Eugene B. Meier, Jr., M.S.Ed.
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  • Sycamore, IL
  • United States
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Eugene B. Meier, Jr., M.S.Ed.'s Discussions

1880s panoramas>1890s cycloramas

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Started Feb 5, 2011

 

Eugene B. Meier, Jr., M.S.Ed.'s Page

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What I ride:
I don't have a bike (yet)
The kind of riding I do:
Other
About me:
I am writing the first book from the American point of view about 19th century rotunda panoramas. These were the biggest paintings in the world, 50 x 400=20,000 square feet, housed in their own rotundas which were 16-sided polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama rotundas and 6 panorama companies. Englewood, Illinois in the mid 1880s was a thriving middle class suburb of Chicago populated with Germans and Swedes, and enjoyed a building boom. Howard H.Gross (1863-1920) was a lawyer, member of the Chicago Board of Education, and owner of a panorama studio in Englewood located somewhere along the Rock Island Railroad. Gross employed some of the best young artists in Chicago to paint 10 units of THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG and 4 units of JERUSALEM ON THE DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION.(This is a LONG STORY, and I want to get to the chase!) Gross's corporate address was that of his residence in Englewood:425 61st Street...but I do not yet have an address or location for his panorama studio, which stood 5 stories high. THE ENGLEWOOD STUDIO CLOSES: In September 1888 the rotunda panorama studio in Englewood closed. Howard H.Gross & Co. removed to Australia to erect two rotundas in Melbourne, one in Adelaide and one in Sydney. This company would RETURN to Chicago in the 1890s and create panoramas for the World's Columbian Exposition, including the CHICAGO FIRE PANORAMA at Michigan between Madison and Monroe.RULE OF THUMB: Panoramas were the mass medium of the 19th century. When the panorama boom went "bust" in the 1890s, panorama rotundas from coast to coast were suddenly abandoned. What to do? But along came the bicycle craze of the 1890s, and the bicycle people turned the panorama rotundas, made specifically to display 360 degree paintings, into bicycle clubs: huge spiral ramps were installed inside the rotundas...hence "cyclo-ramas". LOGICAL DEDUCTION: 65th and Wentworth in Englewood is located along the Rock Island railroad and in the late 1880s contained a tiny passenger station where panorama artists from the Loop could get off the train and walk a few steps to the panorama studio. ENTER THE ENGLEWOOD WHEELMEN:At hand is page 85/volume 15 of the Sanborn Fire Insurance map for Chicago,copyright 1895. The location of the "Englewood Wheelmen" Club H.Q. at 323 W.65th Street is located just two blocks south of the residence of Howard H.Gross, close to the Rock Island railway and to the tiny railroad station mentioned above. There is no image on this map of a panorama rotunda, which would appear as a 16-sided polygon, or as a circle. QUESTION: does anyone know whether a bicycle club in Englewood in the 1890s ever made use of a former panorama building located somewhere along the Rock Island railroad?

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