Hegeler Carus Mansion

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Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

East side of the Hegeler Carus Mansion at sunrise.
Photo by Joe Balynas, courtesy of the Hegeler Carus Foundation.

Hegeler Carus Mansion

1307 Seventh Street

La Salle, IL 61301

Website:  Hegeler Carus Foundation

The Treasure:   A 19th century architectural gem by architect William W. Boyington, the Hegeler Carus Mansion additionally offers a rare opportunity to see a well-preserved and authentic High Victorian interior.

Accessibility:  The Hegeler Carus Mansion is open year-round, with tours offered Wednesday through Sunday at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m.

Background:  Virtually unaltered since its completion more than a century ago, the Hegeler Carus Mansion is at once a family home, an example of high artistic achievement in architecture and interior design, and the site of historic accomplishments in industry, philosophy, publishing, and religion. Visitors today experience the grandeur of a bygone era and the heritage of a fascinating family whose history is woven tightly with that of the Illinois Valley and the United States. Operating on the ground floor of the Mansion for many decades, the Open Court Publishing Company—a scholarly press under the leadership of Dr. Paul Carus—published cutting-edge material promoting interfaith dialogue and philosophical discussion for an international audience.

Historic photo of the Hegeler Carus Mansion.
Photo courtesy of the Hegeler Carus Foundation.

Architect William W. Boyington designed the Hegeler Carus Mansion in 1874. It is recognized as an authoritative architectural statement of the Second Empire style, as indicated by the steeply sloped, or mansard roof; dormer windows; molded cornices; decorative brackets; and the tower crowned by a 30-foot cupola. Known for his neo-Gothic style, Boyington arrived in Chicago in 1853 and immediately began designing a wide variety of structures, including homes, opera houses, hotels, and churches in that growing metropolis. Because they survived the Chicago Fire of 1871, the Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station are the most famous of his Chicago structures.

The Hegeler Carus Mansion is also one of the most intact examples of interior designer August Fiedler’s work. It is rare to have an intact interior in buildings as old as the Mansion. Typically, a building would be built and then decorated. As times and tastes changed, residents would paint over or entirely replace the original décor. Therefore, the work of the interior designer—in terms of colors and decoration—would last only as long as the first decorative scheme. There are few places where home owners have not only recognized the intrinsic quality and value of a home’s original décor, but also possessed the foresight to preserve it for the enjoyment of future generations, as was done with the Hegeler Carus Mansion. The result is a rare glimpse into the original conception of a unity of architecture with interior decoration, created as an ensemble.

The Save America's Treasures grant provided the
opportunity to restore the Mansion's Reception Room to
its former magnificence after suffering water damage,
nearly destroying the west ceiling and flooring.
The west ceiling was plastered and then repainted using
stencils of the intact east ceiling as well as the interior
designer's original drawings.  A local flooring specialist
replaced the west portion of the parquet floor.
Photo by Amanda Whitlock, courtesy of the
Hegeler Carus Foundation. 

In addition, it is exceptionally rare to have the original design renderings of the interiors, including not only ceiling and floor designs but furniture and carpets as well. The interiors of the Mansion do indeed still match the drawings.

A recipient of National Historic Landmark status and on the National Register of Historic Places, the Hegeler Carus Mansion remains a testament to the talent, vision, and skill of both W.W. Boyington and August Fiedler.

Notes from the Editor:  A huge thank you to Heather B.P. Wallace, Executive Secretary at the Hegeler Carus Foundation, for preparing the above background section! The material that she sent me matched the style of Tour America’s History so closely that I simply had to drop it in. That doesn’t happen very often, and it’s truly appreciated!

Other Recommended Sites:  Here’s a useful link to the museums, parks, and historic sites of LaSalle County, Illinois. Naturally, the Hegeler Carus Mansion is at the top of the list, but there’s plenty else to visit in the county, too. There’s the Reddick Mansion, a 22-room Italianate mansion built in 1858; a canal boat tour; the Weber House and Garden; and much more.

Historic photo of the Hegeler Carus Mansion with children playing in the yard.
Photo courtesy of the Hegeler Carus Foundation.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s destination:  Chicago Urban League Records

© 2013 Lee Price

Cahokia Mounds

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

Aerial view of Monks Mound, the largest of the huge earthen mounds
at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.
Photo courtesy of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

30 Ramey Street

Collinsville, IL

Please note that Cahokia Mounds is not in the city of Cahokia.  It is located in Collinsville.

Website:  Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

The Treasure:  By studying the enormous earth mounds and their associated artifacts, archaeologists are slowly unraveling the story of a great pre-Columbian urban complex that existed in the heartland of the North American continent.

Accessibility:  During the peak summer season, Cahokia Mounds is open daily from 9 to 5. Check the website for winter hours (generally closed Monday and Tuesday).

Archaeological dig at Cahokia Mounds.
Photo courtesy of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

Background:  Places like Cahokia Mounds remind us how little we comprehend about pre-Columbian America. Thanks to the patient work of archaeologists, we know that a great urban center existed at Cahokia one thousand years ago, serving a powerful and complex culture. But how many lay people have incorporated an image of the teeming urban life of Cahokia into our stock mental images of Native American life in North America? I know I struggle to do this.

To begin to grasp the achievement of the Native Americans who built Cahokia Mounds, first climb the 156 steps of Monks Mound to survey the vast flat floodplain of the nearby Mississippi River. It’s a view that could either suggest awesome political power or a spirituality of the land, but which impulse served as the primary original impetus for building these vast mounds of earth remains stubbornly unknown. Nearly one thousand years ago (the heyday of Cahokia was 1050 to about 1300 A.D.), some bold and powerful catalyst (a leader? an event? an idea?) must have sparked here. But without a written record, or even a clearly passed-down oral tradition, the nature of Cahokia’s origin remains mysterious.

Magnificent murals in the Cahokia Interpretive Center can help visitors imagine how this urban center might have looked centuries ago. The entrance mural by artist L.K. Townsend provides a breathtaking look at the central area, circa 1100 A.D., as seen from a top-of-a-mound perspective. The imposing Monks Mound is in the distance with the Grand Plaza in the foreground. Hundreds of thatched houses form the periphery, with an large stockade fence enclosing the city proper.

Cahokia Interpretive Center's entrance mural by L. K. Townsend.
Image courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

To help with orientation, here’s an overhead map/image of the Cahokia Mounds settlement, prepared by Bill Iseminger and Mark Esarey with artwork by Greg Harlin:

Overhead view of the Cahokia Mounds settlement by Bill Iseminger.
Image courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

And now we move in for a closer look at community life at Cahokia, via the art of Michael Hampshire:

Mural by Michael Hampshire of community life at Cahokia Mounds.
Image courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

And a Cahokia market scene, also by Michael Hampshire:

Mural by Michael Hampshire of a Cahokia market scene.
Image courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

For a large and thriving culture, this was life in the American Midwest, 400 years before Columbus.

Other Recommended Sites:  Just ten miles northwest of Cahokia Mounds, the Lewis and Clark State Historic Site marks the official starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. There’s a visitor center with six galleries of exhibitions. In the other direction, ten miles southwest of Cahokia Mounds, the Cahokia Courthouse dates back to 1740 and is the oldest surviving courthouse in Illinois.

Pottery exhibit at the Cahokia Interpretive Center.
Photo courtesy of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s destination:  Hegeler Carus Mansion

© 2013 Lee Price

Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

Acknowledgement of the Save America's Treasures grant  to conserve
the American Botanical Heritage Collection.
Photo courtesy of Chicago Botanic Garden.

Chicago Botanic Garden, Lenhardt Library

1000 Lake Cook Road

Glencoe, IL

Website:  Chicago Botanic Garden

and

The Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden

The Treasure:  The Lenhardt Library preserves approximately 3,000 rare books and journals from the 15th to the 19th centuries.

Accessibility:  The Chicago Botanic Garden is open every day of the year from 8 a.m. to sunset. The Lenhardt Library of the Chicago Botanic Garden is open Monday through Friday from 10 to 4 (Tuesdays to 6:30) and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4. Special library exhibitions frequently highlight works from the Rare Book Collection. The Stories from the Rare Book Room page on the website offers in-depth information on a number of treasures from the collection.

After treatment:
A Rafinesque volume
in a clam shell box.

Background:  In 2007, the Chicago Botanic Garden received a Save America’s Treasures grant to conserve rare and at-risk volumes acquired by the Lenhardt Library from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 2002. In total, 211 volumes were conserved, including 42 manuscripts, 99 rare books, and 62 journals.

Following are two examples of the type of material that was conserved as part of the Lenhardt Library’s American Botanical Heritage Collection project:

Specimens of plant material collected during 2 years of travel in Europe, Africa and the Near East, 1850-1852, 1855, a manuscript assembled by Maria Kittredge Whitney Degen:

While on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East, beginning October 1850, Mrs. Maria Kittredge Whitney Degen spent three years collecting plant material and mounting the samples in her journal. Mrs. Degen and her husband traveled through France, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Russia, and Prague, collecting specimens all along the way. Then they proceeded to Egypt and the Holy Land, where Mrs. Degen collected plants mentioned in the Bible. Their grand tour concluded with collecting excursions in Greece, Malta, Spain, Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Plant specimens from all these locales were grouped together under period engravings depicting the local sights.

Before treatment:  Specimens of plant material, 1850-1852, 1855,
a manuscript assembled by Maria Kittredge Whitney Degen.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Before treatment:  Specimens of plant material, 1850-1852, 1855,
showing detached boards.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Conservators of the Degen manuscript de-acidified the text paper, reattached the specimens, strengthened the sewing structure, re-attached the original covers and clasps, pasted the original spine back down, and replaced its original wrappers.

Books by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz:

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (1783-1840), commonly known as Rafinesque, was a prolific 19th century botanist who published an astounding 6,700 binomial names of plants during his lifetime. While the volume of his work is large, it has frustrated professional botanists for nearly two centuries as his classifications tend to be rather unorthodox. An entirely self-educated scientist, Rafinesque stubbornly did things his own way, alienating many of his contemporaries. But his work has survived and continues to provide important descriptions of the varied flora of 19th century North America. The Lenhardt Library received several rare books by Rafinesque from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 2002.

Before treatment:  Rafinesque's Alsographia Americana (1838).
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Before treatment:  Rafinesque's Autikon botanikon (1815-1840).
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

After treatment and rehousing:  Rafinesque's Autikon botanikon on the
left and Rafinesque's Autikon botanikon on the right.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Conservators treated Rafinesque’s Autikon botanikon (1815-1840) with botanical illustrations of 2,500 North American plants, his Alsographia Americana (1838) with descriptions of American trees and shrubs, and his New flora and botany of North America (1836). The texts of these books were washed and de-acidified, the bindings were re-sewn, the wrappers were mended with Japanese paper, and they were rehoused in clamshell boxes.

Other Recommended Sites:  Now that you’ve seen the library, spend some time in the Chicago Botanic Garden that it serves. One of the treasures of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre living plant museum featuring 25 distinct display gardens and four natural areas.

Leaves of Rafinesque volumes in a bath during the washing process.
Photo courtesy the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Monday’s destination:  Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site

© 2013 Lee Price

Frederick C. Robie House

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

Exterior of the Frederick C. Robie House.  Photographer: Tim Long.
Photo courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.

Frederick C. Robie House

5757 South Woodlawn Avenue

Chicago, IL

Website:  Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust

and

Visit Wright’s Robie House

The Treasure:  Considered by many to be the culmination of his Prairie style phase, the Frederick C. Robie House is a key architectural masterpiece in the Frank Lloyd Wright canon.

Accessibility:  The Frederick C. Robie House is open Thursday through Monday, with a variety of tour options available.

Background:  There’s spiritual power in a fully-realized Frank Lloyd Wright building. Time after time, Wright found ways to take his observations of nature, his knowledge of his clients’ needs, his own aesthetic ideals, and his endless urge to push the envelope on the latest engineering science—and emerge with spiritual statements eloquently expressed through form, space, and light.

Frank Lloyd Wright in 1926.
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

When 41-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright accepted the commission to design a house for Frederick C. Robie and his wife in 1908, he had already spent nearly a decade developing and implementing the radically new ideas behind his Prairie style. Although Wright’s ever-restless mind was ready to move in new directions, Robie House provided an opportunity to showcase the Prairie style on a grand scale.

The exterior and the interior of Robie House offer a near-complete catalog of Wright’s Prairie style themes. Its strong horizontality places it in harmony with its original flat landscape setting. American political and social freedom is embodied in the flow of large open spaces within the house. Stylized Wright-designed art glass panels suggest natural forms, linking the interior with the world outside and bathing the living spaces in natural light.

Responding to American architect Louis Sullivan’s famous dictum that “form follows function,” Wright elaborated, “Form follows function—that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” Wright’s response has often been quoted simply as “form and function should be one,” leaving out his dedication toward creating that spiritual union. Looking for inspiration in nature and art, Wright’s holistic architectural designs always move toward the spiritual.

During the checkered history of the Robie House, one-time owners the Chicago Theological Seminary sought to tear down Wright’s masterpiece in 1957. Wright himself joined the efforts to save the house. Referring to the seminary leaders, he revealingly quipped, “It all goes to show the danger of entrusting anything spiritual to the clergy.” There’s never a division in Wright’s world—even the domestic setting of a house needs to be respected as a spiritual space.

The living room of the Frederick C. Robie House, showing Wright's characteristic
use of open space and art panel windows.  Photographer: Tim Long.
Photo courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.

The Robie House has been hailed as a masterpiece from the start. Within a year of the house’s completion in 1910, Wright promoted the Robie House in the Wasmuth Portfolio, a publication that spread Wright’s revolutionary architectural ideas throughout Europe. The American Institute of Architects named the Robie House as one of the ten most significant structures of the 20th century. In 1956, the Architectural Record cited it as “one of the seven most notable residences ever built in America” and it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

Other Recommended Sites:  When my family visited Chicago a couple of years ago, we didn’t get to the Robie House but we had a truly wonderful time touring the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, another important site managed by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. Located in Oak Park, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio is where Wright developed his Prairie style. Advance tickets are recommended, so check their site in advance for availability.

After our docent-led tour of the Home and Studio, we enjoyed the self-guided walking tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District. It takes you past many Wright-designed homes and even up into town to see his famous Unity Temple, designed for his own Unitarian Universalist congregation. The Unity Temple Restoration Foundation offers interior tours of the church.

The Frederick C. Robie House, bedroom level, showing work on the roof.
The Save America's Treasures grant was used toward a roof restoration project,
involving removal of non-historic clay tiles, stabilization of the roof structure,
and installation of historically correct clay shingles.
Photo courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s destination:  Chicago Botanic Garden

© 2013 Lee Price

Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts

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Save America’s Treasures sites.

Exterior of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts,
formerly the Scottish Rites Temple for the
Valley of Bloomington.
Photo courtesy of the Bloomington Center
for the Performing Arts.

Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts

600 North East Street

Bloomington, IL

Website:  Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts

The Treasure:  Thanks to the vision of Delmar D. Darrah, Bloomington has enjoyed one of the greatest theaters in the country for nearly a century.

Accessibility:  Visit their website to see what’s playing at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts the next time you’re in the neighborhood. Docent-led Behind the Curtain tours of the historic theater are offered.

Background:  The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is referred to in much of the Save America’s Treasures literature as the Scottish Rites Temple for the Valley of Bloomington. The name change occurred only within the past decade, although the building and its Freemason leaders have been celebrating the performing arts since its inception. In fact, ever since the region was first settled in the mid-19th century, the Freemasons have played a significant role in the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area.

The stage at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
Photo courtesy of the Bloomington Center for the
Performing Arts.

The visionary behind Bloomington’s unique theater was Delmar Duane Darrah (1868-1945), known for his contributions to the Freemasons on a regional, state, and national level. He spent most of his life in Bloomington, serving as a professor of oratory and drama at Illinois Wesleyan University. A theater enthusiast, Darrah spent nearly ten years writing and refining The American Passion Play, an extraordinarily ambitious telling of the story of Jesus, from the beheading of John the Baptist to the Ascension. This big story needed a big stage.

Darrah promoted the idea of building a new temple for Bloomington that would have the stage and auditorium resources needed for a full-fledged mounting of The American Passion Play. Completed in 1921, the Scottish Rites Temple for the Valley of Bloomington boasted the largest stage in the country west of New York. The theater accommodated 1,320 people and was complemented by a ballroom that could seat up to 1,000. This magnificent building became the center of Bloomington’s social and cultural life.

Starting in 1924, the Masons staged The American Passion Play annually on the stage of the Temple. Over three hours in length, the full 56-scene production included 230 character parts. Presented every year since 1924, thousands make the pilgrimage to Bloomington to experience The American Passion Play, the longest continuously performed passion play in the country (there are a few older, with the first being a passion play performance in Union City, New Jersey in 1915, but they can’t claim continuous performances).

Thanks in part to support from Save America’s Treasures, the Scottish Rites Temple for the Valley of Bloomington was restored and transformed into the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts in 2006. The revitalized theater hosts numerous theatrical and musical performances, as well as the continued annual productions of Darrah’s The American Passion Play in March and April.

The auditorium at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
Photo courtesy of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

Other Recommended Sites:  The Bloomington area offers several historic sites that are open to the public. The David Davis Mansion was the home of Abraham Lincoln’s campaign manager and friend, the McLean County Museum of History explores the roots of life in Central Illinois, and the Ewing Cultural Center preserves a historic manor house and gardens.

The historic Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
Photo courtesy of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Thursday’s (1/17) destination:  Frederick C. Robie House

© 2012 Lee Price

First Baptist Congregational Church

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Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

The First Baptist Congregational Church.
© 2004 - AAA Studios/Chicago.
Photo courtesy of the
First Baptist Congregational Church.

First Baptist Congregational Church of Chicago

1613 West Washington Boulevard

Chicago, IL

Website:  First Baptist Congregational Church of Chicago

The Treasure:  In the early 1870s, when Gothic Revival ideas were sweeping American architecture, the First Baptist Congregational Church (as it’s known today) building set a new standard for church design.

Accessibility:  A church known for its community involvement, First Baptist Congregational Church maintains a busy schedule of activities throughout the week. To fully experience the church, attend a service! There’s always a worship service at 11 a.m. on Sundays and sometimes an 8 a.m. service as well (since scheduling of the early service fluctuates, it’s best to call the church to check on the time). Reverend George W. Daniels, Senior Pastor, leads the services.

The front entrance to the First Baptist
Congregational Church shows the fine
craftsmanship of the carved stone work.

Background:  For over 140 years, this magnificent church building on Chicago’s West Washington Boulevard has celebrated the cycle of the Christian calendar, annually reflecting on the story of Jesus from Advent through Pentecost—that’s over 140 Christmases celebrated and over 140 Easters proclaimed. For tens of thousands of Chicagoans, it has been the backdrop for key life events: the baptisms, weddings, and funerals that mark our lives. Above all, it has been a center of community.

The story of the church begins ten years before the outbreak of the Civil War, a time when tensions ran high throughout the country. At Chicago’s Third Presbyterian Church, 48 congregation members announced they were leaving as a protest against the General Assembly’s weak position on slavery. They were led by Philo Carpenter, a successful entrepreneur known as Chicago’s first druggist, who already knew much about church planting, having started two churches previously. The small group of dissenters organized a new church—the First Congregational Church—which initially met in a small wooden chapel. Standing by the abolitionist principles that brought it into being, the new church provided a welcoming Underground Railroad stop for escaped slaves.

The area around the new church grew wealthier during the Civil War. When the church building burned down in 1869, the congregation had the means and resources to build something more ambitious. They hired architect Gurdon P. Randall who took this opportunity to creatively borrow the best ideas from the Gothic Revival style, popular among mainline Protestant denominations. Gothic Revival elements include a tower with a belfry, steeply pitched roofs, lancet windows, and amphitheater-style seating including gracefully curving balconies. The sanctuary plan brilliantly focused attention upon the pulpit, the communion table, and the large space reserved for the choir. Two years in construction from 1869 to 1871, the church (now renamed Union Park Congregational Church) became a new model for Protestant churches throughout the country and remains one of the earliest and finest intact examples of the Gothic Revival architectural style.

The communion table, pulpit, organ, and circular balcony.
© 2004 - AAA Studios/Chicago.
Photo courtesy of the First Baptist Congregational Church.

The final major signature addition to the church was the organ, installed in 1927. The largest pipe organ ever made, it was built by W.W. Kimball and Company, designed by Dr. William Lester, and donated as a gift to the church by Mr. and Mrs. Andrew R. Dole of Oak Park.

As the neighborhood continued to change, the church went through transformations as well. In 1970, the healthy and growing congregation of the nearby Mozart Baptist Church moved into the old church, ensuring the continued stewardship of the venerable building while increasing its ability to fully serve the neighborhood. Under the leadership of the late Dr. Arthur D. Griffin and the current Senior Pastor, Reverend George W. Daniels, the First Baptist Congregational Church has flourished, maintaining the church’s time-honored traditions of social activism and outreach.

Stained glass windows and theater-style seating.
© 2004 - AAA Studios/Chicago.
Photo courtesy of the First Baptist Congregational Church.

Other Recommended Sites:  The church founded by Philo Carpenter in 1851 quickly became an important way station on the Underground Railroad. Throughout the country, increasing attention has been made to preserving important and representative sites associated with the Underground Railroad. The National Park Service manages 66 sites that tell the story of the Underground Railroad. For a nice introduction to key Illinois sites, visit the Illinois Underground Railroad website, paying special attention to the “Places” list on their Websites page.

The main sanctuary at First Baptist Congregational Church, showing the
amphitheater-style seating and the grand organ.
© 2004 - AAA Studios/Chicago.
Photo courtesy of the First Baptist Congregational Church.

© 2012 Lee Price

Poetry Magazine Archive

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Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s
Save America’s Treasures sites.

The first issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse,
published in October 1912.

Poetry Magazine Archive

Special Collections Research Center

University of Chicago Library

1100 East 57th Street

Chicago, IL

Website:  Harriet Monroe Modern Poetry Collection

Guide to the Poetry (a finding aid to the collection)

Poetry Foundation (publisher of Poetry magazine)

The Treasure:  The Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago preserves approximately 120,000 pages of manuscripts, letters, and editorial files from the first fifty years (1912-1961) of Poetry magazine, including historic documents from many of the world’s most acclaimed 20th century poets.

Accessibility:  The Special Collections Research Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 to 4:45, and on Saturday mornings while classes are in session. Changing exhibits highlight material from their many collections. Consult their website for information on requesting copies of collection material for research purposes.

Background:  The first issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse was published in October 1912, offering poets a quality home for the publication of serious and progressive poetry. Founder Harriet Monroe (1860-1936) launched the magazine with high ambitions. “The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine,” she wrote at the time. “(M)ay the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius! To this end the editors hope to keep free from entangling alliances with any single class or school. They desire to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is written.”

Completed microfilm reels of the
Poetry Magazine Archive.
Photo courtesy of the
University of Chicago Library.

In that first year, Monroe named American poet Ezra Pound as foreign editor, publishing two of his poems in the magazine’s first issue. With his ear for talent, Pound encouraged submissions by James Joyce, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats, and H.D. Most notably, he recommended publication of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by the previously unpublished poet T.S. Eliot. Published in the June 1915 issue, “Prufrock” marked a pivotal moment in the development of modern poetry.

Throughout its century-long existence, Poetry has remained at the forefront of innovations in modern poetry, including the Modernist, Imagist, and Objectivist movements. Among the hundreds of significant poems published by Poetry, some of the most famous include “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg, “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens, “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E.E. Cummings, and “Fever 103°” by Sylvia Plath. Other acclaimed poets published in its pages include Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, and Allen Ginsburg.

But Harriet Monroe’s goal for Poetry was never to promote the work of the famous and established. Above all, she wanted to encourage new poets and new audiences for them. This desire continues to drive work at the magazine today. Despite the rigorous review that all submissions must go through, Poetry maintains its commitment to new poets, with over a third of their published poetry generally coming from previously unpublished writers.

Completed microfilm reels of the Poetry Magazine Archive.
Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago.

Notes from the Editor:  Poetry turned 100 in 1912, celebrating the occasion with the publication of The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. In his review of The Open Door, the National Post’s poetry columnist Michael Lista wrote, “In many ways this is a radically democratic anthology — to get in you don’t need to be famous, you just need to be good.” You couldn’t ask for a better testament to Harriet Monroe’s original ideals for the magazine.

Other Recommended Sites:  While visiting the University of Chicago, check out their three museums. The Smart Museum of Art has a permanent art collection that spans five millennia, the Oriental Institute Museum is the university’s museum dedicated to the study of the ancient Near East, and the Renaissance Society is a modern art gallery that offers free exhibitions and performances.

The January 2012 issue of Poetry,
celebrating 100 years of publication.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Friday’s destination:  First Baptist Congregational Church

© 2012 Lee Price