Some years ago, I stumbled across this article from 1862. It describes a picture that hung in the window of the American Sunday School Union’s building in Chicago.
“A novel and somewhat amusing picture is hung in the window of the American Sunday School Union’s Depository. It is entitled ‘Teaching the Contrabands.’ The cut represents about twenty negroes, of all sizes, ages, and looks imaginable, huddled together before a soldier, who is pointing with his sword to some characters on a tablet suspended from one of the palmettos.”
June 12, 18621
I found this digital copy of the poster shortly thereafter. It was included in a lesson plan about Reconstruction made by the Chicago History Museum. It didn’t contain any additional information about the image, but it clearly matches the description from the article.
I requested a high resolution digital copy in early 2023. Something about the image seemed odd to me, but I didn’t think much about it. I just assumed that it was a wood block engraving, especially since the article refers to it as a “cut.”
In autumn 2024, I got to see it in person at the Abakanowicz Research Center in the Chicago History Museum. It was in a folder full of other Civil War era broadsides. There was no other information about the item except a handwritten note on the back:
Purchase: Ira J. Freidman
Sept. 1957 $10
I was hoping to find more details, but I did notice something very exciting – this is not a wood engraving! It is obvious in person.
If you look closely at the lettering, those are clearly brush marks! And the foliage behind it is some kind of pencil – maybe lithography crayon.4 I also carefully examined the paper from a shallow angle and there are no indents from printing. All this seems to indicate it was hand drawn, and possibly reproduced as a lithograph. Now it just remains to determine who produced it.
Next I tried to locate where the American Sunday School Union’s building was located. The 1862 city directory lists their address as 153/155 Lake St. I initially just put the address into Google maps but the librarian pointed out a problem. In the 20th century, the numbering changed!
A wonderful librarian directed me to this book that provides the conversion. 153 is now 135. So now I know the building was near the south east corner of Lake St. and LaSalle St.
Then I examined this Sanborn Fire Insurance map to learn additional details about the area: like what materials the building was made of, and what kind of businesses were nearby.
This area is the heart of the city. The court house, chamber of commerce, and customs house were all nearby.
Here it is! The building is 4 stories high, made of brick with a stone façade. Most of the other buildings on this block were a similar size and composition.
The map key has details for how to interpret all this.
Next I tried to do the impossible, find images of the exact building. Unfortunately this was beyond my ability. The Chicago History Museum has tons of pictures of the area, but none of my building.
I did get VERY close though. This is the block of buildings right across the street! As you can see, this is a busy area. There are lots of carriages and foot traffic.
The American Sunday School Union’s building was likely very similar to 144-146. It’s also a double that is four stories tall. I’m still hoping to find an image of the exact building, but I’m happy I got so close.
Please contact me if you have any information that could help me.
Footnotes
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago). “Contrabands Learning to Read.” June 12, 1862. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84031490/1862-06-12/ed-1/. ↩︎
- “Fighting for Freedom: African Americans in the Civil War.” Chicago History Museum, November 17, 2016. https://www.chicagohistory.org/fighting-for-freedom-african-americans-in-the-civil-war/. ↩︎
- Chicago History Museum. “Teaching the Contrabands ICHi-036123.” Accessed February 8, 2026. https://images.chicagohistory.org/asset/395523/. ↩︎
- I haven’t had a professional evaluate the image but solicited some opinions online. A couple folks suggested that it could be a lithograph.
https://www.reddit.com/r/printmaking/comments/1qxzbk1/lithography_question_lettering/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gbf9vx/how_was_this_image_made/ ↩︎ - “Street Raising on Lake Street between Clark and LaSalle Streets, 1850s.” Accessed February 8, 2026. ((ICHi-00698) http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3292.html. ↩︎
Lost History Books 