{"id":25360,"date":"2026-09-21T23:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=25360"},"modified":"2026-09-22T16:12:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T16:12:44","slug":"chicagos-left-bank-playgrounds-for-people-who-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/?p=25360","title":{"rendered":"Chicago\u2019s Left Bank: Playgrounds\u00a0for People Who Think\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs\" data-active-tab=\"0\"><ul class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-links\"><\/ul>\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Intro<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Themes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Arts <br>Chicago History<br>Counterculture<br>Literature<br><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Periods &amp; Events<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">20th Century<br>Bohemianism<br>Dil Pickle Club<br>College of Complexes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Skills &amp; Document Types<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Close Reading<br>Visual Analysis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Flyers<br>Photographs<br>Poetry<br>Syllabi <br><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Use this essay and source set to:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Compare visual and textual sources to build a picture of the Dil Pickle Club, an important performance space and social forum during the Chicago literary renaissance (1910s-1930s).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Examine ways that literature, performance, education, and social activism intersect.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Explore the relationships between the countercultures of the 1920s and 1950s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Essay<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contents<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"#intro-dilpickle\">Introduction<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#birth-dil-pickle\">The Birth of Dil Pickle<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#free-unions\">Free Unions<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#chicago-literary-capital\" data-type=\"internal\" data-id=\"#chicago-literary-capital\">Chicago, Literary Capital of the World<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#college-of-complexes\">The College of Complexes<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"intro-dilpickle\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1958, a reporter for the <em>Chicago<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Tribune, <\/em>strolling the 800 block of North State Street, saw a gaggle of college students choking the doorway of Bill Smith\u2019s twenty-four-hour bookshop, a brand new \u201crallying place\u201d for the Beatnik styles blowing in from San Francisco.<sup data-fn=\"9f24aa19-c65b-4bee-8091-8a351663e229\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#9f24aa19-c65b-4bee-8091-8a351663e229\" id=\"9f24aa19-c65b-4bee-8091-8a351663e229-link\">1<\/a><\/sup> Next door, a raucous party was spilling out from an \u201cintellectual bistro\u201d called the College of Complexes, which had been running since 1951 under the zany ownership of its \u201cjanitor\u201d and impresario Slim Brundage. Erstwhile hobo, labor organizer, and housepainter by trade, Brundage had started the College of Complexes after a fall from an elevated train platform earned him \u201csix thousand bananas from Workmen\u2019s Comp.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"42a94218-9bf1-45b1-b46b-2cea7fc0a602\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#42a94218-9bf1-45b1-b46b-2cea7fc0a602\" id=\"42a94218-9bf1-45b1-b46b-2cea7fc0a602-link\">2<\/a><\/sup> The College was \u201ca fully discredited institution whose academic standards are far below normal,\u201d according to the North Central Association of Colleges, but for ten years, it operated as \u201can adult education center where the matriculation fee is the price of a bottle of beer,\u201d and the highest degree granted the \u201cBachelor of Complexes Maximum-rum-Laudanum.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"12ea82bd-3f77-4cff-8c1d-7f5a8f55f4a8\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#12ea82bd-3f77-4cff-8c1d-7f5a8f55f4a8\" id=\"12ea82bd-3f77-4cff-8c1d-7f5a8f55f4a8-link\">3<\/a><\/sup> The reporter William Leonard dubbed this colorful area \u201cChicago\u2019s New \u2018Left Bank\u2019\u201d in deference to the <em>old<\/em> one, which was not in Paris but in fact right underfoot. Several years earlier, Alson J. Smith had argued in a book called <em>Chicago\u2019s Left Bank <\/em>that \u201c[i]n the years between 1912 and 1924,\u201d the northside neighborhood then called Towertown had been \u201cthe geographical center of\u2026perhaps the most vital literary and artistic upsurge in the history of the country.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"472c58b8-4e72-4eaf-90ae-17e4462789b6\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#472c58b8-4e72-4eaf-90ae-17e4462789b6\" id=\"472c58b8-4e72-4eaf-90ae-17e4462789b6-link\">4<\/a><\/sup> Smith refers to what is sometimes called the first Chicago Renaissance, a moment when literary lights like Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg, and Theodore Dreiser, and prominent institutions like Harriet Monroe\u2019s <em>Poetry<\/em> magazine, Margaret Anderson\u2019s <em>Little Review, <\/em>and the Chicago Little Theater were putting Chicago on the cultural map. By 1920, HL Mencken could say, and not without reason, that Chicago was \u201cliterary capital of the United States.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"f3b10f73-5604-446e-b18a-64e39d171be1\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#f3b10f73-5604-446e-b18a-64e39d171be1\" id=\"f3b10f73-5604-446e-b18a-64e39d171be1-link\">5<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But to get a sense for what this purported Renaissance felt like on the ground, it\u2019s worth looking beyond the anthology pieces and textbook accounts to the seedy beating heart of Towertown. In this raucous, utopian haunt Anderson and Sandburg rubbed shoulders and traded ideas with a working-class intellectual set that was in many respects the <em>foundation<\/em> for Chicago\u2019s distinctive achievements in the arts. This was the Dil Pickle Club. In his youth, Brundage had waited tables at the Pickle, and the College he founded years later \u201cserved as a tenuous bridge between the working-class bohemianism of the Dill Pickle and the emerging youth radicalism of the 1960s,\u201d blowing on the embers, as it were, of a counterculture everywhere imperiled by the staid 1950s.<sup data-fn=\"2628e905-3513-4285-9dac-14e80ed9ab20\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#2628e905-3513-4285-9dac-14e80ed9ab20\" id=\"2628e905-3513-4285-9dac-14e80ed9ab20-link\">6<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though the Dil Pickle is long gone, its memory lives on in the nearby Newberry Library, which holds a marvelous collection of materials related to the operations of this bohemian hothouse. In spring 2025, I had the good fortune to spend some time with this treasure trove. Perusing the poetry and prose of Picklers, their programs, posters, and photographs, I worked to re-conjure the intellectual thrill of an evening on Chicago\u2019s \u201cLeft Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the help of the Newberry Library\u2019s digital collections, this essay attempts to ferry some of the Pickle spirit into the twenty-first century. The first section offers a sketch of the club, its context and character. The second section samples the ideologies of free love that found exuberant expression therein, while the third highlights the Pickle\u2019s parade of literary spectacle and invention. The essay concludes with a return to the College of Complexes, where we find Brundage doing his level best to preserve Towertown as America\u2019s \u201cplayground for people who think.\u201d&nbsp;<sup data-fn=\"e4a898c0-b4e8-4b41-a59a-eb5cde6d3102\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#e4a898c0-b4e8-4b41-a59a-eb5cde6d3102\" id=\"e4a898c0-b4e8-4b41-a59a-eb5cde6d3102-link\">7<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"birth-dil-pickle\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Birth of Dil Pickle<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1920, new worlds were in the offing. The First World War had decimated Europe\u2019s great powers, their citizens reeling in uncertainty of the age to come. New maps were drawn up as the smoke cleared around the rubble of dissolving empires. The Russian Revolution ushered in the first socialist state. Intense urbanization, the proliferation of new sexual mores, bounding technological advancements, and novel ways of understanding history, society, mind, and nature were transforming the texture of everyday life. Self-consciously \u2018modern\u2019 experiments in artistic expression sprang up to register the tumult. It was as if the twentieth century, deferred by the catastrophe of the war, was at last beginning in earnest, its denizens as eager as they were beleaguered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the United States, the nation best poised to assume the mantle of global power, perhaps no city encapsulated this mood of anxious transformation better than Chicago. Certainly \u201c[n]o American city grew so fast.\u201d Rising up from marshland in the nineteenth century and then again from the ashes of the Great Fire in 1871, Chicago\u2019s strength was its enormous industrial capacity. Poised at the crossroads of the country\u2019s rail networks, a place of \u201cconstant renewal and transformation,\u201d Chicago was the place \u201cwhere one thing\u201d \u2014 \u201cgrain, lumber, cattle, and hogs\u201d \u2014 \u201cchanges into something else,\u201d namely, capital.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"1516a72b-d1bd-4637-ada5-806084513d63\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#1516a72b-d1bd-4637-ada5-806084513d63\" id=\"1516a72b-d1bd-4637-ada5-806084513d63-link\">8<\/a><\/sup><sup>&nbsp;<\/sup> While the city was \u201chome to some of the country\u2019s most profitable, and most virulently antiunion, employers,\u201d it was also the storied epicenter of the US labor movement, with a host of union headquarters (chief among them the International Workers of the World, or \u201cWobblies\u201d), pioneering radical publishers, and a vibrant working-class intellectual culture.<sup data-fn=\"0fa159e4-edf1-4c9d-b305-0c7565d03bf6\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#0fa159e4-edf1-4c9d-b305-0c7565d03bf6\" id=\"0fa159e4-edf1-4c9d-b305-0c7565d03bf6-link\">9<\/a><\/sup> In other words, the famous ones of Sandburg, the \u201cHog Butcher of the World\u201d was also the \u201cCity of Big Shoulders.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z848HM8X?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/993441008805867_ord_r_99_243_pg_188_189.jpg\" alt=\"Dill Pickle Club\/ 18 Tooker Place Are there people living here who haven't heard of the Dill Pickle Club? What Mecca is to a Mohammedan, the Dill Pickle Club is to the bohemians of Chicago--and to those who merely come to see the bohemians. It is a center of night life activities in Tower Town and is the most often visited and most often denounced of near north side bohemian haunts. The walls are adorned with garish paintings, the dance room is dark and dusty and dimly-lit, the little theater is awfully little, the garden is popular on summer nights, and the coffee shop serves&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25358\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.5343168697883258;width:350px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/993441008805867_ord_r_99_243_pg_188_189.jpg 695w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/993441008805867_ord_r_99_243_pg_188_189-300x196.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z848HM8X?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 1: Excerpt on the Dil Pickle Club in <em>Dining in Chicago<\/em> by John Durry (1930). Click for entire excerpt.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">North of the river, Towertown was the locus for this working-class public sphere, and its central meeting place was a spit of park called \u201cBughouse Square\u201d (otherwise known as Washington Square Park). There, in the shadow of the Newberry Library, \u201cevery night in the week when it wasn\u2019t storming,\u201d speechifying renegades like Clarence Darrow, Emma Goldman, and Ben Reitman would set the walls of surrounding buildings resonating with fiery invectives on everything from \u201ccrackpot health panacea[s]\u201d and home-grown philosophies to the platforms of women\u2019s emancipation, socialism, anarchism, and the African Blood Brotherhood.<sup data-fn=\"d8836169-9df4-4d86-bd54-a3e1d94f4ab4\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#d8836169-9df4-4d86-bd54-a3e1d94f4ab4\" id=\"d8836169-9df4-4d86-bd54-a3e1d94f4ab4-link\">10<\/a><\/sup> The best soapboxers could draw weekend crowds in the thousands. In a city charged by the labor movement and other programs for reform and revolution, open forums of the kind that animated Bughouse Square were the organizational genre of the day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the speechifying was done, the revolution would move indoors to the Dil Pickle Club, which occupied the brick barn at 10 Tooker Alley, just one block away. Part teahouse, part arts center, part debating society, the Pickle was a \u201cfree-for-all-place\u201d for free-thinkers of all stripes, and \u201cthe most often visited and most often denounced of near north side bohemian haunts\u201d (see Fig. 1 above).<sup data-fn=\"593b5c26-ab33-48c9-8e0f-fed700535d6b\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#593b5c26-ab33-48c9-8e0f-fed700535d6b\" id=\"593b5c26-ab33-48c9-8e0f-fed700535d6b-link\">11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVN7OEC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"791\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-791x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Bust portrait of a man in profile. Black ink on yellow paper with bold, geometric lines.\" class=\"wp-image-13673\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7724645205953617;width:322px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-791x1024.jpg 791w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-scaled-300x388.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-scaled-600x777.jpg 600w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-768x995.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-1186x1536.jpg 1186w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-1581x2048.jpg 1581w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-scaled.jpg 1977w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVN7OEC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 2: Stanislaus Szukalski, Portrait of Jack Jones (1919)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The club was chartered in 1917. Legend has it that Jim Larkin, an Irish union leader, inspired the Dil Pickle\u2019s name when he discovered his own love of the briny snack. (Picklers eventually dropped the second \u201cl\u201d to avoid trademark infringement.) The <em>spirit<\/em> of the Pickle, however, was the gift of Jack Jones, the club\u2019s founder and tireless manager. A militant labor organizer, Jones had served ten years in prison on arson charges, was rumored to have made sabotage bombs for the IWW, once cooked up a scheme to fund the Pickle by manufacturing toy ducks (<a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVK5C_7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the \u201cDu-Dil-Duk\u201d<\/a>), and \u2014 when he wasn\u2019t organizing events at the Pickle \u2014 spent long hours in the Newberry researching and writing his manifesto on social organization.<sup data-fn=\"81ace90a-2d7a-4956-b333-7afa2bcaf637\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#81ace90a-2d7a-4956-b333-7afa2bcaf637\" id=\"81ace90a-2d7a-4956-b333-7afa2bcaf637-link\">12<\/a><\/sup> The engraving pictured here (Fig. 2), by the Polish artist Stanislaw Szukalski whose studio sat across the alley from the Pickle, captures the visionary intensity of this jack-of-all-trades, a cross between a Renaissance Man and a circus barker. Sherwood Anderson, one of the Pickle\u2019s most famous regulars, called him \u201cThe P.T. Barnum of the Revolution.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"1315905b-2e0c-42c8-9df0-69da27100de4\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#1315905b-2e0c-42c8-9df0-69da27100de4\" id=\"1315905b-2e0c-42c8-9df0-69da27100de4-link\">13<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"707\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-707x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Blue flyer with lighter blue writing. Text reads, &quot;They do say that since the Dil Pickle tearoom has opened bohemia has no atmosphere its equal\/Table d'hote sandwiches and conversation\/10 Tooker Alley\/Special Parties arranged.&quot; The text is split on either side of the silhouette of a woman.\" class=\"wp-image-24904\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.690432361358187;width:317px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-707x1024.jpg 707w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-207x300.jpg 207w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-768x1112.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-1061x1536.jpg 1061w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-1414x2048.jpg 1414w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-scaled.jpg 1768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 707px) 100vw, 707px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVNSR7L\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 3: Dil Pickle tearoom flyer (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the end of World War I, the club was <em>the<\/em> gathering place for the \u201clunatic fringe of radical Chicago\u201d: anarchists of many stripes, Wobblies, hobos, criminals, social workers, free-lovers, poets, playwrights, journalists, and free-thinkers from across the professional classes. As flyers for the club testify, \u201csince the Dil Pickle Team Room has Opened, Bohemia has No Atmosphere Its Equal\u201d (see&nbsp;Fig.&nbsp;3). The word \u201cbohemia\u201d had been used since the mid-nineteenth century to describe urban enclaves of struggling artists and other countercultural types.&nbsp;The original bohemias&nbsp;were in Paris: the&nbsp;Left Bank\u2019s Latin Quarter and Montmartre across the Seine.&nbsp;In the&nbsp;United States,&nbsp;in the days of the Pickle, New York\u2019s&nbsp;Greenwich Village&nbsp;was the leading reference point. And yet&nbsp;poet&nbsp;Kenneth Rexroth recalled&nbsp;of Chicago\u2019s Pickle that&nbsp;\u201c[a]&nbsp;world less like Greenwich Village or Saint-Germain would be hard to imagine.\u201d&nbsp;What set the Pickle apart was its distinctive cast of&nbsp;characters,&nbsp;what we might call its unique demographic profile. At the Pickle,&nbsp;criminals, sex workers,&nbsp;and&nbsp;militant radicals&nbsp;could be found shoulder-to-shoulder with the more usual suspects of bohemia, the artists and intellectuals: \u201cThis leaven of the underworld and of the toughest operators in the labor movement gave the Dill Pickle society a worldly character of a sort never found in bohemia.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"7128e43a-3d27-47fb-9737-490059726494\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#7128e43a-3d27-47fb-9737-490059726494\" id=\"7128e43a-3d27-47fb-9737-490059726494-link\">14<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Patrons \u2014 or \u201cPicklers\u201d \u2014 would enter Tooker Alley on the State Street side through a tunnel-like hole in the wall (see Figs. 4 and 5), and then enter the Pickle itself through the door on which was painted the inspiring admonition:<sup> <\/sup>\u201cStep high, stoop low, and leave your dignity outside\u201d (see Fig. 6).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQUNL?BRPN=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"755\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-755x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Hand-drawn map of the location of the Dill Pickle Club on Tooker Place.\" class=\"wp-image-24905\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-755x1024.jpg 755w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-221x300.jpg 221w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-768x1042.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010.jpg 873w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 755px) 100vw, 755px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQUNL?BRPN=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 4: Detail of Dil Pickle membership card (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"713\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-713x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photo of a nighttime view of an alley in a city. On the left are buildings with brick walls, on the right buildings with wooden fire escapes. The scene is illuminated by streetlights.\" class=\"wp-image-24907\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-713x1024.jpg 713w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-209x300.jpg 209w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-768x1103.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-1069x1536.jpg 1069w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-1425x2048.jpg 1425w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-scaled.jpg 1782w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 713px) 100vw, 713px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 5: Photograph of Tooker Place (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"637\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-637x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of a door in an alley. The word &quot;Danger&quot; is painted above with arrows pointing down towards the door. On the door is written &quot;Step high stoop low leave your dignity outside.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-24906\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-637x1024.jpg 637w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-187x300.jpg 187w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-768x1235.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-955x1536.jpg 955w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-1273x2048.jpg 1273w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-scaled.jpg 1591w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 6: Photograph of the entrance to the Dil Pickle Club (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inside,&nbsp;the whitewashed walls were decorated with the latest canvases of Chicago painters. When patrons&nbsp;weren\u2019t&nbsp;dancing \u2014 the main draw on Friday and Saturday nights \u2014 Picklers were treated to a smorgasbord of radical culture: \u201cLowbrowism as well as intellectualism has its place with me,\u201d Jones trumpeted. \u201cI run the world\u2019s greatest university where all isms, theories, phantasies and other stuff can have their hearing\u2026Writers come here for inspiration, poets to dream, engineers to hear the latest wonders of mechanics and surgeons to learn the latest scientific methods in medicine.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"7bf66353-75a2-4e3b-84ee-af49d3258f3c\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#7bf66353-75a2-4e3b-84ee-af49d3258f3c\" id=\"7bf66353-75a2-4e3b-84ee-af49d3258f3c-link\">15<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;The program for one week in April, pictured here (Fig. 7),&nbsp;testifies to the range of offerings. One evening a Northwestern University professor might&nbsp;speak&nbsp;on&nbsp;cutting-edge developments in physics. A&nbsp;few days later, a local Pickler might strike an entirely different tone in a lecture on the talents of male escorts. \u201cEvery one of these events\u201d is \u201ca real threat,\u201d declares Jones \u2014 that is,&nbsp;a threat to&nbsp;received&nbsp;common sense, to conventional ways&nbsp;of understanding the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQ04H?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"876\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-1024x876.jpg\" alt=\"Flyer with black text on orange paper reading, &quot;Lester Irving Bockstahler\/ Professor of Physics N. University\/'Trends of modern Physics and their influence on Intellectual Development'\/Illustrated with Slides\" class=\"wp-image-24908\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-1024x876.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-300x257.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-768x657.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-1536x1314.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-2048x1752.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQ04H?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 7: Flyer advertising a series of talks at the Dil Pickle Club (1925 or 1931)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another typical month might include an original play or a staging of Ibsen, an evening of vaudeville entertainment, a lecture on \u201cWhy Bolshevism Succeeded in Russia!,\u201d the Harlem poet William Moore on contemporary African American literature, the head of Colgate University\u2019s psychology department on the \u201cIntimate Relations of a Psych Lab,\u201d or Dr. Don Cabot McCowan, author of <em>Love and Life: The Sex Urge and its Consequences <\/em>(1928)<em>,<\/em> on the subject of \u201cFrigidity and Impotence.\u201d Jones\u2019s strategy for ensuring a full house involved a novel synthesis of education and titillation, science and sex \u2014 for every few edifying events he would bill something downright salacious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the scheduled lectures and performances were only half the excitement. \u201cWhat the Dil Pickle was famous for,\u201d writes Franklin Rosemont, \u201cwas <em>talk<\/em>: unmuzzled self-expression, passionate debate, lively and open discussion, the uninhibited exchange of ideas, poetry, theory, polemic \u2014 free speech at its freest. Controversy was its <em>raison<\/em> <em>d\u2019etre<\/em> \u2014 and the more controversial, the better.&#8221;<sup data-fn=\"f039d166-723a-4682-bee3-80c887bb771e\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#f039d166-723a-4682-bee3-80c887bb771e\" id=\"f039d166-723a-4682-bee3-80c887bb771e-link\">16<\/a><\/sup> Every lecture was followed \u2014 sometimes interrupted by \u2014 a vigorous Q&amp;A, in which the rowdy audience set on the speaker \u201clike a pack of whelps.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"342774e3-0dce-4c27-9a8e-84c38f5599fb\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#342774e3-0dce-4c27-9a8e-84c38f5599fb\" id=\"342774e3-0dce-4c27-9a8e-84c38f5599fb-link\">17<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben Reitman, a doctor who dedicated much of his life to treating sex workers and the unemployed, also found the time to serve the Pickle as, in his words, its \u201cchairman and press-agent.\u201d He once characterized the club as \u201ca synthesis, a coming together, \u2018a great, comradely, joyous, free fusing in friendship and understanding of the imaginative and daring souls in every walk of Chicago life.\u2019&#8221;<sup data-fn=\"818212f7-aa0a-43e9-8dd3-9fc6b42ea4df\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#818212f7-aa0a-43e9-8dd3-9fc6b42ea4df\" id=\"818212f7-aa0a-43e9-8dd3-9fc6b42ea4df-link\">18<\/a><\/sup> In accounts of Jazz Age Chicago, the Pickle is sometimes remembered as a den of antics and gimmicks, a sideshow spectacle or tourist trap. But the first thing to know about the Pickle is that it arose out of movements to change the world. It was, above all, a social experiment: a laboratory for new forms of living and thinking and, yes, having fun together.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"free-unions\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Free Unions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Pickler\u2019s experimental attitude toward life included some brazenly frank attitudes toward sexuality, gender, and questions of identity more broadly. An anonymous poem published in <em>The Dill Pickler, <\/em>the club\u2019s in-house magazine, explains why the Pickle\u2019s door advises all comers to \u201cleave your dignity outside\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thus the Orange Door<br>Under the Green Light<br>Confronts you\u2014<br>Dark and devious seems its ways<br>   To those who are dignified;<br>Dignity covers ignorance\u2014<br>   Knowledge needs no mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Anonymous, <\/em>The Dill Pickler,<em> n.p.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"659\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-659x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Handprinted flyer with black background and light text. Image shows Tooker Place and text around it reads, &quot;West of the Water Tower\/New Year's Eve\/Big Costume Ball\/Dignity Departs\/Hilarity Holds&quot; and the addresses of events in the alley.\" class=\"wp-image-24909\" style=\"width:251px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-659x1024.jpg 659w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-193x300.jpg 193w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-768x1193.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-989x1536.jpg 989w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-1319x2048.jpg 1319w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-scaled.jpg 1649w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 659px) 100vw, 659px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVK3NB7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 8: Flyer advertising Dil Pickle New Year&#8217;s Eve costume ball (c. 1921)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>To the \u201cdignified\u201d men and women of Chicago, the well-heeled and respectable citizens who might balk at the prospect of socializing with laborers, prostitutes, and madcap artists in Towertown, the Dil Pickle will seem \u201c[d]ark and devious.\u201d But dignity of <em>that<\/em> kind is always a false-front, observes the poet, and real knowledge \u2014 the knowledge purveyed at the Pickle by professors, plumbers, scientists, social workers, and anyone else with something to say \u2014 \u201cneeds no mask.\u201d When Picklers <em>did<\/em> don masks, it was not to hide their true selves but to seize yet another opportunity for expressive freedom and serious play. Indeed, the club\u2019s regulars had a special penchant for costume balls and masquerades (see Fig. 8). In the photograph below (Fig.9), Jack Jones (second from left) poses with several unidentified Picklers, including a cowboy, dock worker, and fortune teller.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCX2CV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"859\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-1024x859.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photo of seven people posing in costumes in a shabby room.\" class=\"wp-image-24910\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-1024x859.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-768x644.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-1536x1288.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-2048x1718.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCX2CV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 9: Photograph of a costume ball at the Dil Pickle Club (ca. 1921)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most striking aspect of this photograph is its vivid play of gazes. Only two of the costumed Picklers are looking forward, and each wears a worried expression, as if skeptical of the camera eye. Everyone else is staring fixedly, even hungrily, at someone else, laying bare ;a tense network of desire. This photograph only seems to document a costume party; <em>passion<\/em> is its real subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If freedom of expression was the Pickle\u2019s bedrock tenet, nowhere was this commitment more in evidence than in the club\u2019s frank treatment of \u201cfree love\u201d and sexual desire. In the radical culture of Towertown, other groups openly touted sexual freedom and birth control, \u201cbut none advocated them more often, or more vociferously, than the Picklers in Tooker Alley.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"1a81f128-3547-446a-bf75-e15a0b66da29\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#1a81f128-3547-446a-bf75-e15a0b66da29\" id=\"1a81f128-3547-446a-bf75-e15a0b66da29-link\">19<\/a><\/sup> This could be serious business, of course; the Comstock Act had put the Pickle\u2019s own Ben Reitman behind bars for six months when he was caught distributing birth control literature. But sex talk  was also, by all accounts, a blast.<sup data-fn=\"2745d46b-f630-47e3-89fb-cfd06514b13e\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#2745d46b-f630-47e3-89fb-cfd06514b13e\" id=\"2745d46b-f630-47e3-89fb-cfd06514b13e-link\">20<\/a><\/sup> The Pickle\u2019s large repertoire of sex-related programming, delivered by authorities of various merit, from doctors and psychologists to the longtime Pickler and \u201cQueen of the Hoboes\u201d Elizabeth Davis freely mixed the sincerely intellectual with the impishly parodic. One week\u2019s lectures might focus on urgent and politically risky subjects like \u201cHomosexuality\u201d and \u201cIs Free Love Possible?\u201d The very next week might feature potentially more farcical fare: \u201cSatisfying Sex Needs Without Trouble,\u201d \u201cSex Worship,\u201d or \u201cWill Amazonic Women Usurp Man\u2019s Sphere?\u201d (Fig. 10)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLC6HMJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-1024x551.jpg\" alt=\"Orange flyer with black text reading, &quot;Wednesday, January 14\/Miss Elizabeth Davis\/will read her paper from Lesbos\/'Will Amazonic Women Usurp Man's Sphere?&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-24911\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-1024x551.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-768x413.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-1536x826.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-2048x1102.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLC6HMJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 10: Flyer advertising the lecture &#8220;Will Amazonic Women Usurp Man&#8217;s Sphere?&#8221; (1925 or 1931)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though some may balk at the inconsistency of tone, this blend of sincerity and humor gave politically committed Picklers the critical distance from which to appraise their own programs for social change. A case in point is the work of Mary Marcy. One of the labor movement\u2019s \u201cbest fighters and clearest thinkers,\u201d Marcy was a splendid explainer.<sup data-fn=\"cba1dbea-380e-4cf7-9107-e99e5a644db4\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#cba1dbea-380e-4cf7-9107-e99e5a644db4\" id=\"cba1dbea-380e-4cf7-9107-e99e5a644db4-link\">21<\/a><\/sup> She penned celebrated columns for the International Socialist Review and pamphlets distilling Marxist economics for everyday readers, as well as <em>Rhymes of the Early Jungle Folk<\/em> (1922), a children\u2019s book about human evolution, then a hot-button subject. A regular at the Pickle, Marcy was just one of the many talented women agitators and artists who fueled the ferment of bohemian Chicago. As Sam Putnam recalled of his days on the near northside, \u201cin Towertown the women are, on the whole, noticeably superior to the men.<sup data-fn=\"2f0858a2-f6e4-4db7-ad68-b48efaf1d460\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#2f0858a2-f6e4-4db7-ad68-b48efaf1d460\" id=\"2f0858a2-f6e4-4db7-ad68-b48efaf1d460-link\">22<\/a><\/sup> Marcy was an avowed enemy of bourgeois values:&nbsp;\u201cThe working class is kept in a condition of wage slavery through its HABITS of MORALITY.\u201d&nbsp;But&nbsp;in the&nbsp;spirit of the Dil Pickle, she was just as suspicious of the way radical thought&nbsp;can&nbsp;be rendered superficial by self-interest or shortsightedness, and of the way hypocrisy worms its way into&nbsp;even the&nbsp;best-intentioned programs of social&nbsp;change.<sup data-fn=\"c1ee275b-ee54-4f79-9d29-d5091e86d98e\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#c1ee275b-ee54-4f79-9d29-d5091e86d98e\" id=\"c1ee275b-ee54-4f79-9d29-d5091e86d98e-link\">23<\/a><\/sup> Her&nbsp;one-act play,&nbsp;<em>A Free Union: A One Act Comedy of &#8220;Free Love,&#8221;<\/em> testifies&nbsp;to&nbsp;the&nbsp;Picklish&nbsp;capacity for relentless&nbsp;self-criticism (see Fig. 11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MUYW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"770\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-770x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Front cover of a book.\" class=\"wp-image-25022\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7519638582650618;width:236px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-770x1024.jpg 770w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-226x300.jpg 226w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-768x1021.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-1155x1536.jpg 1155w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001.jpg 1504w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MUYW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 11: Mary Marcy, <em>A Free Union: A Comedy of &#8220;Free Love&#8221;<\/em> (1921)<\/a> Click link for complete text.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The setting is a Chicago apartment with the unmistakable trappings of bohemia, \u201cscattered half finished drawings and paintings,\u201d empty beer and wine bottles, and a kitschy sign that declares \u201cPersonal Liberty \/ is God \/ of this Shrine.&#8221;<sup data-fn=\"41d8e193-27c5-42f0-9d37-454befad805d\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#41d8e193-27c5-42f0-9d37-454befad805d\" id=\"41d8e193-27c5-42f0-9d37-454befad805d-link\">24<\/a><\/sup> The plot turns on the precipitous dissolution of the \u201cfree union,\u201d or unmarried partnership, of two forward-thinking lovers \u2014 Jim Humbolt, \u201can impecunious painter,\u201d and Sonia Narowski, a self-described \u201cfree woman\u201d (7). Jim resents Sonia\u2019s habit of staying out late with friends, neglecting housework, and pursuing affairs with other men, particularly Owen Heddon, a \u201cpoet, an artist, a dreamer and a genius\u201d who doesn\u2019t earn a wage, eats their food, and swipes Jim\u2019s things (15). The time and effort spent keeping Owen and Sonia fed and clothed means that Jim has had to forgo his own artistic dream; he has \u201cgive[n] up serious, decent attempts at painting to portray ladies in silk underwear at $60 a week\u201d (10). But when Jim complains, Sonia is quick to accuse him of reactionary thinking: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you admit,\u201d she cries, \u201cthat you\u2019re just an ordinary man who believes that woman\u2019s place is the house and who wants to keep her there\u201d (19-20).&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their caustic bickering, the play\u2019s comedic engine, puts several ironic spins on the idea of \u201cfreedom.\u201d Sonia is \u201cfree\u201d to the extent that she can behave as she pleases, while Jim feels himself only \u201c[free] to earn the money\u201d (13). When Jim finally decides that he\u2019s fed up and resolves to leave Sonia for a new fianc\u00e9e, <em>this<\/em> exercise of freedom leads Sonia first to a wild flight of hypocrisy (she calls the new fianc\u00e9e a \u201cstreet-walker\u201d and accuses her of \u201ctrying to steal her husband\u201d), and then to abandon her program of free love altogether (40). To prevent him from leaving, she resolves she <em>will<\/em> marry him after all \u2014 though by that time Jim is already out the door, genuinely \u201cfree\u201d at last.;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Owen Heddon (a hedonist, surely) tells Jim that \u201cthe real artist lives only for Art\u2019s sake. Art! Poetry! Love Freedom!,\u201d Marcy is making fun of Towertown bohemians (29). Similarly, when Jim lampoons Sonia and her friends, who \u201cstay till two, or three and even four o\u2019clock in the morning, drinking and eating, lovemaking and talking about re-building the world on a nobler, more poetic plan, their plan,\u201d Marcy\u2019s first audience might have had Picklers in mind (47).In this way <em>Free Union <\/em>allows Marcy to perform some deft satire: she can lend representation to alternative ways of living while at the same time pointing up the limitations of any free love ideology that ignores economic realities and the determinations of class. In other words, the play is a savvy Marxist critique of bohemia. But it\u2019s also a rollicking farce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"chicago-literary-capital\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Chicago, Literary Capital of the World<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jack Jones and his Picklers exhibited a passionate interest in all the arts, and the Pickle operated as something of a clearinghouse for all that was avant-garde in Chicago. The Dil Pickle Players put up plays by all the acknowledged giants of the modern European stage \u2014 Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, etc. \u2014 as well as works by hometown heroes like Dreiser and Edgar Lee Masters. They also staged the original productions of avid Picklers like Maxwell Bodenheim and Ben Hecht, whose Master Poisoner (1918) was the \u201cPickle\u2019s star exhibit of the Chicago Renaissance\u201d (a tough critic, Kenneth Rexroth called it \u201cdreadful\u201d; Bodenheim and Hecht \u201cmanaged to invent a new shudder of bad taste\u201d).<sup data-fn=\"d4c8661f-f099-4831-b84e-c7e3cb13beba\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#d4c8661f-f099-4831-b84e-c7e3cb13beba\" id=\"d4c8661f-f099-4831-b84e-c7e3cb13beba-link\">25<\/a><\/sup> Jones himself wrote plays, and he also managed the construction of the scenery, which evinced \u201ca kind of house painter\u2019s amateur Expressionism\u201d (see Fig. 12 and 13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"787\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-1024x787.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of three people on a low stage. A man holding a gun walks toward a woman opening a door and a man laying on a block decorated with pictographic illustrations.\" class=\"wp-image-24912\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-1024x787.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-768x591.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-1536x1181.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-2048x1575.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 12: LZ Rethy, photograph of a play at the Dil Pickle Club (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"795\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-1024x795.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of five people in a row on stage. Two men stand at stage right. In the center stands a woman. Two men sit at stage left. Behind them is a painted backdrop.\" class=\"wp-image-25386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-1024x795.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-300x233.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-768x596.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-1536x1192.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 13: LZ Rethy, photograph of a play at the Dil Pickle Club (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847GYQ8?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"843\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-843x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black woodcut on white paper. Image is split into quarters. The upper right and lower left quarters have stylized images of animals. The text in the other two reads, &quot;It was designed and painted by Edgar Miller Eight Hundred Sixty Seven North Dearborn Street Chicago\/Firing and Glazing Was Done By the Temple Art Glass Concern Situated on Schiller Street Chicago&quot;.\" class=\"wp-image-25021\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.8232536679892959;width:264px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-843x1024.jpg 843w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-247x300.jpg 247w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-768x933.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-1265x1536.jpg 1265w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013.jpg 1647w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 843px) 100vw, 843px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847GYQ8?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 14: J. Edgar Miller, <em>Dil Pickle Presents 8 Wood Cuts<\/em> (1926)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Music \u2014 from art song to folk song to jazz \u2014 was a fixture of evening programs, and Gail Borden recalls that \u201cThe Dil Pickle went out of its way to obtain virtual monopolies on all the screwy music in the Middle West.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"1d9f1561-29a5-450c-b94a-83f8f19b5485\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#1d9f1561-29a5-450c-b94a-83f8f19b5485\" id=\"1d9f1561-29a5-450c-b94a-83f8f19b5485-link\">26<\/a><\/sup> In the realm of the visual arts, there is ample testimony that the Pickle doubled as an exhibition space for \u201cthe leaders of early Chicago modernism,\u201d though since few photographs survive, details are hard to come by.<sup data-fn=\"7f2618e8-3263-472f-ae99-a250e0b85629\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#7f2618e8-3263-472f-ae99-a250e0b85629\" id=\"7f2618e8-3263-472f-ae99-a250e0b85629-link\">27<\/a><\/sup> We do know that for a time the designer and stained-glass artist Edgar Miller operated a gallery on the club\u2019s top floor, and the short-lived Dil Pickle Press published a handsome series of his woodcuts (Fig. 14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Notwithstanding this breadth of artistic engagement, it was poetry that occupied pride of place in Picklers\u2019 hearts. Edna Fine Dexter recalls that the \u201cpoetry nights were glorious,\u201d in part because these evenings were no exception to the prevailing rule of free speech.<sup data-fn=\"ba3db2ec-6f50-4d3d-aa45-ab88f94337c8\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#ba3db2ec-6f50-4d3d-aa45-ab88f94337c8\" id=\"ba3db2ec-6f50-4d3d-aa45-ab88f94337c8-link\">28<\/a><\/sup> \u201cHere was a spot so thick with poets and poetry,\u201d writes Franklin Rosemont, foremost expert on the Pickle, that even non-poets among them suddenly became poets \u2014 at least for the evening \u2014 through a Picklish kind of osmosis.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"9123c9e1-ccb0-4469-88d8-227ea9e91a09\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#9123c9e1-ccb0-4469-88d8-227ea9e91a09\" id=\"9123c9e1-ccb0-4469-88d8-227ea9e91a09-link\">29<\/a><\/sup> Whatever poet was billed on the program would stride up on stage, read their work before clamoring customers, and then \u2014 like any other speaker at the Pickle \u2014 find themselves subject to its critical whims. The poet Alfred Kreymborg remembers the good-humored relish with which the audience tried to \u201cundermin[e] and upset\u201d him with criticism that was far from constructive. One Pickler memorably boomed: \u201cI have&#8230;no objection to our friend. The man has promise and not a little execution. But I do object that he uses the English language instead of the German. English is so ugly. Take the great Shakespeare himself. He sounds so much better in German. Take for instance how ugly that line sounds\u2014Hark, hark the lark! Now listen to how soft it sounds in German <em>Horch, ;horch die Lerch!<\/em>&#8220;<sup data-fn=\"e13808ac-f5e1-43e9-b5d4-6546142968e1\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#e13808ac-f5e1-43e9-b5d4-6546142968e1\" id=\"e13808ac-f5e1-43e9-b5d4-6546142968e1-link\">30<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?BRPN=13&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"724\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-724x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Llewellyn Jones, a clean-shaven white man with a round face and round glasses sitting in a chair, with his arm over the back. He wears a white shirt, patterned bow tie, and dark coat and pants.\" class=\"wp-image-25020\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7070422088728979;width:204px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-724x1024.jpg 724w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-768x1086.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-1086x1536.jpg 1086w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-1448x2048.jpg 1448w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-scaled.jpg 1810w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?BRPN=13&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 15: Karl Matten, &#8220;Llewellyn Jones,&#8221; <em>The Dill Pickler<\/em>, vol. 1, no. 3 (1925)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The experience of \u201cducking and answering questions\u201d taught Kreymborg \u201cthat the profession of poetry is a thing of the streets and not of the study.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"397fb922-b9e8-4faf-bd3f-575cd478a1d3\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#397fb922-b9e8-4faf-bd3f-575cd478a1d3\" id=\"397fb922-b9e8-4faf-bd3f-575cd478a1d3-link\">31<\/a><\/sup> This is something one hears a lot in testimony about Pickle poetry. Here is Llewellyn Jones (Fig. 15), a Dil Pickle regular and literary editor for the <em>Chicago Evening Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[T]he whole art of understanding and appreciating poetry depends on recognizing the fact that poetry as such is not high-brow, is not academic, is not essentially aristocratic, but is as likely to come from lowly sources as from high sources, from the unlettered as from the literature, is as likely to be un-moral or even immoral as to be moral; has little to do with ethics, and ought to be able to raise a smile as well as to start a tear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a matter of fact poetry has a far closer kinship to profanity than it has to philosophy, and in enjoying poetry we are nearer to drunkenness than we are to what is generally known as wisdom. It is the only art in which the inspired amateur will always beat the uninspired professional.<br><br><em>Llewellyn Jones, \u201cPoetry and Pickles,\u201d The Dill Pickler 1, no. 3 (1925).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anglophone modernist poetry of the 1920s \u2014 the kind of cutting-edge poetry that Picklers were reading, criticizing, and emulating \u2014 was enthralled to a mood of cultural pessimism best exemplified by T.S. Eliot\u2019s <em>The Waste Land<\/em> (1922), which indicts modern life as cruelly loveless and devoid of spiritual meaning. By and large, the poets of the Dil Pickle pledged allegiance to a different strain of modernism, one encapsulated in Ralph Waldo Emerson\u2019s call for&amp; \u201cthe sacred affirmative,\u201d or Nietzsche\u2019s \u201cthe sacred Yes.\u201d Readers of Jones\u2019s <em>Dil Pickler<\/em> and Ben Hecht\u2019s <em>Chicago Literary Times <\/em>discovered poetry of an overwhelmingly affirmative cast. These poems voice a desire to move beyond nihilism and despair, toward the construction of better worlds on earth and some plain good fun in the meantime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a sterling example, we can look to Kenneth Rexroth and the \u201cEscalator\u201d movement. In the 1920s, Rexroth was a young club regular, and one of many Picklers paying close attention to artistic developments in Europe. Later he would characterize Dada and Surrealism, the leading avant-gardes of the day, as \u201corganized movements of the broken heart.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"2bc946ef-a899-402b-9a4a-b134e8407046\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#2bc946ef-a899-402b-9a4a-b134e8407046\" id=\"2bc946ef-a899-402b-9a4a-b134e8407046-link\">32<\/a><\/sup> That moving phrase prompts one to recall that these aesthetic programs emerged as responses, in a tragic, absurdist mode, to the devastations of the First World War, but it fails to characterize the blithe exuberance of the Dil Pickle\u2019s own Dada experiment, which Rexroth himself orchestrated. Here is how he describes it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About this time [circa 1925] Lawrence Lipton, Sam Putnam, and I organized Chicago\u2019s deliberately abortive Dadaist movement which we called the Escalator. We wrote freely associated poetry, gave lectures in which we read antiphonally from The Critique of Pure Reason and the telephone book, while shills in the audience set off alarm clocks and shot at us with blank cartridges. We made collages out of rubbish and filled the attic with an audience for a dance recital\u2026. Everybody was masked and in leotards, did handsprings and flip-flops, and all killed each other with rolls of folded newspapers and bladders, struggling over a broken bicycle. The music was Bach\u2019s \u201cAir on a G String\u201d and \u201cCohen on the Telephone\u201d [a comedy recording] both accompanied by two trombones which made them completely inaudible, except, as they say nowadays, at \u201crandom\u201d instances\u2026 All the participants in the movement were known as Escalator and were numbered\u2026 [T]he pictures and poems and demonstrations were numbered, too. The works of art were on an equal footing with human beings.<br><br><em>Rexroth, <\/em>An Autobiographical Novel <em>(New Directions, 1964), ix.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"912\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-912x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Trice Gold By John Gibbons Escalator Jason in gold a fellow Mariner of all the rest Against the falling Notes, against The amber sky, ah, fleece Of gold, who then shall place The scene, the tears Of the tree old women Gone in the teeth and Agamnomnon Eys inlaid with gold of the Ivory shouldered race Buried amongst the white Dried river beds. &quot;The droppings Of the nightingales stain The stiff dishonored shroud.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25025\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.8906281196342292;width:253px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-912x1024.jpg 912w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-267x300.jpg 267w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-768x863.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208.jpg 1040w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 912px) 100vw, 912px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 16: John Gibbings Escalator, &#8220;Thrice Gold,&#8221; <em>The Dill Pickler v<\/em>ol. 1, no. 3 (1925)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Learning about the \u201cEscalator\u201d movement fueled my search for \u201cEscalator\u201d poems. What would it be like to encounter a \u201cwork of art\u201d that was \u201con an equal footing with human beings,\u201d as Escalator envisioned. Surely, I thought to myself, samples of this radical writing by Lipton, Putnam, or Rexroth must have found its way to publication in <em>The Dil Pickler<\/em> or <em>Chicago Literary Times. <\/em>To date, I have located just one surviving \u201cEscalator\u201d poem (Fig. 16). \u201cThrice Gold,\u201d by the pseudonymous John Gibbings Escalator, appeared in a special 1925 \u201cPoetry Number\u201d of <em>The Dill Pickler<\/em> (Fig. 17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"679\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-679x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Woodblock print in red on pink paper. Text reads &quot;The Dil Pickler Poetry Number&quot; in capital letters laid out around a nude woman reclining on her side and looking up. Stars fill in empty spots around her and the letters.\" class=\"wp-image-25023\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.663103937179627;width:238px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-679x1024.jpg 679w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-768x1157.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-1019x1536.jpg 1019w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001.jpg 1327w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 679px) 100vw, 679px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 17: Cover, <em>The Dill Pickler<\/em> vol. 3, no. 1 (1925)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Picklers hip to modern poetry would have heard in these apparently nonsensical verses a winking relation to some then-very-recent literary developments. The final lines of \u201cThrice Gold\u201d quote T.S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cSweeney Among the Nightingales\u201d (1918), in which the title figure encounters two prostitutes in a dive bar not so unlike the Dil Pickle. That bitter and sardonic poem by Eliot paints human beings at their ugliest, and it\u2019s also densely allusive. To pick up on just one resonance, the final droppings of the nightingales, in \u201cSweeney,\u201d seem to invoke the degraded voice of Philomela, whose tongue was cut out by her rapist before she was transformed by the gods into a nightingale. Here, in Escalator\u2019s revision, these droppings are just bird excrement and strangely ennobled in light of the golden imagery shining out in earlier lines. In this way the poem stages an ambivalent but playful contest with Eliot\u2019s brand of cultural pessimism, according to which the modern world \u2014 disenchanted, ravaged \u2014 is brutal, grotesque, and ultimately doomed. Escalator\u2019s decision to let the droppings be droppings and to associate them with some poetic droppings of Eliot\u2019s suggests that to put artworks \u201con an equal footing with human beings\u201d is to elevate not so much the artwork as the human being, whose every sign of life is a creative gesture. This faith in the world-making possibilities of art resonates with Franklin Rosemont\u2019s intuition that at the Dil Pickle poets \u201cnot only wrote and read poetry but also <em>lived<\/em> it.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"7a6fe89c-9d35-45ca-8866-220c301bc6d5\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#7a6fe89c-9d35-45ca-8866-220c301bc6d5\" id=\"7a6fe89c-9d35-45ca-8866-220c301bc6d5-link\">33<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 id=\"college-of-complexes\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The College of Complexes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the late 1920s, the Dill Pickle fell prey to two forces: organized crime, which saw an opportunity to capitalize on prohibition, and tourists in search of bohemian thrills. The latter would find their way to the Pickle with guidebooks like <em>Chicago in Seven Days <\/em>(1928) and <em>Dining in Chicago <\/em>(1931), which declares that \u201cWhat Mecca is to a Mohammedan the Dill Pickle Club is to the bohemians of Chicago and to those who merely come to see the bohemians.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"0ce3ac18-7fee-4fa2-b9de-3f7457733781\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#0ce3ac18-7fee-4fa2-b9de-3f7457733781\" id=\"0ce3ac18-7fee-4fa2-b9de-3f7457733781-link\">34<\/a><\/sup> To its apparent detriment, the Pickle complied. \u201cAs the years wore on the club tilted more and more toward the bizarre,\u201d writes Roger Bruns. \u201cOne newspaper reporter lamented that the club had deteriorated from an earnest, art-for-art\u2019s sake forum to a \u2018sex-sideshow for gin-soaked collegiates and other perennial adolescents out for an intellectual jag.\u2019\u201d<sup data-fn=\"25d5ef44-100c-493c-a15b-7b45aa177958\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#25d5ef44-100c-493c-a15b-7b45aa177958\" id=\"25d5ef44-100c-493c-a15b-7b45aa177958-link\">35<\/a><\/sup> The Pickle finally shut its doors for good in 1933.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"538\" height=\"612\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-21-100042.png\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of an older white man leaning on a bar. Behind him is a pennant reading&quot; College of Complexes.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25466\" style=\"width:235px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-21-100042.png 538w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-21-100042-264x300.png 264w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 538px) 100vw, 538px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Figure 19: <em>Chicago Tribune.<\/em> Slim Brundage (ca. 1980s). Courtesy of ProQuest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twenty years later, in a different set of historical circumstances, Slim Brundage (Fig. 19) managed to re-kindle the Pickle spark, on nearly the very same ground. \u201cThe College of Complexes is a gathering place for a variety of characters \u2014 artists, judges, clergymen, all kinds of politicians, college students, Beat generation cats, bughouse square refugees, and others who like to sip their beer and discuss any and all subjects whether it be politics, poetry, sex, current events, the price of marijuana, or what have you. The College operates in the tradition of the soapbox, the cracker barrel, the corner saloon, and the opium den.\u201d <sup data-fn=\"dd2f809a-2dcd-456a-9de4-2d8944eb883b\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#dd2f809a-2dcd-456a-9de4-2d8944eb883b\" id=\"dd2f809a-2dcd-456a-9de4-2d8944eb883b-link\">36<\/a><\/sup> It is indeed \u201ca playground for people who think.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe cater to artists, writers, intellectuals and assorted screwballs,\u201d ;Brundage claimed, and that included cultural stars of midcentury Chicago like Thornton Wilder, Jack Conroy, Gwendolyn Brooks, Studs Terkel, Carlos Cortez, Big Bill Broonzy, and Adlai Stevenson, among others.<sup>39<\/sup> Friday evenings at the College were devoted to lectures of intellectual and political significance: the Integration of Deerfield, Illinois; \u201cWhy Do All World War II Novels Stink?\u201d; \u201cThe Chicago Police Department and its Terrible Record of Civil Liberty Violations\u201d; an ;\u201cWas Karl Marx a Schnook or a Good Guy?\u201d Meanwhile, the racier Saturday nights were given over to performances, hypnotism demos, quiz competitions, and lectures on subjects like \u201cIs Virginity Overrated?\u201d, \u201cSmut, Erotica, and Dirt,\u201d and \u201cShould Marriage Licenses Be Renewed Yearly?\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In clear homage to its predecessor, the door of the college sported its own cheeky warning: \u201cThrough this portal passes the most odious offal on this orb \u2014 OUR CUSTOMERS!\u201d From a hanging basket, a patron could grab a copy of the College\u2019s house organ or \u201cOfficial Neurosis,\u201d the so-called <em>Curriculum<\/em>, the cover of which promoted the monthly offerings (Figs. 18 and 19). Inside, the room\u2019s walls and ceiling were covered in chalkboards across which were scrawled quips, gags, and quotations: \u201cDon\u2019t change seats while the room is in motion\u201d; \u201cLack of sex education causes many misconceptions\u201d; and \u201cLearn to complain without suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=3&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"655\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-655x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Front page of The Curriculum for August 1953 listing lectures, performances, and other events.\" class=\"wp-image-25027\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-655x1024.jpg 655w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-192x300.jpg 192w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-768x1200.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-983x1536.jpg 983w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-1311x2048.jpg 1311w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001.jpg 1421w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 655px) 100vw, 655px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=3&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 19:<em> The Curriculum<\/em> (August 1953)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"667\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-667x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Front page of The Curriculum for April 1963, listing lectures, performances, and events.\" class=\"wp-image-25026\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-667x1024.jpg 667w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-768x1180.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-1000x1536.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-1333x2048.jpg 1333w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001.jpg 1473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 20: <em>The Curriculum<\/em> (April 1960)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And as at the Pickle, on any given night at the College those in attendance had to be prepared to talk. As one regular reports, \u201cafter the main speech, the program is devoted to questions, and next, any member of the audience can rebut the speaker. The rebuttals, a continuance of the soapbox tradition, often put the main speech to shame.&#8221;<sup data-fn=\"1d030168-c536-4553-8d0a-136a156b545d\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#1d030168-c536-4553-8d0a-136a156b545d\" id=\"1d030168-c536-4553-8d0a-136a156b545d-link\">37<\/a><\/sup> \u201cIf you are inclined to be timid and sit in some dark corner of the college, you might be in for a surprise, for Slim \u2018the janitor\u2019\u2026might come roaring up to your table with a microphone and ask your opinion.\u201d \u201cWhat Slim\u2026did so well,\u201d recalls another Collegian, \u201cwas to exhort\u201d the \u201cold ;Wobs\u2026the college kids, the swells, the tourists, the crackpots and [even] the tight-lipped sectarian bigots of Moody and Marx\u2026to be unmuffled, ungagged, and unsilenced. What he did was to make it fun\u2026to speak up and to hell with the censors!\u201d<sup data-fn=\"a35b2345-608e-4e7b-9adf-0728932efdf0\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#a35b2345-608e-4e7b-9adf-0728932efdf0\" id=\"a35b2345-608e-4e7b-9adf-0728932efdf0-link\">38<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thursdays were often Poetry Night at the College, but in marked contrast to the Dil Pickle, the format departed significantly from the discursive brawls that were the ostensible goal of the College\u2019s other programming. For the ten years that Brundage ran Poetry Night, \u201cAnybody could read anything, original or not.\u201d Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Service were popular staples, and Brundage was always ready to leap to the stage when the mood demanded a set of comic verses. When it came to the original work of attendees, however, all critical discussion was outlawed. As Brundage explains, \u201cI had found that people got to discussing some poem and everybody wouldn\u2019t have a chance to read theirs.\u201d If anyone wanted to criticize, they had to do it in poetry: those who disapproved \u201ccould write an opposition verse.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"a99420d3-cc95-4523-a024-dcdde58b2663\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#a99420d3-cc95-4523-a024-dcdde58b2663\" id=\"a99420d3-cc95-4523-a024-dcdde58b2663-link\">39<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"734\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-734x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of an award mounted on a small pedestal. It looks like an arrangement of flowers, but the small ones are twisted spoons, and the large one is a hubcap.\" class=\"wp-image-25024\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7168016454557141;width:240px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-734x1024.jpg 734w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-215x300.jpg 215w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-768x1072.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-1101x1536.jpg 1101w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001.jpg 1433w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 734px) 100vw, 734px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MKEW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Figure 21: Photograph of the Award for Best Poem (1965)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Somewhere between a workshop and a literary reading, Poetry Night at the College managed to reanimate the freewheeling essence of the Pickle. Nothing was taboo or inappropriate. \u201cAlthough many partakers really read about the city and the people who live there,\u201d remembers one participant, \u201cone was free to recite poems about whatever one felt like.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"a49c72a0-00d5-4ba6-9592-1409d36cd9c8\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#a49c72a0-00d5-4ba6-9592-1409d36cd9c8\" id=\"a49c72a0-00d5-4ba6-9592-1409d36cd9c8-link\">40<\/a><\/sup> Brundage cultivated a macaronic verse culture equally the possession of Chicago\u2019s working and professional-managerial classes. The regulars at Poetry Night were not only \u201cpseudo-intellectuals\u201d like teachers and chemists and social workers but also \u201cwaitresses, window washers\u2026day laborers\u2026 firemen\u2026garbage collectors, cab drivers, cooks, [and] housepainters.\u201d \u201c[T]here was no persecution, and people were welcome as they were,\u201d and even when the College did decide to single out someone\u2019s poem for special recognition, the award had a democratic cast that Jack Jones would have appreciated: the trophy for \u201cBest Poem at the College of Complexes\u201d was made of spoons and a hubcap (Fig. 20).<sup data-fn=\"b17b5939-237f-4aeb-a1e8-9ac273d791bb\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#b17b5939-237f-4aeb-a1e8-9ac273d791bb\" id=\"b17b5939-237f-4aeb-a1e8-9ac273d791bb-link\">41<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About the Author<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Matthew Kilbane is the author of\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.press.jhu.edu\/books\/title\/33270\/lyre-book?srsltid=AfmBOoo_c4ZVHKKsoLUc855m-zhPnu354qo2T2_jrj6DkvNHbUySOlVs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Lyre Book: Modern Poetic Media<\/em><\/a>\u202f(Johns Hopkins UP, 2024) and the editor of\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fulcrum.org\/concern\/monographs\/q237hv84x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Expressive Networks: Poetry and Platform Cultures<\/em><\/a>\u202f(Amherst College Press, 2025). His essays have appeared or are forthcoming in\u202f<em>PMLA, English Literary History, Modern Language Quarterly, American Literature<\/em>, and elsewhere, and his research has been supported by the Newberry Library, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Library of Congress. He is currently the Glynn Family Honors Assistant Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Source Set<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Dil Pickle Club<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dil Pickle Club, which occupied the brick barn at 10 Tooker Alley in Chicago&#8217;s Towertown neighborhood, was part teahouse, part arts center, part debating society. Founded by Jack Jones in 1917, the club was <em>the <\/em>gathering place for the city&#8217;s many anarchists, Wobblies, hobos, criminals, social workers, free-lovers, poets, playwrights, journalists, and free-thinkers from across the professional classes by the end of World War I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVN7OEC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"791\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-791x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Bust portrait of a man in profile. Black ink on yellow paper with bold, geometric lines.\" class=\"wp-image-13673\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-791x1024.jpg 791w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-scaled-300x388.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-scaled-600x777.jpg 600w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-768x995.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-1186x1536.jpg 1186w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-1581x2048.jpg 1581w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Midwest_MS_Dill_Pickle__oversize_Bx.5__Fl._21__Jack_Jones_by__Stanislaw_Szukalski_o2-scaled.jpg 1977w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVN7OEC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stanislaus Szukalski, Portrait of Jack Jones (1919)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z848HM8X?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/993441008805867_ord_r_99_243_pg_188_189.jpg\" alt=\"Dill Pickle Club\/ 18 Tooker Place Are there people living here who haven't heard of the Dill Pickle Club? What Mecca is to a Mohammedan, the Dill Pickle Club is to the bohemians of Chicago--and to those who merely come to see the bohemians. It is a center of night life activities in Tower Town and is the most often visited and most often denounced of near north side bohemian haunts. The walls are adorned with garish paintings, the dance room is dark and dusty and dimly-lit, the little theater is awfully little, the garden is popular on summer nights, and the coffee shop serves&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25358\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/993441008805867_ord_r_99_243_pg_188_189.jpg 695w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/993441008805867_ord_r_99_243_pg_188_189-300x196.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z848HM8X?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Excerpt on the Dil Pickle Club in <em>Dining in Chicago<\/em> by John Durry (1930). Click for entire excerpt.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVNSR7L\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"707\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-707x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Blue flyer with lighter blue writing. Text reads, &quot;They do say that since the Dil Pickle tearoom has opened bohemia has no atmosphere its equal\/Table d'hote sandwiches and conversation\/10 Tooker Alley\/Special Parties arranged.&quot; The text is split on either side of the silhouette of a woman.\" class=\"wp-image-24904\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-707x1024.jpg 707w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-207x300.jpg 207w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-768x1112.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-1061x1536.jpg 1061w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-1414x2048.jpg 1414w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00234_001-scaled.jpg 1768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 707px) 100vw, 707px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVNSR7L\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dil Pickle tearoom flyer (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQUNL?BRPN=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"755\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-755x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Hand-drawn map of the location of the Dill Pickle Club on Tooker Place.\" class=\"wp-image-24905\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-755x1024.jpg 755w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-221x300.jpg 221w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010-768x1042.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00026_010.jpg 873w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 755px) 100vw, 755px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQUNL?BRPN=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Detail of Dil Pickle membership card (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"713\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-713x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photo of a nighttime view of an alley in a city. On the left are buildings with brick walls, on the right buildings with wooden fire escapes. The scene is illuminated by streetlights.\" class=\"wp-image-24907\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-713x1024.jpg 713w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-209x300.jpg 209w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-768x1103.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-1069x1536.jpg 1069w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-1425x2048.jpg 1425w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_003-scaled.jpg 1782w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 713px) 100vw, 713px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Photograph of Tooker Place (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"637\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-637x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of a door in an alley. The word &quot;Danger&quot; is painted above with arrows pointing down towards the door. On the door is written &quot;Step high stoop low leave your dignity outside.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-24906\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-637x1024.jpg 637w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-187x300.jpg 187w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-768x1235.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-955x1536.jpg 955w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-1273x2048.jpg 1273w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00285_001-scaled.jpg 1591w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXIZ3?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Photograph of the entrance to the Dil Pickle Club (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Free Unions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If freedom of expression was the Pickle\u2019s bedrock tenet, nowhere was this commitment more in evidence than in the club\u2019s frank treatment of \u201cfree love.&#8221; This could be serious business because of laws like the Comstock Act. It was also a lot of fun. Picklers&#8217; blend of sincerity and humor provided a critical distance from which to debate contemporary programs for social change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQ04H?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"876\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-1024x876.jpg\" alt=\"Flyer with black text on orange paper reading, &quot;Lester Irving Bockstahler\/ Professor of Physics N. University\/'Trends of modern Physics and their influence on Intellectual Development'\/Illustrated with Slides\" class=\"wp-image-24908\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-1024x876.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-300x257.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-768x657.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-1536x1314.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00045_002-2048x1752.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLZQ04H?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Flyer advertising the talk &#8220;Trends of modern Physics and their Influence on Intellectual Development&#8221; and other talks (1925 or 1931)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLC6HMJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-1024x551.jpg\" alt=\"Orange flyer with black text reading, &quot;Wednesday, January 14\/Miss Elizabeth Davis\/will read her paper from Lesbos\/'Will Amazonic Women Usurp Man's Sphere?&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-24911\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-1024x551.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-768x413.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-1536x826.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_001_fl_00071_001-2048x1102.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLC6HMJ\">Flyer advertising the lecture &#8220;Will Amazonic Women Usurp Man&#8217;s Sphere?&#8221; (1925 or 1931)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVK3NB7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"659\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-659x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Handprinted flyer with black background and light text. Image shows Tooker Place and text around it reads, &quot;West of the Water Tower\/New Year's Eve\/Big Costume Ball\/Dignity Departs\/Hilarity Holds&quot; and the addresses of events in the alley.\" class=\"wp-image-24909\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-659x1024.jpg 659w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-193x300.jpg 193w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-768x1193.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-989x1536.jpg 989w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-1319x2048.jpg 1319w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00246_001-scaled.jpg 1649w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 659px) 100vw, 659px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSVK3NB7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Flyer advertising Dil Pickle New Year&#8217;s Eve costume ball (c. 1921)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCX2CV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"859\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-1024x859.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photo of seven people posing in costumes in a shabby room.\" class=\"wp-image-24910\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-1024x859.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-768x644.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-1536x1288.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00278_001-2048x1718.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCX2CV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Photograph of a costume ball at the Dil Pickle Club (ca. 1921)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MUYW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"770\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-770x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Front cover of a book.\" class=\"wp-image-25022\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-770x1024.jpg 770w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-226x300.jpg 226w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-768x1021.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001-1155x1536.jpg 1155w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99760158805867_case_z285_k47_m27_1921_000001.jpg 1504w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MUYW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mary Marcy, <em>A Free Union: A Comedy of &#8220;Free Love&#8221;<\/em> (1921)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>The Dill Pickler <\/em>and Chicago Literature<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Music, theater, and even some modern visual art appeared at the Pickle, but poetry occupied pride of place. Poetry readings were raucous affairs, reflecting the Picklish idea that poetry was not just for the high-brow. These works included the freely associated poetry of Kenneth Rexroth&#8217;s Dadaist &#8220;Escalator&#8221; movement appeared in <em>The Dill Pickler<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"679\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-679x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Woodblock print in red on pink paper. Text reads &quot;The Dil Pickler Poetry Number&quot; in capital letters laid out around a nude woman reclining on her side and looking up. Stars fill in empty spots around her and the letters.\" class=\"wp-image-25023\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-679x1024.jpg 679w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-768x1157.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001-1019x1536.jpg 1019w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001.jpg 1327w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 679px) 100vw, 679px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cover, <em>The Dill Pickler <\/em>vol. 3, no. 1 (1925)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"912\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-912x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Trice Gold By John Gibbons Escalator Jason in gold a fellow Mariner of all the rest Against the falling Notes, against The amber sky, ah, fleece Of gold, who then shall place The scene, the tears Of the tree old women Gone in the teeth and Agamnomnon Eys inlaid with gold of the Ivory shouldered race Buried amongst the white Dried river beds. &quot;The droppings Of the nightingales stain The stiff dishonored shroud.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-25025\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-912x1024.jpg 912w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-267x300.jpg 267w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208-768x863.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000018-e1784062667208.jpg 1040w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 912px) 100vw, 912px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John Gibbings Escalator, &#8220;Thrice Gold,&#8221; <em>The Dill Pickle<\/em>r vol. 1, no. 3 (1925)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847GYQ8?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"843\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-843x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black woodcut on white paper. Image is split into quarters. The upper right and lower left quarters have stylized images of animals. The text in the other two reads, &quot;It was designed and painted by Edgar Miller Eight Hundred Sixty Seven North Dearborn Street Chicago\/Firing and Glazing Was Done By the Temple Art Glass Concern Situated on Schiller Street Chicago&quot;.\" class=\"wp-image-25021\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-843x1024.jpg 843w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-247x300.jpg 247w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-768x933.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013-1265x1536.jpg 1265w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/99447858805867_wing_zp_983_d579_000013.jpg 1647w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 843px) 100vw, 843px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847GYQ8?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">J. Edgar Miller,<em> Dil Pickle Presents 8 Wood Cuts<\/em> (1926)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?BRPN=13&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"724\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-724x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Llewellyn Jones, a clean-shaven white man with a round face and round glasses sitting in a chair, with his arm over the back. He wears a white shirt, patterned bow tie, and dark coat and pants.\" class=\"wp-image-25020\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-724x1024.jpg 724w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-768x1086.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-1086x1536.jpg 1086w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-1448x2048.jpg 1448w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000013-scaled.jpg 1810w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847G7G7?BRPN=13&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Karl Matten, &#8220;Llewellyn Jones,&#8221; <em>The Dill Pickler<\/em>, vol. 1, no. 3 (1925)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"795\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-1024x795.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of five people in a row on stage. Two men stand at stage right. In the center stands a woman. Two men sit at stage left. Behind them is a painted backdrop.\" class=\"wp-image-25386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-1024x795.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-300x233.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-768x596.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001-1536x1192.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_001.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LZ Rethy, photograph of a play at the Dil Pickle Club (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"787\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-1024x787.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of three people on a low stage. A man holding a gun walks toward a woman opening a door and a man laying on a block decorated with pictographic illustrations.\" class=\"wp-image-24912\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-1024x787.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-768x591.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-1536x1181.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/991714888805867_mms_dill_pickle_box_003_fl_00281_002-2048x1575.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8ZSLCXXSS?BRPN=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LZ Rethy, photograph of a play at the Dil Pickle Club (undated)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The College of Complexes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Dil Pickle closed in 1933, but its spirit continued at the same location with Slim Brundage&#8217;s College of Complexes. Cultural stars of midcentury Chicago like Thornton Wilder, Jack Conroy, Gwendolyn Brooks, Studs Terkel, Carlos Cortez, Big Bill Broonzy, and Adlai Stevenson, among others, visited the College to debate topics from politics to literature, sex to hypnotism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=3&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"655\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-655x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Front page of The Curriculum for August 1953 listing lectures, performances, and other events.\" class=\"wp-image-25027\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-655x1024.jpg 655w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-192x300.jpg 192w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-768x1200.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-983x1536.jpg 983w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001-1311x2048.jpg 1311w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_aug_0001.jpg 1421w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 655px) 100vw, 655px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=3&amp;WS=AssetManagement\">The Curriculum (August 1953)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"667\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-667x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Front page of The Curriculum for April 1963, listing lectures, performances, and events.\" class=\"wp-image-25026\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-667x1024.jpg 667w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-768x1180.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-1000x1536.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001-1333x2048.jpg 1333w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00007_fl_00223_april_01950_0001.jpg 1473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MVW2?BRPN=1&amp;WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Curriculum (April 1960)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MKEW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"734\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-734x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Black-and-white photograph of an award mounted on a small pedestal. It looks like an arrangement of flowers, but the small ones are twisted spoons, and the large one is a hubcap.\" class=\"wp-image-25024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-734x1024.jpg 734w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-215x300.jpg 215w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-768x1072.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001-1101x1536.jpg 1101w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ord_midwest_ms_brundrage_box_00009_fl_00305_0001.jpg 1433w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 734px) 100vw, 734px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/collections.newberry.org\/asset-management\/2KXJ8Z847MKEW?WS=AssetManagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Photograph of the Award for Best Poem (1965)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Further Reading<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Balavage, Elysia. <a href=\"https:\/\/genealogiesofmodernity.org\/journal\/rebellious-space-and-radical-movement-the-dil-pickle-club-of-tooker-ally\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cRebellious Space and Radical Movement: The Dil Pickle Club of Tooker Alley.\u201d<\/a> <em>Genealogies of Modernity<\/em> (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Higbie, Tobias.&nbsp;<em>Labor\u2019s Mind: A History of Working-Class Intellectual Life<\/em>&nbsp;(2019).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Myers, Quinn. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbez.org\/curious-city\/2019\/02\/02\/chicagos-dill-pickle-club-where-anarchists-mixed-with-doctors-and-poets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cChicago\u2019s Dill Pickle Club: Where Anarchists Mixed With Doctors and Poets.\u201d<\/a> WBEZ Chicago (2019). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Olsen,&nbsp;Liesl.&nbsp;<em>Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis<\/em>&nbsp;(2017).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parry, Albert.&nbsp;<em>Garrets and Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America<\/em>&nbsp;(1960).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rexroth,&nbsp;Kenneth.&nbsp;<em>An Autobiographical Novel&nbsp;<\/em>(1964).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rosemont, Franklin.&nbsp;<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle: Jazz-Age Chicago\u2019s Wildest &amp; Most Outrageously Creative Hobohemian Nightspot&nbsp;<\/em>(2004).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__nav-link\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title-wrapper\"><a href=\"#\"><span class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__title\">Related Resources<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content-wrapper\"><div class=\"wp-block-getwid-tabs__tab-content\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Related Newberry Resources<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-995f960e wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"487\" height=\"522\" src=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Capture.png\" alt=\"Thumbnail of Collection Essay &quot;Mister Kelly's and Midcentury Nightclub Culture in Chicago&quot; by Hugh Iglarsh\" class=\"wp-image-25464\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Capture.png 487w, https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Capture-280x300.png 280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 487px) 100vw, 487px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=25222&amp;action=edit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Collection Essay: Mister Kelly&#8217;s and Midcentury Nightclub Culture in Chicago <\/strong><br>by Hugh Iglarsh<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-footnotes\"><li id=\"9f24aa19-c65b-4bee-8091-8a351663e229\">William Leonard, \u201cChicago\u2019s New \u2018Left Bank,\u2019\u201d\u00a0Chicago Tribune,\u00a0November 23, 1958. <a href=\"#9f24aa19-c65b-4bee-8091-8a351663e229-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 1\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"42a94218-9bf1-45b1-b46b-2cea7fc0a602\">Slim Brundage to Editor, Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1961.\u00a0 <a href=\"#42a94218-9bf1-45b1-b46b-2cea7fc0a602-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 2\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"12ea82bd-3f77-4cff-8c1d-7f5a8f55f4a8\">Slim Brundage to Reverend R.K. Caldwell, March 2, 1960; \u201cA Salute to the Janitor,\u201d clipping.\u00a0Hobohemia Collection, University of Michigan. <a href=\"#12ea82bd-3f77-4cff-8c1d-7f5a8f55f4a8-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 3\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"472c58b8-4e72-4eaf-90ae-17e4462789b6\">Alson Jesse Smith,\u00a0Chicago\u2019s Left Bank\u00a0(1953), 3-4. <a href=\"#472c58b8-4e72-4eaf-90ae-17e4462789b6-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 4\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"f3b10f73-5604-446e-b18a-64e39d171be1\">Henry L. Mencken, \u201cThe Literary Capital of the United States,\u201d\u00a0The Nation\u00a0(London) (April 17, 1920): 8. <a href=\"#f3b10f73-5604-446e-b18a-64e39d171be1-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 5\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"2628e905-3513-4285-9dac-14e80ed9ab20\">Tobias Higbie,\u00a0Labor\u2019s Mind: A History of Working-Class Intellectual Life\u00a0(2019), 58. <a href=\"#2628e905-3513-4285-9dac-14e80ed9ab20-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 6\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"e4a898c0-b4e8-4b41-a59a-eb5cde6d3102\">Brundage printed this tagline for the College on the monthly\u00a0Curriculum,\u00a0the College\u2019s program of events. <a href=\"#e4a898c0-b4e8-4b41-a59a-eb5cde6d3102-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 7\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"1516a72b-d1bd-4637-ada5-806084513d63\">Liesl Olsen,\u00a0Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis\u00a0(2017), 2, 6. <a href=\"#1516a72b-d1bd-4637-ada5-806084513d63-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 8\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"0fa159e4-edf1-4c9d-b305-0c7565d03bf6\">Higbie,\u00a0Labor\u2019s Mind,\u00a044, 45.\u00a0 <a href=\"#0fa159e4-edf1-4c9d-b305-0c7565d03bf6-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 9\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"d8836169-9df4-4d86-bd54-a3e1d94f4ab4\">Kenneth Rexroth,\u00a0An\u00a0Autobiographical Novel\u00a0(1964),\u00a0137.\u00a0\u00a0 <a href=\"#d8836169-9df4-4d86-bd54-a3e1d94f4ab4-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 10\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"593b5c26-ab33-48c9-8e0f-fed700535d6b\">John Drury,\u00a0Dining in Chicago\u00a0(John Day, 1931), 189, 188.\u00a0 <a href=\"#593b5c26-ab33-48c9-8e0f-fed700535d6b-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 11\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"81ace90a-2d7a-4956-b333-7afa2bcaf637\">Franklin Rosemont,\u00a0The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle: Jazz-Age Chicago\u2019s Wildest &amp; Most Outrageously Creative Hobohemian Nightspot\u00a0(2004),\u00a016-20. <a href=\"#81ace90a-2d7a-4956-b333-7afa2bcaf637-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 12\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"1315905b-2e0c-42c8-9df0-69da27100de4\">The Dill Pickler, Poetry Number, n.p. <a href=\"#1315905b-2e0c-42c8-9df0-69da27100de4-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 13\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"7128e43a-3d27-47fb-9737-490059726494\">Rexroth,\u00a0An Autobiographical Novel,\u00a0119, 138. <a href=\"#7128e43a-3d27-47fb-9737-490059726494-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 14\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"7bf66353-75a2-4e3b-84ee-af49d3258f3c\">Jack Jones, \u201cThe Bigotry of Bohemia,\u201d The Dill Pickler 1, no. 1 (1925). <a href=\"#7bf66353-75a2-4e3b-84ee-af49d3258f3c-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 15\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"f039d166-723a-4682-bee3-80c887bb771e\">Rosemont,\u00a0The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a09. <a href=\"#f039d166-723a-4682-bee3-80c887bb771e-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 16\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"342774e3-0dce-4c27-9a8e-84c38f5599fb\">Edna Dexter Fine,\u00a0quoted in Albert Parry,\u00a0Garrets and Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America\u00a0(1960),\u00a0203. <a href=\"#342774e3-0dce-4c27-9a8e-84c38f5599fb-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 17\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"818212f7-aa0a-43e9-8dd3-9fc6b42ea4df\">Qtd. in Rosemont,\u00a0The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a021;\u00a0Roger A.\u00a0Bruns,\u00a0The Damndest Radical: The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago\u2019s Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse\u00a0Physician\u00a0(2001),\u00a0245. <a href=\"#818212f7-aa0a-43e9-8dd3-9fc6b42ea4df-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 18\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"1a81f128-3547-446a-bf75-e15a0b66da29\">Rosemont,\u00a0The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a030.\u00a0 <a href=\"#1a81f128-3547-446a-bf75-e15a0b66da29-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 19\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"2745d46b-f630-47e3-89fb-cfd06514b13e\">Bruns,\u00a0The Damndest Radical,\u00a0196. <a href=\"#2745d46b-f630-47e3-89fb-cfd06514b13e-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 20\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"cba1dbea-380e-4cf7-9107-e99e5a644db4\">Jack Carney,\u00a0Mary Marcy\u00a0(Kerr, 1923), 3. <a href=\"#cba1dbea-380e-4cf7-9107-e99e5a644db4-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 21\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"2f0858a2-f6e4-4db7-ad68-b48efaf1d460\">Samuel Putnam, quoted in Laura K. Nelson, \u201cThe Power of Place: Structure, Culture, and Continuities in U.S. Women\u2019s Movements,\u201d Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2014, 39. See also Rosemont, The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle, 30. <a href=\"#2f0858a2-f6e4-4db7-ad68-b48efaf1d460-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 22\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"c1ee275b-ee54-4f79-9d29-d5091e86d98e\">Mary Marcy, \u201cThe Value of Immorality,\u201d\u00a0The International Socialist Review\u00a015, no. 9 (March 1915), 528. <a href=\"#c1ee275b-ee54-4f79-9d29-d5091e86d98e-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 23\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"41d8e193-27c5-42f0-9d37-454befad805d\">Mary Marcy,\u00a0\u201cA Free Union: A One Act Comedy of \u2018Free Love\u2019\u201d (Kerr, 1924), 17.\u00a0Cited hereafter in text. <a href=\"#41d8e193-27c5-42f0-9d37-454befad805d-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 24\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"d4c8661f-f099-4831-b84e-c7e3cb13beba\">Rexroth, An Autobiographical Novel, 137. <a href=\"#d4c8661f-f099-4831-b84e-c7e3cb13beba-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 25\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"1d9f1561-29a5-450c-b94a-83f8f19b5485\">\u00a0Rosemont,\u00a0The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a034.\u00a0 <a href=\"#1d9f1561-29a5-450c-b94a-83f8f19b5485-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 26\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"7f2618e8-3263-472f-ae99-a250e0b85629\">Ibid., 32; Rexroth,\u00a0An Autobiographical Novel,\u00a0136. <a href=\"#7f2618e8-3263-472f-ae99-a250e0b85629-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 27\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"ba3db2ec-6f50-4d3d-aa45-ab88f94337c8\">Edna Dexter Fine, quoted in Parry,\u00a0Garrets and Pretenders,\u00a0203. <a href=\"#ba3db2ec-6f50-4d3d-aa45-ab88f94337c8-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 28\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"9123c9e1-ccb0-4469-88d8-227ea9e91a09\">Rosemont,\u00a0The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a032.\u00a0 <a href=\"#9123c9e1-ccb0-4469-88d8-227ea9e91a09-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 29\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"e13808ac-f5e1-43e9-b5d4-6546142968e1\">Alfred Kreymborg,\u00a0Troubadour: An Autobiography\u00a0(Liveright,\u00a01925), 346. <a href=\"#e13808ac-f5e1-43e9-b5d4-6546142968e1-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 30\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"397fb922-b9e8-4faf-bd3f-575cd478a1d3\">Ibid. <a href=\"#397fb922-b9e8-4faf-bd3f-575cd478a1d3-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 31\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"2bc946ef-a899-402b-9a4a-b134e8407046\">Rexroth, An Autobiographical Novel (New Directions, 1964), ix. <a href=\"#2bc946ef-a899-402b-9a4a-b134e8407046-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 32\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"7a6fe89c-9d35-45ca-8866-220c301bc6d5\">Rosemont,\u00a0An Autobiographical Novel,\u00a032. <a href=\"#7a6fe89c-9d35-45ca-8866-220c301bc6d5-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 33\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"0ce3ac18-7fee-4fa2-b9de-3f7457733781\">Drury,\u00a0Dining in Chicago, 188. <a href=\"#0ce3ac18-7fee-4fa2-b9de-3f7457733781-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 34\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"25d5ef44-100c-493c-a15b-7b45aa177958\">Bruns,\u00a0The Damndest Radical,\u00a0242. <a href=\"#25d5ef44-100c-493c-a15b-7b45aa177958-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 35\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"dd2f809a-2dcd-456a-9de4-2d8944eb883b\">Slim Brundage, \u201cGood Evening to All You Squares Out There,\u201d undated, Box 2, Hobohemia Collection, University of Michigan. <a href=\"#dd2f809a-2dcd-456a-9de4-2d8944eb883b-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 36\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"1d030168-c536-4553-8d0a-136a156b545d\">\u00a0\u201cA Salute to the Janitor,\u201d clipping. <a href=\"#1d030168-c536-4553-8d0a-136a156b545d-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 37\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"a35b2345-608e-4e7b-9adf-0728932efdf0\">Burr McClosky, \u201cThe High Price of Free Speech,\u201d\u00a0Reader: Chicago\u2019s Free Weekly,\u00a0December 9, 1983. <a href=\"#a35b2345-608e-4e7b-9adf-0728932efdf0-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 38\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"a99420d3-cc95-4523-a024-dcdde58b2663\">\u00a0Slim Brundage, manuscript of poetry anthology (Hobohemia Collection, University of Michigan. <a href=\"#a99420d3-cc95-4523-a024-dcdde58b2663-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 39\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"a49c72a0-00d5-4ba6-9592-1409d36cd9c8\">R\u00f6nnog Seaberg, \u201cPoets Meet at 862 N. State St.\u201d\u00a0The Voice,\u00a0April 22, 1965. <a href=\"#a49c72a0-00d5-4ba6-9592-1409d36cd9c8-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 40\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"b17b5939-237f-4aeb-a1e8-9ac273d791bb\">\u00a0Ibid.\u00a0 <a href=\"#b17b5939-237f-4aeb-a1e8-9ac273d791bb-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 41\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"William Leonard, \u201cChicago\u2019s New \u2018Left Bank,\u2019\u201d\u00a0<em>Chicago Tribune,\u00a0<\/em>November 23, 1958.\",\"id\":\"9f24aa19-c65b-4bee-8091-8a351663e229\"},{\"content\":\"Slim Brundage to Editor, <em>Chicago Tribune,<\/em> May 7, 1961.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"42a94218-9bf1-45b1-b46b-2cea7fc0a602\"},{\"content\":\"Slim Brundage to Reverend R.K. Caldwell, March 2, 1960; \u201cA Salute to the Janitor,\u201d clipping.\u00a0Hobohemia Collection, University of Michigan.\",\"id\":\"12ea82bd-3f77-4cff-8c1d-7f5a8f55f4a8\"},{\"content\":\"Alson Jesse Smith,\u00a0<em>Chicago\u2019s Left Bank\u00a0<\/em>(1953), 3-4.\",\"id\":\"472c58b8-4e72-4eaf-90ae-17e4462789b6\"},{\"content\":\"Henry L. Mencken, \u201cThe Literary Capital of the United States,\u201d\u00a0<em>The Nation\u00a0<\/em>(<em>London)<\/em> (April 17, 1920): 8.\",\"id\":\"f3b10f73-5604-446e-b18a-64e39d171be1\"},{\"content\":\"Tobias Higbie,\u00a0<em>Labor\u2019s Mind: A History of Working-Class Intellectual Life<\/em>\u00a0(2019), 58.\",\"id\":\"2628e905-3513-4285-9dac-14e80ed9ab20\"},{\"content\":\"Brundage printed this tagline for the College on the monthly\u00a0<em>Curriculum,\u00a0<\/em>the College\u2019s program of events.\",\"id\":\"e4a898c0-b4e8-4b41-a59a-eb5cde6d3102\"},{\"content\":\"Liesl Olsen,\u00a0<em>Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis\u00a0<\/em>(2017), 2, 6.\",\"id\":\"1516a72b-d1bd-4637-ada5-806084513d63\"},{\"content\":\"Higbie,\u00a0<em>Labor\u2019s Mind,\u00a0<\/em>44, 45.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"0fa159e4-edf1-4c9d-b305-0c7565d03bf6\"},{\"content\":\"Kenneth Rexroth,\u00a0<em>An<\/em>\u00a0<em>Autobiographical Novel\u00a0<\/em>(1964),\u00a0137.\u00a0\u00a0\",\"id\":\"d8836169-9df4-4d86-bd54-a3e1d94f4ab4\"},{\"content\":\"John Drury,\u00a0<em>Dining in Chicago\u00a0<\/em>(John Day, 1931), 189, 188.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"593b5c26-ab33-48c9-8e0f-fed700535d6b\"},{\"content\":\"Franklin Rosemont,\u00a0<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle: Jazz-Age Chicago\u2019s Wildest &amp; Most Outrageously Creative Hobohemian Nightspot\u00a0<\/em>(2004),\u00a016-20.\",\"id\":\"81ace90a-2d7a-4956-b333-7afa2bcaf637\"},{\"content\":\"<em>The Dill Pickler<\/em>, Poetry Number, n.p.\",\"id\":\"1315905b-2e0c-42c8-9df0-69da27100de4\"},{\"content\":\"Rexroth,\u00a0<em>An Autobiographical Novel,<\/em>\u00a0119, 138.\",\"id\":\"7128e43a-3d27-47fb-9737-490059726494\"},{\"content\":\"Jack Jones, \u201cThe Bigotry of Bohemia,\u201d The Dill Pickler 1, no. 1 (1925).\",\"id\":\"7bf66353-75a2-4e3b-84ee-af49d3258f3c\"},{\"content\":\"Rosemont,\u00a0<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,<\/em>\u00a09.\",\"id\":\"f039d166-723a-4682-bee3-80c887bb771e\"},{\"content\":\"Edna Dexter Fine,\u00a0quoted in Albert Parry,\u00a0<em>Garrets and Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America\u00a0<\/em>(1960),<em>\u00a0<\/em>203.\",\"id\":\"342774e3-0dce-4c27-9a8e-84c38f5599fb\"},{\"content\":\"Qtd. in Rosemont,\u00a0<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,<\/em>\u00a021;\u00a0Roger A.\u00a0Bruns,\u00a0<em>The Damndest Radical: The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago\u2019s Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse\u00a0<\/em>Physician\u00a0(2001),\u00a0245.\",\"id\":\"818212f7-aa0a-43e9-8dd3-9fc6b42ea4df\"},{\"content\":\"Rosemont,\u00a0<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a0<\/em>30.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"1a81f128-3547-446a-bf75-e15a0b66da29\"},{\"content\":\"Bruns,\u00a0<em>The Damndest Radical<\/em>,\u00a0196.\",\"id\":\"2745d46b-f630-47e3-89fb-cfd06514b13e\"},{\"content\":\"Jack Carney,\u00a0<em>Mary Marcy\u00a0<\/em>(Kerr, 1923), 3.\",\"id\":\"cba1dbea-380e-4cf7-9107-e99e5a644db4\"},{\"content\":\"Samuel Putnam, quoted in Laura K. Nelson, \u201cThe Power of Place: Structure, Culture, and Continuities in U.S. Women\u2019s Movements,\u201d Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2014, 39. See also Rosemont,<em> The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle<\/em>, 30.\",\"id\":\"2f0858a2-f6e4-4db7-ad68-b48efaf1d460\"},{\"content\":\"Mary Marcy, \u201cThe Value of Immorality,\u201d\u00a0<em>The International Socialist Review\u00a0<\/em>15, no. 9 (March 1915), 528.\",\"id\":\"c1ee275b-ee54-4f79-9d29-d5091e86d98e\"},{\"content\":\"Mary Marcy,\u00a0\u201cA Free Union: A One Act Comedy of \u2018Free Love\u2019\u201d (Kerr, 1924), 17.\u00a0Cited hereafter in text.\",\"id\":\"41d8e193-27c5-42f0-9d37-454befad805d\"},{\"content\":\"Rexroth, <em>An Autobiographical Novel<\/em>, 137.\",\"id\":\"d4c8661f-f099-4831-b84e-c7e3cb13beba\"},{\"content\":\"\u00a0Rosemont,\u00a0<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a0<\/em>34.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"1d9f1561-29a5-450c-b94a-83f8f19b5485\"},{\"content\":\"Ibid., 32; Rexroth,\u00a0<em>An Autobiographical Novel,<\/em>\u00a0136.\",\"id\":\"7f2618e8-3263-472f-ae99-a250e0b85629\"},{\"content\":\"Edna Dexter Fine, quoted in Parry,\u00a0<em>Garrets and Pretenders,\u00a0<\/em>203.\",\"id\":\"ba3db2ec-6f50-4d3d-aa45-ab88f94337c8\"},{\"content\":\"Rosemont,\u00a0<em>The Rise &amp; Fall of the Dil Pickle,\u00a0<\/em>32.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"9123c9e1-ccb0-4469-88d8-227ea9e91a09\"},{\"content\":\"Alfred Kreymborg,\u00a0<em>Troubadour: An Autobiography<\/em>\u00a0(Liveright,\u00a01925), 346.\",\"id\":\"e13808ac-f5e1-43e9-b5d4-6546142968e1\"},{\"content\":\"Ibid.\",\"id\":\"397fb922-b9e8-4faf-bd3f-575cd478a1d3\"},{\"content\":\"Rexroth, <em>An Autobiographical Novel <\/em>(New Directions, 1964), ix.\",\"id\":\"2bc946ef-a899-402b-9a4a-b134e8407046\"},{\"content\":\"Rosemont,<em>\u00a0An Autobiographical Novel,<\/em>\u00a032.\",\"id\":\"7a6fe89c-9d35-45ca-8866-220c301bc6d5\"},{\"content\":\"Drury,\u00a0<em>Dining in Chicago<\/em>, 188.\",\"id\":\"0ce3ac18-7fee-4fa2-b9de-3f7457733781\"},{\"content\":\"Bruns,\u00a0<em>The Damndest Radical<\/em>,\u00a0242.\",\"id\":\"25d5ef44-100c-493c-a15b-7b45aa177958\"},{\"content\":\"Slim Brundage, \u201cGood Evening to All You Squares Out There,\u201d undated, Box 2, Hobohemia Collection, University of Michigan.\",\"id\":\"dd2f809a-2dcd-456a-9de4-2d8944eb883b\"},{\"content\":\"\u00a0\u201cA Salute to the Janitor,\u201d clipping.\",\"id\":\"1d030168-c536-4553-8d0a-136a156b545d\"},{\"content\":\"Burr McClosky, \u201cThe High Price of Free Speech,\u201d\u00a0<em>Reader: Chicago\u2019s Free Weekly,\u00a0<\/em>December 9, 1983.\",\"id\":\"a35b2345-608e-4e7b-9adf-0728932efdf0\"},{\"content\":\"\u00a0Slim Brundage, manuscript of poetry anthology (Hobohemia Collection, University of Michigan.\",\"id\":\"a99420d3-cc95-4523-a024-dcdde58b2663\"},{\"content\":\"R\u00f6nnog Seaberg, \u201cPoets Meet at 862 N. State St.\u201d\u00a0<em>The Voice,\u00a0<\/em>April 22, 1965.\",\"id\":\"a49c72a0-00d5-4ba6-9592-1409d36cd9c8\"},{\"content\":\"\u00a0Ibid.\u00a0\",\"id\":\"b17b5939-237f-4aeb-a1e8-9ac273d791bb\"}]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84,164],"tags":[167,169,168],"class_list":["post-25360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20th-century","category-collection-essays","tag-arts","tag-chicago-midwest","tag-literature"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/993363838805867_case_a5_281_vol_01_no_03_000001.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25360"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25652,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25360\/revisions\/25652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dcc.newberry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}