The Lake Zurich Golf Club, founded in 1895, remains today, small (nine holes), private, closed to outsiders and apparently also to women.  It has been a retreat for some of Chicago's business leadders and also a few artists for well over a century.  In the early and mid 20th C. two artists, Milo Winter and also Ralph Fletcher Seymour, were active in the organizaiton.  

This etched print of the club house interior was created by Seymour to be given to all members (as it apparetnly was through the 1960s, to one former member); there are four smaller vignettes with captions above the main image.

This etching (one of two copies) comes from the collections of J. Howard Wood, Lake Forest College Class of 1922, and publisher of the Chicago Tribune in the 1960s. This is one of a group of Seymour related items of Wood's, who lived in Lake Bluff and would have been active in the golf club from the 1940s, while he rose as an executive of the newspaper.

Centered at the bottom of the print is the title on two lines, the first in an italic-like script and the second in block capital letters, the same letters as are used elsewhere on the print.  

The four small vignettes at the top of the print with their captions on scrolls below are, left to right:

1. A scene of men showering, drying and dressing in the club locker room.  The Caption: "Twas a rainy night on a London bus / All the passengers rode inside."

2.  A scene of men standing at the bar drinking.  The Caption: "She the nicest little hen we've got on the farm / And another little drink wouldn't...."

3. Men sitting around a table, apparently after dinner--drinking and singing.  The Caption: "When you wear a ball and chain around your ankle / And the stoney-hearted jailor is your wife."

4. Men sitting in chairs on a covered but open porch, apparently looking out to the golf course and view.  The Caption: "'Neath thy trees we find a refuge / From the world's despair."  

In the lower right-hand corner is printed out "One of fifty proofs of this plate printed for / The members of the Lkae Zurich Golf Club."  the artist signed just below this in pencil, "Ralph Fletcher Seymour."  

This is one of the artist's most precisely but still not stiltedly rendered graphic, story-telling prints. Leaving aside its sexist comment, it represents the character of a causal men's camp get-away of a century ago, with its members gamboling about enjoying release from the formalities of elite social life really through the first two-thirds of the 20th C. Far from protraying the "liberated" men of a later generation, these gentlemen seem more to be playing hooky from the restrictions of normal upper-class life ruled by manners and reserve.  

For more about Seymour and his work, see our finding aid elsewhere on the Sepcial Collecitons site: http://archon.lakeforest.edu/?p=creators/creator&id=102

Also, several books published and/or printed by him are listed in the main library catalog, hosued in Special Collections.  Some are not yet cataloged, and to inquire about others, please contact the Librarian for Special Collections, Arthur Miller, amiller@lakeforest.edu.