Sometime in the early 1980s, the Tribune tossed out a mountain of bound volumes. Deemed obsolete by management after being copied onto microfilm, the bulky archive fell into the hands of an amateur sports historian the company consulted after acquiring the Cubs. After clipping the sports pages for his personal collection, the hobbyist, a retired airline pilot, hauled the tomes off to a suburban storage locker.
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In 1986, when the Tribune hired Ginsburg to survey the company’s remaining historic holdings, she tried, unsuccessfully, to sell them on assembling an exhibition. In 1988 and 1989 the highlights of Ginsburg’s digging were displayed in the hallways of the marketing department; but although some execs liked the framed pages as office decor, the company made no further plans to exhibit them.
The finished exhibit, “The Art of the Message,” features 77 examples of Tribune graphics from the period between 1876 and 1945, an era when hand-drawn maps, charts, and caricatures transmitted the news. There’s the Chicago Daily Tribune’s front page of April 16, 1876, six of its seven columns packed with ads–including “Pianos Cheap for Cash” and “Cow! Cow! Cow!” (Ginsburg says she thinks early advertisers showed greater graphic verve than journalists.) Then there’s William H. Wisner’s “How Much Is a Billion Dollars?” from Sunday, September 11, 1938. To visualize the sum’s magnitude, the illustrator equated a dollar to a minute and started the clock on January 1, 1 AD. “At the time of crucifixion” the running figure was $14,741,000. The towering stack of greenbacks topped off one billion on May 26, 1902, at 4:47 AM.
“The Art of the Message” is on display through September 24 at the special collections exhibit hall on the ninth floor of the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State. Hours are 9 to 7 Monday, 11 to 7 Tuesday and Thursday, 9 to 5 Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Admission is free. For more info call 747-4050.
