Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
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illustration by daniel o'leary It's long been assumed that Chicago was built by men. (We do know we can thank men for the stench of the stockyards as well as the Lager Beer Riot of 1855.) But it was Mrs. O'Leary's poorly supervised cow that prompted the need to rebuild Chicago in 1871, and it wasn't until after that date that the city really started becoming civilized. After the fire, it was Bertha Palmer, for instance, who arranged for husband Potter to reestablish his for- tune with contacts back east. And nobody stimulated Chicago's economy like Bertha, who bought diamonds as regularly as fresh produce. Her husband even willed money to whomever Bertha might marry next, he explained, "because he'll need it." Bertha's most far-reaching contribu- tion, of course, was the invention of the brownie. She commissioned a pastry chef to create a des- sert appropriate for ladies visiting Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. (And if a statue of Bertha is not erected outside Blommer's chocolate factory soon, there could be a female uprising that makes the Lager Beer Riot of 1855 look like a pantywaist kerfuff le.) Despite society's limitations, women have long worn the proverbial pants in Chicago. In 1900, sis- ters Ada and Minna Everleigh opened the Everleigh Club on South Dearborn Street. "Brothel" is one word for it. With mirrored ceilings, a $15,000 gold-leaf piano, and a caviar-and-squab buffet, it was more like an oasis for sirens luring Chicago's most prominent men to their doom. Their "butterflies" entertained politicians, cap- tains of industry, Ring Lardner, Theodore Dreiser, and Prince Henry of Prussia. It's been rumored that Marshall Field Jr. was shot to death by one of the beauties at the Everleigh. You can probably bet on that. Once the club was forced to close, Minna testified against corrupt Chicago aldermen John "Bathhouse" Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna. Then the sisters bounced out of town with $2 million. No man has ever equaled their savvy. Tourists love the stories of Chicago's gangsters, but women have always been far more danger- ous. Sam Giancana may have gotten John F. Kennedy elected, but Judith Campbell Exner— who slept with them both—could have brought down the presidency with a wink and a smile. "Mafia Princess" Antoinette Giancana worked out her subsequent daddy issues with a tell-all book, scoring no less than Susan Lucci to play her in the 1980s miniseries. Let's not forget that it took the Woman in Red to bring down John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1, and before that, the real-life "Girls of Murder City" inspired the musical Chicago when the married Beulah Annan shot her lover, then drank cocktails and listened to a recording of the song "Hula Lou" for four hours while he lay dying. She was acquitted. Women in Chicago have also revolutionized the arts and downright defined television enter- tainment. WGN's Irna Phillips became known as the "Mother of Soap Opera" in the '30s. Until then, daytime TV had been largely insignifi- cant. Her work is carried on today by Marian Catholic High School's Shonda Rhimes, the most powerful woman in prime time. She has upped the soap ante with small-screen feminist hits Grey's Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder, and Scandal. Our women in politics are legendary. Mayor Jane Byrne took over Chicago by snowstorm and turned the City of Big Shoulders into the City of Padded Shoulders. Windy City women in the White House have been no less commanding. Hillary Rodham Clinton? We know who ran the show there—and she may just be back for a term of her own. Michelle Obama was Barack's mentor when he was a lowly summer associate at Sidley Austin and continues to whisper in his ear. In an arm wrestling contest, there's no doubt she'd shame the president —and look fabulous doing it. Men in Chicago, inf luential? They can keep telling themselves that. But when it comes to the City that Works, we all know that it's the women in front of those men who make it happen. MA Ladies First From Bertha Palmer to michelle oBama, it's the women oF chicago who have always had the Power. by paige wiser 152 michiganavemag.com Gold coastinG May/June 2015