President Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address on the east portico of the U.S. Capitol, March 4, 1865.

This is the only known photograph of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address by Alexander Gardner. John Wilkes Booth [red arrow] can actually be seen in the center of the top row of the top platform. Forty-two days later, Booth shoots Lincoln at Ford's Theater.

View the Original 9" x 7" photograph. Great photo for 1865.

Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery; Abraham Lincoln

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced the installation of a life-size painting of President Abraham Lincoln by artist W.F.K. Travers. Created from life in 1865, the 9-foot-tall oil on canvas is one of three known life-size paintings of the 16th president. The historic work comes to the National Portrait Gallery on long-term loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation, whose founder, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, acquired the painting from her family in the 1930s. The Portrait Gallery will display the Travers painting in the museum’s ongoing exhibition “America’s Presidents” beginning February 10, 2023. 

Abraham Lincoln

National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the multifaceted story of the United States through the individuals who have shaped American culture. Spanning the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the nation’s story.

The National Portrait Gallery is located at Eighth and G streets N.W., Washington, D.C.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Rublof and Wolack building in Uptown, Chicago.

The Rublof & Wolack Building in Uptown, Chicago, 1921.

This gorgeous terra cotta Rublof and Wolack building once stood at the corner of Wilson Avenue and Clarendon in Uptown, Chicago. It housed the Beach View Gardens and the Bulldog and Whistle pubs. Image courtesy University of Minnesota Libraries, Manuscripts Division, Northwest Architectural Archives.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Janda's Drive-In, 8030 Ogden Avenue and Barrypoint Road, Lyons, Illinois.

A linen postcard from the 1940s showing the Janda Drive-in near the Hoffman Tower along the Desplaines River.

Janda's Drive-In was popular for their Bar-B-Q and  ice cream creations. Patrons enjoyed their open-air picnic Pavillion. 

Today, the 8030 Ogden Avenue address in Lyons is the Riverwalk Condominiums.

The intersection of Harlem and Ogden Avenues in 1934.

The intersection of Harlem and Ogden Avenues in 1934. 

Sinclair Grease Palace would be in Riverside Illinois and Philadelphia Cones is in Lyons. The photographer would be standing in Berwyn by the White Castle.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Chicago's Howard Street Wall. (1992-1994)

The Howard Street Wall at the Intersection of Howard and Sacramento, in the West Ridge community of Chicago. Across the barrier is Evanston.

Chicago builds a barrier wall to block new mall traffic into the residential neighborhood in the 50th Ward on the Chicago side of Howard Street. 

Erected in 1992, the $150,000, four block-long (Kedzie to California), two-and-a-half foot high barrier in the median of Howard Street separated Chicago and Evanston. 

Evanston won the lawsuit challenging the barrier. The court ruling ordered Chicago to pay for and remove the barrier and pay Evanston's legal bills of about $40,000.

The barrier was removed in 1994. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Halsted Cable Car Line in 1893. Chicago City Railroad Company.

Chicago City Railroad Company's cable cars began service on February 23, 1882. The Halsted Cable Car (№ 5871) line passes through a subway on Twelfth Street (Roosevelt Road) for half a mile before reaching the Halsted Street terminal at a speed of ten miles per hour. At its height, Chicago’s cable car system had 13 power plants. Chicago’s last cable car made its final run in 1906.

SOUTH HALSTED STREET LINE IN 1893 — THE DOWNTOWN LOOP ROUTE 

• Franklin Street, from tunnel south (about 110 feet) to Van Buren Street (single track).
• Van Buren Street, from Franklin Street to Dearborn Street (single track).
• Dearborn Street, from Van Buren Street to Adams Street (single track).
• Adams Street, from Dearborn Street to Franklin Street (single track).
• Franklin Street, from Adams Street to tunnel (single track).
• Tunnel, from Franklin Street to Clinton Street.
• Clinton Street, from the tunnel to Van Buren Street.
• Van Buren Street, from Clinton Street to Halsted Street.
• Halsted Street, from Van Buren Street to O’Neil Street (23rd Street).
• O’Neil Street (23rd Street), from Halsted Street into car barns at the southwest corner.

NOTE: On June 6, 1892, the first elevated — or 'L' — train ran from 39th (Pershing Road today) and State Streets to Congress Parkway and Wabash Avenue. By 1893, the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad extended the elevated line to Jackson Park, the site of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Abraham Lincoln, Oil on Canvas by John Henry Brown. 1860

Abraham Lincoln, Oil on Canvas by John Henry Brown. The National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian Institution. 1860
CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE IMAGE

President Lincoln and group of civil war officers at Antietam, Maryland, 1862.

President Lincoln with General George B. McClellan (#6) and a group of officers at Antietam, Maryland. Photograph from the main eastern theater of the civil war, Battle of Antietam, September–October 1862.
CLICK FOR FULL-SIZE PICTURE

From Left to Right:

01. Colonel Delos B. Sackett, I.G. 

02. Captain George Monteith. 

03. Lieutenant Colonel Nelson B. Sweitzer. 

04. General George W. Morell. 

05. Colonel Alexander S. Webb, Chief of Staff, 5th Corps. 

06. General George B. McClellan. 

07. Scout Adams. 

08. Dr. Jonathan Letterman, Army Medical Director. 

09. Unknown. 

10. President Lincoln. 

11. General Henry J. Hunt. 

12. General Fitz-John Porter. 

13. Unknown. 

14. Colonel Frederick T. Locke, A.A.G. 

15. General Andrew A. Humphreys. 

16. Captain George Armstrong Custer.

President Abraham Lincoln and his Horse Statue at the Lincoln Cottage in Washington D.C.

This statue of President Abraham Lincoln and his horse statue by sculptor Ivan Schwartz stands before the cottage where the Lincoln family could frequently be found in Washington, D.C.

Lincoln's Cottage, 140 Rock Creek Church Road, NW, Washington, D.C.

The Lincoln Family. Oil on canvas by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. 1865

The Lincoln Family, oil on canvas, 1865, by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, was widely published as an engraving and hung in many an American parlor through the balance of the nineteenth century. If it was posed, the sittings probably took place in the Soldiers Home. From left to right, Mrs. Lincoln, Willie (whom Carpenter added because Willie died in 1862), Bob, Tad, and President Lincoln.

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln that was used as a campaign badge (buttons) during the 1860 presidential election.

This ambrotype shows a bust portrait of Abraham Lincoln with no beard. The image is based on a photograph of Lincoln taken by Mathew B. Brady on February 27, 1860. At this time, Lincoln was in New York City to give an address at Cooper Union sponsored by the Young Men's Central Republican Union of New York on the 27th of February. This organization held numerous speeches by prospective candidates for the Republican Party's Presidential nomination. Lincoln made a case for banning slavery in all new U.S. territories while leaving it in the exiting fifteen southern states. This moderate position speech can be seen as the beginning of his successful presidential campaign.

Used as a campaign badge during the 1860 Presidential election, the ambrotype is made of collodion emulsion on a glass plate. It was originally housed in an oval brass frame and pinned to one's clothing to show support for Lincoln's candidacy. The ambrotype was later housed in this union photographic case made of a dark brown thermoplastic, called Gutta Percha, which is formed under heat into fancy patterns. The front and back of the case have a diagonal crisscrossed pattern inside a nonpareil border surrounded by a scroll design. The information about the use as a campaign badge rests on the existence of two cards inside the case behind the ambrotype. The first card reads: "A.F Clough, Ambrotypic Artist Warren, N.H." The second card, oval-shaped and orange-colored, reads: "For President. Hon. Abraham Lincoln. Manufactured by Geo. Clark, Jr. & Co., Ambrotype Artists No. 59 Court Street Boston."

From The Henry Ford Collections.

Alexander Gardner's Finest 1863 Photograph of President Lincoln.

In mid-summer of 1863, both President Lincoln’s and the Union’s future were looking up. The twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July had dealt a serve blow to the Confederate war effort. Much of the initial opposition in the North to his early politics was beginning to melt away, and even his most ardent opponents were forced to admit that Lincoln was honest, patriotic, and moving the country forward. To escape the heat that summer, Mary Lincoln along with their children Robert and Tad decided to head north to the White Mountains of Vermont for an extended holiday. 

“Alone” in the White House, the President decided on Sunday, August 9th to pay a visit to the famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner, whose studio was located at the corner of 7th and D streets. Earlier that year Mr. Gardner had left the employ of Matthew Brady, who was considered one of the premier photographers in the country, to open his own photography studio. 

Signed carte-de-visite of Lincoln, as photographed by Alexander Gardner in 1863.

The President, accompanied by his assistant secretary John Hay, would pose that day for what has become one of the more iconic images associated with Mr. Lincoln’s Presidency. The photo shows the President seated in a three-quarter profile, his left arm resting on a table and holding a copy of the Washington Morning Chronicle, while his right hand, holding his spectacles, rests upon his leg. The President’s slight smile and a distant look in his eyes make it seems as though he is focusing upon some unseen goal. The clarity of Gardner’s image is so remarkable that a housefly that had landed on the President’s trousers is clearly visible. The image is attached to a gilt-ruled mount, and was boldly signed by the President beneath the image with his trademark “A. Lincoln.” 

“Four Score and Seven” Magazine Article
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The First Daguerreotype Photograph of Abraham Lincoln taken in 1846.

CLICK FOR AN ENLARGED PICTURE

This daguerreotype (the correct horizontal view) is the earliest confirmed photographic image of Abraham Lincoln. It was reportedly taken in 1846 by Nicholas H. Shepherd in Springfield, Illinois, shortly after Lincoln was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Shepherd studied law at the law office of Lincoln and Herndon.

Cable Court, a One Block Private Street, a Turnaround for Cablecars, in Chicago.

The Hyde Park turnaround, which ran on a separate electric cable, was at Cable Court (East 56th Street and South Lake Park Avenue, [1500W] was named in honor of Ramson R. Cable, President of the Rock Island Rail Road in 1857.

The private street, Cable Court (5622S 1500W) is pictured here from Lake Park Avenue looking east. Circa 1950

Cable Court ran between 56th and 57th Streets. When the cable car system was abandoned the street was used for a turnaround for electric trolly buses which did not use the streetcar tracks. 

During an Urban Renewal project shortly after this photo was taken the street was reclaimed for buildings.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Holocaust Memorial Statue Vandalized in Skokie, Illinois, Early Monday Morning on June 3, 1987.

---

In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

---

 

Completed Memorial.

SKOKIE, Ill. — Less than a day after residents of Skokie and others reverently dedicated a bronze monument to victims of the Nazi Holocaust on June 2, 1987, they returned Monday to the village green to ponder why the sculpture had been defaced with anti-Semitic symbols.

The monument—which includes a bronze sculpture of a Jewish resistance fighter, a mother holding her slain child, and a little boy clinging to an elderly rabbi—was sprayed with silver-painted swastikas and the words ''Liars'' and ''Jews Lie.''

Police said vandals sprayed the graffiti on the statue and its black marble base between 4 a.m. and 6:15 a.m., barely 12 hours after hundreds of Holocaust survivors, their relatives, neighbors, and elected officials had unveiled the monument in the green space between the public library and the village hall.

Shortly after radio stations started reporting the vandalism Monday morning, people began to visit the park. Others stopped by to see the monument because they had read about its dedication, only to find it had been defaced. Some cursed under their breaths, some touched the monument trying to rub the paint away. Many wept. Light rain did not keep away a constant stream of old and young people of all religions.

Tema Bauer, who lost her right arm in the Auschwitz concentration camp, weeps in front of the defaced Holocaust monument.

Charles Lipshitz, chairman of the Holocaust Monument Committee, said he visited the scene, and “the whole monument was defaced with swastikas.”

The monument`s sculptor, Ed Chesney, was just turning his blue van into the library parking lot when he saw the paint on the statue he had spent the last year creating. ''I didn`t believe it,'' said Chesney, 65, of Detroit. ''I had planned a morning of photo-shooting. Inside, I am just torn apart. I didn`t cry, but it is like giving birth to a child. It took an entire year. And to see what has been done to it, it makes me sick.'' Chesney took a can of paste wax and a ladder from his van and climbed high on the memorial to begin removing some of the paint. But he stopped after a number of people told him not to, suggesting that the symbols should remain for at least a day to remind people that anti-Semitism exists in the U.S.

''Let the people know that we have Nazis right here,'' said Avram Szwajger, president of Sheerit Hapleitah (Remnant of the Holocaust), the Chicago area Holocaust survivors` organization that raised $150,000 ($342,000 today) for the monument.

''This is nothing new to us,'' Szwajger said. ''We have seen it in Europe.''

Harvey Schiller, another Skokie resident, said, ''I think they should leave it for a few days. Otherwise, people will say it really did not happen. I want to bring my children here to see this, so they`ll know these things can happen.''

The entire Skokie police force had been on duty during the dedication, and the monument area had been patrolled by squad cars on Sunday night and Monday morning, as well as during the week before the unveiling, said Officer Ron Baran, of the Skokie police crime-prevention unit. Still, he said, vandals ''had plenty of cover from the trees and bushes around the statue.'' A police officer discovered the graffiti first, Baran said.

Details of the Memorial Figures

A police technician sent to the scene could find no paint cans or evidence linking the defacing to a specific person or organization, Baran said, and no one had called the department to threaten the action or to claim responsibility for it later.

Skokie Mayor Albert J. Smith—a Catholic who had been praised Sunday for his opposition to a planned neo-Nazi march on the green in 1978—was visibly shaken by the overnight events. ''Everything that we have learned about this type of event says we should clean it up as quickly as possible,'' he told several dozen people near the monument.

When a number of people objected to the immediate removal of the paint, Smith called a meeting for Monday afternoon with local leaders involved in the monument project as well as the village manager, the police chief, and federal authorities to decide what should be done.

''We are talking about a couple of idiots, a couple of punks who come out only in the middle of the night,'' Smith said. ''Look what happened yesterday. It was a beautiful brotherhood. What happened overnight was terrible.''

Bert Gast, 62, an Evanston artist who drew the original designs for the monument, said Skokie should install lights around the statue as a preventive measure. ''People who would do this are like rats and cockroaches,'' he said. ''They only come out in the dark, they run from the light.''

''This action demonstrates that the attitudes that led to the Holocaust are not dead,'' said Michael Kotzin, Chicago regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B`nai B`rith. ''This monument was highly visible and well-publicized. It was a target, and [the vandalism] was an easy act to commit. It is an effective way to upset people.'' Kotzin said similar vandalism had been committed to Holocaust monuments in San Francisco, Denver, and other cities.

Rev. Daniel Montalbano, who represented the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago at Sunday`s dedication ceremony, said, ''We can only express anger and horror that the monument was defaced and desecrated so soon after its dedication.

''Cardinal [Joseph] Bernardin, on behalf of the Catholic people of Chicagoland, grieves with our Jewish brothers and sisters at this offense,'' said Father Montalbano, assistant director of the archdiocesan Office of Human Relations and Ecumenism (promoting unity among the world's Christian Churches).

Those upset most may have been the people who lived through the extermination of 6 million Jews during World War II. Village officials estimate that 7,000 of Skokie`s 69,000 residents are Holocaust survivors. They and their relatives made up the majority of the dedication audience Sunday.

Chicago Tribune, June 3, 1987
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

VISIT - Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
9603 Woods Drive
Skokie, Illinois, 60077

Lake View Cycling Club of Chicago in the 1890s.

CLICK THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE

The Lake View Cycling Club in front of its clubhouse at 401-403 North Orchard Street, Chicago (today, 2224-2226 North Orchard Street) in the 1890s.

I personally spoke with Mary, the owner of the 2-flat at 2222 N. Orchard that was next to the Lake View Cycling Clubhouse. Mary and her husband ran a book business out of their 2-flat called Orchard Books, Inc. They have a framed copy of the Lake View Cycling Club hanging in their foyer.

Mary told me that the new condo building was built in 1998. The 2-story Mary owns was originally built-in 1890. It's the building on the right, the 3-story condominium, was the location of the Lake View Cycling Clubhouse, which of course, was demolished. 

Mary's 2-story building was razed between August of 2018 and July of 2019.

Copyright © 2016, Neil Gale, Ph.D.

What's Cooking Restaurant in Lincoln Village Shopping Center, Chicago, Illinois. (1978-2012)

The restaurant located in Lincoln Village Shopping Center at 6181 North Lincoln Avenue (in building 'D'), Chicago, first opened as Sammy and Lisa's What's Cooking; then Zelda's; the Village Inn; the Village Cart, which closed after a fire in the late 70s and finally What's Cooking opened in 1978 and closed 2012.

Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley posing with the staff of What's Cooking in the Lincoln Village Shopping Center after his breakfast meeting. (early 1990s)

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

CTA Streetcar in front of Wrigley Field, 1957.

CTA streetcar № 7222, ("Green Hornet"), in front of Wrigley Field. The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (aka "Milwaukee Road"), and the predecessor to the CTA, the Chicago Surface Lines, ran on the tracks adjacent to Wrigley Field. They were nicknamed Green Hornet streetcars because of their speed and the Chicago Surface Lines’ green paint job. 1957 was the last year of this streetcar service. (7-14-1957)

Milwaukee Avenue and Waukegan Road as dirt roads around 1900.

Looking north on Milwaukee Avenue and Waukegan Road begins on the right in Niles, Illinois. (c.1900)

Waukegan Road was known as "North Branch Road," which ended at Park Ridge Road, now Touhy Avenue. That is why there is a slight jog just North of Touhy Avenue when getting on to Waukegan Road from Milwaukee Avenue.

The same view today.