. When in Chicago, Robeson was a guest of the Dickersons, at their home, 5027 S. Drexel Boulevard. At his death, Dickerson lived at 4800 S. Chicago Beach Drive.

Hyde Parkers listed as honorary members of the Paul Robeson 100th Birthday Committee include, Timuel Black, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, Leon Despres, Ishmael Flory, Harold Rogers, and Dr. Quentin Young, M.D. Anyone with any knowledge about Robeson's Hyde Park connections is invited to call our society or the Paul Robeson committee at 312-344-7114   or   its   internet home page(http://www.pobox.com/-robeson/).

Frank Lloyd and Japan: A Chicago Celebration

Frank Lloyd Wright's first encounter with Japanese architecture was the Ho-o-den temple which was installed on Jackson Park's Wooded Island for  the 1893 World's  Columbian  Exposition.  This contributed to Wright's life-long fascination with Japanese art and architecture, one of the few influences he ever acknowledged. Although the Ho-o-den no longer exists, its surrounding garden has been renovated by the Park District and Chicago officials have renamed the area Osaka garden in honor of our Sister City.

In recognition of the 100th anniversary of Wright's Oak Park studio and the 25th anniversary  of  the Osaka Sister Cities program, there will be a special weekend celebration, July 18 and 19, at  Wright's Robie House and Osaka Garden.

On Saturday, a family oriented street fair will be held on 58th Street at Woodlawn Avenue in front of the Robie House, and will  feature  Japanese performing arts, crafts and cuisine. Sunday lectures and films will focus on topics such as the 1893 World's Fair, Wright in Japan and Japanese gardens. Tours of the Robie House and Osaka Garden will be offered in Japanese and English on both days. Transportation between the two sites will be provided. "An Enchanted Evening in Osaka Garden" will be a highlight of the festival. There will be tours of the garden, and Tatsu Aoki, founder of the Chicago Asian­ American Jazz Festival, will perform jazz music based on Japanese compositions with his trio. A Japanese dinner, a Bento, prepared by Totoya will be served, followed by a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony in the pavilion presented by the Chicago chapter of the Urasanke Tea School.  Reservations for this evening

event are limited. Foundation volunteer Robert W. Karr, Jr.  chairs this event which is co-sponsored by the Chicago Park District and others including Friends of the Parks, the University of Chicago and the Osaka Sister City Program. Watch for more information.

Volume 20, Number 2 & 3

Paul Cornell from Chicago and it’s Makers

S

uccessfullawyer,founderofHydeParkandGrandCrossing,PaulCornellhasleftthroughhisuntiringeffortsabeautifulsystemofparks

to be the playgrounds of the millions who succeeded him as residents of Chicago. What greater tribute can be paid to one of Chicago's pioneers than to say through his efforts we have Washington and Jackson Parks with the system of boulevards and smaller parks that makes the southern portion of the city entitled to membership in the City Beautiful.

Pioneer blood of the earliest in America flowed in the veins of Paul Cornell. Born in White Creek, Washington County, New York, August 5, 1822, his family traced back through the father to Thomas

Cornell who left Essex in 1638 ro settle in Boston. His mother was a descendent  of Samuel Robinson, founder of Bennington, Vermont.

Paul's father died during his infancy, and  the mother (Elizabeth Hopkins} became the wife of Dr. Jonathan Berry and moved with her son to Adams County, Illinois. Here Paul worked on a farm and attended  the public schools in winter. Soon he was able to teach and in 1843 began  the study of law, which he continued in an office at Rushville, Illinois and at Joliet. Finally, he was admitted to the bar, and on June 1, 1847, set out for Chicago on a Frink and Walker stage coach.

Carrying his earthly possessions, consisting  of an extra suit of clothes, a package of  business  cards and one and  a half dollars, he entered  the Lake House at Lake and Clark Streets and  applied  for lodging. While he registered someone helped himself  co  the  bundle and young Cornell was left without resources. John M.Wilson, an attorney with whom he had studied, however, came to his rescue and he secured his first employment with Wilson & Freer. A very successful career for a young man at law followed, but Cornell saw greater opportunities in real estate. In 1852 he had hired John Boyd co make a topographical study of the district now known as HydePark and the following year he bought 300 acres along the lakefront. Sixty acres of this he sold to the Illinois Central Railroad on condition that they  would maintain service of at least one train daily from Chicago and return. He was forced co agree to pay the difference between  the cost of operation and  the sale of tickets, a sum amounting at one time co $70 for three months. A receipted bill for chat amount is preserved in the Hyde Park Hotel, signed by George B. McClellan of  the railroad, who lacer became  general-in-chief  of  che United Scates Army.

Bue Cornell opened a subdivision, and the  town, after a few hesitant months, flourished. He built the old Hyde Park Hotel, and when it burned, planned for che present structure, which belongs to his estate.

In the meantime a railroad accident on the south side had led co the general order that all trains crossing an intersection of two lines must come to a full stop. Cornell saw the possibilities in the order and bought land at the intersection of the two roads, subdividing it as Cornell, Illinois, but later changing the name  to Grand Crossing.

Possessed of a clear vision Mr. Cornell was one of the original agitators for the South Park System of great playgrounds for the multitudes to come, and of boulevards. The winter of 1867 and 1868 he spent in Springfield fighting against hearty opposition for the South Parks bill. He won and was made one of the first commissioners, serving for fourteen years. He was an organizer of the Chicago Coal and Dock Company, which worked the Calumet.

Mr. Cornell married Helen M. Gray of Bowdoinham, Maine, July 24, 1856, at che home of her brother in-law, Orrington Lune, of Chicago. They had five sons and two daughters, Elizabeth, Walter G. and Orrington, George Kimbark Cornell, John Evans Cornell, Paul and Helen. Mr. Cornell died March 3, 1904.

Another Link with Lincoln:------

Springfield June 2, 1857

Messers Cornell, Waite & Jameson Chicago, Ills.

Gentlemen: Yours of the  29th  was duly received. This morning  I  went  co the Register with four hundred dollars in gold in my hand and tendered to che Register of the Land Office a written application co enter the land, as you requested, all of which the Register  declined.  I have made a written memorandum of the facts,

deposited the gold with J. Bunn (who furnished it

to me on the draft you sent) and cook his Certificate of deposite (sic). which certificate and memorandum I hold subject co your order.

Now, if you please, send me ten dollars, as a fee.

Yours Truly

A. Lincoln

The focus on Paul Cornell (1822-1904) in chis issue of Hyde Park History arises out of Len Despres' presentation co the 1998 annual meeting of our Society and the visit last May by Cornell's grandson, Paul Adrian Cornell, to Hyde Park and his enlightening offering at our program ac Robie House. In this issue's "Notes," we look more closely at aspects of Paul Cornell's life and business career in Hyde Park and Grand Crossing and at responses we received co our Harold Washington memorial issue.

Cornell in Hyde Park

When Paul Cornell came co Chicago in 1847  he lived in the central city. After becoming involved in developing Hyde Park and marrying Helen Gray (b. 1833) in 1856, he and his new wife took  up  residence in his new community, probably in 1857. Cornell constructed a house for his family on the southwest corner of Laurel (51st Street/East Hyde Park Boulevard) and Jefferson (now Harper) Avenue. The two story frame house, designed in the then popular Italianate architectural style, was essentially rectangular in shape. le was oriented from east co west along 5 lsc Street on a lot that was 50 feet on its east and west edges and 150 feet on its north and south boundaries. In the accompanying illustration, the house's main entryway appears in the forefront, which would indicate that the photograph was taken from Jefferson (Harper) Avenue rather than from 51st Street. The address ultimately became 5104 S. Harper Avenue. The cupola on the roof probably served to draw light into the center of the house. From the porch, Cornell and his family could see the smoke and flames from the Great Chicago Fire of October 9, 1871 that, in the process, also destroyed his downtown office and its records.

The presence of this imposing house so close co the Illinois Central railroad  lines meant  that early travelers and potential investors in Hyde  Park  property  could easily see it  when  arriving at or passing Hyde Park  by rail. In a sense, it served as Hyde Park's first "model home," an explicit  vision  of  what  could  be established on this open and essentially empty land that was close enough to downtown Chicago via a short train ride but distant enough to be removed from its congestion. According to city directories and grandson Paul  A. Cornell, Paul and Helen continued  co live in the house until  their  deaths,  in  1904  and  1914  respectively.  It was demolished soon after her death. Commercial structures, once including a branch of one of America's early fast  food  chains, "House of  Wimpy's:  The  Home of the Glorified Hamburger,"  now occupy the site. The land remains the property of the Cornell family, making it the oldest parcel of Hyde Park real estate owned continuously to this day by one family.

Cornell built Hyde Park House at a cost of $70,000 around the same time that he constructed his house and may even have been resident  in  the  hotel  while  the house was being  built.  When  the hotel  opened  in 1858, it had a capacity for 200 guests and was, as Jim Stronks pointed out in our last issue, an attractive retreat for well-to-do Chicagoans. Because of additions to the Lake Michigan shoreline in lacer years, some confusion has crept into identifying the hotel's original  site.  A  map from 1868  indicates  that  it  stood  at  the  southeast corner of 53rd Street and what is now South Hyde Park Boulevard, where  the  Del  Prado  Apartments  now stands. The building  stretched  lengthwise  north  and south along the lake shore.  Its  front  facade,  the  long side in the view in the accompanying illustration, faced west toward a landscaped driveway. According  to Andreas, Cornell  leased  the  inn  co managers  in 1858

and  then sold  it  co J. Irving  Pearce and Schuyler S.

Benjamin  in 1865. Although  the new owners enclosed che hotel's wooden frame  in  brick,  the entire building was consumed by fire in  1877 at an estimated  loss of some $310,000, most of it uninsured. These owners, it would seem, bore that loss, not Cornell.  lncidently, another hotel called "The Hyde Park"  existed  in  the 1870s at the southeast corner of 63rd and Stony Island Avenue in Woodlawn but whether  Cornell  had  a financial interest  in  it is not known. After Cornell  built his new hotel  in  Hyde  Park,  the Hyde Park Hotel on 63rd Street ceased co operate under that name.

Paul Cornell and Grand Crossing

By 1870, Paul Cornell and his wife had had five children, two of whom, ac ages four and six, had died of diphtheria early in that year. He was 47 years of age, a well-established lawyer and a South Park Commissioner which, no doubt with some pride, he reported as his occupation in the 1870 U.S. Census. Financially, the 1860s had been quite a boon for Cornell. He cold the 1870 census enumerator that he owned  $600,000  in real estate and $6000 in personal property, a combined figure twelve times the amount he had claimed in the 1860 Census. A significant portion of his real estate holdings consisted of hundreds of acres of land chat he had acquired in 1854 and developed around a railroad intersection at 75th street and what is now South Chicago Avenue. In 1853 two trains had  collided  at this rail crossing with a loss of forty lives and many more injured. This led  to   legal requirements  that, by the mid-1870s, had 210 trains of six different rail companies stopping ac this junction  every day. This land became the basis for a new community originally called Cornell, but ultimately named Grand Crossing.

Accordingtotheoriginalplatenteredwiththe CookCounty'sRecorderofDeedsin1872,theborders of Grand Crossing  ran essentially from  71st Street on the north to  83rd  Street  on  the  south  and  from Stony Island on the east to Cottage Grove on the west.

The strategy that Cornell used in developing Grand Crossing was roughly similar to the one he used in the town of Hyde Park but with a wrinkle that notably differentiated it from his earlier effort. The center of the new town was arranged around a railroad stop and depot. He built a  hotel (the Grand  Crossing  at  76th and Woodlawn) near the depot, established a small community park (at 76th and Greenwood) and donated land for a church (at 76th and Ingleside) and for  a public school (at 76th and Drexel and named for Cornell), all of which was, essentially, a basic review of what he done before in Hyde Park Center. The twist on the model was that, immediately south of the park, Cornell constructed a large watch factory in 1870 that would serve not only as an anchor for Grand Crossing and, perhaps, a rewarding financial investment but also as a defining symbol of the community's character.

Cornell envisioned Grand Crossing as a center for

manufacturing supported by unusually good rail access for shipping and travel and the availability of good housing. Cornell offered manufacturers land at very attractive prices in the expectation that the workers drawn to these factories would  then purchase housing on land which Cornell could also provide. The watch factory might help prime the pump, so to speak. In the case of Hyde Park, the direct parallel to the factory, in theory, was Cornell's donation of land for a Presbyterian Theological Seminary south of East End  Park, but it was never built. In practice, it would be his house and his hotel that served  to identify the town of Hyde Park in its early days as a middle- and upper-class residential suburban community linked closely to Chicago. Grand Crossing, however, was intended to be a far more self­ contained and self-sustaining economic entity.

The Cornell Watch Factory stood on the south side of 76th Street between Greenwood and Dobson, at what would now be about 1035-53 East. The gray structure, oriented east to west and facing north, was three stories high and perhaps half a city block long. An early example of the so-called American system of mass production, the plant had fifteen separate operating departments and employed perhaps as many as three hundred men using sixty-five different machines, some driven by steam, that Cornell had purchased from a defunct New Jersey watchmaking company or had constructed expressly for his factory. For its time, the building was probably as modern  a  manufacturing plant as could be found anywhere in the Chicago area. Natural light came through the building's  unusually large windows and the landscaped area in front of the building provided a parklike setting. The company prided itself on its policy of employing only men. Women and children, whose labor might have suggested a lower quality product or otherwise possibly been deemed exploited, were expressly excluded from employment.

A singular snapshot of Hyde  Park  history  was captured when the company  differentiated  among  the nine models it offered  by identifying  them by the names of real people, all of whom, but one, had historic connections  to Hyde Park and  Cornell. The  top of the line model was the Paul Cornell, a nineteen jewel stem winder. More modest models, those with fewer jewels, were identified by the names of friends and business associates, some or all of whom may also have served as directors of the company: C. T  Bowen, Chauncey  M. Cady, Homer N. Hibbard, George F. Root,John Evans,]. C. Adams, E.S. Williams, and George W. Waite.

Bowen, Cady, Hibbard, and  Waite were active early

collaborators with Cornell in the development of Hyde Park. Chauncey T. Bowen is linked to a subdivision in Hyde Park Center that included much of what is now Nichol's  Park. He played  a major role in lobbying for passage of the South Parks legislation and was, with Cornell, a commissioner on its first board. He was president of the first Calumet and Chicago Dock and Canal Company, in which Cornell was also an investor. The company developed significant portions of the southern part of Hyde Park Village. Chauncey M. Cady (1824-1889) was the vice-president of the Cornell Watch Company. In partnership with George Frederick Root (1820-1895 ), Cady also owned Chicago's largest music publishing firm (founded 1858), with offices at the famed Crosby Opera House. Cady was president of the first Hyde Park Board of Trustees from 1868 until 1874.

Homer Nash Hibbard (1824-1897), Cornell's law partner in the 1860s, led the  move  to  incorporate Hyde Park Village in 1861 and was associated with Cornell in founding its first public school. The present Kenwood Avenue from 51st to 55t·h Street was originally called Hibbard Street  or  Court. Hibbard also held investment property in Grand Crossing.

George Washington Waite  (b.1819)  was employed as chief engineer for several railroads and was linked closely to Hyde Park's village government. At various times he held positions as Hyde Park trustee, revenue collector, town clerk, and supervisor. He was Hyde Park's first postmaster and, in 1872, the first Chief Engineer for the South Park Board of Commissioners.

Dr. John Evans  (] 814-1897),  an  obstetrician  and active real estate investor, was related to Cornell by marriage. He was associated with Cornell in creating Oak  Woods Cemecary in 1853. He lent his name to the town of Evanston, Illinois and was founding president    of    Northwestern    University's    Board of Trustees. Cornell named one of his sons after Evans. By 1870, however, Evans was resident in Colorado.

Erastus S. Williams was a lawyer,  circuit  court judge and, as was Hibbard, an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Hyde  Park  of which  Cornell was a founding member.

The one model  "name" chat does not fie  naturally into this group is that of J.C. Adams and his is an interesting story. According  to the 1870 Census, John C.Adams, who then lived in Chicago with his wife and three children, was born in New York State in 1835 and had been apprenticed as a watchmaker and jeweler. The first machine manufactured(interchangeable part) watches in the United States were made in1854 by theWaltham(Massachusetts)Watch Company.In1864, Adams, fascinated by the potential of this technology, with associates drawn from the Massachusetts company and monies invested by a group led by a former mayor of Chicago, founded the National Watch Company, in Elgin, Illinois. Cornell somehow became acquainted with Adams and decided to back him financially in establishing a new watch company in Grand Crossing with machinery purchased from a defunct watch company in Newark. Adams left the Elgin company  and joined the Cornell Watch Company as its  general agent or manager. He likely was the  Cornell company's central figure in working out the details of production, employment, and distribution and likely had a hand in aspects of the design of the factory itself. The still existing small park that Cornell established across from the plant, at 76th Street between Dobson and Greenwood Avenues, may well have been named after Adams and retains that name to this day.

Using the names of private individuals to differentiate between a company's watch models was not unusual among manufacturers of that period but most appear to have been of persons involved directly in the business. While it is not known whether the Cornell watch "names" were actual investors in  the company, using those names illustrates Cornell's capacity to draw a core of close friends and relatives around him with whom he shared the  risks and rewards   of   his       major projects or

otherwise obtained  their support

and approval, whether  in Hyde Park,  Grand  Crossing,  the South Parks or Calumet. Those connections, however, have led historians  to  conclude  that those   behind   the   campaign for  establishing  the   South Parks system, that  is, Cornell and his close associates, were influenced by the prospect of increasing the value  of  real estate near the parks as well as for providing "lungs for the City." In 1871 the Cornell Watch Company was profusely praised by an editor of a perhaps because of, the new technology, it was still a capital and labor intensive business and efficiencies in production may have been difficult to achieve. In 1871, the company's manager claimed, perhaps overstating reality, that the firm had invested $500,000 building and equipping the factory and planned to devote another $500,000 for further development. Still, investment and labor costs had to have been substantial. As that trade journal editor had warned in  1871, despite a company's willingness to invest large sums to "secure perfection in the manufacture of their goods they may nor at all rimes receive the ample pecuniary return their enterprise deserves."

For Cornell to recover the costs of their manufacture and make a profit, a great many watches would have to be sold and that may have proved difficult to achieve in the face of stiff competition and a deteriorating economy. For example, in that same 1870 to 1874 period, Adams' old company in Elgin probably manufactured as many as four rimes the number of watches Cornell produced Offering nine different watch models, instead of just a few, while flattering to his friends and associates, may nonetheless also have raised  Cornell's costs of production and further dampened his company's ability to compete. The Chicago Fire of 1871, in turn, played havoc with Chicago's economy, the closest large market for Cornell watches. Moreover, a sharp economic downturn in the United States watch trade journal for making began  in  1873  causing  wide­ "the best watch the ingenuity of man has as yet produced" and for having a "liberal management". A glowing future was predicted. In 1874, however, Cornell suddenly sold controlling interest in the company to a California group headed by Leland Stanford, organizer of the Central Pacific Railroad and the man who hammered that famous spike at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. Most of the watch factory's machinery was shipped off to San Francisco along with sixty of its skilled workers who had elected to remain with the company.

The reasons for the sale of the Cornell Watch Company have never been fully explained. On its face, the Grand Crossing company seemed to  be  thriving; from  1870 to 1874  the company  may  have produced, by some estimates, perhaps as many as ten to twelve thousand watches. The problem was that despite, or spread unemployment and wage cuts for many of those who were employed, particularly railroad workers, a prime market for watches. These factors also would have affected the ability of Cornell to raise funds to keep the company going in difficult times. Cornell's own investments were rather illiquid and his major interests, as well as those of most of his associates, were, after all, far more wedded to real estate than to watchmaking. For his friends Cady and Root,  the Great Fire was a disaster. When the Crosby Opera House went up in flames, so did their business, throwing it into bankruptcy. Cady left Chicago in 1873. By 1874, then, in the face of factors internal and external to the company, it is likely that the Cornell Watch Company was experiencing difficulties in achieving profitability, actual or desired. Given these circumstances, Cornell probably welcomed the opportunity to sell control of the company to other players.

The California group apparently believed that the company had a better chance for survival in a different market. Its strategy was to lower its labor costs at its San Francisco plant by hiring Chinese workers, then available in large numbers after completion of the transcontinental railroad line. The  skilled  workers who had come from Chicago, however, protested and went on strike. Conditions for the company continued to deteriorate and the company closed  its  doors 10 1876 and sold off its assets  to watch companies in other cities.

Back in Grand Crossing, in 1875 Cornell sold his former watch factory building to the Wilson Sewing Machine Company, along with 300 lots of land. By then the community already had over seventy-five dwellings. In 1876, he put his Grand Crossing  Hotel up for sale. Although he continued to maintain

•   significant  holdings in Grand Crossing  until  the end of his life, Cornell, by the lace 1870s, had probably completed the most active phase of his involvement in development of that community. The factory itself became something of a  community  landmark, standing until at least the middle of this century. The site is now vacant. J.C. Adams moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he organized the Adams and Perry Watch Manufacturing Company only co see it go into receivership in 1876. In 1885, however, he returned to Illinois to organize and presumably make his fortune with the Illinois Watch Company in Springfield, Illinois which made watches there until 1932. The Elgin Watch Company, the one from  which Adams left to join Cornell,  became the largest  manufacturer of watches in the United States and produced watches until the 1950s.

Grand Crossing's contribution to the history  of Hyde Park Village lies in its role in encouraging the development of areas  to its  north and south. This led to an increase in the village's population with accompanying greater social and economic diversity which, in turn, gave rise to political forces competing over community resources, eventually challenging the old line powers in Hyde Park Center,  including Cornell himself, in support of annexation to Chicago.

One of the earliest aspects of Grand Crossing's pre­ development was the establishment, in 1853, by Cornell and others, of Oak Woods Cemetary at 67th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, today one of the great historic cemetaries of Chicago. Cornell and most of his immediate family are buried there in lot 1-1. In 1888, Cornell installed there a dignified  twenty foot tall monument cast by his own American  White Bronze Company, then located only blocks from the cemetery at 73rd and Woodlawn  in Grand  Crossing. A relief of his face is set in place half way up the monument, which is possibly the last surving structure whose construction was personally supervised by Cornell. It has held up very well and is accessible to the public.

The Hyde Park Hotel

When Cornell built his new Hyde Park Hotel on the south side of 51st Street between Lake Park and Harper Avenues (now site of the Village Center Shopping Mall), he did so in two stages. Although sources conflict on the matter, the east half,  along Lake Park, was apparently built first, in  1887. The west half, along 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard to Harper Avenue, was added in 1890. This may account for early references to two different addresses for the hotel: 5122 Lake (Park) Avenue and 1511 E. Hyde Park Boulevard. An addition to the rear  of  the building was constructed at some  date  later  than 1907. At the time it was built it was the largest residential structure in Hyde  Park  with  ultimately 300 units of two to five rooms. Framed internally by a metal skeleton, it was proclaimed "fire proof' because of its then new fire restraining wall construction.  On its first floor, an elegant marble lobby opened into a well-regarded dining room, various public meeting rooms and a smoking materials and  newspaper stand. It also had a barber shop and pharmacy. An elevator took residents to their floors. A veranda that stretched along its north and west facade allowed visitors  to relax and enjoy the street scene. Lake Michigan was then only a little more than a block away from  the hotel and the large windows in each apartment  not only brought in a good deal of natural light  but allowed lake breezes to cool  the rooms during the summer months. Over the years the well-regarded hotel was host co celebrities and many community social and cultural activities. The Old Settlers Club, something akin to a local historical society, met there regularly during the early years of this century.

Architecrual historian Carl Condit praises the hotel, designed by Theodore Starrett and built by the George

A. Fuller Company, as perhaps the earliest residential example of what has come to be called the Chicago School of Architecture. These innovative forms and structures first emerged in downtown Chicago during the early 1880s as spacious metal framed office and commercial buildings, many of them constructed  by the same Fuller Company. Planning for such large buildings, argued its advocates, should be rational, empirical and systematic. The structures that emerged should project simplicity, stability, dignity, and efficiency. Artistry derived from functional elaborations, not from adding on useless embellishments.   In  other   words,  it  fit   important

emergingaspectsoflate19thCenturybusinessphilosophy-andCornell-likeaglove. Condie ignores Cornell when he considers the hotel, preferring to focus on the architect's achievement, the building's influence on ocher hotels, and its divergence from older building traditions. Indeed, its design was decidedly not the reigning architecture of the Columbian World's Expostition although the hotel certainly housed a goodly number of visitors to the fair. The face remains, however, chat Cornell commissioned, approved and financed  the planning and construction of chat very special and historically important  hotel and his contribution deserves co be acknowledged. Hyde Park House, the watch factory, the lase Hyde Park Hotel, even the American White Bronze Company, seem all of a piece: among the largest and best built buildings of their type in their  time and place, reflections of Cornell's commitment to quality and innovation. The Hyde Park Hotel not  only belonged to Cornell, it epitomized his values, his career and the identity that he wanted for himself and the community he had founded. While ochers in  Hyde Park may have built what were considered temporary structures for the fair, Cornell constructed a hotel whose intended permanence was self-evident. In so doing, he introduced a form of alternative housing into the community-the first class residential hotel-chat would ultimately become very important to Hyde Park's development in succeeding decades. Cornell's funeral was held in the hotel on March 5, 1904. The building itself came down in 1963 during the community's urban renewal era.

Remembering Paul Cornell

Historian Donald Miller appraises Cornell's  career and accomplishments sympathetically. "Cornell," he writes, "was  more  than  a  building  speculator...(He) had a deep interest in the city's betterment  and  the hope...  that  parks and  cultural  institutions  would  act as restraints on Chicago's runaway materialism." The park system Cornell helped bring into existence "was Chicago's first effort to shape a development process dominated by unruly improvisation and to plan entire areas in advance of settlement for public,  not  private use. It was also the first successful effort in the city's history  to break  the  monotonous  spread  of the grid." Mi Iler concludes, "Cornell's career as a town and park builder is an example of  the combination  of high and low motives, of risk caking in the interests of both personal and civic gain chat had been behind  nearly every major municipal improvement since...(che early days of Chicago's history)." As  he walked  to his car after his visit co Robie House lase  May,  Paul  A. Cornell offered  his own down-to-earth  assessment  of his grandfather, "Given the curbulaoce of 19th century America, he had a lot of guts."

Cornell Avenue and Cornell Drive, of course, are named in honor of Paul Cornell. There is also a park named after him, Cornell Square, at 1809 W. 50th Street. In the main hall of its refectory, there is a painting of Cornell on the wall and  a bust of  him dated 1900, probably cast by American Bronze. An administrator there cold me the story that, years ago,

The two parks about which I was requesting information turned out  to be on one or the other of their lists. In the case of Adams Park, there is another one by that name on Chicago's  north  side.  The District had no historical information in their current files on Grand Crossing's Adams Park but  I could share our research, tracing it back at least to the 1872 plat, thus placing it among the older named  parks in the over 500 parks currently in their system, and suggesting a possible source of the Adams name. "Harold Washington Park" may be designated as the official name for the area previously categorized as a playloc. Moreover, though raised tentively by a staff member working on this project, there is a possibility that the entire area including the playlot and the park land west to Hyde Park Boulevard, chat is, what once was officially labelled East End Park, might be renamed "The Harold Washington Memorial Park." While such decisions are made ultimately by the Park District Board, with recommendations from the park's cop level administrators, community impuc in chis process seemed genuinely welcomed. Persons wishing to convey their sentiments about these matters should direct them to Dr. Gwendolyn Larouch, Director of External Affairs, Chicago Park District, 425 E. Mcfetridge Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605.

Incidently, although  Harold  Washington  was che

only sitting mayor of Chicago  to have  made  his  home in Hyde Park, in  the  course of the  research  for chis

issue, I learned that Edward J. Kelly, while mayor in

the 1930s, lived at 4821 South Ellis Avenue in the Kenwood community.

In 1876, an "old settler," possibly Cornell himself, was asked "what will Chicago be twenty­ five years from now?" "Why sir, I am afraid to tell you, for fear you will laugh at me, as all my friends did, when I prophesied that in 1865, Chicago would have 100,000 inhabitants; in 1870, 150,000, and in 1886, 200,000; and

yet you see I did not set it half high enough...(By 1900), if manufacturers come in to help us, as I believe they will, I expect Chicago will be built up in that time as compact as she is now, down south to the Indiana State Iine."

From: D.H.Horne, Chicago As It Is To Be, 1876

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Another response to our  Harold  Washington memorial issue came from Charles and Yolanda  Hall who have organized the "Chicago Friends of  The Lincoln Brigade." They report that honorary Spanish citizenship was granted to surviving members of the Brigade in 1997. Six of chem were  Chicagoans,  of whom two, Dr. Aaron Hilkevitch, M.D. and Emanuel Hochberg, were Hyde Parkers.  Mr.  Hochberg  died April  28,  1998. Their research, drawn primarily from che Brigade's archives at Brandeis University, indicates that  more  than  a dozen  students from  the  University of Chicago went to Spain, including Nathan Meyer Schilling who was killed in battle there. Schilling had lived at 5610 S. Dorchester. Charles Hall is also a Brigade veteran and he and  his  wife  once  lived  in Hyde Park. Further information on che plans and activities of the new group may be obtained from the Halls at 5320 N. Sheridan Road, #1902, Chicago, IL 60640 or, by phone, at 773-769-2665.

Selected sources: A.T. Andreas, History of Cook Co11nty (Chicago, 1884); Jean Block, Hyde Park Homes (Chicago, 1978); Chicago Trib11ne, March 4, 1904; Paul Gilbert and C.L Bryson, Chicago and its Makers (Chicago, 1929); Carl W. Condit, The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commerical and Public Building i11 the Chict1;:,o Arect, 1875-1925 (Chicago, 1964); John Drury, "Grand Crossing," Landlord's G11ide (Chicago),

Vol. 38,  no.  10 (Ocrober, 1947); Dena J. Epstein,

Mmic Publishing in Chicago before 1871: The Firm of Root and Cady. 1858-l 871 (Detroit, 1969); Everett Chamberlin, Chicaf!,O and its S11b11rbs (Chicago, l 874); Paul A. Cornell, Pa11I Cornell: The Father of Hyde Park (Chicago, 1978 and 1998); Donald R. Hoke, The Time Mme1m1 flistorical Cataloiue of American Pocket Watches (Rockford, Illinois, 1991); D.H. Horne, The City of Chicago That ls To Be.' The Village of Hyde Park and her Tou·ns.' Grand Crossing (Cleveland, Ohio, 1876); Hyde Park I-leralcl, August l l, 1938; Ann Durkin Keating, B11ilclinf!. Chicaf!.o (Columbus, Ohio, 1988); Paul Markum, "Village Problems and City Solutions," Hyde Park I-Iistot)' 1 (Chicago: Hyde Park Historical Society, 1980), pp. 5+82; Donald L. Mi Iler, City of the Cent11ry: The Epic of Chicaf!,O and the Making of America (New York, 1996); Cooksey Shugart, The Complete Guide to American Pocket Watches (Cleveland, Tennessee, 1981); The Watchmaker and jeweler, Vol. 2 (May, 1871) and Vol. 3 (September and November, 1871); A.N. Waterman,  Historical  Revieu1  of Chicago and Cook  County (Chicago, 1908) Andrew Yox, "Hyde Park Politics: 1861-1919," Hyde Park History 2 (1980). Thanks to Bernard Edwards and Cooksey Shugart for leads regarding the Cornell Watch Company and to Julia Bachrach and Anita Salazar of the Chicago Park District.

A 1908 post card view of Adams Park and the old Cornell Watch Company in Grand Crossing was a key to identifying the then location of the old watch factory at Ease 76th and Greenwood Avenue. At the time of chis photograph, the building was occupied by  A.C.  Clark and Company, a dental supply manufacturer. Although the building no longer exists, Adams Park, at least 116 years after it was established, still does, on the north side of 76th Street between Greenwood and Dobson Avenues diagonally across the street from the much larger Grand Crossing Park. Adams Park may have been named after Cornell Watch Company official John C. Adams.

By 1876 Hyde Park Village consisted of twenty-eight towns: Cleaversville, Forrestville, Kenwood, Hyde Park, South Park, Woodlawn, South Shore, Oakwood, Brookline, Englewood,Grand Crossing, South Chicago, Clark's-Point, Irondale, Stony Island, Indian-Ridge, Colehour, Chittenden, Burnside, Roseland, Kensington, Riverdale, Wildwood, Dalton, Kingston, Anthony, Binford, Egandale, and Fernwood.

Volume 20, Number 4

Hyde Park Houses: An Enduring Gift Twenty Years Later from Jean F Block

Written by Steven Treffman

Twenty years have passed since The University of Chicago Press published the lace Jean Friedberg Block's groundbreaking Hyde Park Houses: An

Informal History, 1856-1910 in the Fall of 1978. It is as

well, the tenth  anniversary  of her death.This presents an opportunity to look back at the significance of this book and at Jean Block's life.

When introduced to the public, Hyde Park  Houses was characterized by its publisher, on one hand, as a "detailed architectural history of Hyde Park's first fifty years"  and, on  the other, as "a charming  and informative  guide to  the  historical  domestic architecture of one of Chicago's oldest

neighborhoods." Thar these are not guire the same things may have reflected some difficulty on the part of this world-class academic press about just how to characterize the book. In fact, it was the first book of its type ever published by the UC Press. The book consists of four distinct sections: first, a general history, with illustrations and maps, of the development and evolution of nineteenth century Hyde Park-Kenwood; second, photographs by Samuel W. Block Jr. of seventy-six houses as they appeared in 1978, accompanied by a contemporary map showing their locations; third, in an appendix, biographical notes on more than forty architects along with listings of their Hyde Park buildings; and fourth, in a second appendix, a checklist of over nine hundred dwellings in Hyde Park and, where known, their architects and the names and occupations of their original owners organized by streets and street numbers. The book concludes with a bibliographic essay that reflects the wide and unusual range of sources she used and remains instructive to this day.

The book, which had a printing of 10,000 copies, was well-received and found wide distribution.

Currently it may  be found in at  lease fifty-five academic,  state, and  municipal  libraries in  Illinois alone and may be found in many major libraries throughout the United States. Several  years ago, the Hyde  Park  Historical  Society gave copies of the  book to  public schools  in the community  and  also maintains a copy in its headguarcer's library. The Blackstone Library catalog lists eight copies in  its collection  and The University of Chicago's Regenstein Library has copies at several locations.

As a guide to histori chomes in Hyde Park and Kenwood, it was to  many a revelation  of the  rich and accessible architectural history chat existed throughout  the community.  There simply  had  never been any publication on Hyde Park quire like it before. Familiar old houses now  had  names and daces attached to chem: they had  their own  histories.  In addition, for the first time and for an audience beyond  local boundaries, a general history of Hyde Park now existed that provided a narrative context not only co the houses but to the community  in which  they stood. It is chat which transformed Hyde Park Houses from what might otherwise have been viewed only as a guidebook into something more substantial and, as well, historic in its own right.

The publication of Hyde Park Houses in 1978 may be

viewed something of an unofficial proclamation of the end of the great period of urban renewal in Hyde Park. Beginning around 1950, local forces frorri religious institutions, The University of Chicago, community

•         organizations and  political  activists drew  together  co hale the physical deterioration of  the  community's housing  stock,  revitalize  its  infrastructure and  establish a more inclusive and constructive social situation.  The long years of economic depression and  war had stifled new construction in Hyde Park and a combination of housing shortages, social conflict, discrimination, and population changes appeared co threaten the viability of the entire community. The result, funded in  part  by federal grants,  was  the  demolition,  during  the  1950s and 1960s, of large areas of residential and commercial property  in  Hyde  Park and, perhaps  co a somewhat lesser extent, in Kenwood.

Visitors  to  our exhibition of Vi Fogel Uretz' paintings and her slide presentations on urban renewal in Hyde Park at our headquarters  in  the  1995-96 season could only marvel at the images of sheer physical destruction that she recorded. It was almost as if the ravages of war in distant lands chat had been seen only in newsreels and magazines had somehow, incredibly, been visited upon Hyde Park. While the resulting new development was lauded nationally as a remarkable achievement in urban revitalization through federal and local partnership, the human impact was substantial.

Several hundred small businesses were affected. Many of

them simply closed while ochers scrambled to find new locations in Hyde Park or left the community. Some residents, by choice or by circumstance, found homes elsewhere in Chicago or fled the city entirely and moved co the suburbs.

Forthose HydeParkerswho remained,thoughbuoyedbyhope, idealismand determination, as thesmall shops, grocery stores,restaurants,houses,hotels,apartmentbuildings,houses of worship,theaters,gasstations and garages, eventhepost office andthepolicestationthathadbeen so much a partof thelandscape oftheirlivesdisappeared;theywereleftonlywith memories of what  had  been. Whether  or nor one favored the course and effects of urban renewal, the changes it wrought were, for many people, undeniably painful and, for some, accompanied by a sense of loss chat only mellowed over the years. It is no surprise chat Vi  Urecz'  talks in  1995 and  1996 were  to standing room crowds.

What Jean's book did, in effect, was to celebrate chat portion of Hyde Park-Kenwood that had survived the tumult. That success could  be attributed  co  the combined  efforts  of a  range of community  institutions, a mobilized citizenry, enlightened  political  leadership and investments of large amounts of time, effort and, especially, money, government and private, in the community.   Although  Jean  alludes only  briefly  to these developments in the preface, an important aspect of the philosophy that propelled Hyde Park's urban renewal effort does make its way into the text. At one point, in describing the emergence of activist

community organizations at the turn of the century, she writes (page 70): "Protection, improvement, betterment-the words imply that the community was less than perfect, and yet they also carry with them the implication that its citizens believed in their own power co affect the physical and moral conditions of life." That underlying subtext, the connection between the long-past and the then-immediate past, spoke co anyone familiar with--or who had lived through­ Hyde Park history during the third quarter of this century.

Also reflected in the book was the emergence of new attitudes regarding the preservation of older buildings. During the most  intense period  of urban  renewal, postwar  modernism   dominated  new  construction design and older buildings were either physically eliminated or cast  almost  into a fashion  shadow.  In time, however, the idea of respecting and rehabilitating older housing designs and forms became a compelling value in the minds of many residents and homebuyers. Older  homes and  apartment  buildings,  they  decided, had an aura and meaning worth nurturing. While this development  was  not  unique  to Hyde  Park-Kenwood, of course, Hyde Parkers were among chose who played pioneering roles in that process here in Chicago.

Recently, a letter  from  long-time  Hyde  Parker Richard Orlikoff appeared in our local newspaper, The Herald (December 9, 1998). In the letter, he claims that the oft-quoted comment about Hyde Park and urban renewal that entertainers Elaine May and Mike Nichols made famous, originally had been his: "Here we stand, black and white, shoulder to shoulder against the poor." Oversimplification  or  not,  the  line  reminds  us  that there were winners and losers in the urban renewal process. It does not at all detract from  the achievement that Hyde Park Houses represents to note that the houses chat appear within it belonged co many of the winners.

Houses and the HPHS

The idea of a local historical society was not new in Hyde Park but Jean's book played a role in helping to actually establish one. The  Old  Settler's Club existed for awhile in the early part of this century, apparently until the old settlers were no more. In 1939, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the annexation of Hyde Park to Chicago, Paul Cornell's niece, Alice Manning Dickey, an active participant in the event, publicly urged establishment of an historical society in the community. World War II and its concerns intervened, however, and the proposal did not progress. The vision was reborn, however, in the mid-1970s by resident Clyde Watkins who engaged Jean and Muriel Beadle in the project at its very earliest stages and then drew other prominent and committed residents into the planning and fundraising that led to t'he founding in 1977 of the Hyde Park Historical Society and its installation in our current headquarters on Lake Park Avenue.

Aside from Jean's personal involvement with the

HPHS, her book presented the tableau of a community whose history was worth remembering  and, thus, bolstered the attempt to do so through an actual organization. Sensing the legitimacy and impetus  the book would provide their organizing efforts, writers in early issues of the Society's newsletter expressed eager anticipation of the book's publication. After it appeared, the book quickly became the standard history of early Hyde Park and  the starting  point  for anyone  interested in studying the development of the community. The society stocked copies for sale to the public. Finally, and this cannot be overstated, the essential work that Jean Block did  to produce her book  made it  possible for others not only to expand upon what she found but to strike out into other areas of research.

If Hyde Park Houses hadn't been written, we might still be bogged down in trying to uncover  and connect the materials and details Jean spent at least three years of her life determinedly cracking down. There are local historical societies and community groups elsewhere, both near and distant from Hyde Park, caught  in precisely that situation today.

Beyond the local community, Hyde Park Houses found its place in very respectable company. In the book's introduction, the distinguished historian Kenneth T. Jackson placed it within "the new urban history," a still emerging body of literature chat examines local or neighborhood history as a way to  understand  or illuminate larger issues in the development of

America's cities. The book appeared at a time when "documenting the built environment" was a clarion call among preservatists. Jean was conducting research that almost directly responded to needs articulated in such prominent publications as, for instance, The  National Trust for Historical Preservation's America's Forgotten Architecture (New York, 1976). Since then, Hyde Park Houses has earned its way into the footnotes and bibliographies of a wide range of books and articles published by writers not only on local  history  but, as well, on various aspects of architectural, Chicago, and general  urban  history.  Indeed,  its  seeming awkwardness,  that segmentation  of its  parts, has provided hooks for researchers coming at topics from varying angles and allowed them to use the book in different ways. This book which, Jackson noted, used "neither  the methodology  nor  the  jargon  of the academic profession" (something that troubled some professors on  the Press' editorial  board),  has, nonetheless,  served   that   profession-and  other intelligent readers-well.

Hyde  Park-Kenwood   is  not  an  ancestor-worshipping  community.   When  I  began  to  look  into  its  past, I  found  few  letters,  diaries,  or  books  annotating  or  commemorating  it.  Its  first  public  buildings-the town hall, the churches, the public school, the original  Illinois  Central  stations-have  long  since disappeared. But we  do have  the  houses.  They  are the  material  remains  of  the  early  culture  of  the first  fifty  years ...  They  are  the  tale  and  signature  of  the   past,  unwittingly  bequeathed  by  their owners and builders.                                                                                          Jean Block, in her preface to Hyde Park Houses

Who Was Jean Block?

Jean was identified in the book and accompanying promotional materials only as the president of Midway Editorial Research and a lifelong resident of Hyde Park. Samuel W. BlockJr., the  book's contributing photographer,  receives  only an expression  of gratitude for his photographs in Jean's preface, but no direct information about him appears anywhere in the text, on the flyleaf or on any of the promotional material. How much of this reflected Jean's choice or a university publisher's uncertainty about how to present a non­ academic author, an independent scholar, is difficult to assess. Looking back, however, one can only conclude that it was hardly adequate.

The inner workings  of  much  of Hyde  Park's  history is women's history in the sense of the leadership, service and commitment women have given to o'ur local educational, charitable, religious, cultural, recreational, business and political history. A major problem in recalling women's history, however, is that so much of it has tended to be carried out quietly, unrecognized, unrecorded and neglected. One of Jean's important contributions in Hyde Park  Houses  is her documentation of some of the social and cultural activities that women organized and sustained in early Hyde Park-Kenwood history.

Jean Block's life, a life of service,  was part  of  this local history and she was active in a variety of community organizations. She was a board member  of The University of Chicago Laboratory School's Parents Association, serving a term  as its  president, and  co­ edited  its newsletter  with  Ruth  Grodzin. She  was one the voices in favor of greater democratization within the University  Colony  Club and  actively  supported  the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, the Fortnightly Club and International House. She volunteered as a research associate at Regenstein Library. Already noted was her role in the founding of the Hyde Park Historical

Society and its early success. She served not only as one of our early presidents but also organized  our archives and negotiated its home at Regenstein Library. She was also a member of K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Congregation.

Since Jean has been described as a more behind the scenes type of person, the full extent of her community involvement-her public life, aside from her publications-has been difficult  to document  and  is here almost certainly incompletely reported. That is a problem not just in Jean's case but, as well, for  many other women throughout this community's history who have found or created roles for themselves in the community beyond the family. In  that process they have devoted much of their lives to giving texture to our community's history, articulating its moral and ethical issues, and making this neighborhood, through all its years and its changes, a better and more vibrant place in which to live. Rendering that history remains a challenge.

It is instructive to examine Jean Block's life and

family history, not only because it provides some background about her but also because it has a rough similarity to  the stories  of other accomplished  Hyde Park families. There is inspiration, too, because, as one soon learns, Jean was a very sturdy human being. Jean's grandfather on her father's side, Cass Friedberg (1848- 1924), came  to Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania  from Kovnos,  Lithuania  in  1861 at  the age of 13.  He outfitted himself as a peddler and worked  his way  west to Kansas. He opened a successful dry goods store in El Dorado, Kansas in the 1880s, but closed it in 1900 to become president of a wholesale bedding company in Leavenworth, Kansas. In  1875 Cass  married  Laura  Abeles (1853-1882), born in Leavenworth, Kansas to Simon and Amalia Abeles. Cass and  Laura  Friedberg  had  three children, one of whom, ultimately Jean's father, was born in 1875 in Chicago and given  the  name Selig. Later, he would take the last  name of Abraham  Lincoln's Secretary  of War as his first name, Stanton.

Simon Abeles, Jean's great-grandfather on her mother's side, was born in Bohemia in 1817. His father had been a rabbi and his mother the daughter of one.

Simon, literate  in  both  Hebrew  and German, had started out as a teacher of Hebrew and the Talmud but in  1837 found  employment  as craftman of violin strings. He decided to start life anew in  the United States, however, and immigrated to St. Louis in  1840. He ultimately settled in Leavenworth, Kansas and became a successful clothing merchant,  founder of a bank and real estate investor. He died in 1890. Stanton Freidberg, Sr., Jean's father, grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, where his family had  returned after his birth, and attended its public  schools.  His higher education began with a year of study at the University of Michigan but, having decided to become a physician, he returned to Chicago in 1893 to attend Rush  Medical School from  which  he graduated  in 1897. He became an ear, nose and throat specialist of national reputation.  He invented  a number  of specialized instruments, one of which facilitated the extraction  of diaper pins from  infant  throats and  was the first to remove tonsils and adenoids as a measure

to cure diphtheria bacillus carriers. He served and taught at several Chicago hospitals and medical schools including German Hospital, Rush Medical College, Anna W. Durand Hospital, Presbyterian Hospital (its first Jewish physician), and Cook County Hospital. He joined the staff of the latter in 1903, became attending otolaryngologist there by civil service examination in 1906, and was, from 1913 to 1919, chief surgeon in that hospital's department. The year 1906 also marked the date of his marriage to Aline Liebman (1886-1954),  the daughter of Louis and Henrietta Liebman of Schreveport, Louisiana where her father was a prosperous merchant. They met while she was visiting relatives in Chicago.

Jean Friedberg--our Jean-was born in Chicago on June 12, 1912  to Stanton and  Aline and  was  the second of three children. She had an older brother, Stanton A.,Jr. (1908-1997), who, as an adult, also became a prominent Chicago otolaryngologist, and a younger sister, Louise Friedberg Strouse (b. 1915 ), who now lives in California.

In 1912 the family resided at 4907 S. Washington Park Court, a short street a block from Grand Boulevard, now King Drive. Dr. Friedberg served as a medical officer during World War I but only eight months after returning to Chicago to resume his practice, he died in 1920, age 45, of a mastoid infection. Jean was eight years old.

During the 1920s, Aline Friedberg and her children lived  at  5816 S. Blackstone.  Adolf  Kramer, Jean's uncle (he was married to Stanton Friedberg, Sr.'s sister Rachel) and founding partner of the real estate firm of Draper and Kramer,  provided  assistance to Aline and her three children. The children obtained  their elementary and secondary education at the Laboratory Schools of The University of Chicago. Jean graduated from Vassar College in 1934, returned to Chicago and taught at the Francis Parker School until her marriage.

On November 7, 1940, Jean married Samuel Westheimer Block, born in St. Joseph, Missouri on February 14,  1911, the son of one of the  owners of Block Brothers, a prosperous dry-goods store. Samuel had what could only be termed an elite education and prestigious career, then or now. He graduated from the Worcester (Massachusetts) Academy in 1929, obtained his A.B. from Yale University in 1933 and received

his LLB. fromHarvardUniversity's Law Schoolin1936.He cameto Chicago,was admittedto theIllinoisBar in1936 andjoineda law firmwhichevolved ultimatelyintoJennerandBlock.During World  War II,  he served as a member of the  U.S. Army, rising to the rank of captain. After the war Jean and Samuel made their home at 5719  S. Blackstone.

He became a partner in his law firm in 1948. Throughout his career Samuel was active in pro bono work, particularly in the area of civil rights. In addition to sitting on several corporate boards, he was a board member and officer of the Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, the Faulkner School, and the Community Music Program, sponsors of the Merit Music program. Samuel died suddenly in 1970 at the age of 59. Jean was 58.

In the almost two decades before Hyde Park Houses

appeared, Jean labored at honing her skills as writer. Her work on the Lab School parent's  newsletter provided one such opportunity.  She also enrolled  in The University  of Chicago and,  in  1963; was awarded a master of arts degree in the  Humanities. Jean  was then 51. That same  year Jean  with  Ruth Grodzins, Ruth Goetz and Elaine Halperin, formed Midwest Editorial Research. It provided university faculty, graduate students, business and civic leaders and organizations assistance  in  editing or developing printed  materials  and speeches.  The  partnership wound down when some of the partners moved out of town  or took other  jobs. Jean  then  turned  her attention more directly to architectural research. Jean also took a course on  writing while  actually  working on Hyde Park Houses. That the book, which was published  when Jean  was 66,  is as gracefully  written as it is was not an accident.

Samuel W. Block, Jr., the photographer for  Hyde Park Houses, was the eldest of Jean and Samuel Block's three children. He was born May 2, 1943 in Dayton, Ohio, where his parents lived briefly.  As did  his younger sister, Elizabeth, and brother, Michael, he underwent his primary and secondary education at the Laboratory Schools of The University of Chicago. He received a B.A. from Knox College in 1964 and later completed a two year program in photography at Chicago's Columbia College.  Described  as brilliant even by persons not in the family, Sam was an early student of computer applications for business.  During the 1970s he was employed by a large meat refrigeration warehouse company for which he wrote a complex and pioneering spreadsheet  program  that linked financial, storage and processing variables for management and audit purposes.

Photography,though,remained Samuel'sfirst love.Hiscameraofchoicewasatripod-basedlargeformat4x5" Burke and James (Chicago) View camerathatrequiredphotographicplates(ratherthanrollfilm)andtheuse of a black clothhoodby thephotographer.AlthoughhisseeminglystraightforwardphotographsinHydeParkHousesseemintunewiththe"informal World  War II,  he served as a member of the  U.S. Army, rising to the rank of captain. After the war Jean and Samuel made their home at 5719  S. Blackstone.

He became a partner in his law firm in 1948. Throughout his career Samuel was active in pro bono work, particularly in the area of civil rights. In addition to sitting on several corporate boards, he was a board member and officer of the Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, the Faulkner School, and the Community Music Program, sponsors of the Merit Music program. Samuel died suddenly in 1970 at the age of 59. Jean was 58.

In the almost two decades before Hyde Park Houses

appeared, Jean labored at honing her skills as writer. Her work on the Lab School parent's  newsletter provided one such opportunity.  She also enrolled  in The University  of Chicago and,  in  1963; was awarded a master of arts degree in the  Humanities. Jean  was then 51. That same  year Jean  with  Ruth Grodzins, Ruth Goetz and Elaine Halperin, formed Midwest Editorial Research. It provided university faculty, graduate students, business and civic leaders and organizations assistance  in  editing or developing printed  materials  and speeches.  The  partnership wound down when some of the partners moved out of town  or took other  jobs. Jean  then  turned  her attention more directly to architectural research. Jean also took a course on  writing while  actually  working on Hyde Park Houses. That the book, which was published  when Jean  was 66,  is as gracefully  written as it is was not an accident.

Samuel W. Block, Jr., the photographer for  Hyde Park Houses, was the eldest of Jean and Samuel Block's three children. He was born May 2, 1943 in Dayton, Ohio, where his parents lived briefly.  As did  his younger sister, Elizabeth, and brother, Michael, he underwent his primary and secondary education at the Laboratory Schools of The University of Chicago. He received a B.A. from Knox College in 1964 and later completed a two year program in photography at Chicago's Columbia College.  Described  as brilliant even by persons not in the family, Sam was an early student of computer applications for business.  During the 1970s he was employed by a large meat refrigeration warehouse company for which he wrote a complex and pioneering spreadsheet  program  that linked financial, storage and processing variables for management and audit purposes.

Photography,though,remained Samuel'sfirst love.Hiscameraofchoicewasatripod-basedlargeformat4x5" Burke and James (Chicago) View camerathatrequiredphotographicplates(ratherthanrollfilm)andtheuse of a black clothhoodby thephotographer.AlthoughhisseeminglystraightforwardphotographsinHydeParkHousesseemintunewiththe"informal nature of the book (e.g., some include automobiles parked on the  street), in fact, like the  rest of Jean's book, the photographs were carefully planned. Samuel and Jean selected  times of the  year when  foliage did not obscure views of the houses and natural lighting could be optimized to help strengthen the images.

During the 1970s, Samuel moved to the Near West side of Chicago where he had purchased a duplex for renovation. On  June  11, 1982, as  he  was  alighting from his automobile near his workplace on Pershing Road, he was struck by a passing car and suffered severe head injuries. He lay in a coma for weeks at The University of Chicago hospitals, his mother at his bedside every day. On August 15, he died without ever recovering consciousness. He was 39 years old. The motorist who hit him and fled was never apprehended. Jean was then age 70.

Some of Samuel's Hyde Park House photographs have

appeared in other publications. Four of them may be found in Virginia and Lee McCalester's Field Guide to American Homes (New York, 1984) and another was used for the cover of a novel published in the early 1990s. The negatives for all the House photographs are in our archives at Regenstein Library. His portraits of relatives and friends are treasured  by  their owners and a series of his photographs of old Wisconsin barns remain in demand. Two views of the family summer home in Wisconsin are still on display at the refrigeration company for which he had worked.

Again, as she had done after her husband's death, Jean found solace in work and produced   three important publications, two of them a result of her involvement as a volunteer with Regenstein Library's Special Collections Department preparing catalogs for their exhibits. The first, was The Uses of Gothic: Planning and Building the Campus of the University of Chicago 1892-1932 (1983), a now classic work which is still in print, and Eva Watson Schutze: Chicago Photo Secessionist (1985). The third, an outgrowth of some of her research for Hyde Park Houses, was a chapter entitled "Myron Hunt in the Midwest" in Jay Belloli and others, Myron Hunt 1868-1952: The Search fora Regional Architecture, (Los Angeles, 1984). Jean was 72 when Uses of the Gothic appeared. In the ensuing years Jean focussed on establishing our archives at Regenstein and planning a follow-up to Houses on apartment buildings in Hyde Park that was still in its early stages of development before her death, on June 16, 1988. She was 76.   Houses went out of print in 1993 but staff from The University of Chicago Press have told me that the press is considering reissuing it in paperback but not before the year 2000 and then only if they can figure out a financially feasible way to do it.

I regret that Jean and I became acquainted only in

the last year of her life. Despite her physical discomfort caused by illness, she graciously took  the time to walk me through the mechanics of organizing the archives and she talked a bit about Hyde Park architecture. She told me, for instance, that, as a rough rule of thumb, the presence of verandas distinguished Hyde Park's 19th Century suburban houses from those built after annexation. I used that idea in the recent exhibit on old Hyde Park hotels to suggest that one purpose of their verandas was to connect architecturally with  the older  residential  setting within which they stood. When we discovered that we were both postcard collectors, for some reason she asked if I had a card depicting  the Eleanor Club One on 59th Street, which ultimately became

Breckenridge House. I did not. About a year and half ago, going through a box of postcards at  a show, I found an Eleanor Club One view and from sight to thought only an instant passed, "Got it, Jean!"

On the north side of Regenstein Library there is a small parklike enclosure,  accessible  to  the public, which Jean's family sponsored.  On  the east  wall  there is a memorial  marker:  "This garden  honors  the memory of Jean Friedberg Block 1912-1988" and lists the library's call numbers  for her  three  books.  Her ashes were spread upon the grounds of her beloved summer home near Mill Pond, Wisconsin.

Thanks to David Aftandilian, Judith Getzels, Ruth Grodzin, Douglas Mitchell, Grace Mary Rataj, Ann Rothchild, Harold Wolff and, especially, Elizabeth Block for their assistance. Published sources include: Julia Kramer, The House on the Hill: The Story of the Abeles Family of Leavenworth, Kansas (Chicago: 1990); Hyde Park Historical Society Newsletter, Vol. 10, nos. 3-4 (October, 1988); History of Medicine and Surgery and Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago (Chicago, 1922); Who's Who in America Vol. 34 (Chicago, 1966) and various city directories.

Steve Treffman is the Society's archivist and a contributing editor of Hyde Park History.