Architect William Le Baron Jenney’s spirits were sagging. Jenney had hoped his latest project would be a reputation-making edifice at Adams and LaSalle Streets meant to rise 10 daring stories above Chicago. In 1884, the city’s commercial buildings rarely stood more than four stories tall, giving him an apparently unsolvable engineering crisis: how to support his structure. Although Jenney believed he had figured out that particular riddle, he was now lacking another type of support.
On May 1, 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions was backing a citywide strike for an eight-hour work week. The striking tradesmen included members of Bricklayers and Masons International Union Local 21. Now, even if Jenney could figure out how to build his project, he would not have the materials he needed or the personnel to proceed. He would have to admit failure to his clients at the Home Insurance Company.
The Home Insurance high-rise had antecedents. In New York City, the Equitable Life Building had opened in 1870 with seven stories above ground and two below street level. In 1875, at Nassau and Spruce streets, the New York Tribune building climbed 10 stories. But those property owners had assembled parcels broad and deep enough to accommodate the fortress-like bases—walls six feet or more thick—required to support a tall building’s upper floors. With a 96-foot fronting on Adams Street and 38 feet on LaSalle, the Home Insurance parcel forbade use of that time-tested technique, as it would mean the company’s employees on the lower floors would be subjected to toiling in cramped quarters and oppressively narrow hallways.
Word of the strike devastated the architect. Despondent, Jenney closed his roll-top desk and went home. At their house on Bittersweet Place, his wife, Lizzie, had been reading a book of considerable size. Instantly sensing her husband’s mood,
