In February 2024, I wrote up how James Farmer tested his detailed plan on how to implement Gandhi’s tactics of nonviolent resistance in Chicago in 1943, long before the Montgomery Bus Boycott or later and more famous lunch counter sit ins. It’s been mentioned before, but I found the detailed strategy in the Chicago Defender. … Continue reading Nonviolent resistance gets a test in Hyde Park
I bumped into this headline while searching for something else, and I decided I had to take a look at the Elms Hotel. It hadn’t hit my consciousness when I was researching Grand Hotels for my talk for the Historical Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkPBikpIv2I “Hotel Register Worth Weight in Gold, Carelessly Burnt” Hyde Park Herald It flourished … Continue reading The Elms: A Once Famous Hotel Lost to Urban Renewal
an author of the Emancipation Proclamation Hyde Park has a small intersection with the history of Juneteenth in that an eventual resident of Hyde Park was the architect of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lyman Trumbull (1813-1896) was head of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Civil War and came up with the legal rationale to free … Continue reading Lyman Turnbull
The University of Chicago Folk Festival Bob Dylan with acoustic guitar and harmonica (Bob Dylan Center) This post isn’t a history of the Folk Festival. This post is about how the hive mind of the internet helped me track down a legend about Bob Dylan playing (however briefly) in Hyde Park, which came around to … Continue reading Bob Dylan and Blues History
A scavenger hunt I like to play as I walk around the city is spotting examples of the Chicago Municipal Device. The “Y” represents the heart of Chicago--Wolf Point--where the south branch and the north branch join and flow into Lake Michigan. It’s surrounded by a circle to show that the city is united. Once … Continue reading Chicago’s Municipal Device
Some Sidelights Earlier this year I wrote a Hyde Park Story about Morgan Shoal in the Hyde Park Herald The people who love the shoal are fighting to save it. Here are some sidelights that didn’t make it into the article. One of my favorite discoveries was the complex network of fossil coral reefs that … Continue reading Morgan Shoal and the Lakefront
Part II of Two Hyde Park High School Athletes This is the story of two Hyde Park High School athletes—and the road not taken. Part I covered Walter Eckersall, who found the special treatment of football fame toxic in the end. His Hyde Park High School teammate had a very different story. Samuel L. Ransom … Continue reading Sam Ransom
A Tale of Two Hyde Park High School Athletes Part I This is the story of two Hyde Park High School athletes—and the road not taken. The story got a little long, so I’m sending them as separate emails. In 1890, William Rainey Harper, the university’s first president, had the job of creating a major … Continue reading Walter Eckersall
This wander started with a great observation by Bruce Ervin, who read my Herald article about trolley cars and wanted to talk about exactly how the 61st Street Streetcar worked. I flagged the fact that I had a speculation about the arched passageway under the Illinois Central train tracks—if, as someone told me, it had been built … Continue reading Buffalo Bill and Susan B. Anthony
I gave a talk on the time when the Hyde Park area was an entertainment destination and found more images than I could use. Links to the talk on YouTube appear at the end of this post. The biggest amusement park to cash in on the fame of the 1893 Fair was at 63rd and … Continue reading White City Amusement Park
Patricia L. Morse 