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Elena Gonzales joined the Chicago History Museum in spring 2021 as a guest curator and began as the Curator of Civic Engagement and Social Justice in October 2022. In this blog post, she talks about her work at CHM and how she approaches it. Elena Gonzales. Image credit: Ben Gonzales What led you to the More
Rebekah Coffman joined the Chicago History Museum in May 2022 as the new Curator of Religion and Community History. In this blog post, she talks about her path to CHM and how she approaches her work. In my first few months at CHM, I have been able to jump into my position with both feet More
Head into costume storage with CHM costume collection manager Jessica Pushor as she discusses the iconic costume pieces that came out of the partnership between dancer and choreographer Ruth Page and artist Isamu Noguchi. Ruth Page (1899–1991) was a legendary ballerina and innovative choreographer. She was the first American guest ballet soloist with the Metropolitan Opera, and More
In part two of this series, project cataloger Emma Florio explains more about the process of cataloging collections from scratch and the detective work it requires. Learn more about this retroconversion project, which was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. While digitizing the catalog cards for the Chicago History Museum’s small manuscript More
In part one of this series, project cataloger Emma Florio discusses the process of retroconverting CHM’s small manuscripts collections from catalog cards to digital records. Learn more about her work, which was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. When I took on this project last summer, the Museum was in the final More
Streamlined design found a welcome home in American kitchens. In the mid-1930s, as the economy began to improve, consumers looked to update their homes. Then as now, most people began with their kitchens, and Chicago supplied the market with a multitude of streamlined products. At the top of the list stood a group of Sunbeam More
Last summer, CHM collections intern Cara Caputo worked with collections manager Britta Keller Arendt to continue the ongoing inventory of the Decorative and Industrial Arts collection. This led her to discover just how much investigation working with the collection entails. CHM publications interns Lily Stachowiak and Brendan Narko helped organize and publish this blog post. More
As part of Monday Night Nitrates, our weekly photograph series, CHM collections staff is blogging about the process of digitizing approximately 35,000 nitrate negatives, a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In this post, CHM senior archivist Dana Lamparello writes about making the images discoverable for research. In many ways, the More
Inside the Collection is a video series that invites you into the Chicago History Museum’s storage spaces to explore unusual, interesting artifacts from our vast collection. In this installment, senior collection manager Britta Keller Arendt shows us the skin of the serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. This artifact came to More
As part of Monday Night Nitrates, our weekly photograph series, the Chicago History Museum collections staff is blogging about the process of digitizing approximately 35,000 nitrate negatives, a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In this post, CHM paper conservator Carol Turchan writes about how the negatives were prepared for digitization More