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Robert R. McCormick. Cantigny Farm correspondence

 Collection
Identifier: I-162

  • Staff Only
  • No requestable containers

Scope and Contents

Correspondence, clippings and other material concerning Cantigny Farm near Wheaton, Illinois, and the farm on the Fox River west of Yorkville in Kendall County, Illinois (sometimes called the "experimental farm"), both owned by Col. Robert R. McCormick (owner and editor of the Chicago tribune). The correspondence is chiefly between McCormick on the one hand and Homer Neisz, Gail W. Compton or Richard T. Orr on the other. (Neisz, Compton and Orr were, successively, farm editors at the Tribune, and wrote the "Day by day on the farm" column; their duties appear to have included regular visits to Cantigny. Some correspondence is between them and third parties.) The McCormick correspondence is chiefly concerned with details of running the farms, coupled with suggestions for related newspaper columns.

Dates

  • 1939 - 1954

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on use of the materials in the department for research; all patrons must comply with federal copyright regulations. This collection is stored off-site and requires two business days advance notice for retrieval. Please contact the McCormick Library at specialcollections@northwestern.edu or 847-491-3635 for more information or to schedule an appointment to view the collection.

Biographical / Historical

Homer Neisz was the Tribune's farm editor, 1939-1940. Gail W. Compton (born 1915-03-01, Chicago, Ill.) was the farm editor, 1940-1949. (He starred in the WGN-TV program "The pet shop" from 1951-1953.) Richard T. Orr (born 1915-02-15, Springfield, Ill.) became the farm editor on 1949-05-09.

Extent

1 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

Correspondence, clippings and other material concerning Cantigny Farm near Wheaton, Illinois, and the farm on the Fox River west of Yorkville in Kendall County, Illinois (sometimes called the "experimental farm"), both owned by Col. Robert R. McCormick (owner and editor of the Chicago tribune). The correspondence is chiefly between McCormick on the one hand and Homer Neisz, Gail W. Compton or Richard T. Orr on the other. (Neisz, Compton and Orr were, successively, farm editors at the Tribune, and wrote the "Day by day on the farm" column; their duties appear to have included regular visits to Cantigny. Some correspondence is between them and third parties.) The McCormick correspondence is chiefly concerned with details of running the farms, coupled with suggestions for related newspaper columns.

Arrangement

Arranged in broad chronological groups, identified as found in the original folder captions. The periods covered by some groups overlap. Some groups contain a very few scattered items outside the dates indicated.

Custodial History

Gift of Martha Bayless (professor, University of Oregon, Eugene), a family friend of Richard Orr

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Received from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Chicago Tribune Company, and Nexstar Media Group on January 10, 2020, accession #SPEC-2020-1.

Related Materials

See also the "Cantigny Farm" section of I-63, and the "Farm and garden columns" section of XI-127

Processing Information

Formerly assigned the temporary identifier XI-357

Title
Guide to the Robert R. McCormick. Cantigny Farm correspondence
Author
Gary L. Strawn
Date
2021-08-17
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Library Details

Part of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections Repository

Contact:
Deering Library, Level 3
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston IL 60208-2300 US
847-491-3635