1.
Near South Side, Chicago
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The Near South Side is a community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located just south of the central business district, the Loop. The remaining area is undergoing a major residential and mixed-use redevelopment. The Near South Side is one of the most dynamic of Chicagos communities, the Near South Side was initially noted for wagon trails winding through a lightly populated bend of Lake Michigan. This area was first populated by working for the Illinois & Michigan Canal. Proximity to the railroads attracted light manufacturing and shops, in 1853, the community was absorbed by the extension of the city limits to 31st Street, in the same period, the Illinois Central Railroad was built into Chicago. In 1859, a South State Street horse-drawn streetcar line, linking the area to downtown, attracted wealthy families to the area. By the time of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, it was home to some of the citys finest mansions and most elite social families, however, by the start of the 20th century, rapid transit evolved and many families moved slightly farther from the Loop business district. The railroads brought warehouses and light manufacturing, Michigan Avenue between 14th Street and 22nd Street became an auto row. The Levee vice district of brothels and gambling dens around Cermak Street, Burnham Park and several accompanying institutions were built in the 1910s and 1920s. World War I and post World War I Great Migration settlers moved in, urban renewal and public housing projects later replaced some of the slums. In the 1940s, some of the slums were on the Near South Side. The Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of the Worlds Fair held on the Near South Side lakefront from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the citys centennial, the theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicagos founding. More than 40 million people visited the fair, which symbolized for many hope for Chicago, in 1977, George Halas surrendered 51 acres of railyards for redevelopment as Dearborn Park apartments, townhouses and accompanying tree-lined walkways. In 1988, the phase of Dearborn Park construction began between State St. and Clark St. south of Roosevelt Rd. A housing boom emerged in the 1990s and continues to the present day with the construction of new condominium. Construction of the Central Station development commenced in 1990 and this was a mixed-use development on 72 acres of former rail yards and air rights east of Indiana Avenue between Roosevelt Road and 18th Street. Among the prominent buildings are One Museum Park and One Museum Park West along a redeveloped Prairie Avenue, landfill use created Burnham Park and Northerly Island in the 1920s and 1930s along Lake Michigan
2.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
3.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
4.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
5.
Henry Hobson Richardson
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Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him, Richardsonian Romanesque, along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one of the recognized trinity of American architecture. He was the great-grandson of inventor and philosopher Joseph Priestley, who is credited with the discovery of oxygen. Richardson went on to study at Harvard College and Tulane University, initially, he was interested in civil engineering, but shifted to architecture, which led him to go to Paris in 1860 to attend the famed École des Beaux Arts in the atelier of Louis-Jules André. He didnt finish his training there, as family backing failed due to the U. S. Civil War, Richardson returned to the U. S. in 1865. He settled in New York in October 1865 and he found work with a builder, Charles, whom he had met in Paris. The two worked together but Richardson was not being challenged. He had little to do and yearned for more, Richardson developed a unique and highly personal idiom, adapting in particular the Romanesque of southern France. His early works, however, were not very remarkable, there are few hints in the mediocre work of Richardsons early years of what was to come in his maturity, when, beginning with his competition-winning design. For the Brattle Square Church in Boston, he adopted the Romanesque, in 1869, he designed the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, the largest commission of his career and the first appearance of his eponymous Richardsonian Romanesque style. A massive Medina sandstone complex, it is a National Historic Landmark and, the 1872 Trinity Church in Boston solidified Richardsons national reputation and led to major commissions for the rest of his life. Although incorporating historical elements from a variety of sources, including early Syrian Christian, Byzantine, Trinity was also a collaboration with the construction and engineering firm of the Norcross Brothers, with whom the architect would work on some 30 projects. Of his buildings, the two he liked best, the Allegheny County Courthouse and the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, were completed posthumously by his assistants, Richardson died in 1886 at age 47 of Brights disease, a historical term for the kidney disorder chronic nephritis. On his last day, he signed an informal will directing the three still remaining to carry on the business, which was soon formalized as Shepley, Rutan. One example includes Richardsons design for the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Building, Richardson had won the selection process in 1885 and nearly finalized the work, but after his death, his aforementioned successors completed the project. He was buried in Walnut Hills Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts, despite an enormous income for an architect of his day, his reckless disregard for financial order meant that he died deeply in debt, leaving little to his widow and six children. Richardsons great grand-daughter is Mill Valley architect Heidi Richardson, Richardson spent much of his later years in his house in Brookline, Massachusetts, which had a studio attached to ease the strain on his health. The house fell into disrepair and was listed in 2007 as an historic site
6.
Romanesque architecture
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Romanesque Architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the late 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style, marked by pointed arches, examples of Romanesque architecture can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman Architecture. The Romanesque style in England is traditionally referred to as Norman architecture, each building has clearly defined forms, frequently of very regular, symmetrical plan, the overall appearance is one of simplicity when compared with the Gothic buildings that were to follow. The style can be identified right across Europe, despite regional characteristics, Many castles were built during this period, but they are greatly outnumbered by churches. The most significant are the great churches, many of which are still standing, more or less complete. The largest groups of Romanesque survivors are in areas that were less prosperous in subsequent periods, including parts of southern France, northern Spain and rural Italy. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word Romanesque means descended from Roman and was first used in English to designate what are now called Romance languages, Romance language is not degenerated Latin language. Latin language is degenerated Romance language, Romanesque architecture is not debased Roman architecture. Roman architecture is debased Romanesque architecture, the first use in a published work is in William Gunns An Inquiry into the Origin and Influence of Gothic Architecture. The term is now used for the more restricted period from the late 10th to 12th centuries, Many castles exist, the foundations of which date from the Romanesque period. Most have been altered, and many are in ruins. By far the greatest number of surviving Romanesque buildings are churches, the scope of Romanesque architecture Romanesque architecture was the first distinctive style to spread across Europe since the Roman Empire. In the more northern countries Roman building styles and techniques had never been adopted except for official buildings, although the round arch continued in use, the engineering skills required to vault large spaces and build large domes were lost. There was a loss of continuity, particularly apparent in the decline of the formal vocabulary of the Classical Orders. In Rome several great Constantinian basilicas continued in use as an inspiration to later builders, the largest building is the church, the plan of which is distinctly Germanic, having an apse at both ends, an arrangement not generally seen elsewhere. Another feature of the church is its regular proportion, the plan of the crossing tower providing a module for the rest of the plan. These features can both be seen at the Proto-Romanesque St. Michaels Church, Hildesheim, 1001–1030, the style, sometimes called First Romanesque or Lombard Romanesque, is characterised by thick walls, lack of sculpture and the presence of rhythmic ornamental arches known as a Lombard band
7.
Richardsonian Romanesque
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Richardson first used elements of the style in his Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870. This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, the style includes work by the generation of architects practicing in the 1880s before the influence of the Beaux-Arts styles. It is epitomised by the American Museum of Natural Historys original 77th Street building by J. Cleaveland Cady of Cady, Berg and See in New York City. It was seen in communities in this time period such as in St. Thomas, Ontarios city hall and Menomonie. Some of the practitioners who most faithfully followed Richardsons proportion, massing and detailing had worked in his office and these include, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow and Frank Alden, George Shepley and Charles Coolidge, Herbert Burdett. Bate designed the Grays Armory in this style in Cleveland, Ohio, the style also influenced the Chicago school of architecture and architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. In Finland, Eliel Saarinen was influenced by Richardson, research is underway to try to document the westward movement of the artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrant Italians and Irish, who built in the Richardsonian Romanesque tradition. The style began in the East, in and around Boston, as the style was losing favor in the East, it was gaining popularity further west. Stone carvers and masons trained in the Richardsonian manner appear to have taken the style west, as an example, four small bank buildings were built in Richardsonian Romanesque style in Osage County, Oklahoma, during 1904–1911. For pictures of H. H. Richardson’s own designs and some of the details, with the exception of the Richardson Olmsted Complex, none of the following structures were designed by Richardson. They illustrate the strength of his personality on progressive North American architecture from 1885 to 1905. They are divided into categories denoting the various different uses of the buildings, civic Buildings Educational Institutions and Libraries Service-related buildings Churches and chapels Residences Henry Hobson Richardson H
8.
Prairie Avenue
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The street has a rich history from its origins as a major trail for horseback riders and carriages. The upper six-block section includes part of the historic Prairie Avenue District, several of Chicagos most important historical figures have lived on the street. This is especially true of the period of recovery from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 when many of the most important families in the city moved to the street, residents of the street have influenced the evolution of the city and have played prominent national and international roles. They have influenced the history, the architecture, the culture. The street has over time been influenced by the demographics of Chicago, the importance of the street has declined, but it still has landmark buildings and is the backbone of a historic district. Preservation battles regarding various properties on the street have been notable with one having been chronicled on the front page of The New York Times, in the early 21st century, the street was redeveloped to host valuable and important condominiums. Recently, developments have extended the north to accommodate new high-rise condominiums, such as One Museum Park. The redevelopment has extended the street so that it has prominent buildings bordering Grant Park with Prairie Avenue addresses, Prairie Avenue once served as an Indian trail linking Fort Dearborn to Fort Wayne in Indiana and thus derived its name from the vast midwestern prairie land between the two endpoints. In 1812, the Battle of Fort Dearborn occurred in the area that is now the section of the street. Casualties of the battle, such as William Wells and George Ronan, were struck down here, over time, the district has evolved from an upscale neighborhood to a factory district and back to an upscale neighborhood. Zoning in 1853 anticipated residential development, although only one grand villa existed at the time, by 1877 the eleven-block area of Prairie Avenue as well as Calumet Avenue housed elite residences. By 1886 the finest mansions in the city, each equipped with its own carriage house, in the 1880s and 1890s, mansions for George Pullman, Marshall Field, John J. Glessner and Philip Armour anchored a neighborhood of over fifty mansions known as Millionaires Row. Many of the architects of the day, such as Richard Morris Hunt, Henry Hobson Richardson. At the time of the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition, guidebooks described the street as the most expensive street west of Fifth Avenue. However, after Bertha Palmer, society wife of Potter Palmer, built the Palmer Mansion that anchored the Gold Coast along Lake Shore Drive, by 1911, warehouses and factories cramped the Prairie Avenue District. Large industry overtook the district by 1950, early 21st century deindustrialisation, urban congestion, and historic preservation have brought the return of trendy buildings, and restored as well as renovated structures. Simultaneously new infill housing is resuscitating the district, now, the historic northern section of the street is part of the Chicago Landmark Prairie Avenue District that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was declared a Chicago Landmark on December 27,1979, the historic district includes the 1800 and 1900-blocks of South Prairie, the 1800 block of South Indiana and 211 through 217 East Cullerton
9.
Springfield, Ohio
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Springfield is a city in the U. S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, Springfield is home to Wittenberg University, a liberal arts college. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,608. The Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 138,333 residents, and the Dayton-Springfield-Greenville, OH Combined Statistical Area had 1,072,891 residents. In 1983, Newsweek featured Springfield in its 50th anniversary issue, entitled and it chronicled the impact of the past 50 years on five local families. In 2004, Springfield was chosen as an All-America City, in 2010, Springfield ranked third worst in a national wellbeing survey conducted by The Gallup Organization. In 2011, Springfield was named the unhappiest city in America by another Gallup survey. In 2015, Springfield was founded by James Demint, a former teamster from Kentucky, in 1801. Dayton and Eaton wanted the road to veer south after Springfield, during the mid-and-late 19th century, Springfield was dominated by industrialists including Oliver S. Kelly, Asa S. Bushnell, James Leffel, P. P. Asa S. Bushnell built the Springfield, Ohio Bushnell Building where the patent attorney to the Wright Brothers, Harry Aubrey Toulmin, to promote the products of his agricultural equipment company, P. P. Mast started the Farm and Fireside magazine, mast’s publishing company – Mast, Crowell, and Kirkpatrick – grew to become Crowell-Collier Publishing Company best known for Colliers Weekly. In 1894, The Kelly Springfield Tire Company was founded, at the turn of the 20th century Springfield became known as the Home City. Several lodges including the Masonic Lodge, Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows built homes for orphans, Springfield also became known as The Champion City. A reference to the Champion Farm Equipment brand manufactured by the Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company, International remains in Springfield as Navistar International, a producer of medium to large trucks. In 1902 A. B. Graham, then the superintendent of schools for Springfield Township in Clark County, established a Boys and Girls Agricultural Club. Approximately 85 children from 10 to 15 years of age attended the first meeting on January 15,1902 in Springfield, Ohio and this was the start of what would be called the 4-H Club within a few years, quickly growing to a nationwide organization. The first projects included food preservation, gardening and elementary agriculture, today, the Courthouse still bears a large 4H symbol under the flag pole at the front of the building to commemorate its part in founding the organization. The Clark County Fair is the second largest fair in the state in part to 4H still remaining very popular in the area. On March 7,1904, over a thousand residents formed a mob, stormed the jail and removed prisoner Richard Dixon
10.
J. P. Morgan
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John Pierpont J. P. Morgan was an American financier and banker who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation in late 19th and early 20th Century United States. In 1892, Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and he was instrumental in the creation of the United States Steel Corporation, International Harvester and AT&T. He directed the banking coalition that stopped the Panic of 1907 and he was the leading financier of the Progressive Era, and his dedication to efficiency and modernization helped transform American business. Morgan has been described as America’s greatest banker, Morgan died in Rome, Italy, in his sleep in 1913 at the age of 75, leaving his fortune and business to his son, John Pierpont Morgan, Jr. His fortune was estimated at only US$80 million, prompting John D. Rockefeller to say, Morgan was born into the influential Morgan family in Hartford, Connecticut, and was raised there. He was the son of Junius Spencer Morgan and Juliet Pierpont, Pierpont, as he preferred to be known, had a varied education due in part to the plans of his father. In the fall of 1848, Pierpont transferred to the Hartford Public School and then to the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, Connecticut, boarding with the principal. In September 1851, Morgan passed the exam for The English High School of Boston. In the spring of 1852, an illness struck which was to more common as his life progressed. Rheumatic fever left him in so much pain that he could not walk and he convalesced there for almost a year, then returned to the English High School in Boston to resume his studies. After he graduated, his father sent him to Bellerive, a school near the Swiss village of Vevey and his father then sent him to the University of Göttingen in order to improve his German. He attained a level of German within six months and also a degree in art history, then traveled back to London via Wiesbaden. Morgan went into banking in 1857 at the London branch of merchant banking firm Peabody, in 1858, he moved to New York City to join the banking house of Duncan, Sherman & Company, the American representatives of George Peabody and Company. Morgan had avoided serving during the war by paying a substitute $300 to take his place, from 1860 to 1864, as J. Pierpont Morgan & Company, he acted as agent in New York for his fathers firm, renamed J. S. Morgan & Co. upon Peabodys retirement in 1864, from 1864–72, he was a member of the firm of Dabney, Morgan, and Company. In 1871, he partnered with the Drexels of Philadelphia to form the New York firm of Drexel, at that time, Anthony J. Drexel became Pierponts mentor at the request of Junius Morgan. After the death of Anthony Drexel, the firm was rechristened J. P. Morgan & Company in 1895, retaining close ties with Drexel & Company of Philadelphia, Morgan, Harjes & Company of Paris, and J. S. By 1900, it was one of the most powerful banking houses of the world, Morgan had many partners over the years, such as George W. Perkins, but always remained firmly in charge
11.
James Deering
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James Deering was an industrial executive in the family Deering Harvester Company and subsequent International Harvester, a socialite, and an antiquities collector. He is known for his landmark Vizcaya estate, where he was an early 20th-century resident on Biscayne Bay in the present day Coconut Grove district of Miami, Florida. Begun in 1910, with architecture and gardens in a Mediterranean Revival style, Vizcaya was his passionate endeavor with artist Paul Chalfin, James Deering was born in 1859 in the western Maine town of South Paris. He was the son of William Deering and his second wife and his older half-brother was the arts patron Charles Deering. His father, who had inherited the family mill and was landowner in the Northeast, invested in a farm-equipment manufacturing company. In 1873, he moved the family to Chicago, Illinois and his parents did acquire a residence in St. Augustine, Florida, for the winter season. James Deerings older brother Charles joined the business in the 1880s, after attending the United States Naval Academy. James Deering attended one year each at Northwestern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before also joining the company at the same time, James joined the Deering Harvester Company in 1880 as treasurer. In 1902, with the Bank of J. P. James Deering became vice-president of the new corporation, in 1909, he was phased out of daily company affairs by J. P. Morgan interests. By the turn of the century, James Deering owned homes on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, in the countryside near Evanston, Illinois, in New York City and his name appeared in social columns as an arts connoisseur, socialite, international traveler, and cultural ambassador. He hosted events for French dignitaries at his New York and Chicago residences, in 1906, for Deerings work in promoting agricultural technology development in France, he was awarded the Légion dhonneur. James Deering and Paul Chalfin then partnered to travel and create Vizcaya there, James Deering built Villa Vizcaya between 1914 and 1922 with visionary mastermind of the project, designer Paul Chalfin, his collaborator companion. The architect was F. Burrall Hoffman Jr, the estates landscape master plan and formal gardens were designed by Colombian landscape designer Diego Suarez. Paul Chalfin had attended Harvard, trained as a painter at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and she introduced Chalfin to Deering for the interiors of his Chicago home in 1910. The culmination of their effort and lasting memorial to their creative relationship is Villa Vizcaya. The numerous sculptures in the gardens and villa are of ancient Greek, Greco-Roman, the gardens are notable for introducing classical Italian and French design aesthetics into a subtropical habitats plant palette and context — a new approach. This resulted in ongoing garden experiments with many tropical plants new to American horticulture, while Vizcayas landscape design style evokes other periods and places, the use of native stone, plants, and light modulation reflected Deerings desire to showcase the indigenous natural beauty. By 1922, the 180-acre estate included large lagoons and new islands down-coast south of the villa, on the estates western acreage, across present day South Miami Avenue, were the produce gardens and grazing fields
12.
International Harvester
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The International Harvester Company was a United States manufacturer of agricultural machinery, construction equipment, trucks, and household and commercial products. In 1902, J. P. Morgan merged the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and Deering Harvester Company, in 1985, International Harvester sold off most of its agricultural division to Tenneco, Inc. which merged it into its subsidiary J. I. Case under the Case IH brand, following the terms of IHs agreement with Tenneco, International Harvester renamed itself Navistar International Corporation in 1986. Together with his brother Leander J. McCormick, McCormick moved to Chicago in 1847, the McCormick reaper sold well, partially as a result of savvy and innovative business practices. Their products came onto the market just as the development of railroads offered wide distribution to distant market areas and he developed marketing and sales techniques, developing a vast network of trained salesmen able to demonstrate operation of the machines in the field. In 1902, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and Deering Harvester Company, banker J. P. Morgan provided the financing. In 1919, the Parlin and Orendorff factory in Canton, Illinois, was a leader in the manufacturing industry. International Harvester purchased the factory, calling it the Canton Works, in 1926, IHs Farmall Works began production in a new plant in Rock Island, Illinois, built solely to produce the new Farmall tractor. By 1930, the 100, 000th Farmall was produced, IH next set their sights on introducing a true general-purpose tractor designed to satisfy the needs of the average US family farmer. IH ranked 33rd among United States corporations in the value of World War II production contracts, in 1946 IH acquired a defense plant in Louisville, Kentucky, which was enlarged, expanded, and re-equipped for production of the Farmall A, B, and the new 340 tractors. Then in 1948, IH acquired the Metropolitan Body Company of Bridgeport and this was the manufacturing facility for the bodies of the commercially successful Metro line of forward control vans and trucks from 1938 until roughly 1964. In 1974, the five-millionth IHC tractor was produced at the Rock Island Farmall plant, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, despite good sales, IHs profit margins remained slim. An overly conservative management, combined with a policy of in-house promotions, tended to stifle new management strategies. Products with increasingly ancient technology continued in production despite their marginal addition to sales, in 1979, IH named a new CEO, who was determined to improve profit margins and drastically cut ballooning costs. Unprofitable model lines were terminated, and factory production curtailed, by the end of the year, IH profits were at their highest in 10 years, but cash reserves were still too low. Union members became increasingly irate over production cutbacks and other cost-cutting measures, in the spring and summer of 1979, IH began short-term planning for a strike that seemed inevitable. Then on November 1, IH announced figures showing that president, McCardell sought overtime, work rule, and other changes from the United Auto Workers, which led to a strike on November 2,1979. Soon after, the economy turned unfavorable, and IH faced a financial crisis, the strike lasted about six months
Media related to John J. Glessner House at Wikimedia Commons
