Ear on Chicago; Chicago Historical Society

This is Hugh Hill speaking to you from the office of the Chicago Historical Society. We are located at North Clark Street and West North Avenue at the junction of those two streets. Chicago Historical Society is 101 years old this year. We are in the education department and we're going to talk to two of the people who are going to go on a tour in just a few moments and explain the Chicago Historical Society and its museum to some students from schools around the Chicago area. First miss Sarah Jane Wells and then we'll talk to Bob Keenan. Sarah Jane what will you be doing? I will be explaining some of the Chicago exhibits to fourth graders from a school in Glenco, the central school as a matter of fact. Do you have one of these tours each day? Oh we have more than one, sometimes we have several in one morning. And school children here are come here do they every day? Oh yes, particularly in the spring of the year we have more children in the building than in any other time, although they do come in throughout the entire year. Well Sarah Jane we'd like to

accompany you and the children. On a least part of your tour we won't have time of course to complete the entire thing, but at least we'd like to listen in as you describe some of the things here in the museum. Wonderful we'd love to have you come along with us and you might get some surprises I guess. Bob where will you be going? Well wherever Sarah Jane is in covering it'll be the Chicago Dyer Amos with eight wonderful picture facts about the growth of Chicago. Starting from the Greenville Treaty we back in 1795 and on through up to the Rose Columbia Exposition in 1893. Will your students be from Glenco? Yes they'll be the same group that Sarah Jane's taking around. So you divide them up in two then? That's right. All right well then we'd like to uh well we can't accompany you both but we'll pick you up in different spots I guess. Why? All right let's move out. Sarah Jane is now just about ready to give some instructions to the students all

let's listen. Boys and girls could we have it very quiet now for a moment while you listen to a few of the rules that we have for you to make your trip more pleasant. First of all you will be divided in your this room will be divided into two parts and half of you will go with me and half will go with uh Mr. Keenan over there and we will expect you to follow two rules in particular the first one and this is most important stay with your guide don't wander off into another gallery there lots of other children in the building. Rule two will uh be explaining things to you as we go along so try to remember not to talk while we're talking to you but we do want you to feel free to ask questions and we'll chat among ourselves as soon as we've looked at things everybody understand that? My name is very easy to remember my name is Miss Wells your other guide is Mr. Keenan now let's all get a partner and start up the stairs. We are now up on the second floor of the Chicago Historical Society.

Sarah Jane you're going to be describing these scenes that we see here they're all in what I know is 3D I suppose that's a good way to describe them. That's right they're dioramas which means that they are paintings and they're painted on curved surfaces and in front of the painting is placed a variety of objects so that it does have depth and dimension. Now boys and girls I do want to say one thing to you before we start explaining this let's follow this throughout our tour it's only fair to each other the tall children stand in back and the shorter one stand in front and all the way through if you stand back a little bit you see more and you'll give your neighbor a chance to see more. There are eight of the dioramas children and this first one didn't even take place in in Illinois it took place over in Ohio way back in 1795 and it was the first time in this battle of fallen timbers that

the Americans the United States Army gave the Indians a really resounding defeat so that settlers could move into the area and this is the Tree of Greenville standing in the center is a great American general maybe you've come across his name his name was no not to her to Washington his name was Anthony Wayne sometimes he was called Mad Anthony have you read something about him no well talking to him is a great Indian chief and I wonder if you've heard of that tribe of Indians they were over in the Ohio area they were sometimes around here too they were called the Miami Indians you know you had heard of them good and that Indian chief is a very important man his name was we're taking notes well his name was little turtle that is a kind of funny name but he was a very important man and he's signing for the Indians Wayne for the Americans the important part to remember about the Tree

of Greenville it's do we all know what a birth certificate is everybody has one well this is this treaty is sometimes called Chicago's birth certificate because in this treaty Wayne insisted that the land at the mouth of the Chicago River six miles square of land at the mouth of the Chicago River be included in this treaty eventually that was the place where something was built I wonder if we know what was built there at Lake Michigan and the Chicago River after the Louisiana purchase yes yes what is your name worked here born was built there in 1803 so we start the diorama well Sarah Jane is continuing her lecture at that diorama we'll move down to the next one and wait for her to come down I see that she's already here so let's move over and listen now these diaramas really do go in the art or in which things happened although we we sometimes skip a few years in between now can everybody see

we're looking at the interior of the Kinsey house did you hear of John Kinsey all right that's John Kinsey sitting at the work table there with his back toward us and he is uh making trinkets and jewelry out of silver which the Indians liked very much do you remember what tribe was found right here in this area when the soldiers came to build the fort uh yes mark the Illinois weren't here by the by 1803 they were gone by that time those were the Indians that father -market found here yes but by 1803 this area was filled with potawatomi Indians oh you did know that didn't you and that Indian leaning over John Kinsey's work table there is a man named black partridge did you hear of him it was a chief you see he's wearing some of the

silver jewelry that Kinsey had made oh what did what did Kinsey really do for a living what did he come here to do do you suppose yes let's see if someone else yes to teach the Indians a language no he came to he went into a business here to make money to make his living what do you see on the floor of the cabin here yes he made first for the Indians he didn't make first what did he done yes he's all well he traded for first that's right look at Mrs. Kinsey standing in the doorway and she's talking to a fur trader Frenchman and um one thing I think you should get straight in your mind's children is that this house that he's living in is actually the first house that was built in Chicago although Kinsey didn't build it it was built by a fur trader named Dousseauville he in turn sold to another fur trader

who in turn sold to Kinsey who came here after the fort was built you see through the window of Kinsey's house what is that across the Chicago River there yes fort deer born that's the first fort I wonder if anybody knows what happened to the first fort deer. Sarah Jane is just concluded talking about the Saga National tell we passed up that particular lecture and moved up to now where she's going to talk about the Civil War period in Chicago let's listen now the last diorama that we saw if you remember I said it was about 1833 this is approximately 30 years later and look at how Chicago grew in that 30 years of course you know history it's like one little tiny drop of water in a whole ocean um the reason Chicago grew so rapidly was because a dream was finally realized in 1848 did you read about the French explorers Marquette Joliet well you know what do they have to do to get from one river to another

what is that called yes they had to portage that's right and they saw way back in the 17th century that if they could only build a canal to connect the Chicago River with the desplanes river they wouldn't have to portage and there'd be a waterway all the way from the great lakes to the Mississippi River and all through the years that was a dream of men in this area finally in 1848 they built the Illinois and Michigan canal and then Chicago tapped the resources of the Mississippi valley and the water route was established something else in the way of transportation came along the next year after the canal in 1849 that helped Chicago to grow to another kind of transportation and anybody guess what that was yes the railroad the railroads the first railroad ran out of Chicago it was called the Galina and Chicago Union and that was in 1849 so you'll see how Chicago grew on

the north bank of the river over there boys and girls see that little factory it says McCormick's Reaper Factory can you see that and of course that was one of the great businesses of the Chicago wonder what that company is today is anybody have any idea what the Reaper Factory finally became international harvester did any of you ever hear of that and down in the corner here boys see that red brick building in the right hand corner don't pay any attention to those bells they're just calling people to their telephones that was the marine hospital and during the period of the civil war of course literally thousands of union soldiers were housed in that hospital and that's the rush street bridge there across the river we don't have a rush street bridge anymore but that was the first iron bridge that was built in the middle west you see how that worked how do you think that bridge worked we're going to pull away from Sarah Jane's lecture on the civil war period in Chicago for just a moment I think it's just about time that we go down and pick up

Mr. Keenan and perhaps we can come back and join Sarah Jane as she moves along in this room we have left Sarah Jane and her lectures we'll join her a little bit later now we've come up to the third floor where Bob Keenan is about prepared to discuss Lincoln's assassination and they have some very famous rooms here at the museum so let's listen boys and girls we just left the civil war we didn't discuss it at any great length because you haven't covered it yet in school but I just gave you enough highlights to wet your appetites so that when you do get to it in school you'll read the story thoroughly now here we are standing outside the Peterson bedroom now after the civil war people began to flock into Washington to celebrate they jammed up all the hotels and they filled all the boarding houses and had braids through the streets and we're just having a wonderful time celebrating they were so happy that the war was over and Mrs. Lincoln had made preparations now for her

tired husband to relax and enjoy himself made arrangements for a theater party and because it was good Friday April 14th 1865 with the people celebrating buying tickets for every available performance in any of the theaters the best she could do was to get tickets for the final performance of our American cousin which was being performed at the Ford Theater now if you saw the TV show the day Lincoln was shot you know that he didn't really want to go to the theater that night and we often wonder how American history might have been changed if he hadn't gone nevertheless he did go and you know too that a young actor very famous young actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth had been planning for months to kill Lincoln he had gotten himself a Dernjerk pistol which we'll show you later on and he had quite a few accomplices

and on the afternoon of April 14th 1865 he made arrangements preparations for this terrible thing that he was about to do he sat through the rehearsal of the play and timed it so that he knew exactly when toward the end of the play there'd be just one person on the stage then he went up to the theater box to bore a little people in the door through which he could spot the president's position in the theater box he also carved two niches in the plaster on either side of the doorway whereby he could jam a two by four board across the doorway and prevent anyone else from following him into the theater box that night at exactly the right moment he convinced the century posted outside that it was all right for him to leave and Booth said that he would see through it that no one disturbed the president and his party while the foolish guard left exactly the right moment he stepped inside the door after spotting the

president through this little people and under the applause and laughter of the people in the audience he was covered by the noise and he placed the two by four across the doorway jammed it into the grooves stepped up behind the president's chair with his little Daringer pistol 41 caliber single shot now single shot if he missed he wasn't gonna have time to reload was he he also carried a dagger for this purpose he placed his pistol right behind the president's head and fired and Booth went in behind his left ear and lodged back of his right eye when they placed Lincoln on the bed he wouldn't fit the way you and I do because he was so long remember I told you he was six feet four inches tall so they had to pull the bed away from the wall and place Lincoln on the bed kitty cornered with his feet hanging out over the edge now in there you have the original bed and the original pieces of furniture from the

Peterson boarding house all through the night they had the long sad death watch and what with having just the one little rocker in the room and members of his family members of his cabinet and a number of doctors all crowding in to the room there was no place to sit and secretary of war stand and sent two soldiers back to the theater to get some extra chairs see they didn't have the theater seats as we have them today and the six little rush seated chairs that you find in there are the original chairs from the four theater also from the Peterson boarding house are the chest of drawers and the little brass gas light between the windows now if you will take a moment or two and look in there so that you get to see everything and then we'll talk about the north parlor at Lincoln's home in springfield well we've listened to Bob for quite a while a very interesting lecture indeed I think it's about time now that we leave Bob Keenan and move back to Sarah Jane and I think she's about ready to talk about the great Chicago

fire we have now reached the fire room and Sarah Jane is here and is beginning her lecture they call this the fire room because this is the room where they present the replicas from the great Chicago fire of 1871 let's listen fire and in this case there's some very interesting material all these things are actual relics from the fire and what I like to have you remember about these things is not only did the fire the flame do tremendous damage but the heat from the fire was so intense that that did very peculiar things for instance look at that bracelet there that was in a safe and those great big white stones were purple I mean that was their natural color purple and the heat was so intense that it took the color right out of it now on the other hand right there by the boy in the check shirt there you see that plate that plate was perfectly white was made as a white plate and the heat was so intense it added color to that

instead of taking it away like it didn't embrace it then you see what happened to things that were made of glass look at that goblet all twisted out of shape and what do you suppose that is down there in the center of the case by the little girl with a polka dot address what is that it's a bunch of marbles no look how they're all mixed together yes then of course something happened to metal it when it didn't melt completely it it fused together so for instance those two pair of scissors they're stuck tight you can't get them apart did you see a big black rock out in front did you read the label on it but you didn't have time well a lot of people think that's what do you suppose they think that is a meteor yes well it isn't a meteor that's all material that was found in the basement of a hardware store that's made up of nails and tacks and nuts and bolts and all kinds of stock that would be in the hardware store and when

you look as you go out of the building look at it carefully and you'll see nails and tacks and things now somebody wanted to see Mrs. O 'Leary's cowbell let's look at the next case remember what I told you happened to metal children and this is a perfectly wonderful example of fusion down here in this corner there are 25 schools you can see that they're all spoons but they're all stuck fast together just from the heat and down at the other end you see a box of nails do you see that well the box is gone of course but the nails came out the shape of the box there's also a little box of tacks there too can you see that now to play to play perfectly fair with museum visitors if you'll notice the label on the cowbell that's all charred and blackened and it was picked up by someone around the O 'Leary house after the fire so we must say it was presumed to be from one of Mrs.

O 'Leary's cows we don't know that for an absolute fact so we try to stick to the absolute truth you boys and girls are old enough to know the difference between fact and legend aren't you well what do you suppose the fact of the start of the fire is do we know where it started where did it start and Mrs. O 'Leary's barn that's an absolute fact proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what he's suppose the legend of the story is whether maybe it was started in some other way the story of the cow kicking over the lantern was was just a wonderful story and it swept through the world people all over the world know about the great Chicago fire and Mrs. O 'Leary's cow kicking over the lantern and it's one of those stories whether true or not will never be disproved now because time has passed and so forth let's let's look at a map for a minute and then you can get an idea of the area

which we get directions straight again here here's Lake Michigan there's the Chicago river going inland for a certain distance and then you see how it branches off a north branch and a south branch which is what divides the city into three parts if you say you live on the north side that means you live north of the river south side south of the river west side divided by the branches now the the arrow here points to the Calvin street which was a muddy little street and most of the houses were made of what kind of material and here you see where the fire started and look at the direction it took it went north and it came east it jumped right over the south branch didn't it and also there was a strong wind blowing you know that helped to to blow burning things ahead of them it was the dry season yes yes you would naturally think

water would stop fire but it didn't unfortunately and of course the river banks were lined with with certain kinds of buildings for instance there were lumber mills and there were grain mills and breweries and all kinds of things that were highly combustible so here it goes over the south branch and you see north and east and then it comes to the main stem of the river zoom right across the river and there are photographs of bridges that are just twisted masses of metal really they're they just melded like butter and across to the north side of the river and then you see it had a clean sweep all the way up to what was then the northern outskirts of town that's fuller and alano this is where we are now you see it says Catholic cemetery that's where where Lincoln Park is extended to down here now yes well that certainly was another interesting lecture about the Chicago fire and as I told you we were we are in the fire room

a very famous room at the Chicago Historical Society I think perhaps it's time to leave Sarah Jane again we may be able to pick her up if we have time later in the program but I would like to go back to Bob Keenan who is about to enter the pioneer room I believe he said or was it the period room anyway let's go find out where he is we have joined Bob Keenan once again he is in the pioneer room and we're going to listen to his lecture boys and girls this is the room that was called the fire room it was the most popular room in a pioneer household because it was the warmest room and therefore most of the work was done here now remember I told you before that pioneer women worked very very hard and they also died very young because they worked so hard I'm going to give you an example for instance with this settle as they called it this rocker bench do you notice it has a removable guide rail when you had that guide rail in place it became a cradle

now for instance suppose mother had been sitting here spinning and the baby started to cry all she had to do was put up the guide rail place the baby in that half of the settle and continue rocking the baby to sleep while she spun her yarn if necessary she could also keep one foot on that rocker churn that you see over there across the floor that's a rocking butter churn this she could do at the same time imagine spinning yarn rocking the baby to sleep and making butter and at the same time she was cooking and baking and he wondered he died so young now pioneers usually had a few pieces of furniture that serve more than one purpose like this hutch table it looks like a bench it's also a storage chest and then when you flipped over the top it became converted

into a table this was another good example the rocker bench that I showed you here is another type of churn this is the little drum churn see the little churn here on the three legs and at either end of the hearth you have the more common plunger style now is anyone have any idea what this little box is this box with a carry handle state has some holes at the top what do you say it is that's a firebox but for what purpose when you leave there was no fire the fire would go out there were no matches so you would stick the hot coals in there to keep them until you came back in sort of a storage box for fire hot no not really that wasn't the exact purpose this was called a foot stove and they used it to carry back and forth to church services because the churches were unheated and this is the way they

kept their feet warm while they sat through the services you see it's it's lined with metal inside then here's another variation on that type of thing and I think we'd better carry on we certainly don't have time to do the entire story of the Chicago Historical Society we we would like to conduct a more thorough tour and perhaps we can come back we want to thank Sarah Jane Wells and Bob Keenan for allowing us to go along on the tour as they spoke to the children of Glencoe we'd like to come back to the Historical Society and do another story sometime later on this year this Chicago Historical Society as I told you at the beginning of the program is 101 years old this year now they have a number of things that I wish we could go through one of the most important and interesting displays here at the

museum is the scene of the great Indian massacre perhaps we can come back and do that story the Chicago Historical Society is open every day and it's located in Lincoln Park at the corner of Clark and North Street in Chicago and that is the story of the Chicago Historical Society and this is Hugh Hill speaking