A Community's Art
[South Side Community Art Center (1892) L. Gustav Hallberg, architect /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
When Chicago Board of Trade member George A. Seaverns asked architect L. Gustav Hallberg to design a mansion for the Seaverns family in 1892, the neighborhood was an up-and-coming area made-up of prosperous businessmen and their families. Near the established, upscale Prairie Avenue district, this location at 38th and Michigan was part of the southern expansion of millionaire row.
[George A. Seaverns House, 3831 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago /Image & Artwork: designslinger]
By the 1920s Chicago's African American community had outgrown it's original "Black Belt" boundaries and began expanding into the wealthy white communities of an earlier generation. This thriving Black community was hit hard by the economic collapse caused by the Great Depression in the 1930s and the neighborhood began to decline. But activists rallied and fought back, and one of the outcomes of that cause was the founding of the South Side Community Art Center.
[South Side Community Art Center (1940) /Images & Artwork: designslinger]
In 1939 Golden B. Darby, a prominent Chicago sociologist who was a leader in the study of juvenile deliquency, joined others in raising funds for an arts center to serve the residents of the recently renamed Bronzeville neighborhood. The money was used to buy the Seaverns house and Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds were used to renovate the interior and help pay for free art classes offered to area residents. The endeavor was considered so important that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt came to dedicate the Center on May 8, 1941, which was carried in a live, nationwide broadcast on the CBS radio network. The first exhibit included work by artist's Richard Barthé, Hale Woodruff, E. Simms Campbell, William Mc Bride and Archibald Motley, Jr.
WPA funding didn't last long. With the start of the Second World War, the WPA and many other New Deal programs came to a halt because of the money needed for the war effort. But the Art Center held on, though by the 1980s board members began to explore options to move to a better neighborhood. Years of government neglect, income depravation, and crime, had taken its toll in and around the Michigan Avenue location. On the other hand, most of the community who used the Center and the artists who exhibited and taught there thought otherwise. As a result of their desire to stay put, you can still attend classes, art exhibitions and theater events in the old mansion at 3831 S. Michigan Avenue, which is the only WPA funded art center still in existence today, out of 51 organized across the country under the program.
See more of Hallberg's work at: Along Cedar Street; A Pan Hellenic Row.
Posted by designslinger at 10/28/2010 1:38 AM 
Categories: Architecture, History, Art, Preservation
Tags: Bronzeville African American community Chicago mansions mansions L. Gustav Hallberg
Categories: Architecture, History, Art, Preservation
Tags: Bronzeville African American community Chicago mansions mansions L. Gustav Hallberg
Good one! And may the SSCAC live on.
Indeed! And nice to hear from you too! Thanks.