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| Carl Schurz High School at 3600 North Milwaukee Avenue (JWB, 2010) |
Our ideals
resemble the stars, which illuminate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the men who, like sailors on the
ocean, take them for guides will undoubtedly reach their goal.
These were the
words of Carl Schurz, a German-American born near Cologne on March 2,
1829. Involved in radical politics
at the University of Bonn, Schurz took part in the 1848 German Revolution,
ultimately acting as an officer in the artillery. Narrowly escaping capture when the garrison at Rastatt
surrendered, Schurz made his way to Switzerland, moving from there to
Edinburgh, then to Paris, finally settling in London.
It was in London
that Schurz met his wife, Margarethe Meyer, and in 1852 the couple headed for
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By
1852 they had settled in Watertown, Wisconsin. Clearly ambitious, the newly arrived immigrant worked as a
farmer while fighting on behalf of the anti-slavery movement and in 1857
mounting an unsuccessful campaign as a Republican for Lieutenant-Governor. Margarethe, by the way, waged a
campaign of her own and is widely acknowledged for starting the first
kindergarten in the United States.
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| JWB, 2010 |
Admitted to the bar
in 1858, Schurz set up a practice in Milwaukee and by 1860 was the spokesman
for the Wisconsin delegation at the Republican National Convention, held in
Chicago. In this position he was a
member of the committee that brought Abraham Lincoln the news of his
nomination.
It was Lincoln who
sent Schurz to Spain as Ambassador in 1861, and it was his efforts that kept
the Spanish from supporting the Confederacy. The war weighed heavily on him, and he implored the
President to grant him a commission in the Union army. In April of 1861 he was made Brigadier
General of Union volunteers an in June took command of a division.
By March of 1862 he
had been promoted to Major General.
During his service he led forces at the Second Battle of Bull Run, the
Battle of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Chattanooga. He resigned his commission at the
end of the war.
For most men that
would have been enough to fill a lifetime, but Schurz was not finished. In 1866 he moved to Detroit and became
the chief editor of the Detroit Post. In 1867 he moved
to St. Louis where he took over the editorship of the Western Post.
In that capacity he hired Joseph Pulitzer in his first reporting job.
Three years later
Schurz was elected to the United States Senate, representing Missouri. By 1876 President Rutherford Hayes had
named Schurz to his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. He fought the movement of the Office of
Indian Affairs to the War Department and began attempts to clean up one of the
most corrupt offices in the government.
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| The deft touch of Dwight H. Perkins in the Carl Schurz Assembly Hall (JWB, 2010) |
Leaving the Cabinet
in 1881, Schurz moved to New York City where for the next twenty years he
actively represented his beliefs in honest government, a sound monetary policy
and an anti-imperialism stance. At
various times he served as Editor of the New York Evening Post, The Nation, and as an editorial writer for Harper’s
Weekly. It was in New York City that Carl
Schurz died on May 14, 1906.
When the time came
to build a new high school on the city’s northwest side, it was only natural
that the name of Carl Schurz be chosen for the new facility. At the time the new school was
planned, there were 470,000 Germans in Chicago – one out of four Chicagoans in
1900 was either born in German or had a parent born there. Carl Schurz High School, at 3600
North Milwaukee where it crosses Addison Street, was finished in 1910 with
additions following in 1915 and 1924.
The original
building, the design of Chief Architect of the Board of Education Dwight H.
Perkins, is a magnificent combination of the Prairie Style and Arts and Crafts
Style of architecture as they apply to a large institution. In the next blog I’ll have a look at
Perkins, his design, the beauty of the building, and the award-winning renovation
by Carol Ross-Barney + Jankowski.
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