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The Knights of Pythias Temple at 3737 S. State St., Chicago, 1928. CHM, ICHi-019351. A terra-cotta tile depicting a griffin from the Knight of Pythias Temple in Chicago, 1927. CHM, ICHi-066658.
On this day in 1882, Walter T. Bailey was born in Kewanee, Illinois, to Emanuel and Lucy Bailey. He was the first African American to graduate with a BS in architectural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the first licensed African American architect in the state of Illinois, and the first licensed African American architect in Chicago.
Upon his graduation from the University of Illinois in 1904, Bailey worked in firms in Kewanee and Champaign. In 1905, he was appointed head of the Mechanical Industries Department at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he also supervised planning, design, and construction of several campus buildings. Bailey left Tuskegee in 1916 to open his own office in Memphis, where he made business contacts with the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal organization that was integrated at its founding in 1864, became segregated beginning in 1880, and didn’t reintegrate until 1990 because both Black and white branches were secret societies and each branch had lost track of the other. Bailey soon received the biggest commission of his career—the Knights of Pythias’ new national headquarters in Chicago—and planning began in 1922. By 1924, he moved his practice to Chicago to supervise the project.
From the start, the National Pythian Temple was designed to impress. The eight-story Egyptian Revival building featured terra-cotta planters and detailing on its exterior, as well as a 1,500-seat theater and rooftop garden, all in the heart of the bustling Bronzeville neighborhood at State and 37th Streets. Completed in 1928, it was deemed the world’s largest, most expensive building ever built and designed by Black people. The Knights of Pythias eventually lost ownership of the building, and it was reconfigured into multiunit housing as part of a project with the Works Progress Administration, the federal employment program that President Franklin Roosevelt established in 1935. The building was abandoned by the 1970s and demolished in 1980. It is still considered one of the major African American architectural projects of the early twentieth century.
Despite this large commission early in his career, Bailey was not able to sustain his success—his subsequent work consisted of smaller projects such as churches and renovations. When the Great Depression began, Chicago’s Black business community saw widespread financial ruin, further reducing the possibility of new construction. Bailey’s final large project was the First Church of Deliverance (1939), and at the time of his death on February 21, 1941, he was working on the interior remodeling of Olivet Baptist Church.
See more images from our collection of architectural photography.
CHM Images
Peruse a selection of digitized prints and photographs at CHM Images, our online portal. Featured galleries include images from our recently acquired Chicago Sun-Times Photography Collection, Raeburn Flerlage’s work documenting the Chicago blues and folk music scene during the 1950s–1970s, and Declan Haun’s photography capturing the American Civil Rights Era.
From left: Simone de Beauvoir, c. 1968. Wikimedia Commons; The Mandarins, 1st English-language edition, World Publishing Company, 1956; cover art by Laszlo Matulay
On this day in 1908, French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris. She was a prolific and sometimes controversial writer who is perhaps best known for her seminal feminist text, The Second Sex (1949). While she was based mostly in Paris, Beauvoir traveled extensively and also spent time in Chicago. During a visit in 1947, she met writer Nelson Algren at the Palmer House hotel, which was the start of a brief but impactful romantic relationship between the two. A fictionalized account of their relationship is depicted in Beauvoir’s award-winning novel, The Mandarins (1954), which she dedicated to Algren.
The Mandarins covers the lives of a group of French intellectuals at the end of World War II through the mid-1950s based on Beauvoir’s experience, through the character Anne, navigating life, personal morality, and the political landscape after living through the Nazi occupation of Paris. Though she denied that the novel was a “roman à clef,” Beauvoir did say in her memoirs that the character of Lewis Brogan was based on Algren.
The novel covers Anne’s first meeting with Lewis in Chicago, where he takes her out to dinner at a pizzeria, to a burlesque show, and to listen to jazz at a dance hall. She claims that Lewis “knew everyone” and that it was the best evening she had spent in America. The experience mirrors the first meeting of Algren and Beauvoir, and the novel follows some of their subsequent travels together. Though their affair ended with some bitterness on Algren’s end, Beauvoir was buried with a silver ring on her finger that was a gift from Algren.
During Beauvoir’s relationship with Algren, he introduced her to his friend Studs Terkel, who in 1960 interviewed her about her upbringing and influences as an existentialist writer.
Studs Terkel Radio Archive
In his forty-five years on WFMT radio, Studs Terkel talked to the twentieth century’s most fascinating people. His radio program, with its deeply rooted humanistic approach to the big questions of human life and social organization, was filled with philosophical inquiry and search for deeper meaning. That said, Terkel did not interview a large number of actual philosophers about specifically “philosophical” books or debates. Instead, listeners will find remarkably similar approaches to the pursuit for metaphysical, ethical, or aesthetic understanding, whether the conversation is with a celebrated philosopher like Bertrand Russell or a group of teenagers living on the West Side of Chicago.
On December 16, 2020, Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred made big sports news with the announcement that the MLB had “elevated” seven professional Negro Leagues to major league status. “All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations, and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,” Manfred declared in a statement. “We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.” This elevation includes leagues that played from 1920 through 1948 and consists of roughly 3,400 players, thirty-five of whom are Hall of Famers.
The Chicago American Giants baseball team on the field at a ballpark, Chicago, 1911. SDN-009529, Chicago Daily News collection, CHM
Chicago, of course, stands tall in the history of African American baseball and the Negro Leagues. The Chicago American Giants, led by Andrew “Rube” Foster, became a charter franchise in the Negro National League (NNL) in 1920 with Foster as the NNL’s driving force. Before managing the American Giants and serving as the NNL’s president and treasurer, Foster pitched in various Negro Leagues. In 1902, he won forty-four games in a row as the Philadelphia Cuban X-Giants’ star hurler.
Rube Foster of the Leland Giants follows through after swinging a bat, Chicago, 1909. SDN-055361, Chicago Daily News collection, CHM
Foster’s American Giants won three NNL titles in 1920, ’21, and ’22. He amassed an amazing .635 winning percentage over sixteen seasons as the American Giants’ skipper. Longtime American Giants third baseman and eventual manager Dave Malarcher praised Foster’s coaching skills, calling him “an absolute genius in handling men, in devising strategies of defense and attack.” The American Giants played at South Side Park, which was just a few blocks away from today’s Guaranteed Rate Field where the Chicago White Sox play.
Buck O’Neil of the Kansas City Monarchs in the visitors’ dugout, Chicago, August 2, 1955. CHM, ICHi-052256-A; photograph by Arthur Siegel
In their humble wooden ballyard, also known as Schorling Park, the American Giants regularly drew crowds that outnumbered those of the White Sox and Cubs of the all-white Major Leagues. The American Giants sometimes played and typically beat Major League clubs and Major League all-star squads. Foster’s club, also dubbed the Fosterites, didn’t get a chance to do that in 1918. The influenza pandemic forced the cancellation of American Giants’ home games against a team of Major League all-stars. In the 1940s, the American Giants moved their home games to nearby Comiskey Park.
Satchel Paige (right, with towel) talking to unknown catcher, Chicago, August 2, 1955. CHM, ICHi-052257; photograph by Arthur Siegel
Comiskey Park also hosted many of the Negro Leagues’ East-West All-Star contests. In 1933, a group of sports writers developed the idea for an all-star game with fans selecting players via balloting through the popular African American newspapers of the day, such as the Chicago Defender. American Giants players dominated the West squad, taking seven of the nine starting slots. In a back and forth slugfest, the West team won 11 to 7. American Giants pitcher Willie Foster (half-brother of Rube) was the only pitcher in all-star game history to pitch a complete game, pitching all nine innings. American Giants first baseman Mule Suttles had great success at the plate going 2 for 4, scoring two runs while smacking a two bagger and a home run. This all-star game continued at Comiskey Park into the 1950s.
Baseball player Satchel Paige warms up before the East-West Negro American League All-Star Game at Comiskey Park, Chicago, July 31, 1955. Photograph by Mel Larson for the Chicago Sun-Times, ST-17500231, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM
With the addition of the Negro Leagues, the MLB now has the monumental task of recalculating statistics, which will change the career numbers for players who got their start in the Negro Leagues, including greats like Satchel Paige, the Cubs’ Ernie Banks, and the White Sox’s Minnie Miñoso. Though gathering Negro League stats will require significant research, the recalculations will ultimately rewrite a more inclusive MLB history.
Christmas tree in the Walnut Room at the Marshall Field’s State Street store, Chicago, December 24, 1959. CHM, ICHi-017139; Clarence W. Hines, photographer
The Marshall Field & Co. department store (now Macy’s) has always gone big for the Christmas holiday, with the annual Great Tree, animated holiday windows, and the forty-two trumpets along State Street. Along with the décor, a visit to their Walnut Room is part of a Chicago holiday tradition.
The Walnut Room is the flagship restaurant of what is now Macy’s in downtown Chicago at State and Washington Streets. The building opened in 1907, and the Walnut Room existed from the start, though it was initially named the South Grill Room. Eventually, the restaurant was renamed for its Circassian walnut paneling, though the exact date of the switch is unclear.
Menu for the Walnut Room at the Marshall Field’s State Street store, Chicago, December 2, 1948. CHM, ICHi-075639, ICHi-075640, ICHi-075641, ICHi-075642; Gift of Target Stores.
For decades, hungry shoppers have enjoyed favorites such as millinery clerk Mrs. Hering’s chicken pot pie, which she started serving in an earlier Field’s restaurant in 1890. At the turn of the twentieth century, restaurants and other leisure spaces in high-end department stores became acceptable places for middle and upper-class white women to spend time outside of the home and meet and dine with friends and family.
Furthermore, department stores served as “respectable” employment for women, giving them an opportunity to become wage earners, though as the opening chapters of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie point out, employment was still limited to white women with certain clothes and manners. Still, the growing popularity of the Walnut Room and Marshall Field & Co. allowed a degree of economic freedom for certain women and social freedom for others.
The special atmosphere and food have ensured the Walnut Room remains a nostalgic favorite for generations of Chicagoans, especially during the Christmas season.
Trace the city’s evolution from meatpacking capital to foodie paradise through our Google Arts & Culture exhibit Touring Chicago’s Culinary History.
Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is an online platform that puts the treasures, stories, and knowledge of more than 2,000 cultural institutions from eighty countries at your fingertips. The Chicago History Museum’s portal includes stories from throughout the city’s history. Peruse the designs of Chicago-born couturier Mainbocher, learn about the work of civil rights leader Reverend J. H. Jackson, and so much more!
A common museum practice is to loan artifacts to other institutions. This past spring, CHM conservator Holly Lundberg and her team prepared an Ann Lowe cotillion gown (1956) to go on loan to the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts.
Ann Cole Lowe (1898–1981) was an African American fashion designer whose exquisite formal and debutante gowns were sought after by the rich and famous from the 1920s through the 1960s. Lowe is known for her fine handiwork and the use of floral motifs, and though Lowe did not receive credit at the time, she created the iconic wedding gown worn by Jacqueline Bouvier upon her marriage to John F. Kennedy.
The Lowe gown from our costume collection was worn by Carole Duke Denham on December 22, 1956, at the Passavant Cotillion in Chicago. The gown is embellished with fabric appliqués of long-stemmed roses, faux pearls, sequins, glass seed beads, and rhinestones on the bodice and down the sides of the skirt. It has a boned bodice, full skirt, center-back zipper, and an attached underskirt of taffeta lined with a stiff nonwoven material edged with synthetic horsehair at the hem.
After it was requested for loan, the gown was brought to the conservation lab to be assessed for condition, treatment needs, and recommendations for display and handling, as well as for any required conservation treatment. Although heavily wrinkled and creased from long-term storage, the gown was found to be in fairly good condition. The damage that had occurred was largely from normal wear and tear, including some spots and stains, soiling at the hem, and a nine-inch-long tear in the interfacing layer of the underskirt. There were also loose and missing embellishments and partially detached fabric appliqués due in part to aged, brittle embroidery threads and wear.
Over the course of three months, the conservation team painstakingly conserved the dress to resemble its former glory: they secured loose or detaching appliqués, beads, sequins, pearls, and rhinestones; patched the tear in the interlining of the underskirt, and reduced wrinkles and creases throughout. Reshaping of the flattened and crushed flower appliqués was accomplished by hand with the aid of a localized humidification technique whereby a small piece of blotting paper, dampened with deionized water, was carefully wrapped around each flower petal for less than a minute to relax the textile fibers. The flower petals were then gently manipulated back into a bud shape and left to reacclimatize. The Lowe gown is currently on display in PEM’s exhibition Made It: The Women Who Revolutionized Fashion, which is open through March 14, 2021.
See more items in CHM’s renowned costume collection, which includes a pair of Michael Jordan’s shoes, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, and Bertha Palmer’s gowns.
Clockwise from left: Ann Lowe cotillion gown, 1956. Gift of Mrs. Charles Chaplin, 1976.241.170. CHM, ICHi-175969. Bust of the dress with red circle indicating where rhinestones were replaced. The label of the gown. The setup to repair a tear in the interlining of the underskirt. All images by CHM staff.
Caring for Your Collection
Wondering how to take care of your own beloved garments and textiles? For the winter 2020–21 issue of The Intelligent Collector magazine, CHM collection manager Jessica Pushor spoke to Debbie Carlson for her article “Tending Your Delicates” and describes proper storage methods for various items in our costume collection, such as menswear, silk dresses, sports jerseys, and shoes.
Small business owners have faced a challenging year with a reduced walk-in customer base. However, the holiday season brings them hope, and CHM digital content producer Luiz Magaña has compiled a list of small businesses that are featured in our exhibition American Medina: Stories of Muslim Chicago. We hope you enjoy our shopping recommendations!
Watan
Jumana Al-Qawasmi opened Watan in 2015 in Orland Park, Illinois, with the aim to feature Palestinian-inspired art and to create a cultural space to connect both Muslims and non-Muslims to Palestinian heritage. Watan features clothing, jewelry, art prints, and accessories created by Palestinian artists.
Colettaa
Colettaa was founded in Chicago by Kadiatou Diallo right after she graduated from the International Academy of Design and Technology. Created and designed in Chicago, their collections are made for those who want beautiful, accessible, affordable, and ready to wear clothes. Colettaa’s goal is to create ideal, modest clothing without sacrificing quality or creative expression for young women.
The Hijab Vault
The Hijab Vault is a retail boutique in Lombard, Illinois, founded by Obaidullah Kholwadia and his sister that sells a variety of hijabs with modern prints, designs, and fabrics, as well as accessories.
Adilah M
Founded by Adilah Muhammad, Adilah M is a high-end, ethical fashion brand that produces well-tailored, small batch clothing. The garments are made and produced responsibly in the United States by people of color to create modern silhouettes for empowered women.
Imani’s Original
The origin of the bean pie dates back to the 1930s when Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad outlined a set of lifestyle guidelines to his followers, which promoted the health benefits of the navy bean. While working on a home school project with her daughter on the benefits of the navy bean, Imani Muhammad started her company, which has been a family-run corporation since 2005. You will find her pies in more than fifteen stores in the Chicago area and shipping is available throughout the country.
Home Line Decoration
After losing his home and store in Puerto Rico to Hurricane Maria in 2017, Yousef Barakat and his wife, Kholoud Ghaith, decided to start fresh in Chicago. Home Line Decoration opened in 2018 in the Portage Park neighborhood and features specialty hand-made products from Turkey such as rugs, dinnerware, and Ottoman-style mosaic lamps.
The Bears and the Packers have one of the longest-standing rivalries in the NFL and the league’s most played. Their first meeting was in 1921, when the Bears, then known as the Chicago Staleys, defeated the Packers in a 20–0 victory—the start of a century-long conflict.
Front cover of Nov. 7, 1943, Bears vs. Packers program, CHM, ICHi-059811.
The Bears and Packers have been in the same conference since the NFL switched to a conference format in 1933, first in the Western Conference and then in the NFC North since 1970, and usually play each other twice a year. They have met 200 times in regular- and postseason games. In recent years, the Packers have taken over the lead in the series with a 99–95–6 record.
Aerial view of Wrigley Field during the Bears vs. Packers game, Nov. 17, 1963, ST-17500877, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM.
Notable Bears wins over the Packers include their second meeting of 1963 (in the aerial shot above), with both teams coming to the game with 8‒1 records and playing for first place in the conference, and their October 21, 1985, win in which rookie defensive tackle William “The Fridge” Perry was put in at fullback and scored his first touchdown. Both seasons would end with the Bears as national champions.
Linebacker Mike Singletary (#50) during the game at Lambeau Field, Oct. 11, 1989, ST-20000203-0007, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM.
Notable losses include the infamous “instant replay game” in 1989 (seen in the collage above), when a Packer touchdown was credited after instant replay overruled a penalty called on quarterback Don Majkowski for stepping over the line of scrimmage, and the teams’ last playoff meeting in the 2010 NFC championship.
Mayor Harold Washington in attendance at Soldier Field, Oct. 21, 1985, ST-20001960-0077, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM.
Look back at 100 years of Bears history on our blog.
With the news that Lawry’s The Prime Rib will be closing at the end of the year, we can only wonder if the next tenant of the former McCormick Mansion will also make a name there. Let’s revisit another establishment that has left a legacy at the corner of Rush and Ontario Streets. From 1937 to 1971, 100 East Ontario Street was home to the Kungsholm, a one-of-a-kind Scandinavian restaurant that was famed for both its food and entertainment.
Danish-born Chicago restaurateur Fredrik Chramer took over the building in 1937, adding significant square footage and a commanding facade and remodeling the interior in Swedish Modern style. Patrons were greeted by Swedish and American flags and a model Viking ship above the entrance, and the motif of three crowns, the national emblem of Sweden, appeared on the menu and in decor. A large table in the center of the main dining room was laden with items from the three traditional stages of smörgåsbord dining: herring and seafood; hot entreés, such as Kalvfilé Oscar (veal tenderloin with shrimp and asparagus tips covered by béarnaise sauce); and salads and cheeses, followed by dessert and coffee or wine.
In 1940, inspired by the puppet shows he loved as a child in Denmark, Chramer turned the mansion’s fourth-floor ballroom into what would become the internationally known Kungsholm Miniature Grand Opera. Throughout the years, more than a million people were entertained by his unique thirteen-inch-tall handcrafted stringless puppets performing elaborately staged operas, operated by puppeteers on rolling stools beneath the floor.
A fire destroyed the theater in 1947, but Chramer rebuilt it five years later as a new puppet theater modeled after the Opéra Garnier in Paris. As Chramer’s health started failing, he sold Kungsholm and the show to the Fred Harvey chain in 1957. The new owners did not maintain the production quality, and business declined. The Kungsholm puppet opera closed its curtains for good in 1971, and the Chicago History Museum managed to acquire some of the puppets and scenery.
Trace the city’s evolution from meatpacking capital to foodie paradise through our Google Arts & Culture story: Touring Chicago’s Culinary History.
Top: Exterior of the Kungsholm at 100 East Ontario Street, Chicago, July 15, 1954. CHM, ICHi-052263; J. Johnson Jr., photographer. A man touches up puppets at the Kungsholm, Chicago, September 8, 1968. ST-70006535-0037, Chicago Sun-Times Collection, CHM. Bottom: Kungsholm luncheon menu, July 2, 1952. CHM, ICHi-085972-001, ICHi-085972-002, ICHi-085972-003.
Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is an online platform that puts the treasures, stories, and knowledge of more than 2,000 cultural institutions from eighty countries at your fingertips. The Chicago History Museum’s portal includes stories from throughout the city’s history. Peruse the designs of Chicago-born couturier Mainbocher, learn about the work of civil rights leader Reverend J. H. Jackson, and so much more! See All Exhibits
An image, floor plan, and text for The Armorel, a bungalow from the Home Builders Catalog, 1926. CHM, ICHi-015886
About one hundred years ago, Chicago saw a building boom of single-family homes of a certain style—the bungalow. The word “bungalow” derives from the British colonial experience in India, and beginning in the twentieth century, architects, builders, and developers adopted the term to describe modern houses built throughout the United States.
In Chicago, a few architects had begun to design and build expensive, Craftsman-style, California-influenced bungalows in affluent locations of the city by 1910. When the housing market boomed in the 1920s, developers throughout the metropolitan region marketed lower-priced “bungalows” to an expanding range of middle-class families. These structures all had modern plumbing, electricity, and central heating. Within the city limits, a common form of bungalow was a rectangular brick structure with a modestly pitched, hip-raftered roof and a small distinctive front porch. It fit on narrow city lots and followed the floor plan of earlier one-story working-class houses.
However, builders constructed a great variety of structures even in the city’s “bungalow belt”—houses that were built in the 1910s and 1920s in a collar just inside and around the city limits. By 1930, one-fourth of all residential structures in metropolitan Chicago were less than ten years old, many of them bungalows, ranging in cost from about $2,500 to $10,000 (about $38,000 to $155,000 in 2020).
A form of bungalow continued to be built in working-class areas of the South Side in the 1960s. However, the bungalow lost popularity among house buyers after World War II, as ranches and split-levels became the dominant house style in new areas. In the early twenty-first century, “historic” bungalows resurged as popular housing in gentrifying areas of the city. In response to that renewed interest, the municipal government started the Chicago Bungalow Association in 2000, which helps homeowners maintain, preserve, and adapt their bungalows. Learn more about bungalows in Chicago in the Encyclopedia of Chicago.
Digital Chicago
Shortly after World War II, the Chicago Tribune sponsored a contest for residential design—the Chicagoland Prize Homes Competition. Several of the competition’s twenty-four winning designs were executed in the Chicagoland area, some of which are still standing. In the Digital Chicago project Chicagoland Prize Homes, researchers plotted the homes’ locations and included images of the homes as they currently exist, showing the ways in which Americans’ ideas about housing have changed since the mid-twentieth century. View the Project
PRIMARY SOURCE TYPE: PHOTOGRAPHS, ORAL HISTORIES
Many people see Chicago as the American Medina, drawing Muslims from all over the country and world as Medina, Saudi Arabia has done for centuries. Beginning with the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, which featured some of the first mosques in the United States, Chicago is now home to a diverse Muslim community: followers from the US and abroad; members of various sects; and converts and those who were raised in the faith.
The American Medina: Stories of Muslim Chicago exhibition offered teachers and students an opportunity to learn about Muslim communities in Chicago. The exhibition drew from more than 100 interviews conducted with Muslim Chicagoans sharing their stories of faith, identity, and personal journeys. Dozens of objects from local individuals and organizations, such as garments, artwork, and photographs, as well as videos and interactive experiences expand on how and why Chicago is known as the American Medina.
Download the American Medina Educator Learning Guide.