Artist John Singer Sargent in Chicago's Gilded Age.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the most sought-after portraitist of his generation on both sides of the Atlantic, creating powerful, vibrant likenesses of his models. Best known for his portraits, Sargent nevertheless excelled in a variety of genres, including landscapes, watercolors, and murals.

Born in Florence to American parents, he lived his life abroad, traveling the world in search of his subjects and working professionally for more than 50 years. A truly cosmopolitan artist, Sargent’s Chicago story has yet to be told. The first major exhibition of the painter’s work at the museum in over 30 years, John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age presents the full range of Sargent’s talents, tracing his Chicago connections while also illuminating the city’s vibrant art scene at the turn of the 20th century.

Sargent first showed at the Art Institute—at the time located at Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street—in 1890, the year Chicago officially became the nation’s “second city” in terms of population. Among his paintings on view was La Carmencita, a striking portrait of a Spanish dancer that is at once old and new—a tribute to Old Master painting that is also an Impressionist exploration of color and brushwork. The composition drew crowds of visitors to the museum, helping to put Chicago on the map as a recognized center for contemporary art and culture.

Madame X, John Singer Sargent

Summer Women, John Singer Sargent

Miss Elsie Palmer, John Singer Sargent (1890)

This dramatic early showing was followed by many more Chicago exhibitions. Between 1888 and 1925, Sargent’s paintings were included in more than 20 public displays in the city, among them the Inter-State Industrial Exposition, the World’s Columbian Exposition, exhibitions at the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Art Institute’s American Annuals.

Bridge of Sighs, Venice, Italy, John Singer Sargent watercolor

In a Levantine Port, John Singer Sargent watercolor (1905-6)

The artist’s presence in Chicago owed much to local businessman Charles Deering, who built an important collection of his work over a lifetime of friendship. Other Art Institute supporters such as Martin A. Ryerson, Annie Swan Coburn, and Robert Allerton helped establish a Sargent legacy for the city.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Illinois' entrepreneur and philanthropist, Annie Malone, is recorded as one of America’s first black female millionaires.

Businesswoman, educator, inventor and philanthropist Annie Turnbo Malone was born to Robert Turnbo and Isabella Cook in Metropolis, Illinois, on August 9, 1869. Her parents were former slaves, and her father joined the Union Army during the Civil War.

Malone attended school in Peoria, Illinois, but she never finished high school. Instead, she practiced hairdressing with her sister. When she and her family moved to Lovejoy, Illinois, Annie decided she wanted to become a "beauty doctor."

At age 20, she had already developed her own shampoo and scalp treatment to grow and straighten hair. Taking her creation to the streets, she went around in a buggy, making speeches to demonstrate and promote the new shampoo.

By 1902, Annie Malone's home shampoo venture thrived, and she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, home to the nation's fourth-largest African American population, to expand her business. She was largely successful and trademarked her beauty products under the name "Poro."

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Annie Malone called it Poro, a West African (Mende) male secret or devotional society ─ an organization located throughout Liberia and Sierra Leone dedicated to disciplining and enhancing the body spiritually and physically. There were some elements of the term that seem to indicate beauty. Even though it was not in vogue during that era, Annie wanted to connect her "Poro Agents" to their African roots, and this was her way of doing that. She and her assistants sold her unique brand of hair care products door to door.

She had launched her hair care business four years before Sarah Breedlove (later known as Madam C. J. Walker). In the early 1900s, Madam Walker worked as a "Poro Agent" for Annie for about one year. 

Turnbo married in 1903, but soon after her marriage, her husband sought to control her business venture, and she divorced him. 

She married again on April 28, 1914, to school principal Aaron Eugene Malone. The marriage lasted 13 years but ended in divorce, but they kept the name Malone. 

In her lifetime, Malone became one of the nation's wealthiest black women. She became a leading cosmetic entrepreneur and a leader in the St. Louis black community. In 1918, Poro's success allowed Malone to build a four-story, million-dollar factory and beauty school complex in the historic black neighborhood of "The Ville" in St. Louis. It employed over 175 people and enabled young black women to pursue their high school and college educations by providing them with jobs and lodging.

She donated the first $10,000 to build the St. Louis Colored Orphan's Home new building in 1919 and served as board President from 1919 to 1943.

During the 1920s, Malone's philanthropy included financing the education of two full-time students in every historically black college and university in the country. Her $25,000 donation to Howard University was among the largest gifts the university had received from a private donor of African descent. She also contributed to the Tuskegee Institute. She donated thousands of dollars to educational programs, universities, the YMCA, and nearly every black orphanage.

In 1930, Malone relocated her business to Chicago; the St. Louis Poro College and Malone's fortune declined. At the time of her death in Chicago on May 10, 1957, Poro Beauty Colleges still operated in over 30 cities nationwide. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The day Chicagoans stopped smiling during the 1921 Christmas Season.

A brief background about the competition between the Chicago Herald-Examiner and the Chicago Tribune newspapers:
The Chicago Herald-Examiner was William Randolph Hearst's Chicago newspaper. Its reporters were among the most aggressive and creative in the city. The paper was founded as the "Chicago Morning American" in 1902 and was renamed the "Chicago Examiner" in 1907. After a merger caused in part by circulation wars with the Tribune Company, the paper was combined with the Chicago Record-Herald and became the "Chicago Herald-Examiner." The paper was never highly profitable, but it vied with the Tribune as a leader in the city’s morning circulation. The rivalry with the Tribune became increasingly unsuccessful in the 1930s. After additional mergers, the paper was sold to the Tribune Company in 1956.

After WWI, the Chicago Herald-Examiner was Chicago's only other major daily morning newspaper, second only to McCormick-Patterson's Chicago Tribune. The Tribune Company faced formidable competition from Hearst. In the early 1920s, the Tribune Company owned only three U.S. newspapers. Hearst, on the other hand, spanned the country with an empire consisting of twenty daily papers, eleven Sunday papers, and a Sunday supplement. 

The circulation wars between the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Herald-Examiner grew heated and sometimes even violent as gangs hired by each of the circulation departments ambushed their rival's trucks and pressured newsagents into displaying only their own company's newspaper.

There were personal and political dimensions to this rivalry as well. The Chicago Herald-Examiner supported the democrats, the Chicago Tribune had a long history of supporting the Republican Party. Moreover, Hearst, who aspired unsuccessfully to be the mayor of New York City, governor of New York, and the president of the United States had contributed through attacks in his paper, to the demise of Robert McCormick's own political career.

Increasingly outlandish publicity stunts bounced circulation up and down and back and forth between the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Herald-Examiner. One of the most expensive promotions occurred during the 1921 Christmas season.

So, with the background covered, here is the story:
On December 4, 1921, the United States government ordered Chicago area citizens to stop smiling. It said so on the front page of the morning paper.

The saga began in late October of 1921 when the Chicago Herald-Examiner published an article about eccentric millionaire Harry Phillips. He was passing out money to complete strangers, just to see them smile.

The Chicago Herald-Examiner was the Hearst-owned morning daily. The paper was trying to overtake the Chicago Tribune, and the Phillips story was just the sort of stunt that Hearst often used.

Then the Chicago Herald-Examiner reported that Phillips had left town. But never fear—Hearst’s paper would carry on the philanthropy. Each weekday copy of the Chicago Herald-Examiner would now contain a Smile Coupon with a different serial number. On Sunday there would be a raffle, with a $1,000 grand prize. That would keep Chicago smiling!

The drawing took place on November 13th. The $1,000 winner was a Sears clerk—and sure enough, she smiled. So the Chicago Herald-Examiner announced it was putting $25,000 ($355,750 today) into a pot, to be paid out in $1,000 daily raffles.

At first, the Chicago Tribune took no notice of its rival’s stunt. But during the first weeks of the Smile campaign, the Hearst paper’s circulation jumped 25% to 500,000, about the same as the Chicago Tribune. And on Thanksgiving Day, the Chicago Herald-Examiner increased its pot to $100,000, with $3,000 in daily prizes.

So now the Chicago Tribune launched its own giveaway. With Christmas approaching, the paper would start printing Cheer Checks. And the Chicago Tribune‘s program would be bigger and better. The World’s Greatest Newspaper would be distributing $200,000 ($711,500 today) — $5,000 ($71,150 today) each day.

Now the whole city was caught up in the frenzy. News dealers reported people buying armloads of papers, ripping out the coupons, and tossing the rest into the street. Fights broke out among customers trying to purchase papers. The daily prizes went to $6,000, then $7,000. The special Sunday drawing reached $20,000 ($284,600 today).

By December 4th, the circulation of each paper was over 1,000,000. On that day, both the Chicago Herald-Examiner and the Chicago Tribune received telegrams from the U.S. Postmaster General accusing them of holding lotteries and shut the whole thing down.

From then on, people would have to find their own reasons to smile.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.