Chicago People Watching – 1895

From 1893-1900 a column ran in the Chicago Record under an anonymous byline that was titled ‘Stories of the Streets and of the Town’. I picked up the volume on a recent visit to Chicago as the ideal item to offer some insight into the city during a period that my genealogy research has led me to be particularly interested. I bought the book in hopes that it would offer contemporary sketches of life in the city during that period. No longer anonymous, the stories by George Ade and illustrated by John T. McCutcheon have not disappointed.

One of these stories is titled Some of the Unfailing Signs, and in it the author demonstrates his ability to determine a great deal about a man’s occupation by their manner and dress. More simply put, George does some serious people watching and allows us to join him.

The first profile in particular caught my attention. It reads as follows:

Suppose a man is standing in front of a boarding house in Van Buren Street. He wears a close-fitting suit of black and the short sack coat flares out somewhat in a bell shape below. The coat has rather wide braid on it and the ves is slashed away from the lower button. The shirt is blue-striped and the soft black hat is flat on top and fits well down on the head, scraping the ears. With cameo ring on the third finger of the left hand what more is needed to identify the man as a “railroader”? Not an engineer or a passenger conductor, but one of the freight “crew.” Possibly he is the conductor, but probably his is the brakeman. The usual mark of distinction is the heavy gold chain which is worn by the “railroader” as soon as he is “given a train.”

If there remains any doubt as to his identity it might do to count his fingers and thumbs, watch the “hunch” of his shoulders when he walks or ask him the time of day. If the watch is open-faced and the man says “Nine forty-three” – that settles it.

The railroad man could be picked from a procession of 100 men strung along in a row and there wouldn’t be much risk of a mistake. If he had a look of worn patience in his eyes, affected and iron gray mustached, had box-toed shoes and dangled a secret-society emblem set in jewels the odds would be several to one that he was a passenger conductor with a good “run.”

“So what?”, you might ask. Well, in 1895 and 1896 my Great Great Grandfather, Michael Casey, lived on Van Buren Street. Documents such as the birth and death certificates of his children, and the City Directory, had listed Michael’s occupation as ‘Porter’ and later a ‘Teamster’, and I’ve suspected for some time that he may have worked on the Railroad.

Who knows. Certainly there were many hundreds of people this description could fit. It is Ade’s whole point that men in particular professions are easy to spot because they dress and act alike. Yet even if not talking specifically about MY ancestor of his time, this book has been everything I had hoped it might be, a trip back in time to Chicago in the mid-1890’s, and the feeling that I’m sitting there, looking at my own immigrant ancestor in his everyday life.