27 Chicago Designers
description: Twenty-Seven Chicago Designers was a membership organization founded in 1936 by a group of twenty-seven graphic designers, typographers, and illustrators with the goal of promoting their design talent to commercial businesses. The group publication Twenty-Seven was the primary vehicle for showcasing their work. Early examples of Twenty-Seven illustrate the ways in which a modernist design aesthetic came to be adapted by designers working in the Midwest in the 1930s and 1940s. The series charts the stylistic changes of group members over time and firmly positions Chicago as a hub of commercial design in twentieth-century America. Over the course of its fifty-five-year history, 27 Chicago Designers published thirty-eight issues of Twenty-Seven. Every member was invited to submit a selection of exemplary projects—often advertisements or book, product, and package designs—for publication. John Averill, a typographic designer and founding member of the organization, established the layout of the publication, allocating each designer four pages to present their work. The designers were charged with creating and illustrating their entries, with some even printing their own inserts. The entries were bound in alphabetical sequence, and blank section dividers were used to distinguish adjacent entries. With the exception of minor size modifications and changes to the binding, Twenty-Seven maintained a consistent format throughout the run of the publication. Its editors imposed very few limitations, and the designers could showcase work according to their own tastes and budgets. As a result, the publication presents a great variety of styles. Members distributed the books to their respective mailing lists, and the publication was made available for sale in select bookstores. In addition to advertising the design talents of its members, Twenty-Seven promoted the services of the printers, engravers, typographers, electrotypers, and paper companies who contributed to the productio…
source: 27 Chicago Designers. Twenty-Seven. Chicago: The Designers, 1938. https://chicagodesignarchive.org/project/1b-30 27 Chicago Designers. Twenty-Seven Chicago Designers: The Fortieth Year. Vol. 31. Chicago: The Designers, 1975. AIGA Chicago. “Selling Design: 27 Chicago Designers 1936–1991 Exhibit Opening at UIC University Library.” https://chicago.aiga.org/event-internal/selling-design-27-chicago- designers-1936-1991-exhibit-opening-at-uic-university-library/. “Art: First of Kind Class at Gallery.” Quad-City Times, February 23, 1964. “Artist to Speak.” The Pantagraph, March 31, 1991. “David Lawrence, 40, Leading Graphic Designer.” Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1984. “Designers Featured.” The Times, December 1, 1978. Essex, Joseph Michael, Lara N. Allison, and Jack Weiss. 27 Chicago Designers: When Art Became Design, 1936–1991. Richmond, British Columbia: Blanchette Press, 2016. “European Influences on Chicago Designers.” Print 7, no. 6 (March 1, 1953): 26. Jack Weiss Design Papers, 1939-2015, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago. Lagana, Gretchen. “Collecting Design Resources at the University of Illinois at Chicago.” Design Issues 3, no. 2 (Autumn 1986): 37–46. McVicker, George. “European Influences on Chicago Designers.” In Print, Magazine of the Graphic Arts 7, no. 6 (March, 1953): 26. Patterson, Rhodes. “The 27 Chicago Designers at 50.” Communication Arts 28, no. 8 (February 1987): 70–77. Society of Typographic Arts. “27 Chicago Designers.” Vimeo video, 10:10. July 6, 2012. https://vimeo.com/45324415. “The 27 Chicago Designers.” IDEA 22, no. 124 (May 1974): 30–43. The Art Institute of Chicago. “Selling Design: 27 Chicago Designers, 1936–1991, Sep 26–Nov 20, 2017.” http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/selling-design-27-chicago-designers-1936-1991. The Chicago Design Archive. “27 Chicago Designers.” https://chicagodesignarchive.org/client/27-chicago-designers. Twenty-Seven Chicago Designers: 1986 Edition. Edited by William Kaulfuss.…

A.C. McClurg & Co.
description: A.C. McClurg & Co., a book publishing house and the first stationery business in Chicago, began in 1844 as W.W. Barlow & Co. Within five years of its establishment, the company underwent several transitions in ownership and partnership, with its name changing to S.C. Griggs & Co. and then to Griggs, Bross & Co. In 1859, Alexander C. McClurg (1832–1901) was hired as a clerk. McClurg was born in Philadelphia and moved to Pittsburg with his family. He attended the University of Western Pennsylvania and graduated from Miami University in 1853 with a degree in law. He passed the bar but never pursued a profession in law. After inquiring about employment via letter, McClurg moved to Chicago and began working at S.C. Griggs & Co. In 1861, McClurg enlisted as a private soldier in the Union Army. He encountered action early in his military career. Based on his meritorious services, he was promoted Captain of the Eighty-Eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and, by the end of the war, he had achieved the status of Lieutenant General. Leaving the service with honors, McClurg returned to his appointment at S.C Griggs & Co. In 1868, a blaze destroyed the entire inventory of S.C. Griggs. In 1871, a second disaster—the Great Chicago Fire—once again annihilated the store. After McClurg, E.L. Jansen, and F.B. Smith purchased S.C. Griggs’s shares, the company became known as Jansen, McClurg & Co. until Jansen’s retirement in 1886. Thereafter, it presumed its longest-lasting name: A.C. McClurg & Co. In 1876, McClurg married Eleanor Wheeler (1847–1905), an heiress and niece of Chicago mayor William B. Ogden. The retail business S.A. Maxwell & Co. sold their wholesale and retail book business and stationery business to A.C. McClurg & Co. in 1890. McClurg went on to expand the business, making his company a staple in midwestern publishing and a dominant presence on a national scale. McClurg paid special attention to the book departments, often traveling abroad to find rare books f…
source: “A Richly-Attired Thief: Caught Shop-Lifting at A.C. McClurg & Co.’s by a Clerk.” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 9, 1888. A.C. McClurg & Co. A.C. McClurg & Co.’s Catalogue of Fine and Rare Imported Books. Chicago: The Company, 1907. A.C. McClurg & Co. A.C. McClurg & Co.’s Illustrated Price List of Blank Books, Stationery, Photograph Albums, Holiday Goods, Etc., Etc. Chicago: The Company, 1886. A.C. McClurg & Co. A Classified Catalogue of 3,500 Volumes Suitable for a Public Library. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1901. A.C. McClurg & Co. Illustrated Holiday Catalogue, 1895–6. Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1895. A.C. McClurg & Co. Records, The Newberry Library, Chicago. “A.C. McClurg Acquired.” Chicago Tribune, December 28, 1966. Babcock, Frederic. “Among the Authors.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 14, 1946. Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago. Chicago: Wilson & St. Clair, 1868. Butcher, Fanny. “The Literary Spotlight.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 23, 1950. Butcher, Fanny. “The Literary Spotlight.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 26, 1959. “Charles Wilder Davis Dead: Commander of the Loyal Legion and Connected with A.C. McClurg & Co.” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 16, 1898. “Chicago Real Estate: Mandel Bros. Lease the Old M’Clurg Building Site; Form Intends Erecting a Fireproof, Nine-Story Structure on the Wabash Avenue and Madison Street Corner, Connecting with Their Stores.” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 24, 1900. Clark, Herma. “When Chicago Was Chicago.” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 9, 1947. “Contract for Books Awarded: Public Library Trustees Will Buy New American Works from A.C. McClurg & Co.” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 28, 1904. Cottenet, Cécile. Race, Ethnicity, and Publishing in America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. “Death of A.C. McClurg; Head of Chicago Publishing House Expires at St. Augustine, Where He Went to Seek Health.” New York Times, April 16, 1901. Dietrich, Lucas. “Across the Color Line: Race, Reception, and the U.S. Literary Market…

Abbott Laboratories
description: Chicago pharmacist and physician Wallace Calvin Abbott (1857–1921) founded the Abbott Alkaloidal Company in 1900. The medical business, renamed Abbott Laboratories in 1915, started with the success of Abbott’s alkaloid pills that he produced in his own home. A new formula at the time, alkaloid pills, or “dosimetric granules” as he called them, were solid tablets of commonly prescribed liquid medications, such as morphine, codeine, and quinine. This method made it easier for pharmacists to prescribe more exact dosages and increased the shelf life of medications. Although he did not invent this method, Abbott was one of the first physicians to improve upon the idea and devise a method of manufacturing tablets in precise measurements and large quantities. During World War I, Abbott Laboratories produced substitutes for medications previously exported from German pharmaceutical companies. As a result, Abbott’s company quickly grew and began funding research for the development of new drugs. Prior to the late nineteenth century, medicines were derived from natural sources in the forms of herbs, plants, and roots. The manufacturing of chemicals for synthetic drugs marked a turning point in the pharmaceutical industry. British chemist Henry Dakin’s invention of the antiseptic Chlorazene, the first synthetic medicine manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, was indispensable in treating the wounds of World War I soldiers. During the 1920s and 1930s, the company collaborated with chemists Dr. Ernest H. Volwiler and Dr. Roger Adams, head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who developed the local anesthetic Butyn in 1922. Volwiler, along with Dr. Donalee L. Tabern, discovered the widely used general anesthetic sodium thiopental, trademarked Pentothal, in 1936. After Abbott’s death in 1921 at the age of sixty-three, the company continued to prosper and opened its new manufacturing facilities in North Chicago. In 1933, Abbott Laboratori…
source: A Century of Progress records, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago. Abbott Laboratories. “Our History.” http://www.abbott.com/about-abbott/our- heritage.html. “Art Director Traces History of Magazine.” Dayton Daily News, October 20, 1950. Burrell, Brandon. “Abbott Laboratories: Provisioning a Vision.” PhD diss., Florida State University, 2013. Century of Progress International Exposition Publications, Crerar Ms 226, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. “Century of Progress Notes.” Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1934. “Classes in New Fields Offered in Art Institute: Reorganize Industrial Design Division.” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 12, 1947. Corfield, Justin. “Abbott, Wallace Calvin (1857–1921).” Vol. 1 of The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, edited by Kenneth E. Hendrickson III, 3. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. “Countryside to Host Art Slide Lecture.” Roselle Register, March 6, 1968. De la Merced, Michael J. and Bruce Jaspen. “Abbott Labs to Split into 2 Companies.” New York Times, October 19, 2011. DeForest Sackett Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago. “Dr. Wallace C. Abbott, Laboratory Chief, Dies.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 5, 1921. “Graphic Design.” Chicago Tribune, March 12, 2018. Heller, Steven and Greg D’Onofrio. The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design. New York: Abrams, 2017. International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 40. Farmington Hills, Michigan: St. James Press, 2001. Israelski, Edmond W. and William H. Muto. “User-Centered Design at Abbott Laboratories.” In Designing Usability into Medical Products, edited by Michael E. Wiklund and Stephen B. Wilcox, 257–268. London: Taylor & Francis, 2005. James Hayes Papers, The Newberry Library, Chicago. Kogan, Herman. The Long White Line: The Story of Abbott Laboratories. New York: Random House, 1963. Lagana, Gretchen. “Collecting Design Resou…

AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts)
description: Established in 1914 as the American Institute of Graphic Arts, AIGA is the oldest professional organization devoted to design in the United States. Since its formation in New York, AIGA has grown to become one of the major professional associations dedicated to design in the United States and abroad. Its forty founding members included illustrator and designer F.G. Cooper (1883–1962) and typography pioneer Frederic W. Goudy (1865–1947) as well as prominent fine and commercial printers Hal Marchbanks (1877–1934) and William Edwin Rudge (1876–1931). The organization initially focused on the promotion of fine typography, bookmaking, and high-quality commercial printing. Responding to the new multi-faceted profession of the ‘designer,’ which emerged from the marketing needs of the flourishing American economy, AIGA helped to broaden the graphic arts into a diverse set of practices. As early as the 1920s, AIGA membership expanded to typographers, printers, illustrators, package designers, trademark designers, photographers, industrial designers, jewelry designers, and glass designers. It was also the first design association to accept women as members. Frances Atwater, a typographer at the New York Times, and Baltimore Museum of Art Director Florence N. Levy set this precedent. By the 1981, local AIGA chapters were initiated throughout the United States. As of 2010, the Chicago branch held a membership of 1,318. The association continues to connect practitioners, survey the field, and discuss developments. With a national membership of seventy chapters and 26,000 design practitioners, scholars, and students, AIGA is the largest design association in the nation, sponsoring design exhibitions, publications, lectures, workshops, and professional awards.
source: Challos, Courtney. “City Seeks Simpler Ballot: Officials Elect to Ask for Proposals from Graphic Designers.” Chicago Tribune, November 29, 2000. Challos, Courtney. “Redesigned Election Ballot to Get Trial Run in Primary.” Chicago Tribune, January 8, 2001. “Editorials: How to Make a Better Ballot.” Chicago Tribune, December 3, 2000. Emmett, Burton. “A.I.G.A. Spirit—What Is It?” July 10, 1924. http://www.aiga.org/aiga-spirit-what-is-it. “FLOR Recipient of AIGA Chicago Corporate Design Leadership Award.” PR Newswire, June 9, 2011. Heller, Steven and Marie Finamore, ed. Design Culture: An Anthology of Writing from the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design. New York: Allworth Press, 1997. Heller, Steven and Nathan Gluck. “Seventy-Five Years of AIGA.” http://www.aiga.org/aiga/content/inspiration/seventy-five-years-of-aiga/ “IIT Institute of Design Receives AIGA Corporate Design Leadership Award.” States News Service, February 2, 2005. Margolin, Victor. “Graphic Design in Chicago.” In Chicago Architecture and Design, 1923–1993: Reconfiguration of an American Metropolis, edited by John Zukowsky, 283–301. Munich: Prestel, 1993. Margolin, Victor and Robert Perlman, ed. Chicago Graphic Design: The Best of Chicago Graphic Design, with Essays on Past and Future Trends. Rockport, Massachusetts: RWP and Rockport Publishing, 1994. “Morningstar Receives AIGA Chicago Chapter Corporate Design Leadership Award.” PR Newswire, May 21, 2010. Mortell, Constance L. “Poetry Partners.” Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1996. “News of Authors and Books.” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 17, 1923. Sullivan, Barbara. “Morton International’s Report Wins in Midwest Competition.” Chicago Tribune, November 14, 1995. The American Institute of Graphic Arts. “AIGA: About.” http://www.aiga.org/about/. The American Institute of Graphic Arts. AIGA Chicago: 2009/2010. Chicago: Lake County Press, 2010. The American Institute of Graphic Arts. “AIGA Chicago: Mission.” https://chicago.aiga.org/about-us/mission/ The American …

American Center for Design
description: esigners beyond Chicago and the Midwest, and its leadership began to include a mix of local and national board members. In 1989, as a result of this growth and enlarged geographic focus, STA changed its name to the American Center of Design (ACD). The organization continued to focus on design education and the elevation of public taste in graphic design, in addition to addressing the relationship of design and business through conferences, publications, seminars, and other programs. ACD was particularly concerned with new technologies, research, and ideas affecting the design profession. It explored these topics at its “100 Show,” a national curated design competition organized annually; through essays and criticism published in its design journals, including “Design Year in Review” and “People, Not Markets,” and in its “Quarterly Practice” newsletter; and at its “Annual Surfaces” conferences for professionals from the design and business sectors, the first of which was held in November of 1993. ACD also offered an annual conference every spring from 1991 to 1996 for students of design. These involved portfolio reviews and presentations by professionals in the field. ACD’s 1995 publication Interact included a CD-ROM with integrated content, demonstrating the organization’s interest in exploring new modes of interaction between print and digital design. ACD was recognized among I.D. (The International Design Magazine)’s inaugural “I.D. Forty” issue in 1993. Its editors highlighted the organization’s commitment to “generating debate about the focus, values, and judgments instrumental to the future of good design” and described ACD as “a rare resource of information” for designers. As ACD’s national visibility grew, it lost its local footing, membership among Chicago designers waned, and its financial future became tenuous. These difficulties were compounded as a growing number of new organizations and programs devoted to graphic design began to take hold in both busin…
source: “American Center for Design’s ‘Interact’ CD-ROM.” I.D. 42, no. 4 (August 1, 1995): 91. American Center for Design Records, 1927–1944, Chicago History Museum Research Center. Blauvelt, Andrew. “Calling for the New Imagists.” Eye 5, no. 17 (June 1, 1995): 84. Comberg, David. “Living Surfaces.” I.D. 43, no. 1 (February 1996): 90–91. Coupland, Ken. “The 100 Show: The Sixteenth Annual of the American Center for Design.” Graphis 50, no. 294 (December 1, 1994): 22. Coupland, Ken. “The 100 Show: The Nineteenth Annual of the American Center for Design.” Graphis 56, no. 328 (September 1, 2000): 12. Coyne, Patrick. “The ACD Conference on Interactive Media.” Communication Arts 36, no. 8 (February 1, 1995): 135–140. Daniels, Mary. Graphic Display. Chicago Tribune, February 9, 1992. “Design Student Grant, Miwa Wang, Institute of Design.” Statements 6, no. 3 (March 1991): 31. Dewey, Rob. The Society of Typographic Arts: A Seventy-five Year History. Edited by Jack Weiss. Chicago: The Society of Typographic Arts, 2002. Ehrenberg, Jennifer. “A Cold Eye: Dues and Don’ts.” Print 53, no. 3 (May/June 1999): 16–17. “Furthering the Faith: American Center for Design.” I.D. 1 (February 1993): 46. Hanson, Cynthia. “Taking a Wipe at Art.” Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1992. Heller, Steven. “Katherine McCoy, Educator, Designer, Writer.” Print 52, no. 4 (September 1998): 38. “Honorary Member Bill Moggridge.” Design Statements 9, no. 2 (June 1, 1994): 19. Kouri, Charles. “In a Changing World.” Statements 6, no. 2 (December 1, 1991): 18. “Living Surfaces.” I.D. 48, no. 5 (August 1, 2001): 78. Margolin, Victor. “Design History in the United States, 1977–2000.” The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002. McMillan, Sam. “Report from ACD: Design for the Internet.” Communication Arts 38, no. 8 (February 1, 1997): 131–136. Middleton, R. Hunter. “Twenty-five Years of STA History.” Print, March 1953. Mirapaul, Matthew. “Designi…

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 …

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…

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…

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.

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…