Crazy Talk At The Bughouse Square Debates

By Jill Howe in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 26, 2013 8:39PM

Photo credit: Newberry Library (Used with permission)

Chicago, city of big…mouths. You can certainly hear freedom of speech exercised on every bus, train, and street corner of this chattering city, but Saturday you can go back to where it all began.

Since 1986 Newberry Library has revived The Bughouse Square Debates at Washington Park. (Bughouse is another way of saying madhouse.) Forget Wicker Park and Logan Square, this is where the original hipsters honed their loudmouth game.

Washington Park in the 1920s and 30s was a frenetic, opinionated meeting place where debaters, anarchists and social reformers stood on soapboxes—literally—and orated to rowdy crowds in order to gain attention and clout. When the Chicago winters would hit, these tongues refused to stop wagging; they headed across the street to a derelict old barn and kept on talking. They called their meetings The Dill Pickle Club and defied societal norms and local government by finding common ground in their love of opposing viewpoints. A large dill pickle is therefore awarded to the winner of the annual Bughouse Square Debates.

Rachel Bohlmann, PhD, director of Public Programs at Newberry Library and chair of the Bughouse Debate planning committee, says “the contemporary Bughouse Square Debates event commemorates the history of the park as Chicago's free speech space by offering a free-wheeling program dedicated to honoring Bughouse Square's legacy, exercising free speech, and modeling good, substantive and civil debate.” The program has a number of features, one of which is the Soapbox Debates, which is an opportunity for people to sound off out loud in public, about issues important to them and society. Each speaker has 15 minutes to make their case; audience members are free to heckle speakers, who may respond in kind. The main debate this year is Lester Munson versus Tom Tresser on how much is it worth to the city to keep the Chicago Cubs?

You can even weigh in on your favorite topics at the one open mic box. It’s free, it’s full of Chicago history, and I guarantee you won’t be able to keep your opinions to yourself after this afternoon of lively debate.

Saturday, July 27, 2013
1 p.m. - 4 p.m. Washington Square Park (a.k.a., Bughouse Square), 901 N. Clark St. (across from the Newberry Library). For more info, click here.