John Peter Altgeld

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John Peter Altgeld (December 30, 1847 - March 12, 1902) was the governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1893 until 1897. He was the first Democratic governor of that state since the 1850s. A leading figure of the Progressive Era movement, Altgeld improved workplace safety and child labor laws, pardoned the men convicted of the Haymarket Riot, and, for a time, resisted calls to break up the Pullman strike with force.

1 Early years
2 Political life
3 Views and Influences on Architecture
4 Final years
5 Legacy
6 References

[edit] Early years

Altgeld, the son of John P. and Mary Altgeld, was born in Selters (Westerwald, Germany). He came to America early in life with his father's family, who settled on a farm near Mansfield, Ohio.

He left home at age 16 to join the Union Army (lying about his age), where he fought in Virginia with an ill-fated regiment and nearly died of fever. He then worked on his father's farm, studied in the library of a neighbor and at a private school in Lexington, Ohio, and for two years taught school.

After a brief stint in an Ohio seminary, he walked to Missouri and studied to become a lawyer while working on itinerant railroad construction crews. He was elected district attorney of Andrew County, Missouri, and a year later resigned and moved to Chicago, where he founded a prosperous law firm that soon employed such rising stars as Clarence Darrow.

He also became wealthy from a series of savvy real estate dealings and development projects, most notably the Unity Building (1891), the 16-story office building that was at that time Chicago's tallest building. In January of 1890, Altgeld bought a lot at what is now 127 North Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago, and he established the Unity Company to build and manage the future Unity Building. He indiscriminately contributed his own fortune toward the endeavor, and for a while the construction was moving more quickly than expected. However, this led to a $100,000 mistake and much of the framework of the building had to be rebuilt. Altgeld also made an error by trying to borrow $400,000 from John R. Walsh, president of the Jennings Trust Company and of the Chicago National Bank. Technicalities in the contract caused many problems for Altgeld. Eventually a new contract was signed, but Altgeld was only able to borrow $300,000 from Walsh. He ended up raising the rest of the money himself, and the construction of the Unity Building was completed. In 1893, he declared that the Unity Building had given him the most personal satisfaction of all his achievements.

He was married to Emma Ford, the daughter of John Ford and Ruth Smith, in 1877 in Richland, Ohio.

[edit] Political life

Altgeld ran for Congress in Illinois's Fourth Congressional District in 1884. Although this district was heavily Republican, Altgeld garnered 45.5 percent of the vote in his race against incumbent George Adams, a better showing than well-known Democrat Lambert Tree had made two years earlier. As a Republican leader recalled, "He (Altgeld) was not elected, but our executive committee was pretty badly frightened by the strong canvass he made." He was elected to a judgeship in 1886, and served on the bench until 1891.

He was drafted by the Democrats to run for governor, and narrowly defeated incumbent Joseph W. Fifer. He suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after his victory, and nearly died of a concomitant fever. He managed to appear at his inauguration, but was only able to deliver a brief portion of his speech. Although the General Assembly hall was so warm as to cause several men to faint, Altgeld, clad in a heavy topcoat, was pale and visibly shivering. The clerk of the Assembly delivered the remainder of his speech.

Altgeld recovered, and as governor he spearheaded the nation's most stringent child labor and workplace safety laws, appointed women to important positions in the state government, and vastly increased state funding for education. However, he is best remembered for pardoning the three surviving suspects of a bombing who were convicted after the Haymarket Riot. John F. Kennedy even mentioned this in his acclaimed book, Profiles In Courage. British lawyer Keven Tierney pointed out that Altgeld's pardon of these men may have had as much to do with spite as with courage. Altgeld had long held a grudge against the judge who sentenced the men and harshly criticized him in the pardon.

As the Pullman Strike flared up with riots, sabotage, and disruption to the U.S. Mail, Altgeld refused to allow President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops. On July 4, 1894, Cleveland sent troops to Chicago anyway, an action later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Altgeld's opposition was seen as a highly unusual stance for a state governor at that time. When it all ended, newspapers circulated the following ryhme:

The railroad strike played merry hob;

The land was set aflame

Could Grover order out the troops

To block the striker's game?

One Altgeld yelled excitedly

"Such tactics I forbid;

You can't trot out these soldiers" yet

That's just what Grover did.

In after years when people talk

Of present stirring times,

And of the action needful to

Sit down on public crimes,

They'll all of them acknowledge then

(The fact cannot be hid)

That whatever was the best to do

Is just what Grover did.^[1]

When the besieged Pullman Workers rioted a month later, Altgeld, at the request of the mayor of Chicago, sent in the state militia, which killed seven more workers. This incident and the pardons were used against him by his political enemies, industrialists and conservatives, and, after enduring perhaps the greatest firestorm of negative press ever encountered by an American politician, he was defeated for reelection in 1896 by John R. Tanner.

Altgeld did not go down without a fight, however. He was instrumental in driving President Cleveland from the national Democratic ticket, and he campaigned hard for William Jennings Bryan. Typical was the reaction of Harper's Weekly, which in October 1896 endorsed William McKinley for fear that Bryan would be a puppet of Altgeld, "the ambitious and unscrupulous Illinois communist." Both Altgeld and Bryan lost in Illinois, although Altgeld outpolled Bryan by 10,000 votes. Altgeld was popular enough in the Democratic party that, if he had been a native-born citizen, there was the possibility that Altgeld himself would have been nominated.

Altgeld ran for Mayor of Chicago as the candidate of the Municipal Ownership Party in 1899. Although an early favorite to win, he finished a humiliating third, garnering only 15.56 percent of the vote.

[edit] Views and Influences on Architecture

During his administration, Altgeld expressed certain opinions on how buildings should be erected in the state of Illinois. In his second biennial message to the state legislature, he discussed how buildings were being constructed without consideration for their outward appearance. He stated that it was time for buildings to become more aesthetically pleasing in addition to being functional, and he suggested the Tudor-Gothic style as the most inexpensive way to do this. Consequently, several of the state universities in Illinois erected buildings which resembled castles in his honor. Supposedly these buildings have aligned corridors and rooms so that they can all be “put together” to create one large building, but there is no evidence to support this rumor.

[edit] Northern Illinois University

Built between 1895 and 1899, Altgeld Hall was originally called the "Castle on the Hill." Northern began as a teachers' college and originally was named Dekalb, and then the Northern Illinois State Normal School. The building architect was Charles E. Brush of Chicago. The general contractor was William J. McAlpine. Construction started on September 17, 1895 and was completed on September 22, 1899 at a cost of $230,000. On October 21, 1963 the Administrative Building as it was known, was changed to Altgeld Hall in honor of the late Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, who backed and signed the legislation creating NIU. It was built in Tudor Gothic or English-castle architecture because Governor Altgeld had an eye for architecture and wanted a stately building to unify the state normal schools. The building is among the most recognizable on the respective campus. This is a building that was meant to stand alone, which was a contrast to most college buildings of the time. A time capsule was buried under the front arches on Northern's 75th Anniversary in 1974. It will be opened on the 150th anniversary in 2049. Altgeld Hall underwent a $24 million renovation project which began in 1999 and ended with the rededication on October 7, 2004. When Altgeld Hall first opened, it housed the entire university. It was classroom, boardroom, library, gymnasium, administrative office building, and lecture hall. It housed chemical and physical laboratories, executive offices, a 1,200 seat auditorium , biology labs, a study hall, a museum, classrooms, a manual training shop, an independent water system, and finally a "dynamo" for light and power. The building also housed Northern’s original library . With NIU’s second library almost complete in Swen Parson Hall in 1952, ideas were being passed around among the administrators on how to move all of the books because there was no money left in the budget to pay to have them moved. President Leslie A. Holmes, the President's Panel, the Student Affairs Committee, and the Administrative Council made the final decision to have "Library Move Day" be a campus event. Holmes sent a memo out to faculty indicating they were to take roll in their classes and then lead the class over to old library in Altgeld and devote all class period to moving books to the new library in Swen Parson. The members of the Dames’ Club (now the University Women's Club) served refreshments for the book movers. The Altgeld restoration was undertaken to rescue the university’s landmark structure, which was badly deteriorated. The interior of the building was remodeled several times over the years, but major structural problems went largely unaddressed. By the 1980s, the building suffered from water seepage, cracked plaster and badly outdated electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems. The newly restored building is a point of pride on campus, both for its beauty and the sense of history it affords, according to NIU President John Peters. “The restoration of Altgeld Hall was an important step for NIU. It is a physical connection with our very roots as a university and we are proud to see the project recognized by the construction industry.” said Peters. “Altgeld Hall is not a museum, but a living, working public space where the roots of American higher education are still very much in view.” Currently, Altgeld Hall houses the Office of the President, Academic and Student Affairs, Finance and Facilities, University Advancement & NIU Foundation, University Legal Services, University Council, Community and External Affairs, the NIU Art Museum, the Instructional Technology Teaching Laboratory, conference rooms, and an auditorium with seating capacity for 500.

[edit] Illinois State University

On the campus of Illinois State University Governor John Peter Altgeld ordered the construction of a castle-like building. This building, now known as Cook Hall, was once known as “Altgeld’s Folly.” This is because when the original plans were drawn up for the construction of the building, Governor Altgeld rejected them because he wanted a building that looked more like German castles along the Rhine river. In 1898 the building was completed by local architects, Miller & Fisher, who took some creative liberties in the castle’s construction. Though the building contains turret styles with towers and battlement like Governor Altgeld wanted, the architects also added their own flair by using Bedford limestone.

In the design for the building, it was made to be fireproof, which is why the University decided to move the library into it. The building was also originally used as a gymnasium and it was stocked with all the newest exercise equipment. It had rope ladders, rings, slippery poles, parallel bars, and weights. There were also plans to add a bowling alley and swimming pool, but these plans were eventually abandoned.

After being a gymnasium for so long, the building eventually came to also house the University radio station, WGLT. More recently, though, Cook Hall has been remodeled to become the School of Music building. The building holds practice rooms, rehearsal halls, and many classrooms. Cook Hall is the only building on the Illinois State University campus that is on the National Register of Historic Places.

[edit] University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana is home to a castle-style building constructed under the order of Governor John Peter Altgeld. It was completed in 1897 by the architects Nathan Clifford Ricker and James White. Like the building on Illinois State University’s campus, the Governor wished it to be built in a Tudor-Gothic style, but due to outside pressure it was given a more Richardsonian Romanesque style.

Since its construction, Altgeld’s building has undergone many names and purposes. Governor Altgeld has a huge interest in education and believed that the campus should have a library, so the building was originally used for this purpose. At the time of its construction the building became know as simply the University Library. In 1927, though, the Law Department decided it needed a new place on campus and it moved into University Library, renaming the building “Law Building.” In 1940, the Law Building was renamed in honor if its creator, and was hereafter called Altgeld Hall. Eventually the Law Building was yet again converted into a new purpose, housing the Mathematics Department while the Law Department received a new building. Though the Mathematics Department and the Mathematics Library reside in this building, one can still see the title “Law Building” engraved on the North entrance.

[edit] Eastern Illinois University

The first building built and finished in 1899 is called Old Main (formally named the Livingston C. Lord after EIU’s first president). Old main was build with Indiana limestone with a Gothic revival style with turrets, towers, and battlements. This distinctive outline is the official symbol of the school. Old Main is one of the five "castles" built in the 1890s at the major Illinois state colleges. The others are at the U of I, ISU, NIU, and SIUC. Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld played a big role in funding the Illinois university system, and he was especially fond of the Gothic style. EIU and Illinois State are the only schools where the "castle" is not named after Altgeld. Another original Gothic Revival building, Blair Hall, was restored after a disastrous fire in 2004.

[edit] Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Altgeld Hall, built in 1986 and only cost $40,000, is the second oldest building on SIUC’s campus. The building is named after John Peter Altgeld. It originally housed the library and laboratories for the departments of physics, chemistry and biological science, and a gymnasium. Following a major remodeling project in 1958, Altgeld became the home to the School of Music, like at ISU. It is currently going under renovation, to preserve the building from the weather damage it has received.

Quotes on Altgeld's headstone in Graceland Cemetery

[edit] Final years

Sickly since his brush with death in the Civil War, he had suffered from locomotor ataxia while governor, impairing his ability to walk. He lost all of his property except his heavily mortgaged personal residence, and only the intervention of his friend and former protégé Clarence Darrow saved him from complete financial ruin. He was working as a lawyer in Darrow's firm when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage suffered while delivering a speech in Joliet on behalf of the Boers. He was 54 years old. Thousands filed past his body as it lay in state in the lobby of the Chicago Public Library, and he was eulogized by Darrow and Hull House founder Jane Addams. Altgeld is buried in Uptown's Graceland Cemetery. His last words were (To his last visitor) "How d'you do, Cushing. I am glad to see you".

[edit] Legacy

Altgeld was beautifully memorialized in the Vachel Lindsay poem "The Eagle Forgotten."
A biography was published in 1938, "Eagle forgotten"; the life of John Peter Altgeld, by Harry Barnard, published by Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, Indiana (and reprinted in 1973, ISBN-13: 978-0882861005).
The statue of Altgeld in Chicago's Lincoln Park was created by Gutzon Borglum, the carver of Mt. Rushmore.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dedicated Altgeld Hall, built in 1897 [1]. It is one of the oldest buildings on the campus.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale dedicated Altgeld Hall in 1896. It is the second oldest building on campus.
Northern Illinois University dedicated Altgeld Hall in 1895 and re-dedicated the hall in 2005 after multi-million dollar renovations.