Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Designers Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document 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 According to his unpublished autobiography, Touching the Fringes of Greatness, Dawson attributes his attendance to the Art Institute’s progressive stance on race, insofar as “the policy of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 framed by the racial conflict between black communities of the South Side and white populations who struggled over jobs and city territory. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 testifies powerfully to these tensions. At the same time, Chicago’s black population was undergoing newfound power associated with the thriving community of Bronzeville, Chicago’s epicenter of black social life since the early twentieth century. As a freelance illustrator and arts leader Dawson worked with other black artists, such as graphic designer and artist William Farrow, in the organizing of the Chicago Art League (1924), a black artists collective that “offered classes and exhibition opportunities for local artists” and held exhibitions “at the YMCA on Wabash Avenue in Bronzeville.” One of Dawson’s significant accomplishments came in 1927 with the Negro in Art Week exhibition. Dawson contributed as one of three members of the Committee on Fine and Applied Arts, as the designer of the catalog cover, and as a participating artist. The two-part exhibition, initiated by historian Alain Locke with the Chicago Woman’s Club took place from November 18 through 23 at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Woman’s Clubhouse, both situated downtown. It was organized “with the intention of decreasing friction existing between white and colored people by placing before the public an exhibition of the best work produced by Negroes in Fine and Applied Arts, Music, and Literature, in combination with an exhibition of primitive African Art.” The primitive collection referred to is the Blondiau-Theatre Arts Collection of African Arts from the Belgian Congo, which was included to support the thesis that such unique African heritage made African American art a rival of European art. Dawson conceptualized and illustrated the catalog cover, which not only featured pertinent information regarding the exhibition’s location, time, and duration, but showcased foundational ideals central to the “New Negro,” a term popularized by Locke in his book of the same title that boldly proclaimed the black person as sophisticated and full of self-worth. In Dawson’s illustration an Egyptian pharaoh towers over the silhouettes of various musical performers in tuxedoes linking ancient African motifs to black American culture. In the corner of the composition a Songye power figure invokes the transnational work of forging a new black identity by celebrating an African past. In addition to creating the catalog cover, Dawson contributed several paintings to the exhibition. In 1927 and 1929 Dawson contributed, both general illustrations and the cover illustration, to the Intercollegian Wonder Book and The Book of Achievement the World Over—The Negro in Chicago 1779–1929. The Wonder Books were encyclopedic volumes celebrating the achievements of the black community in Chicago. The series, directed by Frederic H. Hammurabi Robb, the president of the Washington Intercollegiate Club of Chicago at the time, compiled a substantial account of important black leaders, fraternal organizations, churches, schools, and businesses. In the tradition of this type of work, Dawson also self-designed and self-published the children’s book ABC’s of Great Negros (1933). While visiting the George Cleveland Hall Library in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, Dawson noticed there were no learning materials for black children. The book features twenty-six illustrated biographies of important African American figures, including, Neferti, Frederick Douglas, George Washington Carver, Toussaint l’Ouverture, Zaudita empress of Ethiopia, and Mary L. Bethune, among many others. As the Great Depression gripped the U.S. from the 1930s onward, Dawson maintained a livelihood as one of two black in-house illustrators and designers for Valmor Products Company. Valmor, a Chicago-based cosmetic, beauty supply, and novelties enterprise owned by a white chemist and entrepreneur, produced and marketed a variety of goods to growing black consumer groups. While the pomades and creams coincided with white standards of beauty, including bleaching ointments and hair-straightening tonics, Dawson’s rendering of urbane black sophisticates in minimalist lines and bold shapes had a deep impact on generations of modernist illustrators, artists, and designers of all creeds. A recent exhibition organized in 2015 at the Chicago Cultural Center not only gathered and presented much of Dawson’s work for Valmor, including product labels and advertisement designs, it also assigned authorship to the work which had originally circulated in anonymity. Moreover, the exhibition highlighted the importance of Dawson’s influence beyond the black community, as exampled by the testimony of celebrated contemporary graphic novelist Chris Ware. At the same time, Dawson completed illustrated advertisements for Poro College, an important social hub and educational complex founded by Annie Malone in St. Louis. The school was dedicated to the economic and communal uplift of “Race Women,” a term describing black advocates who sought to improve their conditions and the conditions of other black women through social intervention and education. While Poro College offered deportment, cosmetology, and sales training, it also met the spatial and social needs of a broad and burgeoning black cultural movement, a role far exceeding the general understanding of a beauty school. Among the advertisements Dawson devised, an important series of image and text prints linking modern black people to ancient history and myth stands out. The folio, titled “Famous Black Beauties of History and Mythology,” displays deft illustration skills merged with an interest in redefining blackness as beautiful and important to history. In 1933, amongst much debate regarding the lack of inclusion of black people, Dawson received a commission sponsored by the Urban League to paint a mural within the Social Science Hall for the Century of Progress International Exposition. Also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, the expansive exposition took place on the one-hundred-year anniversary of the founding of Chicago. Dawson’s mural, titled Negro Migration: The Exodus, depicted the Great Migration from rural South to the industrialized North. On each side of the main image were panels filled with “statistics to highlight the social issues of health, housing, and employment and the role of the Urban League in addressing those issues on a national scale.” And while there were “Negro” attractions at the Fair, mostly organized by non-black concessioners, stereotypes were commonplace tools used to pique public interest. The exposition was widely understood by the black community to be “a white man’s proposition.” For the second year of the fair, in 1934, Dawson was commissioned to illustrate and design the poster for a pageant of black music, “O, Sing A New Song,” which highlighted the achievements of African American culture. The poster showcases Dawson’s interest in combining multiple eras. Ancient Egyptian images are mingled with African dancers and drummers, while enslaved folks sing in the fields. At the center of the image is a modern black woman in a 1930s evening gown, her face lifted high. At the bottom of the poster similar women engage in a choreographed dance routine. In the following years, Dawson would participate in another exposition, this one challenging the general racism of the Century of Progress Chicago World’s Fair. The American Negro Exposition, held at the Chicago Coliseum from July 4 through September 2, 1940, gave Dawson a chance to expand his cultural uplifting work into three dimensional dioramas. The exposition, which took place on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the end of the Civil War, was considered the first Negro World's Fair as it gave black people a unique opportunity to represent themselves and their contributions to American life since 1865. Dawson conceptualized and designed a set of thirty-three dioramas marketed as a history of black influence on the progress of America and the world. The dioramas celebrated scenes from ancient Egypt and Africa that showcased important technological and social events, such as, African metal smelting, the use of the wheel by Ethiopians, and the building of the Sphinx. Other noteworthy views included a violent panorama of the first slave market in Virginia (1619), various moments from the Reconstruction era, as well as a depiction of the highly decorated Harlem Hellfighters, an African-American regiment that fought in World War I only to endure continued racism and segregation at home. As a veteran of the segregated armed forces, Dawson experienced this treatment first-hand. Although some were eventually damaged and even lost entirely, the dioramas were gifted to the Tuskegee Institute after the exposition. Dawson, who was beginning his own career at the school, oversaw the repair and installation of the remaining dioramas in their new home at the Museum of Negro Art and Culture at the George Washington Carver Museum where he served as curator from 1944 to 1951. Dawson eventually retired in New Hope, Pennsylvania and passed away in 1981. His archival papers and documents are currently housed at the DuSable Museum of African-American History in Chicago and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource 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. The office of Keck & Keck pioneered passive solar house techniques. Their collaborative studies of the seasonal sunlight patterns with scientists at the Adler Planetarium was fundamental to their development of solar houses. During the interwar period, Keck & Keck designed several solar houses in the Midwest, such as the Sloan House and the Kellett House (both in 1939). In 1951, they applied their solar housing research to the Chicago Housing Authority Project Number Nine, also called the Prairie Avenue Courts, with the purpose of designing a building that received an ideal amount of daylight without casting too many shadows on the rooms. Merging architectural design with new technological materials and methods, Keck & Keck offered solar design strategies for improving the living conditions of their clients. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived “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. Christopher, James. Keck and Keck: A Bibliography. Monticello, Illinois: Vance Bibliographies, 1984. “Crystal House.” In A Century of Progress: Homes and Furnishings, edited by Dorothy Raley, 34–43. Chicago, Illinois: M.A. Ring Company, 1934. Cohen, Stuart and Susan Benjamin. Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs, 1890–1940. New York: Acanthus Press, 2004. Collins, Catherine. “In the ’30s, Keck Brothers Saw the Light, and Solar Came to Chicago.” Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1983. Denzer, Anthony. The Solar House: Pioneering Sustainable Design. New York: Rizzoli, 2013. Douglas, Anne. “The Home of the Week: Builder Gets Fine House and an Inspiration Open Floor Plan Used for Greater Space.” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 26, 1953. Flavin, Genevieve. “Houses of New Design Beckon All Outdoors: Architects Create to Fit Each Buyer.” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 19, 1950. “George F. Keck to Be Speaker at Sketch Club.” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 27, 1932. Goldberger, Paul. “Design Notebook: All World’s Fair Houses Were but Fantasies of Everyday Life.” The New York Times, June 10, 1982. Goldberger, Paul. “World’s Fair Houses: A Long Tradition of Idealized Living.” Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1982. Heise, Kenan. “William Keck; Created First Solar Home.” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1995. Henn, Stuart W. “Radical Decorative: George Fred Keck’s House of Tomorrow and a New Vision of Modern American Living at the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition.” MA thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2014. Hinds, Michael dCourcy. “America’s First Solar Home Still Thrifty 40 Years Later.” The New York Times, May 8, 1980. “Homes of Future? Mobiles, by Default.” Newsday, January 15, 1977. Jackson, Neil. The Modern Steel House. London: E & FN Spon, 1996. Jewett, Eleanor. “Skill Displayed in Paintings by Two Architects.” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 10, 1945. Kamin, Blair. “Group Eyes Future for ’30s-era House of Tomorrow: Preservationists Step Up Restoration of Chicago Landmark in Indiana.” Chicago Tribune, October 19, 2016. Keck + Keck Architects. Written and directed by Edward S. Hall in cooperation with the Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture & Design, 1993. VHS. Keck, George Fred and Leland Atwood. “Crystal House.” Architectural Forum 61, no. 1 (July 1934): 24. LaMorte, Chris. “Century of Progress Homes Tour at Indiana Dunes Takes Visitors Back to the Future.” Chicago Tribune, October 2, 2017. “Modern Homes on North Shore Have Novelties: Metal and Glass Used on Extensive Scale.” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 8, 1936. Provines, June. “Front Views and Profiles.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 11, 1934. Ross, Eleanor. “Can’t Throw Stones Here.” Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, August 14, 1934. Sharoff, Robert. “A Possible Future for Aging Houses of Tomorrow.” The New York Times, December 31, 2000. “‘Solar House’ Owner Starts Homes Project: Has 20 Acre Development in Glenview.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 20, 1941. “Start Work on Glass ‘House of Tomorrow’: Twelve Sided Unit at Fair to Be Fireproof.” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 9, 1933. Storch, Charles. “2 Brothers Here Designing Solar Buildings 40 Years.” Chicago Tribune, November 4, 1979. The Real Estate Editor. “‘Crystal House’ Draws Interest: Novel Residence at Chicago Attracts Attention of Akron Visitors.” The Akron Beacon Journal, July 14, 1934. Bracken, Lawson E. The Story of Prefabricated Houses: Highlights of Half a Century–Materials, Methods, Experiments. Columbus, Indiana: Central States Research, 1946. “William Keck.” Chicago Tribune, June 3, 1995. “World’s Fair Visitors Curious About: Architect Keck’s ‘House of Tomorrow’ and Architect Fisher’s ‘General Houses.’” American Builder and Building Age 55, no. 3 (July 1, 1933): 37. Zonkel, Philip. “Cold and Dreary Chicago Was an Early Sun City.” Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1998. Title A name given to the resource Keck & Keck George Fred Keck (1895–1980) and William Keck (1908–1995)