Lila Weinberg, a Chicago historian, author, teacher and editor, has died.
Weinberg, who died May 29 at the age of 91 from complications of cancer, collaborated with her late husband, Arthur, on six books on social history, including two on attorney Clarence Darrow. One of the books, “Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned,” spent 19 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list in 1957. Arthur Weinberg died in 1989.
A resident of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood for 45 years, Weinberg was a senior book manuscript editor and a journal manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press for 34 years, from where she retired at age 80.
Weinberg was honored as a Newberry Library treasured author. She received the John Peter Altgeld Freedom of Speech Award from The Newberry Library Bughouse Square Debates Committee in 2001. The Weinbergs also were honored by the Society of Midland Authors with a special body of work award in May 1987.
The Weinbergs are well known in Chicago as having conceived the idea in 1957 of the annual commemoration of Darrow’s death by throwing a wreath over the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge in Jackson Park, Chicago—the site where Darrow’s ashes were strewn—on the anniversary of his death. The ceremony continues today in conjunction with an accompanying symposium focused on an issue of concern to Darrow that is still relevant today
