In 2018, the Chicago History Museum acquired the Chicago Sun-Times photography collection, which spans from the 1940s to the early 2000s—one of the largest newspaper photograph collections ever acquired by an American museum. In this blog post, CHM metadata librarian Izzy Westcott explains how the massive collection was processed and made searchable to the public. 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
In this blog post, Ariel Robinson, Chicago History Museum Research Center page and recent library school graduate, writes about her experience designing a Disability Studies LibGuide for CHM. At CHM, Gretchen Neidhardt, cataloging and metadata librarian, and Elizabeth McKinley, technical services librarian, have worked on developing LibGuides (subject guides) for various ethnic and BIPOC groups More
CHM technical services librarian Elizabeth McKinley and cataloging and metadata librarian Gretchen Neidhardt outline how Research Center staff have been updating the language describing its holdings to reflect a viewpoint that is ethical, modern, and ultimately more humanizing. For the past several months, Chicago History Museum librarians have been working behind the scenes to critically examine the More
In this blog post, CHM collections intern Chris Johnson writes about his experience processing the collection of The Chicago Reporter under the supervision of senior archivist Julie Wroblewski. Last summer, I interned at the Chicago History Museum via the Black Metropolis Research Consortium’s Archie Motley Archival Internship Program. The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is a More
Known today as a Democratic Party stronghold, Chicago has ties to the Grand Old Party dating to Abraham Lincoln’s times. One twentieth-century GOP stalwart was Bertha Baur, who long made her home at 1511 Astor Street in the Gold Coast. National Republican Committeewoman for Illinois from 1928 to 1952, Mrs. Baur had a groundbreaking career 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
To cap off Black History Month, CHM cataloging and metadata librarian Gretchen Neidhardt writes about her search for the voices of African American servicemen in our archives. While in the process of digitizing the last of our paper card catalog for 6,000 small manuscript collections, I noticed that several items mentioned “Negro Troops.” (Our card More
Collections volunteer Robert Blythe writes about photographer Raeburn Flerlage, who captured the blues and folk scenes in 1960s Chicago. If you’re a fan of American roots music, then the Chicago History Museum’s Raeburn Flerlage collection is a must-see. Ray, as he was known, spent much of the 1960s taking candid photographs in Chicago’s premier blues More
CHM archives intern Ashley Clark worked with archivist Julie Wroblewski to process the papers of John A. McDermott, a local leader in race relations and urban affairs from the 1960s into the 1990s. This past fall, I had the opportunity to process the John A. McDermott papers at the Chicago History Museum. I had processed More