History

The Union League Club of Chicago is located in Chicago’s downtown neighborhood known as the Loop, which is home to the city’s commercial core. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Loop is also the second largest commercial neighborhood in the entire country. The intersection of Madison and State Streets is the center of the Loop and, following the realignment of its street grid in 1909, marks the center of the entire City of Chicago.

The history of this Chicago neighborhood goes back much further, however. Around 12 indigenous groups have ties to the Western Great Lakes region, the most prominent being the Potawatomi people. In 1803, the U.S. Army founded Fort Dearborn in the vicinity of what is now DuSable Bridge (the DuSable Bridge itself is named for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, a trader of African descent who built a trading post at the site two decades prior). Under the leadership of Chiefs Blackbird and Nuscotomeg, the Potawatomi destroyed the first iteration of the fort during the War of 1812. A small settlement of non-native settlers quickly grew around the second fort, built four years later. In 1821 and 1833, the Ottowa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Chicago to cede land around Lake Michigan to the United States. The city of Chicago was incorporated with 4,000 inhabitants in 1837, and the canal, railroad, and stockyards pushed the city into a major population center by the second half of the 19th century.

Fort Dearborn, as well as the rest of early Chicago, was destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The present-day version of the Loop rose from the ashes of that catastrophe as local businesspeople invested heavily into the redevelopment of downtown Chicago. Investors specifically funded the construction of many upscale skyscrapers and the city’s cable car. Two cable-car tracks, which turned around in the downtown district, gave the neighborhood the new moniker the “Chicago Loop” or simply the “Loop.” Perhaps the height of the Loop’s prestige transpired after World War II, when close to a million people visited the district every day for either business or personal life.

The architects employed by Mundie & Jenson who worked on the Union League Club of Chicago chose Georgian Revival-style architecture as the source of their inspiration. Georgian Revival-style architecture itself is a subset of a much more prominent architectural form known as “Colonial Revival.” Colonial Revival architecture today is perhaps the most widely used building form in the entire United States. It reached its zenith at the height of the Gilded Age, where countless Americans turned to the aesthetic to celebrate what they feared was America’s disappearing past. The movement came about in the aftermath of the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, in which people from across the country traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the American Revolution. Many of the exhibitors chose to display cultural representations of 18th-century America, encouraging millions of people across the country to preserve the nation’s history. Architects were among those inspired, who looked to revitalize the design principles of colonial English and Dutch homes. This gradually gave way to a larger embrace of Georgian and Federal-style architecture, which focused exclusively on the country’s formative years. As such, structures built in the style of Colonial Revival architecture—as well as the Georgian Revival-style—featured such components as pilasters, brickwork, and modest, double-hung windows. Symmetrical designs defined their façades, anchored by a central, pedimented front door and simplistic portico. Gable roofs typically topped the buildings, although hipped and gambrel forms were used, too. This building form remained immensely popular for years until largely petering out in late 20th century.

• Marshall Field, founder of Marshall Field and Company department stores, as well as the namesake to the Field Museum of Natural History.
• Daniel Burnham, architect known for designing several iconic structures, including New York City’s Flatiron Building, San Francisco’s Merchants Exchange, and Selfridges in London.
• Charles Lawrence Hutchinson, founder of the Art Institute of Chicago.
• Julius Rosenwald, co-owner of the prominent wholesaler Sears, Roebuck, and Company.
• Richard J. Oglesby, 14th Governor of Illinois (1865 – 1869; 1873; 1885 – 1889) and U.S. Senator from Illinois (1873 – 1879)
• Louis Sullivan, influential architect regarded as the “father of skyscrapers” and “father of modernism.”
• Babe Ruth, legendary outfielder for the New York Yankees regarded today as being the best baseball player ever.
• Lou Gehrig, iconic First Basemen for the New York Yankees (1923 – 1939)
• Amelia Earhart, pioneering aviator who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
• Alec Templeton, composer best remembered for his popular radio program, Alec Templeton Time.
• Jane Addams, co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Rosa Parks, civil rights activist known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycotts.
• Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940 – 1945; 1951 – 1955) 
• Queen Marie of Romania (1914 – 1927)
• Charles G. Dawes, 30th Vice President of the United States (1925 – 1929)
• Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (1889 – 1893)
• William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (1897 – 1901)
• Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (1901 – 1909)
• William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States (1909 – 1913) and 10th Chief Justice of the United States (1921 – 1930)
• Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States (1929 – 1933)
• George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States (1989 – 1993)

• My Best Friend’s Wedding (1996)
• Empire (2015 – 2020)

Jane Addams: A prominent guest to lecture at the Union League Club of Chicago was Jane Addams, a Progressive-Era reformer from Illinois. Addams founded a center for social services Chicago in 1889 called Hull House, the success of which catapulted Addams into greater national discussions about progressive causes. In 1903 Addams lectured at the Union League Club of Chicago on Washington’s Birthday (today known as Presidents’ Day). She encouraged the use of government for social welfare. Referencing child labor, unsafe work conditions, corruption, and poor housing conditions, she asked the audience, “what would George Washington say if he found that among us there were causes constantly operating against that [founding belief of] equality?”

At first motivated by a desire to decorate the new Clubhouse in 1886, the Union League Club of Chicago quickly became a celebrated venue and patron of the visual arts in Chicago. The Union League Club of Chicago has also built one of the most comprehensive private collections of American art. The active collection embraces a diversity of style, geography, and chronology. American art, particularly Midwestern art of the 20th century, forms the nucleus. Works include In the Spring by Grant Wood, an early study by Harlem Renaissance painter Archibald J. Motley, Jr., and a piece by muralist and illustrator Rainey Bennett. About a third of the collection was produced by women: Martha Susan Baker, cousin of John Singer Sargent, was a portraitist in her own right who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Pauline Palmer, a painter, was the first woman elected president of the Chicago Society of Artists in 1919; Barbara Crane, a Chicago native, became renowned for her experimental photography techniques in the second half of the 20th century. Photographs of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair by Charles Dudley Arnold are a particular collection highlight. The Club’s art committee was formed in 1891 and is responsible for hosting a variety of programs throughout the year including lectures, exhibitions, and much more. In 1998, the Club established a Distinguished Artists Program, honoring local artists. The Union League Club of Chicago continues to acquire and display art throughout nearly every floor and room of the Clubhouse for the enjoyment and enrichment of the members and guests.