Nathan Kellogg McGill photograph collection

Descriptive Summary

Title: Nathan Kellogg McGill photograph collection
Dates: ca 1909-1934
Identifier: 2000.0162
Creator: McGill, Nathan Kellogg, 1888-1946
Creator: McGill, Nathan Kellogg, 1888-1946 , McGill, Idalee , McGill, Nathan , McGill, Simuel Decatur , McGill, Simuel , Sissle, Noble, 1889- , Ellington, Duke, 1899-1974 , Hines, Earl, 1903-1983
Size: 13 photographic prints :
b&w ;

8 x 10 in. or smaller.
Language: Material is in English unless otherwise noted.

Scope and Content

Studio portrait photographs and informal photographs of African American lawyer Nathan K. McGill; his older brother Simuel Decatur McGill (also a lawyer); Nathan McGill's first wife Idalee McGill and their sons Simuel and Nathan, Jr. (ca. 1922-1929). A 1913 image shows Simuel and Nathan McGill behind the wheel of a car soon after Nathan's graduation from law school. Other images include the McGill family with a limousine and driver outside their home at 4806 South Parkway ca. 1928 (later King Drive); Nathan McGill with his sons in offices of the Chicago Defender ca. 1930; a group associated with an early Bud Billiken Parade, including Nathan McGill, Noble Sissle, Bud Billiken, Duke Ellington, and Earl Hines ("Fatha" Hines), ca. 1930; Nathan McGill with the stars of "Amos and Andy" radio program, who served as Grand Marshalls of an early Bud Billiken Parade ca. 1930; and a committee of the Century of Progress world's fair, posed at a table with the fair visible in background ca. 1933.

Conditions for Access

The collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Credit photographers.

Preferred Citation

A common citation for archives is as follows: Item, Folder number and/or title, Box number, Collection title, ID number, Repository name, location.

Acquisition Information

McGill, Simuel 2000.0162 Gift.

Custodial History

Gift of Simuel McGill (2000.0162).

Biography or History

Nathan Kellogg McGill was born in Florida, 1888, and grew up in a house on Eighth Street and History Avenue in the Georgetown community of Sanford, Florida. His stepfather was a minister and a shoemaker who maintained a workshop behind the family home. Nathan McGill graduated from the Cookman Institute in Jacksonville in 1909; graduated from law school at Boston University in 1912. His older brother, S.D. McGill, was a prominent Florida attorney who worked on many NAACP cases. In the 1920s, Nathan McGill moved to Chicago; 1925-1934, he worked as General Counsel and Secretary to the Robert S. Abbott Publishing Company, Inc. (publisher of the major African American newspaper, the Chicago Defender). McGill was active in the Republican Party and was a Republican candidate for various judicial positions in the 1920s-1930s. He served as Cook County's first African American Assistant State's Attorney (1925-1926), and he served on the Chicago Public Library board in the mid-1930s. He died in Chicago, 1946 May 8.

Related Material

Related materials at Chicago History Museum, Research Center, include the Nathan Kellogg McGill papers.

Contents

Collection Access