By Patrick F. Cannon

The other evening, I watched a documentary on Chicago’s WTTW on the historic importance of railroads to Chicago. It was hosted by the ubiquitous Geoffrey Baer and covered everything from street cars to intercity passenger and freight trains. Today, the Chicago region still handles more freight traffic than any other area of the country. Although rarely visible to most residents, vast areas are taken up with rail yards.

Although only Union Station via Amtrak handles intercity rail travel now, when I started working for the New York Central Railroad in 1956, there were six downtown stations: Central, Dearborn, La Salle, Grand Central, Union, and Northwestern. Between them, they then were home to nearly 20 railroads. If you were travelling from anywhere east of Chicago to a destination west of the city, you had to change trains. The transfers were handled by the Railroad Transfer Service, whose buses were a regular site on  downtown streets.

If you arrived from New York on the New York Central’s 20^th Century or the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited and were headed to Los Angeles, you had all day to kill before boarding the Santa Fe’s Super Chief, the Milwaukee Road/Union Pacific’s City of Los Angeles, or the Rock Island/Southern Pacific’s Golden State Limited. Many Hollywood notables would freshen up at the Ambassador East Hotel, and lunch in its famous Pump Room. If you were “A” list, you would get booth #1, with its own white phone!  You would also get your picture in the afternoon newspapers!

My first train trip was in late 1945, when my family moved to Chicago from the Pittsburgh area. It was on the Pennsylvania Railroad, then America’s largest, with 26,000 miles of track in the east and Midwest. We left Pittsburgh in the morning and had lunch in the dining car. I remember being impressed with the quality of the ice cream! The train was crowded, including returning servicemen.

We got off the train in Englewood, which was a station shared by the New York Central, Pennsylvania, and other railroads. Located at 63^rd Street, it was more convenient for south siders than the downtown Union or La Salle Street stations. My father, who had gone ahead to start his new job and find an apartment, met us. The apartment was at 67^th and Merrill in the South Shore neighborhood. Not only was it across the street from Jackson Park, but it was also only three blocks from the 67^th Street beach! And, unlike the rivers that surround Pittsburgh, you could  actually swim in the water! And this was a true wonder – there were no hills to climb!

I didn’t realize it, but when I started at the New York Central in 1956, rail travel had already begun to decline. Since the end of World War II, commercial airplanes had gotten larger and faster. Then, late in 1958, the jet age arrived. While rail travel was still less expensive for families, business travel moved to the skies. Time is money, after all.

My friend Ed would be interested to know that in 1956, many businessmen still travelled to Detroit by rail. The New York Central had the Mercury, an all-parlor car train. Instead of the usual coach seats, it was equipped with overstuffed chairs and other amenities. It left in the morning and arrived in Detroit at about 2:00, after serving a nice lunch in the dining car. The club car would have assured you of that two-martini lunch!

Amtrak can now get you to Detroit in about five hours, reaching speeds of 110 miles per hour (mph) on some stretches. When and if all the tracks are upgraded, four hours or even fewer would be possible. The last intercity train I took was from Chicago to St. Louis. Again, portions of this line now permit 110 mph, with the fastest train getting to downtown St. Louis in four and a half hours. The ride was smooth and comfortable, and I saw a lot of corn and soybeans!

Super high-speed corridors, which are expensive to build, are not necessary in most cases. Amtrak has been upgrading its equipment in recent years. With speeds of 110 mph the rule instead of the exception, getting to cities like Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Minneapolis by rail from Chicago would be a viable option. And not, I should add, subject to the vagaries of mother nature and the indignities of the TSA.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

Chicago has one three-star Michelin restaurant – Smyth – and two two-star: Oriole and Alinea. Alinea once had three, so must be doing a lot of soul searching and teeth gnashing! One thing they have in common is cost – all charge about $450 per person. Add the least expensive wine flight at about $150 per person and mandatory 20 percent service charge (tip to you and me)  and you’re looking at nearly $1,500 for you and your spouse, sweetheart, or whatever.

            Now, I’m old enough to have eaten at a good many Chicago restaurants that are long gone. It’s easier to name the survivors – Berghoff and the Italian Village come to mind. Another favorite German restaurant I favored, Zum deutschen Eck on Southport, is long gone, as is Agostino’s at State and Delaware. It was the first restaurant where I used valet parking. I later got a parking summons in the mail! I dropped it off at Agostino’s, and they duly paid it!

            If you don’t mind a little degression about Agostino’s, I went to a business dinner there with the man who was responsible for setting up trade shows for the company I then worked for. He ordered Steak Parmesan, which was of course not on the menu. But they made it for him. It looked surprisingly good too!

            I got to wondering what “fine dining” cost when I was young. Opened in 1964 in the DeKoven mansion on Dearborn just south of Division, Biggs was the place to go, and the first restaurant I remember with a fixed price menu. In the early 1970s, it was $13.50 per person. I remember one meal that started with lobster bisque, continued with rack of lamb, and finished with chocolate mousse (the first time I had any of them).  Before you get too excited, that $13.50 would translate into nearly $120 today. Expensive sure, but $120 would get you well fed at a great many exceptionally fine Chicago restaurants today.

            I’m not temped to spend $750 for a meal, but I have eaten at a great many legendary Chicago area restaurants over the years, alas all now closed. Perhaps the most famous was Les Francais in Wheeling. Once called the best restaurant in America, I ate there three times, once on someone else’s dime. My first Franch restaurant was Café de Paris, located in the Dearborn Park Hotel. It was famous for Duckling a la Belasco, flamed at your table! It was bit of a stretch for my wife Mary and I, but worth it!

            Although then and now I eat most often in Italian restaurants, I do like French cuisine as well. Another favorite was Le Perroquet on the near north side. To save a buck, we used to go for lunch, always wonderful but a bit less expensive. Chez Paul, also near north, was another lunch favorite. I ate once at Everest, a wonderful French restaurant with an Alsatian flavor. It closed in 2020 because it actually lost its lease! The chef was the wonderfully named Jean Joho!

            I can’t end without mentioning The Bakery on Lincoln Avenue. It opened in 1963, and cost about the same as Biggs. The chef had another wonderful name – Louis Szathmary. He was a bit rotund and had a snowy white walrus mustache. A Hungarian, the menu was more continental than French, with specialties like Beef Wellington and Roast Duckling. I remember once having stuffed roast pork. While you were eating, Chef Louis would roam the room, charming his customers.

            I haven’t eaten at the Berghoff for a while. In the old days, the grumpy German waiters bought the food from the kitchen and sold it to you, for cash only. And the bar was men only until 1969. The Italian Village was opened in 1927 and has a legendary wine list. It’s just as good as it ever was and won’t  cost you $750! Buon Appetito!

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

In my brief and distinguished military career of two years, the Army managed to post me to five forts or other facilities. Three of the five were named after Civil War Confederate generals – Forts Benning, Gordon, and Hood. I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t know who they were named after and didn’t care. I did my basic training in  the spring at Fort Benning, where it rained a lot. I did a lot of marching through red clay mud.

            Also in Georgia, it was summer when I went to Signal School at Fort Gordon. It was hot and humid. At the end of our long march from barracks to school every morning, we were drenched with sweat. Ditto coming back. It was much later when I went to Fort Hood in Texas to help support armored force maneuvers. After a couple of weeks, they were called off due to the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

            Years later, long after my Army service, I began to wonder why these forts had been named for Confederate generals who were, after all, traitors. In a spirit of reconciliation during Reconstruction, they were pardoned. In many countries, they would have been shot or hanged. They certainly wouldn’t have had Federal facilities named after them.

            As  it happens, both Forts Benning and Gordon were established in 1917, during World War I; Hood in 1942 during World War II. You should not be shocked to discover that the committees of Congress responsible for military affairs were headed by Southerners during those years. Or that so many Army forts were established in the south in the first place.

            Perhaps recalling that these Confederate generals were complicit in the deaths of 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 of their own, far more deaths than the rest of our wars combined,  Congress finally came to its senses and directed that these and other facilities would no longer be named after traitors. In 2023, Fort Benning became Fort Moore, named after General Hal Moore, a hero of the Viet Nam War and his wife Julia, an advocate for military wives. Fort Gordon was renamed Fort Eisenhower, after the former president and General of the Army; and Fort Hood was renamed Fort Cavazos in honor of General Richard Cavazos, who was a recipient of the Madal of Honor.

            Wherein is it “woke” to rename United States military facilities after American heroes instead of rebellious traitors?  Nevertheless, when President Trump regained power in 2025, his choice as Secretary of Defense, the Rambo wannabe Pete Hegseth, decided to return them to their former names. But in a shamelessly odious ploy, he claimed they were not being renamed for the Confederate generals, but for other veterans with the same name!

            Fort Benning is not now named after General Henry Benning, but for Corporal Fred G. Benning, a World War I hero. Instead of being named for Confederate John G. Gordon, the fort is now named for Master Sargeant Gary Gordon, a Medal of Honor recipient who fought in Somalia. And Fort Hood is now named for World War I hero, Colonel Robert B. Hood, instead of John Bell Hood. It’s too  bad there wasn’t a post named after a Confederate general named Cannon. It could have been renamed for me, Specialist Fourth Class Patrick F, Cannon, recipient of the Good Conduct Medal and who also earned a Sharpshooter badge!

            This blatantly transparent tactic fooled no one, particularly the “Lost Cause” southerners who are such faithful Trump voters. The South shall rise again!

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

It’s not easy to be an absolutist for the First Amendment when so much hateful and goofy stuff is thrown at you from dawn to dusk – or later than dusk if you stay up late.

            Many years ago, for example, the Supreme Court decided that the American Bar Association’s ban on lawyer’s advertising their services was an unconstitutional infringement on their freedom of speech. This opened the flood gates for personal injury lawyers in particular. If you watch local commercial television, you’re bombarded by folks yelling “In a wreck, need a check?”  or “We’re the law brothers!” illustrated with the siblings yelling it from the tops of big trucks, “I’m the Illinois Hammer!” promises to bring said hammer down on the heads of evil insurance companies.

There’s even a commercial with a crazed looking lawyer showing up at an accident scene  with what appears to be a rabid pit bull. Even relatively staid personal injury firms are forced to run defensive ads to at least stay in the public eye. Almost all of them tell you  they will charge no fee unless they win. What they don’t tell you is that they won’t take a case they won’t win, and that they will get at least a third of any payout.

Another ban that has been lifted is one that forbade prescription drug advertising. I’m sure you’ve noticed the deluge of ads for weight loss drugs. But there are others that seem directed at exceedingly small numbers of potential patients. The great actor Morgan Freeman appears in one for a heart medication that most people have never heard of and that must have relatively few sufferers. Yet the drug company spends a great deal of money so it must feel it gets it back in new business.

Strangely, there was never a ban on over-the-counter drug advertising, even for questionable patent medicines. Whoever my age can forget Serutan (nature spelled backwards), a cure all tonic for the gullible. The airwaves are still full of ads for dubious nostrums, including some that are supposed to restore your brain power. Buying them simply proves the opposite.

In many ways, political speech is the most troublesome. When the Supreme Court decided that freedom of speech extended to corporations, unions, and other organizations, it opened the floodgates to massive infusion of cash to political campaigns, including so-called “dark money.” During election cycles, we are now bombarded with negative commercials about even the most blameless candidates. And it’s relentless. Frankly, most voters just tune them out, but the television stations are forced to  run them. Well, a bucks a buck.

All our recent presidents, including Obama and Biden, have sought to limit what they consider to be “hate speech,” which is often just vigorous criticism of their policies. They pressured popular online sites to better “police” objectionable content, for example, with implied threat to take some action against them. The current occupant of the “bigger, better” White House has taken this sensitivity to a whole new level. We now have a president who blackmails (successfully, alas) networks and gleefully sues news organizations for often just telling the truth.

Yet,  I still believe in freedom of speech as an almost absolute. Thomas Jefferson said regarding freedom of the press that “Our liberty depends on freedom of the press and cannot be limited without being lost.”  (My italics) And Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said there were few limits on freedom of speech, one exception being “free speech must not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre.”

            We also agree that it doesn’t extend to advocating the violent overthrow of the government or killing the president. There are laws against libel and slander, and although pornography is readily available on the internet, child pornography is a crime for both the purveyor and the consumer.

            But the antisemite, anti-Catholic, homophobe, Trumaphobe, sexist, Marxist (and whatever you would like to add) must be allowed to have their say. We may hate them and their views, but they must be permitted to vent, so that we can have our say without the government or our neighbors trying to stop us.     

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

The first good watch I ever owned was a Hamilton that I got when I graduated from high school. It told the time in various time zones and had a 21-jewel movement. It would have been a real stretch financially for my mother then. It disappeared when I was in basic training for the Army.

            Since then, I’ve owned a variety of timepieces, including a fine pocket watch my first wife Mary bought me. I had it on a watch chain and would fish it out of my pocket to find the time. I thought it was cool. It eventually stopped running and I never got around to getting it fixed. I replaced it with a cheap Timex, which served me well until my second wife Jeanette bought me a gold Seiko as a wedding gift in 1986. It needs a battery but keeps perfect time. It also tells me the date if I remember to adjust it every month.

            My second watch is a Hugo Boss. It has a Swiss movement and was a gift from a Korean international director of Lions Clubs International when we had our convention in Seoul in 1995. His name was Tae Suo Lee, and he was the former Minister of Political Affairs in the Korean government. He became president of Lions in 2003-04, after I retired. I confess when I got it,  I thought it was a “copy watch.”  Cheap knockoffs of almost any prestige brand could be found in Seoul in those days.   

            Rolex was a popular brand to copy. They did look the part but had cheap domestic movements. I remember going into a public restroom and finding a fellow at a table selling a variety of famous brands. Unfortunately, one of my colleagues bought six of them as gifts; alas, US Customs confiscated them when he landed back in Chicago. They probably would have stopped running soon in any case. But my Hugo is still running after more than 30 years, so I assume it’s the real thing.

            At some point, especially for young people, wrist watches went out of fashion, replaced by the ubiquitous cell phone. In addition to being an actual phone, it tells you the exact time, sends texts and emails; acts as your credit card; replaces your camera; stores tickets and boarding passes; gets you to your destination with as little fuss as possible; and no doubt occasionally reminds you what a fine and generous person you are. Have you noticed that more people never let it leave their  hand? As if their life depended on its immediacy?

            Many people predicted the end of watches, but they had forgotten the obsession that rich people have to own something no one else has. Watch collecting has become the thing. While the average Joe would love to have any Rolex – the least expensive is about $8,000 – the serious collector will lust after the Petek Philippe Grand Complications Dial Watch at $14 million, which of course includes the band. And it comes with a guarantee.

            At a lower price point, the “smart” watch began to appear. At first, it was a hard sell, but as features were added, it began to catch on. It can’t completely replace the cell phone, but it can be used as a phone (and a watch), but most folks buy one because they can track their vital signs on a minute-by-minute basis. Why apparently healthy people need to know their blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen, and most important of all: how may steps they’ve taken in the day are beyond me.

            Another area of collecting nostalgia is the fountain pen. As it happens, I once owned two – a Waterman and a Mont Blanc. I got the Waterman as a gift at a dinner at the Ritz Hotel in Paris from a PR agency we employed; the Mont Blanc was a gift from my wife Jeanette. She paid about $250 for it; I see now they go for nearly $800. I used the pens generally to sign correspondence, although I’m sure the recipient didn’t notice or  care. After I retired, my son sold them for me on E-bay for a nice profit.

            Anyway, feel free to ask me the time of day. I never go out without my watch. And I do carry my cell phone with me. If I recognize the caller’s number, I’ll even answer it. But if you ask me my blood pressure, I’ll have to tell you it was normal the last time I had it checked by my doctor.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

This Land is Our Land?

By Patrick F. Cannon

It has become commonplace for museums and other institutions to publish a “Land Acknowledgement” statement. Tours at many institutions begin with a version of the statement. Although we’re not in any hurry to give the land back, it’s true that the Chicago area, for example, was once occupied by native American tribes like the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa. The Treaty of 1833 effectively moved all of them west of the Mississippi.

            If all these acknowledgements  make people feel better, so be it. But I sometimes get the feeling that some of my fellow countrymen think that the United States is unique in displacing former populations. In fact, almost no people are where they started. The “native” Americans that we displaced all started somewhere in Asia. The Celts that populate much of Ireland, Scotland, Wales – and significant parts of /France and Spain – moved west from eastern Europe.

            And let’s not forget the Huns, Goths, and Visigoths of our history books. Today’s Italians have their blood, as well as Roman. Greek, and no doubt other strains  as well. Both sides of my family came from Ireland. There is evidence that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were there at about 8,000 B.C. The Celts arrived at about 600 B.C. Then came the Vikings, Normans, Scots, and finally the English. None of them came (or gave up) peacefully.

            The successful conqueror was the one who managed to organize the new land. William the Conqueror wasted little time after defeating the Saxons at Hastings in 1066 in sending his minions around England to do what was essentially a census of his new subjects and the land they occupied. The resulting “Doomsday Book” still exists, held by the British National Archives at Kew. As was the case in much of Europe, the king assumed that he owned all the land, to be doled out to his favored followers, who in turn divided it among tenants who worked the land but didn’t own it. Some of these vast estates still exist in the UK, although land ownership is much more broadly held.

            These restrictions on who could own land were a major factor in the emigration of people from the Great Britain and other Northen European countries to North America. What they found was a sparsely populated paradise, with plenty of land to go around. You cleared some of it, and it was yours. Eventually, and inevitably, increasing numbers of immigrants began to move into lands traditionally occupied by native tribes.

            Thus began a pattern of resistance, wars, forced relocation, treaties, broken treaties, failed education initiatives – well, you get the idea. It was, as I said, inevitable, but also intentional. To give you some  idea of how early the concept of “manifest destiny” took hold, in 1787, the new government of the United States passed the Northwest Ordinance. Even though Native Americans then mostly occupied it, it was assumed that the areas that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota was already part of the United States and laid down for future Americans just how they could become states. If you own a piece of land in these states, how it is described (range, sections, divisions, subdivisions, etc.) is a result of the ordinance.

            We can’t change the past. We study history so we might learn from our mistakes and try to do better. We need only apologize when we ourselves fail. Which, alas, we continue to do.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

Valley Low

By Patrick F. Cannon

I was in the Pittsburgh area again this past weekend. Last year was the semi-annual Donnelly family reunion; this year was for an off-year mini reunion. I hosted a dinner for 30 relatives from the Pittsburgh area – including two of my remaining four first cousins. The venue was a golf club at the top of the hill that overlooks what locals call the “Mon Valley,” the valley of the Monongahela River. The immediate view was of Braddock, the town where I was born.

            It, along with most of the towns along the river, died with the decline and death of the steel industry, mostly the mills of U.S. Steel. On the drive to the restaurant, we passed through towns (known locally as boroughs) such as East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding, and Turtle Creek. The latter is named for a tributary of the Monongahela that enters it at Braddock. The towns all developed because of the massive Westinghouse air brake and electric generator factory that bordered the creek and employed 20,000 workers at its height. After a long decline, it finally closed in 1968.  

            The industrial collapse along that river, and the Allegheny which joins it at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River, caused a massive population loss to the area. Pittsburgh itself lost nearly half its population. McKeesport, where I went to high school, went from 55,000 residents to fewer than 20,000 today. Braddock, where I was born, fared even worse, going from 20,000 at its peak to about 1,700 now.

            Yet, there are signs of life. Once plagued by industrial smoke and  river pollution, you can now breathe the air and even swim in the rivers (if you dare). Pleasure craft now seem abundant. If you’re so inclined, you can use one to travel unimpeded to the Gulf of Mexico. Pittsburg’s water highways are of course the reason the city exists. There is a beautiful park where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers meet.  Because of its strategic location, the French built a fort there in 1754 and named it Fort Duquesne after the governor of New France. During what we call the French and Indian War, the English kicked them out and renamed it Fort Pitt after the British prime minister of the day. By the way, the unemployment rate is now 3.8 percent, lower than the national average.

            When I was a kid, locals drank beers named after both – “Duquesne, that’s the name. The finest beer in town!” and “Fort Pitts, that’s it!” Both went out of business but have now been revived by the same new brewer. There’s also Duquesne University, one of the top ranked Catholic schools.

            In addition to family events, we visited the Frick Museum, which featured an exhibit of French Impressionists and more modern works. The complex includes gardens, a conservatory, and the Frick Mansion. If you’re a regular reader, you may recall that we also recently visited the Frick Collection in Manhattan, located in another home of Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnengie’s partner in what became U.S. Steel. He’s famous (or infamous?) for breaking the famous Homestead Steel strike of 1892.

            Finally, I’d like to recognize my son-in-law Boyd, who did all the driving. After many trips to the Pittsburgh area, he is now an expert at navigating the hills and curves of the area. There is no getting anywhere “as the crow flies,” unless the crow has been drinking some of that local beer!

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’ve written previously that Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked in Oak Park, Illinois for the 20 years between 1899 and 1910. Depending on your artistic interests, a more internationally famous Oak Parker, Nobel Prize winning writer Ernest Hemingway, was born in Oak Park, but left when he was 18, rarely to return. For the record, I lived there longer than both of t hem put together.

            Wright had a more physical impact – 24 of his buildings survive in Oak Park, by far the largest concentration in the world. Hemingway, of course, left behind a body of work that is widely read and studied around the world. But there are also physical reminders of him in Oak Park – the  house where he was born on July 21, 1899; and the house to which  the family moved when he was six. The birth home is now a museum, open to the public (hemingwaybirthplace.com).

            Hemingway was born in his grandparent’s 1890 Queene Anne house, but his parents built their own in 1906. Designed by Oak Park architect Henry G. Fiddelke in a Prairie influenced style, it was specially designed to suit the needs of Hemingway’s parents. His father Ed was a physician, so the house included a separate entrance to waiting and exam rooms.  Mother Grace was a singer and teacher, so Fiddelke provided a large music room, including a stage and even a balcony. The house has changed hands several times since, and those spaces have been adapted for family use. I have been in the house and seen Hemingway’s bedroom.           

            Both were towering figures, but their final days were quite different. Wright died full of honors, with his powers seemingly undiminished. Until his final illness, he was at his drawing board every day working on the commissions that came in on a regular basis. One oof his last great works, Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum, was nearing completion.

            Hemingway died two years later on July 2, 1961, aged 61.  I was in the Army then, only recently arrived in France. I learned of his death in the Army’s newspaper, the Stars  & Stripes. No cause oof death was given. He had been  a hero of mine – a great writer but also a romantic figure: war hero, war correspondent, boxer, big game hunter, and bullfight aficionado. By a long way, America’s most famous writer. When I later learned he had died a suicide, I was shocked and confused.

            Just as with Wright, serious biographies have been able to explain much. In Hemingway’s case, he inherited a tendency to what is now called bi-polar disorder from his father’s family. His father died a suicide, as did his sister Ursala, his brother Leicester, and his granddaughter Margaux. Since no medications were then available, like many depressives, he self-medicated with alcohol. Just before his suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, he had been treated at the Mayo Clinic with electro-shock therapy, His doctors had also noted a cognitive decline.

            Having learned all this, it was easier for me to understand why he took his own life. Realizing that he could never write again – a craft he had devoted his life to perfecting – I’m sure he saw no other way out. Contrast this with Wright, who never lost his self-confidence.  Had he lived to be 100, he might well have surprised us with even more startling designs.

            Although Wright draws more tourists to Oak Park, Hemingway also lures his share of pilgrims. Strange, but neither the Village of Oak Park, nor any other government unit, has ever named anything after its two most famous sons. With one exception, all the local schools are named after worthies who never stepped foot in Oak Park.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

As I wrote last week, I’ll be working on a new book on Frank Lloyd Wright’s surviving buildings in the greater Chicago area. As part of my preparation, I’ve been re-reading some of the biographies; and Wright’s own Autobiography, first published in 1932. He was 65 then, without work, and in need of any cash the book might bring.

            To put it as kindly as possible, his book was a work of creative invention. From almost the first word of the chapter that describes his arrival in Chicago, he lies about almost every detail. He was unwilling to admit that he got his first job in architecture through his uncle Jenkin Lloyd Jones, so he creates a story that asks us to believe that he got that job with the architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee entirely on his own. That Silsbee had designed his uncle’s Chicago church and the Lloyd Jones family chapel in Wisconsin is glossed over.

            This is not the place to provide a catalog of Wright’s inventions. Once, when he was called out on one of them, it was pointed out to him that what he had just said couldn’t possibly be true. His response? “Well, there you are.” Then he changed the subject.

            Although I was aware of him before I began volunteering at his Home and Studio in Oak Park in 1975, my knowledge was based mostly on his very public persona. I was in high school and college in the 1950s, and Wright’s flamboyant personality seemed made to measure for the expanding television universe. He was interviewed by Mike Wallace, Hugh Downs, and others. With his sonorous voice, he could make the most outrageous statements and get away with them. In one appearance, he was filmed walking up 5^th Avenue in Manhattan, pointing out the sins of the International Style with his ever-present walking (or was it a swagger?) stick.

            When I first started giving tours of his Oak Park home and other local designs in 1975, many of my fellow volunteers held him in a kind of awed reverence. He died in 1959, and the first of the impartial biographies, Brendan Gill’s Many Masks, wasn’t published until 1987. Since then, other biographies and related works have appeared with regularity. They generally paint a picture of a flawed genius, who created an enduring body of work, while shamelessly exploiting his family, friends, clients, and apprentices.

With the active participation of his third wife Olgivanna, he created what can only be described as a cult at his school of architecture that came to be known as the “Fellowship.” In the photo above, he is surrounded by his devoted students, who not only paid for the privilege of working for him, but did all construction and farm work on the property. His influence over them extended to his pacifist and anti-war opinions. He was a member of American First, and, although he denied it, was influential in causing many of his apprentices to refuse to register for the draft that was instituted just prior to World War II. Three of them subsequently went to prison, and others to conscientious objector camps.

Although he was investigated for his role in this, and was subsequently watched by the F.B.I., he escaped punishment. I doubt if he lost any sleep over it, as he didn’t over the debts he failed to pay throughout a life lived beyond his means. Perhaps the most unforgiveable was the approximately $50,000 (over $1 million in today’s money) that he still owed his friend and benefactor Darwin Martin when Martin – who had been responsible for several lucrative commissions for Wright – died nearly broke in 1935, having lost  his fortune in the 1929 stock market crash.

In a review of one of the latest books about Wright, Paul Henrickson’s Plagued by Fire, a British reviewer described Wright as a “cad.” In this country we would perhaps not use that word, but it’s not such a bad description. But we’re inclined to overlook faults in artists of genius. When you look at Picasso’s Guernica, his misogyny isn’t the first  thing that comes to mind; or Wagner’s antisemitism when you hear to prelude  to “Lohengrin,” or indeed Wright’s character faults when you see Fallingwater for the first time, or enter the rotunda at the Guggenheim Museum, or – as I did many times – walk up into the sanctuary at Unity Temple.

In this era when we’re extremely ready to “cancel” someone for their failings, we should remind ourselves that the artist and his or her work are what matter most the end. “Well, there you are!”

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon

By Patrick F. Cannon

I may have mentioned one or more of my books in this space from time to time, but I thought I would indulge in a little shameless self-promotion today. I’ve listed just my most recent ones, which are all about Chicago architecture or architects. None of them would have been possible without the photographs of my partner James Caulfield, one of America’s greatest architectural photographers.

            Because he spent the first 20 years of his career in the Chicago area, Frank Lloyd Wright is a persistent presence in our books. Our most recent is Robie House: A Frank Lloyd Wright Masterpiece. It was published by the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust and is being distributed by the University of Minnesota Press. ($34.95, 130 pages) Located in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, Robie is one of the eight Wright buildings named World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. It is open for tours (www.flwright.org). Here are four more of our books:

            Louis Sullivan: An American Architect. Published by the Glessner House Museum; distributed by the University of Minnesota Press. ($49.95, 288 pages). Sullivan was one of the greatest of all American architects, and it can fairly be said that Frank Lloyd Wright, his employee from 1888-1893, learned to be an architect while working with Adler & Sullivan. Sullivan is widely regarded as the father of the American skyscraper.  

Frank Lloys Wright’s Unity Temple: A Good Time Place Reborn. Published by the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation; distributed by the University of Wisconsin Press. ($34.95, 120 pages). This is the other Wright World Heritage Site in the Chcaago area. Dedicated in 1908, it was the first modernist religious building in the world. It is also open for tours (www.flwright.org).

            At Home in Chicago: A History of Domestic Architecture. Published by City Files Press, Chicago. ($65.00, 364 pages). From the oldest surviving houses to some of the very newest, this is a visual survey of how people have housed themselves in Chicagoland.

            The Space Within: Inside Great Chicago Buildings. Published by Pomegranate Communications. ($65.00, 320 pages). For the first time in many cases, this book takes you inside many of the Chicago area’s landmark buildings.

            Except for the Robie book, which received a Bronze Medal, all were Gold Medal Winners at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. They also have in common that they were funded by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, which does so much to support the arts in the Chicago area. You may be familiar with the Driehaus Museum in Chicago, which contains a rich collection of furniture and decorative arts.

            Jim Caulfield and I have now started work on a new book, Chicago by Wright, which will document all the existing Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings in the Chicago area. There are nearly 100, making it the largest concentration of the architect’s buildings in the world. It  is being published by the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy and, once again, is made possible by a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. It should be out in the spring of 2028.

            All our books are available from the usual online booksellers. But even if they don’t  stock them, your favorite local bricks and mortar bookstore should be able to get copies to you in a few days. If you have one, I urge you to support it. But of course, you can probably get a copy of  one or more of them from your local library. If they don’t have a copy, hey can usually get one through their local interlibrary loan system. If it’s listed in their catalog, they can get it for you.

Copyright 2026, Patrick F. Cannon