SOLD OUT! This tour will explore the world of Chicago’s Union Stock Yard, which opened on Christmas Day in 1865. Serving as the public face of Chicago for decades (think Carl Sandburg’s “Hog Butcher for the World”), it created and defined the working-class neighborhoods around it, and controlled the livelihoods of thousands of families.

The event begins with a private tour of the Packingtown Museum led by curator Dominic A. Pacyga. The museum officially opened in October 2021, and is located at 1400 West 46th Street in The Plant, built in 1925 for Buehler Brothers. The tour will explore themes ranging from labor and immigration to food production and community development.

We will then board a chartered bus for a two-hour tour led by Pacyga through five stockyard neighborhoods - Back of the Yards, Canaryville, Bridgeport, McKinley Park, and Bronzeville. The tour will explore the working-class housing, as well as the churches, schools, and parks that defined the communities. Stops will include the landmark Union Stock Yard gate and St. Gabriel’s Church, both designed by Burnham & Root.

After the Arts and Crafts movement coalesced in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, it quickly made its way to the United States. Architects and artisans embraced its values, advocating for handicraft in building design while promoting a respect for nature, simplicity, native materials, and regional culture. This program, based on the newly published book by Maureen Meister of the same name, presents buildings that reflect Arts and Crafts ideals in distinctive ways and connects them to the movement’s major themes.

Meister’s presentation will explore buildings from Boston to San Diego, highlighting iconic examples by Ralph Adams Cram, Irving J. Gill, Greene and Greene, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The program also brings to the fore many lesser-known figures, including women architects such as Marion Mahony and Cora Cadwallader Tuttle and Black architects such as William A. Hazel and Paul R. Williams.

When Chicago burned down in 1871, it was rebuilt as a city of brick, mostly using bricks made from the clay right underneath the young city's feet. But as much as we may think of a brick as a simple rectangle that holds our buildings up, it is actually so much more--it is an object of design, each brick a brushstroke in the canvas of a building. Journey across Chicago and architecture history and learn how fashion in brick changes just as much as fashion in clothing, from monolithic temples covered in solid red bricks to English cottages bedecked with bark-textured multicolored bricks, to sleek towers clad in rich, iron-flecked bricks and more. Illustrated by more than 100 gorgeous photographs, this history will leave you looking at the humble brick with wonder.

Join us in the beautiful home of The Fortnightly of Chicago for our annual gala, Celebrating Frances Glessner.

Frances Macbeth Glessner (1848-1932) was an extraordinarily gifted woman. Her talents ranged from embroidery to silversmithing, and jewelry making to beekeeping. An accomplished pianist, she and her husband John were among the most devoted supporters of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during the first four decades of its existence, regularly welcoming the leading musicians of the world into their home.

The event, styled as a summer garden party, will include small bites and beverages, and the opportunity to tour the former home of Bryan and Helen Lathrop, an 1892 Georgian Revival masterpiece by McKim, Mead & White, which has served as the home of The Fortnightly since 1923. Frances Glessner was an active member of The Fortnightly for more than 50 years and presented the organization with a beautiful silver sweetmeat dish she handcrafted in 1905, which will be on display.

A brief program will include a welcome from the current president of The Fortnightly, remarks on Frances Glessner and her impact on Chicago, and the presentation of the annual John and Frances Glessner Award to Linda Miller, immediate past president of Friends of Historic Second Church.

The Arts & Crafts Movement, a fascinating period in American decorative history, led to the unprecedented commercialization of fine crafts and the empowerment of thousands of women and immigrants, who began to pursue new careers in design and handicraft. In 1893, the World’s Fair in Chicago heralded the egalitarian art movement in America that led to the establishment of a plethora of metalwork and jewelry companies and studios by the turn of the century. At the same time, a small number of lady amateurs, such as Frances Glessner, turned their attention to metalwork, producing objects of comparable quality.