About the Author:
Mark Jacob served as executive news editor and Sunday editor at the Chicago Sun-Times before moving on to the Chicago Tribune. Richard Cahan, once the Chicago Sun-Times’ picture editor, was the director of CITY 2000. Jacob and Cahan are coauthors of The Game That Was: The George Brace Baseball Photo Collection.
Review:
“Chicago Under Glass is visual history at its best. Jacob and Cahan offer a menu of Chicago’s famous and forgotten, from Al Capone and Jane Addams to street kids and spouse killers, from the Palmer Castle to the ‘death corner.’ This smorgasbord of photography documents the age when cobblestones gave way to asphalt, when horses were replaced by cars, and Chicago witnessed the creation of icons like Buckingham Fountain, Soldier Field and Navy Pier. This is required reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century America, a must for those who love Chicago.” (Timothy J. Gilfoyle, professor of history, Loyola University 2007-03-09)
“Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan have done a splendid job of exploring the Chicago History Museum’s enormous trove of Daily News glass negatives and selecting dozens of its treasures for arresting display in this book. The first three decades of the twentieth century marked the emergence of photojournalism, and the Daily News archive provides as fine an eyewitness as exists of the development of the modern city. Jacob and Cahan’s detailed commentaries are as informative as the images themselves, and together the text and images provide an invaluable resource and wonderful reading for anyone interested in Chicago and urban history.” (Carl Smith, Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English and American Studies and professor of history at Northwestern University 2007-03-14)
“A lost world. . . . We know this place because we’ve seen such pictures before. But we only imagine we’ve been there. . . . The writing in this famously literary paper is largely lost, but the photography survives, and now an anonymous photographer’s strange, wonderful picture of a group of blind children stroking a circus elephant deservedly finds a spotlight as the cover of Chicago Under Glass. It’s a fitting introduction to the book, expressing the idea of reaching out to touch something most alive in the imagination.” (Michael Miner Chicago Reader 2007-11-08)
“Worth the asking price based on the mustaches alone. . . there are some true relics of Chicago history in here that the photos instantly bring to life. There’s a dynamic two-page spread showing Billy Sunday—a former baseball player turned Presbyterian minister—hollering to the high heavens. Another, spookier shot, shows the dead body of Russian immigrant Lazarus Averbuch seated in a chair, with police captain Michael Evans holding up his head. Averbuch was killed by a police officer under suspicious circumstances in 1908. But our favorite is the photo that accompanies the title page to Chapter Seven: Politicos and Preachers. Its caption says it all: ‘Alderman wrestling bear.’ That’s literal, folks.” (Jonathan Messinger Time Out Chicago 2007-11-22)
“Tens of thousands of glass-plate negatives from the defunct Chicago Daily News serve as glimpses into a lost world. . . . Chicago under Glass depicts a gritty burg evolving through cultural upheavals and technological advances. Some of the buildings and vistas look vaguely familiar today, but the fashions and hairstyles surely don’t. . . . Fascinating.” (Mike Ramsey Bolingbrook Reporter 2007-11-30)
“Chicago history circa 1901-30, with its triumphs, disasters, and celebrities, comes alive through the lenses of Daily News photographers in this expansive treatment by Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan. . . . Makes the familiar fascinatingly strange.” (Tom Cruze Chicago Sun-Times 2007-12-02)
“I’ve already spent hours studying this book. It’s a fascinating peek into the constantly changing life of Chicago and the nation from 1901 to 1930, as well as a tribute to the best of photojournalism.. . . . [Chicago under Glass includes] powerful photos of turn-of-the century union strikes, children dressed in rags collecting precious chunks of fallen coal along railroad tracks, famous baseball players and historic fights, sweatshop workers on Maxwell Street, gang boss Al Capone, mob hit men John Scalise and Alberto Anselmi, child killers Leopold and Loeb, as well as their legendary lawyer, Clarence Darrow. And that’s just a start.” (Tom McNamee Chicago Sun-Times 2007-12-19)
“Most institutional archives contain historic photographs that the passage of time has turned into objects of wonder. Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan have uncovered a bundle in Chicago under Glass. Images that began their lives as nothing more than photo-ops—an alderman wrestling a bear, men playing indoor baseball, or policemen standing on a street corner in 1926 next to a recent invention, the traffic light—are slowly acquiring a patina that will only make them more curious and hard to distinguish from art.” (Richard B. Woodward Wall Street Journal 2007-12-14)
“Here is a book made to order for all who love Chicago photography, history, sports, politics—you name it. . . . An important book, hard to put down and a splendid read. Did I hear someone say Pulitzer?” (Emily McCormack Chicago Life 2008-02-12)
“The book showcases the work of Chicago Daily News photographers in the early 1900s, when photos still were a new feature in newspapers. The cameras were bulky and awkward, but this first generation of photojournalists recorded pictures of Chicago’s most famous and powerful people, scenes of rioting and mayhem and oddities like a boy lying inside an experimental pneumatic tube. . . . Breathtaking. . . . Seeing the images now feels like peering through some sort of time machine.” (Robert Loerzel Southtown Star 2008-02-26)
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