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 the inaugural installment of Inside the Collection, Britta Keller Arendt, CHM’s senior collection manager, and intern Catrien Egbert highlight a meal bin, a storage container for various grains (think pre-Tupperware). On a weekly basis, Britta receives object research requests from curators, scholars, family historians, and the general public. Two recent inquires involved this artifact. It is the work of Dr. John A. Kennicott, a pioneer physician and horticulturalist, whose son, Robert, served as the first director of the Chicago Academy of Sciences—which operates the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum today. The Kennicott family home in Glenview, Illinois, known as the Grove, is a National Historic Landmark.

Explore our collection.