"BRAIN DRAIN: Cincinnati to Chicago; from Queen City to Garden City"

OR

"Go West, Young Man – Go Further West"

INTRODUCTION

Go West; young man; go West!" From where to where? Why? When?

From where to where? - My men - all were men - went West from Cincinnati to Chicago.

Why? – "It was the economy, Stupid!" Yes; in each case, the prospects of the economy of the Cincinnati area, compared to those of Chicago, were an economic driver.

When? 

My first (Thomas Barbour Bryan) - he arrived in Cincinnati in 1849, and he left in 1853.

My second (William Le Baron Jenney) – he arrived in Cincinnati in 1859 and left in 1861.

My third (Charles Strobel) was born in 1852 and raised in Cincinnati, and he left in 1878.

My fourth (William Frederick Poole) – he arrived in Cincinnati in 1869, and he left in 1873.

My fifth (Theodore Thomas) – he arrived in Cincinnati, also, in 1869, and he left in 1888.

My “Group of Four” (the Block family) – the Block brothers of two generations – The first generation was born in Philadelphia but pursued their careers in Cincinnati, until they and the second generation of Blocks migrated from Cincinnati to Chicago in and not long after 1893.

My tenth (and last) (Carl Condit) was born in 1914 and raised in Cincinnati, and he left in 1945.

I will, sometimes, refer to these ten men as “The Cincinnati Ten”.

__________________________

Copyright – John K. Notz, Jr. (2010)

[Speaker’s/Author’s Note: Inserted, in italics, in this paper are a number of added thoughts not deemed suitable for the body of the delivered paper, but deemed useful to readers interested in additional information relative to the lives of the ten Cincinnati men identified in this paper.]

Prefatory Remarks - CONTEXT

One of my great grandfathers – Edward Uihlein - whom I have described to you in the past, in connection with his relationship with the noted Landscape Architect, Jens Jensen - had, after his migration from Germany to the United States – to St. Louis - during The Civil War, migrated, again, from St. Louis to Chicago shortly after that War, but before The Great Chicago Fire. Uihlein had experienced the commencement of rail service between Munich and Frankfurt that caused Uihlein’s home town, Wertheim, on the Main River, in Southern Germany, on the border of Bavaria and Württemberg, to lose its prosperity. The operations of that new railroad line ended riverboat passenger service on the Main River and put the small hotel managed by Uihlein’s parents - and another managed by relatives in a nearby down-river town - out of business.

In Wertheim, Uihlein had apprenticed with wholesale/retail grocer. In St. Louis, after working in the office of a brewer, he found his way into a partnership in a wagon parts supply business, serving migrants taking off from Mississippi River and Ohio River boats arriving in St. Louis, for points further West. Because of Uihlein’s experiences in his home town, he appears to have recognized that, when the riverboat interests serving St. Louis would interfere with the creation and implementation of sensible rail service into and out of St. Louis, St. Louis would suffer the fate of Wertheim. He was quite right. The long delay and the awkward siting of St. Louis’ Eads Bridge resulted in the economy of St. Louis – so prosperous during The Civil War - falling behind that of Chicago.

Once upon a time, I thought of doing a study of St. Louis men, such as Uihlein, who migrated to Chicago. I was preparing myself to write a paper for our Club on men who had left St. Louis for Chicago, but when I was diverted by Bryan, with whose remarkable life I had become acquainted because he was the lead Founder of Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery, of which I have been a Trustee for almost 20 years. That Bryan exercised such leadership of a quite substantial North Side project, far from his home in Elmhurst - then and still a West suburb of Chicago - intrigued me. Also, during the course of my study of Jenney, that resulted in my last paper for our Club, I became aware that Jenney, in addition to spending formative years in St. Louis, had spent formative years in Cincinnati. During June of this past year, I had occasion to be in St. Louis, with sufficient time to spend in its Missouri Historical Society, with time to do sufficient research to test my “St. Louis to Chicago” and Cincinnati to Chicago” migration theories. I came away satisfied that Cincinnati had had more interesting migrants about whom I could write.

Within weeks after my delivery to our Club of my “Jenney Paper” in 2007, the Annual Meeting of The Society of Architectural Historians took place in Cincinnati. With my intention to write this paper in mind, I walked in the footsteps of those of the two men who became the first of what became my “Cincinnati Ten” - along a good section of its waterfront; throughout its Historic Downtown; the length of its historic Ohio River Roebling Bridge – itself constructed too late and too awkwardly sited. I drove through its Across the Rhine neighborhood - an area through which, these days, one does not comfortably walk; several of its cemeteries - especially its Spring Grove Cemetery - and its historic Clifton suburb. I visited its beautiful Union Railroad Terminal Building of 1933 - the passenger use of which ceased in 1972 - less than 40 years after its construction). I patronized some of its rare book stores; toured Ivorydale, the manufacturing operation of the Proctor & Gamble Company that was to have emulated the Town of Pullman; took each of its cable cars; attended musical performances in its historic opera house; used its Historical Society Library - which occupies a small fraction of its Union Terminal); and heard a "classic" paper at The Cincinnati Literary Club, partaking, afterwards, of a collation - all practices that, from our own Club’s inception, it has emulated.

Jenney’s expertise in designing buildings, the skeletons of which were fabricated complex structural steel members, led me to Strobel. My exposure to the civics and to the arts of Cincinnati, just described, led me to Poole and Thomas.

I made my selection of subjects by a “Word Search”, using only the word “Cincinnati”, through the 1905 edition of Marquis’ Book of Chicagoans – the Who’s Who of Chicago of its day – is available on the Internet in a “Word Searchable” form, looking for every mention of “Cincinnati” in the biographical entries of every man’s and woman’s childhood years, schooling or employment. The process was far less time-consuming than one might imagine. Thereby, I found the four Block men. My reading of the difficulties of the development of railroad service in and about Cincinnati led me to Condit.

The Books of Chicagoans contain, not surprisingly, few women. There were spouses of some prominent men who had spent formative years in Cincinnati, but I elected not to include them.

What did The Cincinnati Ten have in common? After each perceived limitations on his career in Cincinnati, he had the courage to commence a career elsewhere. Most (Jenney, Strobel and the Blocks) had connections with the iron and steel industries. Condit, wrote of significant commercial uses of iron and steel. One can, fairly, conclude that, because the success of the iron and steel industries in the Chicago area was a substantial driver of the accumulation of wealth in Chicago, the migration of those industries from Southern Ohio to the Chicago area was a factor in the migration of most of The Cincinnati Ten. Certainly, all ten were beneficiaries of the generation of that wealth.

Did any one of The Cincinnati Ten know another? Except for within the Block Family, I have no reason to believe, that the election of any one, while he was in Cincinnati, to migrate influenced the migration of any other.

Why was I attracted to these particular migrants? Each man became notably successful in Chicago - a star in his chosen career. So, I sought a connecting thread among their motivations to move, but, other that each individual’s personal estimate of the likelihood of his own success in Chicago, I failed to find one.

Was the move of any one a loss of real significance to Cincinnati? The seven who were professionals or businessmen, perhaps, but each might have been fungible. The one who was an academic, I think not, as he was able to write, successfully, of Cincinnati, out of Chicago. The two who were leaders in the arts – the Librarian and the Orchestra Conductor: Poole could have kept the Probasco Collection, which became the original core of Chicago’s Newberry Library, in Cincinnati; that would have been of significant advantage to Cincinnati. Thomas could have made of an orchestra in Cincinnati what he made of The Chicago Symphony - again, to Cincinnati’s advantage.

I could not help but wonder, “Why was Cincinnati not good enough for The Cincinnati Ten?” None left Cincinnati under a cloud. Each kept his Cincinnati friends, and each returned to Cincinnati for business and social reasons. As each did far better in Chicago than he could have done in Cincinnati, his decision was vindicated. None had reason for regrets, and none seems to have had any.

Now, to my Cincinnati Ten . . .

THOMAS BARBOUR BRYAN was born in Alexandria, VA, in 1828. As a youth of 12, he was already an accomplished public speaker. At age 17, he was speaking, publicly, in aid of recruiting for the Mexican War. He obtained a law degree from Harvard University in 1849, writing, while there, a textbook for the teaching of English to German immigrants. Graduating at the age of 21, he, immediately went, alone, to Cincinnati, without any connection that I have discovered, where he became associated with a local former judge named Samuel Hart, who had a politically oriented practice of law. In 1851, Bryan returned to Alexandria only long enough to marry a descendant of the Byrd [B-Y-R-D] family of Virginia - Miss Byrd Page.

Bryan has been described as being:

“A brisk, energetic little man, . . . widely erudite in languages and literature, . . . writing poems and epigrams, adapting fables, translating sermons, . . . entertaining sumptuously and speaking, brightly, at banquets.”

Hart’s alcoholism (which caused his later death, running from a saloon and jumping to catch a moving train, was the likely cause of Bryan’s disenchantment with his career prospects in Cincinnati. After spending three years as a practicing lawyer in Cincinnati, he chose to take his relatively new bride to Chicago in 1853 - again, without any connection that I have discovered.

In 1856, G. P. A. Healy [George Peter Alexander Healy], the famous portraitist, who was a close friend and to be an Elmhurst neighbor of Bryan, painted a portrait of Byrd Page Bryan that is in the collection of The Smithsonian American Art Museum - one of several paintings given to it by William H. Boswell of Washington, DC, in 1973. This fine portrait, of a truly beautiful woman, in elaborate finery, would have been well suited for The Chicago History Museum, which has a good share of Healy’s work product (as does The Newberry Library), but Bryan’s successes, while living in or about The District of Columbia, after his – now forgotten - successes in Chicago, justifies its presence in The Smithsonian.

As Bryan’s departure from Cincinnati was after the well publicized founding of Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery, Bryan must have read of the early landscape design problems that plagued the early years of that cemetery until the arrival in 1854 of Adolph Strauch, whose naturalistic approach to cemetery design was to have a defining influence, in the 1870’s development of Graceland Cemetery, on Bryan, on Jenney, on Bryan’s nephew (Bryan Lathrop) and on Lathrop’s protégé, Ossian Cole Simonds.

While living in Chicago, immediately after his arrival in 1853, Bryan lost his eldest son – a small child - to a water-borne disease - presumably the cholera epidemic in Chicago of 1854, causing Bryan, by 1857, to have moved his family, due West, to Elmhurst, at the corner of St. Charles Road and York Road, where their home, understandably, was named “Byrd’s Nest”. It is said that the poor condition of Chicago’s then municipal cemetery – in the South end of what is, now, Lincoln Park, where The Chicago History Museum now stands, led Bryan to found Graceland Cemetery, as a more suitable place in which to inter that son. For sure, in 1860, Bryan’s son was that cemetery’s first burial, after his remains being exhumed from the municipal cemetery just mentioned, but I suggest to you that Bryan had, also, perceived an investment opportunity: Graceland Cemetery was designed and developed as a specialized real estate venture. In later years – a story to complex to include herein – Graceland Cemetery became the charitable entity that it is, today.

The Bryans were, soon, joined in Elmhurst, on property sold by Bryan, not only by Healy, but, also, by to his sister and her husband – Jedediah Lathrop – father of Bryan Lathrop, about whom more is said, hereinafter.

[Lathrop had a daughter, Florence, who married Henry Field, brother of Marshall Field. The Henry Field family plot in Graceland Cemetery is immediately adjacent to that of Marshall Field. The Henry Field “monument” is a rough stone, bearing a plaque; the Marshall Field plot contains a sculpture by Daniel Chester French behind a reflecting pool.]

While Bryan had been holding himself out as a practicing lawyer in Chicago, he was a quite successful, as an office lawyer – not as a litigator, as Lincoln was. Bryan was more interested in the financial opportunities available in Chicago real estate, and he became an active investor, both for his own account and for the account of his relatives and his friends back in Alexandria, in the development of raw land and of its “warehousing”, for future development. Among the buildings that Bryan caused to be built was the Bryan Block, containing an large, by the standards of that day, auditorium. The Bryan Block was on the East side of the square on which Chicago’s City Hall was and where Chicago’s City Hall and the County Building, now, is. It was near the center of the West side of the city block in which is the COR-TEN steel structure containing courtrooms and more Cook County Offices stands, today.

Bryan’s real estate interests can, appropriately be referred to as “vast”. Bryan wrote, candidly and in detail, to his family and to his investors of his business dealings. One can learn much of them, by reading letters retained by his Alexandria-based extended family, dated from his arrival in Chicago, until he turned over his Chicago real estate affairs to Bryan Lathrop (his nephew) in the mid-1870’s. These letters were given by the extended Bryan family to The Chicago History Museum after Bryan’s death in 1906 – an exceedingly instructive gift – one not yet adequately appreciated by professional Lincoln historians. These letters also contain a full expression by Bryan of the personal logic that led to his decision, as soon as Lincoln started his Presidential effort, to support Lincoln, notwithstanding Bryan’s Virginia background.

Bryan’s views on Lincoln were so persuasive within his own family circle in Alexandria, that, during The Civil War, an assassination attempt was made on his father, causing his father to remove his family, from Alexandria, across the Potomac River, “for the duration”. As some of Bryan’s real estate investors in Alexandria did not share Bryan’s views expressed in his letters to his family, he describes himself as having being more circumspect in his letters to his Virginia investors than he was in his letters to his own family, but he reflects on his investors’ desire to hedge their bets on the Confederacy by investing in Chicago real estate.

Bryan used his oratorical skills in Lincoln’s cause, in Chicago, in Elmhurst, and elsewhere in Illinois, both in 1860 and in 1864, including speaking in fluent German to his fellow DuPage County residents – the North half of DuPage County having been populated in the late 1840’s and throughout the 1850’s by emigrants from Germany (including one of my great grandmothers and her parents – the Hahns of Bloomingdale Township). Bryan, liberally, devoted his personal financial resources to the cause of the North, and he wrote and published, directly in opposition to the views of Douglas, taking the view that the leaders of the Confederacy were traitors. He was a member of the Union Defense Committee, which consisted of civilians working for the reunion of the Northern states and the Southern states. Bryan was, also, President of The Northwestern Sanitary Fair, which was designed to raise – and succeeded in raising - significant funds for hospitals and the improvement of sanitary conditions in the Western military camps of the Union Army. In that role, Bryan was certain to have become more than casually -acquainted with Frederick Law Olmsted, who, before entering his late start career as a landscape planner and designer, ran the United States Sanitary Commission during The Civil War.

In aid of raising funds for The Old Soldiers’ Home in Chicago, Bryan secured a copy of Lincoln’s 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, in Lincoln’s own hand, which, by the time of The Great Chicago Fire, was housed – presumably securely - in the then premises of The Chicago Historical Society, where it was so securely affixed to the wall that it could not be removed from the path of the Fire, and it was lost. Bryan, following The Civil War, was so favored by the officers of the Illinois Commandery of the Loyal Legion – the social and political society whose members had to have been officers of the Union Army, that he – always, nothing but a civilian and, never, a military officer – was elected to be one of the exceedingly few non-officer members thereof.

In 1870, Bryan had sold Bryan Hall to Thomas Hooley, who converted it into Hooley’s Opera House; it, too, was lost in The Great Chicago Fire. Bryan came out of the Fire far from Scot-free, as he had moved his law and real estate office to another location in the area demolished by the Fire. Among Bryan’s lost office contents were all of the then corporate records of the operations of Graceland Cemetery Co. and of the Trustees of the then newly organized Graceland Cemetery Improvement Fund, other than its interment records, which were, fortunately, maintained at the cemetery.

[Those records that would, certainly, be useful to any historian of the Cemetery, such as Christopher Vernon, whose book to be published by the Library of American Landscape History is to be published before the end of the current calendar year. Apart from the corporate records from that Cemetery’s inception in 1860 until October, 1871, all records other than interment records maintained on-site, such as family trees and probate-related and other documents, such as family related correspondence, that customarily found in well-maintained cemetery records. For instance, in the files for the Wilmarth Family and the Heald family plots at Graceland Cemetery is correspondence establishing that Harold Ickes – “The Great Curmudgeon” of the FDR and Truman Administrations – was personal counsel to Mary Hawes Wilmarth (his mother-in-law) and for the architect Dwight Heald Perkins. Those records of relationships contributed to preparation of my other “Formative Years” paper for our Club, of some years ago, that on Marion Mahony Griffin.]

Following the cessation of Civil War hostilities, Bryan resumed his lawyering and real estate development career. Much of his focus, significantly, was on the developable real estate assets of the Graceland Cemetery Co. That corporation, created by Special Act of the Illinois Legislature, and containing an exemption from real estate taxes, was a cover used by Bryan for substantial real estate holdings in the Town of Lake View – well beyond then foreseeable cemetery needs of Graceland Cemetery. Recognizing the losses of real estate taxes by the Town of Lake View, taxes which a neighbor of the Cemetery to its East named Waller – himself, then, a quite active real estate developer, had to pay, commenced litigation against Graceland Cemetery Co. and against its nearby Rosehill Cemetery, which had the same real estate tax exemption in its own legislatively-conferred corporate charter. In the late 1870’s, all this litigation was, at last, settled, shortly before Lake View was annexed to the City of Chicago, by a settlement that included an agreement fixing the boundaries of Graceland Cemetery to substantially those of the present, and subjecting the balance of the extensive real estate holdings of Graceland Cemetery Co. to real estate taxation. In time, Waller chose to be buried in Graceland Cemetery, an indication of his satisfaction with his settlement.

Simultaneously, Bryan appears to have become much involved in the convoluted proceedings that resulted in the election of Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio to be President of the United States, after which Bryan was named by Hayes, as a Commissioner of The District of Columbia – commissioners appointed by the President then being the means of supplying governance to the District – three serving at any one time. In fact, Bryan served as a Commissioner only for parts of 1877 and 1878, but he was their Chair for some portion of that period.

Bryan did not return to Chicago, but he remained living in and about the District. One can assume that he continued to be much involved in Republican politics – so much so, that he was among the first to promote the assignment of a World’s Fair to Chicago – an effort that resulted in the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. It has been reliably written that , in his speeches to the responsible committees of the Congress, he carried the day on behalf of Chicago. Notwithstanding Bryan’s continuing residence in and about the District, he was a Vice President of the Exposition – making several promotional trips to Europe, in its cause.

After Bryan’s death in 1906, he was interred in a cemetery in DC area – not in Graceland Cemetery; however, the remains of his eldest son – the victim of cholera – remain at Graceland.

Of particular interest to those of our members who are members of The Union League Club, Bryan and one of his daughters have contributed three portraits by Healy to that club – those of General Fremont, of Stephen A. Douglas and of Daniel Webster. It is likely that Bryan purchased these portraits, from time to time, from Healy, in order to relieve Healy’s investment-induced financial stresses, just as he had purchased Healy’s founding stockholder’s interest in Graceland Cemetery Co.

While Bryan, probably because of his growing significant involvement in matters beyond Chicago, he was never a Member of our Club. However, his nephew, Bryan Lathrop was a Member from 1876 until his death in 1916, doing no more than editing and reading an "Informal" on May 19, 1879, delivering one paper (Random Recollections of the Far East, on January 31, 1898).

The career of WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY, who was born in 1832 and died in 1907, was so thoroughly described in the Memoir that I delivered on his behalf about two years ago, that I will focus only on Jenney’s years in Cincinnati. After having been born in Fairhaven, MA, a whaling town near New Bedford, MA, and Boston – a son of a whaling ship owner, Jenney left after his first year at Harvard to get a Diplôme, from L’Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris. Jenney obtained his Diplôme from L’Ecole in 1853, after which he was variously and internationally employed, not returning to the United States for employment until the late 1850’s. I cannot express Jenney’s involvement in Cincinnati better than the words that I placed in his mouth, a couple of years ago:

“While in Paris, at this time, I, first, heard of Sherman, and I returned to the United States, to meet him. I joined his Cincinnati & Marietta Rail Road, using Cincinnati as my base. In 1860, in my capacity as a Civil Engineer for that railroad, I was the delineator of a large, exceedingly detailed map of the route of the Cincinnati & Marietta Rail Road, which entered Cincinnati from the North, down the river valley in which Cincinnati’s later Spring Grove Cemetery was in an early stage of its development. . . .”

See the copies of Jenney’s proposed rail line map of 1960, and the excerpt from it, of which I have provided you copies. You can make out Spring Grove Avenue, the Cincinnati-Miami Canal and the dotted line for the route of the proposed railroad.

During his time in Cincinnati, Jenney stayed at The Burnet House, an elaborate domed hotel built in 1850 – said to be the best hotel “in the West”. Jenney had an architect partner named Rolofson who was also employed by the railroad. Both men offered themselves as architects, but there is no evidence of any commissions received. However, Jenney’s map-making for the railroad can be expected to have had a significant impact.

In 1854, Adolph Strauch had assumed control of the design and execution of the landscape of Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery, as its “Landscape Gardener”. He was promoted to be its “Superintendent” in 1857. While Bryan lived on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and may have had no occasion to visit Spring Grove Cemetery, Jenney could not have avoided becoming familiar with what Strauch had been doing, to convert the swamp within the Northerly portion of that cemetery into ponds and land suitable for interments. I have speculated to you, previously, that Jenney took with him, through the Civil War and into both his designs of Chicago’s West Parks and into his designs for the ponds of Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery, solutions for the presence of excess water in developable real estate.

Rolofson, too, followed Sherman’s urging and joined the Union Army, but serving for only a short period – one far shorter than Jenney’s full five years – and what happened to Rolofson is lost.

A Brit academic – Andrew, Saint - the author of a recent book [ARCHITECT AND ENGINEER: A Study in Sibling Rivalry (2007)] that analyzed, well, the relative development of the engineering and architectural professions, of which the career of Jenney was a most useful example, picks up Jenney’s story, well:

"Among the hopefuls [who arrived in Chicago] was Major W. L. B. Jenney, at age 36, when he arrived in 1867, he was ready to marry and to settle down, after a roving youth.  Jenney went into partnership with Sanford E. Loring, . . . . The pair, soon, got work and, by way of advertisement, issued a book of designs.  Its preface offers a little homily, on architecture, for the local bourgeoisie,

“‘The first step towards building should be to send for an architect  . . .  It pays to pay an architect, for spending time in developing one’s wants on paper, before the building is commenced.’”

“That is the core message. Soon after the book's publication, Loring dropped out, . . . Now on his own, Jenney became Chief Engineer to the West Chicago Park Commissioners and Architect to the affluent suburb of Riverside. In 1870, it was announced that three new parks for West Chicago would be created by the consortium of 'Jenney, Schermerhorn and Bogart, Architects and Engineers'. Jenney was to design the layout and the park buildings, while the Chicago engineer, L. Y. Schermerhorn (in partnership with John Bogart of New York) was to sort out the infrastructure.”

“Faint mystery attaches to Jenney. Honoured in his working lifetime, for pioneering the skeleton frame (a steamship was, even, named after him, on that account), he has not escaped the odor of plausible adventurer.  In a snide swipe at his first Chicago employer, Louis Sullivan judged Jenney 'a free-and-easy cultured gentleman, but not an architect, except by courtesy of terms.  His true profession was that of engineer', only to add, a few lines later, that 'the Major was not, really, in his heart, an engineer, at all, but by nature, and in toto, a bon vivant, a gourmet'.  That might be dismissed, had P. B. Wight not, likewise, remarked that Jenney ‘could talk building better than anyone else that I knew, but he knew very little about how to construct and design [in the 1880's] and depended on others.’” [Note 348]

Strobel, about whom I will speak, shortly, was, certainly, one of those “others”.

Saint does not mention Jenney’s formative years in Cincinnati. Were it not to have been for The Civil War, Jenney might have remained there, giving Cincinnati the benefit of his adventurous mind.

[As Jenney’s memoir stated, his wife was interred in Graceland Cemetery; his ashes were scattered there; and a new monument in his honor was commissioned and installed by the Cemetery’s Trustees and dedicated in June, 2007.]

* * *

CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB ACTIVITIES

WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY

Member: 1878 – 1896 (resignation)

Papers delivered:

The Fossils of History (April 6, 1883);

Personal Reminiscences of Vicksburg (December 14, 1885)

An Age of Steel (October 27, 1890).

FRANK LE BARON JENNEY

Member: 1911 – Died 1949

Papers delivered: None.

CHARLES LOUIS STROBEL was born in Cincinnati in 1852 and educated, first, in the public schools of Cincinnati. By virtue of his youth - age 12 in 1864 - he missed service in The Civil War. After The Civil War, he attended and graduated from The Royal Technical High School of Stuttgart, Germany (from where my own Notz grandfather emigrated to the United States). He returned to Cincinnati in 1873, starting as a draftsman for the Cincinnati Southern Railway, becoming Assistant Engineer for Bridge Design in 1874, and rising, by 1878, to Assistant Engineer and Engineer of Bridges, whereupon he moved to Pittsburgh, PA, as Chief Engineer and Vice President of Carnegie’s Keystone Bridge Company – never, again, to make his home in Cincinnati. Starting in 1883, he came to Chicago at 31, representing his then employer and other Carnegie steel manufacturing interests. Strobel spent the rest of his career in Chicago, leaving the Carnegie interests in 1893, after having taken “a leading interest in the development of skeleton steel construction for Chicago office buildings”. Strobel was the inventor, in 1886, of the Z-bar column, for a building in Cleveland, OH, designed by Burnham & Root. In 1895, he designed the ubiquitous wide-flanged steel beam. As a Constructing and Contracting Engineer, he designed “large bridges over the Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio and other rivers”. He was an active supporter of The Burnham Plan of 1909.

In 1898, Strobel designed the Call Building in San Francisco, which survived The Great San Francisco Fire, intact, going on to have its dome removed and six floors of offices added, in 1931. After his death in 1936, in his 80’s, he was interred in Graceland Cemetery, immediately behind the Honoré monument that is across the road around the Cemetery’s Lake Willowmere from the quite substantial and much photographed Potter Palmer Family monument. As he had purchased his cemetery plot in 1905, after the relatively early death of his wife, he was among those attracted to the Lake Willowmere area of Graceland Cemetery that had been designed, seriatim, by Jenney and by Ossian Cole Simonds. Strobel was a professional friend of Burnham, and, since both men were members of Chicago’s top-ranked golf clubs – Glen View for Burnham (and for Simonds) and Chicago Golf, for Strobel, they are likely to have been social friends, as well. Strobel resided on State Street (old No. 412) in the largely German community that was in the few blocks to the South of North Avenue (in which my Kranz great grandfather caused a house to be built, at the corner of Dearborn Parkway and North Avenue, within what had, previously, been a part of the grounds of the Roman Catholic cemetery that, once occupied the Northerly part of Chicago’s Astor Street neighborhood.).

One cannot understate the influence of Strobel on skeleton steel construction of buildings and bridges, from and after 1883. Since Jenney’s Home Insurance Building of 1884-1885 was the first to use steel structural members – a conversion from iron to steel having been effected during the course of its construction, it seems more than likely that Strobel, on behalf of the Carnegie interests, which supplied the steel for the Home Insurance Building, had more than a small hand in that project. For the Carnegie interests, Strobel went on to edit their industry-leading handbook for the design by architects and engineers of new structural members, such as steel beams, which became the commercial construction industry’s standard.

Tom Peters has written, knowledgeably, of “The Rise of the Skyscraper from the Ashes of Chicago”, saying:

“Charles Louis Strobel was, perhaps, the most important individual in the development of the high-rise steel frame in the United States. . . . Without the support of such an inventive steel specialist, none of the architects or local practicing engineers – [not even Jenney] – would have had the expertise to develop the high-rise frame. . . .”

Peters goes on to say, relying only on product of Jerry Larson of The University of Cincinnati, to say “Jenney is, erroneously, credited with its invention”. However, I suggest that the better reasoned and supported view of inventive priority, in this instance, is that of Andrew Saint, previously quoted by me, herein. in Sibling Rivalry, published in 2007 and found by me as a result of a favorable review in the Journal of The Society of Architectural Historians:

Thomas J. Misa's A Nation of Steel, which offers a gripping account of the early Chicago skyscraper, from the supply side.  Misa sets the steel frame's emergence against the backdrop of a predatory American iron industry, diversifying, successively, into rails, armor and automobiles - besides construction:

“By the mid-1880's, the demand for rails that had buoyed iron-makers since The Civil War was near its peak.  The switch from rails of wrought iron to rails of steel was all but complete.  Go-ahead companies, like the Carnegie-owned concerns around Pittsburgh, therefore, sought out fresh markets, to justify their investment in steel-making plant and the special labour skills that it entailed.  Parallel with their volume business in rails, had gone the fabrication of iron and steel railway structures, notably bridges and elevated tracks.  That drew the companies into employing in-house or consultant structural engineers of their own.  A move into building construction followed, logically.  A steel building frame, it is, occasionally said, was not so, really, different from a bridge or an elevated track, set on end; early framing technique was, sometimes, known, indeed, as bridge construction.”

Was there any industry that could have kept Strobel in Cincinnati? I suggest, “No; from and after Strobel’s move to Pittsburgh, he came to be expert in steel, and the manufacturing of steel was never a part of Cincinnati’s economy.

[Strobel, his wife and his daughter, who was a writer and editor for Harriett Monroe’s Poetry Magazine, are interred in Graceland Cemetery.

WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE was born in 1821 in Salem, MA. He graduated from Yale University in 1849 at age 28. After a successful short period in a small library in New England, Poole was employed by The Boston Athenaeum in 1851, after which he took positions as the Librarian (the CEO) of increasingly important libraries - The Boston Mercantile Library in 1882, The Boston Athenaeum in 1856, the Cincinnati Public Library in 1869 and The Chicago Public Library (its first public library) in 1873 - building the latter Library’s collection from nothing, via contributions following The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In 1887, Poole left The Chicago Public Library, to become Librarian of The Newberry Library, for which he designed the core of its present structure. That design is attributed to Henry Ives Cobb; however, while Cobb may have been responsible for the design of the structure and for its exterior appearance, Poole was responsible for the design of its innards. I understand that the relationship between Cobb and Poole was “testy” – a question of who controlled design decisions.

It is said that, while Poole was a moving force in the modern library movement, he came out on the wrong side of history. Poole was convinced that each collection was unique and that each responsible Librarian could and should design a building and a catalogue system that was suited for the collection for which that Librarian was responsible. However, to the name of Melville Dewey, Poole’s contemporary, is attached the generally accepted idea of standardized classification of contents of collections.

It is Poole’s short time in Cincinnati (1969-1973) that warrants attention, as he, then, made the acquaintance of Henry Probasco, who, with funds flowing from inherited assets that, for a time, he improved upon, Probasco acquired noteworthy collections – one of books incunabula. After Probasco became financially embarrassed, as a consequence of unsuccessful investments in real estate that was not capable of development at the pace upon which he counted, he was forced to liquidate his several collections, privately, at first, and, later, at public auction. The Report of the Trustees of The Newberry Library for the 1890 calendar year includes:

“The Purchases [during 1890] at the sale of . . . the collection from the private library of Henry Probasco, Esq. of Cincinnati . . . [include] . . . rare bindings and . . . are now being arranged chronologically, for their more intelligent exhibit and study.” [Italics supplied.]

. . .

The Trustees would, here, express their thanks to Mr. Probasco for his various gifts to the Library . . . The largest and most valuable single collection purchased [being his private Library] . . . Retiring from business more than 30 years ago, with an ample fortune and a refined taste for art, Mr. Probasco devoted his leisure time to the collection of pictures and of books and of manuscripts in which the art element was prominent. . . .” [Italics supplied.]

“Arranged chronologically” and “in which the art element was prominent” – These are not terms of classification of literature, but of art works. Once, I asked one of the Curators of The Newberry Library who was familiar with what had been acquired by Mr. Probasco, either by gift or by purchase, if there were a theme pursued by Mr. Probasco? The response was: “No; I have reason to believe that he never opened a book.” Once, I asked a friend - the husband of a descendant of Mr. Probasco - the nature of Mr. Probasco’s deal with The Newberry Library? The response was: I do not know, but family lore is that it was a “’bargain purchase’”. As my friend was a professional trust officer, he and I knew that he meant that Probasco did not receive from his friend Poole anything close to full fair value. Probasco, himself, did not deal directly with Poole; he used an agent – a professional Cincinnati book dealer – whose sale of his own collection to The Newberry Library may have been a factor in the Probasco transaction price.

[Probasco’s efforts to satisfy his creditors wiped him out, financially. Even before Adolph Strauch had died in 1883, Probasco (in 1879) had become President of Spring Grove Cemetery, and he held that office until he died in 1902, living in a much reduced life style. After his financial failure, his first wife died (childless) and he remarried – a much younger woman, daughter of one of his Clifton suburb neighbors. They had children, one of whom – a daughter – was the mother of the wife of my friend; the mother wrote a private memoir – never published - describing her mother, favorably, as she remembered her during her mother’s long period of widowhood. There is no description of her father therein.]

To say suggest that Poole was influential in the creation of our Club, is a gross understatement. The following is from a early published history of our Club:

"March, 1874,  is the earliest date for the genesis of The Chicago Literary Club.  . . .  By the April 7 [1874] meeting, a constitution was presented,  . . .  William F. Poole, recently come to Chicago from Cincinnati, was present for his first meeting on April 7, having been elected a Member on March 31, 1874.  . . .  In Cincinnati, he had been a member, for 12 years, of the prestigious Cincinnati Literary Club.  . . .  Because of Poole's impressive professional background and his experiences in the Cincinnati Literary Club,  . . .  the proposed April 7 Constitution was rejected.  . . .  The document finally adopted was modeled after the Constitution of The Cincinnati Literary Club.  . . .  Poole suggested that  . . .  the records [of The Chicago Literary Club] should show the April 7 session as having taken place prior to those held in March; thus, it would follow that he was a Founding Member in the most literal sense!  . . .  [T]he records of [The Chicago Literary Club] support Poole's status, as a Founding Member, because he was elected three weeks before the official adoption of the Constitution on April 21, 1874."

Since Poole arrived in Chicago from Cincinnati in 1874 – the year of founding of our Club - After being much involved in committee activities of our Club, and, per our own historians – Orville Bailey and Ted Remer - he had been a member of The Literary Club of Cincinnati, one can assume that Poole brought with him the governance documents of The Cincinnati Literary Club, which our Club used, as a model for its own. Poole was our Club's President for its 1879-1880 Season, which included 1878, the year that Jenney became a Member.  No others of The Cincinnati Ten were members of our Club

Poole had come to Chicago, in a position to procure the Probasco Collection (and that of Probasco’s agent) that resulted in an artistic loss to Cincinnati.

[While The Newberry Library owns a large lot, largely unoccupied by interments, having a substantial obelisk, in which designees of the Trustees of The Newberry Library may be interred, one would expect that Poole would have been interred there. He is not.]

* * *

CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB ACTIVITIES

WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE

1874 - Died 1894 - Papers delivered:

The Origin and Secret History of the Ordinance of 1787, April 19, 1875

The Opportunities of the Man of Means and Leisure (Conversation), May 14, 1877

The Mission and Function of Public Libraries, November 11, 1878

Inaugural Address, as President, October 6, 1879

Witchcraft (Conversation), May 17, 1882

Mr. Bancroft and the Ordinance of 1787, May 28, 1883

Some Matters Relating to the Early Northwest, February 4, 1889

The Literary Character of the Columbus Family, October 3, 1892

Columbus, as a Discoverer and as a Man (Conversation) October 24, 1892

Modern Education and the University Extension, October 9, 1893

Officer roles:

1875-1876 – Chairman, Arrangements and Exercises – the second, after Dr. Swing

1876-1877 – Chairman, Arrangements and Exercises

1878-1879 – Chairman, Officers and Members – the fifth, succeeding John Crerar

1879-1880 – President – The sixth, succeeding Edward G. Mason

THEODORE THOMAS was born in Germany in 1835. In 1845 – at age 10 - he accompanied his father in their migration to New York City He appears to have been a child prodigy in violin, as, in 1850, at age 15, he toured the United States, alone, performing violin recitals. He returned to New York later that year and began his studies to become a conductor. In 1854, at age 19, he was invited to play in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, soon joining with William Mason, an American pianist, to form the Mason-Thomas Concerts, a joint venture that continued for 13 years, until Thomas founded the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1862. In 1864, Thomas began a series of concerts in cities that included Chicago, and his first was in Cincinnati in 1869.

While Thomas had other commitments in New York and in Brooklyn, he lived in Cincinnati from 1969 until he moved to Chicago in 1888. Thomas organized the Cincinnati Music Festival concerts, biennially - every other year - from 1873 to 1904. They were so popular that Cincinnati supporters of music saw to the construction of a Music Hall in 1878. Thomas became the Director of the Cincinnati College of Music in 1878, but he resigned in 1879, under trying circumstances, described in his autobiography, completed shortly prior to his death in 1905 and published in Chicago by the McClurg publishing firm that year:

“The spirit which governed the institution was financial. All kinds of students were accepted. It was impossible for me to work in harmony with the President – the guiding spirit of the institution. In the second year, I made conditions which brought matters to a crisis, resulting in my resignation.”

Thomas had been a Chicago favorite, when he was asked in 1889, by a supporter of his Theodore Thomas Orchestra, if he would move to Chicago, to which he responded;

“I would go to Hell, if I were given a permanent orchestra.”

In 1890, the first Meeting of the Chicago Orchestral Association took place, and, in 1891, the first concerts of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra were given under Thomas in The Auditorium.

In 1891, Thomas was appointed Director of Music for The World’s Columbian Exposition, but he resigned when funding for his elaborate proposed program was not forthcoming. Thomas was never satisfied with The Auditorium, and he was able to obtain a permanent home for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in late 1904. However, as he died in January, 1905, he did not live to complain about its acoustics.

[Casual historians of The World’s Columbia Exposition, generally, fail to mention the severe adverse financial conditions faced by the organizers and “Guarantors” of the Exposition, resulting from the severe national economic depression that had commenced in 1892. For example, the so-called “Schneider Bank” – founded by a German-American quite active in Chicago civic affairs, and operated by George Weiss of Geneva Lake’s “Villa Palatina”, become insolvent, when the first operating payroll was due, as the Exposition opened. The Guarantors were assessed and provided working capital, and Chicago’s Northern Trust Company succeeded the Schneider bank for the duration of the Exposition. Later in that decade, Edward Uihlein, at the suggestion of United States District Court Judge Kohlsaat, who was administering the Bankruptcy Estate of Weiss, succeeded Weiss, as owner of “Villa Palatina”, changing its name to “Forest Glen” and obtaining the landscape design services of Jens Jensen.]

JOSEPH BLOCK was born in 1830 in Philadelphia. He moved to Cincinnati in his childhood, leaving Cincinnati for Chicago in 1893. He started as an ironmonger, specializing, as iron rail was being replaced by steel rail, in the conversion converting scrap iron rail into iron suitable for use by others in the manufacture of useful iron products, until purchasing the Chicago Steel Works in 1893 and, several years later, founding the Inland Steel Company in Chicago Heights, IN.

ISAAC BLOCK, a younger brother of Joseph Block, was born in 1840 in Philadelphia. He moved to Cincinnati in his childhood. He started his business career as a tanner, moving into the ironmonger business, and going from Cincinnati to Chicago in 1884, prior to his brother’s initiation of the purchase of the Chicago Steel Works.

LEOPOLD E. BLOCK, elder son of Joseph Block was born in Cincinnati in 1869. He was in the coal and iron trade in Cincinnati until 1897, when he followed his father to Chicago, becoming the Treasurer of the Inland Steel Company.

PHILIP DEE BLOCK, younger brother of Leopold F. Block, was born in Cincinnati in 1871. He was with the Block-Pollack Iron Company in Cincinnati from 1888 and, from 1903, with the Inland Steel Company, as a Vice-President, in time, succeeding his brother, as its Treasurer.

The growth and development of the Inland Steel Company, and the civic and charitable interests of the many Block descendants, can be documented. My personal exposure to their civic and charitable contributions has been my extensive use of the Research Center of The Chicago History Museum and my support of some of the exhibitions of the Block Art Museum of Northwestern University.

For the purposes of this paper, however, my focus has been on the motives for the transfer of the Block Family interests in the iron rail converter of Cincinnati, in which they had a major interest, to the Chicago area, by means of their purchase of the Chicago Steel Works and their founding and operation of the Inland Steel Company.

According to Daniel J. Kenny’s 1875 History of Cincinnati, there was little pig iron produced in Cincinnati, at any time; however, from 1850 to 1890, the Hanging Rock District, in the Ironton, OH, area, some 135 miles up the Ohio River from Cincinnati, was one of the foremost producers of iron in the world, and much pig iron from there and from elsewhere was converted in Cincinnati into iron products. Thus, there was a substantial market for iron in Cincinnati - a market which could be well-served by rail salvaged from the war zones of The Civil War, by surplus rail produced by Northern manufacturers, and by the iron rail replaced by steel rail. The then Block Family leader, Joseph, had combined his assets with a man named Pollak, founding the Block-Pollack Iron Company of Cincinnati. The Blocks established a new operation in 1893, in Chicago Heights, taking over the then insolvent Chicago Steel Company. Block, soon, decided to build a steel mill, to process used rail and other scrap into steel products on the shore of Lake Michigan in East Chicago, IN, where the commodity ingredients of steel, other than scrap iron: iron ore, coal and limestone – could be brought to the mill by lake freighter - founding the Inland Steel Company, which was a forerunner in the development of the steel industry in the Greater Chicago area. Joseph and Isaac Block constituted the first generation of the Block Family employed by that company; Leopold and Philip D. Block constituted the second generation of the Block family employed by that company. Of course, there were other Block descendants, to follow.

By 1910, the employment levels of Inland Steel Company had increased from the initial 250 of 1897, to 2,600, in large part because of the construction of a new steel-making operation on Indiana Harbour. By 1911, neither of the Block and Pollack founders were in management of the old Block, Pollack Company, and the Block Family had sold their interests in that company to an entity (the Hyman-Michaels Company) formed by two of their employees (Joseph Hyman and Joseph Michaels), and the Block Family concentrated their interests in Inland Steel Company.

The migration of the Block Family appears to have resulted from nothing more than a perception that the steel industry had a far better future than did the iron industry and that the economics of the steel industry warranted the creation of a sophisticated integrated steel manufacturing operation at the foot of Lake Michigan, readily accessible both by lake freighter and by rail. The Chicago area qualified, well, on both counts; Cincinnati failed, on the lake access count, and was inefficient, on the rail count. That the Blocks were capable of competing with Morgan’s US Steel combine, from and after the inception of US Steel’s Gary Works in 1906, took more than normal human business courage and acumen. It is telling, that neither Inland Steel nor US Steel have a steel manufacturing operation in Indiana or in Illinois - US Steel South Works having ceased local operations in 1992 and Inland steel having ceased local operations in 1998.

CARL W. CONDIT was born in Cincinnati in 1914 and attended its Walnut Hills High School, which had been built in 1895. (Curiously, Condit is not mentioned in that school’s Wikipedia entry, as one of its famous alumni.) He was far too young to have been subjected to military service in The Great War (World War I), and he seems to have been barely too old to have been in active military service in World War II, becoming a civilian Instructor in Mathematics and Mechanics for the United States Army. He was exceptionally well-qualified for that role, as he had obtained a Bachelor of Science – Mechanical Engineering - degree from Purdue University in 1936, after which he obtained an M.A. in 1939 and a Ph.D. (a dissertation on Chaucer) in 1941 – both in English Literature, while teaching Mathematics. (I, myself, relate to Condit, as I have a an undergraduate degree in Mathematics, but I went to law school and into the practice of law. Condit married a Cincinnati girl in 1943 and worked as a designer for the New York Central Railroad in Cincinnati in 1944 -1945.

In 1945, Condit changed course and applied for university level teaching positions, accepting one of a dozen offers – one from Northwestern University, apparently only because he wished to learn more about Chicago architecture. Condit moved to Evanston, never, again to make his home in Cincinnati. At Northwestern, Condit, initially, was in its English Department; however, he did not pursue academic work in literature, and he gravitated towards urban and architectural history. However, he, again, diverted himself, spending his first Sabbatical year at The University of Wisconsin at Madison, studying the History of Science. Faithfully, he returned to Northwestern in 1952, where he and founded its program in the History of Science, teaching courses in urban history, development and building, but researching the development of commercial architecture and urban planning.

Condit must, already, have become involved in the latter, because his first book – The Rise of the Skyscraper: The Genius of Chicago Architecture, from The Great Fire to Louis Sullivan was published by The University of Chicago Press in 1952. That Press published most of Condit’s subsequent considerable scholarly output – 10 books, in full and one in part, which was completed by a New Yorker - Sarah Landau (whom I have met, without being aware of this Chicago connection of hers). While, until 1977, most of Condit’s writings related to Chicago construction, in the 1970’s, he, again, took a professional detour, to write of the railroads serving Cincinnati. It was that book that drew my interest to him.

I have referred to Bryan and Jenney – and of my certitude of their knowledge of what Adolph Strauch had been doing with Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery. One cannot enter Spring Grove Cemetery without being aware that you have, just, left behind you, the valley of the railroads that Jenney had mapped in 1860. One cannot proceed through Spring Grove Cemetery, without passing through a narrow viaduct under raised railroad tracks such as the City of Chicago has required of that part of its rail service that passes through residential neighborhoods.

In 1877, Condit published The Railroad and the City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of the City. Ohio State University – not The University of Chicago Press - was his publisher. “The City” was Cincinnati, not Chicago. So, while Condit had remained away from Cincinnati since 1945, he returned, intellectually, in 1977, to try to rationalize the fall of influence of Cincinnati that was a consequence of the chaotic nature of its rail service. In his considerable subsequent work product, Condit never returned to Cincinnati. Instead, he wrote of the rail service and port terminals of the New York City area and the development of the New York skyscrapers.

With respect to Cincinnati, Condit took note of the fact that Cincinnati was not on any of the developing rail routes for East/West transport, and he described the resistance of the Ohio River steamboat interests to the presence of rail service and the difficulties of inserting rail lines and rail yards into the difficult terrain of the Cincinnati area. In time, the Ohio River was bridged at Cincinnati, just as, in time, the Mississippi River near St. Louis was bridged. In time, Cincinnati received rail service from the South and from the North. In time, Cincinnati received rail service from the East and the West, but access to Cincinnati from the North, the East and the West was circuitous and, compared to the rail access to Chicago, uneconomic.

Condit wrote far more of Chicago architecture than of that of Cincinnati, and what he wrote of Jenney was unkind – both with respect to Jenney’s designs of Chicago’s major West Parks (Douglas, Garfield and Humboldt) and of Jenney’s origination of the steel frame structure used in skyscrapers. He said of Jenney’s designs of the three large West Parks that they were “undistinguished” and “poorly executed”- but giving incorrect dates of design and execution –saying that that state of affairs was corrected by Jens Jensen (of whom I have written for our Club in the past). Condit’s rather unkind attitude towards Jenney’s structural architectural design skill has not survived later published scholarship., as that of Andrew Saint, quoted by me, previously, has, I believe, far better perspective. Nor has Condit’s unkind attitude towards Jenney’s landscape design skill survived later published scholarship – that of Julia Sniderman Bachrach and of Cathy Jean Maloney. In short, one could say that both Jensen’s improvements of Chicago’s large West Parks and Simonds’ improvements of Jenney’s designs of both Graceland Cemetery and of Lake Forest’s (municipal) Cemetery, were frosting by Jensen on good solid cakes previously baked by Jenney.

Condit died in 1997. Notwithstanding his misunderstandings of Jenney, he left behind a solid reputation for high quality scholarship. His migration from Cincinnati to Chicago appears to have been caused by an academic opportunity at Northwestern University. Having walked the campuses of both Northwestern University and of The University of Cincinnati, I am confident that, in the Academy, he has had ample company who would have made the same choice.

* * *

Go West, young man; go West! Each of these men went West – not far – only some 270 miles - from Cincinnati to Chicago. The years of each in Cincinnati were “formative”. Except for the Block Family unit, none of these men in my Cincinnati Ten had a family connection in Chicago. Except for the men of the Block Family unit, none arrived with more than a good education. What did Cincinnati lose:

Bryan – A brilliant, multi-talented man - a man who contributed much to the aesthetic development of Elmhurst; much to the progress of Lincoln’s career beyond Illinois; much to the cause of The Union; much to the development of the Town of Lake View; much to the development of Graceland Cemetery; much to the success of the World’s Columbian Exposition.

Jenney – A brilliant, inventive engineer, landscape designer and structural architect, who contributed much to the landscape planning of the three major West Parks; much to the landscape planning of cemetery’s such as Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery and that of Lake Forest; and much to the design of high-rise buildings, especially in steel and in sanitation.

Strobel – A brilliant engineer – a man essential to the rapid progress of the use of structural steel members suitable for high-rise buildings and for bridges.

Poole – An aggressive man in a profession noted for lack of aggression and an man capable of executing the creation of a unique private library – “private”, but open to any member of the general public having a bona fide research interest.

Thomas – A prodigy musician and organizer of means to provide music far more broadly than had been thought possible by his predecessors.

The Blocks– Successful managers in a constantly changing major industry, at the forefront of new manufacturing techniques in that industry for virtually the entire 20^th Century, and leaders in the execution of civic responsibilities in Chicago, well beyond the call of duty.

Condit – An intellectual leader and prolific analyst and writer of the development of Chicago, of Cincinnati and of New York.

During the century of the formative years in Cincinnati of these men, the fortunes of Cincinnati rose and then fell. During their career years in Chicago, the fortunes of Chicago have risen and have fallen. Is Chicago fated to be a Cincinnati? Have the young men of Chicago of our time who have “gone further West” been wiser than we?

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA CINCINNATIENSIS!

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA CHICAGOIENSIS?

(Follow this link for an early map of Cincinnati).

"BRAIN DRAIN: Cincinnati to Chicago; from Queen City to Garden City"

OR

"Go West, Young Man – Go Further West"

INDEX

Page

	INTRODUCTION	1
	Prefatory Remarks – CONTEXT	2
1.	Thomas Barbour Bryan (employed in Cincinnati, 1849 to 1853) Lawyer, real estate investor and “behind the scenes” politician	5
2.	William Le Baron Jenney (employed in Cincinnati, 1859 to 1861) Engineer and architect for landscapes and high-rise structures known as “skyscrapers”	11
3	Charles Strobel (born in 1852 in Cincinnati and raised there, to 1878) - Engineer for the Carnegie steel interests	14
4	William Frederick Poole (employed in Cincinnati, 1869 to 1873) Librarian, Cincinnati Public Library; Librarian, Chicago’s Newberry Library; Obtained Henry Probasco Collection for The Newberry Library (1887)	17
5	Theodore Thomas (employed in Cincinnati, 1869 to 1880); Conductor of Cincinnati Music Festivals; Director of The Cincinnati Academy of Music; Founder of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra	20
6	Joseph Block (born in Philadelphia in 1830, but raised in Cincinnati, to 1893); Isaac Block (born in Philadelphia in 1840, but raised in Cincinnati, to 1884); Leopold F. Block (born in 1869 in Cincinnati and raised there, to 1897); Philip Dee Block (born in 1871 in Cincinnati and raised there, to 1899; Founders of the Inland Steel Company and civically and charitably active in Chicago	22
7	Carl Condit (born in Cincinnati in 1914 and raised there, to 1945); Academic; Professor of, first, English and, then, History of Science, at Northwestern University	24
8	CONCLUSION	27

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