The Fingerhut Bakery was a Chicago staple since 1895.

Fingerhut Bakery opened in 1895 at 18th and May streets in Chicago. Bohemian immigrant Frank Fingerhut brought the "old country" recipes with him for baked items like Kolacky (a soft and sweet cookie filled with jam), Houska (a sweet yeast bread with raisins and dried fruit), and Babi (Rye Bread).

In 1916, Frank's son Charles purchased land at Cermak and Central (5537 W. Cermak) and built the Charles Fingerhut Bakery. Another store, Fingerhut's Oven Fresh Bakery, opened in Brookfield, Illinois. Herb Fingerhut, a grandson and a seventh-generation, later ran the company until it closed in 2004.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Film footage of the 1919 World Series, the year of the Black Sox Scandal, was discovered in 1978.

In 1978, in north-west Canada’s Yukon territory, construction on a new recreation center was under way in a small rural settlement called Dawson City. As bulldozers tore up the ground where the previous sports hall had stood, a remarkable discovery came to light: hundreds of reels of ancient nitrate film.

Five hundred and thirty three (533) silent films were recovered, including newsreels and features of all types, dating from the 1910s and 20s. Most were previously unknown to film scholars or thought to be totally lost. But for 49 years the inhospitable cold of the Yukon landscape had safely protected the films – which had been found at the bottom of an old swimming pool.

1919 Chicago White Sox team photograph.

This film is an excerpt from the British Canadian Pathé News showing various baseball games between the Chicago Black White Sox[1] and Cincinnati Reds in the infamous 1919 World Series.

Film clips of 1919 White Sox World Series.

This silent film shows some age damage.
runtime: [04:30:00]

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[1] The Black Sox Scandal; was a Major League Baseball match-fixing incident in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of intentionally losing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein.

The fallout from the scandal resulted in the appointment of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as the first Commissioner of Baseball, granting him absolute control over the sport in order to restore its integrity.

Despite acquittals in a public trial in 1921, Judge Landis permanently banned all eight men from professional baseball. The punishment was eventually defined to also include banishment from post-career honors such as consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Despite requests for reinstatement in the decades that followed (particularly in the case of Shoeless Joe Jackson), the ban remains in force.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Windsor Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, (1886-1961).

On September 11, 1886, the Windsor Theatre, on the north side, opened for its first season at 468 North Clark Street (post-1909: 1225 North Clark Street), which extended over a period of 40 weeks. This new playhouse is intended exclusively for the use of stars and traveling companies, and will hold much the same relation to the other Chicago theatres that the Windsor of New York sustains to the playhouses of the metropolis.

The Windsor is included in a new block of substantial brick stores on Clark street, near Division, and is about a mile and a half from the City Hall. With the exception of the Criterion theatre, on Sedgwick street, the theatre Is further north than any similar place of amusement in the city. It is reached through a corridor 52 feet long. the main entrance being on Clark street.

At the end of the corridor is a reception room, and beyond that a series of ornamental arches, extending to the lobby of the house. The main floor is divided into a parquet and parquet circle, the former corresponding to the orchestra chairs in a New York theatre. The floor of the parquet inclines gradually from the stage, and that of the circle rises more rapidly, so that every seat commands a good view. of the stage. There is but one tier above the parquet, and this is divided into two sections, the front portion consisting of a line of boxes extending its entire length. Each compartment is separate, so that It can be used for private parties if desired, but single seats will be sold when required. In the rear of this balcony circle and raised to an altitude of five feet, with a separating rail, is the gallery proper. The seating capacity of the theatre is 2,000. The design and decoration of the auditorium is mosque and the fresco work, upholstery, carpets, and furniture are in harmony with the general architectural style.

The building will be illuminated with the incandescent electric light. The stage is 78 feet wide and 48 feet deep, and the dressing rooms are in the rear of the prompt entrance. The accommodations for chorus, singers, ballet dancers, and minstrels are underneath the stage. The furniture of the stage consists of 20 complete sets of stock scenery and the usual working bridges, spring, vampire, star, and other traps. The new theatre will be under the management of Philip A. Lehnen, of the Welting Opera. House, Syracuse.

Adelina Patti, famed singer of the nineteenth century, once occupied a box at the Windsor when a young singer who was her protege was making her debut. A canopy was stretched from the doorway to the curb, and the carpet under it was strewn with roses for Patti’s entrance.

The theater name was changed from Windsor to Lincoln in 1894, then back to Windsor when the new theater opened in 1914. 

The Windsor Theater in 1936

The Windsor Theatre was opened as part of the Lubliner & Trinz circuit on May 9, 1914. It was one of the earliest projects from the firm of Rapp & Rapp. The theater was later run by the H & E Balaban chain.

The theater was remodeled by the firm of Pereira & Pereira in 1936. The Windsor operated into the late-1950s, and was razed by 1961.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Racine Wagon & Carriage Company, Chicago Public Library Delivery Station carriages. Circa 1885

As Chicago's reconstruction after the Great Fire of 1871 progressed and residential districts extended further from the downtown area, it became apparent to the library's directors that the Chicago Public Library needed to make its services available to people nearer to their homes. 

In April 1884, the Library Board appointed a Special Committee on Delivery Stations. Four stations, two on the West Side, one on the North Side, and one on the South Side, were established. In June 1884, the Board agreed to pay Mr. Morris Rosenstock $18.00 per week to manage the delivery of materials to the four stations by horse-drawn carriage.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Professor Theodore Kadish Natatorium which stood at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard in Chicago, 1880s.

The Kadish Natatorium was a private venture. In the early 1900s, Chicago Park Commissions began building natatoria, facilities with showers, indoor swimming pools, and gyms, to provide public bathing and recreational opportunities to the city's increasingly crowded neighborhoods.

The Kadish Natatorium at Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard in Chicago.

By 1915, Mayor Carter H. Harrison II and the Special Park Commission had hit upon the idea of building natatoria adjacent to city pumping stations to take advantage of excess steam generated there.

Three were eventually built, one being shown in the artist rendering above, the Central Park Avenue (Jackson) natatorium. Another was called the Roseland (later Griffith, in Block Park) and the Springfield Avenue natatorium, later named the Beilfuss Natatorium. 

At the Beilfuss Natatorium, competitions and swim meets were covered by the newspapers. There were indeed rings that could be lowered and trapezes, and often they were lowered and we'd take turns running and jumping and swinging on them, or missing and splashing which was great fun anyways.

The place was always very hot and you could hear the pumping station moaning when you were under the water. There was one older man who worked there and he would line up all the kids who couldn't swim and give them lessons, which basically consisted of him pushing them in the shallow water while all of the "good swimmers" watched out for them and yelled encouragement at the opposite end of the pool.

NOTE: Swimming was not a co-ed activity in the Victorian era (or before) because boys and men swam naked. The men in this illustration are wearing trunks. I believe that the artist added swimming trunks to the illustration so it could be used in the newspapers.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.