How to dissect a photograph (the Great Northern Hotel, Chicago) to determine the year it was taken.

Great Northern Hotel (1891-1940), 227 S. Dearborn St. @ Jackson Blvd., Chicago. The entrance is under the large awening in the middle of the block. The Great Northern Office and Theatre Company Building is the taller of the two.
CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE PHOTO

INTERESTING FACT: The left track, as does the right track, does not have the center cable rail.

ABOVE: In 1882, the  Chicago City Railway opened cable lines to the south on State St. and Wabash-Cottage Grove Ave. Immediately successful, the State St. line would be extended to 63rd St. by 1887. In 1906 all cable service was converted to electric traction. Note the 'Chicago Street Paver Bricks.'

Close-up of the Great Northern Pharmacy, 239 Dearborn Street.

ABOVE: At the corner is the Great Northern Pharmacy, Note the cool 3D mortar and pestle sign hanging at the corner of the building. Above the doorway is a Coca-Cola banner/sign considered to be the first Coca-Cola ad of their slogan advertising series to the public. "Drink Coca-Cola" was the first slogan beginning in 1886. In 1904, Coca-Cola made their first slogan change after 17 years. The banner above the Great Northern Pharmacy enteranceway reads "Delicious and Refreshing" which was the one-year slogan for Coca-Cola. Then in 1905, the slogan was changed again to "Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains."

  The above photograph was taken in 1904.  

A HISTORY OF THE HOTEL AND THEATRE

Architect Daniel Burnham designed the original 14-story building that was completed in 1891 and was originally called the "Chicago Hotel." Still, Proprietors/Owners Hulbert & Eden changed the name to the "Great Northern."  In 1895, he drew up plans for a 16-story addition that offered a 1,226-seat theater, 300 offices, and 300 additional hotel rooms. A new galleried, double-height hotel lobby was added, featuring a colorful stained glass ceiling and, situated above the reception desk, the elaborate casework for an Aeolian automatic pipe Orchestra, installed in 1896. Although the instrument was advertised as an Aeolian Pipe Orchestra, it was built by the Farrand & Votey Organ Company from Detroit. It could be played by either a mechanical Aeolian roll player or by hand.

The hotel was extremely popular during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and was also just around the corner from The Fair Store and Woolworth’s Department Store. There was a Thompson Cafeteria nearby at 337 S. Dearborn Street.

After Root’s death in 1891, Daniel Burnham built the adjoining Great Northern Office and the Theatre Building at 20 W. Jackson Boulevard. The two buildings together formed a connected half-block structure and enclosed the largest interior court in Chicago.

The hotel was also opposite the Government Building. In 1910, the hotel was advertised as having a "Café, Grill, and Lunch Room at Popular Prices." At that time, the hotel had eight dining rooms. The hotel was ultimately demolished in 1940. The Great Northern Office and Theatre Building were demolished in 1961 for the Dirksen Federal Building.

Great Northern Hotel Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1906
CLICK FOR A READABLE MAP

The Aeolian Pipe Organ at the Great Northern Hotel, Chicago, c.1897

The following story from the Chicago Chronicle in October 1897 must have endeared the Aeolian Pipe Organ to the hotel guests forever and a day!

"A few nights ago, when the big Aeolian at the Great Northern began its usual evening program, it didn’t seem to work just right. The Aeolian was doing its level best to play the wedding march from Lohengrin but made an awful mess of it.

The first strain, which everyone remembers goes “Rum-tum-te-tum,” was followed by “Meouw-wow-ow.” All the crowd looked up at the organ and tried to locate the spot where the unusual accompaniment came from. The next strain of the march was followed by a screeching yowl that was heard clear up to the “G” floor. People at dinner dropped their knives and forks and looked nervously at each other and then at the doors and windows. Just as the third yell came out of the Aeolian, Proprietor Eden was seen on the second floor, stealthily moving toward the instrument with a ladder in his hand. Mr. Eden crept up close to the Aeolian and listened for a moment. Then he put his ladder against the right side and slowly made his way to the top.

When he got up he reached over and put his hand down inside of the E flat pipe. There were no results at first. Then he stood on tiptoe and shoved his arm to the shoulder down the mouth of the pipe. There followed a terrible yowling and scratching, but the Colonel pulled, and with a noise like the departure of a tight cork from the neck of a beer bottle, he pulled the hotel cat out of the pipe and carried it down to the baggage room, where it belongs."

The daily concerts given on the hotel organ were very popular, and every afternoon, the staff endured hundreds of people crowding into the lobby to listen to the organ. Light music and popular pieces were favored, the works of the "great masters" being rarely if ever, heard. In fact, a popular piece was being played on the organ one day in 1897 when the concert turned into a son et lumière (sound and light) show:

As the great pipe organ in the Great Northern Hotel was pealing forth "There's a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," the opening number in the daily concert, a sheet of flame shot forth from the instrument followed by volumes of smoke, which grew more dense every minute, and in a few minutes the instrument, valued at $15,000, was a charred wreck, while the surrounding decorations were damaged to the extent of several thousand dollars.

Another feature of the hotel was the "Silver Dollar Bar," so named because of its proprietor William S. Eden, who had been a barber at the Palmer House when he persuaded them to inlay silver dollars on the barbershop floor. Eden also persuaded the management of the Great Northern Hotel to inlay silver dollars on a bar floor. The bar became "one of the most exclusive spots" in the hotel.

Great Northern Hotel Lobby

Great Northern Hotel Cafe

Great Northern Hotel Typical Guest Room

 

BUILDING OF THE YEAR

Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1895

Chicago has not fared well In the way of new buildings when previous years are taken into comparison. A vast amount of building was done in the period before the World’s Fair, and each year's record still suffers by comparison with that. The cost of buildings in 1895 has been satisfactory compared to last year, while the tight number of buildings and the amount of frontage involved have decreased. Among the more prominent buildings of the year are the Fisher, the Great Northern Hotel Theater and Office, the Studebaker, the Lewis Institute, and the Davies.

The theater, office building, and addition to the hotel will be built on a piece of property l00x100 feet in size, extending from Jackson to Quincy Street and 100 feet east of the present Great Northern Hotel. On the Jackson Street side will be the office, on the Quincy Street portion the continuation of the hotel, with the theater in between. The office building will extend back forty-five feet. It will be sixteen stories high and will contain 300 offices. A connection will be established with the present hotel. The entrance to the office will be at the extreme eastern end of the property and will be twenty feet wide. The Quincy Street frontage, containing the hotel addition, will be a continuation of the floors as they are at present. The annex will be sixteen stories high—two stories higher than the main building. The rooms will be large and well-finished. New cafes and banquet halls will be erected. with the idea of making the hotel a European and American one combined instead of simply a European one. as it is at present.

The addition will contain 300 rooms and the elevators will be changed about so as to reach the whole building. Entrance to the theater finished in white Mexican onyx, will be on both Jackson and Quincy streets. The interior of the theater will have a seating capacity of 2,000 and will have three balconies and a large stage. Retiring rooms for women are planned for the right side of the interior and smoking rooms for men on the left, with a foyer between. The stage will face towards the main hotel. D. H. Burnham & Co. were the architects for the improvement. The building will be entirely fireproof. The drops on the stage will be on steel rollers in frames, and all the scenery will be of asbestos. One million dollars is estimated as the cost.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Rosa Raisa, Chicago’s Jewish Diva in the Golden Age of Opera.

She was born Raisa [pronunciation] Burchstein in Białystok, Podlaskie, Poland, on May 30, 1893. Even at a young age, her voice attracted attention, and she traveled through Poland as a child singer. She fled the Bialystok pogroms of 1907 to settle in Italy. Her potential was discovered by a wealthy family that sponsored her vocal studies in Naples with the great teacher Barbara Marchisio, a legendary soprano of the 19th century. 

Raisa Burchstein made her concert debut in Rome in 1912. She was then introduced to the conductor Cleofonte Campanini, and her operatic career was launched.

Campanini himself said, "I know she is young now and not fully developed artistically, but mark my words, one of these days, she will be known all over the world as one of the greatest dramatic sopranos."

Campanini engaged Raisa to sing during the 1913 Verdi centennial celebration in Parma. She sang the dramatic role of the seduced heroine, Leonora, in the revival of Oberto, Verdi's first opera. Raisa Burchstein's success was so phenomenal that Campanini immediately brought her to Chicago for the 1913-14 season. But first, he shortened her name. He asked her the meaning of "Raisa," and when she answered, "Rose, in Russian," he created the melodious name Rosa Raisa –– "Rose Rose."

Who was Cleofonte Campanini? He was a virtuoso conductor, comparable to Arturo Toscanini. But Toscanini conducted in New York, the operatic capital, while his rival spent most of his time in Chicago. Campanini didn't have recordings to extend his fame. 

Above all, Campanini died in 1919 at age 59––young for a conductor. Had he lived through the splendid Chicago seasons of the 1920s––who knows how well he might be remembered now?

ROSA RAISA IN CHICAGO

Raisa's first role with the Chicago Grand Opera at the Auditorium––her first appearance in the United States––was in the first week of the 1913 season in the title role of Aida. Although Raisa was well-received from the start, she remained somewhat in the background during her first season with the company. She was not the flamboyant type at all, and of course, was very young at the time. 

The Yiddish-speaking Jewish opera-lovers of the West Side called her Unzer Raizele (Our Rosie), as she had been born humbly, as Raisa Burchstein, in Bialystok, Poland.

The director of the Chicago Opera Company, Cleofonte Campanini, had discovered Raisa in Italy, where she had come to live and study after escaping the 1907 pogroms in Bialystok. Campanini brought Raisa to Chicago, where he and his wife guided her career and acted as virtual parents to her until the impresario's death in 1919.

When World War I began, Raisa remained in Italy, missing the 1914-15 Chicago seasons.

When Raisa arrived in Chicago from Italy for the 1916 season, she brought the baritone Giacomo Rimini with her. They opened the season with Aida. That year Rimini and Raisa appeared for the first time in Chicago in the opera Falstaff, with Rimini as Sir John and Raisa as Mrs. Page.

Raisa and Rimini are in costume aboard the ship.

She did return in 1917 to sing the first American performances of Mascagni’s Isabeau, Montemezzi’s La Nave and Respighi’s La Fiamma.

Extremely rare and unpublished recording of

ROSA RAISA in Yiddish, (1918). [5:14]

In 1920 Raisa and Rimini were married. They continued to sing together and later taught together.

Photograph of Raisa by Daguerre Studio, Chicago. "To Miss Elizabeth Stein Remembrance Rosa Raisa Chicago, 1920."

In the 1919-20 season, Raisa became identified with a significant new role, Bellini's Norma, staged for the first time in Chicago in 25 years.

The overwhelming event of the 1919-20 season was the death of Cleofonte Campanini. The company gave him a farewell as theatrical as his life had been, with a memorial at center stage of the Auditorium, home of the Chicago Opera.

Raisa had married Giacomo Rimini, the Italian-Jewish baritone, in 1920. They continued to sing together and later taught together. 

In the 1920s, the company toured the country, delighting audiences everywhere with performances of Mary Garden's Cleopatra and Rosa Raisa in Halévy's La Juive (The Jewess). 

Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly by Rosa Raisa

“Un Bel di Vedremo” 1921-1924 [3:53]

In 1924 Toscanini engaged Mrs. Raisa for the La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, to create Asteria in Boito's posthumous opera, Nerone, and most significantly, to create the title role of the icy Chinese princess in the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot [pronunciation] on April 25, 1926.

Rosa Raisa as Princess Turandot. Full-color poster for the world premiere of Turandot, April 25, 1926, at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy. Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto (the text of an opera) in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. Soprano Rosa Raisa created the title role.

In 1936, she sang Leah in the American premiere of Rocca's The Dybbuk in Detroit.

The couple's Chicago home was in the Congress Hotel. One of Raisa's voice students in the late 1930s, Charlotte Pomrenze Handwerger, described the scene in an interview with Chicago Jewish History Magazine: "A beautiful fourth-floor suite on the northeast corner of the hotel, with a bay window overlooking Grant Park and Lake Michigan. Mrs. Raisa, impeccably groomed, dignified, wearing pearls, with pulled-back hair, would be seated at the piano. Giacomo Rimini was present, as well, during some of the sessions––a large, imposing man. Their daughter Giulietta ( born in 1931) would sometimes pop into the room. Each summer, Raisa, her family, and servants would pack up and move their household to Italy, to their villa near Verona."

Charlotte chose to marry young and raise a family instead of pursuing an operatic career––much to the disappointment of Raisa, Rimini, and Charlotte's parents. (Her father, Dr. Herman M. Pomrenze, was a leading figure in the Labor Zionist movement.) She did go on to sing for many years in choruses, including Max Janowski's. Her husband, Robert Handwerger, was the cantor at Temple Emanuel for 43 years (1945-88). 

Chicago Jewish History Magazine spoke with another visitor to the Raisa-Rimini home in the 1930s, Tybee Hyman Grais. Tybee would accompany her good friend and cousin, the late Shirley Hyman Cotton, to her voice lessons and help by turning the pages of the music as Shirley sang. Tybee remembers Raisa as being a wonderful, gracious lady who included the girls in the dinner parties she held in her suite. Giacomo Rimini would act as cook, preparing heaping plates of pasta. Tybee remembers the thrill of going from the hotel through the underground passage––called "Peacock Alley"––beneath Congress Street, directly into the fabulous Auditorium for an evening of opera. 

In 1937, upon retirement from the stage, they opened a singing school in Chicago. 

Lois Salter sent me this 1943 photo of her mother, Shirley Hymen Cotton - (July 22, 1917—August 28, 1987), who was a student of Rosa Raisa.

Professional Name: Shirley Sorrelle, 26 years old, Soprano.
Photograph (Nov. 23, 1943) - George Nelidoff Studio, 721 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

She would say, "We sang together, we quit together, we teach together." After Giacomo Rimini's death in 1952, she retired to her Pacific Palisades home with her daughter. She divided her time between California, Chicago, and Italy and returned here for many performances of the young Lyric Opera. She gave her entire opera wardrobe to the Lyric in 1956.

In the mid-1950s, Mrs. Raisa maintained a vocal studio in the Fine Arts Building at 410 South Michigan Avenue. Across the hall was the office of the young theatrical manager Danny Newman. In 1948, he married the great Yiddish actress Dina Halpern. Mr. Newman would listen for the departure of Mrs. Raisa's students, and when she was free, they would converse in Yiddish through the open doors of their offices so as to improve his Yiddish language skills.

Despite Mrs. Raisa's hopes, Shirley did not pursue further operatic study––although, like Charlotte, she did continue to sing professionally.

Rosa Raisa was a star in Chicago's first golden age of opera in the early decades of the 20th century. Before her death in 1963, she encouraged and applauded the beginnings of Lyric Opera's current golden age.

Her last local performance was at an outdoor concert in Grant Park in 1938. Only World War I or serious illness could keep her away from her adoring fans in Chicago.

Indeed, Rosa Raisa would remain the backbone of the Chicago Opera Company's dramatic wing for over 20 years. She sang all the great roles. The volume and intensity of her voice were magnificent. 

Records never fully captured her voice, not the records of those days. But it was a huge voice of wonderful warmth and color and belonged to the most warmhearted woman. No doubt, one of the reasons for the lavish language is that it was impossible to hear her in opera without being emotionally stirred. She was generous on and off the stage, and her voice and presence shared the color and opulence of the great roles. Raisa's voice struck straight at two vulnerable places: the spinal cord and the heart.

Rosa Raisa interview by John Gutman: February 24, 1962. [22:00]

The audience at the October 4, 1963, opening night of the Lyric Opera of Chicago season found a rose pinned to every theater seat. The performance was dedicated to the memory of Rosa Raisa, who had died on September 28, 1963, and the house was decorated with some 3,700 roses donated by Medard C. Lange.

The opera being performed that night offered a particularly apt memorial to Chicago opera's great Jewish soprano. Verdi's Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) is about the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and contains the stirring "Va, Pensiero," the chorus of the captive Jews on the banks of the Euphrates. They think of home and sing the nostalgic words, "Fly, my thoughts, on golden wings."

Rosa Raisa is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Los Angeles County, California.

by Bev Chubat

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

#JewishThemed #JewishLife

Boy Scouts of America; the First Jewish Scoutmaster and Boy Scout Troop was in Chicago, Illinois, in 1920.

Bernard Miller, a resident of Evanston, tells the fascinating story of his father, Solomon Miller, who he described as "the first Jewish scoutmaster." 

Solomon Miller was born in Leeds, England, in 1889. In 1911, while at Leeds University, where he graduated with a degree in education, he formed the first Jewish Boy Scout troop in that city. Bernard Miller says that this was the very first synagogue-based Jewish troop ever formed and that Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of scouting, had personally signed Solomon Miller's Scoutmaster Warrant.

Solomon Miller left Leeds for Canada in 1913. The policy of Great Britain during the First World War was that any young teacher who would go to Canada to practice his profession would be exempt from military service. So Solomon Miller spent the war years teaching Hebrew to Jewish children —" the children of Jewish farmers" — in a one-room schoolhouse in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, Canada. After WWI, Solomon Miller came to Chicago on vacation and met his future wife, Minnie. After their marriage, they settled on the northwest side and raised their son and daughter. 

Although Sol had changed careers from teaching to accounting by then, he continued his scouting activities. From 1920 to the 1940s, he was not only financial secretary of Chicago's Atereth Zion Congregation (AZC) at 1132 North Spaulding but also Scoutmaster of Troop № 60 based in the synagogue and serving the Humboldt Park community. Mrs. Minnie Miller served as President of the ladies' auxiliary and led the Girl Scout troop. At that time, Leonard Shabsin was scoutmaster of the synagogue's Cub Scout Pack № 6060. Bernard Miller remembers the AZC scouts' camping trips featuring "Mulligan Stew" — kosher meat and vegetables cooked in a tin coffee can over an open fire. 

SOL'S KOSHER CAMPFIRE MULLIGAN STEW RECIPE

In 1964, Sol and Minnie Miller paid a visit to Leeds, where they were feted by members of his old troop. Sol was pleased to learn that the troop he had organized in 1911 still existed.

Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Miller proudly show the scroll presented to him by the 7th Central (Leeds Jewish) Old Scouts Association on August 26, 1964, on his first visit to England after 50 years in America. This certificate of authorization is a precious Miller family heirloom.

His long years of service to scouting in Chicago have also been rewarded. On February 27, 1972, in the annual "Eternal Light Honor Night" ceremony at Chicago's Loop Synagogue, 6 South Clark Street, he was given the Shofar Award in recognition of his 52 years of service to scouting in America. The award was presented by the Jewish Relationships Committee, Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. 

Bernard Miller and his sister followed their parents into scouting, each of them as assistant leaders of troops in Skokie, and have passed that interest on to their children and grandchildren.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Boy Scouts of America First Negro Troop in Evanston Recognized in (1912).

Boy Scouts of America Early History of Evanston Council (1916-1969).

Boy Scouts of America History of Waukegan Councils (1918–1924) and (1940–1971).

Boy Scouts of America History of Libertyville Council (1921–1923). 

Boy Scouts of America Early History of North Shore Area Council (1926–1968).

Boy Scouts of America History of Lake County Council (1928–1935). 

#JewishThemed #JewishLife