USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 14
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corner of Superior and Market streets and many rare books, maps and paintings. The proceeds from the sale of this real estate added nearly 1,500 volumes to the library. The most imposing work of art in the rooms of the society is the allegorical painting of the Chicago fire, which was presented to the city shortly after the fire by the London Graphic. With the opening of the fine granite edifice on the corner of Dearborn avenue and Ontario street, in 1894, the collections were re-catalogued and re-arranged, and now form not only a remarkably complete exposition of local and northwestern his- tory, but an attractive museum and portrait gallery, all free to the public. The library proper now comprises 40,000 volumes and 75.000 pamphlets, and a large collection of maps, views and manuscripts cov- ering much of Americana outside of northwestern history.
There are libraries scattered throughout the city of a less public character than those mentioned. The Academy of Sciences library in Lincoln park is rich in the literature of the natural sciences, especially zoology, while of the university libraries that of the Uni- versity of Chicago takes the lead; in fact, with its 460,000 volumes and 170,000 pamphlets, it is the largest in Chicago. A good scientific library is connected with the Field Museum at Jackson park, and the Ryerson library, although primarily for the students of the Art Institute, is practically a free reference library on fine art. The theo- logical, law and medical libraries, connected with various institutions and societies, are more exclusive in their character, although often consulted by the non-professional. The library connected with the Chicago Law Institute, comprising 40,000 volumes, is one of the most complete in the country, but is exclusively for the use of the legal profession. The Western Society of Engineers also has a good library, being principally for its members, but opened to the public during the day.
The Chicago Academy of Sciences, to which reference has been made, is one of the oldest of the Chicago institutions founded in the
ACADEMY OF cause of education. The original society of 1857
was organized largely by the prominent physicians
SCIENCES. of the city, who were also enthusiasts in other sci- ences than their own, and by several public-spirited business men, in- cluding E. W. Blatchford, whose record as a supporter of the higher
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educational movements in Chicago has not been excelled. The pioneer members subscribed about $1,500 toward the establishment of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and a room was engaged in the old Saloon building, but the panic of 1857 and the hard times of the succeeding two years put a temporary quietus to the ambitions of the institution. In the meantime a new force in the person of Robert Kennicott, son of Dr. John A. Kennicott, had come into the affairs of the Academy. Since early boyhood he had shown a burning enthu- siasm and a decided genius for investigations in natural science, and, as he had been consistently encouraged by his scholarly father, his exploring expeditions had increased in range and importance. By the time he was twenty-four he had largely traveled over the north- west and had done a great work in arranging and classifying his specimens. It had long been a favorite idea with him to build up a museum of natural history in Chicago, and it was largely through his valuable contributions, in connection with the improved financial conditions, that the enterprise was firmly established. In the year of its incorporation under its present name (1859) Mr. Kennicott led an exploring expedition into British and Russian North America, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution. The field of his three years' work stretched from Hudson's Bay to Bering Strait, and, under an agreement with the Smithsonian Institution, he pre- sented the Chicago Academy of Sciences with a full series of these remarkable specimens. Under the impetus of this generous· donation the academy was re-organized under a new charter, in 1862, and Mr. Kennicott was appointed the first director of its museum. The speci- mens were arranged by him in rooms provided for the purpose in the old Metropolitan building, corner of Randolph and LaSalle streets, and, with constant additions made by the members of the revived academy, within the three succeeding years, formed a very respectable basis for a museum of natural history. In the original collection was also included Mr. Kennicott's specimens so broadly representative of the northwest, this feature of the museum having been continuously developed. To Professor Agassiz is also due much of the credit for the establishment of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, as he was present during one of its critical early meetings soon after Mr. Ken- nicott's return from his first northern expedition, and spoke in such
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warm terms of the value of the latter's labors that $60,000 was at once raised to make them a part of the history of the Academy. In March, 1865, Mr. Kennicott headed a party of naturalists for an expedition into Alaska, under the auspices of the Western Union Telegraph Company, the museum being placed in charge of Dr. Wil- liam Simpson, who was also secretary of the Academy. While engaged in this work Mr. Kennicott suddenly died on the banks of the Yukon river, and Dr. Simpson assumed his labors in Chicago as a permanent director. Before coming to Chicago, Dr. Simpson had been connected with the Smithsonian Institution for many years and his authority was especially high on questions of zoology. He died in 1872. During his term of office the academy met two serious reverses. In 1866 a portion of its collection in the Metropolitan building was destroyed by fire, and two years afterward it erected what was considered a fire-proof building on Wabash avenue, north of Van Buren. So secure was this building supposed to be that it became the favorite depository of special collections and private libraries, generally relating to the natural sciences. The result was that when the structure was crumpled and destroyed like paper by the fire of 1871, Chicago was almost drained of its educational re- sources in that field. The loss and the shock were so great to Dr. Simpson that they are thought to have hastened his death, which occurred in the following May.
After the fire of 1871 a new building was erected on the old site, but financial embarrassments brought about its sale in 1883, and for several years thereafter its collections were stored in the Inter-State Exposition building on the lake front. They remained in that build- ing until its demolition in 1892 to provide for the building of the new Art Institute. But the Academy of Sciences was not long to be without a permanent home, for Matthew Laflin donated $75.000 in that year. to which the Lincoln Park commissioners added $25.000, and with these sums as the basis of a building fund the cornerstone of the pres- ent imposing structure ( which fronts the main entrance of the park ) was laid on the 9th of October, 1893. The subsequent progress of this institution has placed it among the strong educational forces of the city, and all those who are especially interested in the natural his- tory of Illinois and the northwest make a generous use of the library and museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences.
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The Field Museum of Natural History was established in 1894 in the former fine arts building of the World's Columbian Exposition.
FIELD It was founded upon a gift of $1,000,000 made by the late Marshall Field, and the basis of its exhibi- MUSEUM. tion material was laid in purchases of World's Fair exhibits. Since the original organization of the museum, many expe- ditions have been dispatched to all parts of North America and other countries for the purpose of obtaining material for deposit and ex- change, and many donations have been received from institutions en- gaged in similar investigations. The museum proper embraces col- lections of mammals and birds reaching many thousand specimens, a taxidermy two stories in height, a section devoted to North American ethnology, a herbarium of 260,000 sheets, and fully equipped labora- tories and assaying rooms. That the title of the institution is not fairly descriptive of its scope is also evident from the fact that it has a remarkably complete library of 50,000 titles, and a well equipped printing office from which issue the publications devoted to the in- vestigations and expeditions conducted under its management. The four grand divisions of the museum are those of anthropology, bot- any, geology and zoology. The Field Museum is, in many ways, a development of the World's Columbian Exposition, this being espe- cially true of its management. Harlow N. Higinbotham was presi- dent of both the Exposition and the Museum, and Frederick J. V. Skiff, still secretary and director of the Museum, was at the head of the department of mines and mining of the Exposition, as well as deputy director general. He has since been the great organizing and developing power behind the Chicago institution, and has also become the greatest exposition manager in America. The superb building for the Museum, projected as one of the features of the Lake Front park, will be erected as a result of another princely gift from the late Marshall Field, who at his death in 1906 bequeathed $8,000,000 to it. Of this sum $4,000,000 is to be expended in the erection of a building and $4,000,000 for endowment.
The Art Institute of Chicago, as founded upon its present basis, is even more an outgrowth of the World's Columbian Exposition than
INSTITUTE.
ART the Field Museum, and is accomplishing for stu- dents and lovers of art what the Academy of Sci- ences and the Field Museum are accomplishing for
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
those interested in the natural sciences. It has been one of the strongest of the local forces ever put in operation to dispel the delusion entertained by an ignorant few that Chicago virtually has no life ex- cept that which centers in its worship of mammon and its contribu- tions to commerce, trade and the industries. Charles L. Hutchinson, for twenty-six years president of the Art Institute and since boyhood a resident of the city, once president of the Chicago Board of Trade, prominent as a banker, and also a cultured patron of education and art, speaks of this subject with the authority of wide experience in both fields. "Chicago," he says, "is a metropolitan city; therefore it is the center of many influences. Some of them are evil, but many of them are good. Morally the city is no better or no worse than other large cities of the world. In speaking of Chicago one is more apt to associate it with things commercial than with things educa- tional or artistic. You may assert without dispute that Chcago is a center of finance, a great railway center and a center of manufactures. You may also add that it is a center of agitation for the whole coun- try. But there are those who would hesitate to call it a great educa- tional center, or a center of art.
"Nevertheless, it is a fact that no city in our country is of greater importance as an educational center than Chicago. When you take into consideration the unique position of Chicago and the great popu- lation tributary to it, you cannot overestimate the importance of all that is done in the city, be it in the world of commerce, politics, re- ligion or art. You may also justly assert that Chicago is a center of art. An art center is a place where people come for inspiration and education : a place from which an artistic influence radiates ; where a professional artist may gain a livelihood by following his profession ; where there are collections of artistic objects, and a considerable num- ber of people who appreciate the good in painting, sculpture and ar- chitecture. Chicago possesses all these qualifications. I think all will admit that the center of art in Chicago is the Art Institute."
Although the Chicago Academy of Design was formed some six years prior to the organization of the Art Institute, in 1879, its men- bership was confined to the artistic element and
ACADEMY OF
DESIGN. failed to secure the support and management of citizens both of wealth and culture. While the for- mer languished as a public educational force, the Art Institute from
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the first has joined both elements in its organization with the result that it has accomplished the double purpose of inspiring and instruct- ing both students and the people at large. In the conduct and de- velopment of this institution two men have stood from its organiza- tion as the foremost of its official workers in the practical and every- day management of its artistic and business affairs. William M. R. French has been director of the Chicago Art Institute since its incor- poration May 24, 1879, and during the first three years also per- formed the duties of secretary. A Harvard graduate, he had prac- ticed his profession of civil engineering and landscape gardening for twelve years in the east before coming to Chicago ( 1877) and becom- ing connected with the School and Museum of Art. When he as- sumed his official duties in connection with the Art Institute he was thirty-six years of age, and his assistant was Newton H. Carpenter, a young man his junior by a decade, who had received a military educa- tion at West Point, but had abandoned his ambitions in that direction, and for three years before joining forces with Mr. French had been in the employ of the Academy of Design. With the expansion of the institute's affairs, in 1882 the duties of the directorship and secretary- ship were divided, and since that year Mr. Carpenter has devoted every waking hour to the latter office. Broadly speaking, for more than a quarter of a century Mr. French has practically directed the purely ar- tistic affairs of the institute and Mr. Carpenter, those matters relating to its executive and business details. In both instances the well-being of the Chicago Art Institute has been the main purpose of their lives, and its fine standing is largely a monument to their faithfulness and ability. During the entire period of its life, which covers nearly three decades, the Art Institute has had but three presidents-George Ar- mour, L. Z. Leiter and Charles L. Hutchinson, Mr. Armour serving but one year and Mr. Leiter only two years. It is Mr. Hutchinson's remarkable combination of business judgment, administrative ability, diplomatic tact and artistic culture which has generally directed the Art Institute along such an unvarying upward course that the 660,000 people who visit its museum represent the largest attendance of any other art museum in the country, not excepting the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art in New York City. New York and Philadelphia only es- tablished a school of art and design earlier than Chicago, and this fea-
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ture of the Art Institute is perhaps the most comprehensive, as it is cer- tainly the largest, in the United States. The school of instruction in- cludes departments of painting, sculpture, decorative designing and architecture. There are classes for beginners and advanced pupils and. depending upon their occupations and objects, the 2,500 students are divided into day, evening and Saturday classes and the summer school.
For the first three years of its existence the Art Institute occupied rented quarters at the southwest corner of State and Monroe streets. but in the spring of 1882 land was purchased at the southwest corner of Michigan avenue and Van Buren street. During the same year a brick building containing exhibition galleries and school rooms was built upon the rear of the property, fronting on Van Buren street, and in 1887 was completed the four-story building on Michigan avenue, which, four years later, was sold to the Chicago Club. The Art In- stitute had entered into an agreement with the directors of the World's Columbian Exposition to erect a permanent building in Grant park, on the lake front opposite Adams street, the city having contributed the site. Of the original cost ($785,000) the Exposition paid $200 .- 000, the first, but only temporary, use of the structure being for the holding of the World's Congresses of Religions. The ownership of this palace of art was vested in the city of Chicago until 1904. when it was turned over to the South Park commissioners; its use and oc- cupancy are vested in the Art Institute so long as it shall fulfill the purposes for which it was organized. A special provision was also made for throwing it open free to the public, three times a week- Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Until the transfer of the building to the park commission the support of the institute, amount- ing to some $100,000 annually, was derived wholly from dues, mem- bership fees and voluntary contributions, but since that time that body has, by legislative authority, levied a tax for that purpose, as well as for the maintenance of the Field Museum of Natural His- tory, to be permanently located in Grant Park south of the Art In- stitute. This has been of great advantage, as the entire income has since been applied to the purchase of works of art alone. It will thus be seen that the Art Institute is largely a city institution, and constitutes by far the greatest artistic influence in Chicago.
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A new force of real power has appeared in the Municipal Art League, incorporated in 1901 and including in the membership of its
board of directors, the mayor, or the commissioner
MUNICIPAL ART LEAGUE. of public works, three park commissioners, three sculptors, three architects and three painters. The league is merely advisory and is not vested with any municipal au- thority, its objects being to promote the beautifying of streets and public buildings and grounds, as well as to stimulate civic pride among private property owners, and bring about a general artistic improve- ment of the entire city. Since its incorporation the league has been a real inspiration along these lines, both to the municipality and the individual. All the efforts of private citizens, organizations and the municipality to keep the public thoroughfares clean are in line with the work of beautifying Chicago, and have received the hearty sup- port of lovers of the city. One of the most practical reforms (unfor- tunately of short duration) was the placing of boxes along the chief business thoroughfares for the reception of newspapers and other litter.
When Chicago is considered as an educator of the mind, without reference to the esthetics of life; as a trainer for the scholastic and professional activities, her standing makes her one of the greatest centers of mental and practical force in the world, and her advance- ment within the past twenty years has been marvelous. As a "uni- versity town" the record commences with the establishment of the Northwestern University, under the auspices of the Methodist con- ferences of the northwest, in 1853. Although the first classes, under Rev. Clark W. Hinman, of the Michigan conference, were taught in Chicago, the following year (1854) the institution was removed to the quiet of Evanston, still the home of its College of Liberal Arts and its theological seminaries-Garrett Biblical Institute ( founded in 1856) and the Norwegian-Danish and the Swedish Theological sem- inaries. The school of music, the school of oratory, Dearborn ob- servatory, Orrington Lunt library and other institutions are also in Evanston. The schools of law, pharmacy, dental surgery and med- icine are in Chicago, the three departments first named being installed in the old Tremont House, and the last named (known as the North- western University Medical School), with its affiliated hospital, is on Dearborn street, near Twenty-fourth. Both the law and medical
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schools were founded in 1859, the former as a department of the old Chicago University and the latter in affiliation with old Lind University. In 1869 the Chicago Medical School became a depart- ment of the university, and as the law school was under the joint management of the Northwestern and the Chicago universities, from 1873 to 1891, it was known, during this period, as the Union College of Law. The Woman's Medical School, founded in 1870, was finally absorbed by the general medical department. The dental department was opened in 1887. Northwestern University now stands eighth among the great universities of the country, its total enrollment of about three thousand six hundred students placing it in the same class with the University of Wisconsin. The splendid settlement work of the Northwestern University is mainly conducted in the northern part of the city, with its four-story brick house, corner of Augusta and Noble streets, as the center. This is in the edge of the large Polish quarter and in the heart of perhaps the most densely populated district in Chicago. Open reading rooms, medical and legal bureaus, and all the other means provided for intellectual, social and religious improvement, are conducted by the "resident group" of the university, composed of educators and professional and public men and women, who are giving the utmost of their lives to this high phase of university work.
Lake Forest University, founded by the New School Presbyterians in 1856, owns a dozen buildings and other valuable property at Lake
LAKE FOREST. Forest, twenty-eight miles north of Chicago. In
UNIVERSITY. Chicago it has schools of law and dentistry. The University of Illinois has also located all its pro- fessional schools in Chicago, because of superior facilities, a larger field and a location convenient to its "main source of supply." The former College of Physicians and Surgeons is now its medical de- partment.
The University of Chicago is all that its name implies, its im- posing array of massive buildings on the Midway Plaisance between
UNIVERSITY Jackson and Washington parks being a concen- OF CHICAGO. trated exhibit of the city's educational ambition and actual power. It is an outgrowth of the ambition planted in the young city by such men as its great mayor. William B. Ogden, and the great senator, Stephen A. Douglas, both of whom Vol. I-10.
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were at the head of the old university during the last years of their lives. Perhaps more than any other men, they stirred the mental energies of the city and centered them on the project of founding an institution of higher learning which should go far toward justifying Chicago's claim that her people were by no means given wholly to Mammon.
The first University of Chicago closed its work in 1886, and within a few months John D. Rockefeller, the most munificent patron of the general education board, was considering the founding of its successor on a scale befitting the city. Since he came to his final determination to take up the enterprise, the university has fur- nished one of the most striking examples in educational history of the powerful combination of money and brains. In the fall of 1888 Mr. Rockefeller confided his project to Professor Harper, of Yale University, for whom he formed a great admiration, and finally entered into correspondence with Rev. F. T. Gates, secretary of the American Baptist Educational Society. In December of that year Mr. Gates brought the matter before the board of the society, which heartily approved it, and at the annual meeting held in Boston, during May, 1889, the society as a body resolved to take immediate steps for the founding of a well equipped college for the city of Chicago. Mr. Rockefeller at once subscribed $600,000 toward its endowment fund, its paymen' being provisional on the obtaining of pledges amounting to $400,000 before June 1, 1890. This was accomplished, and on that date the society held its annual meeting in Chicago, there adopting articles of incorporation for the University of Chi- cago. On the Ioth of September it was chartered under its present name, the incorporators named in the charter being John D. Rocke- feller, E. Nelson Blake, Marshall Field, Fred T. Gates, Francis E. Hinckley and Thomas W. Goodspeed. Mr. Blake had been one of the leading contributors to the old university. At the first meeting after incorporation, Professor Harper was chosen president, entering into . his duties July 1, 1891, and continuing them with a tireless assiduity and a wonderful breadth of judgment until his death, January 10, 1906. His prodigious work in the promotion of the university both in its material and educational development, brought him the admira- tion and love of Chicago and the west, and earned him a high place among the world's foremost scholars, not only in the broad sweep
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