are the Apollo Musical Club (1872) and The Theodore Thomas orchestra, which has disputed with the Boston Orchestra the claim to artistic primacy in the United States. Its leader from its organization in 1891 until his death in 1905 was Theodore Thomas, who had long been identified with summer orchestral concerts in the city. In 1904 a fund was gathered by public subscription to erect a handsome building and endow the orchestra.
The Field Museum of Natural History, established (1894) largely by Marshall Field, is mainly devoted to anthropology and natural history. The nucleus of its great collection was formed by various exhibits of the Columbian Exposition which were presented to it. Its collections of American ethnology, of exceptional richness and value, are constantly augmented by research expeditions. In addition to an original endowment of $1,000,000, Mr Field bequeathed to the museum $8,000,000, Lo be utilized in part for the new building which is being erected in Jackson Park.
Libraries.—At the head of the libraries of the city stands the public library[1] (established 1872; opened 1874), supported by taxation, which on the 1st of June 1910 had 402,848 volumes, and in the year 1910 circulated 1,805,012 volumes. In 1889 John Crerar (1827–1889), a wealthy manufacturer of railroad supplies, left to the city for the endowment of a non-circulating library funds which in 1907 were estimated to amount to $3,400,000. The library was incorporated in 1894 and was opened in 1897; in February 1908 it had 216,000 volumes and 60,000 pamphlets. It occupies a floor in the Marshall Field Building on Wabash Avenue. Another reference library was established (opened in 1887) with a bequest (1868) of Walter L. Newberry. It has a rich endowment, and in February 1908 had 191,644 volumes and 43,644 pamphlets. By a plan of co-operation each of these three libraries devotes itself primarily to special fields: the John Crerar is best for the natural, physical and social sciences; the Newberry is particularly strong in history, music, medicine, rare books and fine editions; the public library covers the whole range of general literature. The library of the University of Chicago contained in 1908 some 450,000 titles. Among other collections are those of the Chicago Historical Society (1856; about 150,000 titles in 1908), the Athenaeum (1871); the Law Institute and Library (1857), which in 1908 had about 46,500 volumes; the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Academy of Sciences (1857) and the libraries of various schools.
Universities and Colleges.—There are three universities situated wholly or in part in the city. The leading institution is the University of Chicago (see Chicago, University of). The professional department of North-Western University is in Chicago, while its academic department is in the suburb of Evanston. North-Western University was organized in 1851 and is under Methodist Episcopal control. Its students in 1908 (exclusive of pupils in “co-operating” theological schools) numbered 3850; the best equipped departments are those of dentistry, medicine and pharmacy. There are two Roman Catholic colleges in Chicago: Loyola University (chartered in 1870), with a department of law, called Lincoln College (1908), and a medical department; and St. Stanislaus College (1870). The College of Physicians and Surgeons is the medical department of the University of Illinois, at Champaign-Urbana. Theological schools independent of the universities include the McCormick Theological Seminary (Presbyterian); the Chicago Theological Seminary (Congregational, opened 1858, and including German, Danish-Norwegian and Swedish Institutes); the Western Episcopal Theological Seminary; a German Lutheran theological seminary, and an Evangelical Lutheran theological seminary. There are a number of independent medical schools and schools of dentistry and veterinary surgery. The Lewis Institute (bequest 1877, opened 1896), designed to give a practical education to boys and girls at a nominal cost, and the Armour Institute of Technology, one of the best technical schools of the country, provide technical education and are well endowed. The Armour Institute was founded in 1892 by Philip D. Armour, and was opened in 1893. It comprises the College of Engineering, including, besides the usual departments, a department of chemical engineering and a department of fire protection engineering, a department of “commercial tests,” and the Armour Scientific Academy (preparatory). In 1907 the Institute had 1869 students. The Chicago Academy of Science (1857) has a handsome building and museum collections in Lincoln Park.
The leading daily newspapers are the Record-Herald, Evening Post, News (evening) and Journal (evening), all Independent; the Inter-Ocean and Tribune, Republican; and the Evening American and Examiner, both Democratic. There are several journals in German, Bohemian, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. Many trade papers are published in the city, which is also a centre for much of the religious publishing of the Middle West. Chicago’s position in the labour world has made it the home of several socialist and anarchistic periodicals.
Industry and Commerce.—Chicago’s situation at the head of the most south-western of the Great Lakes has given it great importance in trade and industry. The development of its extraordinary railway facilities was a recognition of its supreme advantages as the easiest outlet for the products of the Middle West, on whose wealth its prosperity is founded. The growth of its trade has been marvellous. The last years of the 19th century showed, however, an inevitable loss to Chicago in the growth of Duluth, Kansas City and other rivals in strategic situations. In particular, the struggle of the North and South railway lines in the Mississippi Valley to divert to ports on the Gulf of Mexico grain and other freight caused great losses to Chicago. An enormous increase in the cereal trade of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newport News and Norfolk was partly due to the traffic eastward over lines S. of Chicago. The traffic of the routes through Duluth and Canada does not, indeed, represent in the main actual losses, for the traffic is largely a new growth; but there has been nevertheless a considerable drain to these routes from American territory once tributary to Chicago. Altogether the competition of the Gulf roads and the lines running S.W. from Duluth had largely excluded Chicago by 1899 (according to her Board of Trade) from the grain trade W. of the Missouri river, and in conjunction with southerly E. and W. routes had made serious inroads upon trade E. of that river. Its facilities for receiving and distributing remain nevertheless unequalled, and it still practically monopolizes the traffic between the northern Atlantic seaboard and the West. New York alone, among American cities, has a greater trade. Chicago is the greatest railway centre, the greatest grain market, the greatest live-stock market and meat-packing centre, and the greatest lumber market of the world. The clearings of her associated banks amounted to $13,781,843,612 in the year 1909. The wholesale trade was estimated in 1875 at $293,900,000 and in 1905 at $1,781,000,000. The average annual grain receipts (including flour in wheat equivalent) in the five years 1900–1904 amounted to 265,500,000 bu. (12,902,310 in 1854; 72,369,194 in 1875), and the shipments to 209,862,966 bu. The first shipment of wheat was of 78 bu. in 1838. The grain elevators are among the sights of Chicago. They are enormous storehouses into which the grain is elevated from ships and cars, sorted into grades and reloaded for shipment; all the work is done by machinery. Their capacity in 1904 was 65,140,000 bu.[2] In the same quinquennial period, 1900–1904, the average yearly receipts of lumber aggregated 1,807,066,000 ft.,[3] and of shingles, 410,711 thousand; of cattle, 3,078,734; of hogs, 8,334,904; of sheep, 3,338,291; of butter, 239,696,921 ℔; the exports of hides, 167,442,077 ℔; of dressed beef, 1,126,995,490 ℔; of
- ↑ Thomas Hughes was a leader in gathering English gifts for such a library immediately after the “great fire.” A nucleus of 10,500 volumes—7000 from England and 3500 from other countries, especially Germany—was thus secured.
- ↑ In 1900-1904 the average freight rate per bushel of wheat to New York was $0.04998 by the all-water; $0.10554 by the all-rail route. In 1859 it cost $0.1575 to send a bushel of corn to Buffalo by water; in 1890, $0.019.
- ↑ It has been above 1,000,000,000 ft. since 1870, and has in some years risen to 2,000,000,000.
