Dill Pickle Club

The Dil Pickle was known as a speakeasy, cabaret and theatre and was influential during the "Chicago Renaissance" as it allowed a forum for free thinkers.

In 1914, John "Jack" Jones, a former organizer for the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) had started several weekly forums at the Radical Book Shop on North Clark Street in Chicago.

To accommodate increased participants, Jones found a decrepit barn on Tooker Alley, off of Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago that he named the Dil Pickle Club.

Soon after, fellow labor organizer from Ireland, Jim Larkin joined Jones, along with the "hobo doctor" and anarchist Ben Reitman.

The news coverage helped increase the club's following and, by 1917, Jones created the Dil Pickle Artisans by officially incorporating it as a non-profit in Illinois to promote arts, crafts, science, and literature.

[1] The club reached its pinnacle by serving not only as a place for debate and idea-sharing, but also as a host for one-act plays, poetry readings, jazz dances, and opera, along with other acts.

Among the American activists and speakers was Clarence Darrow, Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Hippolyte Havel, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman and Nina Spies.

Scientists, panhandlers, prostitutes, socialists, anarchists, con men, tax advocates, religious zealots, social workers and hoboes were commonly at the club.

[10] The Dill Pickle Club features prominently in the play Dear Rhoda by Donna Russell and David Ranney.

Dill Pickle Anti-war Dance
A poster advertising an Anti-War Dance at the Dill Pickle Club during 1918.
Through the Hole in Wall at 858 N. State Street Down Tooker Alley to the Green Lite Over the Orange Door"
Map dated March 2, 1921 where the "Dill Pickle Club House and Chapel" located at "18 Tooker Alley" and across the alley was the studio of artist Stanislav Szukalski
The Dill Pickle Club and Lending Library art (date unknown).