Chicago a phoenix city risen from the ashes of its great fire;
downtown business buildings two, three and four stories high, more
of former than latter, few a little higher, elevators a rare luxury;
across the river many one-story stores and shops with signs in large
lettering, pioneer style, on their false fronts; streets paved with
granite blocks echo to the rumble of iron-tired wheels and the clank
of iron-shod hoofs; a continuous singing of steel car-cables on State
Street and Wabash Avenue; horse-drawn cross-town cars thickly carpeted
with straw in winter; outlying residential streets paved with cedar
blocks; avenues boasting asphalt. Bonneted women with wasp waists, leg
o’ mutton sleeves, bustles, their lifted, otherwise dust-collecting,
skirts revealing high-buttoned shoes and gaily-striped stockings; men
in brown derbies, short jackets, high-buttoned waist-coats, tight
trousers without cuffs and, when pressed, without pleats; shirts
with Piccadilly collars and double-ended cuffs of detachable variety
(story told of how a famous author’s hero, scion of an old house,
when traveling by train, saw a beautiful young lady, undoubtedly of
aristocratic birth, possibly royal, and wanting to meet her, love at
first sight, object matrimony, first retires, with true blue-blood
gentility, to wash-room and reverses cuffs. Romance, incident
ruthlessly deleted by publisher, proves a best seller). Black walnut
furniture upholstered in hair-cloth, pride of many a Victorian parlor,
is gradually being replaced by golden oak and ash; painters’ studios,
especially portrait variety, are hung with oriental rugs and littered
with oriental screens and pottery. High bicycles, the Columbia with
its little wheel behind and the Star with the little wheel in front,
soon to disappear, are still popular. Low wheels, called “safeties,”
are beginning to appear, occasionally ridden by women wearing bloomers.
Pneumatic tires unknown.
Recognized now as a period of over-ornamentation and bad taste, the
Nineties were nevertheless years of leisurely contacts, kindly advice
and an appreciative pat on the back by an employer, and certainly a
friendly bohemianism seldom known in the rush and drive of today.
Eugene Field has just returned from a vacation in Europe and in his
column, _Sharps and Flats_, Chicago is reading the first printing of
_Wynken, Blynken and Nod_. Way & Williams, publishers, have an office
on the floor below my studio. Irving Way, who would barter his last
shirt for a first edition, his last pair of shoes for a volume from the
Kelmscott Press of William Morris, is a frequent and always stimulating
visitor.
“Will,” says Irving, “be over at McClurg’s some noon soon, in Millard’s
rare book department, the ‘Amen Corner.’ Field will be there, and
Francis Wilson, who is appearing at McVickar’s in _The Merry Monarch_,
and other collectors. Maybe there’ll be an opportunity for me to
introduce you--and Francis Wilson might ask you to do a poster.”
I go to the Press Club occasionally with Nixon Waterman, the columnist
who was later to write his oft-quoted, “A rose to the living is more,
If graciously given before The slumbering spirit has fled, A rose to
the living is more Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.” We sit at
table with Opie Read, the well-loved humorist; Ben King, who wrote the
delightful lament, “Nothing to eat but food, nowhere to go but out”;
Stanley Waterloo, who wrote _The Story of Ab_ and, with Luders, the
musical comedy, _Prince of Pilsen_, and other newspaper notables whose
names I have forgotten.
Two panoramas, _Gettysburg_ and _Shiloh_, are bringing welcome wages to
landscape and figure painters who will soon migrate to St. Joe across
the lake and return in the fall with canvases to be hung at the Art
Institute’s annual show.
Only one topic on every tongue--the coming World’s Fair.
Herbert Stone is at Harvard. He and his classmate, Ingalls Kimball,
quickened with enthusiasm and unable to await their graduation, have
formed the publishing company of Stone & Kimball. On paper bearing two
addresses, Harvard Square, Cambridge, and Caxton Building, Chicago,
Herbert commissions a cover, title-page, page decorations and a poster
for _When Hearts Are Trumps_, a book of verse by Tom Hall--my first
book assignment. This pleasing recognition from a publishing house
is followed by a meeting with Harriet Monroe and a Way & Williams
commission for a cover and decorations for the _Columbian Ode_.
Your studio is now in the Monadnock building. It is the year of the
World’s Fair. You have an exhibit that has entitled you to a pass. Jim
Corbett is in a show on the Midway. When he is not on the stage you
can see him parading on the sidewalks. Buffalo Bill is appearing in a
Wild West show. An edition of _Puck_ is being printed in one of the
exhibition buildings.
You design a cover for a Chicago and Alton Railroad folder. The drawing
goes to Rand McNally for engraving and printing. Mr. Martin asks
you to come and see him. His salary offer is flattering. But, aside
from Bridwell’s designs at Mathews Northrup’s in Buffalo, railroad
printing is in a long-established rut, void of imagination. You prefer
free-lancing. Later Mr. Martin buys the K & L plant. Herbert Rogers,
the former bookkeeper, establishes his own plant and you hope he will
continue the K & L tradition.
Mr. McQuilkin, editor of _The Inland Printer_, commissions a permanent
cover. When the design is finished I ask:
“Why not do a series of covers--a change of design with each issue?”
“Can’t afford them.”
“How about my making an inducement in the way of a tempting price?”
“I’ll take the suggestion to Shephard.”
Suggestion approved by Henry O. Shephard, printer and publisher, and
the series is started--an innovation, the first occasion when a monthly
magazine changes its cover design with each issue. One cover, nymph in
pool, is later reproduced in London _Studio_. Another, a Christmas
cover, has panel of lettering that four American and one German foundry
immediately begin to cut as a type. Later the American Type Founders
Company, paying for permission, names the face “Bradley.”
A poster craze is sweeping the country. Only _signed_ copies are
desired by collectors and to be shown in exhibitions. Designs by French
artists: Toulouse-Lautrec, Chéret, Grasset, etc., some German and a few
English, dominate displays. Edward Penfield’s _Harper’s Monthly_ and my
_Chap-Book_ designs are only American examples at first available.
Will Davis, manager of the Columbia Theater, has just completed the
Haymarket, out on West Madison at Halstead. You design and illustrate
the opening-night souvenir booklet. This you do for Mr. Kasten, of
McClure’s. Thus you meet Mr. Davis. He introduces you to Dan Frohman
who commissions you to design a twenty-eight sheet stand for his
brother, Charles, who is about to open the new Empire Theater in New
York. So you design a poster for _The Masqueraders_, by Henry Arthur
Jones. This is probably the first _signed_ theatrical poster produced
by any American lithographer. Then Dan suggests that you visit New
York. You do, and meet Charles. Dan takes you to the Players for lunch.
There you see show-bills set in Caslon. They influence all of your
future work in the field of typography.
We now move to Geneva, Illinois, and I have my studio in a cottage
overlooking the beautiful Fox River.
Holiday covers for _Harper’s Weekly_, _Harper’s Bazaar_, _Harper’s
Young People_, later named _Harper’s Roundtable_, page decorations for
_Vogue_, a series of full-page designs for Sunday editions of _Chicago
Tribune_, Herbert Stone’s _Chap-Book_ article and other favorable
publicity--plucking me long before I am ripe, cultivate a lively pair
of gypsy heels; and believing myself, perhaps excusably, equal to
managing a printing business, editing and publishing an art magazine,
designing covers and posters, I return to Boston, then settle in
Springfield, start the Wayside Press, and publish _Bradley: His Book_.
[Illustration]