Arnold Arboretum

Exactly 125 years ago this week, Frances Glessner noted in her journal a trip to the Arnold Arboretum in the Forest Hills section of Boston, while traveling from her summer estate in New Hampshire back to Chicago.  Of the visit on October 13, 1890, she wrote:

“Yesterday morning (Isaac) Scott called early and took Lettie and me to see the Arnold Arboretum.  We went by train to Forest Hills and walked over the Arboretum.  It was most interesting and delightful.  The roads are all beautifully laid in this suburb with a nice side walk, beautiful winding roads, great trees and green grass.”

Arnold Arboretum was established in 1872 when the executors of the estate of whaling merchant James Arnold donated a portion of his estate to Harvard College for the establishment and support of an arboretum.  Charles Sprague Sargent (1841-1927) was appointed the first director the following year and served for 54 years, creating an institution that became a model for other cities across the United States and the world.  

Sargent was responsible for the 1,000 year lease whereby Harvard retained ownership of the land, but the arboretum became part of the Boston park system known as the “Emerald Necklace,” a seven-mile-long network of parks and parkways laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted between 1878 and 1892.  The design of the arboretum itself was a result of Sargent working closely with Olmsted, who laid out the general plan of paths and roads, and the groupings of plants. 

The arboretum covers 281 acres and includes nearly 15,000 accessioned plants, as well as an herbarium collection of more than 1.3 million specimens and an important research library containing in excess of 40,000 volumes.   Two years after Frances Glessner’s visit, the administration building was designed by Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr. of the firm of Longfellow, Alden and Harlow.  Longfellow was working in the office of H. H. Richardson at the time the Glessner house was designed, and was later a guest of the Glessners in their Prairie Avenue home. 

Forest Hills is a part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, noted for its hilly terrain and wooded areas.  The area south of Walk Hill Street in particular is characterized by curving tree-lined streets laid out in irregular patterns, the result of the gradual transformation of the area from country estates to a “streetcar suburb.”  Forest Hills is surrounded by the three final “links” of the Emerald Necklace – Arnold Arboretum, Arborway, and Franklin Park.  In addition, it is home to the sprawling 275 acre Forest Hills Cemetery, considered one of the finest 19^th century rural cemeteries in the country. 

A section of Forest Hills, known as the Woodbourne Historic District, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 and features a plan laid out in part by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., who would have been attending Harvard as a classmate of George Glessner at the time Frances Glessner visited the area in 1890. 

For more information on the arboretum, visit http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/.  

The World's Columbian Exposition

Palace of Fine Arts, caryatid porch

On Wednesday November 6, 2013, the museum will present a lecture entitled “The World’s Columbian Exposition – a 120 Year Perspective.”  The speaker is Diane Dillon, director of scholarly and undergraduate programs at the Newberry Library and a frequent lecturer on Chicago’s two World’s Fairs.  A small exhibit of Fair-related objects from the museum collection will also be on display.  Tickets are $10 and reservations may be made by calling Glessner House Museum at 312.326.1480.

Marine Cafe

The World’s Columbian Exposition remains a truly legendary event in the history of Chicago and is even commemorated with a star on the official city flag.  The statistics on the Fair are almost unbelievable – nearly 200 “temporary” buildings spread across more than 600 acres of land, and more than 27 million visitors in just six months.   The fair grounds were dedicated on October 21, 1892 and officially opened to visitors on May 1, 1893.  The Fair closed very quietly on October 30, 1893 just two days after the city was shaken by the assassination of Mayor Carter Harrison Sr.  Only two buildings from the Fair survive in Chicago today – the Palace of Fine Arts (now the Museum of Science and Industry) and the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building (now the Art Institute of Chicago).  A few other structures were dismantled and rebuilt in other parts of the country.

The masterminds behind the Fair were architect Daniel Burnham and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, both of whom were close friends of the Glessners.  Due to that fact, the Glessners followed the design and construction of the fair closely and were afforded special access to the grounds both before and during the run of the fair.  Their son George also took a large number of photos, three of which are reproduced in this article.  We present a few excerpts from Frances Glessner’s journal indicating their interest and participation in Fair activities.

Inaugural Reception of the World’s Columbian Exposition - October 19, 1892:

“Wednesday I shopped and in the evening went to the grand ball at the Auditorium.  I wore a yellow brocade, the dress was made up after the fashion of a morning glory – the idea carried out all over.  There were forty one patronesses, about thirty three were there, all beautifully dressed.  We were taken to our places on one side of the auditorium.  The whole place was floored in back as far as the boxes go. . . Mr. Lathrop took me to my place.  The Vice President came in on Congressman Durborrow’s arm.  A military escort preceded him.  He was followed by members of the Cabinet, Senators, Judges of the Supreme Court, foreign diplomats – everyone in court dress, uniform, and full dress.  All presented to us.  Ex-president Hayes stood and talked a minute with me as others did.  After the presentation we were taken to our boxes where we had seats . . . I sat next to Mrs. Palmer.  We came home at half past eleven.  The ladies were each given a bouquet of red and yellow roses tied with red and yellow ribbons.”

Opening of the Fair – May 1, 1893:

“The weather was cloudy but it did not rain.  We drove out to the Exposition in the carriage.  When we went inside of the grounds we met Mr. and Mrs. Walter Peck and Mr. and Mrs. Rice.  We walked with them up to the Administration Building and a letter which Mr. Peck showed the guards took us to Mr. Higinbotham’s room and out of his window on to the grandstand where we had a full view of all of the crowd, the President, and all of the foreign officials – the Duke of Veragua, etc.  When President Cleveland opened the fair, the statue of the Republic was unveiled, the fountains played, the flags from every pinnacle and turret were unfurled, the orchestra played America.  It was a grand and touching sight.  It is estimated that there were three hundred and forty two thousand people there.”

Reception for Princess Eulalie – June 16, 1893:

“In the evening John and I went to Potter Palmer’s to a reception to the Princess Eulalie.  It was a very large reception.  The drawing room and reception room were separated by a red ribbon from the guests.  When the Prince and Princess came, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer met them at the door.  A heavy thunderstorm raged all the evening.  The Spanish party sat on a little dais in the parlor and the guests filed by in pairs and were presented.  We did not go.  After the presentation the royal party left at once.  Mrs. Palmer had set a supper for a certain number of distinguished guests but the Princess left – the party was shut off from the guests alone.  It was not a pleasant occasion.”

Japanese Ho-o-den

Private tour of the fairgrounds with Daniel Burham – June 17, 1893:

“We all went out to the Exposition to see the illumination and dine with Mr. Burnham.  We drove out then met in the service building.  Then we took Mr. Burnham’s launch.  We sailed around the lagoon – then some of the gentlemen got out but we declined – so they sailed around again.  They we drove in the wagonettes to the German village where we dined.  I sat between Mr. McKim and Frank Millet – besides these Mr. and Mrs. Peabody, Mr. and Mrs. Mead (architect), Mr. Coleman, Mr. Atwood, Kate Field, Mr. and Mrs. Burnham, Mr. and Mrs. Graham.  There were eighteen at table.  We had toasts.  After the dinner we drove again to the launch and sailed all of the evening.  It was a night to remember.  In the afternoon we all went by invitation to a glorious concert given in honor of Eulalie.  We were invited to the Thomas’ box.  Edward Lloyd sang.  The Apollo Club sang and the children’s chorus sang – the Princess came in for five minutes.  At the dinner that night Millet proposed the first toast, ‘down with royalty.’”

Assassination of Mayor Harrison - Saturday October 28, 1893:

“John and I went together to the Exposition.  We saw many things which we had not seen before.  John made an offer to John Wells for the beautiful silver tea set there.  John went to the Commercial Club dinner.  The dinner was interrupted and adjourned on account of the assassination of Carter Harrison at his home.”

Purchase of punch bowl – Monday October 30, 1893:

“I went to the Exposition with John.  We bought a beautiful punch bowl from Siam – silver and gold.”

The Fair is over – Wednesday November 1, 1893:

“We went to the Exposition.  It was exceedingly interesting to see the wonderful change that had come over everything.  It looked as though death had struck it.”

The White City - Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

On Friday September 28, 2012 at 7:00pm, the museum is proud to host a production of “The White City.”  This original musical, produced by Lost and Found Productions and playwright June Finfer, focuses on one of the most legendary events in Chicago history – the World’s Columbian Exposition.

When Chicago wins the right to host the 1893 fair, the first great fair in the United States, the architect chosen to design and build it in record time – Daniel Burnham – finds that ambition is not enough.  He needs a lot of help from even those who oppose him.  In the three-year period of construction of the mile square fairgrounds and dozens of buildings, a vast canvas of characters vie with fate, death, and love to achieve the impossible.  Original music by Elizabeth Doyle that could have been written in the Gay 90s brings color and humor to a story of “making no little plans.”  This musical explores the politics and passions behind a unique national event, in many ways the first and last of its kind.

June Finfer is an award-winning writer, and a producer of documentaries.  Her film about the architecture of Mies van der Rohe has been broadcast on A&E and PBS and won a first prize at the American Film Festival.

Pre-paid tickets are $25.00 per person and may be purchased by calling 312.326.1480.  The production will take place in the coach house of Glessner House Museum, located at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood.

John and Frances Glessner made numerous trips to the fairgrounds, which are recorded in Frances’ journal.  Daniel Burnham, the fair’s Director of Construction, was a close friend of the family, so they were given special privileges, like access to the grounds in advance of its official openings and the opportunity to visit private viewing areas. 

In a manuscript entitled “Ghosts of Yesterday,” John Glessner recalled some of the individuals who visited 1800 S. Prairie Avenue during the Fair.  We herewith present a few excerpts from that manuscript.

“Other dear and delightful friends were Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Law Olmsted.  Our families were on very intimate terms.  George and young Frederick were classmates in College (Harvard).  During the World’s Fair Mr. and Mrs. Olmsted visited us.  He was America’s first and leading landscape architect, really settled the location of the Fair and laid it out.  In many warm discussions with the architects Mr. Olmsted always kept still until everyone else had talked, and then quietly would say – ‘Why don’t you do so and so?’ and that invariably settled it.  Mrs. Olmsted was a quaint little body, wore a white lace cap built over a rather high frame and tied under her chin in a large bow knot of wide muslin strings, and was a lovely picture.”

“It was (Charles) Hutchinson, too, who first brought Sir Caspar Purden Clarke, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, possessing a great and thorough knowledge of art but never forcing his knowledge or position on one – another cultured Englishman, with all that that implies.  As he left our dining room he said to Hutchinson – ‘You ought to keep you eyes on that punch bowl.  That’s a museum piece.  You ought to have it in your Art Museum.”  (Hutchinson was the long-time president of the Art Institute of Chicago.  The Glessners purchased their silver niello punch bowl from the Siam exhibit at the close of the fair.)

“The World’s Fair brought us many pleasing experiences with men and things, both in the early days of preparation and later in the installing of exhibits and the display itself.  It brought, also, some official representatives from abroad that our authorities treated very well, better than some of them deserved.  Special attention was paid to the Spanish representative.  I think the Duke of Veragua was never in my house, but I had some small connection with his entertainment – once at a horse show on the Dunham farm at Wayne, where Arthur Caton was in charge and asked my help; and again at South Bend, where the first Clement Studebakers were entertaining the “royal” party at luncheon, where I witnessed the most marvelous exhibition of hospitality.  We went from Chicago, a train load of men.  Unfortunately the house had taken fire that morning and the roof and part of the upper storeys burned, but the Studebakers spread tarpaulins under the ceiling of the dining room and gave us a magnificent luncheon on a beautifully decorated table just as if nothing had happened or as if that was the way they always did it, while water trickled down the walls of the room and leaked through spots in the tarpaulin.  Again it was my lot to help entertain the Duke in a theater box at a play.  Perhaps my total ignorance of Spanish and his imperfect knowledge of English combined with the inanities of the play at least account partially for the lack of spontaneous hilarity that marked the evening for both of us.”

“Perhaps it was not only the Chatelain that brought these World’s Fair men to us.  There was the daughter of the house – only a child then, it is true, but good company even then.  (Fanny Glessner was 15 years old at the time of the Fair).  There was the freedom of the house, a man might come or go as he pleased, he might talk or merely listen, he might read or merely sit and contemplate; there was a willing ear to hear and a heart to sympathize in their troubles, and there were creature comforts as well – always a good Sunday supper, and as with the proverbial stage or street car, there was at table always room for one more.  This house was a haven of refuge for many, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, and these friends brought many amusing tales.  One gay young visitor came home one day from the Fair to say that going into one building she met an elderly man coming out who apparently had no one to talk with and who was oppressed by the size of the thing and the short time at his disposal, and perhaps encouraged by her winning smile broke out with, “I can’t see the damned thing in a month.” 

“And we had the World’s Fair architects – Burnham, and John Root, before his untimely death, and Charles Follen McKim, and Robert Swain Peabody, and William R. Meade, and (John Goddard) Stearns and George B. Post, and Charles Coolidge, who built the present Art Institute for religious and other conferences during the Fair, and who restrained his impatience one night until everybody else had gone that he might tell us of his love romance that had culminated in acceptance the day before in St. Louis.”

A Visit to The Rocks

In late July 2012, museum director/curator Bill Tyre and museum docent John Waters traveled to The Rocks, the Glessners’ former summer estate in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  The estate was an important part of the lives of the Glessners who would spend four to five months there each summer.  Their two children, George and Frances, in later years made The Rocks their permanent year-round home.

The Glessners selected the location due to its positive effects on George, who found immediate relief from his severe hay fever when first traveling there in 1877.  After spending several summers in a large resort hotel, they purchased the first 100 acres of land in September 1882.  Within a year their home, known simply as the “Big House” was completed based on a design by Isaac Scott.  Scott designed numerous other structures on the estate including a carriage-horse barn, a playhouse for Fanny, an observatory, gardener’s cottage, and a series of summer houses.

John Glessner continued to buy surround acreage and eventually the estate grew to incorporate about 1,500 acres of land, much of it purchased to prevent it from being deforested.  Glessner was an early conservationist and in 1903 joined the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.  The area closest to the Big House was elaborately landscaped by family friend Frederick Law Olmsted, and was later reworked by his sons, one of whom attended Harvard with George Glessner.

Architect Hermann H. von Holst, another family friend, designed several structures on the estate in the early 1900s including The Ledge (a home for George and Alice Glessner), the entrance gates, an enlarged horse barn, a combination sawmill-pigpen, and a cow barn. 

The Rocks functioned as a thriving farm.  John Glessner was especially interested in raising prize winning poultry.  His crops won numerous awards at the annual state fair.  The farm supplied the family and staff with food not only in New Hampshire, but in their Chicago home as well.  Glessner also used the estate as a testing ground for new equipment being developed by Warder Bushnell & Glessner (later International Harvester). 

In 1977, most of the estate was donated to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forest by two of the Glessner grandchildren, John Glessner Lee and Martha Batchelder.  Much of the land has been allowed to return to its natural forested state.  The site is open to the public year-round, and various trails cut through the property, including one trail that goes past the various remaining structures from the Glessner period. 

Nigel Manley has served as director of the estate for 26 years.  The operations are supported in large part by the growing of Christmas trees, and the museum acquires its live Fraser fir each year from The Rocks, continuing a tradition begun by the Glessners in the 1880s.  For more information, visit http://www.therocks.org/.

This view shows the Bee House designed by Isaac Scott for Frances Glessner in 1896.  It was elaborated carved by Scott who also added a series of quotes relating to Mrs. Glessner’s interest in beekeeping.  In the 1930s, it was remodeled into a pool house, when the Glessners’ daughter-in-law added an in-ground swimming pool.  In recent years, it has been faithfully restored to its original design.  The Big House would have originally stood just to the left of the Bee House, just up the hill.

Elaborate carved brackets and fascia in the Bee House by Isaac Scott. 

Log cabin playhouse, designed by Issac Scott for Fanny Glessner in 1886.  Today the house functions as the visitor’s center for The Rocks Estate.

Big Rock Summer House, one of several designed by Isaac Scott in the 1880s.  It is the only one still standing.

This house began as the gardener’s cottage.  After the marriage of George Glessner and Alice Hamlin in 1898, it was remodeled and enlarged for their use.  After a new house, The Ledge, was built for them, the cottage became the home of Frances and Blewett Lee.  By 1938, it became her year-round residence until her death in 1962.  It is now owned by the North Country Council.

View of the White Mountains from the area behind the cottage.  This large flat area was graded and used as a tennis court when Frances Glessner Lee’s children were young.  Note the chaise lounge to the right carved from a solid block of granite found on the grounds.

A portion of the original terraced gardens designed and installed by Olmsted and his sons. 

This beautiful combination structure housed a sawmill on the left and a pigpen on the right.  It was designed by Hermann V. von Holst in 1906.

Today, the building houses an interesting exhibit about the New Hampshire maple industry, showing equipment used to harvest maple syrup. 

Each year, the museum acquires its Fraser fir from The Rocks.  This is the Christmas tree selected to stand in the main hall of the museum for 2012.

Lecture on Richardson and the Landscape on May 17

On Tuesday May 17 at 7:00pm, the museum will host the next installment in its ongoing H. H. Richardson lecture series.  That evening, architectural historian Timothy N. Wittman will speak on “Henry Hobson Richardson in the Landscape.”  This presentation will investigate Richardson’s interest in nature and the relationships between architecture and landscape.  Seen in the context of his time, Richardson’s interest in nature is exemplary of the attention nineteenth century Americans paid to the wilderness, and the nostalgia they felt for the lost innocence of simpler, pre-industrial times.  Of particular interest is the professional relationship between Richardson and Frederick Law Olmsted, the great landscape architect that gave us Central Park and the grounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition.  Richardson and Olmsted were neighbors and collaborated on several projects, built and unbuilt.

In the new permanent exhibit on Richardson to be unveiled June 1 at the museum, author and scholar James F. O’Gorman says of the influence of landscape on Richardson’s work:

“For suburban or country houses he looked to geology for inspiration, piling glacial boulders into organic forms, or wrapping the structures in wooden shingles. His addition to the Robert Treat Paine house in Waltham, Massachusetts, looks as if it were emerging from the ground like an outcropping. His gate lodge (shown above) for the Ames estate in North Easton, Massachusetts, seems a man-made glacial moraine. For small towns around Boston he designed granite faced public libraries and railroad depots, the latter capped with sheltering hip roofs that spread out to create ground-hugging shapes.”

Timothy N. Wittman teaches on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and works as a independent historic preservation consultant.  He is currently writing the new audio tour narrative for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park.

The lecture will be held in the Beidler Room at Glessner House Museum, 1800 S. Prairie Avenue in Chicago.  The cost of the lecture is $10 per person, and $8 for museum members.  Reservations may be made by calling 312-326-1480.