Anna Baird developed this 12-flat at 1500 E. 69th Place in 1917. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Photo of Anna Baird, “A Composite Woman,” American Lumberman, November 27, 1920. The article describes the businesswoman as a “brunette with snappy brown eyes.”
In honor of the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, Landmarks Illinois has launched “Women Who Built Illinois,” a database of places in our state designed, developed, engineered, and built by women between 1879 and 1979. I’m so excited about this project! This month, I’d like to share the story of Anna Baird, an early-20th-century developer of high-grade apartment buildings in Chicago. Although many of the structures Anna Baird built were later demolished, others remain, and they are surely good candidates for the database.
The daughter of German immigrants, Anna (née Schucking) Baird (1872-1936) was born and raised in Quincy, Illinois. By the early 1890s, she was living on the South Side of Chicago. In 1893, she married Harry P. Baird, a Tennessee-born college graduate who worked as a guard at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Five years later, the couple had their first of three children, William McKinley Baird. By that time, Harry had become a Chicago police officer.
World’s Columbian Exposition Transportation Building under construction, 1892, Chicago Public Library, Special Collections, WCE CDA 1.58. Photograph by C.D. Arnold.
This building at 6634 S. Woodlawn Avenue was one of many three-flats developed by Anna Baird. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Anna Baird began developing apartment buildings around 1906. She said that as a young girl she had always loved the sound of a hammer, and that later, after moving to Chicago, she “watched with the keenest delight, the construction of the World’s Fair buildings and every small detail was a source of pleasure” to her. Anna was inspired to become a builder. So, as she told Clara W. Harmon, a reporter for the American Lumberman, she “set to work to study the fundamental principles of the construction of high-grade apartment buildings from a systematic and practical standpoint.”
By 1912, Anna Baird had already erected and sold several brick apartment buildings. All of her projects were on the South Side and, early on, most were two- and three-flats. At first, Anna had several different architects prepare the plans for her buildings. But in 1914, she began to work with architect Anders G. Lund on a regular basis. A Swedish immigrant who had his office in Chicago’s nearby Englewood neighborhood, Lund had been specializing in South Side apartment buildings for nearly two decades.
Close-up of brickwork on apartment structure at 6396 S. Oglesby Avenue designed by Lund and developed by Baird. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Anna generally sold her buildings as soon as they were finished. While she was still erecting some three-flats during the mid-1910s, by then she had made enough money to build larger apartment buildings. For example, she had A.G. Lund design a series of three nearly identical six-flats that she built at 6816 through 6828 S. Cornell Avenue.
Anna Baird erected these three 6-flats on the 6800 block of S. Cornell Avenue in 1915. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
In early 1916, the Chicago Tribune described Mrs. Anna Baird as “one of the remarkable business women of Chicago.” The newspaper explained that during her first decade in business, she had already built around 30 or 40 South Side structures, for which “she superintended” the “work in person.” It noted that she had amassed a fortune estimated at $50,000. (According to an on-line inflation calculator, that sum would be worth more than $1 million today.) By this time, Anna and Harry Baird had three children—William, Charlene, and Rodney, ages 14, 10, and 6 years.
Anna Baird owned, lived, and worked in this three-flat at 6541 S. Woodlawn Avenue for more than two decades, Photo by Julia Bachrach.
“Kills Children and Self With Police Pistol, Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1916.
In mid-January, 1916, Anna witnessed an unimaginable tragedy. When her two younger children came up to have lunch after building a snowman, Harry Baird suddenly took out his revolver, fired at his two children, and then shot himself in the chest. Anna’s older son William was outside finishing the snowman while Harry was having this “fit of insanity.” Sergeant Baird and the two children died on the scene. Anna was so hysterical that she had to be put “under the constant care of a physician and a nurse.” After the horrifying murder-suicide, Anna and her son William continued to live in their three-flat at 6541 S. Woodlawn Avenue, where she also ran her business.
It must have been an incredibly difficult time. But, as she had done when she first started out, Anna persevered. In 1920, Anna Baird told reporter Clara W. Harmon about some of the challenges she had as a female builder. She said: “One thing has always been of much satisfaction to me—what success I have achieved, I achieved alone…. I was obliged to take initiative. I was compelled to do something that would bring in income to care for my family, so I launched into business, and I want to say that my work has been far from smooth sailing. I have been buffeted around on a stormy sea, much like a ship under the stress of stormy waves, and it is only by standing firmly at the helm that I, starting as I did without money or experience, have been able to realize in small measure my ambition in this chosen work.”
Top- Photo of apartments built by Anna Baird, American Lumberman, November 27, 1920. Bottom- Anna Baird developed this apartment building at 6936 S. Oglesby Street in 1917. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
“A Woman Always,” Champaign Daily Gazette, January 29, 1919.
Anna Baird was not shy about sharing her belief that women could be successful in careers without being deprived of “the honored and glorious gifts of wifehood and motherhood.” In 1919, she spoke to students at the University of Illinois. She explained that “women do not lose their femininity, no matter what work they undertake.” She also stressed the need for more women in the field of architecture. Indeed, Anna received media attention as “the only woman contractor in Chicago.”
As a successful entrepreneur, Anna Baird was active in many business organizations. In addition to being a member of the Men’s Association of Commerce, she was a member of the National Women’s Association of Commerce, and she served on the board of the Aviation Club of Chicago. She was also a director of the Woodlawn Trust and Savings Bank, which was located in her neighborhood at 1204 E. 63rd Street. (The building is not extant.)
Woodlawn Trust and Savings Bank (Ingalls Stone Company advertisement). Chicago Architectural Sketch Club, 1924, p. 262, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago. Digital file # casc.1924_150.
Anna Baird’s passport photograph, 1922.
In 1922, Anna Baird married Richard Walsh, a telephone company foreman, whom she had known for over 20 years. He moved into the S. Woodlawn Avenue flat and lived with Anna and her son. (William was finishing his studies at the Armour Institute (now IIT), but rather than pursuing architecture, he went into the locker and storage business.) Anna continued her work as a developer and contractor, and by the late 1920s she and Richard vacationed regularly in Florida. When her work slowed during the Depression, Anna entered a remodeling contest sponsored by the Hines Lumber company. At her own church, St. Clara’s in Woodlawn, she converted the basement of the parish house into a recreation room. This project garnered her second place—a $250 prize—in the 1934 contest. When Anna died two years later, her husband Richard continued to live in her long-time apartment with William and his wife, Margaret Baird.
I hope you have found Anna Baird as fascinating as I do. If you’d like to learn more about the “Women Who Built Illinois” project, please register for this Zoom program, which will be held on September 22, 2020.