Today is Studs Terkel’s birthday—happy birthday, Studs—he would have been 100 years old. Studs loved to tell people he was born in 1912—“the Titanic went down and I came up.” Few nonagenarians can match Studs’s legacy: more than 5,500 audiotapes of his radio programs and another 1,200 oral history interviews for his books that encompass all aspects of creativity, discovery, and the human spirit.


Studs among his archived audio recordings, undated

This incredible treasure trove of the spoken word will continue to inform, inspire, and entertain Americans for generations to come, thanks to a partnership with the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, which is digitizing these recordings from the Chicago History Museum’s collection. But I am worried that despite all of these efforts one group of Americans will not fully recognize this rich legacy, and Studs will never touch their lives; I am worried that young people will simply overlook him as a part of the dead past, someone with no relevance to their lives. So if I had the chance to speak to a gathering of teenagers about why Studs still matters and why they should embrace him, it would go something like this.

I was lucky enough to work with Studs during the last decade of his life when he was the Chicago’s History Museum’s first distinguished scholar in residence. His knowledge of politics, art, science, literature, and music was remarkable, and his ability to draw meaningful connections among these various human pursuits and between the past and the present was profound. And yet his thirst for new ideas and more knowledge was relentless—he used to say the epitaph on his grave should read, “Curiosity did not kill this cat.”

Charged with conducting oral history interviews, the Museum’s Teen Council learns from the best, c. 2004. Photograph by Jay Crawford

Probably the most important lesson I learned from Studs was to have faith in young people and trust that they can and will do the right thing. Studs loved young people; he brightened in their presence, and he delighted in their unorthodox views and their fearless questioning of authority. While others found him inspiring, he found them inspiring. He believed the future held great promise for everyone because of his undying faith in the generations to come. Studs also championed the various causes of the many underdogs of society, especially those Americans throughout history—working men and women, immigrants, people of color—who felt the sting of others who sought to deny them their fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I believe Studs considered young people underdogs, too, but he saw them in a class by themselves; as long as they were young, nobody had to listen to them, thus effectively silencing the voice of youth until they shed that skin to emerge as adults.

Studs interviews an unidentified woman, undated. Photograph by Stephen Deutch, CHM, i65439

Listening and giving voice to people was Studs’s avocation and vocation, and he brought verve and panache to his work. He aptly summed up his craft in the Latin phrase vox populi, voice of the people. For more than half a century Studs engaged in conversations with Americans about their dreams, hopes, fears, pasts, futures, and understandings of who they were. Studs understood that the spoken word endowed common people with uncommon power while at the same time it humanized those with great authority who engendered mistrust and skepticism. All were worthy conversationalists, and he skillfully used the medium of voice to expound and to reveal.

Studs at work, undated

Studs has been called the father of oral history. It’s a great tribute, but I think it misses the mark. Studs conducted great interviews because he was a superb storyteller; he knew how to extract a compelling narrative from his interviewees, and most importantly, he knew how to weave these stories into a larger narrative that reflected authentic voices and original insights about twentieth-century America. Before anyone imagined the power of computers and the Internet, Studs took advantage of the technology available to him—radio broadcasts, the printed page, and tape recordings—to share America’s stories with its people and give greater strength and currency to vox populi.

Studs and Russell Lewis pictured at Studs’s 92nd birthday party, 2004. Photograph by John Alderson

Listen to Studs. Learn the power of the spoken word. Find your voice and use it.

Happy birthday, Studs.

> Explore StudsTerkel.org

> Watch a clip of Studs’ Place

> Purchase tickets to tonight’s 100 Years of Studs Terkel program

Last month Chicago magician Danny Orleans and his daughter, Leah, spent the day with us at the Museum. We’re developing an exhibition on the history of Chicago magic, and who better to advise us than talented and successful local magicians?

Danny and Leah Orleans at the Chicago History Museum
Photograph by John Russick

Danny and Leah performed a host of magic tricks that day. We filmed them over and over for a multimedia program we’re developing that tells the story of a young girl who discovers the true nature of magic. In the program, Danny’s hands represent the seasoned magician and magic shop owner, Lou. And Leah’s represent Greta, a girl who thinks she can become a magician overnight. In the story, Greta learns that the shop is a magical place with secrets of its own.

Capturing the magic on film
Photographs by John Russick

We’re extremely grateful for Danny and Leah’s help and guidance as we developed this piece. In fact, much of Chicago’s magic community has been extremely generous to us, and we thank everyone who lent a hand.

Watch videos of Danny performing:

Magic opens at the Museum on Saturday, June 9.

> Learn more about Magic

> See behind-the-scenes photos from Magic

This global conflict affected the city hugely through its residents. Many people living here fled communist dictatorships. Others settled in this area as refugees from wars spawned by conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States. Thus far, we have interviewed people from Bosnia, Ethiopia, Latvia, Russia, and Serbia. We have also talked with members of the US military, the Communist Party of the United States, an artist and peace activist, and many others.

Chicago has long been known as the second largest Polish city, after Poland’s capital Warsaw. This past February former Polish President Lech Wałęsa visited Chicago to receive the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation’s Lincoln Leadership Prize. At that time, the Foundation arranged for me to interview President Wałęsa as part of our Cold War project.

Lech Wałęsa, from pennant commemorating his first visit to Chicago, 1989

Pennant commemorating Lech Wałęsa’s first visit to Chicago, 1989

In three words, it was cool. I had high expectations for an interview with someone of Wałęsa’s stature. I hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed. Delivering newspapers as a kid, I remembered seeing Wałęsa on the front page many times. He worked as an electrician and union leader in the Gdańsk, Poland shipyards from the 1960s to the 1980s. As an activist, Wałęsa stood up to Poland’s communist dictatorship through non-violent means, and in 1990 became the country’s first post-communist Polish president. In the mid-1980s, he was the third most admired man in the United States, behind then-President Ronald Reagan and fellow Pole Pope John Paul II. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

For the interview, President Wałęsa came into the hotel conference room where I was waiting for him, shook everyone’s hand, and was then ready to talk. Chicago Polonia supported Wałęsa’s efforts in the 1980s with money, food, and clothing.

Through his interpreter, I asked him about that support. He described a spirited and mutually respectful relationship between his movement and Chicago’s Polish American communities. He even attributed his movement’s victory to Polish support around the world, saying “We would have never won the victory without Polish solidarity in itself.” Wałęsa also talked about communist Polish agents keeping Polish Americans under surveillance, and the difficulty of communicating with Chicago. In an era before social media and cell phones, he relied on landline telephones constantly monitored by the Polish dictatorship.

Wałęsa’s most interesting comments came in response to my question about the Arab Spring revolutions. “…[E]verything that has been happening in the Arab countries,”  he argued, “…[and] the protests elsewhere, like there was the Occupy Wall Street movement here in the United States, have been protests against capitalism.” He went on to claim that capitialism was a good system, but it needed reform and monitoring. With that last comment, he rushed off to his next interview about the current state of the world.

Do you have any memories of the Cold War that you’d like to share? If so, please leave a comment.

Listen to Lech Wałęsa talk about communist Poland:

> Learn more about Polish Americans in Chicago

Like Louisville, Chicago has a long history of horse racing. It dates back to the 1830s and grew with the city, culminating with the opening of Washington Park Race Track at 61^st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue on June 28, 1884. Track owners, eager to make their mark and earn a profit, launched a new race for three year old thoroughbreds called the American Derby.

The Washington Park Club Official Program, 1885
ICHi-65472

The first winning horse, Modesty, was ridden by Isaac Murphy, an African American jockey who had just won that year’s Kentucky Derby. Murphy was born April 16, 1861 in Frankfort, Kentucky. His father, a former slave, served in the Union army during the Civil War and died as a prisoner of war. Afterwards, the family moved to Lexington where Isaac learned how to ride; becoming a jockey at age fourteen and riding in his first Kentucky Derby two years later. In all, Murphy rode in eleven Kentucky Derbies, winning the race three times. In Chicago, Murphy fared even better. After winning the first American Derby, he won three more times in1885, 1886 and 1888. By then, the American Derby had become one of the richest and most prestigious races in the country.

Portrait of Isaac Murphy from Washington Park Club Derby Day Souvenir, 1889
ICHi-65473

Today, Murphy is considered one of the greatest jockeys of all time. Arlington Park remembers him with the annual Isaac Murphy Handicap, while the National Turf Writers Association presents the Isaac Murphy Award each year to the jockey with the highest winning percentage in North America.

Featured here are two items from the Museum’s collection associated with Isaac Murphy. The first is a colorful program from Washington Park’s 1885 season. Note that the jockeys are African American; at the time, black men dominated the sport of horse racing. None were more famous than Isaac Murphy, who rode Volante to victory that very year. The second object is a portrait of Murphy found in a Washington Park program from 1889. Murphy didn’t win that year, but continued racing until he died of pneumonia at age 36 in 1896. Today, his remains lie in honor near the legendary horse Man O’ War at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.

Horticulture and the nursery industry were big business in Chicago, even as early as the 1840s. With access to the necessary resources through the city’s first nurseries and garden shops, home gardening was a popular pastime for some of the city’s earliest settlers. As Chicago’s population grew and living quarters became denser, urban dwellers started “kitchen gardens” in their backyards. And in the 1880s, a new trend encouraged homeowners to plant window boxes to do their part toward beautifying the city.

Slews of gardening columns ran in Chicago’s daily papers, with titles like “The Successful Home Garden” and “Farm and Garden,” giving advice on maintaining productive gardens and flowering boxes. Gardening was so popular that in 1901 the Chicago Tribune ran its first annual gardening contest; and in 1910, the Northwestern Elevated Railroad Company sponsored a garden contest for homes that ran along the elevated tracks to encourage Chicagoans to plant window boxes and pots on backyard porches to beautify L riders’ views.

Backyard peony garden, Chicago, 1914. CHM, DN-0062802

Not just an aesthetic pastime, gardening was also part of the reform strategies of Progressive Era activists. In the late nineteenth century, many Chicagoans did not have easy access to nature. The relatively new, but entirely pervasive, industrial way of life gave rise to a movement that aimed to reconnect people with nature and the agricultural heritage of the recent past. City folk were going “back to the soil.” Children growing up in crowded tenements—when not working long hours in factories or sweatshops—had very few green, safe spaces in which to play. Since purpose-built playgrounds were few and far between, children played in the city’s alleys. Gardening, while enjoyable, offered a safe way to keep kids productively occupied.

Young gardeners near North Clark Street, 1915. CHM, DN-0065255

Garden house at Angel Guardian home, an orphan asylum located at 2001 W. Devon Avenue, Chicago, March 1914. CHM, DN-0062386

Progressive landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860–1951) introduced community gardening space into his parks on Chicago’s West Side, where children could learn how to tend their own gardens from experienced teachers. Produce from these gardens fed the children’s families or went to local orphanages. Social reformers encouraged the incorporation of gardening into the lives of all young people. Gardening was, thus, taught at juvenile corrections facilities, orphanages, and elementary and high schools throughout the city.

Supervised gardeners at Bridewell, the Chicago House of Corrections, located at W. 26th Street and S. California Avenue, South Lawndale, 1915. CHM, DN-0064431

Fenced-in garden at the Flower Technical School (the Lucy L. Flower School), E. 26th Street and S. Wabash Avenue, Chicago, 1915. CHM, DN-0064572

Like today, last century’s urban dwellers wanted to test their green thumbs and maybe bring a little bit of nature into their congested concrete world. When you think about it, the desire to get your hands dirty and maybe eat a cucumber you were able to grow yourself is pretty similar to today’s culture of urban farms and farmers’ markets, rooftop or fire-escape gardening. Growing and eating from your own garden is about as local and fresh as you can get, and Chicago is still extremely active when it comes to urban agriculture and local food production.

For ideas of plants to grow in your little plot (or pot) of land, try the Hull-House Seed Library. Or, if you’re in the mood to bask in the work of experienced gardeners, head to the Lincoln Park Conservatory’s room after room of exotic tropical plants. Right outside it, you’ll find Grandmother’s Garden, an amazingly lush naturalistic garden from the 1890s, and the Formal Gardens, one of Chicago’s oldest gardens, planted in the 1880s.

Stay tuned for more spring gardening blog posts—and if you don’t have the space for plants, don’t forget that our neighbors at the Green City Market are back on Saturday, May 5.

> Read more about Chicago’s gardening history

> Discover the legacy of Jens Jensen

> Visit the Hull-House Seed Library

Hugh Hefner’s address book, 1956–57
CHM, i65211

No man’s world could be quite as adventurous as Hefner’s, whose suave appreciation of the finer things made him millions and led the nation toward postwar sexual revolution. Hef flipped the pages of this book while his celebrity was on the rise, building a world empire of fantasy and desire where readers could escape their troubles by getting caught in the teasing gaze of the centerfold-of-the-month. Hefner’s eye for women continues to shape the tastes of men across the globe, albeit now from Los Angeles rather than Chicago.

Photographer Stephen Deutch captured Playboy Bunnies on duty at the Playboy Club, Chicago, c. 1960.
Gifts of Stephen Deutch, i23629 and i40392

The lore of the little black book implies a secret world of go-to contacts—actual names or pseudonyms—its user has cultivated and maintained. Today, real address books, like this, are becoming a thing of the past as many people find it easier and faster to store information electronically or through social media. Whether in paper or digital form, however, the lesson remains the same: if you don’t want anyone to discover your secret, don’t save it! (Unless you are the king of the Playboy empire. Wink, wink.)

> Read more about the history of Playboy

> Read more about the history of  Playboy Enterprises Inc.

> Learn about Chicago’s magazine industry

> Discover Unexpected Chicago

Ann Sorrentino was a well-known cook who used her food to produce a wider awareness of Chicago’s Italian culture. She was born in 1917 and raised on the West Side, where nearly all of her extended family lived in a three-story house owned by her aunt and uncle.

Ann’s parents and their five children lived on one floor while eight cousins, an uncle, an aunt, and grandparents lived on the other two stories. More members of the family lived nearby. When the entire group got together, there were twenty-six mouths to feed! Those occasions started Ann’s culinary education.

Ann Sorrentino (second from left)
Photo courtesy of Dolores Sennebogen

Her Italian food career began in 1966 when she organized and researched a series of Italian dinners for the public, “The Cuisine and Culture of Italy.” Father Armando Pierini of Our Lady of Pompeii Church originally dreamt up the idea, which was co-sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Committee of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. The meals celebrated Italy’s twenty regions.

Ann was Sicilian and used her own background as the starting point. She worked her way up the Italian peninsula with the rest of the meals. Her research included interviews with local Italian American women about their recipes. Ann then tested the dishes in her own kitchen. After that, she gave the recipes to the Como Inn (546 North Milwaukee Avenue) where staff cooked and hosted the dinners. These feasts quickly became popular, and it would normally take two or three sittings for each regional meal to handle the demand.

The events also provided Ann with some notoriety. In 1975, she appeared on the local CBS television show “It’s Worth Knowing About Us” discussing and making Italian cakes and cookies. Ann also wrote a popular column for the Italian American newspaper Fra Noi (Among Us) beginning in the 1980s. In her column, she included recipes and stories from her life and her Italian dinners. Because of the latter’s popularity, Ann revived them in 1986 after a brief hiatus. Her reputation also produced the beginnings of a book, From Ann’s Kitchen, which includes her recipes and a look at what Italian cooking really is. Sadly, she did not live to finish the volume.

After Ann’s sudden death, her daughter Dolores finished From Ann’s Kitchen. It is full of traditions, love, and family. Dolores has also continued Ann’s column in Fra Noi, using many of her mother’s unpublished recipes alongside her own. Dolores also recently donated a number of her mother and father’s papers to the Museum, so that the larger population can continue to study Chicago’s historic Italian American communities, both in and out of the kitchen.

Dolores Sennebogen, 2011
Photo courtesy of Dolores Sennebogen

> Read the introduction to From Ann’s Kitchen (PDF)

> Lean more about Chicago’s Italian communities

This collection of largely unpublished essays is a window to the mind of Chicago architect, Stanley Tigerman.  Consider Chapter 9, “Architectural Meaning in Hebraic Measurement and Orientation,” which begins:  “When the nineteenth-century architect Louis H. Sullivan uttered the phrase ‘form follows function,’ little did he realize just how literally he would be taken by the majority of descendant American architects.  In just three words, he deprived architecture of form emanating from any source other than the use to which it would be put.  That diminution proscribed such elements as the expression of measurement and orientation (which in most cases is not necessarily crucial to built form).”  Thereupon, the remainder of the essay makes the latter point by citing examples of measurement and orientation from the Hebrew tradition.  This is vintage Tigerman:  Take a shot at architectural orthodoxy and then move sideways.  What makes him so fascinating is that sideways leads in many different directions.  Read this book and enjoy the ride.

> Learn more about Author! Author!

My Chinatown, the multimedia object theater program developed and installed at the Chicago History Museum in late 2009, reopens this weekend at the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago at 238 W. 23rd Street. This project is thanks to a generous grant from the Chicago Community Trust.

Chicago’s Chinatown, looking north along Wentworth Avenue, 2009. Photograph by John Alderson.

If you didn’t get a chance to see the program here, I encourage you to make the journey to Chinatown this weekend. The program provides valuable insights about the neighborhood you’ll walk through to get to the museum. Even if you already know a bit about Chicago’s Chinese American community, you’ll see Chinatown in a whole new light after your visit.

Enjoy!

> Discover the Chinese-American Museum of Chicago

> Learn more about My Chinatown: Stories from Within

Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., photograph by Alexander Gardner, April 10, 1865

Since 1955, tax day in America has been April 15.* Ironically, Lincoln died on the same day in 1865 after being shot the evening before by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The bed that Lincoln died in is owned by the Chicago History Museum and currently part of an exhibition that focuses on Lincoln’s presidency, which transformed America from a union of free and slave-holding states into a land of national freedom. No mention is made of taxes–but perhaps that’s not necessary.

*This year, April 15 is a Sunday, while April 16 is a holiday in some states, so tax day will be April 17.

> Learn more about Abraham Lincoln