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Upon announcement of construction of the new Dearborn Station in the late 1800's, Michael Donohue was the first to recognize the potential of the area bounded by State, Clark, Polk and Congress as Chicago's home to the printing industry. He built the Donohue in 1883, the first of the large printing factories in what soon became known as Printing House Row.
Donohue saw that the adjacent Dearborn Station rail terminal would speed delivery of the massive paper rolls that would feed his presses. The unusually long, narrow city blocks created by Plymouth Court, Dearborn and Federal made it possible to build a tall factory bathed with sun throughout, a benefit to the eyesight of the many "stone men" who set type by hand twelve hours a day. This thin building footprint allowed the presses, which stood in the basement, to be laid out in orderly rows.
The first Donohue Building at 711 S. Dearborn is a prime example of printing house loft architecture. Designed by Julius Speyer, the eight-story building was constructed in 125 days with St. Louis pressed brick, granite and brownstone trim. The 727 Annex was designed by Alfred S. Alschuler and added in two sections in 1913 and 1918. The Romanesque revival style of the 711 building is expressed in the large masonry entrance arch supported by short sturdy columns with smooth piers and enriched capitals the gracefully arched windows tops and the tower over the entrance. An early drawing illustrates that the Donohue originally had a more ornate tower extending two stories above the roof.
The Donohue typifies printing house design. Each floor housed a specific function: presses in the basement, shops on the street level, and offices above. In the first days there was a lunch counter in the lobby. Floors two through five contained the offices of publishers whose books Donohue printed. The sixth floor held Donohue's own offices. Typesetters and bookbinders worked on the top two floors.
M.A. Donohue & Co. first published commercial material, including mail-order catalogues for Montgomery Ward and Sears & Roebuck, and employee timetables and railroad schedules. In the early 1900's, however, the Donohues expanded to also specialize in children's literature, introducing first runs and reprints of some of the best-loved young people's books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Titles included the classics of Robert Louis Stevenson, Horatio Alger, Lewis Carroll, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Four first editions in the "Uncle Wiggily" series bore the Donohue name as publisher. From 1913 to 1920, the company held exclusive rights to the "Wizard of Oz" books by Frank Baum. Donohue was also sole printer of Edgar Rice Burrough's "Tarzan" series from 1920-1935.