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A 1948 photo shows a fawning husband begging his wife’s forgiveness outside of divorce court.
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At the time, Insider spoke to a Chicago historian about the topics of the photo and divorce standards.
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Despite the man’s public pleas, this woman was ultimately unmoved.
This decades old photo is worth 1000 words.
The black and white image, which the rounds on social media and Reddit in recent years, shows a man in a suit on his literal knees, begging for forgiveness from his fur-clad, soon-to-be ex-wife outside a Chicago divorce court.
The looks on their faces seem to say it all: the scorned husband seems desperate, mouth slightly open as he looks up at his former lover; the woman, meanwhile, seems completely unfazed.
“It’s a powerful picture today because you can imagine your own story behind it,” said Jeff Nichols, a Chicago historian who a copy of the 1948 newspaper photo through an eBay listing of the image.
But thanks to Nichols’ sleuthing and the digitization of old newspaper records, we don’t just have to imagine who this couple is.
The image shows one of the last moments in the marriage of Steve and Anna Strack, who were 37 and 33 at the time, according to Nichols’ research. The photo was a one-off shot published in the Chicago Tribune, separate from any particular story and apparently printed for its evocative nature.
“It’s just one of those dramatic shots,” Nichols told Insider. “I’m sure it was just a photographer wandering the halls of the courthouse looking for a photo.”
Prior to the camera flash, Anna Strack had filed for divorce from her husband on the grounds of habitual intoxication, Nichols told Insider. In those days in Illinois, a spouse seeking divorce had to give the court a reason for the split, often choosing from ailments such as abandonment, mental cruelty, or adultery.
If the accuser was able to successfully prove the destructive behavior, the accuser was found to be at fault and could be punished by the court with a smaller share of marital property or alimony.
It wasn’t until 2016 that Illinois became a debt-free state and residents could officially end their marriages without giving a reason for the failed union.
Nichols, whose previous historical work has included the discovery of lost footage from the aftermath of the SS Eastland disaster, posted the Strack photo to his Twitter account earlier this year, saying it was an extremely popular post among his followers and fellow history buffs, he believed got a kick out of seeing such an obvious depiction of a 20th-century woman in “the driver’s seat” of her relationship.
Anna Strack was not convinced by her husband’s public display
The young woman, who shared a then-4-year-old son with her husband, told The Tribune at the time of the photo that she would rethink her decision, according to Nichols’ research.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chicago was the subject of frequent jokes about its seemingly lax divorce laws, said Nichols, who described the perception as sort of a regional joke that people instinctively understood: “Oh, people in Chicago just get divorced as a problem to have,” Nichols said as an example of the kind of jabbing the city endured.
As a result of the divorce culture, it’s quite possible that Steve Strack had an ally on the bench in Judge Julius H. Miner. The old Illinois court believed divorce was an inherently destructive process and usually preventable, according to Nichols, who cited old newspaper stories and profiles on Miner.
“Judge Miner, in particular, believed in the power of his court to mend relationships,” Nichols said.
Miner strongly supported changing the law to make quick divorces more difficult in Illinois, according to Nichols, who said the judge blamed World War II for undermining women’s values and their responsibilities as wives and mothers. Miner was particularly concerned about the effects of divorce on children.
In a Tribune profile on Miner published a few months after the Strack photo appeared in the paper, the judge discussed his efforts to keep couples together, Nichols said, essentially turning his courtroom into a therapy session of sorts for couples as he tried to broker reconciliations. .
However, Miner failed to keep Anna and Steve Strack together. The 1950 census shows the couple to be divorced, according to Nichols’ research, while Anna Strack works as a packer in a gum factory and lives with her parents and son. Steve went to work as a railroad mechanic and lived as a boarder, Nichols said.
Steve Strack remarried in 1953, but died just over a decade later in 1964, according to Nichols. Records suggest that Anna Strack never remarried. When she died in 1983, she was buried under her ex-husband’s name, Nichols said.
Meanwhile, in 1958, Miner was elevated to the federal bench by President Dwight Eisenhower.
Read the original article on Insider
