This is the decade known as “The Golden Age of Newspaper Photography”.
Michael Williams, one the editors of the book, stated that they had wanted it to begin in the 1940s. “This period was an extraordinary one in photojournalism.”
Black-and-white photos show Chicago as it was in 1910: soldiers leaving to fight in World War II; the civilians who stood by them, and then the joy and celebration after the war ended. The city’s homeless were captured by photojournalists. Richard Cahan, an editor, called Maxwell Street “an incredible bazaar” and Japanese American girls displayed their heritage following the war.
These indelible archival images – and millions of others – were almost lost. The Chicago History Museum was able to save the entire collection of photos.
Chicago Exposed, Defining Moments from The Chicago Sun-Times Photo Archive: A New Book, is now available. This unique collection contains about 5 million images.These span from the 1940s through the 2000s.
Cahan and Williams had unlimited acces to the archives, and they chose approximately 100 images. They wrote: ‘Some of the pictures are familiar—the best of blockbuster photojournalism. Some have not been seen before.
This remarkable collection of images, which included five million photos from four Chicago newspapers and spanned all time periods 1940s to 2000s, was nearly lost. The Chicago History Museum saved the collection. A new book, Chicago Exposed: Defining Moments From the Chicago Sun-Times Photo Archive, features images that illustrate the Windy City throughout the decades. Richard Cahan (the book’s editor) and Michael Williams (the book’s photographer), had unlimited access the entire collection. They found treasures, such as this unpublished photograph by Ralph Fros from 1946. The caption reads: “duffle bags packed with uniform ready, soldier spends his last moments together with a little boy.”
Williams stated that he was looking for Bill Strum’s work while going through the archives. He took the image above, World War II Tableaux: Soldier at Union Station. Daniel Burnham was the architect behind this iconic structure. Strum ‘lit the scene so beautifully,’ Williams told DailyMail.com about the above picture
“We made the decision to become good soldiers. “We had to leave with an honourable discharge, take any assignments that we were given seriously, and be good soldiers,” Timuel Black’s memoir, Sacred Ground. Chicago Exposed includes a portion of the excerpt that goes with the image above. According to the University of Chicago website, Black was a distinguished soldier who earned the French Croix de Guerre and four battle stars. He also fought in the D-Day invasion of Normandy as well as the Battle of the Bulge. Black was also an activist for civil rights and a Chicago historian. He died in October at the age 102. Above: Archie Halsten (four years old) joins Illinois Reserve Militia members as they marche down Michigan Avenue, August 11, 1945, in memory of African-American vets who returned home.
Above, Republican Wendell Willkie reaching for a handkerchief after he was hit with an egg during a presidential campaign stop in Chicago. The 53-year old Charles Mulrain was the culprit. He initially denied that he had ever thrown eggs but then admitted that he did. The New York Times reports that Mulrain said he regretted the attack and that the ten beers that he had consumed were to blame. Cahan stated that Borrie Kanter took the picture, which became famous in the 1940s. The Daily Times carried the image with the headline, “It Shouldn’t Happen Here.” Willkie lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt who was in office at the time, the 1940 election for the presidency.
In 1929, Chicago welcomed its first tabloid – the Daily Illustrated Times. Samuel Thomason, its founder was keen on photography and the logo of Chicago’s Daily Illustrated Times declared it “Chicago’s Picture Newspaper.” In 1935, the name of the newspaper was changed to Daily Times.
According to Chicago Encyclopedia’s website, after World War II began in 1939, and before Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 there was intense debate within Chicago newspapers over whether the United States should join the conflict.
According to the book, while the Chicago Tribune was founded in 1847 to advocate for the US not to enter the war, another newspaper, The Chicago Sun, was created to support the US involvement. Marshall Field III – of the Marshall Field department store family – founded the Sun.
Field purchased the Daily Times in 1947. The newspaper was then merged with Sun the following year. It became known as the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Exposed says it was sometimes called “The Picture Newspaper”.
Marshall Field III was killed in an automobile accident on November 26, 1956. Field Enterprises was the holding company that he founded and purchased Chicago Daily News in 1959. The Daily News ran as an afternoon newspaper from 1875 to 1978.
The collection encompasses the work of photojournalists from these four newspapers – the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Daily Times, Chicago Sun and Chicago Daily News, according to the book.
The first full-time African-American photographer, John Tweedle, was not hired until 1964, Cahan and Williams noted in Chicago Exposed.
Chicago was the title of Carl Sandburg’s famed poem “City of the Big Shoulders” The moniker was ‘in recognition of the many thousands who labored in stock yards, steel mills, and factories large and small,’ according to Toni Gilpin’s book, The Long Deep Grudge. Thousands of employees went on strike at McCormick Works in February 1941. The factory, which produced agricultural equipment ‘was the cradle of corporate behemoth International Harvester, controlled by Chicago’s elite McCormick family,’ she wrote. The family decided to end the strike by March and the police were summoned to the factory. On March 25, 1941, the union supporter in this above photo was photographed. They stopped her and other union supporters from walking to McCormick Works on that day.
Below, you can see homeless people gathered at the Church of the Epiphany located at 201 South Ashland in April 1948 Cahan. Williams pointed out that large-format cameras were used by photographers back then to take pictures. The image shown above was well lit. Cahan stated that the Epiphany Center for the Arts is the current location of the church.
The ‘Used toilets are stacked and ready to resell. Maxwell Street. “Ah, Maxwell Street. Sad to say, it was an open-air, chaotic, sprawling and capitalist market that attracted thousands of shoppers, gawkers and hawkers every Sunday,” wrote Tom Palazzolo. Palazzolo was also the author of a book that chronicles this famous street. DailyMail.com’s Cahan said that the street was a huge bazaar, with many items stolen and discarded. It is still in existence, but it has a smaller version. Williams stated that it was a spectacular spectacle. Above is a photograph by Russell V. Hamm taken on October 24, 1942. It includes the caption, “Chicago’s Maxwell Street remained consistent for decades in changing times.”
John Rogers purchased the Sun-Times photo archives for $1 million in 2009. Rogers Photo Archive was his firm and would digitize five million of the prints. The Sun-Times kept the image’s copyright. Rogers would be able to sell both the negatives and physical prints under this agreement according to the book.
Rogers brokered the deal with several newspapers in the United States, according to MinnPost (a non-profit journalism organization that covers Minnesota).
Rogers was the victim of several lawsuits in 2015. According to MinnPost, Rogers’ home was raided by FBI agents. He was then expelled and an appointed receiver was named.
According to the US Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois, Rogers pleaded guilty on March 2017 to wire fraud. According to the release, Rogers admitted that he had used forged documents as well as phony memorabilia including fake Heisman trophys and baseball cards to secure loans.
According to the book, a large portion of Rogers Photo Archive’s Sun-Times Collection ended up with a private dealer in Dixon (Illinois) after it went bankrupt.
This is how the Chicago History Museum came in. In 2018, the Chicago History Museum purchased the archive.
Williams and Cahan co-authored two books about the Sun-Times, Real Chicago Sports and Real Chicago Sports. Williams is both a writer and a photographer. He sold some images of closing movie theatres to Cahan, the paper’s photo editor. Cahan was an editor at Chicago Sun-Times between 1983 and 1999.
DailyMail.com: Cahan said that Chicago photojournalism was a special place to him.
Williams stated that the view is unvarnished.
Chicago Exposed editors claimed that each photograph was taken in the past. However, this book is for today. It examines issues that have challenged and haunted Chicago for decades—war, race, political power, crime and incarceration, urban decay, and urban progress. It looks at these photos with a fresh eye and attempts to better understand—in pictures and words—how we came to be Chicago.’
‘One of my absolute favorite images,’ Williams said about the above photograph from March 24, 1941. His explanation was that the names of photographers were once given to their images. This picture is called sunshine and cloud because the woman in it is smiling while she is crying. They were seeing off their boyfriends, both of whom were soldiers, at Chicago’s Dearborn Station. Above, Grace Huillier, left, and Eleanor Rockwood see off the 132nd Infantry Regiment. Cahan observed that some photographers would write names on backs of images. They figured out that Rockwood married Sergeant Bob Grens after he was discharged in 1945, according to the book
For 11 years, Tillie Majczek scrubbed floors at an office building to save money for a reward. She believed that her son, Joseph, was innocent of the crime he was convicted of: killing a Chicago police officer in 1932. According to Chicago Exposed, she placed an advertisement offering $5,000 for the murderers of the officer on October 10, 1944. Jack McPhaul (reporter) and James P. McGuire (reporter) investigated the matter and discovered that the main witness in prosecution was being pressured to lie. The governor eventually pardoned Joseph W. Majczek. Above, Majczek greets his son while McPhaul, left, and McGuire, in the hat, look on. Bill Paue captured the August 15, 1945 photograph. Jimmy Stewart would portray a character that was based on the two reporters in Call Northside, 777 (1948).
Shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 by the Japanese, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order which forced Japanese Americans to flee their homes and be sent into internment camps. Cahan claimed that Chicago was very valuable for anyone who wanted to stay on the West Coast. He estimated that around 20,000 people settled in Chicago and established a neighborhood. Above image taken in August 1947 after the war. ‘Ritual dance honoring war dead. The book states that Japanese-American resettlers founded a flourishing ethnic community.
This image, which Bill Bender took on August 14, 1945 with the caption Loop V-J Celebration, shows the joy at the end of World War II. (The Loop, Chicago’s Downtown. Williams pointed out the fact that most of the archives contained thick folders about war victory. He said that the image was likely taken at night, and that a flash was used. The large number of revelers meant that the streetcar in front of them could not precede. Cahan stated that everyone was delighted to stop time for a moment.