1910-1920
First Drafts
Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan were appointed as the Auditorium Building’s architects on December 22, 1886. However, the pair had been creating studies for months prior to their hire. The earliest known design of the Auditorium Theatre was prepared by September 1886, soon after Ferdinand Peck hand obtained control of the parcels of land the building sits on. The architectural renderer Paul C. Lautrup prepared the first design of the Auditorium and the ones that followed as they evolved. Lautrup also prepared a smaller rendering which Peck carried around the city in his pocket to help with fundraising.[1] The pointed roofs and ornate design of the exterior from the first rendering is far off from the final product, but suggests that this style was Sullivan’s initial preferences. The plans for this study were to have the lower two floors made of stone and the upper floors out of more stone, pressed brick, terracotta, and iron.
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt is nominated for President of the United States at the Auditorium Theatre by the National Progressive Party, Bull Moose Party, in 1912. On our stage, Roosevelt gave his famous “Armageddon” speech:
“… the time is ripe, and overripe, for a genuine Progressive movement, nationwide and justice-loving, sprung from and responsible to the people themselves … representing all that is best in the hopes, beliefs, and aspirations of the plain people who make up the immense majority,”
Woman’s Suffrage
In June 1916, Chicago hosted the Republican National Convention, which became a chance for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to campaign and gather support from U.S. leaders. During this event, the Auditorium Theatre provided an opportunity for women’s suffrage organizations to assemble and host speeches to advocate for the advancement of women’s voting rights. The CU hosted the Suffrage First Luncheon at the Auditorium and at this meeting CU leaders proposed the adoption of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, which states that voting rights for U.S. citizens could not be denied “on account of sex.”
[1] “Chicago Real Estate: Subscribers to the Grand Opera Hall,” Chicago Tribune, 26 September 1886, 7.
[2] Mueller, Testimony, Chicago Auditorium Association vs. Mark Skinner Willing, in Kaufmann, “Wright’s ‘Lieber Meister,’” 49.
[3] John McGovern, quoted in Ffrench, Music and Musicians in Chicago, 32.
[4] “Seats for a Multitude,” Chicago Evening Journal, 29 January 1887, 1.
[5] Siry, Joseph. The Chicago Auditorium Building : Adler and Sullivan’s Architecture and the City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Print.