Keck & Keck George Fred Keck (1895–1980) and William Keck (1908–1995)
description: The architectural firm of Keck & Keck, established by brothers George Fred and William, was one of the most innovative architectural firms in Chicago best known for buildings such as the House of Tomorrow for the Century of Progress Exposition of 1933 and modernist residential designs. George Fred Keck, spent one year at the University of Wisconsin studying civil engineering before he moved to Illinois to study architectural engineering at the University of Illinois. Keck began his career teaching at his alma mater and working for various Chicago architecture firms including William Pruyn, where he participated in residential work; D.H. Burnham, where he worked as a draftsman; and John Eberson, where he worked on the Avalon Theater. At Schmidt, Garden and Martin, George Fred Keck met R. Vale Faro (1902–1988), an avid promoter of modernist design. According to William Keck, his brother’s collaboration with Faro shaped George Fred’s turn toward more radically modernist designs in the late 1920s. Opened in 1929, George Fred Keck designed the Miralago Ballroom and Shops in Wilmette, Illinois. The Miralago Ballroom was known as one of the first modernist retail structures in the Chicago area. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1931, George Fred Keck’s younger brother William joined him as an architect, draftsman, and businessman of the company. The Kecks designed the glass and steel House of Tomorrow for the Century of Progress Exhibition (1933–1934) and the Crystal House the following year. Both of these structures gained the Keck brothers nationwide attention as frontrunners in modernist American design. Beyond such popular architectural constructions, the office of Keck & Keck predominately designed innovative residences in Hyde Park, Chicago-area suburbs, and the greater Midwest. The Keck brothers worked with many Chicago-based designers and architects, including interior designer Marianne Willisch and architects Leland Atwood and Paul Schweikher. Th…
source: “Architect Specializes in Design of Homes.” Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1968. Barber, Daniel A. A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Bargelt, Louise. “Concrete Home in Dunes Built on Three Levels: Living Room Extends Through Story and a Half.” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 1, 1940. Bargelt, Louise. “Duneland House Built for Use in All Seasons: Concrete Is Given Novel Treatment for Walls.” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 2, 1939. Bargelt, Louise. “Home in the Modern Style Is Now Possible at Minimum Cost Home: Start Off with One Floor, Build Another Later; Chicago Architect Creates Good Looking, Simple Dwelling for $4,300.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 17, 1932. Bargelt, Louise. “Glass and Steel House of Future Erected at Fair: Home Expertly Designed by Two Architects Can Be Built in Three Weeks.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 8, 1934. Bernick, Christine. “Preservation of Keck & Keck’s Passive-Solar Subdivisions of the 1940s and 1950s.” MS thesis, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2010. Blum, Betty J. Oral History of Robert Paul Schweikher. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2000. Blum, Betty J. Oral History of William Keck. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1991. “Book Tells Story of Fair Home Exhibit.” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 26, 1934. Boyce, Robert. Keck and Keck. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, Inc., 1993. “Building Speed to Be Feature of Glass House: To Be Erected at Fair in 2 Weeks’ Time.” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 8, 1934. Chase, Al. “Show Postwar Home Building Possibilities: Glenview Has Preview of New Heating Methods.” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 22, 1942. Chase, Al. “Sun Supplies Heat for New Type North Shore Suburb Home: ‘Solar House’ on Glenview Rd. Has Glass Side.” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 22, 1940. Chase, Al. “Residence Fuel Bill Is Cut $60 by Sun’s Rays: Old Sol May Be Factor in Post-War Era.” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 15, 1943. …

Karl Peter Koch (1900–1955)
description: Karl Peter Koch was a commercial artist who specialized in package design. Koch was born on December 25, 1900 in St. Marys, Ohio. His father Charles William Koch (1873–1939) was the son of John Mathias Koch, from Germany, and Mary Miller, from Bavaria. His mother Susan Sabina Kinstle (1873–1947), the daughter of a farmer, was born and raised in Auglaize, Ohio. Charles William Koch worked as a saloon keeper in 1910 and a butcher in 1920. By 1930, he has established his own business, Koch’s Cafeteria and Hotel in Dayton, Ohio. The Koch family became well known restauranteurs, and Susan Koch acted as president of Koch’s, Inc. Karl Peter Koch was the eldest of six children. At age twelve, Karl Peter Koch was working at the American Chain Company for ten cents per hour. By 1930, Koch had moved to Chicago. Koch lived at 156 West Burton Place in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. Known as Carl Street Studios until 1936, West Burton Place was comprised of nineteenth-century houses and apartment buildings that were remodeled into artists’ studios by artist and entrepreneur Sol Kogen and designer Edgar Miller during the late 1920s and 1930s. Repurposing salvaged materials and fixtures from demolished buildings, such as old copper bathtubs, fireplace tiles, and marble, Kogen, Miller, and a team of craftspeople transformed the dilapidated Victorian-era buildings into multi-level studio spaces replete with handcrafted architectural features and ornamentation. Artisan Jesus Torres, whose multimedia talents including metalwork, ceramics, woodcarvings, and murals, was a major contributor. In 1937, “a group of commercial artists led by Karl Peter Koch and Clive Rickabaugh purchased the two rooming houses and three coach houses at 152, 154, and 156 W. Burton Place.” The 154–156 section of West Burton Place functioned as a residential cooperative, bringing together a three-story building with a set of two-story coach houses. Rickabaugh, Koch’s real estate partner, was an artist, designe…
source: A Century of Progress Records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. “Charles Koch Dies Suddenly: Heart Attack Is Fatal for Native of Bettsville Tuesday.” The Fremont News-Messenger, March 2, 1939. “Chicago Artist Dies in Studio.” Chicago Tribune, December 28, 1973. Granacki, Victoria and Tim Freye. “West Burton Place Historic District, Chicago, Cook County, IL.” United States Department of the Interior National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. October 17, 2007. “Karl Peter Koch.” The Journal Herald, June 9, 1955. Koch, Karl Peter. A Folio of Cultural, Scientific, Commercial & Industrial Symbols: Including the World’s Leading Alphabets. Chicago: J.M. Bundscho, 1949. “Obituaries: Karl Peter Koch.” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 7, 1955. “Richard J. Bielefeld, 69.” Chicago Tribune, December 5, 2003. Steele, Dan. Snow Trenches. Cartography by Karl Peter Koch. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1931. Stolte, Keith M. Chicago Artist Colonies. Foreword by Amy E. Keller and Zac Bleicher. Charleston, North Carolina: The History Press, 2019. Sutnar, Ladislav. Package Design: The Force of Visual Selling. New York: Arts, Inc.: 1953. The Art Directors Club of Chicago. 1945 Modern Art in Advertising: Exhibition Advertising Art, May 1 to May 30, Blackstone Hall, The Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1945. The Chicago Design Archive. “Karl Peter Koch.” https://chicagodesignarchive.org/firm/karl-peter-koch.

Helen Hughes Dulany (1884–1968)
description: A 1937 newspaper series called “Women at Work” narrates the story of how Helen Hughes Dulany started her design career: during the Great Depression, Dulany was compelled to economize and reluctantly dismissed her butler. Regretting her decision, she asked her domestic employee to stay and determined that she needed to hire—not fire—workers. Her enterprise began when the dishes she designed for herself caught the eye of a friend who then purchased a set from Dulany for fifty dollars. Within weeks, exclusive shops in New York were carrying Dulany’s dishes. Encouraged by the retailers’ interest in her designs, she founded Helen Hughes Dulany Studio above her Lake Shore Drive apartment and opened a factory that produced her household goods. During her career, she designed “vases, kitchen stoves, lamps, vacuum cleaners, stream-lined train interiors—and the appointments of her own home.” General Electric, Republic Steel, Buffalo Potteries, and the Burlington railroad retained her as a designer. While her socioeconomic status was advantageous to her career, she faced serious health challenges before her ascension in the field of design at the age of forty-five. Afflicted with an undisclosed health condition, Dulany underwent sixteen operations in the United States and abroad. She was bedridden for almost eighteen years and considered an “invalid” in early twentieth-century terminology. In 1931, doctors informed her she was near death. While hospitalized at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago, she experimented with clay and crayons as a diversion and discovered her aptitude for design. She had no professional training as an artist or designer. Helen Hughes was born in Bismarck, North Dakota in 1885. Her father, General Alexander Hughes (1846–1907), served as territorial attorney general from 1883–84 and made a fortune from electric utilities. Her mother Mary Elizabeth Hughes (1848–1935) was the daughter of Samuel Higginbotham (1826–1863), a physician in South Bend, Indiana. Hele…
source: “A Special Invitation to All Ventura County Women…” Morning Free Press, November 22, 1936. All Arts. “Industrial Designer Helen Hughes Dulany.” Arts & Design in Chicago, Season 1, Episode 3. Video, 2:03. Aired October 26, 2018. https://allarts.org/programs/art-design-in -chicago/industrial-designer-helen-hughes-delaney-9cmufb/. “After Dinner Interlude.” Arts and Decoration 40, no. 3 (January 1934): 60–61. “Art Designer Beats Death to Win Fame: Helen Hughes Dulany Earns Fortune After 18 Years as Invalid.” Great Falls Tribune, April 7, 1936. “Asks Divorce: Mrs. Helen Hughes Dulany.” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 6, 1936. “Atherton Richardses in City.” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 28, 1938. Billheimer, Ruth. “Coast Visitors Go to Wedding of Chicagoan.” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 23, 1938. Billheimer, Ruth. “Pasadena in Holiday Garb Attends Races.” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 26, 1937. Brooklyn Museum. “Caviar Server.” https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/1692. Cass, Judith. “Helen Hughes Dulany to Wed in California.” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 18, 1938. “Cookery Show Is Presented: Advantages of Electricity Demonstrated During Program.” The Ogden Standard-Examiner, February 1, 1935. “Decorating: With Love from…” Vogue 83, no. 8 (April 15, 1934): 78, 79, 105. “Dine and Stay.” Arts and Decoration 41, no. 1 (May 1934): 44. “Divorces G.W. Dulany Jr.: Wife, an Industrial Designer, in Chicago Action Charges Desertion.” New York Times, December 13, 1936. “Fight to Break Mary E. Hughes’ $1,000,000 Will.” Chicago Tribune, January 15, 1937. Filler, Martin. “On the Twentieth Century.” House Beautiful 142, no. 5 (May 2000): 70–74.Fried, Alexander. “News of Music and Art World.” The San Francisco Examiner, March 26, 1936. “Having to Fire Butler Put Artist in Business.” Deadwood Pioneer-Times, February 2, 1937. “Helen Dulany Visiting Here.” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 23, 1937. “Helen Hughes Dulany, 84, Industrial Designer, Dies.” New York Times…

Douglas Crawford McMurtrie (1888–1944)
description: Douglas Crawford McMurtrie was a nationally renowned typographer, bibliographer, and authority on the history of printing. Over the course of his career, McMurtrie advised on the typographical redesigning of hundreds of newspapers and contributed to over 779 works on the subject of printing. He also helped to form the Continental Type Founders Association and edited the magazine Ars Typographica. While a position at the Cuneo Press brought him to Chicago, he spent nearly two decades as the director of typography at the Ludlow Typograph Company. In addition to his achievements in the field of design, McMurtrie held leadership roles in the rehabilitation movement for disabled children and World War I military veterans. He served as president of the Society for Crippled Children and director of the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men. An advocate for the reformation of public attitudes toward disabled people and their full inclusion in society and the workplace, McMurtrie applied his printing expertise to the movement. Douglas Crawford McMurtrie was born on July 20, 1888 in Belmar, New Jersey to William McMurtrie (1851–1913) and Helen Douglass. His father was a chemist whose agricultural research propelled the sugar beet industry in the United States. From 1906 to 1910, Douglas C. McMurtrie attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During his undergraduate studies, he designed his cohort’s yearbook, acted as the managing editor of the student-run newspaper, and worked as a correspondent for three Boston newspapers. McMurtrie graduated from MIT in 1910 and was then hired by the Pittsburgh Typhoid Fever Commission, where he produced much of its printed materials for distribution. His involvement with the Federation of Associations for Cripples began in 1910. From 1912 to 1919, McMurtrie edited the Journal of Care for Cripples and, starting in 1915, served as the president of the organization. His first bibliographic project was a compilation…
source: Bruntjen, Scott, and Melissa L. Scott. Douglas C. McMurtrie, Bibliographer and Historian of Printing. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1979. Byrom, Brad. “A Pupil and a Patient: Hospital-Schools in Progressive America.” In The New Disability History: American Perspectives, edited Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky, 133–157. New York: New York University Press, 2001. “Conference to Consider Needs of Disabled Men.” Chattanooga Daily Times, February 16, 1919. “D.C. McMurtrie Dies at 56; Was Type Designer.” New York Herald Tribune, September 30, 1944. “D.C. McMurtrie, Noted Designer of Type, Is Dead.” Chicago Tribune, September 30, 1944. Detterer, Ernest Frederick and Douglas C. McMurtrie. Fine Printing at the Cuneo Press. Chicago: Cuneo Press, 1927. Douglas C. McMurtrie Collection, Special Collections at the University of Arizona Libraries, Tucson. Douglas C. McMurtrie Imprints, Special Collections and Archives, Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri. Douglas C. McMurtrie Papers, Newberry Library, Chicago. Heller, Steven. Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typography. New York: Allworth Press, 2006. Kinder, John M. Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Kraig, Beth. “Douglas McMurtrie and the American Imprints Inventory, 1937–1942.” The Library Quarterly 56, no. 1 (January 1986): 17–31. McCaffrey, Frank. An Informal Biography of Douglas C. McMurtrie. San Francisco: Privately printed, 1939. McMurtrie, Douglas C. A Bibliography of Chicago Imprints, 1835–1850. Chicago: W. Howes, 1944. McMurtrie, Douglas C. “A Bibliography of Peoria Imprints, 1835–1860.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 27, no. 2 (1934): 202–27. McMurtrie, Douglas C. A Bibliography of the War Cripple. Compiled by Douglas C. McMurtrie. Publications of the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men, Series 1, Number 1. New York: Red Cross Institute, 1918. McMurtrie, Doug…

Cuneo Press (1907–1977)
description: Founded in 1907, the Cuneo Press was one of Chicago’s largest printing companies, second only to the R.R. Donnelley & Sons. Its founder John F. Cuneo, Sr. was the third generation in his wealthy family to flourish as a Chicago businessman. His grandfather, John B. Cuneo, emigrated from Genoa, Italy in 1847 and prospered as a produce and wholesale grocery merchant. His father, Frank Cuneo, was the president of the produce firm Garibaldi & Cuneo. Frank Cuneo’s investment in real estate was credited with starting the development of the Wilson Avenue business district in 1910. Born in Chicago on December 24, 1884, John F. Cuneo attended the Latin School of Chicago. He enrolled at Yale University but left before completing his degree to start his career as an owner of a book bindery. In 1907, with a loan of $10,000 from his father, Cuneo founded a small book bindery that occupied one floor at Madison and Market Street. Quick to expand into the printing business, he realized that there were no existing firms that offered book publishers the combined services of composition, printing, and binding under one roof. In response, he acquired the Henneberry Company in 1919 and established the Cuneo Press. In 1890, the Henneberry Company building, located at 22nd Street and Clinton Avenue, was the largest printing plant in the Chicago. Cuneo would continue to expand his printing empire through large-scale purchases and the management of printing-press operations across the United States. Popular magazines, such as Boy’s Life, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, House Beautiful, and Town & Country, were instrumental to the success of the Cuneo Press, contributing to forty-five percent of its overall volume. At the same time, the company produced books, catalogs, and phone directories. In 1925, the Cuneo Press hired renowned bibliographer and typeface designer Douglas C. McMurtrie (1888–1944) as the director of typography. One year later, McMurtrie left the Cuneo Pres…
source: “2 Pilsen Warehouses Fall to Demolition Crew’s Touch.” Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1995. “Airplane View of Cuneo Press Development.” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 27, 1927. Armour, Lawrence A. “The Printed Word: Expanding Markets, Better Equipment Give It New Lustre.” Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly 40, no. 48 (November 28, 1960): 3. A Century of Progress. Official Guide Book of the World’s Fair of 1934. Chicago: Cuneo Press, 1934. “Air Mail Pick Up to Carry Last Day Souvenir of Fair.” The Berwyn News, October 12, 1934. Baker, Robb. “Gutenberg Heirs Salute Him.” Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1968. Brown, Emily Clark. Book and Job Printing in Chicago: A Study of Organizations of Employers and Their Relations with Labor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1931. Butcher, Fanny. “Books: Fair Presents Many Thrills to Book Lover: First Editions Are Shown by Publishers.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 15, 1933. “Christmas Seal Contest: Strive to Meet Deadline.” Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1968. Cuneo Press. Gutenberg’s Calendar of the Turks for the Year Fourteen Hundred Fifty-Five: Printed from the Reconstructed Type of Gutenberg and Rubricated by Hand in the Gutenberg Workshop. Chicago: Cuneo Press, 1933. Cuneo Press. Specimens of Type Faces: Monotype, Linotype, Foundry. Chicago: Cuneo Press, 1939. “Cuneo Press Buys Kokomo, Ind., War Surplus Facilities.” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 3, 1949. “Cuneo Press, Inc.: Outlook Improved This Year, President Says at Meeting.” The New York Times, June 1, 1955. “Cuneo Press’ Kokomo Plant Hit by Fire.” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 26, 1957. “Cuneo Press to Expand.” New York Times, May 7, 1927. Cuneo Studio Materials. Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. “D.C. McMurtrie Dies at 56; Was Type Designer.” New York Herald Tribune, September 30, 1944. Detterer, Ernest Frederick and Douglas C. McMurtrie. Fine Printing at the Cuneo Press. Chicago: Cuneo Pre…

Charles Clarence Dawson (1889-1981)
description: Charles Clarence Dawson is significant for his many contributions to illustration, design, and fine art during the “Chicago Black Renaissance” of the interwar period and beyond. The “Great Migration,” which refers to the relocation of large numbers of African Americans from rural areas in the South to urban centers in the North, transformed the first half of the twentieth century and impacted Dawson’s arts leadership and design pursuits. The accompanying principles of the “New Negro Movement” marked a flourishing of black philosophic, economic, creative, and political practices in the midst of the repressive Post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow era. Dawson, born in Brunswick, Georgia, in 1889, attended the renowned Tuskegee Institute, a school initially opened for African American teachers led by celebrated educator and orator Booker T. Washington. While there, Dawson studied drafting with architect Walter Thomas Bailey, who was appointed head of the Mechanical Industries Department in 1905 and would later design several of the school’s buildings, including the still-used women’s dormitory, White Hall, as well as significant buildings in Chicago and Memphis. Soon afterwards, in 1907, Dawson relocated to New York to attend the Art Students League as its first black pupil. In 1912, Dawson moved to Chicago, to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. According to his unpublished autobiography, Touching the Fringes of Greatness, Dawson attributes his attendance to the Art Institute’s progressive stance on race, insofar as “the policy of the Art Institute was entirely free of bias.” An active student, Dawson was secretary of the Chicago Architectural League, manager of the Annual Chicago Architectural Exhibition, and member of the Art Students League of Chicago. Upon graduation and at the outset of World War I, in 1917, Dawson joined the segregated armed forces as an officer in training with the Buffalo Soldiers regiment and was sent to France. Dawson’s return to Chicago was fra…
source: Arts & Design in Chicago. “Charles Clarence Dawson.” https://interactive.wttw.com/art-design-chicago/charles-clarence-dawson. Bone, Robert and Richard A. Courage. The Muse of Bronzeville: African-American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932–1950. Foreword by Amritjit Singh. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2011. Burkett, Randall K. “Hammurabi in the (MARBL) House.” Emory Libraries & Information Technology. Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library Blog. May 1, 2015. https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/marbl/2015/05/01/hammurabi-in-the-marbl-house/. Charles C. Dawson Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Charles Dawson Papers, DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, Illinois. City of Chicago. “Love for Sale: The Graphic Art of Valmor Products.” 2015. http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/Valmor.html. Daniel, Jon. “The Pioneering Work of Nine Black Designers.” Design Week, February 26, 2014. Das, Joanna Dee. Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2017. “Dawson, Charles Clarence.” In Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, edited by Aberjhani and Sandra L. West, 83. New York: Facts on File, 2003. Dingwall, Christopher. “Love for Sale: The Graphic Art of Valmor Products, Chicago Cultural Center, April 25–August 2, 2015 (exhibition review).” Design Issues 32, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 95–97. Douglas, Andrea. “An Artist of the Past That You Should Know: Charles Dawson, 1889–1981.” The International Review of African American Art 22, no. 4 (2009): 65. Foster, John. “Love for Sale.” The Design Observer Group, June 12, 2015. http://designobserver.com/feature/love-for-sale/38927/. Ganz, Cheryl R. Progress. The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair: A Century of Progress. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. Graphic Arts Collection: Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University. “Charles Dawson.” https://graphicar…

Art Directors Club of Chicago
description: Perplexingly, apart from a briefarticlethat appeared in the March 1953 issueofPrint magazinesixty-three years ago, littledocumentationexistson the history and activities of the Art DirectorsClub of Chicago(ADCC). The article“European Influences on Chicago Designers,”written by graphic designer and ADCC member George McVicker (1904–1990)for a special Society of Typographical Arts (STA)issue, offersno genealogy of the group. Based on the numbering of the ADCC Annuals, the foundingof the organizationmay be placed at 1932 or 1933, althoughthe “first”annualmay not havecoincided withtheir first year of existence. (For reference, the New York Art DirectorsClubwas founded in 1920.) According to McVicker, inthe fall of 1934, the group sponsoreda course taught by much-admired Viennese designer Joseph Binder, known to ADCC membership through European publications. The well-attendedcourse made an enormous impact on participants, who were unfamiliar with Binder’s approach to stylizing and “abstract symbol” making. However, Binder’s influence was nothingcompared to that of László Moholy-Nagy(1895–1946)—called by McVicker “the real bomb [that] hit town.”1Four years after Binder’s course, Moholy-Nagy was brought to Chicago by the local Association of Art and Industry, which includedthe Container Corporationof America, Montgomery Ward, Marshall Field,and R.R. Donnelley representatives. Moholy-Nagy and his “first lieutenant”Gyorgy Kepes(1906–2001) not only introducednewmethods and design principles butalso acquainted Chicagoans with a vocabulary thatredefined design thinking and designproblems, using phrases such as “articulation of space” and “interpenetration of planes.” McVicker mentions the following namesin his Print article; they arepresumably ADCC members. Their names arepresented here in alphabetical order: Franz Altschuler Frank Barr Bruce Beck Francis Chase Burton Cherry DeKovic-Smith Design Organization Gene Douglas Cliffe D. Eitel Stan Ekman William Fleming Fran and Ros F…
source: McVicker, George. “European Influence on Chicago Designers,”Print:Magazineof the Graphic Arts7,no. 5 (March 1953): 26–33.

Armour Institute/Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)
description: The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is Ph.D.-granting private university in Chicago with programs in engineering, architecture, design, science, human sciences, applied technology, business, and law. One of the largest of its kind in the nation, IIT formed in 1940 with the merging of two technical schools: the Armour Institute, established in 1893 on the South Side by meat-packing industrialist Paul Danforth Armour, Sr. (1832–1901), and the Lewis Institute, a high school and junior college founded in 1895 from the estate of Allen Cleveland Lewis (1821–1877). Sharing complementary pedagogies, the consolidated institutes offered a professional education based on science, engineering, management, and the humanities. Other incorporations followed as IIT expanded the scope of its research and educational programs. The Institute of Design joined IIT in 1949 and the Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1969. Historically characterized by its active relationships with industries and businesses in Chicago, IIT is home to research centers such as the Nation Center for Food Safety and Technology and the IIT Research Institute. The IIT Main Campus is renowned worldwide for its modernist architecture. German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) joined IIT as its first Director of Architecture in 1938 after the closure of the Bauhaus in Weimar by the Nazi regime. During his two-decade tenure at IIT, Mies not only reshaped the curriculum, leading to the reputation of IIT as “the New Bauhaus,” he also orchestrated the master plan of the campus. Envisioned by Mies as an icon of modernity, the IIT Main Campus was entirely reconceived and expanded in the 1940s and 1950s. Laid out following a uniform module determining the size and articulation of each building in relation to one another, the IIT campus was designed to embody rationality, clarity, and economy. Mies’s twenty-two buildings for IIT find their stylistic zenith in the aptly named S.R. Crown Hall (1956) which…
source: 50 Years Bauhaus: Additions on the Occasion of the Exhibition at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois, 1969. Stuttgart: Wüttembergischer Kunstverein, 1969. Applebaum, Wilburn. “Illinois Institute of Technology.” In Encyclopedia of Chicago, edited by James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff, 49. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. “Armour Gives $1,000,000: Mrs. P.D. Armour Joins Her Son in Gift to the Armour Institute.” New York Times, April 11, 1901. “Armour Institute.” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 29, 1909. Armour Institute of Technology Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago. Armour Institute of Technology Grade Books, 1985–1908, Paul V. Galvin Library, University Archives and Special Collections, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Armour Institute of Technology Records, Paul V. Galvin Library, University Archives and Special Collections, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Armour War Training Records, 1896–1931, Paul V. Galvin Library, University Archives and Special Collections, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Beeby, Thomas H. “Toward a Technological Architecture? Case Study of the Illinois Institute of Technology Commons Building.” Perspecta 31 (2000): 10–21. Blaser, Werner. Mies van der Rohe: IIT Campus, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2002. Bluestone, Daniel. “Chicago’s Mecca Flat Blues.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57, no. 4 (1998): 382–403. Channick, Robert. “Oldest Building at IIT Sold, To Be Apartments: Redevelopment Will Have to Clear Historic Hurdles.” Chicago Tribune, February 1, 2017. Domer, Dennis. “Walter Peterhans and Visual Training at Illinois Institute of Technology.” Structurist no. 31–32 (January 1992): 44–51. Eisenman Architects. “Campus Center.” ANY: Architecture New York 24 (January 1999): 38–43. Grubiak, Margaret M. “Educating the Moral Scientist: The Chapels at I.I.T. a…

Armour & Co.
description: Armour & Co., a meatpacking business, was established as Plankinton, Armour & Co. by John Plankinton (1820–1891) and Philip Danforth Armour (1832–1901) in 1863. Initially based in Milwaukee, the company saw tremendous growth during the American Civil War and went on to open branches in Chicago and Kansas City. Philip Armour relocated to Chicago in 1875 to manage the company’s office there, and Plankinton left the business in 1884. The Armour family assumed full responsibility for the company thereafter, with Jonathan Ogden Armour, Philip’s son, assuming leadership in 1901. Armour & Co. became one of the largest meatpacking businesses in the United States and, along with similar companies founded by George Hammond and Gustavus Swift, helped secure Chicago’s reputation as what poet Carl Sandberg called the “Hog Butcher for the World.” Packinghouses situated on the banks of the Chicago River and major railway expansions such as the development of the Union Stockyards in 1860 allowed for the easy importation of surplus livestock from midwestern farms into Chicago and the subsequent distribution of processed meats to consumers around the country. Twelve million cows and pigs passed through the Union Stockyards in 1890 alone. Historically, the production calendar of the meatpacking industry was dictated by the seasons, with meat processing and transportation occurring primarily in the cold, winter months to avoid spoilage. Technological advances in refrigeration enabled unprecedented year-round operations, and ice-chilled railcars allowed for the shipment of raw, dressed meats over long distances. Armour & Co. gained a competitive edge because it streamlined the meatpacking process, innovating steam hoists used to lift and move cow and pig carcasses and envisioning new purposes for meatpacking byproducts. The company worked with scientists to develop industrial and consumer goods from the non-comestible parts of the animals it processed. Bones and hides were either sold o…
source: Barrett, James R. Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago’s Packinghouse Workers, 1894–1922. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. Brody, David. The Butcher Workmen: A Study of Unionization. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964. Halpern, Rick. Down on the Killing Floor: Black and White Workers in Chicago’s Packinghouses, 1904–54. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Hautzinger, Daniel. “When Chicago Was ‘Hog Butcher to the World.’” WTTW, June 21, 2018. https://interactive.wttw.com/playlist/2018/06/21/union-stock-yards. Hughes, Bob. “A Shelter for Artistic Young Ladies Makes Its Debut in 1912.” Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1986. Janega, James. “Meatpacking.” Chicago Tribune, August 8, 2014. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/blue-sky/chi-meatpacking-top-chicago -innovations-bsi-series-story.html “Mob of 4,000 Men Charges Police: Most Serious Riot of the Packing House Strike Occurs Near West Stockyard Gates.” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 19, 1904. Pacyga, Dominic A. Slaughterhouse: Chicago’s Union Stock Yard and the World It Made. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. “Philip D. Armour, Jr., Dead: Younger Son of Chicago’s Millionaire Parker Stricken with Congestion of the Lungs in California.” New York Times, January 28, 1900. Potempa, Philip. “La Lumiere School Includes Armour Meats Connection.” Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2017. “Rejected Armour Meat: So Calvary on the March Had to Do Without It.” New York Times, July 24, 1906. Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1863. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. Sandberg, Carl. “Chicago.” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 3, no. 6 (March 1914): 191. Schulze, Franz. Illinois Institute of Technology: The Campus Guide. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. Seigel, Jessica. “Meat-Packing Town’s Heyday Has Come and Gone, but Strong Flavor Remains.” Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1990. Skaggs, Jimmy M. Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the Unite…

American Furniture Mart
description: Built in 1924, the American Furniture Mart was a leader in home furnishings and innovative marketing in Chicago. Providing record square footage for the display of furniture manufactured by hundreds of factories from across the nation, the American Furniture Mart facilitated connections between producers, retailers, and consumers. By offering a space dedicated to the meeting of manufacturers, distributors, and clients, the American Furniture Mart bridged the gap between offer and demand that had arisen in an economy increasingly based on mass production. Designed by architects George C. Nimmons (1865–1947), Max Dunning (1873–1945), and Henry Raeder (d. 1943), the American Furniture Mart building reached a height of seventeen stories and was celebrated as the largest building in world at the time its completion. (Consisting of two parts, the east end of the building was constructed in 1924 and the west end in 1926.) Strategically built on a prestigious lakefront lot in downtown Chicago, the American Furniture Mart at 666 Lake Shore Drive offered two million square feet of modern exhibition spaces enclosed in a Gothic-inspired shell. The American Furniture Mart was created exclusively for members of home furnishings businesses and prohibited the public from admission. Its grandiose scale and lavish ornamentation not only expressed the prominence of Chicago in the furniture industry, but also the centrality of Chicago within a national network of design and manufacturing. The sumptuous interiors of the Furniture Club of America attracted leaders in the furniture industry, and its restaurant provided members with a convenient place to hold business meetings. The American Exposition Palace, also located at 666 Lake Shore Drive, hosted fairs and expositions organized for wholesale buyers. Chicago gradually experienced a downturn in its dominance in the furniture industry, in part due to internal competition, such as the completion of the Chicago Merchandise Mart in 1931. …
source: “Am. Furniture Mart Obtains 333 Building: Control Gained by Stock Purchase.” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 23, 1954. “American Furniture Mart Reorganization Approved by Court.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 19, 1935. “American Furniture Mart—‘World’s Largest Building.’” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 8, 1925. “Attendance Up in Chicago: More Buyers at Furniture Mart Than Year Ago—Buying Brisk Furniture Stores to Expand Buying.” New York Times, July 13, 1949. Chase, Al. “Furniture Mart Will Be World’s Largest Building.” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 3, 1923. Chase, Al. “Furniture Mart Site Is Changed to Shore Drive.” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 15, 1922. “Chicago Housefurnishing Exposition.” Crockery & Glass Journal 100, no. 24 (June 11, 1925): 19. “Chicago’s Furniture Mart, $10,000,000 Building, Bombed.” New York Times, December 9, 1930. Darling, Sharon. Chicago Furniture: Art, Craft & Industry 1833–1983. Chicago and New York: The Chicago Historical Society in association with W.W. Norton & Company, 1984. Diesenhouse, Susan. “New 15-Year Lease Keeps Playboy Based in Chicago.” Chicago Tribune, August 23, 2006. Dombrowski, Louis. “Chicago Industries: Wind City Dynamic Leader in Home Furnishing Field.” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 29, 1961. Douglas, Anne. “Furnishings Mart Yields Many an Interesting Item.” Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1972. Douglas, Anne. “Summer Furniture Plays Bigger Year ‘Round Role.” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 20, 1957. “Exhibitor’s List for Mart Given.” Furniture Manufacturer and Artisan 86, no. 2 (August 1, 1922): 62. “Files Furniture Plan: Chicago Mart Would Reorganize Under Bankruptcy Act.” New York Times, April 3, 1935. Fuller, Ernest. “Famous Chicago Buildings: MART.” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 28, 1959. “Furnishings Sales Set New All-Time Peak.” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 23, 1951. “Furniture Mart to Be Built: Building Project for Chicago Is Assured—Work to Begin June 15 and Building Completed in May 1923.” Furniture Manufacturer and …