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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 Chicago History Museum?

The Museum reached out to me in spring of 2021 to ask if I would curate an exhibition about Chicago’s Latino/a/x communities. In particular, the project was a response to the protest by high school students from Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy in 2019.

Photograph by Anton Miglietta, History Teacher, IJLA; Courtesy of IJLA and students / alumni.

I had studied and written about CHM relatively extensively at that point, first for my dissertation and later for my book, Exhibitions for Social Justice. To be totally frank, this research left me a little nervous about undertaking the project because I wasn’t sure if the Museum was ready to make the kinds of changes the students were requesting. I’m excited to say that I think we are on that path now.

Your position is Curator of Civic Engagement and Social Justice. How exactly does one go about curating these things? Especially social justice.

The word “curate” comes from a Latin word, “curare,” meaning “to care for.” My work is about caring for people and their stories as well as caring for our society and how well it works for everyone—caring about our collectivity.

My position works in two directions. On the one hand, I am responsible for understanding and employing the Museum’s collections that address civic engagement and social justice in storytelling through exhibitions. Primarily, this is through the Archives & Manuscripts and Prints & Photographs collections with a secondary focus on the Decorative and Industrial Arts collection. On the other hand, it is my job to look for ways that the institution itself can foster civic engagement and work for social justice.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I do a lot of different things as part of my job! They range from research in a library, archive, or special collection to meetings with community members all over town in different neighborhoods and suburbs. On a given day, I could be meeting with a group of paleteros in Albany Park, a scholar in Pilsen, the Little Village Chamber of Commerce, or a family of bomba artists in Humboldt Park. I might be at the Back of the Yards library or researching steel mills in Calumet. These meetings might be about planning collaborations, collecting or borrowing material, or reaching out to additional communities and organizations. I spend two days a week at the Museum exploring the collections, planning and collaborating with colleagues from across the Museum, writing, and so on.

Elena guest teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso’s Centennial Museum in the Pasos Ajenos: Social Justice and Inequalities in the Borderlands exhibition. Photograph by and courtesy of Daniel Aguilera.

You’re leading the charge in curating the Aquí en Chicago exhibition for the Museum, slated to open in 2025. What has that experience been like for you so far?

So exciting! It’s a daunting job to make something about Latino/a/x communities in the area when that population has been absent from the stories at CHM for so long. That makes it feel like there is a lot of pressure for the exhibition to be many different things to different people. This third of the city is so diverse! However, I’ve received a lot of support, both from colleagues at CHM and from Latino/a/x folks of many different backgrounds. We need to keep a focus on the young folks who brought us into this project in the first place. When we center their story—as this exhibition will—the landscape around their story becomes clear. That’s how we got to the focus on resistance against white supremacy and colonialism (in all its many forms). So far, working on this project has been a wonderful experience. It’s a tremendous challenge and so rewarding. One partner at a community-based organization said the nicest thing when she learned we were planning the exhibition for fall 2025. I’m used to people wanting to hear more about why the timeline is so long (trust building and relationship building take time), but what she said was “I feel so safe.” Her words have stayed with me, and I hope to live up to them.

Is there a particular artifact or collection in the Museum that is your favorite or one that has had the most impact in your work so far? 

Though it is by no means my favorite, there is an object that I’m kind of obsessed with. It’s offensive not only in its expansionist, colonial stance but also in its butchery of Spanish. It opens a window onto a whole part of the story landscape that is crucial and difficult to access and highlight. The object is called “The American Hen.”

Milk glass bowl with lid, c. 1898. 1973.23a-b. Photograph by Elena Gonzales. 

It’s a mass-produced covered dish of milk glass about the size of a butter dish—though it may have been used to hold a condiment such as mustard. Westmoreland Specialty Co. produced it around 1898, likely as a novelty. This was a time when the US doing significant colonization in Latin America. In 1898, the US took over Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Cuba—though the US was unable to retain control of the last. “The American Hen” takes the form of a (presumably American) eagle sitting on its nest, its wings outstretched around three eggs labeled “Porto Rica [sic],” “Cuba,” and “Philippines.” It is one of the few objects I’ve found so far that will allow us to have the necessary conversation in the gallery about how US military and economic intervention in virtually every Latin American country has directly influenced the Latino/a/x landscape we live with today in Chicago.

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Elena
• Follow her on Twitter @curatoriologist

From sundown on Tuesday, October 25, through sundown on Thursday, October 27, followers of the Baha’i faith will be celebrating important Twin Holidays: the birth of the Báb (Arabic: the Gate) and birth of Bahá’u’lláh (Arabic: Glory of God), its two foundational figures. In recognition, we look to the Chicago History Museum’s collection of pamphlets representing moments in the community’s history as it established physical presence in the Chicagoland area.

A selection of pamphlets from CHM’s Abakanowicz Research Center.

The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár (Arabic: The Dawning Place of Praise) in Wilmette, Illinois, is the second Baha’i House of Worship in the world to be built and is the oldest remaining one. The structure embodies the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh as an expression of humanity’s oneness. Its foundation stone was laid in 1912 by ‘Abdu’l-Baha (the son of Bahá’u’lláh), and the completed building was dedicated in 1953.

Portrait of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, oldest son of Baha’u’llah, in The Bahà’ì Faith: Dawn of a New Day by Jessyca Russell Gaver

The pamphlets discuss the Baha’i faith’s foundations and significant historical moments, grounded in the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh in 1817 and Birth of the Báb in 1819 in Iran and extending through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Other events described include the founders’ experiences of pilgrimage and exile, the recognition of the Baha’i faith at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, and significant inaugural events of the Chicago Baha’i community. They also discuss the long and storied process of conceptualizing, designing, building, and celebrating a meaningful place of worship that represents community beliefs in architecture.

Aerial view of the Baha’i House of Worship with Wilmette Harbor and Lake Michigan behind it, January 6, 1971. ST-20001475-0001, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

The temple in 2022. Photograph by Rebekah Coffman.

The building’s architect, Louis Bourgeois, made eclectic reference to world architecture in his design—borrowing from Egyptian, Roman, Byzantine, Renaissance, and Islamic traditions—to manifest humanity’s combined efforts to worship the divine through built form. The number nine is repeated in the number of sides, entrances, and gardens at the House of Worship, symbolizing perfection and completion. Its intricate, decorative exterior appears as carved stone but is in fact achieved through a unique mixture of white Portland concrete and white quartz, which creates a glimmering effect and gave rise to its nickname as the “Temple of Light and Unity.”

Detail of inscription above the doorway. Photograph by Rebekah Coffman.

Decorations include symbols of world religious traditions, including hooked crosses associated with Buddhism and Hindusim, Judaism’s Star of David, Christian crosses, the moon and crescent of Islam, and the nine-pointed star of Baha’i. Nine utterances of Bahá’u’lláh are above entrances and nine are within interior alcoves. Each gives testament to Baha’i beliefs, emphasizing Bahá’l’ulláh’s teachings of universal peace, including one that reads, “The earth is but one country; and mankind its citizens.”

Additional Resource

• See our archival materials about the Baha’i faith at the Abakanowicz Research Center, which is free to visit

This ghostly image was taken at the Electric Theater night club at 4812 North Clark St., Chicago, April 5, 1968. ST-10003431-0024, Chicago Sun-Times Collection, CHM

Chicagoland has a lot of ghost stories, but none are as well-known as the infamous Resurrection Mary, the hitchhiking ghost who haunts the roadsides of Archer Avenue. Mary has different origins, depending on who’s telling the story, but the most shared narratives put her untimely death sometime in the late 1920s to early 1930s, when she was either a victim of a fatal car crash on the way to a night of dancing or the unfortunate victim of a hit-and-run accident while she was walking home in the rain.

While this was worn as a wedding dress, it demonstrates 1930s style; silk satin and lace with silk flowers, 1930. CHM, ICHi-054652 

Most documented reports of Mary describe her as a young, fashionable blonde woman no older than mid-twenties, wearing a white ball gown, accessories, and hairstyle to match. As the story goes, she typically manifests as a lonely guest at a dance hall, and after a night of dancing, she asks for a ride back home, slipping into the backseat and guiding her driver for the night (usually a man) up Archer Avenue. But by the time the car reaches a local cemetery, Mary vanishes without a trace, leaving nothing more than her ghostly memory.

This hair stylist’s mannequin (c. 1935) shows a beehive style that Mary may have worn. CHM, ICHi-067232 

Mary is supposedly buried at Resurrection Cemetery, in Justice, Illinois, about a 30-minute drive southwest of Chicago. This burial ground gives Mary her stomping grounds, as well as her iconic name. She usually sticks to this stretch of road on Archer Avenue, between the cemetery and what was once the Oh Henry Ballroom (later renamed the Willowbrook Ballroom) in Willow Springs. Over the years, several researchers have tried to determine the exact identity of Mary, but no answer has proved conclusive.

View of various metallic women’s pumps c. 1930.

Resurrection Mary’s fame has gone beyond Chicagoland. Her hitchhiking ghost has had a number of ballads written about her, along with a few B-list horror movies (all named after her), and even a couple segments on Unsolved Mysteries. On a more local level (and for those thirsty for a good drink), Chet’s Melody Lounge on Archer Avenue in Justice, right across the street from Resurrection cemetery, has a tradition for Mary. Every Sunday, they serve a Bloody Mary at the end of the bar for her. To date, Mary hasn’t shown up to claim the drink—maybe she’s waiting for the right person to accompany her and then give her a ride back home.

The trope of the hitchhiking ghost is a common one not only in the United States, but across the world. Stories of phantom hitchhikers are part of the common folklore in both urban and rural areas, with stories similar to Mary’s showing up in South Carolina’s infamous Walhalla Hitchhiker, the phantom hitchhiker of Bedfordshire in Great Britain, and in Quezon City in the Philippines, where she is known as the White Lady. These urban legends often serve as cautionary tales, reminding those out in the late hours of the night that not everything may be what it seems, and that sometimes it’s just best to keep on driving.

You can read more about Mary and other Chicago folk stories in the Encyclopedia of Chicago.

In our latest blog post, CHM costume collection manager Jessica Pushor talks about the fascinating life of Louis “Scotty” Piper, his career as a tailor, and his generous donations to the Chicago History Museum. Piper is one of the designers featured in Treasured Ten: Selections from the Costume Collection, which runs through January 16, 2023.

A native of New Orleans, Louis Vernon “Scotty” Piper moved to Chicago in 1916. Three years later he found himself in the middle of the 1919 Race Riot. Piper fled the city, leading his family to believe he was killed. According to Piper, he briefly worked for a circus, quit when he reached Minneapolis, began performing the Charleston in dance competitions, and returned to Chicago in 1922.

Undated, hand-colored portrait of Scotty Piper in a suit. CHM, ICHi-174414

Later that year, Piper began working for Lew Fox, a tailor known for outfitting entertainers and gangsters. He learned to sew and began to establish his own clientele among local performers. In 1925, Piper opened his own tailoring business on 47th Street in Bronzeville, attracting both local and nationally known Black entertainers. For more than five decades, he created suits for prominent figures such as athlete Jack Johnson and entertainers including Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong. Piper’s shop was also a popular place for young Black men to purchase graduation suits, which he made for Harold Washington, Nat “King” Cole, Sam Cooke, and Lou Rawls, among others. As Piper’s career progressed, collecting photographs of his customers and other celebrities, as well as local clubs, became a hobby for him.

Piper (right) measures a man for a suit as two women in dresses stand and watch, c. 1940s-1950s. CHM, ICHi-174413

In 1975, Chicago Tribune reporter Clarence Page interviewed Piper about his 50 years in business on 47th Street and how the neighborhood had changed during that time span. The article also mentioned his collection of photographs and scrapbooks of Black entertainers and musicians that Piper had dressed and the clubs and theaters on 47th Street he visited, many of which had become legends in time. Thanks to the Tribune’s wide distribution, many people outside of Bronzeville and Chicago were introduced to Piper.

Autographed photograph of Piper measuring T-Bone Walker as Jack Williams and Snooky Marsh watch, 1944. CHM, ICHi-036108

An undated, signed headshot of Rhythm Willie. The inscription reads: “To my tailor Scotty Piper. Rhythm Willie.” CHM, ICHi-174228

John Triss, a graphics curator for what was then the Chicago Historical Society, saw the article and wrote to Piper hoping to expand “our very incomplete photo records of Chicago’s black people.” Piper agreed and donated about 300 photographs (c. 1920–69), mainly of Black entertainers and celebrities, but also some personal photographs of Piper, his family, and friends that reflect his involvement with social, church, and civic affairs. He also included miscellaneous letters from various African American organizations soliciting his aid or participation or thanking him for his contributions (1954–68). Finally, Piper also donated some men’s suits from his shop and from his own closet to the CHM costume collection. Thanks to his generous donations, as he told Clarence Page in 1975, “the old 47th Street can live forever.”

Additional Resources

• Peruse Scotty Piper’s archival collections in the Abakanowicz Research Center, which is free to visit
• See a selection of digitized images related to Scotty Piper

This blog post has been adapted from an essay by CHM intern Bella Santos, based on her work in the summer of 2022 around the printmaker Carlos Cortéz and the work of student activists at the Chicago History Museum.

In September 2019, Anton Miglietta, a history teacher at Instituto Justice and Leadership Academy (ILJA) in Pilsen, brought his class—learning about marginalized communities in Chicago—to the Chicago History Museum. On their trip, the students were met with very few artifacts or stories relating to Latino communities in the Museum. Soon after, the students organized protests and a social media campaign to express their anger about the lack of Latino/a/x history within CHM. The Museum held a meeting with the students and agreed on broadening its content to reflect Chicago’s population and creating an exhibition showcasing Latino culture.

When CHM brought me on as an intern, a main focus was how to appropriately represent an unrepresented community in the Museum. Historical erasure of minorities is a problem within archival institutions; CHM is no exception. Latinos make up 29% of Chicago’s population—a significant portion of the city. A city museum should reflect that city’s changing demographics—past and present. One way to do this is to use recent events to connect the stories of the past to many populations. Latinos are one of these groups.

Carlos Alfredo Koyokuikatl Cortéz (1923–2005), a Latino artist from Pilsen, is one person from a long list of underrepresented Latino activists and artists in Chicago’s history. Cortéz’s contributions to his community in Pilsen, the Chicagoland area, and the entire country is an example of someone who, like the students of IJLA, used his voice to spread a message of equality.

Carlos Alfredo Koyokuikatl Cortéz was born in Milwaukee on August 13, 1923. He grew up in a politically active family. His father, Alfred E. Cortéz, was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) labor union, and his mother, Augusta Cortéz, was a member of the Socialist Party of America. Carlos grew up in Milwaukee, one of the epicenters of labor, racial, and civil rights debates in the 1960s and 1970s and then moved to Chicago and continued the family enterprise of political activism.

Cortéz was among the many men drafted into the army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor (1941), but he opposed the impending fights. Rebecca Meyers, permanent collection curator at the National Museum of Mexican Art, described his opposition to the draft as being against the “common man fighting the common man on foreign soil.” As a conscientious objector, Cortéz spent 18 months in prison.

The façade of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, which became known as the National Museum of Mexican Art in 2006. Image courtesy of Carlos Tortolero

The opening of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in 1987. Chicago mayor Harold Washington is in the right foreground with the red tie. Image courtesy of Carlos Tortolero

Cortéz’s political views translated into his artwork. He was inspired by José Guadalupe Posada, a popular Mexican lithographer famous for his pieces featuring political and social problems. Cortéz worked with fellow artist Leopoldo Mendez to create prints. In my interview with Meyers, she discusses the works of both artists and says,

They never destroyed the blocks that produced their prints. It was a way for Carlos to spread the word, to spread his artwork to as many people as he could. They were never interested in selling the prints or the blocks, it was all about the message.

Cortéz’s printing press was his form of mass, social, and fast media. Making his artworks readily available for anyone was his way of spreading his messages and increasing awareness about police brutality, political events, and personal reactions to global events.

Cortéz’s printing press. Photograph by CHM staff.

Among the events Cortéz responded to through his “mass media” art were a print titled “We Serve and Protect,” depicting police brutality, to bring awareness to the injustices that minority communities experienced, which he printed and distributed at the 1968 protests of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Carlos Cortéz, La lucha contínua / The Struggle Continues, 1986, woodcut, N.N., 17 5/8” x 21 5/8” (paper size), National Museum of Mexican Art Permanent Collection 1997.1, Gift of Carlos Cortéz, photo credit: Kathleen Culbert-Aguilar

Another of his recognizable pieces, titled “La Lucha Continua” (“The Struggle Continues”), reflects his experiences being a part of the IWW, and the case of five miners who were killed during the 1927 Columbine mine protests in Colorado. The protests started in response to and in solidarity with the wrongfully accused and murdered Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, with miners from the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company striking to improve the wages and working conditions of the workers. In 1989—62 years later—Cortéz went to the graves as a representative for the IWW to scatter the ashes of the last deceased miner, and he created “La Lucha Continua” in response to the injustices the laborers experienced. Workers’ struggles and Cortéz’s work convey a message of equality that is shared with other acts of protest.

Jair Urier Ramirez, a student at IJLA during the 2019 protest of CHM described his experiences to me. One notable thing he said was this,

I have calluses on my hands and bags under my eyes, you know? These are things that I would like to tell, my story, you know? And as someone who works with brown people every day, I think that’s something important to us. Why? Because we have different stories, and I think that was the ultimate essence of our project. And I say essence because that’s really how it was. Let us tell our stories and don’t stereotype us.

Ramirez is right that the upcoming Latino/a/x exhibition is including Latino communities and giving the right recognition to the right people. From my perspective, as a Latina, throughout this whole internship I saw how meaningful their protest was and how powerful it was to see people unite for a cause that adults had not taken action on. There is no singular way to solve societal dilemmas. We can only start by advocating for one another, and I do think this internship, as new as it is, is a great step towards change.

An undated photograph of NMMA president Carlos Tortolero touring the museum with then Senator Barack Obama.

When I first started, I had no idea what to expect, but as I interviewed more people and asked questions, it became clear how unifying this project is. It was enlightening to see how my research connected to Carlos Cortéz and his accomplishments with his artwork, the students with their protest, and me with my small contribution to this exhibition.

Further Reading

• Carlos Alfred Cortéz in the Chicago Latino Artchive, Inter-University Program for Latino Research
• Carlos Alfred Cortéz at the National Museum of Mexican Art
• Chicago: Law and Disorder
• Crystal-Gazing the Amber Fluid and Other Wobbly Poems by Carlos Cortéz

This blog post has been adapted from an essay by CHM intern Megha Khemka, based on her work in the summer of 2022 focused on Chicago’s history with immigration.

Whatever your current picture of undocumented individuals, it’s probably incomplete. I know mine was. Immigration was a topic I thought I knew well; my parents were the first in their families to live outside of India. Yet the news I was reading around 2016—asylum requests systematically denied, detention centers lacking essential resources—was worlds away from anything I knew. Over the next few years, the material I saw grew denser and more polarized. It was only when I began researching the topic of sanctuary with the Chicago History Museum that I began to ask questions of my hometown and learned that Chicago has a lot of answers. To demonstrate, we’ll begin with a story that you perhaps have heard, the story of Elvira Arellano.

Arellano was born in Michoacán, Mexico, in 1975. She was 22 when she came to the United States. Thanks to Chicago’s sanctuary laws, she was able to build a life here with her US-born son, Saul, despite not having legal status. In the aftermath of 9/11, however, Islamophobia and xenophobia led public sentiment to associate immigrants with terrorists. After the passing of the USA PATRIOT Act, national authorities conducted extensive sweeps of all federal buildings. They arrested Arellano, who worked at O’Hare International Airport, and ordered her to appear before an immigration court. When she pointed out that deportation would separate her from her four-year-old, a US citizen, federal authorities responded that the only way she could be with her son was to uproot him to Mexico. It was a story that brought to light for many the United States’ citizenship and immigration policies.

Undocumented immigrants of Central and South American descent sit in a room after being seized in a raid, Chicago, December 13, 1971. ST-10103912-0005, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

The sanctuary movement in Chicago arose in the aftermath of civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, funded in part by the US government, during which nearly one million refugees sought asylum in the United States between 1980 and 1991. Among those who had been killed in El Salvador were four US missionaries, and they became the face of a new organization: the Chicago Religious Task Force for Central America. It advocated for federal foreign policy changes toward Central America and encouraged domestic communities to host Central American refugees. In Chicago, they created a framework that connected undocumented immigrants with churches that were willing to provide them sanctuary.

A group of people gather in the Federal Building plaza to protest US aid to El Salvador’s military government during the Salvadoran Civil War, Chicago, February 7, 1982. ST-30002672-0027, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM; photograph by Bob Black

The idea quickly took hold, and in 1982, the congregation of Chicago’s Wellington Avenue Church voted to become America’s second sanctuary church. Over the next decade, 20 religious institutions in and around Chicago became sanctuaries, housing undocumented refugees and providing them with platforms—for example, venues for public press conferences and Bible study discussions—to make their stories heard. Participants were Christian, Quaker, and Jewish, creating a vast network of unsanctioned support.

A group of people gather in the Federal Building plaza to protest US aid to El Salvador’s military government during the Salvadoran Civil War, Chicago, February 7, 1982.ST-30002672-0042, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM; photograph by Bob Black

In my research, I discovered the impact of hundreds of diverse Chicagoans united in their belief. Even those who were hesitant to speak out enabled more vocal voices through their support. Adriana Portillo-Bartow’s two daughters were kidnapped in Guatemala, and after escaping civil conflict by moving to Chicago, she tirelessly campaigned the government, Catholic Church, and media to find her girls. Similarly, diverse coalitions came together in the election of Chicago’s first African American mayor, Harold Washington, who codified social support into law with Executive Order 85-1, written to “assure that all residents of the City of Chicago, regardless of nationality or citizenship, shall have fair and equal access to municipal benefits, opportunities and service.” This has formed the basis for Chicago’s legal protection of undocumented immigrants ever since.

However, a series of cases known as the Sanctuary Trials highlighted the lack of such legal protection on a federal scale. In 1986, the Justice Department indicted 16 individuals on 71 counts of conspiracy and of aiding “illegal aliens to enter the United States by shielding, harboring and transporting them.” Though the defendants argued that providing refuge was an expression of religious belief and therefore protected by the First Amendment, this argument was struck down by courts. Undocumented immigrants taking refuge in a religious institution are not immune from deportation. The protection that a sanctuary church offers is entirely social, based on the reluctance of any authority to order a raid on a religious building. Nevertheless, public support had power in the Sanctuary Trials, leading Congress to grant asylum to most of the individuals involved, illustrating the power of media narratives and community protest.

With that in mind, we return to Elvira Arellano, who until 2002 had been living quietly in America, trying to avoid deportation. After she was arrested, Arellano made a pivotal decision: she took refuge in Humboldt Park’s Adalberto United Methodist Church in 2006 on the date of her immigration hearing. She lived there for more than a year, eventually being deported while traveling to speak at a Los Angeles church. Her son remained at his home in the US, while Arellano continued to advocate tirelessly from Mexico. In March 2014, she presented herself to US Border Patrol officials at the San Diego border to request asylum.

Protest at the Federal Building, 230 South Dearborn Street, over shooting of undocumented Mexican immigrant, Chicago, November 10, 1972. ST-14002237-0004, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM

Arellano’s story quickly began to gain national attention; as a powerful mother figure fighting to be with her American son, she was the perfect face of a new Sanctuary Movement. And it worked. Legal change at all levels of government followed during this time, including in Cook County, which passed an ordinance refusing to fill federal detainer requests for those suspected of being in America without a visa. However, the national buzz around Arellano’s story created a narrowly defined narrative of undocumented individuals in America that tied their right to stay in the country with the fact that they grew up here or had a child who did.

For instance, the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy allows undocumented individuals who came to the US as children to apply for deportation deferrals every two years. While the executive order benefited thousands of Chicagoans, Arellano herself argued that it didn’t go nearly far enough, only providing temporary relief for a very select group of people.

After the sustained efforts of a diverse coalition of Chicagoans, Chicago today is has one of the most comprehensive legal systems in place to support undocumented immigrants. The city’s population fought to preserve their deeply-held values of sanctuary even under pushback from Illinois governor Bruce Rauner, and Chicago’s lawsuit against the Department of Justice in 2017 is what has ensured that sanctuary cities all over the country are legally entitled to federal funding.

Yet, Chicago’s stories also remind us that sympathetic legislation does not mean the work for asylum seeker and undocumented individuals is done.

Further Reading

• Timeline: Chicago’s 40-year History as a Sanctuary City
• Central American Wars, 1980s
• Keeping The Faith: The Woman Who Started The Sanctuary Movement
• Chicago Cold War: Adriana Portillo-Bartow
• Adriana Portillo-Bartow: “Para nosotros está prohibido olvidar” (in Spanish)

This year, the Jewish festival of Sukkot began at sundown on Sunday, October 9, and ends in the evening of Sunday, October 16. CHM curator of religion and community history Rebekah Coffman explains the meaning and significance of the holiday and talks about an artifact in our collection that is inspired by it.

While Sukkot is a weeklong harvest celebration, it is also a time for remembering when Jews lived in temporary dwellings in the wilderness after escaping slavery in Egypt. In preparation, small outdoor huts (Hebrew: singular, sukkah; plural, sukkot) are built after the conclusion of Yom Kippur.

A Sukkot celebration at the Jewish Old People’s Home, Chicago, 1932. DN-0102038, Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago Daily News collection, CHM

The sukkah acts as a place of gathering, eating, celebrating, and communal remembering, as seen in this image of community elders gathering in a sukkah in 1932. As a temporary structure, it can also be a reminder of life’s fragility, and the sukkah’s thatched roof allows for reflection under the open sky. Another important element is the four species, which includes a bundle made of palm branch (lulav), willow (aravot), myrtle (hadassim), and a citrus fruit (etrog), sometimes called collectively the lulav. Imbued with symbolic meaning, the lulav is ritually waved while blessings are said inside the sukkah to set apart the time spent gathered within.

Berit Engen. Lulav in a sukkah tapestry. 2012. Linen. CHM Purchase, 2015.54.3.1.

These ritualistic elements are beautifully presented in Berit Engen’s weaving, Lulav in a sukkah (2012). Born in Norway, Engen immigrated to the US in 1985 and now resides in Oak Park, Illinois. Her work takes inspiration from her childhood experiences weaving and uses them to create concise tapestries as a form of personal reflection and expression. Created as part of her project Weft and D’rash: A Thousand Jewish Tapestries, the multiwork series combines craft with scriptural commentary by using abstracted colors, shapes, objects, and seasonal elements. She began the series in 2007 and has created 620 small tapestries to date, all measuring around 9”x7.” Engen compares the process to forming a haiku, in which the subject at hand is distilled to an essence of representation.

Lulav in a sukkah comes from the subseries “Holy Days II—What They Look Like,” which specifically explores celebrations throughout the Jewish ritual year. In describing the meaning behind these Holy Days, Engen writes, “While structured in commandments and traditions for celebration and observance that make us feel rooted, they stimulate and inspire our Jewish sensibilities with food, words, melodies, and ritual objects. Time is set aside for something larger than our individual selves in community with others.” In the tapestry, the yellow of the etrog, green of the lulav bundle, and orange-pink of the sukkah’s thatching are striking against a deep purple background, reminiscent of a dark night’s sky, and allude to this season of harvest and communal celebration.

Additional Resources

• See more of Engen’s work
• Learn more about Chicago’s Jewish community in our Encyclopedia of Chicago entry

In our latest blog post, CHM director of research and access Ellen Keith gives an update on what’s new at the Abakanowicz Research Center.

Here at CHM, we distinguish between museum collections and research collections. In shorthand, museum collections are three-dimensional artifacts. They may be on exhibit or carefully stored. Research collections are two-dimensional and include published material, photographs, maps, architectural drawings, and archives and manuscripts. One of the wonderful things about research collections is that they can be used by the public.

Where does this happen? The Museum’s Research and Access Department serves these collections through the Abakanowicz Research Center (ARC) on the third floor of the Museum. It’s free and open to the public and no special credentials are required to visit, just an interest in Chicago history.

If you’re already a fan of the ARC, you may know that we’ve made some changes since March 2020. We’re currently requiring appointments for weekdays. Researchers make appointments online and dates are available a month at a time. During the height of the pandemic, we suspended Saturday hours, but last fall, we reopened on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We’re open Saturdays after Labor Day through Memorial Day weekend, and as that’s the day with the longest hours, we have no capacity limits and no appointments required. Come and see us on a Saturday!

Architectural drawing of the Schiller Theater Building/Garrick Theater by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler of Adler & Sullivan for the German Opera Company, Chicago, c. 1920. CHM, ICHi-178195

We have an impressive number of published materials, photographs, architectural drawings, and archives and manuscripts. The best place to start a search for these is ARCHIE, our online catalog. The majority of these resources have to be accessed in-person, but, where possible, we’ve provided links to digital versions.

Two examples from our menu collection. Left: The Thanksgiving dinner menu from Clifton House, November 25, 1858. Right: A Sunday menu from Foster House, February 24, 1856.

One staff project during the pandemic closures of March to July 2020 and November 2020 to March 2021 was searching HathiTrust and the Internet Archive for freely available full-text of material in our holdings. And bonus, sometimes what’s online extends beyond our holdings. For example, our print holdings for the Chicago Department of Health report are 1879–93, but the HathiTrust link in our catalog record has 1867–1940!

A reproduction of an announcement made by a Chicago theater warning against symptoms of influenza published in A report on an epidemic of influenza in the city of Chicago in the fall of 1918 by John Dill Robertson, MD, Commissioner of Health, published by the Department of Health in Chicago, 1918. CHM, ICHi-176190

And (drumroll please), after a much-needed renovation of our collections storage facility, our more than 20,000 linear feet of archives and manuscripts are available again! The collections include records of organizations, like the African American Police League records, and papers of individuals like the Thyra Edwards papers.

Journalist Thyra Edwards wrote for several Black newspapers, including the Chicago Defender. In 1938, Edwards (in vehicle) organized an ambulance tour of the US to raise funds for Spanish democracy during the Spanish Civil War.

We may be biased but this is an amazing collection of archival material, spanning from the French America collection of manuscripts, 1635–1817 to the 21st century with the Center on Halsted records, 1999–2007.

Questions? Contact us at research@chicagohistory.org and be prepared for our response to white gloves inquires.

Forty years ago today, a series of grim deaths in the Chicago metropolitan area gripped the nation, changing how American consumers buy over-the-counter medicine and the way public health officials respond to crisis situations.

The Chicago Tylenol murders, as they’ve come to be known, began in the morning hours of September 28, 1982, with a 12-year-old Elk Grove Village resident named Mary Kellerman, who was given a Tylenol tablet by her parents in response to complaints of a sore throat. No one could have imagined that within a few hours, Mary would be dead, due to the medication being tainted with a lethal substance. Later that same day, Adam Janus, a postal worker in Arlington Heights, died after taking similarly doctored Tylenol. In a grim twist of fate, his brother and sister-in-law would die after ingesting the same tainted medication they found in Adam’s home. They were there to support and share company with family members after hearing about Adam’s passing. Following these deaths, three more casualties (a total of seven) linked to tainted medicine were reported, two in the suburbs and one in Chicago.

Investigators at the Attorney General North West Criminal Investigation Center at River Road and Rand Road, Des Plaines, Illinois. December 2, 1982. ST-20001914-0009, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM; photograph by Gene Pesek 

The mysterious deaths immediately raised red flags for local officials and health care providers who responded to help with the investigation, given the peculiar nature of the casualties and the alarming rate at which they were spreading. It became apparent that as much as this was a broad-ranging murder investigation, it would also be a public health crisis. It was quickly established that the link among all the victims was consumption of Tylenol tablets shortly before death, and authorities sent off medication bottles found in homes of the deceased for testing. When the test results came back, it was found that the acetaminophen pills in these containers had been swapped with tablets containing lethal doses of potassium cyanide.

Investigators at the Attorney General North West Criminal Investigation Center at River Road and Rand Road, Des Plaines, Illinois. December 2, 1982. ST-20001914-0009, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM; photograph by Gene Pesek 

Within 48 hours, Mayor Jane Byrne, with the cooperation of local law enforcement, health officials, and universities, had all Tylenol products pulled from local grocers and pharmacies and shipped off to various laboratories in the area for integrity testing. Area residents were instructed to dispose of any Tylenol products they had at home, and the drug manufacturer issued a nationwide recall. This mass panic caused a considerable amount of chaos in the area and across the nation, with many towns going as far as canceling Halloween trick-or-treating for fears of candy tainted in the same way as the medication falling into the hands of children.

To this day, the perpetrator of the murders has not been identified or apprehended by authorities. A man from New York, James Lewis, claimed responsibility for the events and demanded $1 million dollars from Tylenol’s parent company in exchange for stopping the killings. However, it was quickly established that he could not have been the person responsible, and he served 13 years in prison for extortion.

Beyond being a grim part of the city’s history, this incident had a profound impact on the US drug industry. In 1983, Congress passed the “Tylenol Bill,” which made it a felony to tamper with consumer products. In 1989, the FDA updated their policies to make medications more tamperproof, requiring tamper-evident seals on all over-the-counter medications and the eventual transition in manufacturing to more modern “caplets” that are harder to tamper with than older medications.

September 24, 1969, marked the beginning of one of the most infamous trials in U.S. history for eight (later seven) activists linked to the protests that took place in response to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago at the International Amphitheatre on August 26‒29.

Eight defendants, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale, were charged by the federal government with several accusations that included conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite riots.

Profile view of all the Chicago Seven Trial defendants, 1969‒70. CHM, ICHi-051727; Franklin McMahon, artist

In the summer of 1968, more than 10,000 people came to Chicago ready to protest the wildly unpopular Vietnam War, which had been raging for over a decade. The protest was originally planned to be a nonviolent gathering at Lincoln Park. But it expanded over multiple days to street protests and demonstrations in Grant Park, which quickly turned chaotic when protestors were met by leagues of uniformed CPD and National Guard officers, armed with antiriot equipment and tasked to maintain order. The chaos culminated on August 28, which came to be known as the “Battle of Michigan Avenue.”

View of protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, marching down Michigan Avenue, 1968. CHM, ICHi-093520; Stephen Deutch, photographer

An extensive government investigation followed the unrest, and ultimately, a year later, charges against the “Conspiracy 8” would be filed, as the federal government sought to make an example of these protestors and to test the federal antiriot law passed in 1968, which made it illegal to cross state lines to incite a riot. The eight men charged were not chosen at random. Each one had a history of organizing against the war in one way or another, with the most prominent defendant being Bobby Seale, a cofounder of the Black Panther Party. During the trial, Judge Julius Hoffman ordered him to be restrained, bound, and gagged to his chair after he requested to represent himself. Not long after, Seale was removed from the case, and had a separate trial, turning the “Conspiracy 8” into the “Chicago 7.”

Bobby Seale telling Judge Julius Hoffman how it felt to be bound and gagged at Chicago Eight Trial, November 3, 1969. CHM, ICHi-051750; Franklin McMahon, artist

The jury for the Chicago 7 was composed of two white men and ten women, two of whom were Black, and the rest white. The demeanor of the defendants, especially that of Abby Hoffman was anything but formal, with vibrant attire, including leisure wear, and colorful language peppered throughout the trial, which was recorded by reporters and courtroom sketchers, as cameras were not allowed inside.

Abbie Hoffman reading a magazine at the Chicago Seven Trial, 1969‒70. CHM, ICHi-051213; Franklin McMahon, artist

Beyond being a legal case, the trial of the Chicago 7 was a cultural moment in the 1960s, where generational ideals were clashing in the public eye. The seven defendants represented a generation of activists, who were suspicious and unsupportive of a foreign war, and a judge and legal system that embodied what younger Americans perceived to be a status quo that had gone unchallenged and unchecked for far too long.

Arlo Guthrie telling story of Alice’s Restaurant to Judge Julius Hoffman at Chicago Seven Trial, 1969‒70. CHM, ICHi-051733; Franklin McMahon, artist

Ultimately, all seven defendants were acquitted of conspiracy charges, but five of the seven were charged with crossing state lines to incite riots and were convicted with five-year prison sentences and hefty fines. (Seale had also received a four-year sentence in his own trial.) A couple years later, all the convictions would be tossed by an appellate court, recognizing Judge Hoffman’s disdain for the defendants. The story of the Chicago 7 was serialized by Netflix in 2020 and continues to be one of the most important courtroom sagas in Chicago and U.S. history.

In addition to having the trial papers and notes from Judge Hoffman in our collection, in 2007, CHM acquired 483 courtroom sketches from the trial by famed news artist Franklin McMahon.

Further Resources

• See more of Franklin McMahon’s courtroom sketches
• See more images of the 1968 Democratic National Convention
• Studs Terkel’s 1968 Interview with Hoffman, Seale, and Dellinger
• I WAS THERE: The 1968 Democratic National Convention Oral History Project
• Chicago ØØ: The 1968 DNC Protests, a virtual reality experience
• Chicago: Law and Disorder Google Arts & Culture Story
• “The Park is Ours” by Brian Mullgardt in Chicago History
• The Trial of The Chicago 7: The Official Transcript