New Documentary on Jens Jensen Slated for PBS...But when?

As his train left Chicago’s west side ghetto and he rode out to the native prairie at the city’s edge, Jens Jensen felt his lungs and his mind open up. Here he would have an almost mystical vision. If the prairie possessed the power to heal him, then he must bring its rejuvenating spirit back into the city.

Chicago in his day was dirty, unplanned, corrupt and devastating to the land and people. Jensen had left Denmark not only because of the Prussian invasion, but for the love of a woman below his social class. To marry, they had to immigrate to America. Beginning his new life as a street sweeper, Jensen witnessed children playing in rat-infested streets and on heaps of horse dung. He smelled the stench of slaughtered animals in the canals beside the Union Stockyards.

Jens Jensen became a radical idealist. His vision ran counter to the great wave of industrial expansion Chicago was riding. He wrote, “To shut out nature from man’s whole life is to shut out the inspiration of noble and humanitarian things.” Here it was – his shockingly new vision that we need nourishment from the natural world to fully realize our potential.

He designed and built his idealized prairies, creating four great Chicago west side parks. Compared to the bleakness of the over-crowded city – his parks were a hit with the public. For one of his masterpieces, the Fern Room at the Garfield Park Conservatory, he created a Pre-Cambrian era native Illinois landscape. It looked so real visitors wondered if he had just built the glass dome over the original ancient acres.

But Chicago was a cesspool of political corruption...

For more information, please visit: Jens Jensen Harmonious World.

Recommended reading:

Jens Jensen Legacy Project
Jens Jensen (Wikipedia)
Jens Jensen: Friend of the Native Landscape by Julia Sniderman Bachrach
The Architectural Drawings of Jens Jensen
The Clearing (established by Jens Jensen)

Read more...

Merry Christmas from Fanny Butcher

Every year when the air has that peculiarly yeasty feel in it, when everywhere one looks there is the brilliance of the evergreen - like the rainbow, a promise a reminder that the old earth goes about its affairs in its own way, stripping leaves off to make an etched tree against a winter sky and leaving needles on to make a picture of trunks bundled warm in furs, when everyone but the Old Scrooges - even the tired shop folk and the tired mailmen - goes about patting life and mankind on the back because Christmas comes but once a year - every time I hear the singsong of the newsboys with that refrain, quite unconsciously I think of one little story, a simple tale of a roomful of school children of all nationalities and of their eager gifts for teacher.

"A Christmas Present for a Lady" it is called. It was written I know not how many years ago by Myra Kelly (1876-1910) who has long been absent from her east side schoolroom and who has probably been forgotten, even by those who loved her tales. But it told so sweet so pathetic a tale of love that I shall never forget it. The Christmas present for the lady was the present little Morris' father had given little Morris' mother, a present that had brought tears and caresses - "a receipt for a month's rent in a Monroe street tenement." The poignancy of that little tale comes back year after year. It is, in a sense, a symbol of a Christmas longing and of a Christmas fulfillment. If Christmas is anything it is a time of understandings, of nearness of spirit, a time when each one gives as his present to life the thing that is his to give... A happy Christmas to you all!

Fanny Butcher
Chicago Tribune
December 24, 1922




NOTE: Myra Kelly {born in Dublin, Ireland, spent two years as a public school teacher in the East Side of New York—a region inhabited chiefly by Russian Jews. The stories she brought home of her experiences with the children and their parents were so full of humor and character that certain of her friends persuaded her to write one down and send it to some periodical. "McClure's" was the fortunate magazine to secure this contribution, which proved to be the first of a series of stories that, though varying in style from the purely humorous to the romantic and pathetic, possess the common flavor of the author's individuality. The present selection ripples down the limited gamut of the emotions of the poor, from the high notes of sheer joy to tones of love made tender by pathetic penury. Miss Kelly was married Allan Macnaughton. (From Short Story Classics by William Patten, 1905)

Read more...

Colonel Robert McCormick: Ax Man

He may not have felled the forests himself, but at one time Colonel McCormick's Chicago Tribune owned Quebec forests that provided the wood to produce the vast amount of paper required for the newspaper. The 1937 (or 1931; it varies) educational film, "From Trees to Tribune," didn't win any Oscars, but it is an interesting - if somewhat dull - look at how newspapers were once made.

Amazon.com actually has the film on DVD for purchase and describes it: "Trees to Tribune is a vintage educational video which shows the newspaper production process for the Chicago Tribune, from the trees to the printing press, and every step along the way. Beginning with a detailed view of the logging setup of the Tribune, a map shows the location of the Tribune's own timber lands in Quebec. The film documents the transport of supplies by boat, wagon, and even sled to the various logging camps in the region. It also shows the logging camps, and how the trees are cut and transported to saw mills. The log pieces are floated downriver, with occasional traffic jams being freed by the use of dynamite, and then fed into revolving drums to have their bark removed. After being shipped to the pulp mills, the logs are cleaned and sent through wood chippers to be made into either chemical sulphite pulp or mechanical pulp. These pulps are then mixed to make the substance that is passed through rollers and made into newsprint. The Tribune had its own ships that transported the paper through the Great Lakes to a Chicago warehouse. At this point, the film shows a few of the editing offices, a scene of how they make an engraving of a cartoon, and linotype setting type. They make the stereotype plates, then load everything onto roller presses. After the paper has been printed, we see the process of delivery to newsstands and subscribers. Walking viewers from a tree in the ground to a newspaper on a doorstep, Trees to Tribune is a marvelously educational and informative exploration of Canadian forestry, logging history, lumber mills, newspaper printing supplies and production, and the operation of old newspapers."

The entire film is, fortunately, available for viewing on Internet Archive, but the best part, in my view, is the section on the Tribune cartoonists:

Read more...

A Christmas Message

This is a special time of year; one of endings and new beginnings. As many of you know, this has been a particularly difficult year for me, but the time has come to close that door and move forward.

During the next few weeks I am going to try and pick up the pieces of my long neglected blog. I'll be answering the many emails that fill my inbox, visiting my favorite blogs and websites for updates, and generally getting back to work. I haven't picked up a book in months and have fallen behind in my study. That ends now - but I need your help. To all my Chicago history friends, I ask that you contact me with updates.

To my surprise, while I have been gone my readership has grown. That faith and interest in my project has inspired me and I thank you all. I will work hard not to disappoint you. I particularly want to express my sincere gratitude to all of you who sent me personal messages of condolence.

But, now it is time to begin anew. I wish each and every one of you a very Happy Holiday and...

MERRY CHRISTMAS from THE CHICAGO HISTORY JOURNAL!

Read more...