Chatham Midcentury Houses

Beginning in the early twentieth century, the Chatham neighborhood developed as a community of well-tended Chicago bungalows on spacious lots facing quiet, tree-lined streets. After the Great Depression and World War II, residential development continued in Chatham with new custom-built homes in popular styles of architecture including ranches and Midcentury house styles. In the late 1950s through the 1960s, Chatham emerged as a haven for middle-class and professional African American families drawn to the neighborhood for its suburban character, quality housing, good schools, community organizations, and high property standards.

At the same time that African Americans were settling in Chatham, American residential architecture was being transformed by the modern movement in architecture, new materials, and a renewed focus on family life. Historical styles of architecture were abandoned in favor of new forms that reflected an age of prosperity and optimism for the future. Successful African Americans embraced the new Midcentury house styles, and bought or commissioned stylish houses in Chatham. This architectural survey highlights a collection of eleven of these houses that are architecturally significant; but beyond their architectural value, this group of houses also conveys the history of several African American trailblazers who made significant contributions to the arts, professional and business occupations as well as the Civil Rights Movement.

Residential subdivisions continued in the early decades of the twentieth century. The Garden Homes subdivision, located between 87th and 89th along Indiana, Michigan, and Wabash Avenues, was commissioned by philanthropist Benjamin J. Rosenthal to provide affordable housing to low-income residents decades before public housing. In 1914, William E. Harmon & Company subdivided 150 acres of farmland into 1,100 residential lots known as the Chatham Fields subdivision. Buyers in the subdivision assented to strict rules about building design and siting as well as building maintenance. These high property standards became a character-defining feature of the wider Chatham neighborhood in the following decades. 

For decades development remained slow in Chatham due to its isolation from downtown jobs. This ended in 1920 when the Illinois Central Railroad opened a commuter rail station at 79th St. (which continues to serve the Metra Electric District line). The population of Chatham quadrupled in the 1920s, rising from 9,774 at the beginning of the decade to 36,228 by 1930. Most were middle-income, native-born Americans of Swedish, German and Irish descent who resided in brick bungalows, two-flats and small apartment buildings.

Construction stalled in Chatham during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1940 it resumed when construction began on Chatham Park Apartments (now the Chatham Park Village Cooperative), a 22-acre residential development that included multiple apartment blocks with 554 rental apartments and duplexes which were filled soon after completion. The complex was built at the southwest corner of 83rd St. and Cottage Grove Ave., spurring the development of Cottage Grove as a retail district. The onset of the Second World War in 1941 again halted residential construction, with the exception of a complex of duplexes just south of the Chatham Park Apartments which provided housing for war workers. 

For the first half of the twentieth century the population of Chatham remained white, while at the same time the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North was underway. The migration began during World War I which created jobs in Chicago’s industries, but the war also slowed European immigration to fill those jobs. Seeking economic opportunity and escape from Jim Crow in the South, millions of African Americans came North, including 500,000 who came to Chicago well into the 1970s. 

Housing segregation was one of the greatest challenges facing African Americans who came to Chicago during the Great Migration. Racially-restrictive covenants, redlining and violence excluded African Americans from most neighborhoods and confined the African American population to the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville neighborhood, a narrow corridor running along both sides of State St. on Chicago’s South Side. While the African American population continued to rise there was no corresponding increase in available housing units. In addition to creating ever more overcrowded conditions, the segregated housing market also resulted in inflated rents.

The lack of housing and the pressure of a growing population led to increases in poverty and crime within Bronzeville, which prompted many middle-class African-American families to move from the area. In 1948 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that racially-restrictive housing covenants were unconstitutional, allowing African Americans with financial means to move out of the overcrowded confines of the city’s Black Metropolis-Bronzeville to neighborhoods like Chatham, Woodlawn, Greater Grand Crossing, and Englewood. 

The white communities in these neighborhoods generally opposed African American who wished to call the neighborhood home, which resulted in harassment against the newcomers. Real estate “blockbusters” stoked white fears by encouraging African Americans to move to all-white blocks. Out of unreasonable suspicion and fear, whites would sell to these real estate agents at reduced prices. The agents would then in turn sell the properties to African Americans at higher prices.

During the influx of African Americans to Chatham, some experienced acts of violence, including arson, by whites. Religious leaders and some community organizations (notably the Chatham Avalon Park Community Council [CAPCC]) promoted racial coexistence and urged the community to resist a stampede to panic selling. These efforts appear to have contributed to a less violent transition in Chatham than elsewhere, though hopes of a racially integrated community were no match for white flight. Census records show that less than 1 percent of Chatham’s population was African American in 1950; ten years later the neighborhood was 64 percent African American, and by 1970 the population was 98 percent African American. While many Chicago neighborhoods experienced racial transition in the 1960s, Chatham has the distinction of being the only neighborhood where a white middle class was replaced by African American middle- and upper-class households. And while other neighborhoods faced economic decline, property values in Chatham increased after the racial transition as the new residents had resources to maintain and improve the housing stock, and joined block clubs and strong civic organizations that had long existed in the neighborhood.

The racial transition in Chatham coincided with broader patterns of history in the country as a whole. After the Great Depression and World War II, there was a pent-up demand for home ownership and a return to family life and prosperity. For African Americans the need for housing was even greater after 1948 when racially-restrictive housing practices were outlawed. The eleven stylish houses in Chatham featured in this survey were built by both whites and African Americans showing that the postwar American dream of the single-family home in a stable community cut across the racial divide.

The eleven houses in this survey were built between 1954 and 1967 and their designs show the influence of the Modern movement in architecture. The familiar picturesque and historicist styles of architecture that dominated before World War II were replaced with new forms. The styles from this period are fluid and commonly-agreed upon definitions remain elusive, however Virginia McAlester’s Field Guide to American Houses, revised in 2013, is regarded as the most definitive guide to domestic architecture and it serves as the basis for three architectural styles represented by the eleven houses in Chatham: the Ranch, International and Contemporary Styles.

Though the styles have their differences, all three of these styles of domestic architecture (and others from the modern era) were responding to social and technological changes and new ways of living in postwar America. These transformations are well described in a 1960 issue of House & Garden:

"Few periods in history can match the past decade in the number of spectacular changes it has witnessed in our daily lives. From a nation well supplied with automobiles we have turned to a nation living on wheels with the not too surprising result that the garage has become the real entrance of today’s house. In a matter of months TV grew from a rather expensive toy into standard household equipment and in the process added to the house a new room—the family room. Insulating glass walls of the southern California house have become equally comfortable for the climate of northern Illinois. The whole country has succumbed to a passion for cooking, eating and lounging outdoors, but at the same time land on which to build, cook and lounge has become progressively scarcer. So today’s house makes use of every inch of its lot and turns away from the street to face several outdoor living areas, each related in design and purpose to a major room."

Despite their stylistic differences, the eleven houses in this survey share features that reflect these changes. Most have attached garages incorporated into the facade. Patios and enclosed outdoor living areas and landscaped lawns are common, taking full advantage of Chatham’s unusually deep lots, and several of the houses sprawl over two lots. All of the houses are low, one to two stories in height with ground-hugging massing. Roofs tend to be flat or very shallow gables. Most of the houses include large picture windows and sliding glass doors that blend indoor and outdoor spaces.

 The Mahalia Jackson House  at 8358 South Indiana Ave. is an excellent example of the Ranch Style, a modern era style of residential architecture that gained wide popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. The one-story, ram-bling form of Ranch houses required larger lot sizes and they are most often found in suburban developments where land was more affordable. Connection to the outdoors was provided by large picture windows, sliding glass doors, and backyard patios. The style is attributed to California builder Cliff May who modeled his houses on Spanish Colonial ranch houses of California. May promoted his Ranch house designs in Sunset Magazine, House Beautiful, and House and Garden in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Compared to other modern house styles, the Ranch Style focused less on presenting a modern exterior, instead it placed emphasis instead on comfortable and informal family living that would become very popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Ranch houses featured large family rooms, open kitchens and modern conveniences on the interior but with more traditional exterior appearances which were thought to be more acceptable to the home-buying public and lenders like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Ranch houses have thus been described as “Banker’s Modern.”

Four houses in this survey area exemplify the International Style: the John Moutoussamy House, the George Johnson House, the Frank Anglin House, and 8601 S. Calumet Ave. The International style began as an avant garde movement in the 1920s by European architects in search of a style suitable for modern society. Many American architects learned of the style through an influential exhibit at New York City's Museum of Modern Art in 1932, where the curators, Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock, perceived common visual and spatial elements among the designs of European modernists such as Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. The International Style fully embraced modern materials and engineering and rejected all historical styles of architecture. How a building functioned was key, and International style houses were regarded as “machines for living.” Character-defining features of the style include clearly expressed structure, horizontal proportions, flat roofs and planar walls that emphasize geometric volumes. Windows are large and typically extend the full height of the building to bring in ample daylight and landscape views. Ornamentation is absent.

The International Style was most influential in Chicago’s downtown office towers, particularly through the design and influence of Mies van der Rohe, and International Style houses are very rare in Chicago. Comparable examples include the Charles Turzak House (designed by Bruce Groff, 1939), the Dr. Philip Weintraub House (designed by Andrew Nicholas Rebori, 1941) and the Keck-Gottschalk-Keck Apartments (a three-flat by designed by George and William Keck, 1931); all are designated Chicago landmarks.

Like the International Style, the Contemporary style rejected historical styles of architecture, however, the style was less austere and allowed for a greater variety of materials, textures, and forms making it more popular. It is not surprising then that the majority of the buildings in this survey exemplify the Contemporary Style:

Jolyn Robichaux House, the Lawrence E. Smith House, the Helen C. Maybell Anglin House, 8650 S. Michigan Ave., 8349 S. Calumet Ave., and 8223 S Wabash Ave.

The design of the Contemporary Style houses is clearly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Houses which were built with natural materials, free-flowing interiors, and a blending of interior and exterior spaces. Contemporary Style houses were popular from 1945 to 1965 when they were designed by architects for individual clients or built in large numbers by developers, most notably by Joseph Eichler who built ten thousand Contemporary Style homes in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Contemporary House style emphasized the convenience of open floor plans and the blending of indoor and outdoor spaces. The houses are typically two stories in height with flat, shallow gable or butterfly roofs with wide overhangs and exposed beams. Exterior walls are clad in a variety of materials including brick, wood, and stone, often used in combination. Entrances are often recessed or off-center.

Of the eleven houses presented in this survey, four were designed by African American architects: Wendell Campbell, John Moutoussamy, K. Roderick O’Neal and William H. Royal. These men entered the profession at a time when African American architects faced an uphill battle securing work and professional opportunity. Publisher John Johnson observed that African American architects “end up with a low volume of work and unadventurous clients, and they miss out on opportunities to do pioneering work, attract attention, and bask in the same lime-light as their majority peers.”

In 1965 Moutoussamy left PACE to start his own practice to design a large-scale urban-renewal housing development known as the Lawless Gardens (3550 S Rhodes Ave.). He received the commission from a consortium of African American professionals including Dr. Theodore K. Lawless, publisher John H. Johnson and dentist Dr. William J. Walker. The complex was partially subsidized from the National Housing Act to support construction of middle-income housing. The remaining financing needed to come from banks, and because Moutoussamy was black they declined to support the project. Moutoussamy was required to team up with a more established firm. He chose to form a team with Dubin, Dubin and Black (DDB) because he had worked with John Black of that firm while at PACE. At the beginning Moutoussamy was merely an associate of (DDB) with a separate office where he was the lead designer for Lawless Gardens. At some point during construction Moutoussamy was asked to join the firm as partner, the first African American to attain partner at a large Chicago architecture firm.

Completed in 1969, Lawless Gardens consists of two 24-story apartment buildings and 54 low-rise town homes. Architectural historian Carl Condit described the design challenges of Lawless Gardens: “This large body of construction, with its relatively stringent limitations on cost and hence on design flexibility, brought to the fore the architectural firm of Dubin, Dubin, Black and Moutoussamy, who steadily improved the quality of planning until it stood not far below the average of unsubsidized work such as Marina City.” In 1970 the Lawless Gardens design was awarded by the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Dubin, Dubin, Black & Moutoussamy practiced from 1965 to 1978, and after John Black’s retirement the firm continued as Dubin, Dubin & Moutoussamy until Moutoussamy’s passing in 1995. In his three decades at the firm, Moutoussamy’s work remained true to his training under Mies van der Rohe and staunchly modernist even as the style began to fall out of fashion in the 1980s. Moutoussamy’s best-known work from this period is the Johnson Publishing Company, a late-modern corporate headquarters at 820 S. Michigan Ave. completed in 1971 (a designated Chicago Landmark).

Moutoussamy also designed a number of institutional buildings in Chicago for both public and private clients. Public institutions include three City Colleges: Harry S. Truman (1145 W Wilson Ave., 1976), Olive-Harvey (10001 S Woodlawn Ave., 1981) and Richard J. Daley College (7500 S Pulaski Rd., 1981), as well as the Carver Military Academy (13100 S Doty Ave., 1973) the Bessie Coleman Library (731 E 63rd St., 1993), and the Woodlawn Neighborhood Health Center (6337 S. Woodlawn Ave., 1972) for the City of Chicago. Private institutions also commissioned Moutoussamy, including the National Headquarters of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (5656 S. Stony Island Ave., 1983), and the Headquarters of the Chicago Urban League (4510 Michigan Ave., 1982). Moutoussamy also designed the Regents Park Apartments (5050 S Lake Shore Dr., 1972-1974), a twin-tower residential complex designed with distinctive concrete lattice-frame exteriors. 

In 1978 the American Institute of Architects honored Moutoussamy’s contributions to the field of architecture by naming him a Fellow. He was a member of the Builder’s Club and the Wayfarer’s Club, the latter club included Bertrand Goldberg and Walter Netsch. Moutoussamy was married to Elizabeth Hunt and the couple raised three children. His son, Claude Louis, received his architectural degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and became principal of Dubin, Dubin, & Moutoussamy. The elder Moutoussamy’s daughter, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, is a prominent photographer who was married to the late tennis champion Arthur Ashe. John Moutoussamy died in 1995 at age 73.

Campbell mentored African American architects and in 1971 was one of the founders and the first president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), an organization which promotes communication and cooperation among African American architects. His practice emphasized a high level of community engagement and he received numerous awards, including the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Medal in 1976, awarded by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in recognition of Campbell’s “services to the profession and the Institute compliments his dedication to the social and economic concerns of his community.” In 1978, he was elected to the AIA’s College of Fellows for his public service and urban design.

Kenneth Roderick O’Neal designed the Lawrence E. Smith House at 8348 S. Calumet Ave. in 1964. He was born in rural Missouri. His parents, both teachers, moved the family to St. Louis when O’Neal was a child and he completed his primary education in the St. Louis Public Schools where he excelled in art. He attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City and graduated in 1931 with a BA in graphic arts. He continued at the University of Iowa and earned a second degree in 1935 with a BS in structural engineering and began working as a draftsman at the University of Iowa before working at the New Deal Civilian Works Administration (CWA) to map Johnson County, Iowa.

O’Neal moved to Chicago in 1935 and attended the Armour Institute, now the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), studying city planning and architecture under Mies Van Der Rohe. O’Neal was licensed to practice architecture in Illinois in 1940 and joined the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Having worked for the Illinois Highway Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prior to the onset of World War II, O’Neal enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in an engineering unit in England and France from 1943 to 1945. After the war he remained in Europe briefly to study English architecture at the University of Liverpool.

Upon his return to Chicago, O’Neal opened his architectural practice, first working out of his home and eventually opening his office downtown in 1946. O’Neal designed private homes, public works projects, a police station and churches over the years and worked with the two first African American female licensed architects, Beverly Loraine Greene and Georgia Louise Harris Brown. He published two books on residential architecture, including A Portfolio of Modern Homes in 1949 and, A Volume of Contemporary Homes in 1980.

O’Neal closed his private practice in 1956 and went on to work with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. In 1958 he took a position with the City of Chicago Architect’s Office, eventually becoming coordinating architect for O’Neal closed his private practice in 1956 and went on to work with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. In 1958 he took a position with the City of Chicago Architect’s Office, eventually becoming coordinating architect for the city’s municipal airports: O’Hare, Midway and Meigs Field. 

The architectural firm of Huebner & Henneberg designed the International Style house for George Johnson at 8418 South Indiana Ave. Huebner & Henneberg was established in 1960 in Skokie, Illinois and the firm primarily designed homes in the Chicago suburbs. In the 1960s several Huebner & Henneberg designs were published in House & Garden and Arts & Architecture magazines which were influential in promoting modern residential architecture, particularly through their sponsorship of the Case Study Houses program in California. In addition to his house, George Johnson commissioned Huebner & Henneberg to design the corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility for his Johnson Products Company in Chatham.

Milton A. Schwartz designed three houses in this survey area: the Robichaux House, the Helen C. Maybell Anglin House and 8349 South Calumet Ave. In the mid-twentieth century there were two architects working in Chicago named Milton Schwartz (Milton A. Schwartz and Milton M. Schwartz). The houses in this survey were designed by Milton A. Schwartz who practiced in Barrington, Illinois and primarily designed houses in the Chicago suburbs. Little is known about the architect.

Another lesser-known figure is African American architect William H. Royal (b. 1924), who designed the contemporary style home at 8223 S. Wabash Ave. in 1963. Royal began his career in architecture in the 1940s by working for John R. Steele, the first licensed African American architect in Missouri. In 1960s he worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and then started William H. Royal & Associates, Inc. in Missouri. 

Martin B. Schaffer (1931-2013) designed the International Style house at 8342 S. Calumet Ave. for Frank Anglin in 1965. Schaffer studied at the University of Illinois and graduated from there in 1956 with a MA in architecture in 1956. In 1957 he began working the Chicago architectural firm of Naess & Murphy (later C.F. Murphy) where he began work on the O’Hare International Airport project. In 1961 he formed Martin B. Schaffer & Associates where he continued to work on the O’Hare project as well as the Dulles International Airport. Throughout his career Schaffer specialized in aviation, industrial and civic architecture, the latter including the award-winning Portage-Cragin Branch of the Chicago Public Library in 1968.

American Institute of Architects. AIA Historical Directory of American Architects: A Resource Guide to Information About Past Architects. n.d.  http://communities.aia.org/sites/hdoaa/wiki/Wiki%20Pages/Home.aspx 

Campbell, Wendell, Adele Hodge, and Matthew Hickey. The History Makers Video Oral History with Wendell Campbell. 2016. < http://marc.thehistorymakers.org/A2002.146.htm >.

Chicago Fact Book Consortium. Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area : Based on the 1970 and 1980 Censuses. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 1984.

Chicago Fact Book Consortium. Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area : Based on the 1990 Census. Chicago, Ill: University of Illinois at Chicago, 1995.

Chicago Public Library. Chatham-Grand Crossing Community Collection. 1852.

Gregory, Mae. Chatham, 1856-1987: A Community of Excellence. Chicago: Chicago Public Library, 1989.

Holli, Melvin G., and Peter d'A. Jones. Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait. Grand Rapids, Mich. [u.a.]: Eerdmans, 2007.

Isenstadt, Sandy. The Modern American House: Spaciousness and Middle-Class Identity. 2014.

Jackson, Mahalia. Mahalia Jackson papers [manuscript], 1950-1977. Chicago History Museum

Kitagawa, Evelyn M., and Karl E. Taeuber. Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area, 1960. Chicago, IL: Chicago Community Inventory, University of Chicago, 1963.

McAlester, Virginia, A. Lee McAlester, Lauren Jarrett, and Juan Rodriguez-Arnaiz. A Field Guide to American Houses: The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America's Domestic Architecture. 2013.

Newman, M. W., Harry Swegle, and Jack Willner. The Panic Peddlers: A Reprint of Articles. Chicago, Ill: Chicago Daily News, 1959.

Rehbein, Krisann. “At Home in Chatham: A Bounty of Mid-Century Modern on the South Side.” NewCity, November 19, 2015.

Schwerin, Jules Victor. Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

Arts and Architecture, Chicago Defender, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune, House & Garden, and New York Times. Numerous issues of Ebony and Jet were consulted and these have been scanned and made available online by Google Books.

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