Home for Self Supporting Women, Chicago, Illinois.

The original Home for Self Supporting Women was located at 275-277 East Indiana Street.

The Chicago Woman's Club managed a lodging house, costing $2.50 per week, for temporarily stranded women, and, for at least a few years, the Home for Self Supporting Women ran the Provident Laundry (established in 1889) which provided temporary employment for unemployed women.

The Home for Self Supporting Women moved to this building at 12 E. Grand Avenue in Chicago in 1908 when construction was completed.

Provident Laundry - Objective:
"To provide a new channel of work for able-bodied women out of employment and desirous to become self-supporting; to maintain a training school where superior work is taught, and an Employment bureau where permanent situations are securied for those desiring them."

The laundry was conducted in the read of the home at 275-277 East Indiana Street, overtaxing its accommodations. An average of 20 women find employment daily. A large number of these women become proficient enough to take permanent position in families.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Ryerson Building, 16-20 E. Randolph Street, Chicago

Adler and Sullivan's "Ryerson Building," at 16-20 East Randolph Street, Chicago was built in 1884-85. The building was a 68'x169', six-story masonry and cast-iron loft that cost $152,127 ($4,212,238 today).

Orginally occupied by Gray, Kingman & Collins Store, a wholesale grocery business, then by the Charles H. Slack wholesale and retail grocer & winery. The building was demolished in 1939.

The Hotel Grace at Jackson and Clark Streets, Chicago.

The Hotel Grace, 1889-abt 1990, a European hotel at 75 West Jackson Street, on the southwest corner of Clark Street.

It had 8 stories, 4 stores, 140 rooms, 1 elevator; 120 feet on Jackson, and 50 on Clark, 100 feet high; hotel office upstairs. It was erected in 1887, and cost $200,000 ($5,537,800 today). The hotel, opened in 1889, was known for exquisite meals and a very handsome banquet hall. The records of John M. Van Osdel, the architect, show that a story was added in 1890. 

The 28-story Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building, built in 1991 occupies the site today.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.