Real photo post cards (RPPCs) were the rage at the turn of the 20th century, around 1900. Itinerant photographers roamed the cities and country sides taking pictures of everything from houses to natural disasters. The postcards were sold as souvenirs. Today. these images are often referred to as "folk photography" and RPPCs offer a valuable visual documentation of history.
There are loads of RPPCs for the Beverly, Morgan Park and Blue Island area. You could go broke trying to collect them all so I save electronic images when I come across them. Here is one I found recently.
It is of a block of houses, and what makes it interesting is the location: Fairfax Ave. west of Armida Ave., Morgan Park.
Well, we don't have a Fairfax or an Armida. So where was this?
When Morgan Park was first planned and laid out, prominent citizen Colonel George R. Clark named some of the streets based on an epic morality poem called Jerusalem Delivered, published in 1581 and popular reading in the Victorian times. Armida was a character in the poem and Edward Fairfax was the most popular translator of the poem from the original Italian to English.
With annexation to Chicago in 1914, most of the old names had to be changed. Armida became Hoyne Ave. and Faifax became 110th Street. So this is looking west on 110th Street from Hoyne Avenue, ca. 1900.
Posted by Carol Flynn, RHS Communications #ridgehistoricalsociety