November 15 Illinois History Minute

It’s November 15th. And newspaper columnist Franklin Pierce Adams was born in Chicago on this day in 1881. Adams started his career writing sports and humor columns at the Chicago Journal. But he gained his greatest fame in New York City, where he appeared on radio’s ‘Information Please” and joined other noted wits at the Algonquin Round Table.

Songwriter Richard Whiting was born in Peoria during this week in 1891. Whiting’s songwriting career took him from Detroit to Broadway to Hollywood. He composed the melodies (and in a few cases wrote the lyrics) for several songs that became standards. According to one of his daughters, singer Margaret Whiting, one of his personal favorites was “My Ideal” first sung by Maurice Chevalier in a 1930 movie, and revived in the 1940s by a young Frank Sinatra. Whiting’s songbook also included “Till We Meet Again”, “Hurray For Hollywood”, “Too Marvelous For Words”, “Beyond the Blue Horizon” and “On the Good Ship Lollypop”.