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Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood is one of the most famous planned neighborhoods in the US and is notable for its role in US labor history. George M. Pullman may have built the neighborhood, but it was the Pullman Porters who worked on his luxury train cars who made history in 1925 when they formed the first More
Back of the Yards is perhaps best known as the former home of Chicago’s meatpacking industry. In the nineteenth century, meatpacking emerged as a major industry and signaled the beginning of industrialization in Chicago. But working conditions varied at packinghouses, and the benefits of modern industry came with a price. In this week’s activities, discover More
Much like Chicago’s other seventy-six community areas, Humboldt Park has a diverse history of immigration. Danish, Norwegian, Germans, Scandinavians, Polish, and Russian Jewish immigrants all moved into the area as the city expanded west. By the 1960s, Humboldt Park had a growing Puerto Rican community and became known as Paseo Boricua and La Division. But More
The neighborhood of Pilsen has a rich and diverse history, with residents who immigrated from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Italy, and Mexico. Pilsen is the hub for the Mexican muralist movement in Chicago. Buildings, alleyways, and even doors are the artistic canvases where artists blend their identities and culture to convey the different social issues and More
Storytelling is at the core of who we are as humans. It is how we learn, identify ourselves, and connect to others in the past, the present and the future. Oral history is both one of the oldest historical methods and one of the most modern, using and taking advantage of the latest digital technologies. More
Chicago is a city of immigrants. In 1850, 50% of Chicago’s population was born outside of the US, with Irish and Germans making up a bulk of those residents. Many more European immigrants came to Chicago throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, including Polish, Italians, Jewish, Lithuanians, among others. African Americans also migrated from More
In this installation of the North Lawndale History Project series, North Lawndale Minow Fellows Zilah Harris and Wynton Alexander discuss the favorite parts of their oral history interview with a former Black Panther. Billy Lamar Brooks Sr., also known as Billy Ché or Ché, was born in Mississippi in 1948 and moved to Chicago in More
Zilah Harris has been working on the Museum’s latest collaborative initiative, the North Lawndale History Project, developed by Paul Norrington, president and founder of the K-Town Historic District Association, Inc. She is one of three North Lawndale Minow Fellows working with Peter T. Alter, the Museum’s historian and director of the Studs Terkel Center for More
Wynton Alexander has been working on the Museum’s latest collaborative initiative, the North Lawndale History Project, developed by Paul Norrington, president and founder of the K-Town Historic District Association, Inc. Wynton is one of three North Lawndale Minow Fellows working with Peter T. Alter, the Museum’s historian and director of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History. More
CHM curator of costume Petra Slinkard recounts the history of the Museum’s FashioNext program and the upcoming Finale for FashioNext 2017. FashioNext is one of my favorite Chicago History Museum events. It was born out of a program established in 2009 with the opening of Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum, where More