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.”

Burley & Tyrrell, Chicago's Forgotten Retailer

Among the decorative objects in the Glessner House collection is a large majolica vase with a label on the base reading BURLEY & CO., CHICAGO, identifying the store from which the Glessners acquired their item. This discovery started a journey to learn more about the business and resulted in uncovering a story of one of the most prominent retailers in 19^th century Chicago, and one of its most prominent families. In this article, we will share the story of Arthur G. Burley, his business, his family, and their interactions with the Glessners.

Arthur G. Burley

The founder of the company was Arthur G. Burley, born in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1812. When he was 22 years old, he headed west in search of his fortune, arriving in the town of Chicago in May 1835, where he initially clerked in the boot, shoe, and clothing store of John Holbrook. Two years later, he accepted a position with the book and stationery store of his stepbrother, Stephen Gale. (Gale would go on to make a fortune in Chicago real estate, and his grandson, William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson, would serve three terms as mayor between 1915 and 1931).

Burley received his big break in 1838 when he purchased a large quantity of crockery from the State Bank of Illinois in a bankruptcy sale. In April of that year, he established A. G. Burley & Co. and opened his retail and wholesale business on Lake Street, then the primary business thoroughfare. Noted at the time of his death as “a man of invincible energy, rugged honesty, and sharp foresight,” Burley grew his business as quickly as his rapidly growing adopted city.

In 1849, he married Welthyan Loomis Harmon, the youngest daughter of Dr. Elijah Harmon, and the union brought together two pioneer Chicago families. Elijah Harmon is credited with performing the first surgical operation in Chicago (at Ft. Dearborn), and in 1833 purchased 138 acres of land from the U.S. government for $1.25 per acre. That parcel of land included the future site of Glessner House and the entire neighborhood around it, stretching from 16^th Street on the north to 22^nd Street (Cermak Road) on the south, and running west from the lake to State Street.

John Tyrrell

In 1850, Burley’s half-sister, Caroline, married John Tyrrell in New Hampshire. Two years later, the couple moved to Chicago and Tyrrell became a partner in the growing business, which was renamed Burley & Tyrrell. Both men became prominent in civic affairs, Tyrrell being one of the founders of the Chicago Historical Society, and Burley serving as president of the Union Defense Committee during the Civil War.

In 1868, Tyrrell purchased a large lot on South Prairie Avenue and engaged architect Otis L. Wheelock to design a substantial two-story frame house in the Italianate style. (He sold the house at 1720 S. Prairie in 1878 and relocated to Evanston). Burley settled into a comfortable rowhouse nearby at 1620 S. Indiana Avenue where he would live for the remainder of his life.

Site of Glessner House shown at bottom center.
Red arrow: Burley house at 1620 S. Indiana Avenue
Blue arrow: Tyrrell house at 1720 S. Prairie Avenue

The meteoric growth of the city fueled the business which continued to expand its business into larger quarters on Lake Street. In 1870, C. W. Baldwin invented and installed the first hydraulic elevator in a Chicago building for the firm. Just one year later, in October 1871, the building was completely destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.

Post-Fire growth

Within a few weeks of the fire, Burley & Tyrrell had set up offices in a three-story stone front building at the northeast corner of State and Sixteenth streets. Demand for their goods was greater than ever, and they coordinated huge shipments of crockery and other items from New York to help supply the 100,000 people who had been burned out in the fire.

In April 1872, just six months after the fire, the business moved into the recently finished Averill building (shown above), located at 274-278 Wabash Avenue, on the northeast corner of Van Buren Street. State Street quickly emerged as Chicago’s preeminent business street after the fire, and by 1875 Burley & Tyrrell had moved yet again, this time occupying a five story building on the east side of State Street between Washington and Randolph streets, immediately north of Field, Leiter & Co. (later Marshall Field & Co.).

Majolica is listed in this advertisement from 1875

White House china

In the spring of 1879, President Hayes and his wife placed an order for a new state dinner service. The china was designed by Theodore R. Davis, an artist for Harper’s Weekly, who had suggested to the First Lady that the new service should depict American fish, game, fruits, and plants. Davis spent six months generating the watercolor studies which were then turned over to Haviland & Co. in Limoges, Frances for production.

The total service, made to serve a nine-course dinner, comprised 592 pieces in 130 assorted designs including game, fish, and fowl for the pieces on which they would be served and consumed. Butter dishes were designed as miniature lily pads, oyster plates featured seaweed, and coffee and teacups featured free flowing foliage as handles. Many of the pieces were in unconventional shapes – platters with upturned corners, dessert plates shaped liked apples, and others with asymmetrical borders. Perhaps the most unusual pieces were the ice cream plates decorated with snowshoes.

The service, delivered to the White House on July 2, 1880, was extensively covered in art journals, and attracted great attention. Manufactured at a considerable loss for Haviland, the decision was made to produce a limited number of modified sets of plates which would be offered in only the finest department and jewelry stores in the United States.

Burley & Tyrrell was selected as the exclusive dealer for the White House china in Chicago, beating out Fields and others for the honor. An advertisement appeared in the Chicago newspapers on December 15 noting that the china had arrived and was available for inspection. The next day, Frances Glessner noted in her journal, “To Burley & Tyrrell to see White House china.”

Continued growth

By 1882, with business continuing to grow, the wholesale division was moved to a large building on Lake Street, so that the State Street location could be used in its entirety for the retail store.

An article in the Chicago Tribune from that year regarding the annual Interstate Industrial Exposition (held in an enormous building on the current site of the Art Institute), noted:

“Burley & Tyrrell have the only exhibit of all that is artistic and elegant in French, English, and American china, glassware, bronzes, etc. – particularly noticeable is the exquisite Sevres china set of fifteen pieces, in a fine case, valued at $350.”

Left to right: Central Music Hall, Chicago Business College, Burley & Tyrrell (dark facade), and Marshall Field & Co. (From "Picturesque Chicago," 1882).

The article continues with a summary of a visit to the State Street retail store:

“To give even a brief description of the goods seen would take too much space, so attention is called to a few only. The ground floor is stocked with a miscellaneous class of goods, including dinner, breakfast, and tea sets, and glassware, also everything suitable for household furnishing. The second floor has been arranged in suitable style, to show to advantage the many pieces of art displayed, chief among which were noticed many antique designs in bronzes, and a large line of brass goods, including mirrors, umbrella-stands, candelabras, hall-trees, etc. . . Hammered copper lamps in various styles; clocks set in Delft plaques with small musical box attached; Persian lamps in various styles and colors . . .”

The year 1882 also saw the huge company split into two. The retail and hotel portions of the business were purchased by Burley’s nephew, Frank, and incorporated as Burley & Co., while the lucrative wholesale business continued under the old name. In 1888, Burley & Co. moved into larger quarters immediately to the north (shown below), adjacent to Central Music Hall.

(The two buildings immediately north of Marshall Field & Co. were razed in 1901 after Field acquired the entire block. In the top image below, Fields is the large building occupying the right half of the block; the two buildings occupied by Burley can be seen to its left; Central Music Hall is barely visible at far left. In the lower image, the north half of the present Macy’s building has replaced these three structures, the prominent columned entrance situated exactly where the Burley store had stood.)

By the early 1890s, Burley & Co. had moved again, this time to the east side of State Street south of Madison Street (the building was later razed for construction of the Schlesinger & Mayer/Carson Pirie Scott store). Burley carried extensive offerings of silver, glassware, and crystal, as well as china from the leading makers in Europe including Minton, Haviland, Copeland-Spode, Villeroy & Boch, and Doulton. It even stocked Mettlach steins and established its own porcelain factory in Germany. In 1897, it became the exclusive Chicago dealer for Royal Copenhagen, and a number of platters and serving bowls acquired by Frances Glessner in the 1890s may well have come from the store.

Burley also purchased huge quantities of blank china and specialized in china decorating and custom orders for both private households and hotels.

Glessner connections

Frances Glessner’s visit to see the White House china in 1880 is the earliest mention of Burley in her journal, but there are a number of entries which follow in later years. An interesting entry from October 1883 helped to explain the condition of a china fruit dish in the collection which had clearly been repaired at some point:

“While we were at lunch, the china fruit dish presented me by Miss Grail was jarred off the upper shelf of the sideboard and fell to the floor breaking off both handles. It has since been sent to Burley & Tyrrell’s for repairs.”

Another journal entry, from July 1885, notes that Frances Glessner had her purse stolen outside the store.

It is not known when the Glessners purchased their majolica vase from Burley & Co., but as it does not appear in historic photographs taken soon after they moved to Prairie Avenue in December 1887, it was most likely purchased in the 1890s.

The wheel-thrown, exaggerated baluster form majolica vase measures fourteen inches in height and is nearly ten inches across at its widest point. The polychrome decoration in green, puce, and blue on a yellow ground is dominated by three large, stylized flowers, each of unique design. The evidence of the hand of the maker with its irregular surface and crudely painted decoration, exemplified the tenets of the Arts and Crafts movement, and no doubt appealed to Frances Glessner’s sensibilities. In later photos of the house, taken in 1923, it is displayed atop the Isaac Scott bookcase in the second floor hall, which is where it can be found today.

There are numerous journal entries throughout the 1890s that mention Clarence Burley calling on the Glessners or being invited for Sunday supper. Clarence was a nephew of Arthur Burley and as a prominent attorney, would have come to know John Glessner in business circles. (Clarence’s father, Augustus, younger brother of Arthur, served as the first superintendent of Lincoln Park, and as comptroller for the City of Chicago).

The Glessner family continued to patronize Burley for many years to come. In 1913, Burley issued a small volume entitled The Story of a Hundred Operas which was given out gratis to its best customers; the Glessners’ copy still resides on a shelf in the library.

Later History

In April 1897, Arthur Burley’s wife Welthyan died after 48 years of marriage; the loss was devastating, and his health quickly declined. Burley’s prominence in Chicago, both as one of its longest residents, and as the founder of “the oldest business house in Chicago” at the time, is noted by the number of articles about his final days which appeared in the Chicago papers. On August 26, the Chicago Tribune noted that Burley was ill; the next day two articles in different editions noting he was “very low” and “failing.” His death on August 27 in his Indiana Avenue home at the age of eighty-four received considerable coverage, including an editorial praising his sterling character. Details of the funeral were reported on August 31, noting his internment in Graceland Cemetery.

John Tyrrell assumed the presidency of the firm following Burley’s passing, and served for six years, before his own death in 1903 at the age of eighty-three at his home in Kenilworth. Frank Burley died unexpectedly in 1906 at the age of fifty-six.

Courtesy of the University Guild, Northwestern University

Shortly before Frank Burley’s passing, he designed a unique piece for the store, which has become a much sought after collectible. Known as the “Chicago pitcher,” it depicts a series of scenes chronicling the history of Chicago from the arrival of Father Marquette in 1673 through the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Other events depicted include the Chicago Fire and the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the latter represented with a depiction of the monument George Pullman had erected adjacent to his home, immediately east of Glessner house. The pitcher was modeled by Copeland, Stoke-upon-Trent, England and retailed for $5.00 (the equivalent of $150.00 today).

With Arthur Burley, John Tyrrell, and Frank Burley all deceased, the decision was made to merge the two companies back into one under the name Burley & Tyrrell Co. The retail store remained at 118-120 Wabash Avenue (later renumbered as 7 N. Wabash), into which Burley & Co. had moved in 1900. For the first time in its history, the company was led by a non-family member, William O. Coleman, who served as president until his own death in November 1918, after which Clarence Burley assumed the role.

In the spring of 1919, Clarence Burley negotiated an agreement with Albert Pick & Company to purchase the company, which was estimated to add about $1,000,000 worth of merchandise and goodwill to Pick. By this time Pick, founded in the 1850s, was the world’s largest outfitter of hotels, restaurants, and other institutions. (Its enormous warehouse at Racine Avenue and 35^th Street in recent years has been successfully adapted into a new use as the Bridgeport Art Center.).

Conclusion

The sale was finalized in 1923, and for the first time in the history of the city of Chicago, the Burley company was no more. For the 85 years of its existence, it was, without a doubt, one of the most prominent retailers in Chicago, also having a significant impact far beyond through its wholesale and hotel divisions. Today, the name is frequently found on pieces in the secondary market and even in urban archaeology sites, such as pieces unearthed in recent years at the Charnley-Persky House on Astor Street.

The majolica vase is a tangible reminder of the long patronage of Burley & Tyrrell and Burley & Co. by the Glessners. No doubt other pieces in the house today were purchased there that have either lost their labels or which bear marks awaiting discovery.