Pierce, Bessie Louise, 1888-1974

A.B., University of Iowa, 1910. A.M., University of Chicago, 1918. Ph. D., University of Iowa, 1923. Associate in history, University of Iowa, 1919-22; assistant professor, 1922-26; associate professor, 1926-29. Associate professor of history, University of Chicago, 1929-53. Advisor to the W.P.A. Foreign Language Press Survey in Chicago, 1936-1940. Director of the History of Chicago Project 1929-1973.

From the description of Papers, 1839-1974 (inclusive). (University of Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 52247413

Organized in 1936 as a project under the Works Progress Administration of Illinois, the Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey sought to translate and classify selected news articles appearing in Chicago’s foreign language press from 1861-1938. Operating under the belief that Chicago’s various ethnic and foreign-born communities played a major role in shaping and continuing to shape the city, the Survey turned to Chicago’s varied foreign language newspapers as a means of understanding how and why Chicago came to develop as it did. Hoping to shed light on the development of a city whose very essence seemed to fuse foreign and native elements, the Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey was particularly interested in the processes of assimilation and cultural diffusion, whereby particular individuals and/or groups both adopted “American” or “Chicagoan” customs and practices and simultaneously infused the city with foreign cultural elements, thereby enriching it. The Survey itself, due to its premature termination in October 1941, found itself unable to examine all of the newspapers originally slotted for review, yet it did manage to complete the bulk of its work. It was published in 1942.

The Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey, officially sponsored by the Chicago Public Library, also drew enthusiastic support from other agencies, namely the Newberry Library, the Chicago Historical Society, and the John Crerar Library, all of which extended the use of their facilities in order to aid the project’s completion. The history departments of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University provided notable aid and direction for the project, particularly through University of Chicago historian Bessie Louise Pierce, who helped direct the Survey. Pierce herself was responsible for donating this collection to the University of Chicago.

Bessie Louise Pierce, Professor Emeritus in the University of Chicago’s History Department at the time of her death in 1974, began teaching at the University in 1929. Born in Caro, Michigan, in 1888, Pierce came from a family who believed in the importance of education for women. Pierce’s aunt, Della M. Pierce, had gone to medical school and become a pioneering female physician in Michigan, leading a movement in Kalamazoo to establish hospitals and break down rural prejudices against institutionalized health care. Bessie Pierce followed in her aunt’s footsteps, receiving her A.B. degree from the University of Iowa in 1910, her A.M. degree from the University of Chicago in 1918, and her doctorate—albeit one of a different character than that held by her aunt—from Iowa in 1923. Upon joining the University of Chicago in 1929, Pierce began researching and writing A History of Chicago, a three-volume work that focused on 19th century Chicago through the conclusion of the Columbian Exposition in 1893. The first volume, subtitled “The Beginning of a City,” saw publication in 1937, the second, “From City to Town,” in 1940, and the third, “The Rise of a Modern City,” in 1957. Though originally conceived as a five-volume study, Pierce died before

completing the fourth installment, having spent 45 years working on A History of Chicago, in that time becoming the foremost expert on Chicago’s history.

From the guide to the Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey. Records, 1861-1938, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)

Bessie Louise Pierce, Professor of History at the University of Chicago, was born in Caro, Michigan on April 20, 1888. Her youth was spent in Waverly, Iowa, where her family moved soon after her birth and where her father operated a prosperous dry-goods business. After graduation from the University of Iowa in 1910, she taught high school in Sanborn and Mason City, Iowa before returning to the University of Iowa as instructor and head of the social studies department in its laboratory high school. Her graduate work in history began with summer courses at the University of Chicago leading to an A.M. degree in 1918, and continued with advanced studies at the University of Iowa under the direction of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. In 1923, she received her Ph.D. from Iowa and joined its department of history as an assistant professor. A further promotion to associate professor came in 1926.

While Pierce’s early writing concentrated on the methodology of secondary teaching, a traditional field of interest for professional women, her work during the 1920’s also reflected a growing concern with the relationship between educational policy and national ideology. In 1926, the year she was elected president of the National Council for the Social Studies, Knopf published a revision of her dissertation on the manipulation of school curricula, Public Opinion and the Teaching of History. Four years later, the University of Chicago Press issued Civic Attitudes in American School Textbooks as part of a series on civic education edited by Charles E. Merriam. A third monograph, Citizens’ Organizations and the Civic Training of Youth (1933), resulted from her work on the American Historical Association’s Investigation of Social Studies in the Schools. By treating issues then troubling many intellectuals, these books on propaganda and pressure groups brought Pierce national scholarly attention and secured her position in the ranks of professionals influenced by Schlesinger’s new social history.

In 1929, Pierce accepted the offer of the Local Community Research Committee to come to the University of Chicago as an associate professor of history and head of the History of Chicago Project. This Project, originally conceived as a Centennial History of Chicago, was intended to integrate economic, political, and sociological studies already sponsored by the Committee and uncover new areas for further research. As recast by Pierce, the Project became a complex effort to survey all relevant historical records for a definitive four-volume account of Chicago’s growth from 1673 to 1915. Working with a staff of assistants drawn from her courses in urban history, Pierce supervised a carefully organized system that directed research from the initial taking of notes and verification of facts to the writing of preliminary manuscripts and editing of final chapter drafts. Part of the accumulating material appeared in As Others See Chicago, a collection of travel accounts issued in 1933. Production of the main text was slowed by the extensive amounts of original research required, but by 1940 both Volume I and II of A History of Chicago had been published. A significant advance over previous anecdotal work on the subject, the History was the first of several city “biographies” begun during the 1930’s that brought a new sophistication of treatment and accuracy of detail to the writing of urban history.

s work on the History of Chicago continued, Pierce engaged in a number of public and professional activities. She was an advisor to the W.P.A. Foreign Language Press Survey in Chicago from 1936 to 1940, and a member of the board planning Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential library in Hyde Park, New York in 1939-1940. Her involvement in the American Historical Association included service on the Council and membership on two special committees recommending wartime policy on education to the federal government. In 1946, research conducted by Pierce for the Missouri Pacific and other lines in their case against the Santa Fe Railroad produced Studies on Chicago Economic History, a document submitted as evidence before the Interstate Commerce Commission and used later in the preparation of chapters on economics for Volume III of the History.

During these years, Pierce also devoted an increasing amount of time to the writing of high school and college textbooks in history, none of which was ever published. After a manuscript on martial music written with her sister failed to interest publishers, she collaborated with David Behen on a twentieth-century American history text and with Gene Lavengood on a general history of the United States. For more than fifteen years, these projects distracted her from teaching and supervision of the History of Chicago Project without producing the additional income she had hoped they would provide.

In 1953, Pierce retired from the faculty and became a professor emeritus. Funds from the Social Science Research Committee, which had supported the History of Chicago Project since 1930, were now supplemented by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Field Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust, the Chicago Historical Society, and the Schermerhorn Charitable Trust. Volume III of the History was pressed to completion and published in 1957, but work on Volume IV suffered from reductions in the size of the staff, Pierce’s advancing age, and her practice of commuting regularly between Chicago and Iowa City in order to spend as much time as possible with her sister. Despite the consolidation of Project files in Iowa City following her permanent move there in 1972, the last volume of the History remained unfinished at her death on October 3, 1974.

From the guide to the Pierce, Bessie Louise. Papers, 1839-1974, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)