In 1880 a scrawny, 17-year-old boy with a strong British accent got his first job as floor sweeper and general retoucher in the Chicago lithographic firm of Shober & Carqueville. A year later he was a scene painter for the Chicago Opera, priming the enormous backdrops with a large brush dipped in glue. This job he attacked so earnestly that at the end of his first day's work he fell in a dead faint on the floor. His name was Albert Sterner, born a U. S. citizen, in England, of naturalized parents.
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