Vivian Dorothea Maier, the Unknown Chicagoland Urban Photographer.

When John Maloof, a real estate agent, amateur historian, and garage-sale obsessive, acquired a box of photographic materials and personal detritus at an auction in suburban Chicago in 2007, he quickly realized that he had stumbled upon an unknown master of street photography. But despite his vigorous snooping, he could find no record of Vivian Maier, the name scribbled on the scraps of paper that he found among the negatives, prints, and undeveloped rolls of film. He tracked down the rest of the boxes emptied from an abandoned storage garage, amassing a collection of hundreds of thousands of frames shot in New York, Chicago, France, South America, and Asia between the nineteen-fifties and the nineteen-seventies. 

Two years after he bought the first box, he Googled the name again and, to his surprise, found an obituary announcing that Vivian Maier had died only a few days before. The short text had just enough information for Maloof to deduce that Maier had worked as a nanny in suburban Chicago.

My Personal Favorite Vivian Maier Photograph. What a Happy Cat.

Vivian Dorothea Maier was born in New York, New York, on February 1, 1926. She spent much of her childhood in France, starting at the age of four in 1930. She briefly lived in close quarters with a noted female photographer, Jeanne Bertrand, who may have taught the young Maier how to take pictures when she was a girl. After 1949 she moved back to New York City, learning English by going to movie theaters.

In 1951 she came to Chicago to work as a nanny for a North Shore family. She worked for several north shore families over the next 40 years. Maier was a very private person who pursued her photography interest in her spare time and on days off. She never showed her photographs to anyone.

Vivian Maier Self Portrait

Most of Maier's photographs were taken with twin-lens Rolleiflex cameras. The Rolleiflex camera's viewfinder is top-down, so it is held inconspicuously at hip height, looking down. Maier was able to capture fleeting moments and turned them into something extraordinary.

VIVIAN MAIER'S CAMERA HISTORY

Vivian Maier’s first camera was a modest Kodak Brownie box camera with one shutter speed, no aperture, and focus control. In 1952 she purchased her first Rolleiflex camera. Over the course of her career, she used Rolleiflex 3.5T, Rolleiflex 3.5F, Rolleiflex 2.8C, Rolleiflex Automat, and others. She later also used a Leica IIIc, an Ihagee Exakta, a Zeiss Contarex, and various other SLR cameras. 

Maier used mostly Kodak Tri-X and Ektachrome film. 

Rolleiflex Camera

It seems that, for Maier, the nanny’s life allowed her to be with people, but not of them. She actively cultivated her own unknowability, perhaps as a way to maintain this separateness. She never spoke of a desire to make a living as a photographer. In Chicago, where she lived for decades, she refused to give film processors and pawn shopkeepers her real name instead of handing out fake names everywhere. She demanded separate locks for her rooms in her employers’ houses and forbade anyone from ever entering her space. She didn’t mention family or old friends. She lied about where she was born, claiming France as her homeland (she was born in New York City), and spoke with a contrived Continental accent that no one could place. She dressed in an outdated style, like a Soviet factory worker from the 1950s. An acquaintance recalls asking Vivian what she did for a living. Her response: “I’m a sort of spy.”

Her archives of pictures, films, and voice recordings reveal a fascination with rape and murder, urban blight and the ravages of poverty, the brutality of the city stockyards, and political unrest. 

There’s no disputing that Maier was peculiar and prickly and that her interests spanned the benign and the morbid. But she was neither a Mary Poppins nor a surrogate Mommie Dearest. The people who knew her described impenetrability that, even in retrospect, threatens the fantasy that people who choose to care for children are all hugs and rainbows.

Maier had neither money nor connections, but she had control over how she lived, what she looked at, and what she photographed.

Her photographs (see Chicago and Illinois photo album below) of the urban and suburban streets track the fluctuations of the economy, the growth of the city, the cycles of the seasons, the emotions in the faces of the children she cared for, the way her own body advanced through the years. She chose her job not because she especially loved children, but because of the life it enabled her to have, what it allowed her to see. She valued her freedom above all. Her art and profession have more in common than they may initially seem. She was a perpetual outsider, and she liked it that way. She moved among people but did not belong to any of them. She was close but not entangled. She could always walk away.

Maier spent the late fifties and sixties traveling and photographing the world alone. It seemed that, on those trips, Maier was the freest she had ever been and ever would be. That’s how she wanted to see herself. And she did.

Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.   —Vivian Dorothea Maier

She lived her final years in the Rogers Park community of Chicago and was unknown and impoverished. It was not until after her death in 2009 that her life’s work was accidentally discovered. Since then, her photographs have been exhibited throughout the world.

Her pictures help us to understand that Maier wasn't invisible except to us. She was looking at herself all along.

Vivian Dorothea Maier died on April 21, 2009, in Oak Park, Illinois. She was cremated and had her ashes scattered, Specifically by the Gensburg sons, likely in the Catherine Chevalier Woods in the Forest Preserves of Cook County, near Chicago's O'Hare Airport. 

Finding Vivian Maier | 2015 Oscar Nominee | Official Trailer

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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CHICAGO & ILLINOIS

Maxwell Street, Chicago, Illinois, 1962

What are these kids looking at?

Hull House, Chicago, IL., January 31, 1963.

Kiddieland, Sandwich, IL., September 1966.

Vivian Maier Self Portraits

VIVIAN MAIER'S CAMERA HISTORY

Vivian Maier’s first camera was a modest Kodak Brownie box camera with one shutter speed, no aperture, and focus control. In 1952 she purchased her first Rolleiflex camera. Over the course of her career, she used Rolleiflex 3.5T, Rolleiflex 3.5F, Rolleiflex 2.8C, Rolleiflex Automat, and others. She later also used a Leica IIIc, an Ihagee Exakta, a Zeiss Contarex, and various other SLR cameras. Maier used mostly Kodak Tri-X and Ektachrome film. 

January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

U.S. President Joe Biden lays a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Israel, 2022.

Too many American and Illinois families were affected by the Holocaust. May God rest their souls.

A visit will totally change your perspective on life.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Illinois, is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Holocaust by honoring the memories of those who were lost and by teaching universal lessons that combat hatred, prejudice, and indifference. 

The museum fulfills its mission through the exhibition, preservation, and interpretation of its collections and through education programs and initiatives promoting human rights and eliminating genocide.

Prisoners at Ebensee Concentration Camp in 1945. Ebensee was a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp established by the Nazi S.S. to build tunnels for armaments storage near the town of Ebensee, Austria, in 1943. The camp held a total of 27,278 male inmates from 1943 until 1945. Between 8,500 and 11,000 prisoners died in the camp, most from hunger or malnutrition.

When neo-Nazis threatened to march in Skokie in the late 1970s, Holocaust survivors worldwide were shocked. They realized they could no longer remain silent despite their desire to leave the past behind. In the wake of these attempted marches, Chicago-area survivors joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois. They purchased a small Skokie storefront and made it available to the public, especially to schoolchildren, focusing on combating hate with education.

The 65,000 square-foot Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center that opened on April 19, 2009, is a culmination of 30 years of hard work by the local Holocaust survivor community. According to President Emeritus Sam Harris, “We dreamt of creating a place that would not only serve as a memorial to our families that perished and the millions lost but also where young minds could learn the terrible dangers of prejudice and hatred.”

To ensure that young minds continue to learn these lessons, the organization successfully secured the 1990 passage of the Holocaust Education Mandate, making Illinois the first state to require Holocaust education in public schools. In 2005, the organization again expanded this mandate; the Holocaust and Genocide Education Mandate now requires Illinois schools to teach about all genocides.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum not only honors the memory of the millions who were murdered during the Holocaust, but it also salutes the courage and resilience of the survivors. They are the people who rebuilt their lives and awoke the conscience of humanity so that none of us may ever forget. For them, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center carry out their founding principle: Remember the Past, Transform the Future.

El Malei Rachamim (“God full of compassion”) is a prayer for the departed, asking for comfort and everlasting care of the deceased. It is recited at funeral services, but different versions exist for other moments. 

Holocaust Memorial Statue Vandalized in Skokie, Illinois, June 3, 1987.

The Jewish Reform Prayer Book, Mishkan T’filah.

The version of the Shoah (Holocaust) can be found in the Reform prayer book, Mishkan T’filah. Listen to the liturgy, which is translated here:

Fully Compassionate God on High:

To our six million brothers and sisters

murdered because they were Jews,

grant clear and certain rest with You

in the lofty heights of the sacred and pure

whose brightness shines like the very glow of heaven.

Source of Mercy:

Forever enfold them in the embrace of Your wings;

secure their souls in eternity.

Adonai: they are Yours.

They will rest in peace.

 

Amen.

UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS:

01) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

02) Amud Aish Memorial Museum, Brooklyn, New York

03) Breman Museum, Atlanta, Georgia

04) CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center, Terre Haute, Indiana

05) Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education & Tolerance, Texas

06) Desert Holocaust Memorial, Palm Desert, California

07) El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center, Texas

08) Esther Raab Holocaust Museum & Goodwin Education Center, Cherry Hill, New Jersey

09) Florida Holocaust Museum (St. Petersburg)

10) Holocaust and Tolerance Museum, Chandler, Arizona

11) Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

12) Holocaust Center for Humanity, Seattle, Washington

13) Holocaust Center of Northern California (San Francisco)

14) Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

15) Holocaust Documentation & Education Center, Dania Beach, Florida

16) Holocaust Memorial Center, Farmington Hills, Michigan

17) Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio, Texas

18) Holocaust Memorial, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

19) Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Education, Suffern, New York

20) Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center, Naples, Florida

21) Holocaust Museum & Learning Center, St. Louis, Missouri

22) Holocaust Museum Houston, Texas

23) Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie

24) Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Museum, Tucson, Arizona

25) Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

26) Museum of History and Holocaust Education, Kennesaw, Georgia

27) Museum of Jewish Heritage, Manhattan, New York

28) Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

29) New Mexico Holocaust & Intolerance Museum, Albuquerque

30) New Mexico Holocaust Museum and Gellert Center for Education, Albuquerque

31) Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland

32) Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center, Providence, Rhode Island

33) Stuart Elenko Holocaust Museum at the Bronx High School of Science, Bronx, New York

34) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Midwest, Highland Park, Illinois

35) Virginia Holocaust Museum, Richmond

36) William Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum, Atlanta, Georgia

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Abraham Lincoln and the Second Portuguese Church.

See footnote about The Marine and Fire Insurance Company.

Pictured here is a check for $5 ($150 today) payable to the Second Portuguese Church, written and signed by Abraham Lincoln on July 16, 1860. The Second Portuguese Church? Abraham Lincoln? What could have been the connection?

The saga unfolds in Madeira, the Portuguese islands off the coast of Africa, in 1838. Doctor Robert Reid Kalley, a wealthy physician, and minister of the Free Church of Scotland, en route to missionary work in China, stopped at Funchal, Madeira, when his wife became ill.

As she convalesced, the couple decided that this lovely island would be a fine place to dispense free medical care, plus the Scotch Presbyterian interpretation of the scriptures. As a man of means, Dr. Kalley was able not only to maintain his free dispensary and hospital but to establish schools and hire teachers so the natives could learn English (and he, Portuguese).

The predominant religious authority in the Portuguese islands was the Roman Catholic Church. For a couple of years, Kalley avoided their displeasure. But when his church began attracting to open-air Sunday Calvinist services some 1,000 to 3,000 people, the Catholic powers, represented by the Bishop of Madeira, intervened.

Arrests and ex-communications began. Kalley protested to the archbishop in Lisbon, and orders were sent from there to halt the persecution. That did not deter the local clergy and courts. They persisted with arrests and imprisonment. Kalley himself spent five months in jail in 1845. 

That prompted his return to Scotland, but other missionaries arrived. The religious conflict intensified, culminating in riots in 1846. With this unrest came a worsening economy. The combination drove 1,000 Portuguese to leave Madeira on English ships. They stopped in Trinidad, where they worked on sugar and cocoa plantations. The women became housemaids and seamstresses. But as a group, they were not happy with the climate and overall environment.

To the rescue came an organized Christian coalition. The American Protestant Society rook an interest and made plans to bring the displaced people to America. The American Hemp Company agreed to settle 131 families between Jacksonville and Springfield, Illinois, each family with 10 acres of land. The Missionary Society raised the money and transported the immigrants from Trinidad to New York and then Illinois.

At the critical moment, when it was time to settle the families on the farms, American Hemp was unable or unwilling to proceed. Now another rescue effort was organized. All the Protestant churches in Jacksonville and Springfield joined forces. With great generosity, they provided the essentials to launch the newcomers. The grateful Portuguese became model residents, integrating with the business and professional life of the community.

By 1855, there were 350 Portuguese in Springfield, and for several years they continued to arrive from Trinidad and Madeira. In the first generation, socially, they maintained their ethnic culture. They formed three Portuguese Presbyterian churches in Jacksonville and two in Springfield. Some 17 Madeirans later saw service for the North in the Vicksburg campaign and the siege of Atlanta.

Lincoln's awareness of the Second Portuguese Church could have originated from Portuguese clients of the law firm of Lincoln and Herndon, but his more personal interest probably stemmed from the family's employment of young Frances Affonsa. Frances, a dark-skinned, black-eyed Portuguese girl, came to the house sometime between Lincoln's defeat for the U.S. Senate in 1858 and his presidential nomination. She is reponed to have declared simply, "I wash clothes, Mrs. Lincum."

The girl's conscientious work and good nature made a favorable impression on Mary Lincoln, who was known to be hard on household help. Frances, as a laundress, was junior in the household to Mariah Vance, a pipe-smoking black woman, 10 years older than Lincoln, who served the family from 1850, first as a laundress, maid, then general housekeeper. Mariah did not live with the Lincolns—she had I2 children and a husband in the town. Her son Billie became a close friend of Robert Todd, who taught him to read and write.

It is from Mariah that we learn most about the private lives of the Lincolns, for her remembrances were written in Black English by Adah Sutton. About Abe, Mariah said, "Dat man was a man of Gawd and he was crucified every day of his life." And about Mary, "Honey chile, ef ah wah good 'nough fah dah Missy Lincolumn, ah shuh and be good 'nough fah mose anyone. Dae woman wah shuhb 'ticklah."

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Leopold Grozelier, 1960.

May of 1860 was a time of great excitement for the Lincoln household. The Republican nominating convention began in Chicago on May 16. One hundred and fifty railroad trains a day brought 40,000 curious strangers and 500 delegates to the city. The old Sauganash Hotel at the corner of Lake and Market streets had been torn down and replaced with a barn-like wooden structure called The Wigwam.

The old site of the Sauganash Hotel / The Wigwam Building in Chicago.

Ten thousand people crowded into a vast interior, festooned with flags and streamers of red, white, and blue. Norman Judd, a railroad lawyer, stood before the huge assemblage and delivered one brief line. "I desire, on behalf of the delegation from Illinois, to put in nomination, as a candidate for president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois."

"Five thousand people leaped from their seats, women not wanting," a Lincoln supporter reported, "and the wild yell made vesper breathings of all that had preceded. A thousand steam whistles, 10 acres of hotel gongs, a tribe of Comanches might have mingled in the scene unnoticed." 

"Old Abe," "Honest Abe," "The Backwoodsman," "The Rail Splitter" defeated the favored William Seward for the nomination. (Horace Greeley had wired his New York Tribune that Seward seemed sure to win). 

Two months after the nomination, Lincoln made his $5 contribution to the Second Portuguese Church... at the request of Frances Affonsa? Mary? A congregant who dutifully came to the door seeking donations? Or was it just Old Abe's kindly charitable inspiration?

On November 6, Lincoln won the presidency, polling 1.8 million votes to 1.3 for Democrat Stephen Douglas. Amidst the jubilation, back in Springfield, the president-elect received a stately black silk hat as a gift. He said simply to Mary, "Well, wife, if nothing else comes of this scrape, we're going to have some new clothes."

By Sanford J. Mock

Edited by Dr. NeilGale, Ph.D.

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NOTE:

When Lincoln opened his account with $310 ($7,890 today), the company had been in business for nearly two years. Lincoln was a bank depositor from March 1, 1853, until his death on April 15, 1865. Its improbable name in a landlocked town reflected how goods reached Springfield in the nineteenth century -- partly on the Illinois River. The company dropped marine insurance from its business after railroad shipping replaced waterway transportation, but retained the "marine" part of its name for many years.

The original Lincoln family account ledger with the Marine and Fire Insurance Company, which is now JP Morgan Chase Bank, 6th & Washington Streets, Springfield, Illinois. (1853-1867)

Today you can see the Lincoln ledger in the bank lobby preserved in a custom-built case decorated with bas relief sculpture on three sides. The case depicts Lincoln as his friends in central Illinois knew him: pioneer rail-splitter, storekeeper and law student, and state representative. The ledger book is opened to the Lincoln account, where "A. Lincoln" appears at the top, written by his banker, Robert Irwin. When Lincoln left Springfield as president-elect, Irwin made transactions as his local agent. After Lincoln's death, the account continued in the name of David Davis, administrator of the Lincoln estate, until May 27, 1867.

Photograph of The Marine and Fire Insurance Company on the East Side of the Public Square, Springfield, Illinois. Circa 1860s