tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436733382645724502024-03-13T16:55:47.540-05:00Clarke House MuseumUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-37713209837973172022012-05-02T14:30:00.000-05:002012-05-07T10:07:42.482-05:00Old Bible Yields New Discoveries: Part I<br />
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The collection at Clarke
House Museum
contains a large family bible, acquired in 1983, which was a gift
from the Evanston Historical Society as NSCDA-IL sought items to fill the
period rooms being restored on the museum's first floor. The bible, published 1835 by H.
& E. Phinney, Coopertsown, New
York, came to the museum with no provenance. The
accession record gives little more than a brief physical description and notes
the bible “contains family records of the Solmes family, residence unknown”. No
research was ever done on the Solmeses and the bible became an overlooked fixture
on the parlor étagère, blending into the overall exhibit.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjNRr_v-MSU/T6GIa8BKm4I/AAAAAAAAAN4/8k5vJroPNto/s1600/Solmes+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjNRr_v-MSU/T6GIa8BKm4I/AAAAAAAAAN4/8k5vJroPNto/s320/Solmes+001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Canadian family's history is hidden between the pages of an overlooked artifact on display at Clarke House Museum.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-upaO8G92h88/T6GJAkGRf2I/AAAAAAAAAOA/gwh1kLSX0Qc/s1600/Solmes+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-upaO8G92h88/T6GJAkGRf2I/AAAAAAAAAOA/gwh1kLSX0Qc/s320/Solmes+004.jpg" width="274" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Solmes Family Bible in the collection of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois at Clarke House Museum.</td></tr>
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During a recent collections inventory it was discovered that
the Solmes bible contained more than just the family record. At the front of
the bible, glued inside the cover, were two blue and gold foil heraldic shields
next to which was written “Barker Family Crest.” On the opposite fly leaf,
written in pencil, “D. B. Solmes Book Feb, 8th 1869”. Tucked between its pages,
untouched for decades, were an
1851 memory verse slip from the Wesleyan-Methodist Church, several c.1880 newspaper clippings of sermons by
Rev. Dr. Talmage of Brooklyn, New York ; and a letter dated October 8, 1880; and — all clues to the
story of D. B. Solmes and his family. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--beuldM0Qyo/T6GPBsF3RLI/AAAAAAAAAOk/QLpQBPcuydM/s1600/Solmes+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--beuldM0Qyo/T6GPBsF3RLI/AAAAAAAAAOk/QLpQBPcuydM/s320/Solmes+002.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3BZTN3kFVHw/T6GPUhviQwI/AAAAAAAAAOs/Yk9669pdxlQ/s1600/Solmes+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3BZTN3kFVHw/T6GPUhviQwI/AAAAAAAAAOs/Yk9669pdxlQ/s320/Solmes+003.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Treasures found just inside the front cover. <i>Above</i>: Text next to the shields reads "Coat of Arms or Crest of the Barker family." <i>Below: </i>"David Barker Solmes Book Feb 8th 1869" written in pencil on the fly leaf. Someone, perhaps a child, attempted to replicate the capital "D". </td></tr>
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<b>Part I: The Barker-Solmes Family </b></div>
David Barker Solmes, the owner of the bible, was born May 20, 1817 in Solmesville,
Ontario, Canada to Richard Solmes (1787-1867) and Lydia Cronk Barker (1783-1851). He was named for his maternal grandfather, David Barker (1730-1821), a native of "New Port," Rhode Island. The elder David had grown up on a120-acre New Port estate, the second generation of Barkers to be born in the colonies. He married Lydia Shove (1746-1804), also a Rhode Islander, on March 11, 1762 in Swansea, Bristol County, Massachusetts. The couple set up house back in New Port where they welcomed their first nine children: Samuel
Shove (1763), Asa (1765), Edward (1766), David (1768), Pheobe (1770), James (1772), Elizabeth (1774), Sarah (1776; delivered in Dartmouth,
Massachusetts), and Rebecca (1779). The growing family moved to Poughkeepsie,
Dutchess County, New York
around 1780 where son Abraham (1781) and daughter Lydia Cronk (1783), the mother of David Barker Solmes,
were born.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vSOAEPEcd_U/T5XQMG2Mb9I/AAAAAAAAANk/1WBxSXNNCz8/s1600/David+Barker+1732-1821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vSOAEPEcd_U/T5XQMG2Mb9I/AAAAAAAAANk/1WBxSXNNCz8/s320/David+Barker+1732-1821.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Barker (1737-1821), colonial loyalist and maternal grandfather of the bible's original owner David Barker Solmes. Sketch is believed to have been based on a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds.<br />
<i>Photo courtesy of the Barker family page on <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scwhite/barker/dbarker.html">RootsWeb</a>.</i></td></tr>
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David Barker was a loyal subject of the British Crown and a devout
member of the Anglican church. During the Revolutionary War, Barker supplied provisions to the
British forces. Once this act was discovered, his property in Poughkeepsie, New York
was confiscated by supporters of independence. Barker decided to join Major VanAlstine's
party of Loyalists and remove to Canada
in 1783 at the age of 51. His wife and the elder children accompanied him and the family departed from New York harbor September 8, 1783. The journey to an unsettled part of the Canadian countryside would be long and arduous. Fearing for the well-being of their younger children, the Barkers left them in the care of with relatives in the newly formed United States. Lydia Cronk Barker, just a year old when her family emigrated to Canada, was one of the children left behind. According to family history she and her siblings grew up in either Poughkeepsie,
New York or New Fairfield, Connecticut. The Barkers' last child, a son named Caleb (1786), was born two years after the family had settled into their new home in Ontario. <br />
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Although his property in Poughkeepsie,
New York had been confiscated, Barker still had substantial means. He brought seventeen thousand dollars with him and, although
being near the point of embarrassment when he left New York, was able to bring along some valuable
family heirlooms including a Scotish-made clock and cabinet with secret drawers. These both are still owned by Barker descendants today. Each member of Major VanAlstine's party received 200 acres of land which they drew by ballot. David Barker's allotment was an area in <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scwhite/barker/dbarker2.html">Adolphustown</a>, Lennox-Addington County, Ontario located between Hay
Bay and the Bay
of Quinte in the third concession, which became known as Barker's Point (now Thompson's point). David Barker first built a small log house, then erected a larger home along with
other outbuildings which is believed to still stand today.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VpydV51S_k8/T5W3zx7lgfI/AAAAAAAAANc/iUQ39eSISaA/s1600/barker+home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VpydV51S_k8/T5W3zx7lgfI/AAAAAAAAANc/iUQ39eSISaA/s400/barker+home.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early 20th century photograph of what is believed to be the Barker home in Ontario, Canada built c.1785-90. <i> </i><br />
<i>Photo courtesy of the Barker family page on <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scwhite/barker/dbarker5.html">RootsWeb</a>.</i></td></tr>
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A generous father, Barker gave each of his daughters, whether married or single, a large farm in
Prince Edward County, Ontario. Daughter Lydia Cronk Barker eventually joined the family in Ontario and married her first husband Rueban Cronk who died sometime before 1814, giving her no children. At age thirty-one Lydia married Richard Solmes (1787-1867), a local farmer, on November 16, 1814. Richard and Lydia set up housekeeping in the village of Solmesville, part of Sophiasburg, Prince Edward County, Ontario. The couple welcomed their first three children: Rueban Cronk (1815), David Barker (1817), and Mary (1819). In 1821, the patriarch of the family, grandfather David Barker, died at his home at Barker's Point at age ninety-one. Two years later, Richard and Lydia Solmes completed their own family with the birth of daughter Lydia Margaret in 1823.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wp08VwYZv6Y/T6FvSJBEVnI/AAAAAAAAANs/P0N_CXTYzrY/s1600/barker-shove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wp08VwYZv6Y/T6FvSJBEVnI/AAAAAAAAANs/P0N_CXTYzrY/s320/barker-shove.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument to David Barker and Lydia Shrove erected by the United Empire Loyalists in the Old Meeting House Yard of the Adolphustown Friends. <i>Photo courtesy of the Barker family page on <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scwhite/barker/dbarker3.html">RootsWeb</a></i>.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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David Barker Solmes grew up to become a farmer and member of the Wesleyan-Methodist
Church. He married Susan Lazier
(1818-1853) on October 2, 1838 at Prince Edward Island, Ontario.
The bible was probably presented to the couple as a wedding gift. On September 14, 1841 David and Susan welcomed their first child, a daughter, named Olive Rebecca. The young Solmes family attended the Wesleyan-Methodist Church in Demorestville, a small village of 300 within the township of Sophiasburg, Prince Edward County, Ontario. The congregation sat under the spiritual instruction of Irish-born minster Reverend William Pooley (1820-1896). [Learn more about Rev. Pooley and the Solmes family's spiritual life in Part 2.]</div>
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Susan and David welcomed a son, David Bishop Solmes, January 12, 1853. Unfortunately, baby David only lived five months and fourteen days, dying June 26, 1853. His mother, Susan Lazier Solmes passed away just two months later on August 8th. Left a widower with a twelve-year-old daughter, David Barker Solmes was remarried June 15, 1854 to Mary Eliza Stimson (1832-1900) in Hallowell, Ontario. The couple had seven children: Sarah Jane (1854), Jennie (1856) Rueban Clayton (1858), Franklin Stephenson (1860), a son with initials JWM (1860), Lillian M. (1863) and Richard Russell (1866). David Barker Solmes died at age eighty-two in Solmesville, where he had spent his entire life, on January 30, 1900. His widow, Mary Eliza, lived just six more years before passing away April 14, 1906.</div>
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The Solmes family bible passed to David Barker Solmes’ eldest daughter,
Olive Rebecca Solmes. She is the addressee of the
1880 letter found within its pages and probably the one who tucked the Talmage sermons inside for
safekeeping. [More on these items in Part 3]. It is yet unknown how the bible made its way to Illinois and into the collection of the Evanston Historical Society. The only connection to the Chicago area found to date is through Lydia Margaret Solmes Caniff, David's younger sister, who died in Chicago April 24, 1900. Lydia is probably the "Auntie Caniff" referred to in the 1880 letter written to Olive. The bible has a $5.00 price mark on its fly leaf and may have been picked up at a sale before it was accessioned into the Evanston Historical Society's collection.<br />
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Today, the Solmes family bible is on exhibit in the Clarke House
Museum parlor. The bible's family registers and other contents can be viewed in person by appointment. If you have additional information on David Barker Solmes and/or his descendants, please contact Clarke House Museum at info@clarkehousemuseum.org.</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-3316794952302619452012-03-06T14:22:00.000-06:002012-03-06T14:22:22.524-06:00Passport Application Reveals Physical Description and Signature of Robert George ClarkeUnfortunately, Clarke House Museum has no portraits of the immediate members of the Henry Brown Clarke family. The only image known to exist is the exterior view of Clarke House taken around 1865, which is in the collections of the Chicago History Museum. This image, however, shows what might be several of the Clarke children from a distance on the steps of the west portico. <br />
<br />
The museum must rely on written descriptions to paint a mental picture of what the Clarkes looked like. We know what the Clarkes' third son, Edward, looked like from his military records but until now, we had no indicators as to the appearance of the Clarkes' second eldest son Robert.<br />
<br />
A passport application filed by Robert George Clarke on November 9, 1868, several days before his marriage to Clara Gage, reveals interesting information about this appearance. Robert, age 30, stands 5'-6 1/2" tall with brown hair, grey eyes, and medium complexion. His face is oval with a prominent nose, medium-sized mouth, and round chin. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jqtIeJfcaPY/T1Ztf5lJdkI/AAAAAAAAANE/tv0Cm3NxdJ0/s1600/Robert+Clarke+Passport+App+1868.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jqtIeJfcaPY/T1Ztf5lJdkI/AAAAAAAAANE/tv0Cm3NxdJ0/s640/Robert+Clarke+Passport+App+1868.jpg" width="416" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robert G. Clarke Passport Application. November 9, 1868.</td></tr>
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The passport application was filed for a trip abroad, presumably for the couple's approaching honeymoon following their marriage on November 15. In it, Robert gives the following testimony:<br />
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<div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">I Robert G. Clarke do swear that I was born in the city of Chicago Cook County state of Illinois on or about the seventh day of May An. [<i>Anno</i> or year] 1838 that I am a natural born and local citizen of the United States and about to travel abroad with my wife Clara G. Clarke. </span></b></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tSsWI0TExyY/T1Zuz2oimQI/AAAAAAAAANM/czPS3mo-vhY/s1600/Robert+G+Clarke+Signature+1868.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="65" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tSsWI0TExyY/T1Zuz2oimQI/AAAAAAAAANM/czPS3mo-vhY/s320/Robert+G+Clarke+Signature+1868.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Signature of Robert G. Clarke </td></tr>
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His brother-in-law, Franklin B. Williams, signs the following affidavit:<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">I Franklin B. Williams do swear that I am acquainted with the above named Robert G. Clarke and with the facts above stated by him and that the same are true to the best of my knowledge and beliefs. </span></b></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8BIqzZab9kE/T1Zu-ecJ33I/AAAAAAAAANU/_XQFlpfrT3w/s1600/Frank+B+Williams+Signature+1868.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="65" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8BIqzZab9kE/T1Zu-ecJ33I/AAAAAAAAANU/_XQFlpfrT3w/s400/Frank+B+Williams+Signature+1868.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Signature of Frank B. Williams</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table>The passport application was signed by Notary Public A. E. Guilds.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-41946580826154963872012-02-29T16:48:00.000-06:002012-02-29T16:48:49.111-06:00John Jones and the Illinois Black Laws<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:PixelsPerInch>72</o:PixelsPerInch> <o:TargetScreenSize>544x376</o:TargetScreenSize> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><i><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Contributed by Clarke House Museum intern Julia Mikula.</span></i></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;"> As we come to the end of Black History Month, we note the state of life for African Americans during the period that the Clarke family lived in Chicago. From the 1830s until the end of the Civil War, Illinois was both a </span><span style="font-family: Times;">refuge and </span><span style="font-family: Times;">center of discrimination for blacks. While freedom could be gained in Illinois, its full enjoyment was not guaranteed. The 1850s, especially, were a tumultuous time for people of color in Chicago, which soon became a center of civil rights debate. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BnCxz4Bt6vA/T06Wt2ZobPI/AAAAAAAAAM0/FIwoqYKU92s/s1600/fugitiveslaveact.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BnCxz4Bt6vA/T06Wt2ZobPI/AAAAAAAAAM0/FIwoqYKU92s/s320/fugitiveslaveact.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Under the Illinois Black Laws, any black resident without a certificate could be arrested as a runaway slave</span>.</td></tr>
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</div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At the dawn of its statehood, Illinois adopted legislation called the Black Laws, also known as the Black Codes. The Black Laws, passed in 1819 and in effect until 1865, included a number of restrictions on black residents. Among the restrictions was the requirement that all black residents carry a certificate of freedom (commonly referred to as "free papers") issued by the government and register personal information with the court clerk; any black resident without a certificate could be arrested as a runaway slave.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">1</span></sup></span></sup></span> </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aJu5vjg4eko/T06Zk7U6YQI/AAAAAAAAAM8/Pv7WxdNVDQ4/s320/dto1-certif-of-freedom_l.jpg" width="254" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.wttw.com/img/dto/dto1-certif-of-freedom_l.jpg">Certificate of Freedom</a> for John Jones, 1844. This document identifies him as a resident of Illinois and a free person of color "entitled to be respected accordingly, in Person and Property, at all times and places, in the due prosecution of his Lawful concerns." This entitlement was severely infringed under the Illinois Black Codes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Although Illinois was a free state, the Black Laws took measures to ensure that slaves did not earn their freedom in Illinois. In addition to the requirement that all black citizens needed a certificate of freedom, the Black Codes threatened fines for anyone who brought slaves to Illinois and freed them.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">2</span></sup></span></sup></span> On top of these restrictions, blacks were unable to vote, sue whites or testify against them in court, or bear arms.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">3</span></sup></span></sup></span> In short, the Black Laws officially made blacks second-class citizens.</span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WWn00-73LUw/T06U4E2VYLI/AAAAAAAAAMs/_nIE5A90Z2o/s1600/John+Jones.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WWn00-73LUw/T06U4E2VYLI/AAAAAAAAAMs/_nIE5A90Z2o/s320/John+Jones.jpg" width="293" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Jones (1816- 1879) <i>Image courtesy of Chicago History Museum.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Of course, black Chicagoans challenged the Black Codes, and one of the most prominent opponents was John Jones. Jones was born in Green City, North Carolina to a free mulatto mother and a white father who apprenticed him to a white tailor, Richard Clere.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">4</span></sup></span></sup></span> When the tailor died, Clere’s family tried to claim Jones as their slave, but Jones attained a certificate of freedom in 1838.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">5</span></sup></span></sup></span> Jones moved to Chicago in 1845 and set up a successful tailor shop at 119 Dearborn Street.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">6</span></sup></span></sup></span> </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Once established in Chicago, Jones began to fight for equal rights for people of color. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act, giving slaveholders the right to seek runaway slaves in the </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">free states</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, but the Chicago City Council largely disapproved of the ordinance.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">7</span></sup></span></sup></span> Jones joined in protest of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and he and six other men set up a Liberty Association to watch for slave catchers seeking runaway slaves.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">8</span></sup></span></sup></span> Jones and his wife Mary brought fugitive slaves and such antislavery activists as John Brown and Frederick Douglass into their home.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">9</span></sup></span></sup></span> </span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span><span style="font-family: Times;">In 1864, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chicago Tribune</i> printed Jones’ pamphlet entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Black Laws of Illinois and a Few Reasons Why They Should Be Repealed</i>, and Jones spoke to General Assembly members about why the Black Laws should be eliminated in Illinois; his efforts succeeded in March 1865 when the Illinois General Assembly voted in favor of removing the codes.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup><span><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: Times;">10</span></sup></span></sup></span></span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;">John Jones went on to be elected as the first black Cook County commissioner in 1871, serving a second term from 1872 until 1875. During his time in office Jones helped pass legislation which outl</span>awed segregation in local schools. <span style="font-family: Times;">His tailoring business continued to thrive and was operated by his son-in-law after his death</span><span style="font-family: Times;"></span><span style="font-family: Times;"> May 31, 1879. His is buried in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery.</span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: Times;">John Jones refused to allow the discrimination of African Americans to continue unchallenged in Chicago and throughout the nation. His efforts brought about real change in Illinois, moving the state ever closer to true civic equality. This Black History Month, we remember and thank John Jones for his contribution to bringing rights of free citizenship to all people.</span></div><div class="FreeForm" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">1</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Elmer Gertz, “The Black Laws of Illinois,” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 6, no. 3 (1963): 463-464. </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://www.jstor.org/.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">2</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Gertz, “The Black Laws of Illinois,” 465.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">3</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Early Chicago: John Jones,” WTTW, accessed February 15, 2012, <a href="http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=76,4,3,4"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=76,4,3,4</span></a>.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">4</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Christopher Robert Reed, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Black Chicago’s First Century: Volume 1, 1833-1900</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 62.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">5</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Reed, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Black Chicago’s First Century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, 62-63.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">6</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Reed, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Black Chicago’s First Century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, 71-72.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></sup></span></span></sup></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">7</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Reed, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Black Chicago’s First Century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, 100.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">8</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Reed, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Black Chicago’s First Century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, 101.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div></div><div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;"> <div class="FootnoteText1"><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">9</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “John and Mary Jones: Early Civil Rights Activists,” Encyclopedia Chicago, accessed February 15, 2012, http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2458.html.</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><sup><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">10</span></sup></span></span></sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Reed, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic";">Black Chicago’s First Century</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">, 141-142.</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="FootnoteText1" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Bibliography</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Reed, Christopher Robert. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Black Chicago’s First Century: Volume 1, 1833-1900</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">. Columbia,</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">MO: University of Missouri Press, 2005.</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Encyclopedia Chicago. “John and Mary Jones: Early Civil Rights Activists.” Accessed February <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>15, 2012. <a href="http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2458.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2458.html</span></a>.</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Gertz, Elmer. “The Black Laws of Illinois.” </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> 6, no.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>3 (1963): 454-473.</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">WTTW, “Early Chicago: John Jones.” Accessed February 15, 2012. <a href="http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=76,4,3,4"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">http://www.wttw.com/<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>main.taf?p=76,4,3,4</span></a>.</span></div><div class="FootnoteText1"><br />
</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-56707927846190887652011-11-16T15:09:00.002-06:002011-11-16T16:01:01.877-06:00Sarah Hale and the Campaign for a National Thanksgiving<i>The following article was contributed to the Clarke House Museum Blog by museum volunteer Steve LaBarre.</i><br />
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</div> Things are beginning to take on the appearances of the winter holidays here at Clarke House. With the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, I thought I would pause a moment to reflect on the history of the holiday during the time that Henry and Caroline Clarke lived in Chicago.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"> Thanksgiving as we know it today took on a very different appearance during the early to mid-nineteenth century. We currently celebrate the day on the fourth Thursday in November signed into federal legislation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 26<sup>th</sup>, 1941. A century and a half before this, on September 28, 1789, just prior to leaving for recess, the first Federal Congress passed a resolution asking then President George Washington to recommend to the country a day of thanksgiving. Washington would issue a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26<sup>th</sup>, 1789 as a “Day of Publick Thanksgivin” – the first national Thanksgiving celebrated under the new Constitution. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> From that time forth many presidents issued Thanksgiving proclamations, but the months and days on which it was observed varied greatly.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></a> As years passed, designation of the holiday was deferred to state-specific legislation. States choosing to celebrate Thanksgiving would each select their own date of observance independent of the others. Most states celebrated Thanksgiving anytime between October and January- most likely based on the tradition of celebrating the year-end harvest.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> Illinois was among several that regularly observed the holiday in November. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> This pattern of state-proclaimed Thanksgivings continued through much of the nineteenth century. Mrs. Clarke and the children would have read the Illinois governors' annual proclamation naming the date of Thanksgiving in local newspapers. Their relatives in New York would have celebrated the holiday on a completely different day. It wasn't long before a push to standardize Thanksgiving, declaring it a national holiday, began to take root among citizens of the United States. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed a presidential proclamation declaring the last Thursday of November as the day of Thanksgiving, did the nation universally celebrate the holiday on the same day.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> So how did it come to pass that Abraham Lincoln wrote a proclamation claiming Thanksgiving to be a Federal holiday in November? </div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9pSWQ337pcE/TsP3bQAs9JI/AAAAAAAAAMM/cLqdaN71ar8/s1600/240px-Sarah_Hale_portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9pSWQ337pcE/TsP3bQAs9JI/AAAAAAAAAMM/cLqdaN71ar8/s1600/240px-Sarah_Hale_portrait.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sarah Hale, c.1831</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by James Reid Lambdin (1807-1889).</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> In the collection of </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Richard’s Free Library, Newport, New Hampshire . </span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table> The story goes that a persistent lady by the name of Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (October 24, 1788 – April 30, 1879) was one of the influential forces in campaigning and persuading Lincoln to enact his proclamation. Sarah Hale was an American writer and influential editor well known for her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems for Our Children</i> (1830), containing the well-known “Mary’s Little Lamb.”<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> She was born in Newport, New Hampshire on a farm belonging to her great-grandfather, Daniel Buell. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Hale received no formal education, only what was taught to her by her mother an older brother, a student at Dartmouth, who taught her Latin and philosophy. When her husband died suddenly, in 1822, leaving her with little means to provide for herself and five children, she began to try her hand at authorship. She published a volume of verse, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Genius of Oblivion </i>(1823), and sent out numerous poems to local periodicals. She won acclaim in 1826 for her novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Northwood, A Tale of </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New England</i>. Two years later the Reverend John Lauris Blake offered her the editorship position of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ladies Magazine, </i>which began her active life as writer and promoter of conservative reform.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span></span></a> While editing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ladies Magazine </i>in 1837 Louis Antoine Godey bought out the magazine and established Mrs. Hale as literary editor of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Godey’s </i><i>Lady's Book</i>.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Just as many ladies of the mid-nineteenth century, Mrs. Clarke would have read frequently the latest issues of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Godey’s Lady's Book</i>. She and her daughters could read about social and political thoughts of the day and reference the latest woman’s fashion plates advertising the styles direct from England and France. One such article or editorial Caroline might have come across was in the January through June issue of 1847, volume 34. On page, 174 Sarah Hale wrote:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> <b> <span style="color: #783f04;"> </span></b><span style="color: #783f04;"><b>THANKSGIVING DAY</b>.—We ventured to suggest, in our “Book” for January, that the last Thursday in November would be the day best suited for the Annual Thanksgiving holiday throughout our Republic. The suggestion has been responded to in terms of approbation, and we trust the leading journals in the nation will give their aid to prepare for such a universal rejoicing next November. That month of gloom would then become the gladdest in the year.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="color: #783f04;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Eleven years later Hale was still campaigning to establish recognition for the holiday. Volume 57 from July – December 1858 states:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"> <b> <span style="color: #783f04;">OUR NATIONAL THANKSGIVING.</span></b></div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">All the blessings of the fields,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">All the stores the garden yields,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">All the plenty summer pours,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Autumn’s rich, overflowing stores,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Peace, prosperity, and health,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Private bliss and public wealth,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Knowledge with Its gladdening streams,</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Pure religion’s holier beams—</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Lord, for these our souls shall raise</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">Grateful vows and solemn praise.</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04; margin-left: 1.5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing" style="color: #783f04;"> We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States—as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, which we hope, will this year be adopted by all—that The LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the day of NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people. Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of worldliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart. This truly American Festival falls, this year, on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">twenty-fifth day of this month</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;"> Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that wilt, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular hear; and, if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the “feast of fat things, “ and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day of </i>AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world<span style="font-family: Calibri;">. </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #783f04;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-43wlFli3J0M/TsQJ1w1tb5I/AAAAAAAAAMk/Ny9_DJFxsjo/s1600/sarah_hale+old.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-43wlFli3J0M/TsQJ1w1tb5I/AAAAAAAAAMk/Ny9_DJFxsjo/s1600/sarah_hale+old.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sarah Hale later in life, c.1855-60.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Her campaign for establishing Thanksgiving as a federal holiday lasted seventeen years. She began as early as 1846 imploring President Zachary Taylor, and subsequently Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan all to nationalize the holiday. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span></span></a> Her initial attempts failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote at age 75 to President Abraham Lincoln on September 28, 1863 seemed to have an influence none of the others had. After nearly two decades of dedicated prodding, Sarah Hale's wish for a national Thanksgiving Day came true. President Lincoln signed formal legislation finally establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving for the American people through an official <a href="http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm">proclamation</a> in 1863.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X6mDZJfPlWY/TsP3-dOmTjI/AAAAAAAAAMU/DZZQwGyRjcQ/s1600/sara+hale+letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X6mDZJfPlWY/TsP3-dOmTjI/AAAAAAAAAMU/DZZQwGyRjcQ/s320/sara+hale+letter.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="font-family: inherit;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916.<br />
Sarah J. Hale to Abraham Lincoln, </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Monday, September 28, 1863</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> (Thanksgiving Day)</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mal/mal1/266/2669900/001.jpg"><span style="color: #000066; text-decoration: none;"></span></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=343673338264572450&postID=5670792784619088765" name="_GoBack"></a></div><br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="NoSpacing"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span></span></a> United States National Archives <a href="http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving/">www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving/</a> 11/14/2011.</span></div></div><div id="edn2"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a> Appelbaum, Diana Karter. Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History. New York, Facts on File, 1984.</span></div></div><div id="edn3"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[iii]</span></span></span></a> Appelbaum, Diana Karter. <i>Thanksgiving: An American </i><i>Holiday</i><i>, An American History</i>. New York, Facts on File, 1984</span></div></div><div id="edn4"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a> Johnson, Allen & Malone, Dumas ed. Dictionary of American Biography Volume IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960: 111</span></div></div><div id="edn5"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[v]</span></span></span></a> Johnson, Allen & Malone, Dumas ed. Dictionary of American Biography Volume IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960: 111</span></div></div><div id="edn6"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[vi]</span></span></span></a> Johnson, Allen & Malone, Dumas ed. Dictionary of American Biography Volume IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960: 111</span></div></div><div id="edn7"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[vii]</span></span></span></a> Godey, Louis Antoine & Sarah Josepha Buell Hale ed. <i>Godey’s Lady's Book</i>. Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, Volume 34 from January – June 1847: 174.</span></div></div><div id="edn8"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[viii]</span></span></span></a> Godey, Louis Antoine & Sarah Josepha Buell Hale ed. <i>Godey’s Lady's Book</i>. Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, Volume 57 from July – Decemeber 1858: 463</span></div></div><div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;"><div class="MsoEndnoteText"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=343673338264572450#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 115%;">[ix]</span></span></span></a> Schenone, Laura. <i>A Thousand Years Over A Hot Stove: A History Of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes, And Remembrances</i>. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004: 118</span></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-23359389076201334472011-08-15T09:00:00.356-05:002011-08-25T09:41:32.031-05:00Charles Walker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lv7v5my6rGg/TkmQUuTyIhI/AAAAAAAAAME/8LwdGS2b9uA/s1600/Charles+Walker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lv7v5my6rGg/TkmQUuTyIhI/AAAAAAAAAME/8LwdGS2b9uA/s400/Charles+Walker.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In short, taking into consideration the varied incidents of his active life, his indomitable perseverance and industry, and the financial ability he has exhibited, Mr. Charles Walker has had few equals and no superiors, as a skillful business man and a good citizen.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">-Chicago Magazine, March 1857</span></span> </i></span><br />
<br />
The Clarke family's relocation to Chicago in 1835 can be largely attributed to the persuasion of Charles Walker. Walker was Henry Brown Clarke's brother-in-law, married to his younger sister Mary (1805-1838). Charles Walker was born February 2, 1802 in Plainfield, Otsego County, New York. He was the oldest son of Colonel William W. and Lucretia (Ferrel) Walker. Charles had limited education but was a quick learner. He started school at age six in a log school house built by local farmers. Working his father's farm most of the year, Walker had only three months during the winter to devote to study, doing lessons with a teacher during the day and his parents in the evenings. By age fifteen he became a teacher himself, teaching local children during the winter months. At eighteen, while still employed as a teacher, he began to study law. The sedentary lifestyle of an attorney did not bode well with Walker's active disposition so, upon the advice of physicians, he soon gave up the law choosing instead to travel the countryside as a livestock buyer for his father.<br />
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At age twenty-one his health began to diminish, presumably from excessive time outdoors, and he decided to hire himself out to a friend as a mercantile clerk. Within two months he had mastered the trade and opened his own business in Burlington Flats, New York May of 1824. He soon owned a grist mill, saw mill, potash factory, and tannery in addition to his mercantile. Walker married his wife, Mary Clarke May 8, 1827. He dealt successfully in grain, cattle, and other sundries until 1828 when a large shipment of cheese, butter, and pork, en-route to a southern market, was lost at sea. Walker suffered financially, but was able to grow his business back until 1832 when a decline in prices brought on another blow. Still determined to make it in trade, Walker continued to buy and sell in the New York market. In spring 1833 he was able to turn a damaged cargo of raw hides from Buenos Aries into a profitable venture by making the leather into boots and shoes for fall Indian payments in Chicago. His brother Almond Walker took these, along with an assortment of guns, boots, shoes, and raw leather to Fort Dearborn in Chicago autumn of 1834.<br />
<br />
Realizing the profit to be made out west, Charles Walker set out for Chicago himself in May 1835. Confident in the potential of Chicago as a center of commerce, he purchased several real estate lots, one at the corner of Clark and South Water Streets. Through a partnership with Captain Bigelow of Boston and Jones, King, & Co.Hardware, Walker bought the land for $15,000 cash. That spring he purchased hides in St. Joseph which he added to the other goods picked up in Chicago, which he sent back to New York. The total shipment was said to be the first from the state of Illinois to be sent as far east as Utica or Albany.<br />
<br />
In June 1835 he returned to Chicago with his brother-in-law, Henry Brown Clarke. While Clarke purchased land for his own estate, Walker introduced him to local business associates which undoubtedly secured Clarke employment with Jones. King, & Co. when he returned with Caroline and their two sons in October. Walker also returned to Chicago in 1836 to establish the firm Walker & Co. with brother Almond Walker and brother-in-law Eri Baker Hurlburt, Esq (also spelled Hulbert, 1807-1852) a general store on South Water Street that dealt in importing animal husbandry implements and household goods from the east. Even with his primary business affairs in Chicago, Walker continued to reside in New York.<br />
<br />
When the panic of 1837 hit Chicago, Walker was one of few who remained in business. He was able to satisfy his debts and keep a good reputation, which enabled him to actually grow his operations during a time of economic downturn. He used depreciated Western money, still accepted and circulated in Chicago, to purchase large quantities of goods, then shipped the items to his Eastern creditors as barter payment avoiding any transmutation of currency. Walker's success allowed him to help Henry and Caroline when they experienced financial trouble in the late 1830s, saving them from foreclosure on their house. Although financially secure, Walker experienced personal tragedy with the death of his wife Mary in June 1838. He was remarried in 1841 to Nancy Bently (d.1881) at Lebanon Springs, New York. His new wife and son Charles H. Walker (by Mary) left from Otsego County, New York and permanently took up residence in Chicago May, 1845.<br />
<br />
Despite the assistance from Walker, Henry Brown Clarke declared bankruptcy in 1842. That same year Walker formed the firm Walker & Clarke in Buffalo with Henry's younger brother Cyrus Clarke, Esq. (1806-1884) of Utica, New York. Walker was chosen as a director for the Galena Railroad in 1847. Another financial crisis occurred the same year, this time in the grain trade, but Walker's ventures again endured so that by 1851 C. Walker & Son of Chicago (formed with his son), Walker & Kellog of Peoria, and Walker & Clarke of Buffalo were among the largest purchasers of grain from farmers in the United States. He served as second president of the Chicago Board of Trade from 1849 to 1851.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b70ZHrjg2mg/TlZetpz7aaI/AAAAAAAAAMI/Izj5haAG11A/s1600/05_Walker+%2526+Clarke+Ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b70ZHrjg2mg/TlZetpz7aaI/AAAAAAAAAMI/Izj5haAG11A/s320/05_Walker+%2526+Clarke+Ad.jpg" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ad for Walker & Clarke, 1853.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Charles Walker contracted cholera around 1851 and was forced to leave the management of his affairs to his son Charles. He recovered, but the toll of illness lead him to retire from business altogether in 1855. In 1856 he served as president and director of the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska line, intended to be a continuation of the Galena railroad. Charles Walker died in Chicago June 28, 1869 leaving a lasting legacy as one of Chicago's early businessmen but more importantly, as a dear friend and devoted kinsman to the Clarke family. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-68431136775670930812011-08-10T10:39:00.002-05:002011-08-10T10:40:53.258-05:00New Acquisition: Pink Lustreware Tea Set<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dXRRC_UpZus/TkKY-vcghII/AAAAAAAAAL0/VQ8-Z8Ryph0/s1600/Tea+Set+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dXRRC_UpZus/TkKY-vcghII/AAAAAAAAAL0/VQ8-Z8Ryph0/s400/Tea+Set+004.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pink lustreware tea service c.1820-30 now in the collection of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois, housed at Clarke House Museum.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Clarke House Museum recently received an English pink lustreware tea service c.1820-30. The set is almost complete with eleven cups an saucers, cake plate, serving bowl, sugar bowl, and teapot. The Staffordshire porcelain features a transfer print design accented by lustre banding.<br />
<br />
Lustre is a form of decoration that can be applied to any form of ceramic goods, whether earthenware or porcelain. The design is formed in metal, then dissolved in acid and applied as a thin film on top of the glaze. This can be brushed on or applied through a dipping process.When fired, the oxidized metal in the lustre solution is reduced to its original metallic form. When gold was used as the lustre metal on a light colored background it took on a pink sheen, as seen in the pieces here.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1HWPwSsAok/TkKkqaRO_RI/AAAAAAAAAL8/WENnrgolleg/s1600/Tea+Set+011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D1HWPwSsAok/TkKkqaRO_RI/AAAAAAAAAL8/WENnrgolleg/s320/Tea+Set+011.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sugar bowl and Creamer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Lustre was often combined with transfer printing. The design was first engraved on a copper plate to which a warmed printing ink would be applied. The plate would be wiped leaving ink only within the engraved lines. Next the copper plate was pressed evenly into strong tissue paper, picking up a mirror image of the design. The tissue paper was then applied directly to glazed pottery or porcelain transferring the design to the piece. Next the object, with tissue still attached, was submerged in cold water to harden the ink and wash the paper away. Hand-applied enamel colors might then be applied before finally being fired in a kiln.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hNRHfewttLM/TkKkYykQjsI/AAAAAAAAAL4/UI56U0Gkr8k/s1600/Tea+Set+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hNRHfewttLM/TkKkYykQjsI/AAAAAAAAAL4/UI56U0Gkr8k/s320/Tea+Set+006.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teapot</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F6KjypEnIV8/TkKk96S1_eI/AAAAAAAAAMA/KJm_MJIXxqk/s1600/Tea+Set+008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F6KjypEnIV8/TkKk96S1_eI/AAAAAAAAAMA/KJm_MJIXxqk/s320/Tea+Set+008.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of Transfer Print</td></tr>
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Nearly all fine china goods used in the United States during the early nineteenth century were imported from England. Mrs. Clarke might have received a tea service like this as a wedding gift upon her marriage to Henry Brown Clarke in 1827 and it is likely that the Clarkes owned at least one piece of lustreware when they set up house in Waterville, New York. This tea service will go on display in the study later this month. Be sure to look for it on your next visit to Clarke House Museum.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-6179401363756304142011-08-02T18:20:00.007-05:002011-08-29T16:07:10.834-05:00The Carpenter and the Maid<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uotDhCWy6-c/TjiKQ4pcHPI/AAAAAAAAALw/Uokrrwuvdro/s1600/St.+Elizabeth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The Clarkes contracted John Campbell Rue as finish carpenter while constructing their stately </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Chicago</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> home. Rue was born in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Bath</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Stuben County</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">New York</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">March 23, 1809</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. He was the son of Joseph </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">(c.1781-1820) </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">of Albany New York </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">and Mary Katherine Campbell Rue (b.1785) . John Campbell had a sister Adeline (c.1807- before 1810), </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">and brother Schuyler (b.1816). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">John Campbell Rue came to </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Illinois</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> with his friend Ira Minard (1809-1876) in 1834. Rue considered buying property in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Elgin</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">St. Charles</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Illinois</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. He is recorded as fencing a farm in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Elgin, possibly Sections 27 and 28 of Plato Township, Kane County that he is shown as owning in 1860</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. Rue decided to settle in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Chicago</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> a few months later, plying his trade as carpenter and builder. He is credited with helping to construct the town’s first breakwater. He is also said to have built Chicago's first newspaper office for his friend John Wentworth (1815-1888), editor, publisher, and later owner of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chicago Democrat</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The Clarke family had brought a domestic, Elizabeth “Betsey” Saunders, with them on their trip from New York. Betsy was born in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Petersburg</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Rensselaer County</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">New York</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> in 1802. She was a distant cousin of the Clarkes and may have been hired for the family relation. She is mentioned in Mrs. Clarke’s November 1835 letter and would have been 33 years old when the family moved to </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Chicago</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. Betsy and John met during the construction of Clarke House, enjoyed a very brief courtship, and were married </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">September 23, 1836</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The Rue family claimed that John was never paid for his work on Clarke House, and worse, accused </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">by the Clarkes </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">of being a thief. Betsy's obituary from the January 5, 1895 edition of the <i>Elgin Advocate</i> states "In 1837 Mr. Clarke was among the many who were financially embarrassed and Rue on demanding his due was told that he didn't deserve anything, as he had entered his (Clarke's) home and robbed him of one of his jewels." Whether or not this is true, Betsy promptly left the employ of the Clarke family after her marriage to Rue and the couple took up residence on the 100 block of, coincidentally, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Clark Street</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. The Rues had five children, three sons and two daughters: Mary (c.1837), Franklin (c.1838), Marcus (c.1840), John Ira (c.1843), and Anna Maria "Annie" (c.1845). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Two of their sons, Marcus and John Ira, served in Company K of the 59<sup>th</sup> Illinois Infantry during the Civil War. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">They enlisted as privates September 1, 1861 and were mustered in</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> September 6th</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> to the 9th Regiment Infantry Missouri Volunteers (renamed Company K of the 59th Illinois Infantry Regiment in 1862). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Marcus was born c.1840 in Chicago. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">At the time of his enlistment Marcus was 23 years old with light hair and blue eyes, standing 5'6" tall. He listed his occupation as carpenter. During his three-year term in service Marcus was engaged in Pea Ridge, the Siege of Corinth, Battle of Perryville, Stone's River (Murfreesboro), the Tullahoma Campaign, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge (Chattanooga), the Atlanta Campaign, Buzzard's Root Gap, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, and Jonesborough. He mustered out September 17, 1864. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">John Ira Rue was born 1843 in Chicago.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> He was 18 years of age upon enlistment with light hair and dark eyes, standing 5'-6" tall. He also gave his occupation as carpenter. John Ira was engaged in the Battle of Pea Ridge, the Siege of Corinth, and took wounds at Perryville, Kentucky which rendered him a patient at the Government Hospital for the Insane</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> in Washington D.C.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, renamed St. Elizabeth's Hospital in 1916</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">. He lived out the rest of his life as a patient there until his death November 29, 1916. He was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uotDhCWy6-c/TjiKQ4pcHPI/AAAAAAAAALw/Uokrrwuvdro/s1600/St.+Elizabeth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uotDhCWy6-c/TjiKQ4pcHPI/AAAAAAAAALw/Uokrrwuvdro/s320/St.+Elizabeth.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Government Hospital for the Insane established 1855.</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Hospital's early mission, as defined by its founder, the leading mental health reformer Dorothea Dix, was to provide the "most humane care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia." </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">The family lived in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Chicago</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> until the spring of 1887, relocating to </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Elgin</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> where Rue continued the carpentry trade. He passed away at his home at </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">78 N. Crystal Street</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> in </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Elgin</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Illinois</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> June 11, 1892. His funeral was held at 1p.m. on Monday June 13, 1892. He was buried in the family plot, Section 23, Lot 38 of the Plato Center Cemetery. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VzGiXYwqPo4/TjiIDb3ATiI/AAAAAAAAALo/svfuxqQ1Q0Y/s1600/Elgin+1880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VzGiXYwqPo4/TjiIDb3ATiI/AAAAAAAAALo/svfuxqQ1Q0Y/s400/Elgin+1880.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elgin, Illinois around the time the Rue family relocated.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Upon his death, John Campbell Rue had an estimated $15,000 of real estate in Cook and Kane Counties. An attorney, a Mr. Ranstead, was appointed Executor of the Will. The heirs named to Rue's estate were wife Elizabeth, son John Ira, and grandaughter Emily W. Liddell (Annie's daughter). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Betsy lived three more years. She took sick December 9, 1894 and remained bed-ridden before dying </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">January 30, 1895. She passed away</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">at the home of her nephew, Ezra Rue (son of John's brother </span>Schuyler<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">), 120 N. Crystal Street, where she had lived, presumably, since John's death.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> Her funeral was held at 11 o'clock on Wednesday January 2, 1895. She is buried beside John in the family plot at Plato Center Cemetery.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-72426806311728890602011-07-05T13:30:00.003-05:002011-07-15T17:26:16.092-05:00A Taste of History: Recipe of the Week #4<span style="color: #666666;">All recipes featured in </span><a href="http://clarkehousemuseum.blogspot.com/2011/06/taste-of-history-recipe-of-week-1.html"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">A Taste of History</span></b></a><span style="color: #666666;"> are taken from <i style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #444444;">Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches</span></i> edited by Mrs. S. J. Hale, 1852 from the collections of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois housed at Clarke House Museum.</span><br />
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<div style="color: #990000;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5x_Y4bXsYHE/ThNXM28OBdI/AAAAAAAAALM/x7P_lFn6lxc/s1600/peach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" i$="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5x_Y4bXsYHE/ThNXM28OBdI/AAAAAAAAALM/x7P_lFn6lxc/s1600/peach.jpg" /></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Still Life With Peaches, Grapes, and Insect</i> by Theodor Mattenheimer, 1834.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Peach Salad</b></span></div><span style="color: #444444;">Pare<span style="color: #990000;">*</span> and slice half a dozen fine ripe peaches, arrange them in a dish, strew them with pounded sugar<span style="color: #990000;">*</span>, and pour over them two or three glasses of champagne<span style="color: #990000;">*</span>: other wine may be used but this is best. Persons who prefer brandy can substitute it for wine. The quantity of sugar must be proportioned to the sweetness of the fruit.</span><br />
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<div style="color: #990000;"><b>Modern Conversions</b><br />
<b>*</b>pare = peel</div><div style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*pounded sugar = confectioner's/ powdered sugar</span></span></div><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*sparkling grape juice may be substituted for champagne for the temperant or youthful</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-41439121673119790382011-07-01T13:35:00.000-05:002011-07-01T13:35:08.390-05:00New Acquisitions: Drying Racks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4W0NioGYtVg/Tg4Pi8njC0I/AAAAAAAAALI/h59zgtZ63Xg/s1600/white+drying+rack.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4W0NioGYtVg/Tg4Pi8njC0I/AAAAAAAAALI/h59zgtZ63Xg/s1600/white+drying+rack.JPG" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Clarke House Museum has just acquired two circa 1850 wood drying racks. The pieces were purchased by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois from a source in Maryland. Both are painted pine with simple lines and carved feet. The Clarkes would have hung towels or herbs to dry behind the kitchen stove and Mrs. Clarke may have used a rack for towels in her bed chamber. Check out these new pieces on your next visit to Clarke House Museum.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UyLiAnTjvN4/Tg4PaLH9bgI/AAAAAAAAALE/EDRqsUqPPyc/s1600/red+drying+rack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UyLiAnTjvN4/Tg4PaLH9bgI/AAAAAAAAALE/EDRqsUqPPyc/s1600/red+drying+rack.jpg" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-19874199468094060422011-06-29T13:01:00.004-05:002011-07-05T14:01:44.227-05:00A Taste of History: Recipe of the Week #3<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #666666;">All recipes featured in</span> </span><a href="http://clarkehousemuseum.blogspot.com/2011/06/taste-of-history-recipe-of-week-1.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><strong>A Taste of History</strong></span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> </span><span style="color: #666666;">are taken from <i style="color: #444444;">Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches</i> edited by Mrs. S. J. Hale, 1852 from the collections of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois housed at Clarke House Museum.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w1S9XTvYw38/TgtkFwFyODI/AAAAAAAAALA/_NeES2OO8JM/s1600/lemons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w1S9XTvYw38/TgtkFwFyODI/AAAAAAAAALA/_NeES2OO8JM/s1600/lemons.jpg" /></a></div><div style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Common Lemon Tartlets</b></span></div><span style="color: #444444;">Beat four eggs until they are exeedingly light, add to them gradually four ounces of pounded sugar<span style="color: #990000;">*</span>, and whisk these together for five minutes; stew lightly in, if it be at hand, a dessertspoonful<span style="color: #990000;">*</span> of potato flour, if not, of common flour well dried and sifted; then throw into the mixture, by slow degrees, three ounces<span style="color: #990000;">*</span> of good butter, which should be dissolved, but only just luke-warm; beat the whole well, then stir briskly in the strained juice and the grated rind of one lemon and a half. Line some pattypans<span style="color: #990000;">*</span> with fine puff-paste<span style="color: #990000;">*</span> rolled very thin, then fill them two thirds full, and bake the tartlets about twenty minutes, in a moderate oven.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*Instead of puff paste, try Miss Acton's recipe for : <span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;">Very Rich Short Crust for Tarts </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Break lightly, with the least possible handling, six ounces of butter into eight of flour; add a dessertspoonful<span style="color: #990000;">*</span> of pounded sugar<span style="color: #990000;">*</span>, and two or three of water; roll the paste for several minutes, to blend the ingredients well, folding it together like puff-crust, and touch it as little as possible.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<div style="color: #990000;"><b>Modern Conversions</b></div><div style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*three ounces = aprx. 1/3 cup</span></span></div><div style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;"></span></span>*four ounces = 1/2 cup</div><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*pounded sugar = confectioner's/ powdered sugar</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*dessertspoonful = aprx. 1/2 tablespoon</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;">*pattypans = use cupcake pans </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #990000;"></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-17701973679623934962011-06-21T09:08:00.003-05:002011-07-05T14:00:51.257-05:00A Taste of History: Recipe of the Week #2<span style="color: #666666;">All recipes featured in </span><a href="http://clarkehousemuseum.blogspot.com/2011/06/taste-of-history-recipe-of-week-1.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><strong>A Taste of History</strong></span></a><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><strong> </strong></span>are taken from <i style="color: #444444;">Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches</i> edited by Mrs. S. J. Hale, 1852 from the collections of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois housed at Clarke House Museum.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-th1-Vrsrcvg/TgClX7YY2oI/AAAAAAAAAK8/D3b-2uv4_GE/s1600/cucumber+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-th1-Vrsrcvg/TgClX7YY2oI/AAAAAAAAAK8/D3b-2uv4_GE/s200/cucumber+2.jpg" width="148" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stay cool as a cucumber with this tasty 1850s recipe!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Mandrang, or Mandram; (West Indian Receipt.)</b></span></div>Chop together very small, two moderate-sized cucumbers, with half the quantity of mild onion; add the juice of a lemon, a saltspoonful or more of salt, a third as much cayenne, and one or two glasses of Maderia, or any other dry white wine. This preparation is to be served with any kind of roast meat. <br />
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<div style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Modern Conversions</b></div><span style="color: #cc0000;">saltspoonful = aprx. 1/2 tsp.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-46645998316625974322011-06-17T12:54:00.005-05:002011-06-17T16:54:34.595-05:00New Acquisition: Niagara Falls Lithograph, 1827<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E7Bj_ZbEeE0/Tft4skowhmI/AAAAAAAAAKw/rTBk9RU5fpc/s1600/Niagra+Falls+from+the+American+Side-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E7Bj_ZbEeE0/Tft4skowhmI/AAAAAAAAAKw/rTBk9RU5fpc/s400/Niagra+Falls+from+the+American+Side-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Clarke House Museum is pleased to announce a new addition to the collection of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois. <i>Niagara Falls from the American Side</i> is a hand-colored lithograph after an original sketch by French artist Jacques G. Milbert, published in Paris in 1827. This drawing is from his "Itineraire Pittoresque du Fleuve Hudson" or Picturesque Route of the Hudson River, a series of sketches Milbert made in 1825 while he was in the United States surveying for the Erie Canal. <br />
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Henry and Caroline Clarke honeymooned at Niagara Falls following their marriage in 1827. According to daughter Caroline Clarke Forman, who filled out an Emma Willard School alumni survey form for her late mother, the Clarkes' travel companions were Mr. and Mrs. William H. Seward. Seward was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Mrs. Seward had attended Troy Female Seminary (later renamed Emma Willard School) with her husband's sister, Cornelia. The relationship between the Sewards and Clarkes most likely came from a friendship formed between Caroline Palmer Clarke, Frances Miller Seward, and Cornelia Seward while attending school together as young women in the early 1820s.<br />
<br />
The print, measuring 7 1/2" by 11 1/4 inches, will be placed in a period frame and hung in the Northwest Sitting Room at Clarke House Museum later this year.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HWNj7lORvig/TfuJ609Jf2I/AAAAAAAAAK4/eCymtOdaBOM/s1600/220px-WmHSeward.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HWNj7lORvig/TfuJ609Jf2I/AAAAAAAAAK4/eCymtOdaBOM/s200/220px-WmHSeward.jpg" width="154" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Henry Seward (1801-1872) c. 1850</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YNjUS_ndCy4/TfuJ2pVlVYI/AAAAAAAAAK0/yubekkY2ujU/s1600/Frances_Adeline_Miller_Seward.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YNjUS_ndCy4/TfuJ2pVlVYI/AAAAAAAAAK0/yubekkY2ujU/s1600/Frances_Adeline_Miller_Seward.jpg" /></a></td><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frances Adeline Miller Seward (1805-1865)</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> c.1844.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-81513589388648974212011-06-14T14:23:00.000-05:002011-06-14T14:23:03.614-05:00A Taste of History: Recipe of the Week #1Food is a common thread that connects us to our ancestors. Our lifestyles today may be very different from what was experienced by the Clarkes and others in 1850s Chicago, but just like us they used food as a means to socialize and express creativity. Clarke House Museum has only one period cookbook in its collection, but it is a treasure-trove of culinary advice and interesting dishes. <i>Modern Cookery, In All Its Branches: Reduced To A System of Easy Practice, For The Use of Private Families </i>was written by Eliza Acton in 1845 for an English audience. The cookbook in our collection is a second edition (1852) of the version revised for American housekeepers by Mrs. S. J. Hale in 1845.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SN8j2oq9esA/TfeoMFr965I/AAAAAAAAAKY/DSxv-uXcyvI/s1600/A+Tast+of+History+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SN8j2oq9esA/TfeoMFr965I/AAAAAAAAAKY/DSxv-uXcyvI/s400/A+Tast+of+History+001.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ro7I1lj5ucI/Tfeoe0M-4gI/AAAAAAAAAKc/o9s8Vm7tRv8/s1600/A+Tast+of+History+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ro7I1lj5ucI/Tfeoe0M-4gI/AAAAAAAAAKc/o9s8Vm7tRv8/s400/A+Tast+of+History+003.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />
In the preface to the American edition Mrs. Hale writes:<br />
<blockquote>I have often been surprised to observe how far behind the art of Cookery in the United States is behind the age. It was therefore with much pleasure that I undertook, at the request of the publishers, to superintend an American edition of this new work of Miss Acton, when on examination, I found how well it adapted to the wants of this country, at the present time.</blockquote><blockquote>The Preface of the Author is so complete, and explains so fully her wishes and motives in publishing, that I have little to add, except to state that, as the work is presented solely as a result of the Author's experience, it would have been inconsistent with the plan to make any additions. Therefore, the few which have been made, rather chiefly to the preparation of those articles which may be regarded as more strictly American: such as Indian Corn, Terrapins, and some others. Whatever revision has taken place, is in reference to the use of a few articles and terms not generally known here, for which sunstitutes are presented, so as to adapt the work to this country. The additional matter will be found distinguished by brackets [-].</blockquote><blockquote>This work has been so well received in England, as to have already passed to a second edition; enjoying the universal approbation of the press, and the general favour of the public. I cannot feel persuaded that, when known, it will provide equally satisfactory to the housekeepers of this country, and find its way into the hands of all who wish to improve the Art of Cookery.</blockquote><blockquote>S. J. H. Philadelphia, 1845 </blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iYc0B2zocBQ/TfevzsrichI/AAAAAAAAAKs/-z_60DK6Mhw/s1600/A+Tast+of+History+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iYc0B2zocBQ/TfevzsrichI/AAAAAAAAAKs/-z_60DK6Mhw/s320/A+Tast+of+History+010.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This 1852 edition at Clarke House Museum is signed in three places by Jane E. Rose who may have been the original owner of the book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
In an effort to connect the past with the present, Clarke House Museum introduces <i>A Taste of History</i>, a weekly recipe feature here on the Clarke House Museum Blog. Look for a different recipe from Miss Acton and Mrs. Hale each week! Tips on converting period measurements to modern-day standards will be given, but part of the fun is experimenting with what our ancestors used. We hope you'll enjoy this weekly feature. Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section following the blog post. Bon Appetite!<br />
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<div style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: large;">A Taste of History: Recipe of the Week #1</span></div><div style="color: red;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: 14pt;">Common Carrot Soup</span><b style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"></span>The easiest way of making this soup is to boil some carrots very tender in water slightly salted; then pound them extremely fine, and to mix gradually with them boiling gravy-soup (or buillion), in the portion of a quart to twelve ounces of carrot. The soup should then be passed through a strainer, seasoned with salt and cayenne, and served very hot.</div><span style="color: black;"></span><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Soup, 2 quarts; pounded carrot, 1 ½<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lb.; salt, cayenne: 5 minutes.</span></div><div style="color: #cc0000;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Modern Ingredient Conversion</b></div><div style="color: #cc0000;">2 quarts boiling soup gravy = 4 cups chicken stock</div><span style="color: #cc0000;">12 ounces pounded carrots = 1.5 cups processed/blended carrots</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-7825989803479386072011-06-13T10:24:00.003-05:002011-06-14T14:32:18.384-05:00"A Walk Through Time": A Great Success!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pLmR2VDaio0/TfYoyCvvzsI/AAAAAAAAAKM/sl1EqSHea9w/s1600/248695_180347195352011_146619118724819_417199_4350352_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pLmR2VDaio0/TfYoyCvvzsI/AAAAAAAAAKM/sl1EqSHea9w/s320/248695_180347195352011_146619118724819_417199_4350352_n.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Docent Aimee Daramus interprets in the parlor during the 2:00 tour.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Clarke House Museum was one of ten historic sites featured during "A Walk Through Time"- Glessner House Museum's annual house walk benefit on Sunday June 12, 2011. We enjoyed wonderful weather and even better attendence. In addition to Clarke and Glessner House Museums, the walk included Second Prebyterian Church and seven privately owned Prairie Avenue District residences: the William W. Kimball House (1892), Joseph G. Coleman House (1886), Elbridge G. Keith House (1870), the Calvin T. Wheeler Mansion (1870), Dr. Charles W. Purdy House (1891), Harriet F. Rees House (1888), and the William H. Reid House (1894).<br />
<br />
Close to 100 people came for a 30-minute tour of the first floor, kitchen, and orientation gallery at Clarke House Museum during the three-hour program. Tours were offered on the hour and half-hour from 1-4pm. Docent Aimee Daramus, Assistant Curator Becky LaBarre and husband Steve LaBarre dressed in period clothing to represent the look of the 1850s. The presentation reinforced the social themes of paying calls and typical room use of the period. Guests asked great questions and everyone enjoyed an afternoon of touring homes in the Prairie Avenue Historic District. "A Walk Through Time" is an annual event, so if you weren't able to attend this time please join us next year!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TNfa9GIwnsM/TfYo_nHf1UI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/YnRNnv6BqJM/s1600/254182_223660277653792_118319034854584_919578_7533086_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TNfa9GIwnsM/TfYo_nHf1UI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/YnRNnv6BqJM/s320/254182_223660277653792_118319034854584_919578_7533086_n.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Assistant Curator, Becky LaBarre, museum volunteer Steve LaBarre, and docent Roberta Siegel in the <br />
Glessner House Museum coach house before the start of "A Walk Through Time."</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KbmSmn4fngo/TfYpighKhFI/AAAAAAAAAKU/9ASZ-PDR9aM/s1600/260414_180356395351091_146619118724819_417352_7861208_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KbmSmn4fngo/TfYpighKhFI/AAAAAAAAAKU/9ASZ-PDR9aM/s320/260414_180356395351091_146619118724819_417352_7861208_n.jpg" t8="true" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Period outerwear on the bench near the Indiana Avenue entrance echoes the theme <br />
of calling on neighbors. Close to 100 people paid a call to Clarke House during Sunday's program.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-80100499506373564832011-06-09T12:57:00.016-05:002011-06-09T14:44:32.637-05:00What's Behind the Fence? Public Art to be Installed Near Clarke House<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uuebTTKQcf8/TfEEdV_aBJI/AAAAAAAAAJs/bJKG63ankZg/s1600/Blog+pics+012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uuebTTKQcf8/TfEEdV_aBJI/AAAAAAAAAJs/bJKG63ankZg/s320/Blog+pics+012.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Construction fence erected north of Clarke House Museum in Chicago Women's Park.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>As many of our neighbors, friends, and museum docents have noticed construction fencing was erected a few weeks ago in the <a href="http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/parks.detail/object_id/F81DA97F-89AC-4450-85A3-259CF5DEDC9D.cfm">Chicago Women's Park & Gardens</a>, site of Clarke House Museum. But what's going on behind the fence?<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y-nVouCI7U4/TfEE6vwCRhI/AAAAAAAAAJw/FgDXGv4JC38/s1600/Blog+pics+011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y-nVouCI7U4/TfEE6vwCRhI/AAAAAAAAAJw/FgDXGv4JC38/s320/Blog+pics+011.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="yiv2136524909msonormal"><span style="color: black;">"The fence has been erected due to the installation of the <i>Helping Hands</i> sculpture, by renowned artist <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1307039961_7" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; border-bottom: 2px dotted rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer;">Louise Bourgeois</span>, in Chicago Women’<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1307039961_8">s Park</span> and Gardens. </span><span lang="EN">In honor of the late Louise Bourgeois, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1307039961_9" style="border-bottom: 2px dotted rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer;">Jane Addams</span> and countless other great women, the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1307039961_10" style="border-bottom: 2px dotted rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer;">Chicago Park District</span> believes it appropriate to place this symbolic art piece in Chicago Women’s Park and Gardens to be viewed by park patrons," according to Dana R. Andrews, Legislative and Community Affairs Liaison for the Chicago Park District. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JWwAn8V7Z1I/TfEBwJhYn2I/AAAAAAAAAJo/IYpw_Sl2Wk4/s1600/louise_bourgeois.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JWwAn8V7Z1I/TfEBwJhYn2I/AAAAAAAAAJo/IYpw_Sl2Wk4/s200/louise_bourgeois.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artist Louise <span lang="EN">Bourgeois, sculptor of <i>Helping Hands</i>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="color: black;"><i>Helping Hands</i> was originally </span>dedicated in 1996 and placed in Jane Addams Memorial Park, part of Navy Pier Park near Ohio Street Beach. The six-piece installation was created by renowned French-American sculptress Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) and consists of life-size hands perched atop rusticated pedestals, carved from black granite. It remained in Jane Addams Memorial Park until 2005 when it was removed due to repeated instances of vandalism and placed in storage at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Chicago Reader ran the <a href="http://bit.ly/mvo6sr">story</a> in February 2005. According to Art Institute documents, the piece "celebrates the thousands and thousands of people Jane Addams served, rather than glorifying a single, humble individual." Sometime last year, talks began to take place between the Art Institute and the Chicago Park District concerning a new public space for the sculpture's re-installation. </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q0dwhlNmwBg/TfEgH7POsBI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/6Ec95rmW7ms/s1600/all+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q0dwhlNmwBg/TfEgH7POsBI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/6Ec95rmW7ms/s320/all+6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Helping Hands</i> in its previous location at Navy Pier's Jane Addams Memorial Park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>"We have been working closely with the Art Institute of Chicago on the project," said<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Julia Bachrach, Department of Planning and Development at the Chicago Park District.</span> "</span>and have commissioned Andrzej Dajnowski to do the installation." Danjnowski is an object conservator with AIC and is best known for his work on Loredo Taft’s <i>Fountain of Time</i> (c. 1920), located in Hyde Park.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7kUldmSim4E/TfEgWkP6gDI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/wHOZv65EXY8/s1600/hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7kUldmSim4E/TfEgWkP6gDI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/wHOZv65EXY8/s320/hands.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="199" /></a>At the <a href="http://park550advisorycouncil.com/">Chicago Women's Park Advisory Council</a> meeting on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 Michael Darling, head curator at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, spoke about the artistic significance of the piece. He explained the prolific career of Louise <span lang="EN">Bourgeois and her influence on the art world.</span> The sculpture is extremely visually dynamic, according to Darling, and represents the far reach Jane Addams and other influential Chicago women had throughout the city. The expert level of detail <span lang="EN">Bourgeois was able to attain is evident in the hands, some clearly very young, some markedly aged, and some in-between. Darling praised the skill of the artist and the successful execution of the piece. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: inherit;">The area where <i>Helping Hands</i> is to be installed formerly held a fountain made by Robinson Iron, Alexander City, Alabama using nineteenth-century molds and pattern books. A favorite fixture of many neighborhood children, the small fountain features a fish finial rising from its bowl and frogs and turtles along the edge of the lower basin. The fish fountain has been removed to make space for <i>Helping Hands</i> and its whereabouts and intended use are currently unknown to Chicago Park District liaisons.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GG6pUgnzMaE/TfEgkrvazoI/AAAAAAAAAKA/yyONPpHeyCw/s1600/fish+fountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GG6pUgnzMaE/TfEgkrvazoI/AAAAAAAAAKA/yyONPpHeyCw/s320/fish+fountain.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robinson's Iron fish fountain before it was removed from Chicago Women's Park & Gardens</td></tr>
</tbody></table>According to Liz O'Callahan of the Chicago Park District, who also attended Tuesday's advisory council meeting,<span style="font-size: small;"> the beds surrounding the sculpture will retain a formal design- a central circular area covered in crushed red granite framed with low-lying plantings of ‘Chicagoland Green’ boxwood, ‘Rozanne’ Geranium and ‘Blue Hill' Salvia.The installation will include a metal interpretive plaque on stand with a narrative titled "Visionary". Work on the area is expected to be completed by next Friday, June 17, 2011. A formal dedication is planned for September.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V-mxPppzok0/TfEgzOwgBRI/AAAAAAAAAKE/BJa6sjB9B6w/s1600/layout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V-mxPppzok0/TfEgzOwgBRI/AAAAAAAAAKE/BJa6sjB9B6w/s400/layout.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5ksKvtR3dm0/TfEg7FPyHqI/AAAAAAAAAKI/AeTg1o8QGP4/s1600/sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5ksKvtR3dm0/TfEg7FPyHqI/AAAAAAAAAKI/AeTg1o8QGP4/s200/sign.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Interpretive sign to accompany <i>Helping Hands</i> installation.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxc_vfLfKu2WJIVOi3iXLeeGZhFysbE1nM33qaH4SaDcGlCjCNVG4d5DiE87GZd-Ukf5265v6kofKbrVLaezg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";">We took a peak to see what was going on </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";">behind the fence the afternoon of June 2, 2011.</span></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-87113642060417342062011-05-23T17:01:00.001-05:002011-05-24T13:14:00.422-05:00Blue Star Museums: Free Admission for Active-Duty Military Personnel & Immediate Family Members<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="203" j8="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mgexr73Yt-M/Tdq9j8TkH7I/AAAAAAAAAJM/-XhZNr7_7MY/s400/BSM.jpg" width="400" /><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><strong></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><strong>Memorial Day- Labor Day 2011</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><strong>Clarke House Museum is pleased to announce the launch of Blue Star Museums, a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families, and more than 1,300 museums across America to offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day 2011. Leadership support has been provided by MetLife Foundation through Blue Star Families. The complete list of participating museums is available at <u><a href="http://www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums">www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums</a></u>. </strong></span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><em>Blue Star Museums may be the program at the NEA of which I am proudest. Blue Star Museums recognizes and thanks our military families for all they are doing for our country, and simultaneously begins young people on a path to becoming life-long museum goers.</em><br />
-Rocco Landesman, NEA Chairman<br />
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<em>Last year the success of the inaugural year of the Blue Star Museums program showed that partnerships between the nation’s museum and military communities are a natural. We are thrilled that 300,000 military family members visited our partner museums in the summer of 2010. We hope to exceed that number this year as the military community takes advantage of the rich cultural heritage they defend and protect every day. We appreciate the NEA and the nation’s museums who chose to partner with us. We also are grateful to our friends at the MetLife Foundation, the lead supporter of the Blue Star Museums outreach initiative, whose generous donation helps make our work possible.</em><br />
-Kathy Roth-Douquet, Blue Star Families Chairman<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This year, more than 1,324 (and counting) museums in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa are taking part in the initiative, including more than 500 new museums this year. Museums are welcome to join Blue Star Museums throughout the summer. The effort to recruit museums has involved the partnership efforts of The American Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Association of Children’s Museums, and the American Association of State and Local History. This year’s Blue Star Museums represent not just fine arts museums, but also science museums, history museums, nature centers, and 70 children’s museums. Participants include The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, The Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine in Portland, Maine, the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, California, the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, and the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma and now Clarke House Museum, Chicago. </span><br />
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<div align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Blue Star Museums runs from Memorial Day, May 30, 2011 through to Labor Day, September 5, 2011. The free admission program is available to active-duty military and their immediate family members (military ID holder and five immediate family members). Active duty military include Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and active duty National Guard and active duty Reserve members. Some special or limited-time museum exhibits may not be included in this free admission program. For questions on particular exhibits or museums, please contact the museum directly. To find out which museums are participating, visit <u><a href="http://www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums">www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums</a></u>. The site includes a list of participating museums and a map to help with visit planning. </span></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the latest NEA program to bring quality arts programs to the military, veterans, and their families. Other NEA programs for the military have included Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience; Great American Voices Military Base Tour; and Shakespeare in American Communities Military Base Tour. </span></div><b></b> <br />
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</div><div align="left"></div><a href="http://www.bluestarfam.org/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Blue Star Families</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit network of military families from all ranks and services, including guard and reserve, with a mission to support, connect and empower military families. In addition to morale and empowerment programs, Blue Star Families raises awareness of the challenges and strengths of military family life and works to make military life more sustainable. Membership includes military spouses, children and parents as well as service members, veterans and civilians. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the </span><a href="http://arts.gov/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">National Endowment for the Arts</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span> </span><br />
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: inherit;">About Blue Star Museums </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-30040553434954110682011-05-19T10:01:00.001-05:002011-05-19T10:06:32.709-05:00Capturing Your Likeness: Ambrotypes of the Clarke PeriodWhen the Clarkes arrived in Chicago from New York in 1835, the most common way to preserve the likeness of a loved one was through a painted portrait. While this would give you the general idea of what the person looked like, it was not an exact representation. By the 1850s photography had matured into a common method for capturing one's exact image.<br />
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Many images from the Clarke period are <i>ambrotypes</i>, from <span style="color: black;">Ancient Greek word for </span>“immortal” or “impression”. The ambrotype uses the wet plate collodion process, invented by Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857) of England, to generate a negative image on a sheet of glass. Archer's process was adapted by James Ambrose Cutting (1814-1867) of Boston in 1854, who took out several patents in the United States and used the plate image produced as a positive, rather than a negative.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_Irc8ctR7GM/TdUofUnOe_I/AAAAAAAAAI4/a-bhGUQPdRY/s1600/1983.69a-b_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_Irc8ctR7GM/TdUofUnOe_I/AAAAAAAAAI4/a-bhGUQPdRY/s400/1983.69a-b_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cased ambrotype from the collection of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois, housed at Clarke House Museum</span></td></tr>
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Ambrotypes are produced by covering a small pane of glass with a thin layer of collodian dipped in silver nitrate. The sitter is positioned by the photographer and the wet plate is inserted into a camera. The plate is exposed to the light from five to sixty seconds depending on lighting conditions, developed, and fixed. The resulting image is, in fact, a negative. However, when placed against a dark background it appears to be a positive image. Areas of clear glass are viewed as dark because of the backing and the exposed areas, opaque because of the effects of the chemical solution, appear light.<br />
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Images of this type were often coated with black paint or varnish or placed against black paper or cloth. This can be done to either the emulsion-coated side of the plate or the clean glass. If the clean glass is backed, the thickness of the glass and emulsion produce an illusion of depth.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0eBmHksl8zg/TdQ9FphBQwI/AAAAAAAAAI0/VRk7iWqmBEE/s1600/Ambro+Scans+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" j8="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0eBmHksl8zg/TdQ9FphBQwI/AAAAAAAAAI0/VRk7iWqmBEE/s320/Ambro+Scans+001.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The back of the glass plate, coated in black paint or varnish.</td></tr>
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">From that point, the image could be hand-tinted with pigments. Most often cheeks were tinted a rosy pink and the jewelry accented in gold. For those who could afford a bit more color, whole garments could be tinted to give the portrait an even more realistic appearance. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-de5Pq--ICqI/TdUo7uv3GVI/AAAAAAAAAI8/hBmwINAQHVE/s1600/1983.69a-b_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="350" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-de5Pq--ICqI/TdUo7uv3GVI/AAAAAAAAAI8/hBmwINAQHVE/s400/1983.69a-b_3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jewelry accented with gold paint</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>To preserve the ambrotype, the varnished and tinted plate was placed in a case with a decoratively pressed copper mat directly against the image. This was covered by a clear plate of glass and secured inside a velvet-lined case. These small tokens of loved ones were precious and cherished by families for generations.<br />
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Over time, climate conditions such as high humidity can break down the emulsion on an ambrotype. The image below is "burned out." The adverse effect of improper storage or poor weather conditions has caused the emulsion to pull away from the glass plate or discolor. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M4PHzvvJys4/TdUtYHLxmRI/AAAAAAAAAJE/Td0mVmu6z4o/s1600/1983.68_1+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M4PHzvvJys4/TdUtYHLxmRI/AAAAAAAAAJE/Td0mVmu6z4o/s400/1983.68_1+crop.jpg" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emulsion failure. Ambrotype from the collection of The National Society of The Colonial<br />
Dames of America in the State of Illinois, housed at Clarke House Museum.</td></tr>
</tbody></table> Regardless of condition, ambrotypes are an invaluable historic resource. They provide concrete documentation of what people looked like, how they dressed, and what items they felt were important enough to capture in an image. We use ambrotypes like these to help us interpret the life of Mrs.Clarke and her children in 1850s Chicago.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CIqR1_pRgVI/TdUv_8PZsyI/AAAAAAAAAJI/WHgd6lHw9As/s1600/1983.68_2+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CIqR1_pRgVI/TdUv_8PZsyI/AAAAAAAAAJI/WHgd6lHw9As/s400/1983.68_2+crop.jpg" width="326" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Clarkes' younger daughter, Caroline, probably dressed like these girls. Ambrotype from the collection of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois, housed at Clarke House Museum. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-16119990725627740232011-05-13T12:33:00.000-05:002011-05-13T12:33:52.048-05:00Special Event: A Walk Through Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zrnnTrQOqXg/TcldAJQFwSI/AAAAAAAAAIw/tHQ6Bf13-iI/s1600/Jack+Simmerling+Drawing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" j8="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zrnnTrQOqXg/TcldAJQFwSI/AAAAAAAAAIw/tHQ6Bf13-iI/s320/Jack+Simmerling+Drawing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><b>A Walk Through Time</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>A Tour of the Private Homes of Prairie Avenue</b><br />
Sunday June 12, 2011 from 1:00 to 4:00pm</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">$50 per person/$45 for museum members </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">Reservations suggested</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">R.S.V.P. to 312.326.1480</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-top: 0px;">Join us for our popular annual house tour, to benefit the museum, when you have the opportunity to visit the interiors of the surviving mansions in and around Prairie Avenue. This year's tour will include seven private homes, in addition to the Glessner and Clarke house museums, and historic Second Presbyterian Church. Attendees will be treated to a breath-taking array of beautifully carved wood moldings, leaded glass windows, and fireplaces in elaborate tile, mosaic, and marble. Following the tour, participants are invited to return to the Glessner House Museum coach house for a reception and silent auction, featuring theatre tickets, Chicago memorabilia, collectibles, and other items of interest. We hope you'll join Clarke House Museum for this very special event!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-83556817139294008032011-05-10T10:08:00.000-05:002012-05-10T17:43:08.242-05:00Robert George Clarke<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Please note that research on the Clarke family is ongoing and this article reflects the most current documentation held by the museum. Text is subject to change as additional information becomes available and is interpreted by Clarke House Museum staff. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Robert George Clarke, sixth child of Henry and Caroline Clarke, was born May 10, 1838 at the family home in Chicago. He came of age during the time the Clarkes were suffering from financial trouble associated with the Panic of 1837. As a boy Robert would have helped his father, Henry B. Clarke, with the family's dairy farming operation. Robert was just eleven years old when his father died of cholera in 1849 and seventeen when Caroline Clarke, his mother, completed the modifications to the house in 1855. </span></div>
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When Caroline Clarke passed away in January 1860, Robert took over as head of household. Even though his older sister Mary and her husband Frank Williams were present to help care for the family, Robert was the eldest surviving Clarke male (older brother Henry James died in 1856) and took responsibility for holding things together. At the time of the 1860 U.S. census Robert was twenty-one and working as a book keeper. His personal estate was valued at $1000. <br />
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Robert Clarke was successful in his business partnership, Palmer & Clarke, with brother-in-law Frank Williams (husband of Mary Clarke) and uncle Charles D. Palmer (Caroline's brother). They dealt in animal hides, furs, and wool. The 1867 Chicago City directory list Robert as working in the firm and still living with his siblings at Clarke House, listed as 596 Michigan Avenue. It was around this time that Robert Clarke began courting his future bride Clara Gage.<br />
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Clara was born June 15, 1848 in Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire to David A. Gage (1822-1889) and Faustina Mulliken Locke (1819-1850). At the time of the 1850 census Clara's father ran a successful hotel and boarding house in Rockingham, Windham County, Vermont. Unfortunately, her mother died just months later in November 1850 when Clara was only two years old. Her father soon remarried to Eliza N. Wetherbee (c.1829-1894). The Gage family moved in with Eliza's father, Isaac Wetherbee (1797- ?) following the death of her mother in September 1859. <br />
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Clara's father was a shrewd and ambitious businessman. In 1860 he took his wife and daughter, along with older brother George W. Gage (1812-?) to Chicago where they boarded at the Tremont House in July of that year. David and George Gage met and formed a business connection with hotelier <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Drake_%281826%E2%80%931895%29">John Burroughs Drake</a> (1826-1895), part owner of the Tremont from 1855-1871. By 1862 they had formed the firm of Gage Bros. & Drake. David A. Gage also became superintendent of the Chicago Horse Rail Road. Two years later Gage had formed another partnership Gage, Waite, & Rice and had moved his family to the Shermon House at the northwest corner of Clark and Randolph of which his new company was the proprietor. David A. Gage is listed in the Chicago City Directory as residing at the Sherman House from 1862-1871. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uFeOX2hhE-I/T6gx5IDDW4I/AAAAAAAAAP4/jtwLupNGzSc/s1600/Sherman+House+1858.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uFeOX2hhE-I/T6gx5IDDW4I/AAAAAAAAAP4/jtwLupNGzSc/s400/Sherman+House+1858.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sherman House, 1858. Photograph by Alexander Helsler. Robert Clarke's wife, Clara Gage, lived at this hotel with her father and stepmother from the time they met until their marriage in 1868.<i> Image courtesy of <a href="http://greatchicagofire.org/landmarks/sherman-house">Chicago History Museum</a></i>.</td></tr>
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It is unknown where or when Clara and Robert met. They both had lost parents and this may have been one of the shared experiences that drew them together. They both also came from well-established and, at least initially, well-do-do New England families. In 1860s Chicago, theirs would be considered a good match.<br />
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A week before their wedding date, Robert applied for a passport for his honeymoon trip with Clara abroad. <a href="http://clarkehousemuseum.blogspot.com/2012/03/passport-application-reveals-physical.html">See Robert Clarke's 1868 passport application.</a> The couple married November 15, 1868 and took up residence at the Clarke family home at 596 Michigan Ave. Robert continued to work for Palmer & Clarke. In 1870, Clara and Robert had established their own home just down the street, next door to Clarke House at 604 Michigan Avenue. Robert, now a successful cattle broker, had grown his modest finances to a personal worth of $25,000. Clara herself held $50,000 in real estate and $2,000 in personal assets. The couple lived quite comfortably with an Irish domestic servant named Bridget Bigley.<br />
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The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 devastated the downtown Chicago hotel district, but did not reach the near south side where the Clarkes were living. The Sherman House was laid to waste by the fire so, presumably, Clara's parents stayed with her and Robert in the months immediately following while the city scrambled to rebuild. In addition to ownership in Gage Bros. & Rice and the Frank Parmalee omnibus company, Robert's father-in-law, David A. Gage, had been elected Chicago City Treasurer in 1870. Gage was also appointed treasurer of the General Relief Committee following the fire, given charge over all monetary aid contributions sent to the city. On October 28, 1871, however, the <i>Chicago</i> <i>Republican</i> reported "there are anxious inquires concerning Mr. David Gage's use of the city funds since he has been Treasurer. Will he rise to explain?" Suspicion of illicit practices cast a dark shadow of the Gage-Clarke family and city authorities began to investigate where the money was going.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y7ah5V3pJu4/T6wmt4tWzCI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/wtsf0paJAy8/s1600/sherman+house+ruins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y7ah5V3pJu4/T6wmt4tWzCI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/wtsf0paJAy8/s320/sherman+house+ruins.jpg" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicago in ruins, 1871. With the Sherman House obliterated, Clara's parents probably stayed her and Robert following the Great Chicago Fire.</td></tr>
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Clara gave birth to the couple's only child, son David Gage Clarke (named for her father), on March 25, 1872. Just a few months later Robert oversaw the sale of his childhood home to the Chrimes family. Robert could watch from his own front stoop as the mighty columns of his parents' Greek Revival mansion were removed and the house was jacked up then carted off by horses to 4526 S. Wabash Avenue in what was then the town of Hyde Park. With the old Clarke family home gone, Robert turned his attention to his own young family and their future. <br />
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Clara's parents soon returned to hotel living. Gage Bros.& Rice now operated the Grand Pacific Hotel, on Clark Street between Quincy and Jackson, which reopened in 1873. David A. Gage was not reelected City Treasurer and for good reason - he was at the center of an extraordinary scandal. In December 1873 it was determined that Gage had grossly misappropriated city funds and the treasury was deficient to the tune of $508,703.58. <a href="http://books.google.com/books?ei=fSesT6mJN4mAgwetw83KAQ&id=THd5AAAAMAAJ&dq=david+a+gage+chicago+treasurer&q=david+a+gage#v=snippet&q=david%20a%20gage&f=false">Read more about David A. Gage and his defalcation scandal here, beginning on page 856.</a> Disgraced by the embezzlement scandal, Clara's father and stepmother
seem to have retreated to the comfort of family and are found in
residence at the Clarkes' 604 Michigan Avenue house according to the
1875 and 1877 Chicago City Directory. David A. Gage is not listed as
having any profession, a telling sign of his utter dismissal from the realm of Chicago business.<br />
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During the tumult occurring with his father-in-law, Robert seems to have tried to lead a normal life. By 1874 Palmer & Clarke appears to have dissolved and Robert is listed as working for <a href="http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.4375:1:7.lincoln">C. L. Goodman & Co.</a>, a Chicago bread and cracker manufacturer which touted its "building [was] erected in the Burnt District and business fully resumed in 37 days after the fire of Oct. 8th and 9th, 1871."<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zOxhdpNhF1k/T6RVaMvRvXI/AAAAAAAAAPE/QeIDkvOS3cs/s1600/cl+woodman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zOxhdpNhF1k/T6RVaMvRvXI/AAAAAAAAAPE/QeIDkvOS3cs/s400/cl+woodman.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Cattle to Crackers: Advertisement for C. L. Woodman & Co. from <u>The Railroads of Chicago</u>. Chicago: The Western News Company, 1872. Robert Clarke is listed as working for this company in the 1874 Chicago City Directory.</td></tr>
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In 1878 Robert had once again changed careers and is listed as manager of Anderson's Refrigerator Line and Coal Storage Company and, interestingly, boards at the Palmer House Hotel. The narrative given about his father-in-law in History of Chicago by Alfred Theodore Andreas mentions the Gages deeded property as payment for their debt. Further research is needed, but it is possible Robert and Clara's home at 604 Michigan Avenue could have been part of this land.<br />
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Gold had been discovered in Colorado in the 1870s and Americans rushed west to make their fortunes. Clara's father decided to escape his sullied past in Chicago and take on a new business venture in Denver, Colorado. David A. Gage and Michigan-born businessman Alexis M. Lay (1845-1921) formed the partnership Gage & Lay which ran the Grand Central Hotel at the intersection of Lawrence and 17th Streets in Denver. The1880 census lists Clara, her stepmother Eliza, and son David in residence with David A. Gage. Robert's youngest brother Cyrus Clarke is also living in Denver in 1880, working as a miner. Robert Clarke was living away from his family working as a laborer and residing at 402 East 8th Street in Leadville. In 1881 Robert is listed as a clerk for the Little Chief Mining Company living at 123 East 4th Street in Leadville. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fm6ERgtD-ow/T6gsXY6SniI/AAAAAAAAAPs/kQYupaanPo4/s1600/grand+central+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="295" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fm6ERgtD-ow/T6gsXY6SniI/AAAAAAAAAPs/kQYupaanPo4/s320/grand+central+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Central Hotel, Denver, Colorado c.1880. Robert Clarke's wife and
son lived at this hotel operated by his father-in-law, David A. Gage. <i>Image courtesy of <a href="http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/41822/rec/10">Denver Public Library Digital Collections</a>.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S1-7ArVl3l8/T6vyieZ-oGI/AAAAAAAAAQk/S0xbN5kv6h0/s1600/little+chief+stock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S1-7ArVl3l8/T6vyieZ-oGI/AAAAAAAAAQk/S0xbN5kv6h0/s400/little+chief+stock.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stock certificate for the Little Chief Mining Company in Leadville, Colorado. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0csmqVpjs14/T6wyoaF9INI/AAAAAAAAARE/ck8ousi4M-s/s1600/3_Leadville__CO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0csmqVpjs14/T6wyoaF9INI/AAAAAAAAARE/ck8ousi4M-s/s400/3_Leadville__CO.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mines in Leadville, Colorado at the time Robert worked for the Little Chief Mining Company. <i>Photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.miningartifacts.org/">www.miningartifacts.org</a>.</i></td></tr>
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Work was hard and days were long. Robert Clarke distinguished himself and went on to became the manager of the Gold Cup Mine in Tin Cup, Colorado. In 1896 Robert obtained a lease on the property. Unfortunately, three weeks later, he died tragically in a mining accident on December 9, 1896 at the age of 58.<br />
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His death is described in <i>Stampede to Timberline: Ghost Towns and Mining</i> (1949) by Muriel Sibell Wolfe:<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">Three weeks after he took it [Gold Cup Mine] over it was still so early in the season that he and three other men improvised a toboggan with which to get down and up the ice-coated incline of the mine tunnel. One morning they started down as usual, but three hundred feet below the surface the toboggan caught on some caved-in rock. Three of the men jumped to safety and signaled the engineers to stop the hoist; but Clark [sic] stayed on the sled and succeeded in working it loose. Fifty feet of slack cable connected it to the hoist, and as the toboggan gathered speed Clark [sic] was unable to leap off. When the slack was taken up the sled stopped suddenly, throwing Clark [sic] headlong down the tunnel to his death.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aCbr_9-bEW8/T6w8H-gskAI/AAAAAAAAARQ/FBmY3E2JMiY/s1600/Robert+Clarke+Obit+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aCbr_9-bEW8/T6w8H-gskAI/AAAAAAAAARQ/FBmY3E2JMiY/s640/Robert+Clarke+Obit+1.jpg" width="332" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Denver Republican.</i> December 11, 1896.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pFwy1TFSxZY/T6w9N352QkI/AAAAAAAAARY/jHVxx1CvE2w/s1600/Robert+Clarke+Obit+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pFwy1TFSxZY/T6w9N352QkI/AAAAAAAAARY/jHVxx1CvE2w/s640/Robert+Clarke+Obit+2.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Chicago Daily Tribune</i>. December 10, 1896.</td></tr>
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Robert's body was shipped from Tin Cup to Denver then returned to Chicago where he lay in state at sister Caroline Clarke Forman's home before being laid to rest at the Clarke family plot in Graceland Cemetery.<br />
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Clara and David remained in Chicago for many years following Robert's death. Later they are found living in Kansas City, Missouri where Clara died February 28, 1938. She was cremated and her remains were interred with Robert at Graceland. Their only son, David Gage, married a woman named Kathryn between 1930 and his own death March 11, 1944. The couple had no children. David too was cremated and placed in the Clarke family plot at Graceland Cemetery, Chicago along with his mother and father, Robert George Clarke. <br />
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-58680474059216084842011-04-27T16:38:00.000-05:002011-04-27T16:38:53.325-05:00Springtime Interpretation at Clarke House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UM0BYWC4uik/TbiMjRzUPVI/AAAAAAAAAIo/8UQyAnSHF4c/s1600/Blog+pics+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UM0BYWC4uik/TbiMjRzUPVI/AAAAAAAAAIo/8UQyAnSHF4c/s400/Blog+pics+002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Come see Clarke House Museum change over for springtime interpretation! Mrs. Clarke and her children would have taken the months of April and May to clean the house top to bottom in anticipation of warmer weather and the visitors it was sure to bring. Join us this spring to learn about spring cleaning and gardening. Participate in hands-on activities families like the Clarkes would have done in 1850s Chicago! We hope you'll plan a visit this season.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-66926368517233377932011-04-20T11:49:00.001-05:002011-04-20T12:23:26.858-05:00Considering Our Collections: How CHM Objects are Catagorized<div style="color: #990000;"><b>When you come for a visit to Clarke House, you will see several objects placed together to give an impression of an 1850s middle-class Chicago home. But are all of these items <i>really</i> from the mid-nineteenth century? Not everything. Currently, the museum's collection is divided into three categories: </b></div><br />
1. <b style="color: #990000;">NSCDA-IL Artifacts</b>: Items owned exclusively by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois. These objects are authentic to the Clarke House period and are the core of the museum's exhibits. Most of what you see out on display is from the NSCDA-IL collection. The bulk of these artifacts were gathered by the Dames when Clarke House was being restored in the early 1980s. Since then, the Dames have added several pieces to their collection and continue to seek out high quality period furnishings and household artifacts to enhance the authenticity of Clarke House Museum's interiors. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8sLuKbDn_1c/Ta8LFIhXIvI/AAAAAAAAAIY/9LgmDqdgHkE/s1600/Blog+pics+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8sLuKbDn_1c/Ta8LFIhXIvI/AAAAAAAAAIY/9LgmDqdgHkE/s200/Blog+pics+001.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Real Deal: NSCDA-IL Artifact</td></tr>
</tbody></table>2. <b style="color: #990000;">Props</b>: These are objects that have age, but may or may not date to the Clarke period. Props are secondary to the Dames collection, providing filler or backdrop to our principal artifacts. These objects are selected to help tell the story of our period of interpretation. Prop items would be considered "antiques" but are commonplace and easily replaceable. Guests and docents may be invited to interact with some of our prop items.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ZJo_SXjwY0/Ta8LmqfY4mI/AAAAAAAAAIc/s-U8YcJ5rPE/s1600/Blog+pics+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ZJo_SXjwY0/Ta8LmqfY4mI/AAAAAAAAAIc/s-U8YcJ5rPE/s200/Blog+pics+002.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prop Object: Fills in Our Exhibit</td></tr>
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3. <b style="color: #990000;">Reproductions</b>: Objects that are modern-day copies of items that would have been available to the Clarke family. The museum uses reproductions in the same way as props, to flesh out our exhibits and make them more realistic. Reproductions are produced in the same manner, using the same materials that would have been available during the Clarke period. Guests are encouraged to touch, handle, and use reproduction items. Docents will point out reproductions for your use while on tour.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fnFNG8GO5EU/Ta8MLQUgM6I/AAAAAAAAAIg/_FN1np2X_lg/s1600/Blog+pics+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fnFNG8GO5EU/Ta8MLQUgM6I/AAAAAAAAAIg/_FN1np2X_lg/s200/Blog+pics+003.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reproduction Items: Try them out!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-32040983646956393842011-04-12T19:15:00.000-05:002011-04-12T19:15:29.086-05:00Mother-Daughter Tea at Glessner House, April 30<em>Clarke House Museum is pleased to announce the following event for our sister intitution Glessner House Museum:</em><br />
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Time is running out to make reservations for the Mother-Daughter Tea to be held at <a href="http://www.glessnerhouse.org/">Glessner House Museum</a> located directly north of Clarke House Museum at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue. Don't miss out on this very special opportunity to take high tea in the museum's historic dining room, not regularly open for public events.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j5TQNq6cWeo/TZn_MLvRsJI/AAAAAAAAAIU/zo2Z9DNVVvo/s1600/historicdiningroom2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" r6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j5TQNq6cWeo/TZn_MLvRsJI/AAAAAAAAAIU/zo2Z9DNVVvo/s320/historicdiningroom2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Historic photograph of the Glessner House Dining Room.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Mother-Daughter Tea</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Saturday April 30, 2011</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Seatings at 11:30am and 2:00pm</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">$35 per person/ $30 for museum members</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Pre-paid reservations required; group size limited</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">R.S.V.P. to 312-326-1480</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Experience high Victorian tea in the historic dining room of Glessner House!</span><br />
Glessner House Museum offers a rare opportunity to dine in the historic dining room. Surrounded by beautiful oak paneling, a gilt ceiling, and a fireplace clad in exotic Persian tiles, attendees will be treated to a traditional high tea with fine china, linens, and an assortment of delicious treats. In addition, selected vintage textiles from the collection, worn by Frances Glessner and her daughter, will be on display. This is a very special event not to be missed. Invite your mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, or good friend for what promises to be a most memorable experience!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-7599261806775696602011-04-06T09:00:00.059-05:002011-04-07T10:24:40.106-05:00Happy Birthday, Charlie Clarke!Today, April 6, marks the 176th birthday of Charles Clarke. Little Charlie was born right before the Clarkes left Waterville, New York for Chicago in 1835. He accompanied his parents and big brother Henry on the long journey up to Utica, along the Erie Canal to Buffalo, New York. He then boarded a boat that ferried his family to Detroit where they bought a wagon and traveled overland to Chicago, arriving in October 1835. A big trip for such a little guy!<br />
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His mother, Caroline Palmer Clarke, wrote to her sister-in-law Mary Walker in a letter dated November 1, 1835:<br />
<blockquote>The other children are very well,(<i>daughter Mary was left in the care of her aunt in New York</i>) little Charlie has been considerably sick a few days from a severe cold, but is now well as ever. He has grown very much, sits alone on the floor now. He was the best child on the journey you ever saw, scarcely cried at all. He would sit for hours sometimes on board the boat, looking first at one and then another, and seeming as much amused as though their whole conversation was acceptable to him. He was not afraid of strangers at all.</blockquote>Charlie stayed with his family at the Tremont House, a hotel and boarding house in the town's center. He lived in the log home on the property the Clarkes purchased from Dr. Elijah Dewey Harmon and may have even taken his first steps there. Little Charlie also witnessed the construction of Clarke House and moved in with his family sometime during 1836. Sadly, on September 24, 1836, at just fifteen month old, Charlie Clarke died. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div align="center"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o61-o3qF7mU/TZnsQNcZmyI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/0wmQtF-5xFM/s1600/223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o61-o3qF7mU/TZnsQNcZmyI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/0wmQtF-5xFM/s320/223.jpg" width="251" /></a></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center">We don't have any images of Charles Clarke, but he may have looked something like this child. Little boys wore dresses before they were potty-trained to make diapering easier on the mother.</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-85729558862488327042011-03-28T11:29:00.032-05:002011-03-31T13:12:05.244-05:00Dames to Docents March 26, 2011<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> <br />
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fwn7hihO2Dw/TZCxX1NjmwI/AAAAAAAAAF4/Ma8lF_SXWXc/s1600/Dames%2Bto%2BDocents%2B08.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589162160545831682" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fwn7hihO2Dw/TZCxX1NjmwI/AAAAAAAAAF4/Ma8lF_SXWXc/s640/Dames%2Bto%2BDocents%2B08.JPG" style="float: right; height: 240px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 320px;" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Docents mingle during breakfast before the program begins.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>This past Saturday, March 26, four representatives from <a href="http://www.dames-il.org/ames-il.org/">The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Illinois </a>(NSCDA-IL) visited to speak to our docents about their organization and its relationaship to Clarke House Museum. The program was held in the Beidler Room of Glessner House Museum, located just north of Clarke House at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue. Refreshments were served at 9:30 a.m. with the program running from 10 until 11:30 a.m. <br />
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The ladies on the panel all currently serve on the NSCDA-IL Museum Properties Committee, which oversees the collections housed at Clarke House Museum and greatly contributes to exhibits, public programming and educational initiatives. The Illinois Society was invited by the City of Chicago to furnish the recently relocated Clarke House in 1978. Since then, NSCDA-IL has been an intregal part of the restoration, preservation, and interpretation of Chicago's oldest structure. <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-laAO1K6PdMs/TZCxyR1t6vI/AAAAAAAAAGA/nQZ_fVV_p2g/s1600/Dames%2Bto%2BDocents%2B11.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589162614907071218" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-laAO1K6PdMs/TZCxyR1t6vI/AAAAAAAAAGA/nQZ_fVV_p2g/s320/Dames%2Bto%2BDocents%2B11.JPG" style="float: right; height: 240px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glessner House Museum Executive Director & Curator, <br />
Bill Tyre, welcomes everyone to the Beidler Room.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Patriotic Service Chair Jean Perkins opened the morning's discussion with a history of The National Society of The Colonial Dames which was founded in 1891. At the core of NSCDA's mission is the <a href="http://www.nscda.org/">preservation</a> of historic propeties. Jean informed the group that NSCDA owns and maintains more historic buildings than the National Trust for Historic Preservation. <br />
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<div>Jean continued to talk about the foundation of the Illinois Society in 1896, Fortnightly Club in Chicago, and the decision to take on Clarke House as the Illinois Society's museum property.</div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cbYvE-p7PhM/TZCnDbTb1_I/AAAAAAAAAFw/nPAdlEnXVtM/s1600/Dames%2Bto%2BDocents%2B23.JPG" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589150814877505522" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cbYvE-p7PhM/TZCnDbTb1_I/AAAAAAAAAFw/nPAdlEnXVtM/s320/Dames%2Bto%2BDocents%2B23.JPG" style="float: right; height: 240px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jean Perkins (left) and Cami Burgess (right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Cami Burgess, First Vice-President Membership, spoke about <a href="http://www.nscda.org/site3/damelogin">membership requirements</a> to become a Dame. Membership is handled at the state level, depending on where one's ancestor lived. A Dame might be a member of the Illinois Society, but if her ancestor was from Virginia, for example, the approval of her paperwork would go through that Society. Ladies eligible for membership with NSCDA-IL are proposed by a current member and must prove lineage to an ancestor that contributed siginificantly to the original thirteen colonies.</div><br />
<div></div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> Mary Glerum, Docents & Education, talked about the Society's decision to contract museum consultants Jane and Richard Nylander for an assesment of Clarke House back in 2009. Their findings resulted in the Nylander Report, a thirty-two page document which outlines recommendations for improving interpretation at Clarke House. Mary Glerum is also a certified docent at Glessner House Musem who understands the impact the Nylander Report has had and will continue to have on tours, programming, and general interpretation. Mary also discussed plans for the 175th Anniversary Celebration taking place at Clarke House in September. The Dames are planning an evening gala event and symposium featuring the Nylanders as keynote speakers.</div><br />
<div></div>Marilyn Helmholz, Budget Chair, also sat on the Dames panel during the event and contributed much to the question and answer session held during the latter half of the program. The Dames answered questions posed by the Glessner House Museum Docents on the effects of the new furnishings plan to be implemented at Clarke House, period of interpretation, and plans for new acquisitions.<br />
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<div></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5yB5BHxs8Ig/TZC1vLwmfoI/AAAAAAAAAGI/Dob_9WX11WU/s1600/Dames+to+Docents+16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5yB5BHxs8Ig/TZC1vLwmfoI/AAAAAAAAAGI/Dob_9WX11WU/s320/Dames+to+Docents+16.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Assistant Curator, Becky Young, welcomes the Dames panel (left to right) Jean Perkins, <br />
Cami Burgess, Mary Glerum, and Marilyn Helmholz.</td></tr>
</tbody></table> The Glessner House Museum staff and docents wish to extend a hearty thanks to the ladies of the Museum Properties Committee for their participation in <i>Dames to Docents.</i> We all eagerly look forward to working with them as the anniversary celebration approaches.<br />
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<div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><b><span style="color: #996633;">If you're interested in learning more about other properties maintained by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America and their State Societies, check out these links:</span></b><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nscda.org/mp.htm" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_n16E52bBrs/TZS9lGvyl-I/AAAAAAAAAG4/N81-UO6Ne5I/s200/usa3.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NSCDA Museum Properties Map</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dames-il.org/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mJ9eUEslnE/TZS8M0Xg85I/AAAAAAAAAG0/6uAGuV7EtZk/s1600/Dames+seal%252C+il.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illinois Dames</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.dumbartonhouse.org/"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--IKGpZtyJfY/TZTDGjY_WdI/AAAAAAAAAHA/ULMP7qD9JmY/s200/south_facade_1931.jpg" width="126" /></a></div><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WleRei2m2Pc" title="YouTube video player" width="400"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343673338264572450.post-71124241978691306932011-03-25T09:37:00.002-05:002011-03-31T11:05:53.996-05:00A Friendly Game of ChessThe North West Sitting Room at Clarke House Museum is similar to the modern-day family room. As the most casual space in the home, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Clarkes</span> would have used this sitting room for informal conversation and evening diversions. Mrs. Clarke and her daughters, Mary and Caroline, would have settled down in the evenings to do needlework or read. Her four boys may have also read or pulled up a couple of chairs to engage one another in a game.<br />
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The North West Sitting Room has been recently staged for a chess game between Robert (age 19) and his brother Edward (age 13) in 1857. The board is home-made, painted black and red, with delicately carved ivory pieces belonging to a finer game board, long ago lost. In addition to playing games, the Clarke boys might have used their leisure time in the evening to catch up on the current issues of the day. They may have talked about the present recession or about the slave issue and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">murmurings</span> of secession.<br />
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588125124758594706" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oBtsIYVHE9E/TY0CMZ2r5JI/AAAAAAAAAFg/bjDVJ5Vm1C8/s320/3.24.11%2B005.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
A reproduction of a June 1857 issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Magazine is casually laid over the chess board in the sitting room as if Robert has just set it aside. Engravings of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2932.html"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Dred</span> Scott</a>, his wife, and two daughters grace the front page.<br />
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Scott became famous after a long-fought court battle to gain freedom for himself and his family. In March of 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue for his freedom. The court's decision also declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820, legislation which restricted slavery in certain territories, unconstitutional. While the decision was well-received by slaveholders in the South, many northerners were outraged. The decision greatly influenced the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Republican Party and his subsequent election, which in turn led to the South's secession from the Union.<br />
(Courtesy of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">pbs</span>.org)<br />
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<img alt="" border="0" height="400" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588125607330946354" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Wt5UlxSxG-s/TY0Cofk5nTI/AAAAAAAAAFo/gepPlepGRNk/s400/3.24.11%2B006.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" width="301" /><br />
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The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Clarkes</span> would have been very aware of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Dred</span> Scott case and its implications. Where exactly they stood on the issue of slavery and full freedom for blacks is unknown, but it is certain that it was a topic of conversation in their social circle. The family Sitting Room was a space where polite, inoffensive conversation could be set aside in favor of speaking candidly about social and political issue within the confines of the home, perhaps over a friendly game of chess.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1