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Content warning: This blog post contains text and images about violence and sexual assault that may be traumatizing to some audiences. Reader discretion is advised.

Every July 13 marks a grim anniversary in Chicago’s history. On an otherwise normal Wednesday night, Jeffery Manor, in South Deering on the Far South Side witnessed what would later come to be called the “crime of the century.” In a townhome on 100th Street, mass murderer Richard Speck would torture, sexually assault, and ultimately murder eight nurses in one of the grimmest crimes in US history.

Murder suspect Richard Speck during his criminal court hearing at 2650 S. California Ave., Chicago, August 18, 1966. ST-19110229-0015, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Richard Benjamin Speck was born on December 6, 1941, in the village of Kirkwood, Illinois, about 200 miles west of Chicago. The seventh of eight children, Speck was born into a tumultuous low-income family, and he spent most of his youth growing up in the Dallas, Texas, suburbs where he regularly had run-ins with law enforcement due to his excessive drinking and penchant for public disturbances. Speck received his first major prison sentence in July 1963 at the age 21 when he was convicted of forging a signature on a stolen check and for the robbery of a grocery store. Originally due to serve three years, he was paroled after 16 months only to return to his cell a week later on charges of aggravated assault and a parole violation.

Speck would continue to add lines to his rap sheet in Texas before moving to Chicago to live with his sister in 1966. It was there that his brother-in-law found him work as an apprentice seaman. As was standard practice at the time, when he didn’t have work, Speck would check in at the National Maritime Union hiring hall, in the hopes of receiving an assignment to a vessel. It was a few days with no luck in securing work, on Wednesday, July 13, that Speck began his murderous rampage by sexually assaulting and robbing Ella Mae Hooper, a local woman he met at a bar.

The townhomes at 2319 E. 100th St., Chicago, July 22, 1966. ST-10000417-0010, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Later that night, around 11 p.m., the then 24-year-old Speck broke into a townhome that served as shared housing for foreign and local nursing students who worked at the local South Chicago Community Hospital. Here, over the course of a few hours he would be responsible for the murder of the eight women who were all inside the premises when Speck broke in. One woman, Corazon Amurao, escaped the death that met her housemates by hiding under the bed until the early morning. It took two days for authorities to apprehend Speck. Chicago Police received a lucky break and arrested Speck when a physician from the Cook County Hospital alerted them that a man they were treating following a failed suicide attempt was believed to be him. The physician had noticed a tattoo on the man’s forearm that read “born to raise hell,” and they recalled a newspaper description of the suspect that mentioned his ink.

Corazon Amurao, witness in the Richard Speck trial, entering the Peoria County Courthouse with her mother, 324 Main St., Peoria, Illinois. ST-19110250-0002, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

After being deemed competent enough to stand trial by a panel of medical professionals, Speck’s trial began in early April 1967 at the Peoria County Courthouse. The evidence against him was damning. In addition to the eyewitness testimony of Amurao, the lone survivor, fingerprints recovered at the scene matched Speck’s. The high-profile trial lasted less than two weeks, and after deliberating for less than an hour, on April 15, the jury found Speck guilty and recommended that he be served the death penalty. In June, a judge upheld the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Speck to death by electric chair. When the media referenced the trial, they often referred to Speck as a “mass murderer.” While today the term is part of everyday vernacular, referring to someone as a mass murderer in the 1960s was a new phenomenon.

Onlookers watch as police remove eight student nurses slain at 2319 E. 100th St., Chicago, July 14, 1966. ST-17500750-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

On June 29, 1972, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Furman v. Georgia, thereby declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, which forced a resentencing for Speck. He received his new sentence in November of that year, ordered to serve from 400 to 1,200 years in prison through eight consecutive sentences. It would later be reduced to a sentence of 100 to 300 years. He would serve his sentence at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. While imprisoned, Speck unsuccessfully petitioned to be paroled no less than seven times. He died due to what is largely believed to have been a heart attack on December 5, 1991, in a hospital in the nearby town of Joliet, one day before what would have been his fiftieth birthday. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed area.

The gruesomeness of Speck’s murders captured the fear and imagination of an entire generation, and has been retold in countless films, television episodes, and books. In the decades following the Speck murders, often referred to now as the Chicago Massacre, he only granted one interview to the media when he spoke to a Chicago Tribune columnist in 1978. In that interview, he admitted to being under the effects of alcohol and drugs, and further claimed to have had an accomplice, whom Speck murdered in fear that he would turn him in. No such proof of an accomplice has ever been found.

The names of Speck’s victims were Gloria Davy, Patricia Matusek, Nina Jo Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Pasion. All of them were in their early twenties and were robbed of their promising futures as caregivers and medical professionals. Pasion and Gargullo were both exchange students from the Phillipines. Their bodies were repatriated after a mass was held in their honor in Chicago.

Cell at the Stateville Correctional Center that housed Richard Speck, Crest Hill, Illinois, May 1, 1967. ST-19110222-0044, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Additional Resource

• Listen to Studs Terkel’s 1967 interview with Dr. Marvin Ziporyn, Speck’s psychiatrist. (Note: Dr. Ziporyn did not testify for the defense or the prosecution, as both sides were troubled to learn before the trial that he was writing a book about Speck for financial gain.)

CHM curator of religion and community history Rebekah Coffman writes about CHM’s collection of souvenirs contemporary to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and how they inform the stories we tell today.

 
Souvenir pins from the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. CHM, ICHi-066817. Souvenir silver spoons featuring the likeness of Bertha Honoré Palmer from the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893. CHM, ICHi-053270.

The word “souvenir” is the French verb “to remember,” and by extension, souvenirs as objects are meant to embody people’s experiences, stories, and memories. In the Chicago History Museum’s collection of 23 million objects, a robust number of items are related to Chicago’s two world’s fairs: the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (WCE) and 1933–34 A Century of Progress International Exposition. Items typically classified as “souvenirs” of the fair–such as postcards, photographs, spoons, pins, and ribbons–are so well represented in CHM’s holdings, we no longer accept donations of most WCE ephemera.

The questions we face now encompass the context of all these souvenirs, such as:

• For whom were they made, what do they represent, and what memories or remembrances are they meant to ignite?
• Can we use them to tell a fuller story beyond the personal memories they were intended to evoke?
• What are the deeper, harder histories that were not previously centered in their interpretation or in other recollections and retellings of the fairs?

Opening day of the World’s Columbian Exposition, May 1, 1893. CHM, ICHi-059979.

Open from May 1 through October 30, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition brought more than 27 million visitors to Chicago. Souvenirs such as those above were made and bought as personal keepsakes at a never-before-seen scale. Souvenir manufacturing and purchasing exploded in the nineteenth century as industrial advancements allowed for mass production. Items such as collectable spoons had gained popularity with wealthy and upper middle-class Europeans and Americans on grand tours in the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1890s, as they became more accessible and affordable, a broader audience had financial access to commemorative items. Beyond just physical tokens, souvenirs served as an access point to a marking of social class previously reserved for the wealthy. They also held individual symbolic meaning and memory for their purchasers, resulting in their abundant presence today.

Cover of the Official Catalogue of Exhibits on the Midway Plaisance, 1893. CHM, ICHi-065727.

In the case of the WCE, they also form an important part of our historical memory and speak to the process of building a collection to represent a city’s history drawing on a very nineteenth-century colonial notion of collecting not just objects, ideas, and memories but identities and people.

Front cover of The International Guide to the World’s Columbian Exposition, published by the International Guide Syndicate, 1892. CHM, ICHi-040435

World’s fairs―broadly speaking―created the canvas upon which participating nations could project a filtered, essentialized view of themselves (and others) on a global platform. The 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in London set the tone for Victorian-era framing of an empire on display. This model proved useful to both the continuation of global exhibitions but also the development of fields of study such as anthropology and museology. The process of classifying and showcasing identities through a colonial lens has translated into the complex legacy many museums face. Collections, including those surrounding world’s fairs, center privileged experiences with many voices and experiences represented through racialized prejudice as a view of the “other” and lack equitable representation of diverse perspectives.

Allegorical lithograph of Christopher Columbus with US presidents and the 1893 WCE by Rodolfo Morgari, CHM, ICHi-025233

The WCE aimed to position Chicago as a sophisticated global center and shift away from its reputation as an industrially polluted, dangerous city at the edge of the western frontier. Many US cities experienced a sense of fragmentation after the Civil War, compounded by massive industrial growth, class divides, and racial tensions. In Chicago, these pressures were amalgamated in the wake of the Great Fire of 1871, and it looked to rebrand itself as a city of future promise. This opportunity came with the successful advocacy to host the 1893 world’s fair commemorating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in North America. This positioning asserted racial and intellectual dominance of Euro-Americans over Indigenous peoples as manifested through an idealized narrative of Columbus’s role in establishing a religiously motivated presence in the future United States of America.

Color illustration by Charles Graham titled “Along the Plaisance,” World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. CHM, ICHi-052343.

The construction of the WCE was a reaction to and an embodiment of this cultural supremacy through its construction as a duality of identity between the White City, which symbolized a utopian vision of the United States’ future, and the Midway Plaisance, which represented anthropological foundations. Western perspectives of a certain global racial stratification informed divisions between exhibitors, with selected nations submitting plans for national pavilions while others were relegated to the more carnivalesque atmosphere of the Midway—and some notably without representation at all. Ethnological displays romanticized, exoticized, primitivized, and objectified those who represented the living embodiment of their cultural identity for the enthusiastic, and at times cruel, audience.

Front cover of The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World’s Columbian Exposition by Ida B. Wells, 1893. CHM, ICHi-040399.

This division did not go without commentary at the time. Powerful examples of dissenting voices and personal advocacy persist, though captured in less represented ephemera. For example, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Frederick Douglass published a pamphlet protesting the lack of African American representation, with Wells referring to the White City as the “white sepulcher.” Simon Pokagon gave a cutting critique of Indigenous displacement through his speech, and later publication, for Chicago Day at the fair, questioning why they would “. . . celebrate our own funeral, the discovery of America.” These are just two examples of the wide gap of experiences of the fair based on race and point to the possibilities of further counternarratives yet to be unearthed.

Cover of pamphlet titled “Street in Cairo,” 1893, CHM, ICHi-038001_a. Group of men near the Turkish village at the Midway Plaisance, 1893. CHM, ICHi-025117.

These collections and interpretations around the WCE bridge larger questions of how we address representational disparities in a broader way. The significance of our collections is not just in the number of items held but the stories they tell. An overabundance that represents a particular lens of the WCE warrants an important rebalancing in the items we collect, the space we make, and the perspectives we share in addressing the legacy of the WCE and how it has shaped Chicago—and global—history.

Additional Resources

• Listen to historian Robert Rydell discuss his book All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916 with Studs Terkel
• Read the Encyclopedia of Chicago overview entry on the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and entry on World’s Columbian Exposition
• Learn more about CHM’s collecting scope
• Read the Encyclopedia of Chicago entry about Ida B. Wells-Barnett at the 1893 world’s fair

In this blog post, mount maker Michael Hall writes about preparing a wedding gown with a poignant backstory for display in Back Home: Polish Chicago.

Front view of Jane Wyrwa’s wedding dress and headpiece, Göppingen, Germany, 1947. Courtesy of Eve Wyrwa-Miller. All photographs by CHM staff.

In 1944, Wiesława “Jane” Lippert, originally from Łodz, Poland, and Richard Wyrwa, originally from Lwów, Poland, met at the Nazi forced labor camp and factory in Markranstädt, Germany. There, Richard helped Jane with her assigned job of machining airplane parts, as she had never worked with her hands before. After World War II ended, they lived at the Displaced Persons camp in Göppingen, Germany, where Richard worked as a regional supply officer. They married there in 1947. A local seamstress made Jane’s wedding dress from the silk of a surplus World War II parachute bought from the US military. The dress features a yoked bodice, net lace long sleeves, and a twill weave fabric lining. 

Close-up of loop detail on the bust, which is mimicked in the headpiece.

The gown is bias cut and pieced together with net lace and plastic daisy buttons down the back.

Back view of the gown, showing a short train.

Close-up of the lace detail on a sleeve.

The plastic daisy buttons running down the back.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the dress is just how petite it is. To achieve the mount for this dress, Michael had to get a little creative, using a mix of mediums so the dress could be supported. Additionally, the length of the dress was shorter than the prefabricated mannequin so a modified base from the high hip down was needed to accommodate it.

 
Michael Hall working on the dress mount.

Starting with taking the measurements of the dress, he padded out a petite sized mannequin with polyester fiberfill to a size just smaller than the actual dress size. Then an outer layer of Fosshape, a sewable felt-like heat-activated thermoplastic textile, was added to cover the padding to create a hardened shell or “new skin” upon which the dress could sit.

Hall adds a layer of Fosshape to the left shoulder.

Building the hips out was an additional challenge due to the modified base that did not have the full length of the hips to support the dress. The solution was padding the hips out using the original leg base, adding Fosshape on top and hardening, then removing the legs and replacing them with the modified base. Michael was careful to line the Fosshape seams up to the dress seams to minimize the visibility of the mount, which was especially tricky around the net lace neckline. Once the Fosshape layer was complete, a couple of nylon petticoats were fitted just before the final dressing to give some volume to the skirt.

Portrait-style photograph showing the bust details and the headpiece, which sits atop a paper wig.

Jane had created her own headpiece and veil, which was reproduced for the exhibition. The headpiece on the mannequin consists of silk wrapped on wired cording with some new netting to simulate a veil with loose hand tacking wrapped around a couple areas but not through the piece. It was then secured to the styled paper wig using bug pins, which are very fine and sharp pins that minimize any damage to the piece.

You can see the wedding dress and learn more about the Wywra family’s story in Back Home: Polish Chicago.

June 28, 2023, marks the start of Eid al-Adha, a major Islamic holiday. In this blog post, CHM curator of religion and community history Rebekah Coffman highlights a past moment of celebration and the communities that brought it together.

Eid Al-Adha gathering at the International Amphitheatre, Chicago, 1982. ST-30002684-0053, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Known as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha is one of Islam’s two main holidays and commemorates the Quranic story of Ibrahim’s (Abraham’s) willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail (Ishmael). In the story, Allah honors Ibrahim’s intention and provides a substitute sacrificial ram through the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel) in Ismail’s place. Consequently, the holiday is commemorated through qurbani (the sacrifice) of an animal, usually a goat, sheep, cow, or camel. Its meat is eaten and shared with others in the community and those with less financial means.

Men hugging at the Eid al-Adha gathering at the International Amphitheatre, 1982. ST-30002684-0026, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Since the holiday is based on lunar sightings, the Gregorian calendar date of Eid al-Adha changes each year, but it takes place on the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijja, the twelfth and final month in the Islamic calendar. Hajj, or pilgrimage, is one of five pillars of Islam. During this month, Muslims from around the world gather in and around the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Eid takes place temporally during this important time of year while pilgrims are in Saudi Arabia and is celebrated globally within the Muslim ummah (global community).

Two women entering the International Amphitheatre for Eid al-Adha gathering, 1982, ST-30002684-0036, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

A central part of celebrating Eid is eating together and attending communal prayers. This series of photographs comes from an Eid al-Adha gathering of the greater Chicago Muslim community on September 28, 1982, at the International Amphitheatre at 4220 South Halsted Street. Ten thousand people were expected to be in attendance. A contemporaneous article from the Chicago Defender noted that Dr. Israr Ahmed (1932–2010), a Pakistani Sunni Islamic leader and theologian led the congregational prayer and gave the sermon that day.

Eid al-Adha gathering at the International Amphitheatre, 1982, ST-30002684-0048, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Dr. Ahmed was born in Hisar, East Punjab, attended medical school in Lahore, and began practicing medicine shortly thereafter. In 1971, he left his medical career to work full-time as a religious leader and, in 1975, founded Tanzeem-e-Islami. He became a household name in Pakistan through his numerous television programs and his prolific writing on Islamic thought and belief. His thought leadership was well known beyond Pakistan’s borders through the South Asian diaspora.

Dr. Israr Ahmed speaking at the Eid al-Adha celebration, 1982. ST-30002684-0018, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

At the time of his sermon in 1982, Chicago was growing to become one of the largest concentrations of South Asian migrants in the country. Migration to Chicago began following the partitioning of British India in 1947 and accelerated in the mid 1960s, with the communities’ presence growing in the subsequent decades. For example, by 2000, more than 18,000 Pakistanis were counted in the federal census in the metropolitan Chicago area, but community estimates were considerably higher (80,000–100,000).

The street scene on Devon Avenue near Maplewood Avenue, Chicago, November 1984. CHM, ICHi-026078; Mukul Roy, photographer

While the diaspora today is dispersed among many suburban communities surrounding Chicago proper (such as Naperville and Bolingbrook), cultural and commercial memory has centered in and around Devon Avenue in the West Ridge neighborhood.

Adapted storefronts along Devon Avenue and Western Avenue, 2023. Photographs by Rebekah Coffman.

Host to numerous South Asian businesses, places of worship, and restaurants, since the 1970s Devon Avenue has become home to one of the largest South Asian communities in the country, indicated by nods such as the honorary naming of sections of Devon for significant figures, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Other community markers acknowledge the complex and diverse legacy of the many communities that have made their home near Devon, including Indian, Bangladeshi, Assyrian, Russian, Jewish, and English migrants and settlers.

Additional Resources

• Read the Encyclopedia of Chicago entries on Pakistanis, Indians, and Bangladeshis
• Learn more about the Museum’s oral history project American Medina: Stories of Muslim Chicago
• See materials about Devon Avenue in the Abakanowicz Research Center, which is free to visit

June 26, 2023, marks the 130th anniversary of Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld pardoning three men who were wrongfully imprisoned for their connections to the Haymarket affair. In this blog post, CHM director of exhibitions Paul Durica discusses Altgeld, the incident at Haymarket, and its aftermath.

Sleep softly . . . eagle forgotten . . . under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.

“We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day,
Now you were ended. They praised you . . . and laid you away.

So begins “The Eagle that is Forgotten,” a poem by Vachel Lindsay about his “next-door neighbor” in Springfield, Illinois, from 1893–97. That neighbor, the forgotten eagle, was John Peter Altgeld (1847–1902)—the first Chicagoan to become governor of Illinois.

Portrait of John Peter Altgeld, c. 1893. CHM, ICHi-009404; Schloss, photographer

Born in the Duchy of Nassau, now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, Altgeld was a lawyer and dabbler in real estate. He became a judge in 1887 with an interest in criminal justice reform. In 1892, Altgeld became the first Democratic governor of Illinois in more than 40 years.

As Lindsay’s poem describes it, Altgeld gave his enemies reason to snarl, bark, and foam at him until the end of his days. He decided to review the Haymarket case.

Cartoon titled “The Friend of Mad Dogs” showing Governor John Peter Altgeld releasing dogs (labeled Anarchy, Socialism, Murder) who run toward a woman and children. From Judge periodical, published by Judge Publishing Company in New York, New York, vol. 25, no. 613, July 15, 1893. Statue of Haymarket in background. Courtesy of the Chicago History Museum, ICHi-031336

The story begins the evening of May 4, 1886, when almost 3,000 Chicagoans gathered in the area known as the Haymarket to support an eight-hour workday and protest a previous act of police violence. As the peaceful gathering neared its end, almost 200 armed police marched into the crowd. Someone threw a bomb. One officer died instantly; seven others later succumbed to their wounds. Dozens of people were injured.

Illustration depicting the bomb detonating on May 4, 1886, published in Harper’s Weekly, May 15, 1886. Title reads “The anarchist riot in Chicago – a dynamite bomb exploding among the police.” CHM, ICHi-003665

A terrorist act of this kind had never occurred before, and the public panicked. Unable to identify the bomber, the state arrested and tried eight men, mostly foreign-born, who identified as socialists and anarchists and had been involved in the Haymarket gathering. Condemned for what they said and believed, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel were hung; Louis Lingg died by suicide in prison; and Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, and Oscar Neebe went to the state penitentiary in Joliet.

Photographic print titled “Principals in the Haymarket Riot” dated 1886 depicting the judge, attorneys, police, and defendants involved in the Haymarket Affair. CHM, ICHi-003678

Reviewing the court records, Altgeld determined that the Haymarket trial was biased against the defendants, the witnesses for the prosecution had perjured themselves, and the police had tampered with evidence.

Undated photograph of the front of the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument at Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery), Forest Park, Illinois. The quote at the base reads: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.” CHM, ICHi-052313

“I will simply say in conclusion on this branch of the case that the facts tend to show that the bomb was thrown as an act of personal revenge,” Altgeld wrote, “and that the prosecution has never discovered who threw it, and the evidence utterly fails to show that the man who did throw it ever heard or read a word coming from the defendants.”

On June 26, 1893, Altgeld pardoned the men imprisoned in Joliet–Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, and Oscar Neebe.

Statue of John Peter Altgeld by sculptor Gutzon Borglum in Lincoln Park near Diversey Avenue and Sheridan Road, Chicago, April 1975. CHM, ICHi-067212

This act of political courage, along with his support of workers during the 1894 Pullman Strike, ensured Altgeld’s reelection defeat. National attitudes did not match his personal values, but Altgeld would inspire other reformers like Jane Addams and his former aide Clarence Darrow. Upon Altgeld’s death in 1902, the always critical Chicago Tribune felt forced to conclude, “The hatred of his opponents was a tribute to his ability.”

Additional Resources

• Peruse The Dramas of Haymarket, an online project produced in partnership with Northwestern University that examines select materials from our extraordinary Haymarket holdings
• The Museum’s Chicago: Crossroads of America exhibition discusses the Haymarket affair in the City in Crisis section.

NASCAR is hosting its first ever street courses during the 2023 Fourth of July weekend right here in Chicago, inaugurating two separate races, the 100-lap Grand Park 220 and the 55-lap Loop 15. The Windy City is no stranger to automobile competitions. In 1895, the Chicago Times-Herald Race, the nation’s first automotive race, took place in Chicago and changed the course of US history.

Herman H. Kohlsaat, head-and-shoulders portrait, c. 1903. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/00652040/.

The competition was the idea of Herman Henry (H. H.) Kohlsaat, who made his fortune as an entrepreneur in the food industry and a newspaper publisher. Kohlsaat got the idea from a race that ran in 1895 from Paris to Bordeaux. His rationale for hosting one was two-pronged. He believed that travel by horse carriage would soon become a thing of the past due to the rapid pace of technological advancements, and hosting a race was a unique way to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago Times-Herald, of which he was the proprietor.

The race was originally scheduled to take place on July 4, 1895, to take advantage of the crowds already gathered in the city. However, the date was pushed back when many competitors requested more time to complete their racing machines. As part of the campaign to promote the competition, Kohlsaat held a contest in the Times-Herald asking readers to submit nominations for what they thought the new “self-propelling road carriages” should be called. After receiving many submissions, the newspaper declared “motocycle” the worthiest term, awarding the entrant a prize of $500 ($18,100 in 2023). Kohlsaat ended up rescheduling the Times-Herald Race for Thanksgiving 1895. Up for grabs was a $5,000 pot: $2,000 for first place, $1500 for second, $1000 for third, and $500 for fourth. (In 2023, $72,411 for 1st, $54,308 for 2nd, $36,206 for 3rd, and $18,103 for 4th).

Map of the official route of the Times-Herald motocycle contest, from page 2 of the Chicago Times-Herald, November 28, 1895.

What few accounted for was Chicago weather in November. Initially, 80 competitors registered for the competition, but the night before the race, a snowstorm coated city streets with six inches of snow, which brought down the number of committed racers to eleven. At the morning lineup, only six vehicles made it to the starting line at the Midway Plaisance. While the original race plans had drivers going further north, the blizzard led to a significant modification in the track. Drivers would complete a loop from the city’s South Side to north suburban Evanston and back again. Altogether, the official distance of the race measured just over 50 miles.

The start of the Chicago Times-Herald motocycle race, the first in the United States, on Thanksgiving Day, November 28. 1895. CHM, ICHi-003646

The six vehicles that lined up at 9:00 a.m. on race day were feats of engineering. Four of the six competitors powered their vehicles with gasoline. Three of the four gasoline vehicles were built by German engineer Karl Benz, the namesake of modern-day Mercedes Benz. One was sponsored by Hieronymus Mueller & Co. from Decatur, Illinois, the second by the De La Vergne Refrigerating Company, and the third by RH, Macy & Co., both of New York. The fourth gasoline-powered vehicle was the Duryea, made by the Duryea Motor Wagon Company based out of Massachusetts. The other two vehicles were electric and participated in the race not as serious contenders but instead to showcase the potential of electric drivetrains. The Morris and Salom Company from Philadelphia sponsored one, dubbed the Electrobat, while the other belonged to Chicagoan Harold Sturges, previously exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

J. Frank Duryea, designer, builder, and driver of the automobile that won the Chicago Times-Herald race, with umpire Arthur W. White, November 28, 1895. CHM, ICHi-009009

The race was anything but high speed. Thanks to the weather, road conditions, and primitive engineering powering the vehicles, the average speed at which cars traveled the course was a whopping seven miles per hour. Additionally, every competitor needed to make space for a race umpire in their vehicle, who ensured that drivers kept to the course. After many starts, stops, and a breakdown or two, the American-made Duryea was the first to cross the finish line, logging over 10 hours on the road. Second place came to the Mueller Benz from Decatur. These two were the only competitors who completed the race, with the rest dropping out due to damage to their vehicles or equipment malfunctions.

Front page of the Chicago Times-Herald on November 28, 1895, with a recap of the race.

Ultimately, the Times-Herald Race started what would become a revolution. Six years later, the first Chicago Auto Show was organized in 1901 to showcase the reliability and power of the personal vehicle, marking the start of an automotive tradition that has spanned more than a century of automotive development. Chicago also continued its history of motorsports well into the twentieth century. During the 1940s and ’50s, stock car racing made Soldier Field one of the premier venues in the nation for racing aficionados.

Additional Resources

• The Hieronymus Mueller & Co Benz can still be seen today, as it’s on exhibit at the Hieronymus Mueller Museum in Decatur, IL.
• Encyclopedia of Chicago entry on the Chicago Times-Herald Race of 1895.
• Encyclopedia of Chicago entry on the history of motorsports in Chicago. 

On June 14, 1949, former Chicago Cub Eddie Waitkus was shot at the Edgewater Beach Hotel by 19-year-old Ruth Ann Steinhagen in what is thought to be one of the first recognized cases of criminal stalking in the United States.

Eddie Waitkus faces Ruth Ann Steinhagen in felony court, Chicago, 1949. ST-17500605-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Edward Stephen Waitkus was born in 1919 to Lithuanian immigrant parents and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Boston College, and his professional baseball career began with a semiprofessional team in Maine. Waitkus made his Major League Baseball debut for the Cubs in 1941, but paused his baseball career to serve in World War II, where he participated in the fighting in the Pacific theatre and earned four Bronze Stars.

When Waitkus returned to the Cubs in 1946, the first baseman was a popular player with the media and a solid hitter, with a .304 average. It was that season when then 16-year-old Steinhagen saw him play and became obsessed. She frequently attended Cubs games, and her mother later said he was all she talked about. Waitkus was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies after the 1948 season, which did not quell Steinhagen’s fixation. She later told the felony court, “I kept thinking I will never get him and if I can’t have him nobody else can.”

When the Phillies came to town to play the Cubs in June 1949, Steinhagen booked a room for three days in the Edgewater Beach Hotel, where Waitkus and the Phillies were staying. She attended the afternoon game on June 14, in which the Phillies beat the Cubs 9–2 and Waitkus got a hit. Later that night, Steinhagen gave the bellhop $5 and asked him to give Waitkus a note asking to speak with her on “something of importance.”

Letter written from Ruth Ann Steinhagen to Eddie Waitkus on Edgewater Beach Hotel stationary, Chicago, June 15, 1949. ST-17500076-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

When he got to her room, she reportedly said, “For two years you’ve been bothering me and now you’re going to die” and shot him with a .22-caliber rifle. She missed his heart but did hit his lung. She called the desk to report the shooting herself, and Waitkus was taken to the hospital.

Eddie Waitkus being rushed to Illinois Masonic Hospital in an ambulance after being shot at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, Chicago, June 15, 1949. ST-17500139-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Waitkus underwent several operations to remove the bullet. Remarkably, Waitkus returned to play with the Phillies in 1950, where he was the leadoff hitter for the National League pennant winners. He went onto play through the 1955 season. Waitkus died in 1972 of esophageal cancer at age 53.

Ruth Ann Steinhagen sitting in Cook County Jail after she shot Eddie Waitkus in the chest at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, Chicago, June 26, 1949. ST-17500604-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Waitkus did not press charges against Steinhagen, but a criminal court judge ruled her to be insane and order her committed to Kankakee State Hospital, where she stayed for nearly three years after the shooting. Further charges were not brought against her, and she lived a reclusive life in Chicago’s Northwest Side, until she died in 2012 at age 83.

What happened to Waitkus is thought to be one of the inspirations for Bernard Malamud, who published his novel The Natural in 1952, which follows the story of a baseball phenom whose career is waylaid after getting shot by a woman. The novel was adapted into a film of the same title, starring Robert Redford, in 1984.

Additional Resources

• See more images from the Chicago Sun-Times collection

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Chicago Bulls’ victory to clinch the 1993 NBA Finals and the team’s first three-peat, CHM editor and content manager Heidi Samuelson recounts the path the Bulls took to accomplish this historic feat. 

Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen celebrate winning their third consecutive championship against the Phoenix Suns at American West Arena in Phoenix, June 20, 1993. ST-20000053-0002, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

On June 20, 1993, Chicago Bulls’ point guard John Paxson clinched the team’s third championship in a row with a game-winning three-pointer in Game 6 of the NBA Finals against the Phoenix Suns. It was the first time since the Boston Celtics won eight titles in a row from 1959 to 1966 that an NBA team won three championships in consecutive years.

The Chicago Bulls joined the NBA in 1966 when the league expanded from nine teams to ten. Although they started to see some success in the early 1970s, including four 50-win seasons and reaching the conference finals in 1975, it wasn’t until the late 1980s that the team began to reach new heights.

Chicago Bulls coach Doug Collins puts his hands to his face as the Bulls beat the New York Knicks at Chicago Stadium to advance to the Eastern Conference finals, Chicago, May 19, 1989. ST-17500477-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

They had solid players in their starting guard positions with John Paxson and emerging superstar Michael Jordan, who they drafted in 1984. Then, in the 1987 NBA draft, the Bulls acquired forwards Scottie Pippen of the University of Central Arkansas and Horace Grant of Clemson University. The following year, they traded for veteran center Bill Cartwright. The final piece of the puzzle was coach Phil Jackson. Together, Jackson and this starting lineup, along with sometimes-starter B. J. Armstrong, and a bench that included Craig Hodges, Stacey King, Will Perdue, and Scott Williams, won three championships in a row from 1991 to 1993.

Benny the Bull during Game 2 of the 1991 NBA Finals at Chicago Stadium, Chicago, June 5, 1991. ST-50004141-0086, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

In 1991, the Bulls won 61 games, then a franchise record. In the playoffs, they bested their Eastern Conference rivals the Detroit Pistons in the conference finals 4‒0 to face the Los Angeles Lakers for the championship. The Lakers were led by three-time league MVP Magic Johnson, but the Bulls had home court advantage. They won in a decisive 4‒1 series. Jordan was named the Finals MVP, averaging 31.2 points on 55.8% shooting and 11.4 assists.

Horace Grant goes up against Lakers’ Vlade Divac during Game 2 of the NBA Finals at Chicago Stadium, Chicago, June 5, 1991. ST-50004141-0023, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

The Bulls continued their dominance the next year, finishing the regular season with a 67–15 record. Their first real test in the playoffs came in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks, who took the series to seven games. The Bulls were victorious over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals, and then faced the Portland Trailblazers, led by future Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler, for the championship. On June 14, the Bulls won in Game 6 to a home audience at Chicago Stadium.

Michael Jordan holds the Bulls’ second NBA Championship trophy at Chicago Stadium, June 14, 1992. ST-17500544-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

That year the Chicago Blackhawks were in the NHL Finals, also being played at Chicago Stadium and potentially causing a schedule conflict. But it was not meant to be, as the Blackhawks lost the series 4–0 on June 1.

B. J. Armstrong guards the Suns’ Kevin Johnson during NBA Finals Game 2 in Phoenix. Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley appear in the background, June 11, 1998. ST-10000029_0012, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Coming off Jordan and Pippen playing for the 1992 Olympic Dream Team that summer, the Bulls had a solid 57–25 season, good enough for second place in the Eastern Conference. The Bulls swept their opponents in the first two rounds of the 1993 playoffs, facing the no. 1 seeded Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals. After a victorious 4–2 series, they faced the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals.

Newborns wearing red hats in a hospital nursery decorated in support of Chicago Bulls in the 1993 NBA Finals, Chicago, June 16, 1993. ST-30002508-0032, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

The Suns were led by all-star point guard Kevin Johnson and future Hall of Famer and fellow Dream Team member Charles Barkley, who the Suns traded for in the 1992 offseason. The Bulls won the first two games on the road and then traded victories with Suns up to Game 6. Jordan averaged a record 41.0 points during the Finals and won the Finals MVP for the third straight year.

Chicago Bulls fans parade the streets of Chicago in response to the sixth NBA championship game against the Phoenix Suns, near Chicago Stadium, 1901 West Madison St., June 20, 1993. ST-19041163-0099, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Additional Resources

• Bulls’ publications and ephemera including Chicago Bulls media guides and yearbooks and BULLpen game programs can be found at the Abakanowicz Research Center, which is free to visit.
• CHM Images has a large collection of Chicago Bulls images from the Chicago Sun-Times collection, dating back to 1966.
• The Museum’s Chicago: Crossroads of America exhibition has Bulls items on display in the My Kind of Town section.

June is graduation season! In this blog post, Abakanowicz Research Center page Brigid Crawley highlights the Chicago History Museum’s collection of yearbooks, which spans from 1858 to 2012.

A stack of yearbooks ranging from 1938 to 2011. All photograph by CHM staff

While yearbooks often evoke a feeling of nostalgia, they are also frequently used by researchers to find an individual or as a resource for subject study. The new Yearbook Collection LibGuide has suggestions for subject areas, tips for navigating publication schedules, and a breakdown of expectations by timespan to help guide researchers through our collection and explore these materials in new ways.

Yearbooks have not always looked or functioned the way they do today. In the late 19th century, secondary and higher education were not as common. Early yearbooks were often intended for the public to inform a broad audience about the credentials of the teachers or professors, the quality of the instruction, the students’ daily life, and, for those colleges or universities outside of Chicago, the surrounding environment and region. Schools, colleges, and universities used yearbooks to highlight the institution’s achievements.

Central High School, 1909. Some early yearbooks were published after graduation and included lists of student names from earlier years.

In the early 20th century, yearbooks transitioned into a keepsake for students. Dedication pages addressed fellow students instead of a public audience. Yearbooks were a curated record of individual and collective experiences. Students and editors experimented with how to capture their accomplishments and aspirations through creative writing, graphic design and photography, and editorial design choices.

Westinghouse Vocational High School, 1973. Since printing photographs in yearbooks became feasible, photo collages and montages have remained popular with students.

Some yearbooks are filled with different types of written expression, such as editorial pieces, excerpts from correspondence, or jokes and sketch dialogues. Other yearbooks experiment with collage techniques or documentary-style photographs that capture feelings and environments visually.

Marie Sklodowska Curie Metropolitan High School, 1987. This yearbook has a pop-up condor (the school mascot) dressed as a wizard since the yearbook’s theme was “Magic.”

Predicting what content researchers will find in yearbooks and what types of photographs will be included is difficult. Yearbook design varied between institutions based on size, the intent of the publication, and the staff, time, and resources available to document the year’s events. In our collection, college and university publications tend to have a formal tone compared to high schools of the same period; think of more caps and gowns and fewer baby photographs. It is the unknown element that makes searching through the yearbooks so exciting.

University School for Girls, 1917. Yearbook editors included baby photographs and used poetry to identify graduates.

As a resource, yearbooks provide incredible insight into student perspectives about current events. In this way, yearbooks are a primary document, capturing school and community history and significant social changes as they happen. Some of the most exciting finds are how students documented and reflected upon important events, such as the impact of world wars, antiwar strikes, protests about school curriculum, or the opening of a new CTA line. From global events to neighborhood history, yearbooks tell stories from the viewpoint of those that lived it while also including their hopes for the future. These special collections can add a new perspective to historical research.

William J. Bogan High, 1982. Students reflect on how current events impact their lives.

Carter H. Harrison High, 1969. As the yearbook text mentions, some of these events are covered in the news, but student points of view are an integral part of history.

The finding aid for the yearbook collection includes a list of institution names and years of publications. You can also search in ARCHIE, our online catalog, and consult the Yearbook Collection LibGuide for information on How To Search.

Want to donate a yearbook? Check the LibGuide for more information and to learn about our collecting scope and criteria.

Additional Resources

• Listen to Studs Terkel’s interview with St. Timothy Catholic School students ranging from ages 13–17
• Read the Fall 2004 issue of Chicago History magazine, which explores teenage life across the 20th century
• Visit the Abakanowicz Research Center to see CHM’s yearbook collection in person

Algae Guzman is a graduate student at University of Illinois Chicago who has been interning with CHM curator of civic engagement and social justice Elena Gonzales for our upcoming exhibition Aquí en Chicago. Part of their work includes researching Latino/a/x histories of Chicago.

On May 27, 2021, Jesús “Chuy” Negrete passed away at the age of 72 in Chicago. Negrete was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Early in life, he and his family immigrated to the United States in search of work, briefly settling in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, where I grew up. This particular region was known as el valle magico, the Magic Valley, due to its fertile soil and high production of citrus and other crops. By the time Negrete was seven years old, his family had resettled in South Chicago where his parents found other employment opportunities.

Throughout his life, Negrete drew inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement, was highly involved in the Chicano Movement, and fought for laborers’ rights. His most powerful form of protest was through songs called corridos. Corridos are a genre of Mexican folk music, and their form is a mechanism for storytelling. Corridos are most popularly used to tell stories of oppression, immigration, romance, and/or life histories. Negrete honed his songwriting skills to tell the stories of Latino/a/x individuals from inside and outside of Chicago.

Negrete on stage with guitar during a Teatro del Barrio performance, Chicago, c. 1970. Photograph by Louis Guadarrama Jr. Image courtesy of the Southeast Chicago Historical Society and Museum, 1993-017-20.

When deciding what my research contribution would be for the upcoming Aquí en Chicago exhibition, I strategically tried to find a topic that would support the research needed to complete my master’s thesis at the University of Illinois Chicago. In a surprising turn of events, my research on Negrete helped me find other talented Tejano and Conjunto musicians who crafted and performed corridos. Most of them rose to fame with origins in the Valley, such as Narciso Martínez, Lydia Mendoza, Chelo Silva, and Valerio Longoria.

Martínez immigrated to the United States as an infant from Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and is most commonly known as the father of conjunto music—another musical genre that at times uses the lyrical structure of corridos alongside instruments like the bajo sexto (sixth bass guitar) and the acordeón (accordion). Mendoza, while born in Houston, Texas, migrated to and from Mexico with her family accompanying her railroad worker father. Silva, born in the lower Rio Grande Valley, went so far as to achieve international recognition in Mexico and South America. Longoria learned how to play the accordion by watching Martínez during breaks while employed in farm work together, then spent years in Chicago touring solo. These musicians, unlike Negrete, did not concentrate on lyrical production that highlighted local or national issues.

Walkout at Republic Windows and Doors in Goose Island, as former employees picket the entrance due to not getting pension, vacation pay, and extended health care after the company closed without proper notification, December 8, 2008. STM-011368057, Tom Cruze/Chicago Sun-Times

In 2009, Negrete wrote and performed two songs, “For the People” and “Huelga,” for a radio documentary, Sí Se Puede, which told the story of Republic Windows and Doors and how the company abruptly closed in 2008, leaving its workers without health insurance, paychecks for hours worked, or jobs.

For the People
And so it came to be that on the fifth of December, one cold day
In the city of Chicago
At the Republic Window Company, they did say
Out on strike that fine ay
And they took over the factory
For those six long days
The people, the workers of the U.E., today

Huelga, huelga, huelga,
Huelga it means strike
Huelga, huelga, huelga,
Huelga, we had just begun to fight

Huelga
El corrido del U.E. strike
El día cinco de diciembre
Allá en la ciudad Chicago
Comenzaron su huelga
Y por seis días enteros
Los trabajadores agarraron la compañía

Era la República compañía de ventanas popular
Era la República ese día en Chicago no muy cerquita del mar

These two corridos told the story of how the workers formed a union and held a strike to combat the injustices they faced. Negrete also wrote songs like “Corrido del bracero,” detailing Mexican immigrants’ struggles in finding work in the United States and the difficult lives bracero workers faced.

Other Chicago residents have taken up guitars and penned their own corridos of events that are occurring around the city. Two brothers, Ignacio and Santiago Echevarría, known as “Los Dos de Michoacán” (The two from Michoacán), wrote two songs, “La emboscada” (The ambush) and “Corrido de Elvira Arellano,” about an undocumented mother who fled deportation and sought sanctuary in a church near Humboldt Park.

While Negrete and the Echevarría brothers used corridos to share the stories of their community, the US government has recently manipulated the musical genre. By creating their own corridos, the US government hoped to discourage migration into the US by telling stories of the dangers of migration in grueling ways. By dispersing these horrific migra corridos through Central American, Mexican, and US radio shows, the aim is to frighten potential migrants from ever making the journey. These songs are small forms of propaganda and part of a covert series of policies put in place to reduce the number of immigrants arriving in the country, otherwise known as prevention through deterrence.

Though the above corridos focus on heavy topics, not all do. Around 1924, a corrido was written about a tax law passed in Chicago that applied only to women with short hair.

Contribución a las pelonas
Atención pongan, señores,
de lo que la prensa ha hablado
en motivo de un decreto
que Chicago se ha implantado.

La mujer que esté pelona
pagará contribución
Mexicana o extranjera
sin ninguna distinción.

Tax on Bobbed Women
Attention, gentlemen,
The press is full of news
Because of a law decreed
In the city of Chicago.

All women with bobbed hair
Will pay a tax,
Mexican or foreigner
Without distinction.

Miss Betty Quick, Miss Elizabeth Carpenter, and Miss Polly Carpenter standing outside near a fence covered in plants, picking flowers, in Chicago, 1920. The Carpenters on the right have bobbed haircuts whereas Quick on the left has her hair in an updo. DN-0072316, Chicago Daily News collection, CHM

Humor need not be absent from this genre; in fact, Negrete mastered the balancing act of embedding it into his act. When performing at the 2012 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Conference, he opened with a joke. He recounted a story of someone telling him of the founding of the United States, starting at Plymouth and the thirteen colonies, stating George Washington was Negrete’s father. In response, Negrete stated, “I was reluctant to believe her, and so suddenly I raised my mano on the 16th of September and I told her if George Washington was my father, then why wasn’t he Chicano. . .” before launching into his corrido.

Chuy dedicated his musical career to uplifting stories that often went unheard. Negrete’s lyrical and performance intentionality can also be seen below in his corrido eulogy to Rudy Lozano.

Remembering Rudy Lozano
Spoken word:

. . . Rudy used to say
If you want to live forever
You can never live at all
It is only when you’ve accepted the fact that
you must die,
That you can truly life
Es mejor vivir de pie (It is better to live on your feet)
Que seguir viviendo de rodillas… (Than it is to keep living on your knees)

Singing:

. . . ¿Qué se cayó (What fell)
El ocho de junio? (The eighth of June?)
El compañero asesinado. (The assassinated friend.)
El compañero mexicano. (My Mexican friend.)
El compañero Rudy Lozano. (My friend Rudy Lozano.)

Rudy Lozano listens during a meeting at CASA (the Centro de Accion Social Autonomo, or the Center for Autonomous Social Action), Chicago, February 12, 1975. ST-40001425-0007, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

I find it fitting to end this article with a mention of the tocayo (namesake) high school responsible for the forthcoming Aquí en Chicago exhibition, the Rudy Lozano Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy. Through song and education, we can keep both these Mexicano Chicagoans alive.