CHM collections intern Araceli Medina recaps her work this past summer assisting with the ongoing inventory of the Decorative and Industrial Arts collection. Through the inventory process, Medina saw first-hand how objects can tell stories that help us understand the past as it was lived. The process of inventorying a museum collection is important and More
This past summer, CHM collections intern Elise O’Neil assisted with the ongoing inventory of the Decorative and Industrial Arts collection. In this blog post, O’Neil writes about the legacies that objects reflect, depending on who owned them. As a lifelong history nerd, working at the Chicago History Museum as a collections intern this summer and doing 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
In a world of podcasts and online streaming, CHM collections intern Angela Thomas demonstrates that audio cassette tapes are still in use. In this blog post, she summarizes her work identifying and labeling audio content as part of her internship through the DePaul University museum studies certificate program. Just as people do not always remember to 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
This summer, CHM collections intern Brittany Boettcher worked with senior collections manager Britta Keller Arendt to inventory items in our Decorative and Industrial Arts collection. In this blog post, Boettcher highlights some Civil War artifacts and explains how differences between Confederate bills answered the questions she had about where and when they were printed. CHM More
CHM collections intern Catrien Egbert recaps her work cataloging the Museum’s massive Decorative and Industrial Arts collection and highlights some memorable finds. If you’re like me, you’ve always wondered what treasures a museum’s collection might hold. Last summer, I had the opportunity to find out as the collections team continued its endeavor to catalog the More
Senior collection manager Britta Keller Arendt explains how the collections staff keeps track of our artifacts. One question that Museum staff are frequently asked is “How many artifacts do you have in there?”, which is quickly followed by “How do you keep track of them all?” Senior collection manager Britta Keller Arendt and collections technician More