THE UNIVERSITY AND THE CITY
A Centennial View of the University of Chicago
7. THE CIVIC SPIRIT
- An Era of Institution-Building
- Merchandisers and Advertisers
- Industrialists
- Finance and Commerce
AN ERA OF INSTITUTION-BUILDING
Although the impetus for the University's creation came from the Baptist churches of Chicago and the Middle West, with an endowment from John D. Rockefeller, its grwoth and expansion dependedheavily on local businessmen and their families. By the 1890s Chicago business had come of age, and a generation of merchants and financiers were turning their attention to building cultural institutions in the city. As Chicago's literary magazine, the Dial, proclaimed, "the signs are clear that the season of mere physical life is over, and that the life of the soul calls for exercise and nourishment." Men who came together to sponsor the World's Columbian Exposition learned to cooperate on other ventures, including the Art Institute, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a new university.
The University of Chicago was one of many institutions created or enlarged in the 1890s. Older organizations such as the Historical Society and the Academy of Sciences had been formed by and for genteel society members who valued culture; now the emphasis was on institutions which could raise the standards of the public at large. The University's role was to promote the finest scholarship in all fields of human knowledge.
Martin A. Ryerson and Charles L. Hutchinson served concurrently for nearly three decades as president and treasurer of the University's Board of Trustees. Sons of pioneer Chicago entrepreneurs, they were especially concerned with bringing refinement and "civilization" to the city which still had the rough face of a frontier town. Through an interlocking series of boards and committees, Ryerson and Hutchinson with their friends sponsored churches, asylums, hospitals, museums, libraries, schools, and all the other acoutrements Chicago needed to become a world-class city.
Hutchinson inherited his father's holdings in the Chicago Packing and Provision Company, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Corn Exchange Bank. A conservative investor, he was widely trusted by other businessmen. His travels to Europe convinced him that Chicago should be improved with art works and other public institutions to raise people's consciousness of higher ideals. Hutchinson spent much of his time and nearly half his income on philanthropic endeavors, helping to found the Art Institute and later serving as its president; serving as a director of the World's Columbian Exposition and the Chicago Relief and Aid Society; trustee of Presbyterian Hospital, Chicago Lying-In Hospital, and Hull House; treasurer of the Immigrants Protective League, and president of the Chicago Orphan Asylum; and helping to secure a site for the Field Museum of Natural History. Active in the Commercial Club, Hutchinson also helped organize the Chicago Athletic Club and the Cliff Dwellers, all the while also an active member of St. Paul's Universalist Church.
Taking over his father's lumber business, Martin A. Ryerson shared Hutchinson's vision of the ideal city and worked closely with him through much of his life. An avid collector and student of art, he served as vice-president of the Art Institute and of the Field Museum, and also supported the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Sprague Memorial Institute, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Poetry magazine. Ryerson had funded the physics laboratory for the University, and his high-minded approach to science was expressed in his speech at the dedication of the Yerkes Observatory in 1897, when he encouraged "the cultivation of science for its own sake" at a time when so much energy was expended on "the improvement of material conditions."
University fund raisers sometimes had to compete with counterparts from other organizations. In a sense, though, each institution lent prestige to the others, as each benefitted the city as a whole. William R. Harper sought close associations with other educational organizations in the city. Some affiliated directly, such as Rush Medical College, the Chicago Manual Training School, and years later the John Crerar Library; some discussed mergers or cooperative ventures but remained independent, as did the Armour Institute of Technology and Theodore Thomas's Chicago Orchestra. Others maintained close ties through individual trustees or faculty members, as did the Art Institute and Field Museum. Interaction among the city's educational and cultural institutions strengthened them individually and collectively, as each developed a unique identity and purpose.
MERCHANDISERS AND ADVERTISERS
Early settlers in Chicago foresaw its geographical potential as a center for trade. Farmers needed supplies from the East, and a way to deliver their goods to the proper markets. Chicago was a connecting point for both land and water transportation routes, and soon became a hub of retail and wholesale merchandising, as well as a collection point for grain, cattle, and lumber from throughout the Middle West.
University benefactors founded and ran many of Chicago's great retail establishments, including Marshall Field's, Carson Pirie Scott & Co., Mandel Brothers, Wieboldt's, Goldblatt's, and Walgreen's drug stores, mail-order giants Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward's, as well as hardware and railroad supply companies. "Not known as a great giver," Marshall Field donated land and sold additional parcels for the original site of the University, and later initiated a challenge grant that raised $1,000,000 in endowment. Thomas W. Goodspeed, who was responsible for much of the University's fundraising, said that "the University did an equally great service for Mr. Field," opening his eyes to the benefits of philanthropy and leading to other gifts, especially for the creation of the Field Museum.
Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co. during its meteoric rise at the turn of the century, became even better known as a philanthropist, believing in "giving while you live" rather than establishing permanent trusts. He sponsored schools for African-Americans in rural areas throughout the South and raised money for YMCA buildings in urban areas, as well as aiding the University of Chicago, the Associated Jewish Charities, and the Museum of Science and Industry.
Adolphus Clay Bartlett moved to Chicago in 1863 and took up the hardware business. His main philanthropic interest was the Chicago Home for the Friendless. He became a close friend of William Rainey Harper and a trustee of the University. Bartlett donated funds for the men's gymnasium on campus named for his son, and another son, Frederic Clay Bartlett, painted the interior murals depicting a medieval tournament.
Executives from the advertising industry also took an interest in the University. Albert Lasker of the Lord and Thomas agency provided an important endowment for the hospital in its early years, and one of his employees, Fairfax M. Cone, who took over the company renamed as Foote, Cone and Belding, served the University years later as a member and chairman of the Board of Trustees. After deciding to leave his successful career at the New York advertising agency of Benton and Bowles, William Benton accepted the invitation of his Yale classmate, Robert Hutchins, to come to the University of Chicago and study its public relations problems. A confidential report was printed for the Trustees which incorporated advice on the latest advertising and promotional techniques. Benton advocated better use of radio broadcasting and films to disseminate the University's name and improve its image. Benton also acquired the Encyclopaedia Britannica from Sears and turned over much of its stock to the University, providing an ongoing source of funds from royalties, and initiating a long relationship with EB that placed many faculty members in editorial positions.
INDUSTRIALISTS
As trade and transportation lines converged in Chicago, the city became a center for manufacturing and industry of all kinds. Raw materials flowed in by ship from the Great Lakes and by railroad from the surrounding prairie states, and finished goods were sent to both coasts and around the world. The University was a natural beneficiary of successful entrepreneurs who wished to show their civic pride. As a fiftieth-anniversary brochure declared, "The regular dividends paid by a university are paid to all humanity, in new knowledge, new science, new medicine. The 12,000 Chicagoans who have invested money in the University of Chicago expected nothing more than these regular dividends."
Meat packer Gustavus F. Swift subscribed $1000 for the new University of Chicago in 1890. But his most important legacy to the University was certainly his son Harold, who graduated with a PhB in 1907 and became one of the University's most devoted alumni. Chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1922 to 1949, Harold Swift may have spent as much time with University affairs as he did with the family business.
Other meat packers aided the University, including Sidney Kent, an original incorporator of the Union Stock Yards, and Charles Hutchinson, whose father was a partner with Kent in the Chicago Packing and Provision Company. Philip D. Armour, who arrived in Chicago the same year as Gustavus Swift, invested in the Armour Institute of Technology, which later became the Illinois Institute of Technology. Although the two schools discussed affiliating at several different times, the Armour family preferred to keep their school independent. They did provide for the University in other ways, including the Armour Clinical Research Laboratory in the hospital complex.
Benefactors of the University included manufacturers of lumber, steel, railroad freight cars, steam radiators, farm machinery, electrical equipment, and paper products. Silas R. Cobb, a harness maker who arrived in Chicago in 1833, made enough money to retire in 1852 at the age of 40, and although somewhat intimidating to the University's campaign solicitors, was happy to contribute funds for the University's first lecture hall. Cyrus Hall McCormick, who made Chicago a center for farm implement manufacturing, died before the University opened, but several family members took an active interest in it, including his daughter, Anita McCormick Blaine, who funded the Chicago Institute, which was to become part of the University's Laboratory Schools, and her brother Harold, who served as a trustee for many years.
La Verne Noyes was an inventor of farm machinery, and also developed a wind-driven motor which could generate electricity. President of the Civic Federation of Chicago, trustee of the Lewis Institute, life-member of the Art Institute, and president of the trustees of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, he donated money for a women's building at the University of Chicago as a memorial to his wife, Ida Noyes, who died in 1912.
Chicago's steel industry was represented at the University by Edward L. Ryerson, grandson of a hardware and steel merchandiser who came to Chicago in 1842. Ryerson served as chairman of Joseph T. Ryerson and Son and later of Inland Steel after the two companies merged; he was chairman of the University's Board of Trustees from 1953 to 1956, and also served for some years as president of the Orchestral Association.
FINANCE AND COMMERCE
Some fortunes were made in Chicago by speculation, others by careful and sound investments. Early settlers who made good put their money in real estate, banks, railroads, and utilities. Fortunes were as quickly lost as gained in the turbulent economy of the late nineteenth century, subject to panics as well as booms, not to mention the great Chicago fire.
Trusted businessmen played key roles in gaining wide acceptance of the new University. Charles Hutchinson, president of the Corn Exchange Bank, which handled much of the business of the Board of Trade, was one of the first to give his approval to the fund-raising campaign of the American Baptist Education Society. In later years, Norman Wait Harris (founder of Harris Trust & Savings Bank) and John Nuveen also lent their support.
Annie McClure Hitchcock, whose family came to Chicago in 1837, provided funds for a men's dormitory at the University in honor of her husband Charles, a founder of the Chicago Bar Association. John P. Wilson, another prominent Chicago attorney, helped guide the University as a trustee in its early years. The Chicago legal community provided two chairmen for the Board of Trustees, Laird Bell (1949-1953) and Glen A. Lloyd (1956-1963).
Gifts came to the University from many types of donors, including the widow of "Diamond Jo" Reynolds, who ran steamboats on the Mississippi River and gold mines in Arizona; Charles T. Yerkes, who created a furor by monopolizing the Chicago street railways; and Helen Culver, perhaps Chicago's first businesswoman, who managed her cousin's extensive real estate holdings and eventually turned many of them over to philanthropic interests, including Hull House (which occupied her family estate), and the biological laboratories of the University of Chicago.
Eli B. Williams came to Chicago in 1833 and built a store on South Water Street, and made his fortune from investments in real estate and public utilities. In 1916 his son, Hobart W. Williams, distributed the family properties to St. Luke's Hospital, the Chicago YMCA, and the University of Chicago. The University received the old Williams homestead on Wabash and Monroe, which by then was a valuable commercial block. Sale of the property provided funds to expand the business school.
Jonathan Young Scammon arrived in Chicago in 1835. A lawyer and banker, he wrote the original ordinances to set up the public schools, helped found the Chicago Historical Society and Chicago Academy of Sciences, donated ground for the Hahnemann homeopathic hospital, and funded an astronomical observatory at the Old University of Chicago campus. Financially ruined by the Chicago fires in 1871 and 1874, he retired to his wife's 20-acre estate in Hyde Park. Through bequest and purchase, the Scammon property became the site of the Laboratory Schools of the University.
Family names such as Searle, Crown, Pritzker, Wyler, Harris, Regenstein, Nuveen, Kersten, Mitchell, Pick, and Rubloff represent the wide variety of business interests in the Chicago area which have provided strong support for the University in recent years. A private institution often associated more closely with a national or international community of scholars than with its closer neighbors, the University of Chicago nonetheless relies as it always has on continuing relationships with the citizens, businesses, and institutions of the city to move its work forward.
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE CITY:
A Centennial View of the University of Chicago