DePaul University
By Chicago, For Chicago? Listening for the City in the Creation of
Grant Park Music Festival
In an echo of Daniel
Burnham’s call to “make no little plans,” the Grant Park Music Festival has
operated on a grand scale since it was founded as Grant Park Concerts in 1935.
This presentation examines how the Chicago Park District, in cooperation with
James C. Petrillo and the Chicago Federation of Musicians, launched a major
festival during the Great Depression that took place in Grant Park, described
as “Chicago’s Front Yard.” Union leadership, city government, and support from
the federal Works Progress Administration collaborated to employ large numbers
of professional musicians and park workers and reach huge audiences. The
concerts were billed as “by Chicago, for Chicago” in an effort to draw people
into the gem of the newly consolidated Chicago Park District and promote a
sense of civic pride rooted in local musicians’ performances of predominantly
classical music. However, policies mandating who performed, their programming
choices, and the social norms governing park usage complicated the notion of
civic unity promoted by the festival. Despite its democratic aspirations,
persistent patterns of discrimination and racial segregation cast doubt on the
notion that the outdoor festival served all Chicagoans. The Chicago Federation
of Musicians, Local 10 of the American Federation of Musicians, excluded
African American musicians until 1966. In response, a separate union local, no.
208, served professional African-American musicians, but Grant Park Concerts
only hired ensembles whose musicians who were members of Local 10. Female
musicians performed in the Women’s Symphony Orchestra, but other than
occasional guest soloists, all other ensembles were exclusively male. Although
the majority of Chicago’s African-American community resided just a few miles
south of Grant Park in the Bronzeville neighborhood, it is not clear that
African Americans felt welcome in the park. Drawing on archival material such
as scrapbooks and bulletins from the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Chicago
Park District reports, newspaper coverage, and concert programs, this project
seeks to uncover the process through which the city, musicians’ union, and its
constituents sought to create new employment opportunities, craft a listening public
and shape civic life through Grant Park Concerts.
Posts
