First a quick review of earlier forms of transport and then, the boom in railroads. The relationship between railroads and the Union Stockyards of Chicago and subsequent growth of the meatpacking industry. The beginnings of Chicago commercial architecture.

1. ARCH 416
Spring ‘15
Class 11 Rail, Industry, and the
Rise of Chicago

2. agenda 3.1.15
transport
rivers
canals
railroads
Union Stockyards, Chicago
William Flagler and the Making of Florida

3. RIVERS
Edward K. THOMAS
View of Fort Snelling, Minnesota
c. 1850
oil on canvas
27 x 34 inches

4. Virginia Richly Valued...
London: Felix Kingston for Matthew Lownes
1609

5. Robert Johnson
Nova Britannia: Offering most excellent
fruites by planting in Virginia.
London: J. Windet for S. Macham, 1609.

6. William Penn
The Benefit of Plantations, or Colonies
London: J. Roberts, 1735.

7. “The country is well calculated and possesses the
necessaries for a profitable trade. First, it is a fine fruitful
country. Secondly, it has fine navigable rivers extending far
inland, by which the productions of the country can be
brought to places of traffic. The Indians, without our labor or
trouble, bring to us their fur trade, worth tons of gold, which
may be increased, and is like goods found. To which may be
added the grain and provision trade, which we proudly enjoy.
. . . “
Adriaen van der Donck, “A DIALOGUE between A PATRIOT and a NEW-
NETHERLANDER upon the Advantages which the Country Presents to
Settlers, &c” in Description of the New Netherlands, 1655

8. Map of US Rivers, 2013, based upon NHDPlus (National Hydrography Dataset), and
Strahler number (measure of river’s size).
http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/vector-tile-river-map.html
http://www.wired.com/2013/06/infographic-this-detailed-map-shows-every-river-in-the-
united-states/#slideid-152842

10. Rivers and settlements, as of 1639

12. George Caleb BINGHAM, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1846

13. George Caleb BINGHAM
Lighter Relieving the Steamboat Aground
1846-7

15. CANALS
Postcard, Medina, NY
Erie Canal

19. average transport speed on the Erie Canal was 3 mph

20. transport through the locks was extremely slow

21. Erie Canal flowing through downtown Syracuse, NY

23. RAILROADS
George INNESS
The Lackawanna Railroad (detail)
1855
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC

24. rail technology
steam technology
James Watt: steam engine
steam-powered ships
steam-powered locomotives
steam-powered machinery
rail + industry=density

27. The Lackawanna Railroad
Painting was commissioned in 1855 by George D. Phelps,
president of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western
Railroad, who intended to use it in company advertising.
Mr. Phelps wanted the painting to show all four of the
company's locomotives and to prominently display the
company's initials (DL&W).
Compromise: one locomotive. To compensate, he added
wisps of smoke in the distance to suggest other engines.
He refused to put the company's initials in the painting.
Never used as an advertisement.

28. Railroad Growth in USA
1830 23 miles of track
1840 2,800 miles of track
1850 9,000 miles of track
1860 30,000 miles of track

31. Railroads completed by 1860

32. Railroads completed by 1890

33. pattern of growth
existing cities are all on major bodies of water and are
connected with trunk lines
branch lines would connect mines, timberlands, ranching
centers back to the trunk line

34. mutual reinforcement
the more railroads, the faster and cheaper raw materials and
finished goods can be transported, spurring industrial growth
and urban growth
the more industry grows, the more railroads become a
profitable investment to link one place and another

35. Railroads were often funded by stock and bond issues.
Corruption, graft, and outright scam artistry were part
of the economic picture.

36. review of growing cities and
factors fueling growth

37. explosive urban growth
• industry concentrates people in cities for labor-intensive
manufacturing
• manufacturing of all kinds and at virtually any degree of
intensity is more labor intensive than long-distance
commerce (import/export)
• factory and mill bring workers into the city, while import-
export sent as many of its workers outward as it drew to the
docks.

38. factors relating industry and
density
• manufacturing brings workers into close proximity in
factories and in workers' housing inside or immediately
beyond the factory gates.

39. factor 2
trades and industries tend to group together because of
efficiencies gained by locating at or near sources of
capital, labor, managerial skill, information, the products of
ancillary firms, transportation breakpoints, municipal
services
("location economics")

40. factor 3—secondary
new industries need:
banking
advertising
insurance
shipping

41. factor 4—tertiary
new workers need:
• housing
• food
• clothing
• entertainment
• organized religious experience
implying further growth of:
• construction industry (carpenters, masons)
• food supply (butchers, bakers, grocers)
• tailors
• actors, musicians, prostitutes
• preachers, charlatans
• con men, criminals

42. not a coincidence
In 1840s and 1850s manufacturing sector of the economy
grew far more rapidly than agriculture, mining, or
construction, rising from about 1/6 of total commodity
output in 1840 to approximately 1/3 in 1860
These were also the decades of the most impressive
relative urban growth in American history. City and town
populations nearly doubled during the 1840s, and then
increased by about 75 percent (from a larger base) in the
1850s.

43. . Cities and industries of all sizes and types were
booming, fueled by foreign immigration, mainly from
Ireland and Germany.

44. Why Chicago, specifically?
The way railroads expanded westward favored Chicago
as a major railroad hub.
During Civil War (1861-5), blockade of the Mississippi
River blockade shut down the river trade.
During Civil War, Union Army ordered vast quantities of
preserved meat. This demand stimulated the growth of the
meat-packing industry.

45. Rations for Union Army
Marching Ration:
Meat: 12 ounces of pork or bacon, or
1 pound and 4 ounces of salt or fresh beef
Bread: 1 pound and 6 ounces of soft bread or flour,
or
1 pound of hard bread [hardtack] or
1 pound and 4 ounces of corn meal
AND per 100 rations
• 10 pounds of green coffee, or 8 pounds roasted
coffee
• 15 pounds of sugar
• 3 pounds and 12 ounces of salt

46. Union Stockyards
1864 a consortium of railroads (9 in all, calling themselves
the Union Stock Yard & Transit Co) decided to consolidate
city stockyards in cheap, swampy land outside of the city
boundary. Stockyards linked to trunk line by branch.
• Advantages of this location:
• Next to the south branch of the Chicago River
• connects with Lake Michigan to the east
• connects with Mississippi River to the West through the Illinois &
Michigan Canal.
• Near multiple railroad lines.
• Distant from downtown to prevent complaints.

47. location of the stockyards and Packingtown (where the workers lived)

48. John Wellborn ROOT, The Union Stock Yard Gate,
Exchange Ave at Peoria St., c. 1875

49. Gate is retained today as an historic location.

50. Union Stock Yard
Opened on Christmas Day 1865
475-acre market located at Exchange and Halsted Streets
by mid-1870s major packers located next to the stockyard
and remained until the late 1950s.
The market closed on August 1, 1971, after handling more
than one billion animals.
By the end of 20th century the stockyard site had become
a successful industrial park.

57. arrival of meatpackers
1867 Armour
1875 Swift
1880 refrigerated boxcar technology
Morris Company
Hammond Company
Swift Company

58. Growth of the stockyards by 1878

69. subsidiary industries
leather
soap
fertilizer
glue
pharmaceuticals
imitation ivory
gelatin
shoe polish
buttons, perfume, and violin strings

70. "They don't waste anything here," said the guide, and then
he laughed and added a witticism, which he was pleased
that his unsophisticated friends should take to be his own:
'They use everything about the hog except the squeal.'"
—Chapter 3, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)

71. Packingtown
(later called Back of the Yards)
Annexed by Chicago in 1889.
Settled by Irish and German workers, joined in the 1870s
and 1880s by Czechs.
By 1900 there were Polish, Lithuanians and Slovakian
communities as well, with most communities organized
around churches.
1889 developer Samuel Gross built a subdivision of cheap
workingmen's cottages.

72. Ethnic neighborhoods, Packingtown, 1909
Little interaction across language and culture.
Residents attended ethnicity-based churches, even saloons
were somewhat segregated

76. University of Chicago
settlement (1898)
Chartered in 1898 and run by Mary McDowell, a
sociologist at the university, the settlement offered a
playground for children, classes and manual training, and
lectures.
"In a community of such widely different social and
religious elements there is need for a strong centralizing
influence which shall be non-partisan and non-sectarian,
yet in the deepest sense religious, drawing men and
women together on the basis of a common humanity,
emphasizing the fatherliness of God and proving the
brotherliness of man by social service." (McDowell)

79. Stockyards as Symbol
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, 1906.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sinclair-
upton/works/jungle/ch03.htm
Christopher Hitchens, “A Capitalist Primer,” The Atlantic (July
2002).
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/07/a-
capitalist-primer/378489/

80. What does this mean for architecture?
Chicago will be modern.

81. October 1871 a huge fire destroyed
downtown Chicago.
Wooden structures were obviously
quite vulnerable to fire.
See William Cronon on timber.
An unique opportunity to build a new
type of commercial architecture using
the latest technology. High land
values also drove buildings upward.

82. Elisha Otis, Patent Drawing for Elevator Mechanism

83. "Chicago School" of architecture
• architects active in Chicago during the
late 19th/early 20th century
• among the first to use new technologies
of steel-frame construction in commercial
buildings
• developed a corresponding aesthetic
• Architects whose names are associated
with the Chicago School include:
• Holabird & Roche
• Burnham & Root
• Adler & Sullivan
• William LeBaron Jenney

84. Dankmar ADLER
(1844-1900)
Louis SULLIVAN
(1856-1924)
Adler hired Louis Sullivan as a
draftsman and designer in 1880;
Sullivan was made a partner in the firm
in 1883.
In turn, Sullivan was a significant mentor
to Wright, whom he hired as a young
draftsman at Adler & Sullivan.

85. Sullivan & Adler, Wainwright Building
St. Louis, Missouri
1890-1
clear division in functional parts
"Form ever follows function"

86. Innovative structural elements
raft roofing of reinforced concrete
braced, riveted steel frame
wall bays carried on spandrel
shaft angles
First 2 storeys make up the base
Then horizontal ledge which provides flat
surface base for pilasters
Unusually high cornice brings
perpendicular momentum to a stop

87. Sullivan & Adler
The Guaranty Building,
(Prudential Building)
Buffalo, New York
1894

88. The top level houses mechanical devices such as
elevator engines and water tanks. Its appearance
proclaims its difference in function from the rest of
the building.
A succession of workers offices fill
the upper stories and are modular and
repetitive in appearance.
Street level spaces for shops, banks,
and public commerce. These are large,
open spaces “liberal, expansive and
sumptuous” that will flow up into the
second storey.

89. 1. The basement was the mechanical and utility area. Since this
level was below ground, it did not show on the face of the building.
2. The next zone was the ground-floor zone which was the public
areas for street-facing shops, public entrances and lobbies.
3. The third zone was the office floors with identical office cells
clustered around the central elevator shafts.
4. The final zone was the terminating zone, consisting of elevator
equipment, utilities and a few offices.
The supporting steel structure of the building was embellished with
terra cotta blocks. Different styles of block delineated the three
visible zones of the building.

90. Terracotta
Flexible in color and patterning.
Brownstone was the earliest type. Dark red or brown block which
was not necessarily glazed, it was used as imitation sandstone,
brick or with real brownstone.
Fireproof terracotta was developed as a direct result of the growth
of the high rise building in America. Cheap, light and fireproof,
the rough-finished hollow blocks were ideally suited to span the
I-beam members in floor, wall and ceiling construction. Certain
varieties still in production today.

92. elaboration of ornament
ornament must be of the building, integral to
structure, rather than merely applied over it.
reflected functional aspects of the building,
distinguishing entranceways, busy public areas,
thoroughfares
plain surfaces of his buildings ornamented with lush
decoration
usually cast in iron or terra cotta
ranging from organic forms to geometric interlace

93. Louis Sullivan: "the damage wrought by the World’s
Fair will last for half a century from its date, if not
longer."

94. Burnham & Root
The Rookery

95. Chicago buildings
William LeBaron Jenney, Home Insurance Building (1885)
Burnham & Root, The Rookery
Burnham & Root, Monadnock Building

96. Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York
Chicago Stock Exchange Building (1894–1972)
Auditorium Building (1889) is an early example of splendid
acoustical engineering.

97. Auditorium building 1889

98. EXTERIOR-
Typical semi circular arches
-inspired from the roman arches.
Granite masonry for first 2 floors
Ashlar masonry for upper storeys.
Thicker foundations.
10 floors+tower(water tank)

99. ENTRANCE-
Entrance lobby
-seems to be borne
down by wt of bldg
• Staircase- narrow-deviation
from european standards
-grand ceremonial staircase.

101. AUDITORIUM-
4250 seats
broke away from traditional horse shoe plan
- no side seats.
But stage comparatively small and lacking in storage space
Stage-system to fly out the sides of the proscenium arch to make
stage area continuous with rest of the auditorium

102. Acoustic tunnel – conical
-diminishes reverberation by decreasing the volume of auditorium
-to control the flow while improving diffusion of the sound
Stairways and public area- did away with all walls so sound
could flow away till the rear part of the great theatre
Stage directly visible from foyer on first floor

103. 4000 light bulbs light up the auditorium
Ventilation and lighting system passes
through the arches
Function- focus light on stage
Form-arches and bulbs fixed along their
lines.
Rest of auditorium lighted in same way
only lighting and arrangements change.
Curve due to pressure of the first balcony-
not hidden from sight and used as a visible
member in design

104. Offices-smallest part of
building-least space taken.
Hotel -wide entrance large balconies
daylight, richly decorated staircase
dining room on 10th floor-roosevelt
university now uses as library.

105. Banquet hall later added by Adler and decorated by Sullivan placed
on 7th floor roof of auditorium- now used by university as concert
hall
1947-roosevelt university took over
1918-Sullivan left office in tower.
Hotel expanded as new building erected
across road connected by underground
tunnel but became successful
independently-identical façade was
designed.