The History of the Alliance Française de Chicago: 1897-2022

Following is a summarized version of my text in History of the Alliance Française de Chicago. This book was published by the Alliance Française de Chicago in 2022 on the occasion of its 125th anniversary. A limited edition was printed for internal distribution to Board of Directors members.

The Alliance Française organization was founded in Paris on July 21, 1883 by Paul Cambon, and others. The Chicago chapter was organized in October 1897, with the encouragement of French Consul Henri Mérou, and a committee of prominent Chicago leaders who wished to encourage the study of French languages and enhance the cultural life in this city. When French Consul Henri Mérou was first assigned to Chicago, he had been very interested in the fact that there was a historic French settlement in Chicago dating to the mid-16th century, yet by the late-19th century very few descendents of those French settlers spoke French or even identified as French. The Alliance Française of Chicago is among one of the oldest cultural institutions in Chicago—succeeding its older siblings the Chicago Public Library (1872), the Art Institute (1882), the Newberry Library (1887), and the Field Museum (1893).

The Executive Committee in 1898 consisted of President Henry J. Furber Jr, Assistants Mrs Knowles and Miss Katharine Knowles, Treasurer Robert W Watson, and Secretary Charles Dalliere. Committee members included C.C. Bonney, Z.P. Brosseau, Henry J. Furber Jr, Charles Henrotin, A Holinger, George C. Howland, A Jacobson, M.W. Kozminski, French Consul Henri Mérou, F.W. Peck, G.S. Steere, W Weinmann, Mrs F.H. Gardiner, Mrs Carter H. Harrison, Miss Healy, Mrs Charles Henrotin, Mrs W.W. Kimball, Mrs L.H. McCormick, Mrs James R. McKay, Mrs Potter Palmer, and Mrs F.A. Sawyer.

The Alliance Française of Chicago was incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois as a private not-for-profit association in 1901. From its inception, the Alliance Française was a not-for-profit, volunteer-based, social organization. Until the late-20th century, it relied upon its members to serve on administrative committees, assist at events, and promote the organization’s welfare through their own social and professional networks. Before having a permanent residence, the Alliance Française had operated at various locations throughout the city. In 1901 the organization installed itself downtown as a tenant of the (Studebaker) Fine Arts Building, at 410 South Michigan Avenue. This beaux-arts style building was set between the Auditorium Theater and a (now demolished) building that once housed the Chicago Club (and previously the Art Institute). The Alliance Française of Chicago's headquarters would remain here until late 1967.

When Federation of Alliances Françaises USA was established in 1902, the Alliance Française de Chicago was among its 19 charter members.

By 1904, the structure of the Alliance Française of Chicago consisted of the Board of Directors and the Conseil d’Administration (also known as the Woman’s Board or the General Committee). The School was originally organized under the auspices of the Alliance Française de Paris, and offered courses in French language, diction, history, literature, philology (historical grammar and syntax), and pedagogy. Private lectures in French were held in the Salon on Thursday evenings, and public lectures in English were held every Saturday afternoon. The Library was founded in 1903 by Library Committee Chairman Vesta M Westover Channon. Its collection focused on classical and modern French literature, as well as official documents published by the French government.

In 1908, Le Club Français joined with the Alliance Française of Chicago. Le Club had been founded by Mary H Knowles in 1881 to offer its members opportunities to enhance their French language skills. They had a Salon where current French periodicals and books were offered to members, held social activities, and (perhaps most significantly for the City of Chicago) supported the French Theatre of Chicago—which supplied the historic 850-seat theater in Steinway Hall with regular performances of French plays, such as Molière’s “Le Misanthrope” (1886) and Edouard Pailleron’s farce “Le Monde Ou L’on S’ennuie” (1881).

During the First World War, the Alliance Française of Chicago established a Red Cross Committee to collect donations and host surgical-dressings workshops. This committee was initiated by Vesta M Westover Channon (who had served in the American Red Cross with the American Expeditionary Forces, and was on the Allied Relief Committee of the Council of National Defense). By the end of 1917 the Red Cross Committee had over 500 regular participates. By 1922 Alliance Française had shipped over 186,000 surgical dressings and 16,000 hospital-supply items to France. Alliance Française also held fundraising benefits to contribute to war-relief efforts. Benefits were organized to raise funds for the Illinois’ memorial “Chicago Hospital” in Paris, the Victory Loan, as well as local philanthropic projects such as endowing a Chair of French at Bryn Mawr College. Additionally, under the auspices of French Consul Antonin Barthelemy, Alliance Française joined forces with the French Clubs of Chicago (which included Le Cercle Français, Les Matinées Françaises, Le Cénacle Club, and La Chorale Française) to “adopt” Pagny-sur Moselle (a small village in Meurthe-et-Moselle) and raise funds that would be used to re-establish its municipal services and repair destruction. Red Cross Committee work at Alliance Française continued through the Second World War. The Bayeux Children’s Hospital had been founded in Normandy in 1941 by former Woman’s Board President Mrs Charles S Dewey, and dedicated in honor of the Alliance Française de Chicago at that time, yet it was nearly destroyed in the war. For four consecutive springs (between 1945 and 1948), Alliance Francaise raised funds to repair services at the Bayeux Clinic as well as contributions to the American Friends of France Center in to support children of the Normandy village of Vive.

During the World’s Fair Century of Progress in Chicago, Alliance Française assisted with the arrangements of a Bastille Day Fête held on July 14, 1934. Celebrations took place at the Fair’s French pavilion on Northerly Island and focused on the profound impression that the French had made on the history and culture of the Great Lakes. Arrangements for the festivities included music, speeches, and other entertainments, and were coordinated with the assistance of the Alliance Française’s Robert Hall McCormick, Léon Hermant, Maxime Rainguet, and Henri David. Afterwards, the Alliance Française contributed to an exhibition at the Chicago Historical Society commemorating the French General Lafayette.

The legendary vocalist Maria Meneghini-Callas was accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Civic Opera House on January 15, 1957 to perform a US debut of a concert in a benefit for both the Alliance Française scholarship fund as well as a Hungarian-relief fund. Mrs Nevins Kirk (who had been President of the Woman’s Board since 1955) served as Chairman of the benefit concert after enlisting the performer a month earlier during a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The concert raised the equivalent of nearly $1 million (adjusted for 2022) and was repeated in January 1958 and April 1964.

In October 1977, Réal de Mélogue and Thomas C Sheffield Jr broke from the Alliance Française de Chicago and founded la Maison Française de Chicago at 218 East Ontario Street. By this time, Alliance Française had become a small exclusive social club and lost a large portion their younger members to Maison Française, which was hosting classes, conferences, panels, and exhibitions that were open to the public, eagerly inclusive of diverse Francophone cultures, and bursting with energy. In 1978 Maison Française organized an impressive 8-hour long Bastille Day block-party with mimes, fortune tellers, culinary specialties, wine, and music. Their first Bal Musette celebration drew around 8,000 attendees, attracting Chicago’s larger community of people who were passionate about Francophone culture—whether they had lived or studied in French-speaking regions, were descendants of those who immigrated to Chicago from French-speaking nations, or simply attracted to all things French. In February 1980 Alliance Française merged with Maison Française, and Réal de Mélogue became the organization’s first Directeur General. The Alliance Française moved to 218 East Ontario Street (across the street from the former location of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and a block from the former location of the Arts Club Chicago). Mardi Gras and Bastille Day celebrations continued. The Bastille Day celebration of 1981 drew an astounding 50,000 attendees.

The current Alliance Française headquarters at 810 North Dearborn Parkway was purchased by the Board of Directors in 1983. The building is a historic four-story townhouse (which the Chicago Architectural Foundation describes as an example of the Italianate row-homes built after the Fire of 1871). To reconstruct the building, The Alliance Française successfully raised $1 million through a combination of small pledges from their substantial student community, and substantial pledges from a small group of donors—each contributing about equal parts of the total. The School reopened in 1986, with 2,000 students enrolled. By the end of the 1980s, Alliance Française’s offerings included publications (bulletins, newsletters), a cinema and video program, fine-art exhibitions, a fine-art collection (including a set of silver from Chicago’s former Mayor Carter Harrison), the Scholarship fund, trips for members and students, Le Groupe des Jeunes (which organized events for the next generation’s members), events (parties, celebrations, benefits, and grand balls/galas), participation in the cultural life of the city and collaborations with the Consulat General de France and French officials in Chicago, as well as publicity and outreach that reached beyond Chicago and throughout the Midwest.

In 1992 Dr Sonia Aladjem was elected as Executive Director. She had previous served as Director of Programs, and is known for her efforts in expanding programs and events, increasing membership, establishing new community outreach and partnership relationships with cultural organizations throughout Chicago, forming a school curriculum, investing in the Library, and strengthening relationships with the public as well as consulates. In addition, she advocated for installing permanent administration positions, and reinstated committees to support and represent the Alliance Française’s core functions to the Board, including: Advisory, Development, Finance, Library, Membership and Hospitality, Program, Publications (Publicity), School and Pedagogy, and Scholarship Boards.

In 1996 Chicago and Paris became Sister Cities, a relationship initiated by Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac.

In 1997 the Alliance Française Board of Directors, chaired by John Shedd Reed, launched “Vive l’Alliance! Campaign” to underwrite the purchase and renovation of a Second-Empire style building at 54 West Chicago Avenue. The new facility on Chicago Avenue, named the William B. and Catherine Graham French Cultural Center, has continued to enrich the Alliance Française. Members congregate in the Eleanore Wood-Prince Salon for exhibitions and events. The Julius Lewis Auditorium offers 150 seats for lectures and performances, as well as Cine-club movie screenings. The second floor provides a place for students to gather to study French language and culture; There are 10 classrooms, and a state-of-the-art demonstration and teaching kitchen has supported Alliance Française’s offerings in French culinary-arts preparation and presentation.

The Dearborn and Chicago buildings were finally connected in 1998, allowing members to circulate easily within the entire complex. The steel and glass link was designed by Avram Lothan (of the architectural firm DeStefano+Partners) with reference to Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet’s Maison de Verre. This design solution won an Interior Architecture Award in Fall 2000 from American Institute of Architects, and continues to be highlighted on annual Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Open House Chicago tours. The garden was expanded and planted with trees and ivy to connect the two buildings exteriorly, and a plaque was placed in honor of Mrs Louise Dewey Smith (who had been an Alliance Française Member since 1932, and former Vice-president of the Alliance Juniors). Renovation of the Dearborn building was included in this reconstruction period. In recognition of the generous personal and financial support given to the educational and cultural programs of the Alliance Française by William G. and Solange Brown, the Dearborn building was adopted by the officers of the Alliance Française as the Solange and William G. Brown French Learning Center. The Library, now known as the Brown Médiathèque, was redesigned and expanded at this time, and its collection of 16,000 volumes was moved from the 3rd floor to its new quarters the 2nd floor. This same year, The Award Towards Excellence scholarship program was established in affiliated with the Chicago Public School system, in conjunction with the Chicago Board of Education to extend French-language offerings to respective schools, and consists of after-school classes that meet once a week throughout the school year for two years.

A significant change to the School commenced in 1998 when the French Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs assigned Christian Melka as Director of the Language Center (previously referred to as the School). Christian Melka reevaluated and renovated the Language Center’s curricula, and was essential in recruiting and training a faculty of approximately 30 quality instructors, increasing teacher retention, and enhancing visibility of the Language Center.

Pascale Remy Salaün was elected as Executive Director in 2000. She is responsible for initiating the Children’s Education Center project in response to the need that she saw in increasing participation opportunities for families and children of all ages. When fundraising for the Children’s Education Center was launched in 2002, Pascale Remy Salaün had already secured a $65,000 (70,000 euro) FICRE grant pledged from le Ministère Français des Affaires Etrangères to create a modern Resource Center—a scope that included building a Children’s Education Center and Cybercafé, as well as providing enhancements to the Library that supported its evolution into a modern Médiathèque. Renée Saito was hired in March 2002 as the Director of the Resource Center. The Resource Center and the Cybercafé opened in April 2003, enriched with new pedagogical resources and audio-visual material. In addition to being a circulation hub for our members, the Brown Médiathèque also functions as a reading room and an important outreach location for both our students as well as our broader French-speaking community—a location where prospective students develop aspirations of reading their first French book, students linger before and after classes, Café Conversation meetings occur, and the families of visiting French delegates bring their children. In January 2005 Philippe Schaller was hired as the Manger of the Children’s Center Coordinator, and opened the Chez Kids Academy (from an earlier iteration called French Circus Camp) with new courses and programs for children of all ages. Programs included a preschool throughout the school year, Saturday classes of all levels, and a summer camp for ages 3-12. The Children’s Education Center opened in 2006.

Meanwhile, in 2003 the Illinois State Historical Society recognized and honored the Alliance Française’s 100th anniversary as an Illinois not-for-profit.

The annual Festival de la Francophonie was first observed by Alliance Française in March 2002. Under the original initiative of the Consul General of France Dominique Decherf, it has become a very successful event in partnership with the Francophone Consulates of Belgium, Canada, Arab Republic of Egypt, France, Haiti, Romania, Switzerland, Delegation General of Quebec, French Trade Commission, the Wallonia Trade Office, and the cultural services of the French Embassy. Since 2012 the Festival has expanded into a monthlong event, highlighting the diverse art, film, music, customs, and foods of an estimated 321 million French-speaking peoples across the world.

During the pandemic of Spring 2020 the Alliance Française de Chicago temporarily closed its doors and underwent vast restructuring. With the introduction of online courses, virtual French-language classes received a strong voice of support in Chicago in May 2020 from Dr. Ngozi Ezike (Director, Illinois Department of Public Health) during her widely followed press conferences. Additionally, harkening back to Chicago’s French heritage, Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive was named in honor of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.

As of 2022, we count nearly 1,000 annual members of the Alliance Française de Chicago, and host over 100 cultural programs a year. There are over 1,500 enrollments in our Language Center's courses, which now take place both on-site and online. The Brown Médiathèque is open to the public in service to our broad Francophonie community; It currently houses over 18,000 items and is the Midwest’s largest private collection of French and Francophone items. We celebrate our 125-year anniversary by submitting this historical account as a tribute to all those who paved the way since 1987 to our achievement of “French-Language and Francophone-Culture Center of excellence we aspired to become as the “Paris in the Prairie.” We look towards the future—by not only preserving our statue, but deepening, strengthening, diversifying, and opening ourselves with ambition and perseverance.

Introduction to the Archival Collections

Through incredible good fortune, much of the archives of Alliance Française of Chicago have survived the breadth of its long history, through its many relocations and executive changes, even though Alliance Française de Chicago had never had a specialized archivist on staff. Some of this fortune is due to the efforts of Executive Director Réal de Mélogue, who attempted to steward the archives himself during his tenure in order to research and present an accurate account of the organization's history to the public. Unfortunately, when Réal de Mélogue retired, very few people at Alliance Française of Chicago even knew that the organization had an archive.

slide-presentation image by Renée Saito

Indeed, the Alliance Française of Chicago is one of the few Alliance Françaises nationwide that has retained an archival collection. The archive is of high institutional, historical, and intellectual value—for our immediate board members and staff and other stakeholders, as well as to local Chicagoans, international researchers, and to the Federation of Alliances Française’s worldwide.

In 2013, a large shipment of archival records from former Woman's Board President Olive Hulbert, documenting the organization's activities between 1917 to 1923, were returned to the Alliance Française by her grandson George Renwick. Olive Hulbert's professional role at the Alliance Française was equivalent to the current role of Executive Director, and her archives recorded core functions of the organization. These records prompted a heightened interest in the archives. President of the Board of Directors H. Randolph Williams and Executive Director John GW McCord initiated the reconstitution of the organization's archives by making limited funds and staff time available for initial investments to strengthen its physical stewardship of the archives and regain intellectual ownership of our significant past.

Around this time I joined the Alliance Française as a voluteer, working under the Resource Center's Director Renée Saito, who had undertaken efforts herself to initiate the archive project through consultations with neighboring archivists at Newberry Library. First I worked as a library assistant contributing to daily operations (such as opening and closing the library, reference desk responsibilities, circulation, copy-cataloging, and shelf maintanence). Soon my work at the Alliance Française became devoted to overseeing the archive project. For over 10 years I worked about one day a week as the sole archivist overseeing the project. Although I have learned a lot through this process about archiving, Chicago history, and the local and international Francophone community, the lack of administrative interest or suppport in the archives after the retirement of H. Randolph Williams and John GW McCord has made the project challenging to sustain—I have never been paid by the Alliance Française de Chicago for my archival work and the organization has offered very little support for equiptment or supplies.

In 2022, Woman's Board member Lili Gaubin (whose mother Catherine Graham was formerly Chair of the Board of Directors) was inspired to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Alliance Française de Chicago. She was stunned that some Board members were unaware of how long the Alliance Française de Chicago had existed and had very little knowledge of the organization's history. In effect, she was inspired to sponsor the production of an updated History of the Alliance publication (which had not been attempted since 2002). Renée Saito recommended me for the job of researching and writing the publication. After completing the history book, Lili Gaubin and I went before the Board of Directors and the Executive Director to ask for basic support to continue the archive project, but were told that maintaining the archives did not fit within their immediate priorities. This is unfortunately common problem with small non-profit organizations. We hope that renewed interest in stewarding the Alliance Française de Chicago's archives may occur one day when board members and executive staff are more interested in the enduring valuable that lives within these blue boxes.

Survey

Extent: The Alliance Française de Chicago archival collections has a known extent of about 57 linear feet. Records date from 1901-current date. The volume of the archive is always changing as records gradually find their way into the repository. I have organized and processed about 50% of the collection at item or folder level, most of the other 50% is organized into series or subseries level and awaits further processing.

This pie graph shows an archive survey of materials that was conducted in 2023, describing:

57% General AFC records

30% Woman's Board Gala records

7% Program and class programs

5% Scholarship program

2% BOD admin records

2% WB admin records

2% Financial records

<1% Building records

<1% HR records

Format: Most of the archives included in this survey are on paper, and are well preserved. Some historic archival materials were glued to pages and bound within scrapbooks, and have been stabalized. There are black-and-white and color photographs within the collections, that need protective storage envelopes purchased for them. There is also a collection of electronic records on obsolete and mostly unlabeled disks, which have not been appraised.

Physical storage challenge: The archives are physically stored on site in a designated location within the building, that is not in the basement! Yet there are security concerns. The room where they are stored is below a place in the roof that needs repaired, and when Chicago receives heavy rains, the roof floods, increasing pressure on this vunerable part. Additionally, the storage area is shared with other staff and volunteers, who occassionally "borrow" items that they have "discovered" in the archival boxes (without consulting the library or the available finding aids). Unable to stop this from occurring, I have encouraged staff to leave notes documenting their "loan," but not everyone does this. Luckily, most objects that go missing often reappear later.

Digital archive challenge: Since around 1990, most of the organizations' archives are created and stored in digital formats. There are significant gaps in the organization's archives due to this migration. There is no digital archive repository or any plan to create one. There is no training available for staff to practice proper digital-asset management. Files are often retained on staff or volunteers' office or personal computers. When personnel leave, there is no retention plan to deposit digital files. In 2020, when the organization replaced its shared server with a shared googleDrive, many files were lost or altered.

Appraisal challenge: Without executive support, the archives lack a formal authoritative policy statement that would state clearly state the archive's scope and mission is. No full survey has been conducted of staff's on-site or off-site records, and there is no schedule to transfer these records into the archive. Occasionally collections of items are donated to the archive which are outside of scope (such as personal geneological records of past members, or numerous duplicates of items which we already retain copies of, or unstable film medias). Without a policy statement, there is no formal procedure to appraise donations. They are accepted informally and often lack copyright permissions, or contextual provenance information. Once we have the materials in our possession, it's difficult to ethically reroute or dispose of items that are out of scope or would find a more appropriate home in an alternative repository.

Arrangement

The collection is being described in Microsoft Excel. This data can then be migrated into an EAD file, and used to automatically integrate scanned images. The library lacks an on-site computer than can be used to store and preserve XML files.

Collection I : History of Alliance Française de Chicago, extent abt 30 ft

• Series 1 — General AFC records, 1907-currrent
• Subseries 1 — 1907-1979 (before merger with Maison Francaise)
• Subseries 2 — 1980-current (after merger with Maison Francaise)
• Series 2 — Scrapbooks (1917-1979)
• Series 3 — Maison Francaise (1977-1979)
• Series 4 — Gala records 1979-1989 (before current Woman's Board)

Collection II : Directors, extent abt 23 ft

• Series 1 —Board of Directors records
• Subseries 1 — book (1901-1908)
• Subseries 2 —files (1931-1973)
• Subseries 3 — financial records (1909-1980)
• Series 2 — Council d'Administration (aka pre-1989 Woman's Board) records
• Subseries 1 — Minutes 1942-1973
• Series 3 — Woman's Board records (after 1989)
• Subseries 1 — Minutes (1989-2006)
• Subseries 2 — Gala records (1989-current)
• Subseries 3 — Decorative Arts (2002-2003, 2007)
• Subseries 4 — Book Club (2004-2006)
• Subseries 5 — Harriet Gulis scrapbooks (1970-1991)
• Series 4 — Junior Board records

Collection III : Cultural Programs and Class Schedules, extent abt 4 ft

• Series 1 — Class Schedule Brochures
• Subseries 1 — 1994-2002
• Subseries 2 — 1998-2007
• Series 2 — Class Schedule Brochures (2000-2022)

Collection IV : Cultural Programs, extent abt 0.5 ft

• Series 1 — WBEZ audio files (2006-2013)

Collection V : Building Records (1964-1980), extent less than 0.5 ft
Collection VI : Employee and HR Records (1984-1986), extent less than 0.5 ft
Collection VIII : Awards Towards Excellence records (1981-current), extent abt 3 ft

Description

Sample EAD file (Olive Hulbert Collection), PDF here

Sample finding aid (Olive Hulbert Collection) using EAD elements displayed through a stylesheet, PDF here

Access

The Alliance Française de Chicago is a member of Chicago Collections Consortium, which provides us with a webpage on their website that we may upload images, EAD files, and finding aids to. The Chicago Collections Consortium includes many other archival collections by arts and culture organizations throughout Chicago, and public users can browse all CCC member collections simultaneously. In addition to providing a valuable access point to users, Chicago Collections also invites Alliance Française de Chicago to participate in community programs, such as lectures and exhibitions.

The CCC website functions extremely well as a shared access point where researchers unfamilier with our organization or collection can learn more about us and our collections. We can also direct internal and external research inquires to this page, where they can find more information about our collection's contents.

I have created and uploaded a few individual test files to our webpage on CCC, which I used to enhance the elements in the Excel file that I am using for data entry. I built an automatically populating image-ID element into the Excel file, which will transfer to the EAD file. As new digital images of the collection are scanned, they can be saved with their corresponding ID element in their file name, and then uploaded to CCC. Within the CCC database they will automatically link to the EAD file and the image-description elements will automatically populate. This way, we will not have to build unique XML files for each image uploaded.

Exhibitions

In 2015, items from our archive collections were included in the exhibition 1914–2014: Olive Hulbert, Solange Brown: First World War Through the Eyes of Two Présidentes of the Alliance. Installed in the William B. and Catherine Graham French Cultural Center at the Alliance Française de Chicago, this exhibition was curated by former Board President H Randolph Williams, in affiliation with concurrent programs at the Newberry Library and the University of Chicago that commemorated Chicagoans’ connections to the First World War.

slide-presentation image by Renée Saito

We were also invited to join 19 other area organizations and contribute archival object's to Chicago Collection Consortium's exhibition Raw Material: Uncovering Chicago’s Historical Collections at Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington Library in 2015.

installation image by Chicago Collections Consortium