Charles Frederick Gunther was a German-American confectioner and collector. He purchased many of the items now owned by the Chicago History Museum. He was a member of the Political Action Committee of the Union League Club.
Background
Charles Frederick Gunther was the son of John M. and Marie F. Gunther. He was born at Wildberg, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany on March 6, 1837, and came to America with his parents in 1842. They settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, but eventually removed to Somerset County.
Education
After a brief period of attendance at public and private schools, Gunther, then fourteen, began to earn his livelihood.
Career
In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, the boy, although slightly more than ten years old, became a government mail carrier. He covered his route over the mountains to Johnston and return on horseback, receiving as compensation twenty-five cents a day. In the spring of 1850 the family moved to Peru.
In rapid succession he was a clerk in a country store, a drug clerk, the manager of the local postoffice, and finally cashier in a local bank. In his capacity as bank cashier he became acquainted with the prosperity which the South was enjoying and in 1860 decided to move thither. He took up his residence in Memphis, Tennessee, as the employee of an ice company. The outbreak of the Civil War prostrated business, and Gunther served as steward and purser on an Arkansas River steamer engaged in carrying supplies and transporting troops for the Confederacy until his boat was captured and burned by the Union forces. He was taken prisoner but was soon released and, returning to Peru, secured a position there in a bank. In 1863 he was engaged as a commercial traveler for a wholesale confectionery house in Chicago and five years later he opened his own retail store in that city.
Henceforth, Chicago was his permanent home, and he became integrally connected with its industrial, civic, and artistic growth. In time his name was a synonym for high-grade confectioneries, particularly because of his numerous popular inventions, among which the caramel is best known to the American people. The great fire of 1871 destroyed his business and left him almost destitute of resources. With renewed energy and determination, he reestablished his business on a more extensive scale in what is
now the McVicker Theatre Building. He made his palatial State Street store one of the points of interest for tourists on account of its rare treasures of historical art, and he was one of the first merchants of Chicago to advertise in the news columns of the papers.
Politics
Long a member of the Political Action Committee of the Union League Club, Charles Frederick Gunther showed great common sense and humor in its discussions and activities.
He was briefly a Gold Democrat and supported John McAuley Palmer for president in 1896. In 1908, Gunther sought the (regular) Democratic Party's nomination as an Illinois gubernatorial candidate, but lost to Adlai E. Stevenson I. In 1879 he was a member of the commission organized to tour Mexico with a view toward closer trade relations between the two republics. His civic interests led him to take an active part in politics. He was elected alderman from the second ward on the Democratic ticket and served from 1897 to 1901. From 1901 to 1905 he was city treasurer; and in 1908 an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor. He brought the old Libby Prison to Chicago for exhibition and was one of the organizers and the first president of the Coliseum. Company.
Personality
Gunther was an art connoisseur and collector. By shrewd business methods he acquired a notable collection of art treasures and rare books. Before his death he offered his entire collection to the city of Chicago with the proviso that a fire-proof building should be erected for its safe-keeping. The city failed to comply with his request, and the collection went to his widow, Jennie Burnell Gunther, whom he had married in 1869, and to his son. They sold 50, 000 historical manuscripts to the Chicago Historical Society, of which Gunther for twenty years was a director, for a sum of $150, 000. This collection contains rare Lincoln material as well as material on the early history of Chicago, and some Shakespearian and Napoleonic manuscripts.