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To mark the Lunar New Year, CHM curator of religion and community history Rebekah Coffman highlights a Year of the Rabbit item from our Asian American Small Business Association collection of visual materials. Happy Lunar New Year! Sunday, January 22, 2023, marks the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit 4720/2023. Lunar New Year celebrations More
January 11 is marked on the calendar as National Milk Day, commemorating the day the first glass bottled milk deliveries began en masse in the US, starting with the state of New York in 1878. And while Chicago’s strongest bovine association has been to the Union Stock Yard, the dairy industry was also a lucrative More
Interested in learning something new in 2023? In our latest blog post, CHM director of research and access Ellen Keith reveals the top five most requested collection items at the Abakanowicz Research Center in 2022. What do people want to see in the Abakanowicz Research Center? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so we More
Chicago has had more than its fair share of big band and jazz dance halls across the city to accommodate nearly everyone’s musical taste. On December 6, 1922—100 years ago—at 62nd Street and Cottage Grove, in the Woodlawn neighborhood, the Trianon Ballroom opened its doors and counted itself among the city’s nightlife destinations. An undated More
This post is from Marissa Croft, CHM’s research and insights analyst and author of our Fashion and Costume Research Guide. As a PhD candidate at Northwestern University, she also researches the clothing of the French Revolution and women’s clothing reform movements of the 19th century. As December dawns, many Chicagoans may find themselves fondly reminiscing More
From sundown on Tuesday, October 25, through sundown on Thursday, October 27, followers of the Baha’i faith will be celebrating important Twin Holidays: the birth of the Báb (Arabic: the Gate) and birth of Bahá’u’lláh (Arabic: Glory of God), its two foundational figures. In recognition, we look to the Chicago History Museum’s collection of pamphlets More
In our latest blog post, CHM costume collection manager Jessica Pushor talks about the fascinating life of Louis “Scotty” Piper, his career as a tailor, and his generous donations to the Chicago History Museum. Piper is one of the designers featured in Treasured Ten: Selections from the Costume Collection, which runs through January 16, 2023. More
In our latest blog post, CHM director of research and access Ellen Keith gives an update on what’s new at the Abakanowicz Research Center. Here at CHM, we distinguish between museum collections and research collections. In shorthand, museum collections are three-dimensional artifacts. They may be on exhibit or carefully stored. Research collections are two-dimensional and More
September 24, 1969, marked the beginning of one of the most infamous trials in U.S. history for eight (later seven) activists linked to the protests that took place in response to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago at the International Amphitheatre on August 26‒29. Eight defendants, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom More
This summer, Lily Mayfield assisted CHM technical services librarian Elizabeth McKinley in the Abakanowicz Research Center. Mayfield writes about her experience discovering the full names of women featured in the Museum’s carte de visite collection. How can one study the past without knowing the names of those who came before? That is the question posed More