Edward Herbert Bennett (1874-1954) was born in southwestern England the son of a clipper ship’s master and was educated in Bristol schools before coming to the U.S. in 1890, to California where after trying ranching he found employment in architectural offices. There he came to the attention of notable architect Bernard Maybeck (1862-1957), who arranged for him to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, funded by Phoebe Hearst (1842-1919; Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan for the University of California), ca. 1898-1902. Another protégé of Maybeck’s and Hearst’s, and friend of Bennett’s was Arthur Brown, Jr. (1874-1957), who also graduated from the Ecole, in 1901 and returned to California to practice. A notable work of Brown’s is Stanford’s iconic Hoover Tower (1941). Brown also worked with Bennett on the Federal Triangle, Washington, DC. Bennett, like Brown, received his Ecole diplome, a relatively unusual achievement for students from the U.S.
Bennett took two major Mediterranean trips focused on architecture, one ca. 1900-01 and another in 1910. For the first there is a small group of photos recording this trip with at least one Ecole friend. For the second, to Egypt with his sister Helen, there is both a larger photo album collection and a travel diary.
After a brief stint in the offices of architect George B. Post (1837-1913) in New York, Ecole friend and Chicago Burnham design partner W. Peirce Anderson (1870-1924) recommended him to Daniel Burnham to assist on a West Point competition plan. Though not successful in winning the contract there, Burnham took him on to work on a plan of San Francisco, 1905. By 1905-06, though, Burnham was urging Bennett to leave his adopted home state of California and promotion of that Plan to return to Chicago to take up work by 1906-07 on a plan for Chicago, published in 1909, the Plan of Chicago. On the Plan Bennett worked closely with French artists and Ecole comrades Jules Guerin and Fernand Janin (1880-1912), the latter the artist of a portrait of Bennett as a student; another American Ecole (Paris) five-year alum Carl F. Gould (1873-1939); Plan editor Charles Moore (also later Burnham’s biographer, 1921), and Plan chair Charles Dyer Norton, also a Lake Forest College neighbor (550 E. Deerpath) and College trustee (1903-11) responsible for the 1906 campus plan.
Bennett started his own national practice, after 1910. Early work included a Portland (Oregon) plan and a lakefront plan for Lake Forest (Illinois), 1911. Bennett served as consulting architect for the Chicago Plan Commission, 1913-30. He designed the 1920 Michigan Avenue bridge (conceived as two levels during the 1907-09 process), Grant Park and the 1920s Buckingham Fountain, thus fulfilling some of the 1909 Plan’s projected key features. From 1927 to 1937 he led work on the Washington, DC, Plan, and in particular the Federal Triangle. From the late 1920s through the early 1930s he played a leading role in the 1933-34 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago, responsible for the design of several buildings in the new French version of International style, Art Deco, and reflecting the influence of Le Courbusier in this country then.
Bennett led partnerships after practicing on his own: Bennett and Parsons, 1919-22; Bennett Frost and Thomas, 1922-24; and Bennett Parsons and Frost, 1924-38. Through the 1920s the City of Lake Forest outsourced its planning work to local resident Bennett’s firm, with its first zoning ordinance, 1923, and creation of a Plan Commission in 1929; Bennett served as the inaugural Lake Forest Plan Commission’s first chair with a five-year term (records, AIC Burnham Library). He closed his practice in 1944.
Bennett had arrived in Lake Forest in 1906, attending events, etc. at Onwentsia, joined the club and was a summer resident in 1907, and married Catherine Jones in 1912, daughter of capitalist and Lake Forest University/College board of trustees president David B. Jones, 1903-04 (trustee 1896-1915; secretary 1896-98). The couple built their home Bagatelle on the southwest corner of Deerpath and Green Bay Road, 1915-16, to Bennett’s designs, including garden planting plans. This was a corner of David B. Jones’ estate and near his home, Pembroke Lodge (1895, Henry Ives Cobb). In the same period Bennett designed the landscape and gardens of Jones’ villa Pepper Hill (1916, David Adler) at Montecito, Santa Barbara, CA. In 1930 he also built for himself in his garden a new brick studio, in the International Style he employed in his Century of Progress work.
Catherine Jones Bennett died in the 1925 and he remarried, Olive Holden Mead. The Bennett family beginning in the 1930s enjoyed a farm in present-day Mettawa, west of Lake Forest and Ghost Ranch, in the southwest, where Edward H. Bennett designed an adobe home. In his last decade he built a retirement home in Tryon, North Carolina (Paul Schwieckher [1903-1997], ca. 1948-49; landscape by Bennett), and he pursued his work with watercolors, which he had employed as a student and on the 1909 Plan.
Edward and Catherine Bennett had one son, Edward H. Bennett, Jr., a Harvard-educated architect and planner, the founding president in 1976 of the Lake Forest Foundation for Historic Preservation. For his Harvard thesis EHB, Jr. designed and International Style union railroad terminal for west of the Chicago River, in the mode of the 1960 Naess & Murphy O’Hare Field air terminal. Among EHB, Jr.’s residential designs is a 1957 International Style house for George and Rosemary D. Hale, 270 Butler Dr., Lake Forest, in the mode of the Lemke house (1932) by Mies van der Rohe and 1940s and 1950s houses by Philip Johnson (Lemke house photos and Johnson material in Schulze collection; Hale house plans in the library’s Hale collection).
Edward H. Bennett, Jr.’s one son and also only child, Edward H. Bennett III, is a Lake Forest College alumnus, Class of 1971; he was president of the Lake Forest Foundation for Historic Preservation, 1999-2001. Edward H. Bennett III’s older son, Christopher E. Bennett, also is an alumnus, Class of 1992, and he resides in Chicago. Mr. Bennett’s younger son, Timothy R. Bennett, AIA, ALA, carries on the family architectural tradition and resides in Highland Park.
In 1953, in the year prior to his 1954 passing, Edward H. Bennett donated a large collection of his papers, largely professional materials, to the Burnham Library, Art Institute of Chicago. The remaining papers, photos, etc. stayed in EHB Jr.’s house (the former Jones stable block) on the 1895 Jones compound to 2004, when they were transferred to EHB III’s house further west on Deerpath in Lake Forest. Much of this family archive relating to EHB’s work on the 1909 Plan of Chicago and subsequent planning career made up the body of this 2008 donation.
Mary Reynolds Aldis, wife of Chicago developer Arthur Aldis, wrote one-act plays, poetry, and painted in watercolor. Born in Chicago and educated at St. Mary’s School in Knoxville, IL, she married her husband in 1892. After moving to Lake Forest in 1902, she occupied an estate on the southeast corner of Deerpath Rd and Green Bay Rd. She and her husband added and then converted a cottage on their property into an amateur playhouse which opened on June 11, 1911.
The Aldises were considered pioneers in amateur and community theater in Chicago. Mary’s Lake Forest summer playhouse ran full seasons until 1915 and ended by 1920. The playhouse put on plays by both amateur and professional playwrights and reflected Mary’s tastes as a writer, translator, and dramatist.
Aldis worked to support women's rights and other progressive causes. She, at times, lived independently from her husband and died in 1949 in Milwaukee.
Mary Reynolds Aldis, wife of Chicago developer Arthur Aldis, wrote one-act plays, poetry, and painted in watercolor. Born in Chicago and educated at St. Mary’s School in Knoxville, IL, she married her husband in 1892. After moving to Lake Forest in 1902, she occupied an estate on the southeast corner of Deerpath Rd and Green Bay Rd. She and her husband added and then converted a cottage on their property into an amateur playhouse which opened on June 11, 1911.
The Aldises were considered pioneers in amateur and community theater in Chicago. Mary’s Lake Forest summer playhouse ran full seasons until 1915 and ended by 1920. The playhouse put on plays by both amateur and professional playwrights and reflected Mary’s tastes as a writer, translator, and dramatist.
Aldis worked to support women's rights and other progressive causes. She, at times, lived independently from her husband and died in 1949 in Milwaukee.
Joseph Medill Patterson (1879-1946) was the grandson of both Chicago Tribune publisher Joseph Medill and the Rev. Robert W. Patterson, long-time pastor of Chicago's Second Presbyterian Church and a founder of Lake Forest, Illinois and of educational institutions now known as Lake Forest College and Lake Foreest Academy.
Patterson attended Groton with his cousin Berty McCormick and Yale, and then both returned to Chicago by ca. 1900 and engaged in civic affairs, Patterson adopting Socialism as a cause for equalizing economic distribution while Berty led the committee that built Chicago's Sanitary canal, reversing the flow of the Chicago River to the Mississippi River system. Patterson also wrote articles on his reformist views, attacking treatment of department store women workers (his father in law was affiliated with Marshall Field & Co.), and by 1906 pointing out the enormity of Marshall Field's will. By 1908 he was publishing a novel, Little Brother of the Rich, in the same vein, while living with his growing family on a farm west of Lake Forest (now Vernon Hills), with his spouse Alice Higinbotham Patterson. His writing on early film (Saturday Evening Post, 1907) is among the earliest critical efforts on the medium. He wrote one-act and full-length plays, the Fifth Estate being one of the latter. H.L. Menchen in 1917 listed him among the writers of Chicago Literary Renaissance.
Medill had two daughters, one of whom (Elinor) married Robert W. Patterson, Jr., who became after Medill's death publisher of the Chicago Tribune. When the younger Patterson died in 1910, J. M. Patterson and his cousin, Robert R.(Berty) McCormick (a son of the other Medill daughter), took over directing the Tribune Company. They split the duties (one on one month, and the other the next, etc.). Patterson also went off on reporting trips (Pancho Villa, 1915, war-town western Europe in 1915, etc.)., and then both served in the U.S. Army after this country entered the hostilities formally in April 1917.
Returning in 1919 J. M. Patterson had been taken with the idea of the tabloid paper in London, created by Lord Beaverbrook, and the two decided that Patterson should go to New York to launch the new venture.
By 1930 Patterson was living on a new estate in Ossining, NY, on the Hudson, having separated informally from his spouse. Until then he went back and forth from Chicago to New York.
Starting in the 1910s Patterson was a pioneer in the creation of newspaper comic strips. He nurtured the creators, critiqued their work, etc. His own earlier literary and dramatic work helped him understand communicating with an audience to convey a story or story line.
Patterson worked to distribute the strips by the Tribune Syndicate, and they became major forces for selling newspapers in a highly competitive, even cut-throat, field at that time. This sub-collection documents some of rich participation in a major American genre that was a precursor of later innovations.
First Child of James G.K. McClure Sr. and Phebe Ann McClure (Dixon)
Married to Dumount Clarke
Third Children of James G.K. McClure and Phebe Ann McClure (Dixon)
Wife of R. Douglas Stuart
Mother of Robert D. Stuart Jr. (Bob), Anne Stuart (Batchelder), Margaret Stuart (Hart), Harriet Stuart (Spencer)
Daughter of Nathan Fellows Dixon II and Harriet Palmer Dixon (Swan)
Wife of James G.K. McClure (Married on Nov. 19, 1879)
Mother of Annie, James G.K. Jr. or "Jim," Harriet, Archibald, and Nathan Fellows Jr. McClure
Daughter of Rev. Roswell Randall Swan and Harriet Palmer
Married Nathan Fellows Dixon on June 28, 1843
Mother of 6 Children: Nathan Fellows Dixon (died), Nathan Fellows, Edward Hazard. Phebe Ann, Walter Palmer, and Harriet Swan Dixon
Clifford W. Barnes was a clergyman and sociologist born in Corry, PA on October 8, 1864. He was an accomplished student attending both University of California and Oxford University (England) and graduating from of Yale University. He also received a Masters degree from University of Chicago. He began his career as a pastor in New York City and Chicago. Importantly, he became the first male resident of the Hull House, Chicago, in 1893.
Alongside his church work in Chicago, Barnes traveled throughout Europe to places within England and France to learn and teach in schools. He pursued such a course of teaching to closely examine the differing definitions of morality held worldwide. He soon returned to the United States to teach sociology at UIC for a year and he married Alice Reid on May 5, 1898. Clifford and Alice became parents of a son Summerville Reid, who died in early childhood and of a daughter, Lilace.
Clifford Barnes was later officially appointed as President and professor of Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois in 1900. Yet, Barnes always chose to devoted his energies to many social movements and held a number of organizational positions/titles. One of best known group created by Clifford was the well known Chicago Sunday Evening Club.
Lilace Reid Barnes, the daughter of Clifford Barnes (1864-1944) and Alice Reid (1866-1938), was born in 1900 and followed her family's pioneering spirit of generosity throughout her life. Most notably, she accomplished much as first American World President of the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) and with also her later involvement at Lake Forest College.
Initially, she began her work with the YWCA in 1926 as a volunteer secretary and soon joined the YWCA national board leading to her eventually rise as the 1947 World President of the International YWCA meeting in China. She held this office in Geneva, Switzerland until 1955. Upon her return to the United States, she was chosen to serve as the head of the YWCA US National Board until 1961 playing a strong role on local, national, and international stages of the organization.
Lilace directly continued to show her propensity for leadership roles as she was the first woman on the Lake Forest College Board Trustees in 1944 and served until 1962. In 1968, she was made an honorary life member and her name holds import on campus at the Lilace Reid Barnes Interfaith Center and with the donation of Reid Barnes collection to the Library Archives and Special Collections. She died in Lake Forest at the age of 89 in 1989.
Son of R. Douglas and Harriet (McClure) Stuart
Husband of Barbara McMath Edwards (d. 1993) and later Lillan Lovenskiold
Father of 5 Children
Chief/Chairman of Quaker Oats and US Ambassador to Norway 1984
Son of Archibald Sr., and Susan Tracy (Rice) McClure
Born in Albany, New York and Married to Phebe Ann Dixon on Nov. 19, 1879
Father of Annie, James G.K. Jr. or "Jim," Harriet, Archibald, and Nathan Fellows (Jr.) McClure
Reverend at First Presbyterian Church and President of McCormick Theological Seminary
Garrett H. Leverton, born December 13, 1896, in Huntington, Indiana, was an early twentieth century American theater educator, scholar, and producer. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePauw University in 1919, a Master of Arts degree from Northwestern University in 1925, and a Doctorate of Philosophy from Columbia University in 1936.
Leverton held the positions of instructor in speech at Lake Forest College from 1924-26 and assistant professor of speech from 1926-28; he also served as the Lake Forest College Dean of Men from 1925-28. In 1928, Leverton became both a professor of dramatic production at Northwestern University and the director of the University Theatre. Moving to New York City in 1937, Leverton joined the Samuel French firm, a company that specializes in play publication, author representation, and script sales, where he came to be the editor-in-chief. Leverton furthermore taught playwriting at Columbia University from 1946-1948.
Leverton was nominally known for his support of Lynn Riggs’ play Green Grow the Lilacs, which was eventually adapted into the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!.
Leverton was unmarried and died of a heart attack on November 11, 1949.
Edward Arpee (1899-1979), the brother of Armenian historian and theologian Leon Arpee, taught at Lake Forest Academy for 35 years beginning in 1929. He was the spouse of Katherine Trowbridge Arpee (granddaughter of Chicago wholesale grocer and later Lake Forest resident Calvin Durand), and father of Harriet Sherman of Lake Bluff. Arpee graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and wrote various notable books, including "History of Lake Forest Academy" (Chicago: Alderbrink Press, 1944) and "From Frigates to Flat Tops" (1953).
The Arpees lived at 383 N. Washington Road, less than a block from the Academy, and about a block south of Mrs. Arpee's parents' home on College Road. According to the Arpee's, the home was once a summer rental property for Onwentsia residents when it was owned by Van Weganen Alling. One of the past renters was Adlai Stevenson, who later built his farm in Libertyville.
Sources:
"Senior master Publishes an Historical Documentary," Spectator [Lake Forest Academy], April 20, 1964, 1.
Biographical Details gathered by, Arthur H. Miller Archivist & Librarian for Special Collections