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Carolyn Johnson, anthropologist, musicologist, and and musicologist, anthropologist, Johnson, Carolyn and temperatures withering braved stalwarts Enclosed is my new renewal membership renewal new my is Enclosed

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➤ 1 A major reason, claims Carolyn, was the influence to exhibit their talents and wares. of a young entrepreneur, Sol Bloom. Born In Pekin, Recouping the cost of the Exposition was a challenge Oral History Project Frederick Douglass Illinois, in 1870 to Polish-Jewish immigrants, he grew in even the best of circumstances, and the U. S. up in San Francisco where his family moved when he had been experiencing financial woes for more than Takes a Big Step Chronicle Available to was an infant. He became enamored of theater business a decade. Unemployment in the early 1890s was in his early teens, and when only nineteen, found his between 12 and 16 percent. How could the Columbian Forward HPHS Members way to France to see the 1889 Paris Exposition. While Exposition pay for itself? admiring the brand new Eiffel Tower, he planned his Sol Bloom, then a brash 22-year-old, saw Chicago The goal of the Society’s new oral history Barry Rapoport, next adventure, which this time would take him to as an opportunity not to be missed. He persuaded project is to produce a permanent electronic HPHS member and Chicago, the burgeoning city on Lake Michigan in his Exposition organizers to allow him to develop the history easily accessible to students, scholars, and former English teacher home state of Illinois. mile-long Midway Plaisance in a way that was bound the community at large. Over the past years the at South Shore High Chicago was selected for the Columbian Exposition to make money. While in Paris, he had cultivated Society and HydePark community have shown School, announces that enthusiasm in preserving local history through an the Chronicle he prepared oral history program. Ideally, the program would in honor of abolitionist bring documents and other materials to life by and statesman, individuals who can place them in the context of Frederick Douglass, the times in which they were written. At present, is available to HPHS the Society has 35 tapes and transcriptions of oral members and other histories recorded on audiocassette tapes, and 10-15 interested individuals. untranscribed tapes. The booklet contains Proof of community interest in oral history many photos, essays, lies in the attendance at a community seminar and reflections on the at the Blackstone Library last August: more life of this great man. than 75 history lovers overflowed the meeting It details efforts by

g han room. Recently, the Society received a generous Barry, his students, contribution of $500 from the Hyde Park Bank to and his friends to support this project. Also, at the July 20 HPHS preserve Douglass’s C. Jo hns o n f iles M a r c Mo na board meeting, members voted approval of the memory by installing a marker Ticket to Java Village Morgari image of Columbia with entourage overall Oral History Project as outlined in a document in Jackson Park immediately south of the Bowling presented by the Oral History Committee. Green on the site of the Fair’s Haitian Pavilion where, contacts with performers and Funding is needed for equipment that includes on May 15, 1893, Douglass gave a speech opening the entrepreneurs from around a digital tape recorder, a flip camcorder, and such 1893 Columbian Exposition. Send an e-mail to Barry the world who had produced a supplies as cabling and add-on electronic equipment. at: [email protected] for a digital copy of the huge variety of crowd-pleasing Also, funds would be needed for training workshops Chronicle as a gift. FSV activities. Surely this kind and the preparation of transcriptions. The start-up of entertainment could be cost for ten oral histories is estimated to be $5000. replicated in Chicago. And The Oral History Project Committee plans to seek Bloom was the one to do it. support from local businesses and individuals as well UPCOMING EVENTS He introduced visitors to the as from sources beyond the Hyde Park Community. Saturday, September 11, 2-4 pm, at Streets of Cairo, where belly FSV Headquarters. Dr. Mindy Schwartz dancers in the Little Egypt will give an illustrated talk about exhibit titillated throngs Camp Douglas and the Confederate of visitors by dancing the Monument in Oak Woods Cemetery. “hootchy-kootchy.” Young Obituaries women from Java in colorful Sunday, October 3 Annual House Tour. C. Jo hns o n f iles Details forthcoming. Java Village with old Del Prado Hotel in background silks and sculptured headdresses The Society regrets to announce the deaths of two performed sensuous dances to of its members. Yaffa Draznin passed away June 23, in 1890, besting New York City, St. Louis, the seductive music of a gamelan. Javanese and Samoan and Harold Moody passed away earlier this year. November (date TBA) Oral History Washington, D. C., and other cities for the honor of men performed drumming ceremonies. And, of course, Project program. presenting the United States to the rest of the world. towering over all was the 264-foot-high Ferris Wheel. Answer to Mystery Quiz: December (date TBA) Holiday party. Organizers decided that Jackson Park, then 600 acres A high point of Carolyn’s presentation was the of sandy swales and marshland, would be the best site playing of recordings of music from the 1893 Midway The gamelan, actually an assemblage of various Saturday, February 26, 2011 Annual for most of the Fair’s exhibits, but Midway Plaisance, recorded on Edison wax cylinders by Benjamin Ives instruments, including bells, gongs, woodwinds, dinner at the Quadrangle Club. Details the strip of land between Cottage Grove Avenue and Gilman of Harvard University, commissioned by drums, and bowed instruments. Gamelans are used in forthcoming. the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, would become the Mary Hemenway, a wealthy philanthropist. They were musical performances in Java, Bali, and other places in location for diverse ethnic groups from around to world played with the permission of the Peabody Museum the East Indies.

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Metro History Fair Program a Success Frances S. Vandervoort

Not long ago I chanced to meet a fellow alum of Kalamazoo Central High School, the school from which C. Jo hns o n f iles I graduated in 1953. Each of us had been reasonably at Harvard. The recordings were of music from Fiji, like figure dressed in a star-embossed robe, stands in good students, and had been accepted at the University Samoa, Wallis Island in the South Pacific, Java, Turkey, front a multitude of white American leaders including of Michigan on the basis of good grades and our and Indian music from Vancouver Island of British George Washington, General Ulysses S. Grant, school’s outstanding reputation. We loved our school Columbia, People listened with rapt attention to Abraham Lincoln, President Grover Cleveland, all of and appreciated the superb education it provided. Lincoln Park High School teacher Alicia Chipman with distinct drum rhythms and the gongs and bells of a whom seem to be floating in some type of heavenly We agreed, however, that we detested the required students Sofia Gomez-Doyle and Olivia Daniels gamelan, all easily discernible above the scratchiness firmament. Columbia holds high the American flag; at class in American history, taught by Miss H., a prim, the model of the famous Ferris Wheel, towered high and uncertain reproduction of this antiquated system. her feet are dark-skinned supplicants in turbans, and above the table. Not only were students’ creative Carolyn surprised many by pointing out that a feathered headdresses. Some are kneeling, one lifts his talents demonstrated, but their knowledge about the number of the exhibits were less than authentic. The hand high in obsequious tribute. Exposition itself soon became apparent in their oral Javanese dancers actually were workers from a large When the fair was disassembled in autumn, 1893, presentations. The second project, a documentary tea and coffee plantation owned by prosperous Dutch many of those responsible for the Midway’s success film, “Urban Renewal in the Hyde Park/Kenwood colonialists. About four-fifths of the inhabitants of went home. Back to Indonesia and Samoa to work Neighborhood,” was prepared by students who live in the Turkish village were Jews, persuaded by Bloom to on coffee and tea plantations, back to Turkey to work Hyde Park and attend Lincoln Park High School on come to Chicago to earn American money. in shops and teahouses, back to Germany to work Chicago’s near north side. Javanese families were forced to spend the entire in the trades. Many stayed in America, contributing Frank Valadez, Executive Director of the Chicago duration of the fair in their small thatched-roofed to the vast melting pot that has been the oft-stated, Metro History Education Center at the Newberry houses. Tragedy struck the Javanese group: a number sometimes faltering goal of this country for generations. Library, summed up the program by relating the history of them sickened, died, and were buried in unmarked The question remains, was the Midway a source y h uff s Kath o t of the Center since its inauguration in 1970. He told of graves in Oak Woods Cemetery. As October and the of education or of entertainment? Had it been

ph o how students were required to find primary sources that end of the Fair approached, cooler weather caused great education alone, would it have succeeded as it did? If Frank Valadez, Alice Chitman, Allyssa Niese, Sofia included old documents and interviews with interesting entertainment, how much was learned? HPH Gomez-Doyle, Allison Byrne, Olivia Daniels, Samantha Niese, and Jay Mulberry celebrate the Metro History Fair people. He attached much importance to students’ presenting their projects to communities involved humorless old maid (weren’t they all?) who could no with their topics. Finally, he stressed the importance of more bring history to life than she could fly. My new completing a history project rather than simply taking Antique Clock Donated friend and I harbored a common resentment that she a test. With that, my fellow alum from Kalamazoo refused to give us what we felt were well-deserved A’s, Central High School and I certainly could agree. to Society thus keeping us from the high honors list. The Hyde Park Historical Society gratefully On June 12, Society members had the opportunity acknowledges the support of Nikki and Fred Stein for Robert Dalby, resident of Merrillville, Indiana and to see winning history projects from the 2010 Chicago this program. HPH one of the newest Society members, has generously Metro History Fair, projects that might not have seen donated to the Society an antique Waterbury regulator the light of day in earlier times and certainly wouldn’t clock. The clock, constructed of dark wood, has a broad have been a part of Miss H.’s course at Kalamazoo white face, a pendulum, is wound by a key, and dates Central High School. The program began with a panel from the same period as the Society’s headquarters discussion led by former HPHS president Jay Mulberry, building. It be displayed with pride. Members of the who appropriately quoted John Dewey’s tenet that Board thank Mr. Dalby for his generous contribution. y Huff Kath FSV education should be “learning by doing.” Carolyn Johnson and Janice Spofford reflect on their Three students from Maine South High School in visits to Java Park Ridge presented their project, an eye-opening diorama of the Midway Plaisance of the 1893 discomfort among people from tropical climates. Columbian Exposition. This project, which they had Bloom was not beyond appealing to American Hyde Park Mystery Quiz spent endless hours constructing and was large enough prejudices to increase income. Ethnic differences were Which exotic musical ensemble can be found in to cover an entire table top, consisted of finely detailed exaggerated—perhaps these peoples were “less than the basement of the Hyde Park Union Church? shops and villages representing Java, Turkey, Egypt, civilized.” Certainly they were the “other.” A large Hint: It inspired French composer Maurice Germany, and other countries that had participated in lithograph, called the “Columbia Morgari,” sums Maine South High School students Allison Byrne, Ravel in composing his Mother Goose Suite. the great fair. Most structures the girls had built were Samantha Niese, and Alyssa Niese with their project, up the American attitude toward these “primitive” no more than 12-15 inches high but some, including Midway Plaisance peoples. In this work Columbia, a handsome, goddess-

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first geology center dedicated in 1914. A concrete shaft New Library has a constructed atop the bedrock provided stability for Archive Project instruments to sense and record seismic disturbances in Firm Foundation various parts of the world. Complete The chunk of dolomite in my hand was given Frances S. Vandervoort to me by Michael Natarus, project director for the By Michal Safar construction of the new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library In my hand lies 400 million years of Chicago’s now rising at the northeast corner of 57th Street and The Society is delighted to announce that its year- history. Gray-white and mottled with tiny flecks and Ellis Avenue. Mike agreed to let my husband and long project with Special Collections Research Center irregularities, one surface planed flat by a powerful me visit the construction site. He greeted us at the t is complete. The publicly available material in the oor

cutting saw, this is the stuff that underlies all of carefully monitored gate of the construction area one v collection has increased from the original 30 boxes, Chicago. To me, this small slab of Chicago’s history bright blue afternoon last October, thrust hard hats collected and organized by our original Archivist, Jean

into our hands, and led us down the ande r Block, to 179 boxes. The added material was largely metal staircase to the pit’s floor some 60 . V collected by Emeritus Archivist Steve Treffman and ft. down. There, a mixture of mud, clay, is now organized into a detailed 92 page finding tool, P ete r O and coarse bedrock was in the process of Constructing the dome which is available on-line and 100% searchable. In being leveled by workers wielding large addition, the collection of 119 boxes of materials from and small earth-moving equipment. Joe founded Morningstar, Inc., one of the world’s the Hyde Park Cooperative Society has been organized Above and around us was a high leading investment firms, where Rika has worked as with a separate finding tool, also available on line. concrete wall secured to the substrate by an investment analyst. The new library was designed Finally, the Hyde Park Kenwood Razed Buildings large, bolt-like tiebacks. by world-famous architect Helmut Jahn, designer of collection finding tool has been revised to include go L ib r a ies A great value of the Mansueto Library the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago street names and numbers. Maija Anderson, the is that instead of being located in a and other major buildings around the world, including archivist at SCRC in charge of the project has done an separate building in another part of Terminal 1 of United Airlines at O’Hare International outstanding job. She and the entire Archives staff at campus, it is directly connected to the Airport, and European Union Headquarters in SCRC should be recognized for their contributions to main building by two passageways. The Brussels. The library will house a state-of-the- the HPHS Archives. Unive r sit y of C hica Joe and Rika Mansueto Library larger passage is a “bridge” between the art conservation and preservation center, a special Those interested in exploring the archives will find two buildings; the second passage is collections service area, the grand reading room, and a wealth of fascinating material related to Hyde Park. is more interesting than the soaked and stained a mechanical space. The glass dome above the grand the capacity for 3.5 million volumes of print material. Follow the links below to access the finding tools. emergences of Morgan Shoal in Lake Michigan a few reading room rises 35 feet above ground level, and Library director Judith Nadler noted that the library hundred feet east of 47th Street. It is more interesting consists of a vast grillwork of steel and aluminum will be able to provide space for 22 years of new print Main Collection: than the coarse stuff freed from the Stony Island klint1 tubing inset with high-tech glass panels that both materials. http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu/uncap_rs3.php?eadid=ICU. between 89th and 93rd Streets on Chicago’s far south admit light and protect the interior from direct rays of The Historical Society is certain to benefit from its SPCL.HPHS side. It has as much significance for Hyde Park as the the sun. Beneath the dome are six separate levels, the relationship with the Library, where its archive will be vast quantities of rock dug from the Thornton Quarry lowest of which touches bedrock—the face of Chicago’s accessible to all. HPH Hyde Park Cooperative Society: along the Tri-State Tollway south of Chicago and 400-million-year-old history. http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu/uncap_rs3.php?eadid=ICU. ground up to make expressways. The Mansuetos both graduated from the University SPCL.HPHSCOOP This bedrock is dolomite, a variety of limestone of Chicago. Joe earned a B.A. in 1978 and an differing from pure limestone—calcium carbonate— M.B.A in 1980. Rika received a bachelor’s degree Write for Hyde Park Kenwood Razed Buildings: in the high proportion of magnesium it contains. in anthropology from the College in 1991. In 1984 Hyde Park http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu/uncap_rs3.php?eadid= Both limestone and dolomite are sedimentary rocks, History ICU.SPCL.HPKRAZED precipitated from seawater of ancient oceans. A simple hand lens reveals the remains of organisms We are looking for articles about historical events Special Collections Research Center, which houses the Hyde that resided in these ancient seas—ancestral corals, that have touched our community. Anyone knowing Park Historical Society Archives, is open to the public. worms, mollusks, and other simple forms of life. local stories, events, or people reflecting the special Information about accessing the collections is available at: According to Sam Guard, local architectural historian, character of Hyde Park are encouraged to share with http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/ the first downtown building to rest on bedrock was the membership. If you’re having trouble finding ideas, the Sullivan-designed Carson Pirie Scott building, check the Society’s website: www.hydeparkhistory.org. constructed in 1899. Today dolomite secures the Old articles are listed—try a new take on them! This foundations of almost all Chicago’s downtown t newsletter benefits from participation from as broad a oor skyscrapers. In Hyde Park, it supports the 100-ton, v spectrum of the membership as possible. 72-bell carillon of Rockefeller Chapel, and forms the Articles may be submitted by email to Frances S. ande r

base of the tower of Rosenwald Hall, the University’s . V Vandervoort, Editor, [email protected], or

1 to Frances S. Vandervoort, 5471 South Ellis Avenue, A klint is an emerged fossilized coral or other biosedimentary rock Chicago, Ill 60615. Call with questions: (773) 752- structure that is resistant to erosion. Many of them are excavated and P ete r O processed for materials used to construct buildings and highways. In the pit 8374.

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