A Chicago New Year's Day

The John T. McCutcheon cartoon shown above (click on for a larger image) appeared in the Chicago Tribune on January 1, 1909.

In Chicago, one hundred four years ago, New Year's Day...

was a day much like any other day.

The first Chicago baby of the year was born at 12:01 am to 20-year old Mary Vietka of 248 West Chicago Avenue. Unfortunately, Mrs. Vietka didn't make it to the county hospital and the little girl was born in the police ambulance.

Poor Mrs. Annie Raffty didn't start out the year very well. Her remains were found in the furnace of an apartment building at 5412 Cornell Avenue. It seems her husband had taken exception to her flirtation with a porter on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad and expressed his displeasure by strangling her, beating her and then shoving her body in the furnace to cover the crime.

It was President Theodore Roosevelt's last New Years in the White House and he was eagerly looking forward to his upcoming African safari. President-elect William Howard Taft expressed his "most earnest wish...for the preservation of the peace of the world and for the continuance of friendly relations which this nation enjoys with all other nations of the earth."

The Powers' Theater was having a Happy New Year Matinee. William H. Crane was starring in "Father and the Boys," written by George Ade. Continuous vaudeville was offered at the Haymarket and at 2:15 in the afternoon Litt and Dingwall's Great Melodrama, "In Old Kentucky" would be presented at the McVicker's. Harry Lauder was playing his bagpipes at Orchestra Hall.

Sports fans were happy that New Years. The Cubs were two-time world Champions and White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was "negotiating" with some south side property owners over land for his new ball park - Comiskey Park would open in 1910. One of the most popular tunes of 1908 was "Take Me Out To the Ball Game."

A devastating earthquake had struck Messina, Italy on December 28th and killed hundreds of thousands of people. Chicago remembered how the world had responded to its suffering from the Great Fire in 1871. Representatives of the Red Cross were stationed at the entrances of many hotels and restaurants with small boxes in hand and requesting donations for the unfortunate Italians.

Chicago had spent $1,000,000 to usher in the New Year. It was an enthusiastic celebration all over town:

New Year's Day, however, is a time for looking ahead and in 1909, like no other year before, the city would be "Looking Forward," as the Chicago Tribune trumpeted:

The city really is looking forward to an era of tremendous accomplishment, and what is more important, it is moving forward with a firmness and definiteness of direction which is the result of its wise consideration of the past and its thorough study of conditions. It has awakened with the whole nation to the necessity for conservation and coherent development of resources and it is realizing now as never before the wisdom and economy of studying the needs of the city as a whole and coordinating all civic effort so that unity and harmony shall be more and more approximated as the community grows. The city beautiful plans of the Commercial club, the harbor commission's exhaustive deliberations, the work preliminary to subway development, the deep waterway project, unification of interurban transportation facilities, commercial, ethical, social, aesthetic, which are being developed and furthered with great zeal and practical effectiveness, express the vitality of the civic feeling of our time.

Chicago is indeed leaving her nonage. The headlong and often heedless energy of the past is giving place to a more constant force which will produce better and more lasting results. The generous enthusiasms of the past, which we must honor, are revived and find a wider scope, a firmer footing. Best of all is the fact that the community is beginning to realize itself in a new sense of unity, without which Chicago would never be really a city, a great social entity, of which its members might say with a Roman pride,

"I am a citizen of Chicago."

Recommended reading:

The Plan of Chicago

In honor of 2013 (and the hope that goes with it), I hereby proclaim every reader of this blog to be a Citizen of Chicago.

A Very Happy New Year from "The Chicago History Journal."