Richard Nickel and Glessner House

Nickel captured his reflection in this image of a second floor bathroom mirror

April 13, 2022, marks the 50^th anniversary of the tragic death of Richard Nickel in the partially demolished Chicago Stock Exchange building at 30 North LaSalle Street, where he was attempting to salvage ornament from the Adler & Sullivan masterpiece. Nickel’s impact on the emerging preservation movement in Chicago was enormous, including his efforts to save Glessner House in the 1960s. A talented photographer, he documented the work of Louis Sullivan and other architects, his outstanding photographs serving as an irreplaceable record of Chicago’s architectural heritage that was disappearing at an alarming rate during 1950s and 1960s urban renewal.

This article will focus on Nickel’s close connection with Glessner House from the time it was threatened with demolition in 1965 until his death in 1972. Selected photographs of the house, from a rich archive of images by Nickel documenting the earliest years of the preservation and restoration of the house, are scattered throughout the article. We will conclude with a look at Nickel’s death, and the tribute service held in the courtyard of Glessner House two months after his passing.

Wheeler house (1812), Keith house (1808), and Glessner house (1800 S. Prairie Avenue), 1967

EARLY YEARS

Nickel was born in Chicago on May 31, 1928, to first-generation Polish Americans. After serving in the U.S. Army, 11^th Airborne Division, during its occupation of Japan following World War II, he returned to Chicago to study photography at the Institute of Design, which soon became part of the Illinois Institute of Technology. He was recalled to the Army at the start of the Korean War, serving an additional year before resuming his studies at the Institute.

It was during this time that he enrolled in an architectural history course taught by the eminent landscape architect Alfred Caldwell, who instilled in him an abiding interest in architecture. Nickel began photographing the buildings of Louis Sullivan as part of a school project assigned by photographer Aaron Siskind, and it turned into an obsession.

Quickly discovering that many of the buildings were threatened by demolition, Nickel devoted himself to photographing and documenting them. He received his bachelor’s degree from I.I.T. in 1954 and, three years later, his Master of Science in photography with his thesis topic being “A Photographic Documentation of the Architecture of Adler & Sullivan.”

West roof and hayloft dormer

In 1960, Nickel learned that one of Adler & Sullivan’s most important buildings was to be razed – the Schiller Theater Building (later the Garrick) at 64 W. Randolph Street. He joined the picket line in front of the building alongside architects Wilbert Hasbrouck, John Vinci, and Ben Weese, and Alderman Leon Despres, an early champion of preservation and landmarking in Chicago. When it became clear that the building could not be saved, Nickel engaged Vinci and David Norris to assist him with a massive effort to salvage ornament, literally rescuing the plaster and terra cotta fragments as the building was being demolished around them.

GLESSNER HOUSE

The bonds formed during that effort proved valuable a few years later, when the Glessner house was put up for sale in early 1965. This time, the undertaking proved successful, and a resolution creating the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation was signed on April 16, 1966, by Nickel and 18 others. He was appointed a trustee and a member of the executive committee. By December, the new organization had acquired Glessner house for $35,000.

Glessner house for sale

Nickel co-curated the Foundation’s first exhibition, “The Chicago School of Architecture,” which opened in the fall of 1967 at the Chicago Public Library (now the Cultural Center). The next year, he curated the exhibit “The What and Why of Louis Sullivan’s Architecture,” held at Glessner House. In 1970, Nickel co-curated another exhibition at the Chicago Public Library – a photographic exhibit of great Chicago School buildings.

Throughout this period, Nickel used his skills as a photographer to create a valuable record of the Glessner house and Foundation happenings, starting with the condition of the building at the time of its acquisition and continuing through early restoration projects. He also photographed an original copy of John J. Glessner’s 1923 “The Story of a House,” which he then reproduced for the Foundation. (An updated version, incorporating many of Nickel’s copied photographs, remains for sale in the store).

Coach house

In late 1967, Nickel advocated for the recognition of Beatrice Spachner and her heroic efforts in leading the restoration of Adler & Sullivan’s magnificent Auditorium Theater, led by architect Harry Weese, another Glessner house founder. The Foundation sponsored a reception for Spachner, following the reopening of the theater in October, and presented her with a suitable award.

Nickel, along with Jim Schultz and Charles Simmons, came to the house every week to supervise the cleanup effort. A dumpster was placed in the blacktopped courtyard, and equipment left behind by the printing foundation was hauled out until the dumpster was filled, at which point it was removed and another set in its place. The process of emptying the house of objects and equipment unrelated to its original residential use took almost two years to complete.

Sign removal, December 1966

The Foundation was interested in collecting fragments of significant Chicago School buildings, and Nickel shared pieces from the salvage operations he had undertaken for more than a decade. He also helped coordinate the donation of items from existing Sullivan buildings including elevator grills from the Stock Exchange building removed during modernization, and iron balusters from the Carson Pirie Scott store. (A few terra cotta and cast iron fragments, from Sullivan’s Rosenfeld building (demolished 1958), and the Martin Barbe house (demolished 1963), remain at Glessner House, and are on permanent display in the Visitors Center).

STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING AND DEATH

In 1970, Nickel learned that another of Adler & Sullivan’s most important buildings – the Chicago Stock Exchange – was threatened with demolition. Although he had grown weary of these battles, he couldn’t remove himself from the issue, and actively campaigned for the building’s survival in what became a major preservation fight in Chicago. The effort led to the formation of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois (now Landmarks Illinois), originally headquartered at Glessner House.

Granite arch over female servants' entrance

By October 1971, scaffolding started going up around the building and Nickel found himself immersed in the salvage effort, this time led by architect John Vinci. The work included the complete removal of the original trading room at the behest of the Art Institute, which planned to restore and reconstruct it. That work concluded on January 31, 1972, but Nickel kept going back to the building to photograph the demolition and to remove additional ornament.

In early March, Nickel became engaged to Carol Sutter, with a promise that the Stock Exchange would be the last building for which he would undertake a salvage operation. On Thursday, April 13, he headed to the building to meet up with Tim Samuelson, who was to assist him in removing a piece of the building. Samuelson showed up but couldn’t locate Nickel. He alerted John Vinci and others, and they searched the building with flashlights until midnight. When they found a huge new hole in the middle of the trading room floor, they feared the worst.

Balusters, main staircase

Nickel’s parents reported him missing on Saturday, the same day Nickel’s car was found several blocks away, and a hard hat, tools, and a rope of his were found at the demolition site by Vinci. Police dogs found his briefcase that Monday. The search for his body was called off on Tuesday, and demolition work was allowed to resume. It was not until Tuesday, May 9, almost four weeks after he had disappeared, that his body was found by a Three Oaks Wrecking Co. worker; it took two hours to retrieve the body from the rubble.

On May 12, a funeral mass was held at Mary Seat of Wisdom Roman Catholic Church in Park Ridge, and he was laid to rest in Graceland Cemetery in a plot not far from that of Louis Sullivan. John Vinci and his architectural partner Lawrence Kenny designed the headstone.

On the first day of summer, Wednesday, June 21, 1972, at 8:00pm, “A Tribute to Richard Nickel” was held in the courtyard of Glessner House, attended by nearly 200 people. Speakers included Frederick Sommer, a former teacher of photography at the Institute of Design and a long-time friend of Nickel, and mentor Alfred Caldwell, by this time a professor of architecture at UCLA. Easley Blackwood, composer and Professor of Music at the University of Chicago, was introduced by John Vinci and performed one of Nickel’s favorite Beethoven sonatas, on a piano brought into the courtyard for the occasion. Nickel greatly admired Blackwood, although they had never met. Architect Ben Weese, a co-founder of the Chicago Architecture Foundation and Glessner House with Nickel, served as master of ceremonies.

A favorite quote of Nickel's from the Tribute program

The Richard Nickel Committee was formed to preserve Nickel’s photographic archive, it now resides at the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archive at the Art Institute of Chicago. Nickel’s dream to produce the definitive book on the architecture of Louis Sullivan and Adler & Sullivan was realized in 2010 with the publication of The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan.

Glessner House will host “A Tribute to Richard Nickel” on June 21, 2022 – the 50^th anniversary of the original event. Look for details on the website in early May.

Female servants' entrance

Minna Schmidt and Costumology - An American Success Story

Tucked in amongst the shelves in the Glessner library is a book entitled 400 Outstanding Women of the World and Costumology of Their Time, written and published by Minna M. Schmidt in 1933. The book was prepared to accompany an exhibition of 400 figurines of important women from nearly four dozen countries, which were crafted by Schmidt and displayed at the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. In honor of Women’s History Month, we share this rags-to-riches story of a German immigrant who came to Chicago in 1886 and turned her passion and talent for costuming into a million-dollar business.

Schmidt through the years - 1886, 1893, 1920, 1924, 1930, and 1933

German origins
Wilhelmine Friederike Moscherosch (always known as Minna) was born on March 17, 1866, in the town of Sindelfingen, located in southern Germany near Stuttgart. She was the eldest of 17 children and from a young age helped her mother care for her younger siblings and their modest home. This left little free time for Minna, but at the age of five she became interested in costuming, carrying on a tradition established by generations of her ancestors who had been involved in the making of clothes.

An October 23, 1927 article in the Chicago Tribune recounted her oft-told story of making her first costumes:
“It was in this little hamlet in Germany that a kindergarten teacher told her pupils the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Minna hurried home and made a miniature Snow White. Then she went to her mother, begging for Seven Dwarfs. But her mother reminded her that there was plenty of work to be done, younger brothers and sisters to care for, and that nobody but a foolish dreamer would cry for seven little dwarfs.

“The child’s grandmother saw the tears. Then the old woman got seven small potatoes; they were for the bodies. Some sticks made good legs. You couldn’t beat a nicely carved chestnut for a head, and a bit of gray wool made excellent hair and beard. Minna went back to kindergarten with her Snow White and her Seven Dwarfs and gave the first of her long series of costume pageants.”

Formal schooling ended at the age of 14 when she “ventured out into the high school of life” travelling to Stuttgart and Frankfort to take jobs as nursemaid and governess. During her little bit of free time, she took advantage of being in large cities, visiting libraries, art museums, stage productions, and carnivals. She enrolled in sewing classes, so that she could earn extra money by taking in seamstress work, and also took classes in dance and physical training to hone additional skills.

At the age of 20, she decided to emigrate to the United States, after reading an ad in a local paper which read “Wanted: a healthy young girl who can teach two boys the German language, wait on an invalid lady (85 years old), do the sewing for the family; Wages, $3.00 a week.” She had carefully saved enough money to provide her own passage in steerage, and her grandmother gave her a $5.00 gold piece, noting it was an investment in her future. The beloved grandmother shared words of wisdom Minna never forgot, “Your square hands are beautiful, because they can make things, and you can accomplish whatever you wish if your head and heart are right and hands are willing.” She also reminded Minna that “You have a right to be happy, but you must earn it.”

Early Years in Chicago

In December 1886, Minna arrived at Castle Garden (the immigrant processing facility in New York City prior to the opening of Ellis Island in 1892), and immediately continued on to Chicago to begin her work with the family that had placed the ad. She studied English, took in sewing work, and did everything she could to advance herself. The next year, her childhood sweetheart, Julius Schmidt, came to Chicago and they were married in October. Two sons, Edwin and Helmut, were born over the next several years.

The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in 1893, was a place of wonder for Minna and it “stimulated the girl from Sindelfingen to want to fashion curious, fantastic, beautiful things.” She was captivated by the exhibits, especially those in the Women’s Building, and it renewed her interest in costume and design. The financial depression that started that year impacted her husband’s business, and Minna found herself needing to return to work. She opened the Locust Studio in Chicago’s German community on the north side, where she taught dance, translated German folk tales, and coordinated productions for schools and clubs. Costume rental was expensive, so she utilized her sewing skills to start making the costumes herself in a small attic shop measuring just eight by ten feet in a building at Wells Street and North Avenue. Soon, the demand was so great that she turned over management of the Studio to others, so that she could focus solely on costume making, which expanded from school plays to society costume balls. She rented increasingly larger spaces and in 1905 bought her first building. 

Business Expands

In 1915, with business continuing to grow, Schmidt purchased a lot at 920 N. Clark Street (at the northwest corner of Clark and Locust streets), immediately west of Washington Square Park and just south of the Newberry Library. She hired German-born architect Paul Gerhardt to design a two-story brick and terra cotta building in the Classical style to serve as both business and home. (Gerhardt had just finished his work on Cook County Hospital and would go on to design a number of prominent Chicago high schools, including Lane Tech). She specifically chose a corner lot as it provided ample street frontage, her shop windows filled with seasonal costumes to lure potential customers inside.

“I erected the first building in the country appropriate for, and wholly devoted to, the costume business, with plenty of space, disinfecting cases, the latest time-saving motor machines, and with one hundred fifty feet of parking space on a side street for customers with automobiles.”

An August 1937 article in the Chicago Tribune, entitled “A House of Magic for a World of Make-Believe” captures the experience of stepping inside:
“From the outside it looks like an ordinary two-story building. From the inside it looks like a mixture of a doll’s palace, King Tut’s tomb, a bandana factory, and the ladies’ dressing room in the Savoy Royal hotel of Baghdad during carnival week. Such is a visitor’s first impression of Schmidt’s costume and wig shop. This extraordinary place is at once factory, apartment house, experimental laboratory, museum, warehouse, display room, dressmaker’s shop, and retail store. It was the first building in the United States built especially for a costume business.

“Just inside the entrance are showcases full of magnificent costumes of Indians, costumes of Chinese princesses, suits of armor, gayly colored masks, and wigs. And there is one big case full of the most exquisitely dressed figurines you ever saw, representing famous women of the world during 3,000 years of changing modes of dress. In the rear are large storerooms with shelves rising twenty feet high containing boxes of costumes fit to clothe anybody from Hannibal’s mess sergeant to a green-eyed goblin out of the Red Fairy Book. Nearby is an ironing room, and beside that the factory sewing room, where six power-driven sewing machines daily hum over new getups for women who want to look like Marie Antoinette or for little boys who want to play alligator.”

By the time the new store opened in 1915, her family was fully immersed in the business, providing Schmidt with more time for researching costumes to ensure their accuracy. She embarked on numerous trips to Europe, Egypt, and the Middle East to view museum collections and acquire historic costumes. Husband Julius became bookkeeper, secretary, and administrator; son Edwin specialized in Shakespearean plays; and Helmut, a talented sculptor, headed the art and rental departments. Long-time employee Emily Lundgren, who later married Schmidt’s nephew, was in charge of wigs and headgear.

The 1920s were an extraordinarily successful period for Schmidt. She had 20 employees working for what was now a million-dollar business, renting more than 60,000 costumes per year. A 1953 Tribune article noted that “For decades, Minna’s merchandise was the life of every costume ball . . . She still can tell you what each big Chicago name wore to what costume ball 40 years ago.” She organized the Costumer’s Association of Chicago in 1921. Four years later she purchased an 18-room mansion at 2715 N. Sheridan Road in Evanston for $90,000 (the equivalent of $1.5 million today), although she noted that she really preferred to spend time in the little apartment on Clark Street over her costume shop. 

Law Degree
Schmidt had a long-standing interest in law, extending back to her days in Germany. In 1920, at the age of 54, she enrolled in the Chicago-Kent College of Law, after taking a required 18 months of classes in high school work, to compensate for her German education ending at the age of 14. She devoted five nights a week plus Sundays for four years and graduated with her Bachelor of Law degree in April 1924, noting her motivation:

“I merely took the course in law to improve my mind and make me fit for the many things I plan to do in the future. When I use my knowledge of law it will be in doing simple helpful things for the good of humanity.”

In 1929, she received her Master of Law degree from Kent. Her thesis, “Ancient Laws and Customs and the Evolution of the Status of Women,” carried forward her long-standing interest in women’s history and came at the end of the decade that saw significant advances for women, including the passage of the 19^th Amendment guaranteeing all women the right to vote.

Teaching
Schmidt’s extensive study and travels provided her with a vast knowledge of the history of costume, complimented by her substantial library, regarded as one of the largest to ever be compiled on the subject. Utilizing these assets, she opened the Chicago Schmidt College of Scientific Costuming in April 1927 in her Clark Street building. Schmidt gave lectures on period costume, and other members of the family and staff provided instruction on hair styles, headdress, and makeup. During the course of study, each student would be required to construct a historically accurate costume for one of the 16-inch figurines.

Display created for Schmidt's lecture on jewels

Her work in professionalizing the field was recognized by the University of Chicago in 1929 as noted in 400 Outstanding Women:
“The practical lore of costume construction and makeup for the theater has been dignified at the University of Chicago by inclusion in the regular curriculum. The first university laboratory and workshop in the country, for the study and creation of historic and stage costumes, opened October 1, 1929. Its purpose in part is the training of university students for professional costuming work.”

Every period of costumes was covered in the curriculum starting with Egyptian, Assyrian, Grecian, and Roman,continuing through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and then finishing with the twentieth century. Laboratory work including the designing, cutting, construction, and fitting of life-size costumes. Elaborate pageants were planned and executed to train on how to stage an event and work within a budget, with every pageant designed to “bring out the woman’s side of the story and make it visual, colorful, splendid.” A museum containing more than 1,000 costumes, 400 wigs, and many accessories, along with Schmidt’s considerable library, were fully available to students for study.

She also taught at Northwestern University for several years, and it was in December 1936 that she was honored for her 50 years of service as a costumer, which  coincided with the 50^th anniversary of her arrival in Chicago from Germany. During the tribute held at Thorne Hall on the McKinlock campus, attended by several hundred people, University president Walter Dill Scott praised her as “scholar, artist, lawyer, historian and costumologist.” 

Figurines
Schmidt’s interest in the history of costume led to her desire to create historically correct figurines of women throughout history, honoring those women and showing the development of costume over thousands of years. The figurines, made by her son Helmut, a talented sculptor, were one-quarter the size of an average woman. He would initially model the figurine out of clay from which a plaster mold was made; wax was poured into the mold to create the final figurine. Hair was added while the wax was still warm, and then the face was sculpted and finished with oil paints. Each costume was extensively researched and crafted by Schmidt, “authentic down to the tiniest ruffle of the bustle.” In a 1956 interview, she stressed the serious, scholarly purpose of the figurines and insisted, “Do not call them dolls – dolls are meant to be played with.” The first series of figurines, 3000 Years of Fashion, consisted of 120 historical figures beginning with Eve, who Schmidt referred to as “a somewhat careless dressmaker, using leaves for garments and thorns for pins,” and ending with a 1920s “flapper.”

For her second series, Schmidt wished to honor significant women in her adopted home of Chicago. She asked the staff of the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum) to select the women, but a problem arose when it was discovered that there was a lack of portraits and information on many of them. Working with the Society staff, descendants were located to provide biographies, photographs or paintings, and even clothing or swatches of fabrics the women wore. The Figurines of Historic Chicago Women series, consisting of 72 figures, was officially presented to the Society on March 23, 1924. 

The third series honored important women in Illinois history and consisted of 129 figures, donated to the Illinois State Historical Library in 1929 (and later transferred to the Illinois State Museum). The image below shows three figurines from that collection (left to right): philanthropist and socialite Harriet Sanger Pullman (a Prairie Avenue neighbor of the Glessners), First Lady Julia Dent Grant, and Elizabeth Byerly Bragdon, an Evanston-based patron of music and the arts.

400 Outstanding Women
Schmidt’s largest figurine project was planned for the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933. When asked a few years earlier about whether she was planning to exhibit any of her figurines at the Fair, she replied:

“I have one great ambition for the 1933 Fair . . . It is something I have longed to do for years. I want to visit or get into communication with all the nations of the world and find out from each one the names of the four or five women who have done the most for their country. I want all the information I can get about these women, and then I shall make figurines to represent them. When I have finished the figurines and dressed them appropriately, I shall exhibit them at the Fair. I want them to be so realistic that they will attract the interest of everyone. They will show what women have done for the race, from the dawn of civilization to our modern times, and they will, I believe, create and foster a friendly feeling among the people of the various nations.”

She followed through on her plan, consulting with Embassies in Washington, D.C. and Consulates in Chicago to assemble a collection of 400 figurines representing more than 40 nations with a concentration from Europe, North and South America, and Australia, with a smaller representation from Asia and Africa. The figurines were displayed in the second-floor rotunda of the General Exhibits Building. Schmidt wrote and published the accompanying book, which included short biographies of all 400 women, several of her lectures, and a detailed history of her own career in costuming.

In the introduction to the book, Schmidt noted:
“It was recommended that the characters be selected from different stations of life, that no living person was to be included, and that they should be judged and chosen for their merit and for the influence for good on their community or country. In the group of miniature women is combined beauty, patriotism, good fellowship, and other qualities as they are reflected in art, religion, commerce, education and science of the world’s history. The records of these chosen ones prove the following assertion. During the past century the status of women in law, politics, economics, and in education, as well as in social life, has made greater strides than in the preceding five thousand years.”

A selection from the "400 Outstanding Women" recently sold at auction

A total of 32 women were selected to represent the United States. Of these, 27 were selected by Helen Dawes, the Official Hostess and Chairman of the Social Committee for the Century of Progress (and wife of the Fair president, Rufus Dawes). The other five, who were all women of color, were selected by Elizabeth Lindsay Davis, an important African-American teacher and activist of the time who was responsible for forming the Phyllis Wheatley Home Association in Chicago to provide housing and services for African-American women excluded from the YWCA.

Among the American women included in the exhibition and book were Pocahantas, Sakakawea, Priscilla Alden, Mary Ball Washington (mother of George), Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Mary Cassatt, and Nancy Elliot Edison (mother of Thomas). Chicagoans represented included Myra Bradwell (the first woman admitted to the Illinois Bar Association), Frances Willard (president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union), Bertha Honoré Palmer (President of the Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition), Sarah Hackett Stevenson (first female member of the American Medical Association), and Alice Freeman Palmer (first dean of women at the University of Chicago). 

Figurines representing Ireland, Norway, Cuba, Bulgaria, and African-Americans

African-Americans included Phyllis Wheatley (first African-American author of a published book of poetry – in 1773), Sojourner Truth (abolitionist and women’s rights activist), Margaret Murray Washington (wife of Booker T. Washington and the principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute), Amanda Smith (evangelist and the first woman to preach in India), and Ariel Serena Hedges Bowen (Professor of Music at Clark University in Atlanta).

After the Fair closed in 1934, the 400 figurines were donated to Trinity College in Washington, D.C. (now Trinity Washington University), the nation’s first Catholic liberal arts college for women, founded in 1897.

Later Years
Over the years, Schmidt educated seventeen of her relatives – brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews – bringing many of them to the United States. Always mindful of her German heritage, she supported several charities back home and funded construction of Wilhelminenheim, a hospital for women and children in Sindelfingen (shown below).

Ill health necessitated her retirement in the early 1940s. Shortly after the death of Julius, her husband of 63 years, in 1950, she donated her Evanston home to Northwestern University and moved into the Holy Family convent at 1444 W. Division Street. The Minna Schmidt Figurine Room contained hundreds of her figurines which, after a priest inquired as to why they were all women, grew to include prominent men ranging from Eric the Red and George Washington, to Richard Wagner and Charles Lindbergh. One of her final series included all of the First Ladies through Mamie Eisenhower.

In the last few years of her life, she resided at St. Mary’s Hospital, where she died on December 8, 1961, at the age of 95. She was interred beside her husband in Wunder’s Cemetery.

Minna Schmidt’s story is one of inspiration – a young immigrant arriving in a new country, barely speaking English, with only $5.00 in her pocket, but a powerful ambition. She utilized her skills to establish herself as a leading businesswoman in Chicago, an authority on costuming in the United States, and the leader in establishing costume design as a subject taught at leading universities.

NOTES
The 400 Outstanding Women book in the Glessner library did not belong to the Glessners. Frances Glessner died in 1932, and there is no evidence that the 90-year-old John Glessner attended the Fair. It is likely that the book was purchased by Frances Glessner Lee, who would have been interested in how the figurines were created and dressed, given her previous work creating the miniature symphony orchestra, and her later work on the famous Nutshell Studies.

The building that housed Schmidt’s Costume Shop at 920 N. Clark Street was demolished in the late 1980s and replaced by a townhouse development; that block of Locust Street has been renamed Delaware Place. Her Sheridan Road home in Evanston, donated to Northwestern University, was also demolished and replaced by a new home in 1980. 

The figurines of the 400 outstanding women were deaccessioned from the collection of Trinity College and individual figurines and groupings occasionally come up for sale. The collection of figurines depicting prominent Illinois women remains intact in the Illinois State Museum.

 

Black History Month Spotlight: Charles H. Smiley, Chicago's society caterer

During the last two decades of the 19^th century, Charles H. Smiley secured a position as one of Chicago’s most prosperous and successful African-American businessmen. Born into humble beginnings, he built a business which served Chicago’s wealthiest families, earning him their patronage and deep respect. In this article, we will explore his origins, how he built his business, and his commitment to providing business and educational opportunities for members of Chicago’s growing African-American community.

Origins

Charles H. Smiley was born on October 5, 1850, in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada to freedom seekers who had escaped the bonds of slavery in Virginia. St. Catharines, located immediately west of Niagara Falls on the south shore of Lake Ontario, was the final terminus on the Niagara Freedom Trail of the Underground Railroad for hundreds of former slaves from the 1820s through the American Civil War.

In 1850, the year of Smiley’s birth, the United States passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which permitted escaped slaves living in the northern states to be apprehended and returned to their owners. This led to a huge exodus of freedom seekers into various parts of Canada. By the mid-1850s, the population of St. Catharines had grown to 6,000 of which more than 800 were of African descendent.

Harriet Tubman, one of the most important Underground Railroad conductors and abolitionists, made St. Catharines her home throughout the 1850s, making numerous trips back into the United States at significant personal risk, to help additional freedom seekers make the final leg of their journey into Canada. The center of abolitionist activity for Tubman and others was the Bethel Chapel, associated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1855, a larger chapel was built which stands today as Salem Chapel. Two plaques on its exterior denote its designation as a national historic site, and for its connection with Harriet Tubman, designated a national historic person.

Young Charles would have been keenly aware of the arrival of the freedom seekers, following in the steps his parents had taken years earlier. It is quite likely that his family attended services at the chapel, as Smiley’s funeral decades later in Chicago took place at an African Methodist Episcopal Church. 

Philadelphia

Few educational opportunities were available to Charles and at an early age he engaged in hard manual labor for minimal pay. He turned 15 just months after the end of the Civil War, and his family, hoping to find better opportunities back in the United States, settled in Philadelphia. Smiley took whatever jobs he could find, ranging from driver to janitor, and in his extra time served as a waiter at dinners and parties. Many years later, his friend Booker T. Washington said of him, “he had a resolute character, good powers of observation, ambition, and brains.” With those traits in hand, Smiley quickly saw the potential in the catering business.

In 1899, the civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois wrote:

“To the more pushing and energetic Negroes only two courses were open: to enter into commercial life in some small way, or to develop certain lines of home service into a more independent and lucrative employment. In this latter way was the most striking advance made; the whole catering business, arising from an evolution shrewdly, persistently and tastefully directed, transformed the Negro cook and waiter into the public caterer and restaurateur, and raised a crowd of underpaid menials to become a set of self-reliant, original business men, who amassed fortunes for themselves and won general respect for their people.” 

John S. Trower, Philadelphia’s most successful African-American caterer and a life-long friend of Smiley, echoed this sentiment during an address at the National Negro Business League, held at Chicago in 1901:

“Catering was all ours. We were America’s acknowledged cooks, butlers, waiters, and caterers. But a few years ago, white men were unknown in many of these kinds of work. Colored men once controlled this work in Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Chicago and the great Northern cities. As a result of this control, the wealthiest colored citizens were caterers.” 

The 1880 census, taken just as Smiley turned 30 years of age, shows him engaged in the catering business, with a wife and two sons – John Hockley age 6 and William S. age 4. The next year, he left Philadelphia and moved to Chicago, where he felt the rapidly growing city and burgeoning wealthy class provided even more opportunities for an energetic and ambitious businessman to make his fortune.

Chicago

By 1881, Prairie Avenue had established itself as Chicago’s most exclusive residential street with dozens of mansions standing in the six blocks between 16^th and 22^nd streets. Smiley set up his new catering business nearby, first on Indiana Avenue and then on 22^nd Street (now Cermak Road) near Michigan Avenue, less than two blocks west of Prairie Avenue. Within a few years he moved to larger facilities literally at the back door of a Prairie Avenue mansion.

Like most businessmen, he had his ups and downs in his early years. At the time of his death, his longtime friend, Judge Jesse A. Baldwin, wrote:

“I knew him for many years and he was one of the squarest men I ever knew. A good many years ago, while I was practicing law, he came to me and told me that he was tied up financially and that he would have to come to some understanding with his creditors. He gave me a list of his creditors, with the amount he owed each one, and he gave me an account of his assets. He asked me to make the transfer. He came in a few days later, after I had seen his creditors, feeling downcast.

“Charlie, your creditors feel sorry for you and I can settle with them for 50 cents on the dollar. With tears rolling down his face he said: ‘I couldn’t do that, Mr. Jesse. My mother borns me poor, but she borns me honest. Pay them every cent. I don’t care if there ain’t any left.’ I never had a client yet who was more insistent on being honest.”

In 1907, Booker T. Washington published The Negro in Business, discussing the advances many African-Americans had made in the business world since the end of the Civil War. His good friend Charles Smiley is the only Chicagoan included in the book, represented by a portrait, a picture of his handsome business block, and a brief summary of his business life. From this we learn why Smiley found such success in his new city:

“Mr. Smiley’s success seems to have been due, in great part, to the enterprise he displayed in meeting every new want that manifested itself in connection with his business. As caterer for a wedding, he did not merely provide the wedding cake but was ready, if required, to furnish appropriate floral decorations, canopies, calcium lights, pillows, ribbons and kneeling altars, - even ushers. He advertised that he was willing to deliver invitations, to guard wedding presents with male and female detectives, in fact to take entire charge of the social function at which his services were required.” 

By expanding his business, Smiley was also providing more opportunities to help others in his community as noted by Washington who went on to say:

“Mr. Smiley is said to give employment to more colored men than any other man of his race in the West. He uses sixteen horses for his delivery wagons.”

He became a citizen of the United States in 1886, the newspapers noting that he was the first African-American to be naturalized in Chicago.

His impeccable reputation and reliability earned him the business of many of Chicago’s leading families. Journalists, reporting on the elaborate parties he catered, soon realized that adding “Smiley served” to their newspaper column was as important as listing the guests in attendance.

The Glessners

John and Frances Glessner utilized Smiley’s services for many years, as noted in his 1911 obituary:

“Smiley served the family of J. J. Glessner, 1800 Prairie avenue, more than three decades. He used to tell the story of one of his first affairs, when he was located at Indiana avenue and Twenty-fourth street. The entertainment took place on a stormy winter night. The caterer was forced to hire a hansom to take his small outfit to the Glessner residence. The outfit was so meager that it contained only one coffee boiler. Years after, at one of his correspondingly big entertainments, he chartered a special train to carry his help and his supplies to the scene of a great wedding.”

The first time Smiley is mentioned in Frances Glessner’s journal is in January 1888, less than two months after the family had moved into their new Prairie Avenue home. They hosted an evening musicale to which 35 guests had been invited.

“After the music we had supper served in the hall and dining room – hot oysters, salad, coffee, sandwiches, cake and ice cream. Charles Smiley served the supper. We have had the very pleasantest things said about the evening.” 

In November 1891, a period in which Frances Glessner went through several cooks in quick succession, she noted “I had Annie Smiley come in to cook our dinner,” a reference to Smiley’s wife and partner in the business.

Most significantly, the journal entry for the wedding of the Glessners’ daughter Frances to Blewett Lee at the house in February 1898, notes that the cook Mattie Williamson baked the wedding cakes, but they “were taken away to be iced by Smiley.”

Prominence grows

In 1893, Smiley constructed an elegant three-story stone front building to house his growing business, along with a large dining room and ballroom that could be rented out. The building stood at 76 22^nd St. (later 220 E. 22^nd Street), immediately west of the mansion of Northern Trust founder and president Byron Laflin Smith at 2140 S. Prairie Avenue. The new building also served as his residence, and his unique position within Chicago’s society is noted by the fact that the census shows he and his family to be the only African-Americans living in the area.

The Smith house at 2140 S. Prairie Avenue. The silhouette of Smiley's building can be seen at far left.

That same year, Smiley would have been celebrated as an outstanding example of local “Negro progress” during “Colored American Day” at the World’s Columbian Exposition which featured addresses by Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass. African-Americans traveled from across the country for the event and they marveled at the “few Negroes that had managed to attain some prominence and wealth, and the handful that possessed well established businesses catering to a white clientele.”

Provident Hospital

In 1891, Provident Hospital was organized as the first African-American owned and operated hospital in the United States. The hospital was open to everyone, regardless of race, and patients were only asked to pay what they could afford. Smiley was among the group of successful Chicago businessmen, both black and white, that supported the effort from its inception. The hospital achieved prominence in 1893, when its surgeon, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, performed the first successful heart surgery. He operated on a stabbing victim, using a new type of suture to sew up the heart, which resulted in a complete recovery for the patient. It was the first private hospital in Illinois to provide internship opportunities for black physicians, the first to establish a school of nursing to train black women, and the first black hospital to be approved by the American College of Surgeons for full graduate training in surgery.

In 1895, the Chicago newspapers announced that Charles and Anna Smiley were to host a charity ball at their facility to benefit the hospital, which had quickly outgrown its original building at 29^th and Dearborn streets.  Over 300 guests attended, many from Chicago but a good number from other parts of the country as well. Plans had already been drawn up for a larger three-story stone and brick building at 36^th and Dearborn streets, and the ball was to aid in the fundraising efforts for that project.

The new Provident Hospital

The newspaper accounts of the ball, held on July 3, read like any other society event, except for the headline which noted “Ball in Behalf of Charity – Colored People Dance for Benefit of Provident Hospital.” Smiley’s new building was “lavishly decorated with ferns, palms and smilax” and music was provided by Johnny Hand’s Orchestra for dancing and by Tomaso’s mandolin orchestra during supper. Anna Smiley “wore a handsome gown of black grenadine with white point lace trimmings” and carried lavender sweet peas, and her married daughter wore “a delicate pink silk gown, with Dresden ribbon and wide lace bertha.” Supper, served at elaborately decorated tables in the first floor dining room, was followed by dancing on all three floors “until the small, wee hours of the glorious Fourth had set in.”

Later years

Smiley became active in the National Negro Business League, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900, and financed by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The goal of the organization was “to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro” and was “composed of Negro men and women who have achieved success along business lines.” Smiley was a leader in the Chicago chapter and attended the annual conventions, held in various cities across the country.

He retired from active business in 1906, at which time Francis Angela established the catering firm of Angela & Co. in Smiley’s building, although Smiley still held considerable stock in the new corporation. He moved into a rented house across the street at 229 E. 22^nd Street, directly behind the stately home at 2200 S. Prairie Avenue built for Dr. Edwin M. Hale, a leading homeopathic physician in Chicago.

Dr. Hale's house at 2200 S. Prairie Avenue. Smiley's house at 229 E. 22nd Street is shown at far right, with the steeply pitched front-facing gable.

Family

In spite of considerable business success, Smiley’s personal life encountered difficulties in the first decade of the 1900s. He and his wife Anna divorced in 1903, and a few years later he found himself estranged from his two sons, although his son’s ex-wife is listed as living with Smiley in the 1910 census, along with her new husband, a most unusual living arrangement!

Anna later married A. T. Ponder and opened her own catering operation at 2111 S. Indiana Avenue. Son John Hockley Smiley was a well-known reporter and, in 1910, became the first paid staffer hired by John S. Abbott for the Chicago Defender, serving as managing editor until his death in 1915.

Death

Charles Smiley died on March 25, 1911, at the age of 60 in his 22^nd Street home. Headlines included “Caterer to Society is Dead,” “C. H. Smiley, Who Served Chicago’s Best Families, Succumbs,” and “Society Grieves for Smiley.”

A lengthy article in the Chicago Tribune, published on March 28, noted in part:

“The home of a negro . . . was the vortex into which all day yesterday Chicagoans of prominence poured a flood of condolences. The occupant of that residence was Charles H. Smiley. He is dead now, and society, in telegrams, letters, and personal calls, is paying tribute to his memory. Smiley was society’s favorite caterer.

“Tomorrow Smiley will be given a funeral such as will delight the old negro’s spirit if he can see it. There will be flowers there from the city’s ‘oldest families” and its ‘best people.’ Many a social climber would give his ears to attain the social recognition that Caterer Smiley will achieve at his obsequies. The service will take place at the African Methodist church and the interment will be at Oakwoods cemetery.

“He had courtesy, dignity, and efficiency. And with all this he had that indefinable ‘air’ which gives to the good negro servant a distinction that is the joy of the man who knows and appreciates superlative living.

“He had the reputation of being one of the best caterers in the United States. He served at most of the big functions in Chicago society for many years. He directed the entertainment of presidents and princes. He was personally acquainted with almost all the large Chicago entertainers. For nearly thirty years he stood at the top of the list of Chicago caterers.

“A few of the people who hired Smiley for years are John J. Herrick, Byron L. Smith, J. J. Glessner, Judge Jesse A. Baldwin, Dr. Robert H. Babcock, Harry M. Higinbotham, Mrs. Charles W. Brega, Carter H. Harrison, Mrs. A. B. Dick, Mrs. Nelson Morris, Mrs. Edson Keith, Edward Morris, Mrs. P. D. Armour, F. W. Peck, Paul Morton, and many others.”

Smiley's neighborhood as it appeared in 1911. The red star marks the location of his business at 220 E. 22nd St. The blue star marks the house at 229 E. 22nd St. where he died. 

University of Chicago

Smiley’s will was published in the Chicago Defender the next month, the newspaper noting it was the first time the entire will of any Chicago citizen was ever published in a “race paper.” His estate was estimated at $11,000 (the equivalent of $325,000 today). 

Notable is the fact that the two sons are not mentioned, and that a sizable portion of the estate was given to Smiley’s ex-daughter-in-law. The most significant bequest was to the University of Chicago with the following stipulation:

“I direct that my said Executor and Trustee shall pay to the University of Chicago, the sum of Three Thousand Dollars ($3,000), as and for Endowment, creating a scholarship, to be known as the “Charles H. Smiley Scholarship,” which shall be administered by the Board of Trustees of said University, as they may from time to time decide wise, hereby expressing the preference that the proceeds of such scholarship shall be used for the benefit of poor but promising students, preferably of the colored race, though not at all intending this as any limitation upon their right to use the same as they see fit. I am making this bequest because of my limited opportunity to acquire an education, and my desire to aid others in acquiring an education.”

The bequest was received in June 1912. To close this article, we quote from an article published by the University in 1919:

“About $150 a year has been awarded to poor but promising students of the colored race as often as such students have made application. And thus, this humble black man has made his life a fountain of perennial blessing to his race and to the world.”