Annie Ball
In 1860 Chicago was a growing city of just over 100,000 people. Their gaming needs were met by the Western News Company. This company was run by John R. Walsh with his store on State Street and a chain of newsstands. Walsh was established in both the distribution and retail sales aspect of the industry which made his company an embryonic vertically integrated supply chain business. With his most efficient distribution operation, Walsh made the Western News into a regional monopoly that could dictate terms to the content providers. Their playing cards were supplied by John J. Levy of New York.
But competition would soon arrive in the form of J. T. (John Tyler) Cutting. J. T was born in Westport, Essex County, New York, in 1844 and was left an orphan at age ten. He journeyed westward and resided in Wisconsin and Illinois from 1855 to 1860 working on farms. Arriving in Chicago he was employed as a clerk in a mercantile establishment while he attended the public schools. When the Civil War broke out he enlisted in Taylor's Chicago Battery and served until the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 where he suffered a disability and returned to Chicago. To earn a living he started a business to compete with the Western News.
J. T.'s typical magazine ads looked like this.....
J T CUTTING & CO 125 Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.
CARDS and all articles used in games of chance.
MANUFACTURERS AND DEALERS IN DEALING CARDS always on hand or cut in any manner desired. Orders by mail promptly attended to.
But, J. T. had other interests, besides re-enlisting during the last year of the war, and decided to sell his company. In 1868 advertising business partners Daniel W. Mason and William H. Metzger now took over the business. Their card supplier was Samuel Hart.
J T CUTTING & CO 125 Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.
CARDS and all articles used in games of chance.
MANUFACTURERS AND DEALERS IN DEALING CARDS always on hand or cut in any manner desired. Orders by mail promptly attended to.
But, J. T. had other interests, besides re-enlisting during the last year of the war, and decided to sell his company. In 1868 advertising business partners Daniel W. Mason and William H. Metzger now took over the business. Their card supplier was Samuel Hart.
J. T. moved on to the fancy foods and grocery business and would later move to California and become very famous there. But, his biographies never mention a coal company he had before leaving Chicago. He defrauded his investors and tried to file bankruptcy in time to cover it up. It didn't work.
By 1870 Mason and Metzger had a falling out and split up. Mason stayed at 125 Dearborn and Metzger relocated to 90 Washington Street. Metzger & Co. lasted one year, but Mason & Co. lasted a hundred years. Working in 1868 for Mason & Metzger, as a bookkeeper, was 21 year old Annie Ball. She picked Mason & Co. to stay with after the split.
Annie Ball was born in Holland in 1846, About age ten her family immigrated to America and moved near the new village of Marquette, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Superior. During the Civil War she left for Chicago for schooling and work. While working her bookkeeping job she was also attending the Bryant & Chase’s Business College and living at the Woman's Home managed by Mr. Seth Paine.
Seth Paine was a soaring, high-spirited radical. A zealot. A passionate 19th century Don Quixote with big plans. He was a Christian, but found contemporary Christians deeply disappointing, and told them so. He freed slaves and then ran a slave-saving Underground Railroad branch from Chicago to Lake County, Indiana. He also helped guard Abraham Lincoln’s safety in the Civil War as a Pinkerton Agency Secret Service opérative. Paine even launched a Chicago bank that loaned money only to “good people” who could prove their worth. In 1868 he organized the Woman's Home in Chicago. The object of the institution was to better the condition of that class of employed women that had no homes and could not afford the ordinary city boarding house. The Woman's Home was to be so conducted as to give friendless women the comfort and protection of a home at a moderate price. Paine managed this Home for several years. It housed approximately 100 working women.
The Woman's Home
The Woman's Home was located in the densely populated City Ward #10 on the west side of the south branch of the Chicago river. Her school was just 3 blocks to the north and her job was just across the river in downtown Chicago.
The summer of 1871 was extremely hot and dry across the country with droughts everywhere. In late September numerous large prairie fires were being reported in nearby Wisconsin and Minnesota. During the first week of October Chicago had not seen a drop of rain in 3 weeks and fires were becoming more numerous with the extremely low humidity and hot southwest winds. On Saturday night October 7th a fire broke out on Adams street just 3 blocks east from the Woman's Home near the river.
Chicago had less than 200 firefighters for a city of 300,000 to fight this huge fire. Fortunately, not much of the fire crossed the river into downtown. By Sunday afternoon, October 8th, the fire was stopped. Annie had just escaped, and witnessed, what the local newspapers called it the largest conflagration in Chicago since 1857. In a matter of hours that would change.
About 8:30 Sunday evening another fire started in a barn behind Mrs. O'Leary's house on DeKoven Street about a mile south of the Woman's Home. For an unknown reason a pharmacist refused the alarm box key to a resident who was trying to report the fire. Thirty minutes later a nearby firehouse saw the flames and responded. By then Mathias Shafer, the night watchman on fire watch in the Cook County Courthouse tower, saw the orange glow, but thought it was light from the gas works. When he did send an alarm, he sent the firemen to an address a mile and a half from the fire. He then started ringing the 5 foot fire bell to warn the city.
By 10 o'clock the fire was approaching the Woman's Home. Two things saved Annie again; a strong wind blowing from the southwest and the burned area from Saturday night's fire served as a fire break, For the next two days Annie witnessed Chicago, and her job, burn down.
By 10 o'clock the fire was approaching the Woman's Home. Two things saved Annie again; a strong wind blowing from the southwest and the burned area from Saturday night's fire served as a fire break, For the next two days Annie witnessed Chicago, and her job, burn down.
The burnt area was four miles long, three quarters of a mile wide—more than two thousand acres—of which twenty-eight miles were streets, one hundred twenty miles of wooden sidewalks and almost eighteen thousand buildings were destroyed and 300 people died.
The above map shows the Woman's Home (red arrow), Mrs. O'Leary's home (black arrow) and the area burned on Saturday evening (yellow area). Click on the button below to read more.
What Annie did after losing her job is unknown, But as the city rebuilt she started a new bookkeeping job about 1873 with a new company called Rydberg, Gronholm & Co. Playing Cards at 92 Market Street. Herman Rydberg and Adolph F. Gronholm had both worked with Annie at Mason & Co.. The two gentlemen had made and built Mason's products.
About 1879 Annie's family joins her from Michigan. This is her widowed mother, Dora, sister Lizzie and brother William. They all live together at 367 West Harrison just a few blocks from the Woman's Home.
In 1880 Annie, and her brother William, buy the Rydberg, Gronholm & Co. and changes the name to A. Ball & Brother. In 1882 they move it across the street to 85 Market Street. Rydberg and Gronholm stayed at 92 Market Street and start a business building cabinets.
Annie has now become the first lady in Chicago to own a playing card company. Probably the first woman anywhere to own a playing card company. The next year there will be a second lady in Chicago starting one. Her name is Margaret F. (Barron) Milward. (Click on her story on the menu on the left)
A. Ball & Bro. is a very small company. They usually employed less than 10 people. One of original employees was an artist named Ludwig Wilhelm Schlau. More on him later.
William Ball was a carpenter, which was probably his purpose in the business. Annie was the driving force. She was a woman ahead of her time. In 1887 she becomes the first person, let alone a woman, to patent a game counter. Otherwise known as a poker chip. These were available for purchase through her business.
In February 1889 there was a late night fire in their three story factory at 85 Market Street. It only did $200 ($6,000 today) damage to the building, but destroyed several thousand dollars of playing cards. Fortunately, they were covered by insurance.
Annie had a live-in housekeeper with her since her family moved to Chicago. Her name was Catherine Perkinson and was about the same age as Annie. By 1889 Catherine's niece Mary and nephew James had moved to Chicago from Wisconsin. They operated the Perkinson & Perkinson Stoneware Company across the street from Annie at 90 Market Street. When James H. Perkinson married in 1890 his sister Mary left the business and went to work for Annie as a secretary. She also moved in with her Aunt Catherine at Annie's house. This arrangement of Annie, her sister Lizzie, her brother William, Catherine and Annie Perkinson living in the same home would last for years. (Annie's mother had died in August 1889)
Annie now becomes interested in real estate. She even sells her home and moves to a new one 5 blocks north to Harrison street. She may have been inspired by Mrs. Caroline Cadwell Hughes that opened a real estate office near Annie's business at 185 Dearborn. Mrs. Hughes, a recent widow, was the first woman real estate agency in Chicago. Her forgotten life can be accessed below.
In February 1889 there was a late night fire in their three story factory at 85 Market Street. It only did $200 ($6,000 today) damage to the building, but destroyed several thousand dollars of playing cards. Fortunately, they were covered by insurance.
Annie had a live-in housekeeper with her since her family moved to Chicago. Her name was Catherine Perkinson and was about the same age as Annie. By 1889 Catherine's niece Mary and nephew James had moved to Chicago from Wisconsin. They operated the Perkinson & Perkinson Stoneware Company across the street from Annie at 90 Market Street. When James H. Perkinson married in 1890 his sister Mary left the business and went to work for Annie as a secretary. She also moved in with her Aunt Catherine at Annie's house. This arrangement of Annie, her sister Lizzie, her brother William, Catherine and Annie Perkinson living in the same home would last for years. (Annie's mother had died in August 1889)
Annie now becomes interested in real estate. She even sells her home and moves to a new one 5 blocks north to Harrison street. She may have been inspired by Mrs. Caroline Cadwell Hughes that opened a real estate office near Annie's business at 185 Dearborn. Mrs. Hughes, a recent widow, was the first woman real estate agency in Chicago. Her forgotten life can be accessed below.
Annie was not only interested in Chicago real estate, she was also buying up land in Florida. Not just any land, it was land for phosphate mining.
Phosphate was discovered in Florida in 1889 by Albertus Vogt, while he was sinking a well near Dunnellon. Its principal use was as a fertilizer. For a few years Dunnellon was a boomtown of phosphate surface strip mines. Endurance was imperative in the early years when phosphate mining was done with wheelbarrows, picks and shovels. Next came mule-drawn scrapers. Mechanized excavation would not begin until 1900 using steam shovels that did the work of 80 men.
Annie had a couple phosphate mines of several thousand acres in Hernando County, Florida, just southeast of Dunnellon. She was her own mining superintendent.
When in Florida Annie lived in Bay City which was near present day Ridge Manor. Her phosphate mines were nearby. Her favorite place to visit was the growing, thriving city of Ocala. She always stayed at the lavish Ocala House Hotel where she was well known. She would travel between her property and Ocala on the Florida Southern Rail Road between them. It was only about an hour and a half train ride. She even had them add a spur from Bay City to her mines.
In a Florida newspaper Annie was described as "a wealthy Chicago woman of picturesque character. She dresses as nearly as possible as it is for a woman to dress like a man. Low flat heel heavy shoes, a skirt which reaches well to the ground, a tight fitting, man like coat and vest and a collar and neck tie are always part of her clothing. Her hair is gray, short and bushy and this she wears falling down from under the rear of a man's Panama hat."
In 1898 Annie sold 2,000 acres of some of her phosphate land at Bay City for $40,000 ($1.3 million)
Annie also decides for some reason to write her Will in 1892. It will become a very important document.
ANNIE BALL'S WILL HIGHLIGHTS
Leaves sister Lizzie $10,000 ($250,000)
Leaves housekeeper Catherine Perkinson $5,000 ($125,000)
Catherine Perkinson also will recieve $600/year ($15,000)
Leaves employee Mary Perkinson $500/year ($13,000)
Her Estate will go to sister Lizzie and brother William.
If Lizzie and William have no children, then Little Sisters of the Poor in Chicago will get the estate.
Mary J. Perkinson and Annie's brother William are named executors and have use of a trust fund of $40,000 ($1 million) to manage any real estate in Chicago.
In 1903 Annie makes history again. Coming to work one day she discovers her engineer for her factory equipment heavily intoxicated and fires him. Her stationary steam engine needed repair so she decided she could fix it. The terminated engineer said it was illegal for her to work on it. Only a licensed engineer was allowed to fix it. The terminated employee then complained to city officials and had her fined $25.
You never told Annie that she could not do something. So she went to the Chicago Board for giving examinations for engineers and was told that the law said licenses say "he" and Annie was a "she". After getting lawyers involved the City relinquished and allowed the exam.
The Chicago Record Herald
October 1903
Woman as an Engineer
Miss Annie Ball has just been licensed by the city board of examining engineers to run a stationary engine and thus becomes the only woman in that class in Chicago and perhaps in the United States. She was refused a license upon her first application. Then she offered to give the examiners $1,000 ($3,000) each if she could not take an engine apart and put it together in their presence, but was told that was not the way to obtain the permit. She submitted to an oral examination but failed because she says of the rapid fire method of propounding wordy questions.
Later she took the written examination and came off triumphant with an average of 84. She took the test not because she desires to follow the vocation of an engineer but for the reason that as she expresses it “I was told that I couldn’t do it”.
She manufactures playing cards and composition goods at 85 Market Street under the firm name A. Ball & Bro. , although she is the sole proprietor of the place. Miss Ball has been a remarkably successful as a business woman. She has large interests in phosphate and real estate near Bay City, Fla., where she operates mining machinery, or directs its operation the greater part of every year. She speaks Dutch, German and English fluently can converse in French and has taken courses in law and medicine. “I may complete my law studies and be admitted to the bar or finish my medical education and become a doctor if I am told that I can‘t do either” she asserted last evening.
She also told another newspaper that working on engines was easy. She stated “Engines are pretty much like most husbands. Unless you watch them carefully they are apt to give you trouble just when you don’t expect it”
The next year she has a run in with the city again. And wins again.
ANNIE BALL'S WILL HIGHLIGHTS
Leaves sister Lizzie $10,000 ($250,000)
Leaves housekeeper Catherine Perkinson $5,000 ($125,000)
Catherine Perkinson also will recieve $600/year ($15,000)
Leaves employee Mary Perkinson $500/year ($13,000)
Her Estate will go to sister Lizzie and brother William.
If Lizzie and William have no children, then Little Sisters of the Poor in Chicago will get the estate.
Mary J. Perkinson and Annie's brother William are named executors and have use of a trust fund of $40,000 ($1 million) to manage any real estate in Chicago.
In 1903 Annie makes history again. Coming to work one day she discovers her engineer for her factory equipment heavily intoxicated and fires him. Her stationary steam engine needed repair so she decided she could fix it. The terminated engineer said it was illegal for her to work on it. Only a licensed engineer was allowed to fix it. The terminated employee then complained to city officials and had her fined $25.
You never told Annie that she could not do something. So she went to the Chicago Board for giving examinations for engineers and was told that the law said licenses say "he" and Annie was a "she". After getting lawyers involved the City relinquished and allowed the exam.
The Chicago Record Herald
October 1903
Woman as an Engineer
Miss Annie Ball has just been licensed by the city board of examining engineers to run a stationary engine and thus becomes the only woman in that class in Chicago and perhaps in the United States. She was refused a license upon her first application. Then she offered to give the examiners $1,000 ($3,000) each if she could not take an engine apart and put it together in their presence, but was told that was not the way to obtain the permit. She submitted to an oral examination but failed because she says of the rapid fire method of propounding wordy questions.
Later she took the written examination and came off triumphant with an average of 84. She took the test not because she desires to follow the vocation of an engineer but for the reason that as she expresses it “I was told that I couldn’t do it”.
She manufactures playing cards and composition goods at 85 Market Street under the firm name A. Ball & Bro. , although she is the sole proprietor of the place. Miss Ball has been a remarkably successful as a business woman. She has large interests in phosphate and real estate near Bay City, Fla., where she operates mining machinery, or directs its operation the greater part of every year. She speaks Dutch, German and English fluently can converse in French and has taken courses in law and medicine. “I may complete my law studies and be admitted to the bar or finish my medical education and become a doctor if I am told that I can‘t do either” she asserted last evening.
She also told another newspaper that working on engines was easy. She stated “Engines are pretty much like most husbands. Unless you watch them carefully they are apt to give you trouble just when you don’t expect it”
The next year she has a run in with the city again. And wins again.
William Cornelius Ball spends little time at the company and has used his carpentry background to become a builder. But in 1905 he dies and his buried near his mother in Forest Home Cemetery on the west side of Chicago. He was never married. Mary J. Parkinson is now the only executor of the Will.
By 1910 Annie has sold her two story eleven room home and moved further west on Monroe street. Catherine and Mary Parkinson are with her, along with a servant. Her sister Lizzie is nowhere to be found in Chicago. Annie is now selling real estate from an office in her building and Mary is now managing the company. Annie is also spending more time in Florida,
In 1911 the business moves down the street to 25 Market Street.
In 1912 Annie gets into a land dispute with a neighbor at one of her mines in Florida. She gets tired of fussing with him and puts up a fence where she feels it should be. The neighbor has her arrested for trespassing and she is put in jail for a couple days. Annie, now also a lawyer in Chicago, hires a local lawyer to sue the neighbor and the city for false arrest since she was on her land. The case drags on for 5 years. Just before being settled in 1917 Annie dies on July 19th while back in Chicago.
A search of local papers for an obituary did not locate one. On that day it was the local draft announcement for World War I and that was dominating the news. One single line in the back pages state that Miss Annie Ball of 3935 Pine Grove Avenue had died and the funeral would be announced later. That announcement was also only one line showing the burial would be in the Forest Home Cemetery.
The only big story, besides the draft, that got any space in the newspaper was about Mrs. Hazel Carter. Mrs. Carter pretended to be a man in her husband's regiment that was going to France to fight. After thirteen days she was discovered on her husband's transport ship headed to the war. Her husband was demoted and Hazel was sent home.
By 1920 Mary and her Aunt Catherine are now living together on Montrose street about 3 miles north of downtown. Catherine is now 75 and Mary is running A. Ball & Brother.
In 1930 Mary is now listed as a stenographer at the company. City directories and phone books give no clue who a manager might be.
Annie's sister, Lizzie, reappears in Chicago living at the newly opened residential Norman Hotel. The 12-story hotel was designed by Albert S. Hecht, who was known for his hotels and apartments as well as his exquisite use of terra cotta. The Norman was the only highrise building west of Broadway in Uptown and had unobstructed views of the Chicago skyline. She would only live there for 2 years before she passed away at age 77. Lizzie was never married so Annie Ball's estate should have now gone to the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have invited the Little Sisters of the Poor to the United States from France for fear that the Civil War would leave many elderly people without family, and indeed, several homes were founded on the East Coast in the 1860s.
Little Sisters of the Poor
In 1871, Holy Name and six other Catholic churches were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire and Bishop Foley, the administrator of the Chicago diocese, dedicated himself to rebuilding these churches as well as the hospitals and orphanages that the fire had taken from the city. In 1874 he sent a written invitation to the Mother General of the Little Sisters of the Poor in France for help. Following his outreach work, the first Little Sisters home was established in Chicago.
Maybe the estate did not go the Little Sisters. The year after Lizzie dies, Catherine Perkinson dies and distant Ball relatives sue Mary Perkinson, the only surviving member benefiting from Annie's Will. But they are unsuccessful due to the wording of the Will.
A. Ball & Bro. may not have been doing well after 1933. The company relocates again. This time to 25 North Wacker (formerly North Market). And Mary moves again for the third time in as many years.
In 1940 Mary is listed as a saleslady at the company. The next year is the last listing of the company in the city directory and phonebook. Mary dies in 1949 and the building at 25 North Wacker is sold in 1950.
A. Ball & Bro. Products
Some of Annie's products appear in auctions occasionally. Usually it is a Faro case keeper or a deck of cards.
Her first Faro case keeper was modeled on the one from Rydberg, Gronholm & Co.. The only difference is the name plate.
Some of Annie's products appear in auctions occasionally. Usually it is a Faro case keeper or a deck of cards.
Her first Faro case keeper was modeled on the one from Rydberg, Gronholm & Co.. The only difference is the name plate.
A set with A. Ball & Bro. with the 92 Market Street address would be her earliest model.
Also appearing on their faro case was a card with crossed flags. One with American and German flags and one with American and French flags. Annie's father was German and her mother was French. Which one would appear on an older case?
There was also a similar emblem used on a faro case made by Jas. W. Lewis (actually James W Lewis Jr.) at 107 Fourth Avenue in New York City. He was listed in the NYC directory between 1888 and 1890 as having a sporting goods store there before he went back to his old job as a plasterer.
There were at least 2 different style company emblems. Which is older?
Her earliest decks were by New York Consolidated Card Company and then United States Playing Card Company. A. Ball & Bro. advertised that they manufactured playing cards when they started. Is there a deck out there we have not seen?
Ludwig Wilhelm Schlau
In 1931 Mr. Schlau was honored at the 75th Old Settlers's Picnic in Chicago. He was selected as the person to have worked at the same company in Chicago the longest. He had worked 52 years for A. Ball & Bro. Company.
Mr. Schlau was born in 1843 in Elberfeld, Germany, and came to American as a teenager. He recalled hearing Lincoln speak at the Tremont house in Chicago in 1858. He studied art and started as a fresco painter. On the night of the Great Chicago Fire he was working in Toledo, Ohio, and learned he had lost everything back home. His uncle, that he lived with, owned a saloon and boarding house in downtown Chicago that was destroyed. When Annie started her company Mr. Schlau was hired as their artist.
Mr. Schlau died one year after his honor and is buried in the same cemetery as Annie.