Latest Posts
Photographs are one important way historians learn about the past. They tell stories about the time and place they were taken and the people and landscape that were captured. Looking at photographs can show us the things people did for fun, how a place used to look, how people dressed during a particular time period, and even the pets they loved. In today’s challenge, you’ll explore your own photographs of family and friends.
What stories do your photographs tell? Take a close look at one photograph and talk about its details. Have fun pretending to be statues and restaging the image. Then take a new picture to share with family and friends. Share your old and new photographs on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.
While we often think of famous people when we think of historymakers, you and your family also have important stories to share! Historians study the history of ordinary people to understand how our city and nation have changed over time. The traditions you practice, the places you live, the work your family members do, and the languages you speak all contribute to the rich diversity of life today and are part of the history each of us make every day. This week, our activities take a personal look at you and your family.
Your home is full of family history! In this scavenger hunt challenge, find objects around the house that spell out your first or last name. Arrange the selected items into a display and share your exhibition on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.
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 the South to Chicago, and other northern and west coast cities, starting in the 1910s in well into the 1970s. This became known as the Great Migration. Although Mexican immigrants were making Chicago their home since the early 1900s, a large number of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants made their way to Chicago in the mid-1900s, and continue to arrive and thrive in the city.
All of these immigrants and migrants had to make the tough decision to pack up their trunks, leave their homes, and set out for a new life. With them, they most likely brought personal, cultural, and other important items to remember and honor their previous homes, anchor their new lives with familiar items, and helped to tell their story.
What items do you have, that you would put in your trunk that would help tell your story?
Find directions & start the activity here!
Flags tell stories! The Chicago flag is full of symbolic meaning: the stars represent important events in the city’s history, the blues stripes stand for waterways, and the white stripes for where people live. Flags aren’t just for cities or countries. Some schools, such as universities and their sports teams, also have flags. In the past, families had flags with symbols on them to stand for things that were special to that family.
What’s special about your family? Do you have a family saying? What activities do you like to do? What are your traditions? In this activity, ask your kids to design and make a family flag. Share your flag on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.
In its heyday, Chicago’s Essanay Studios was one of the industry’s most prominent producers of silent films.
Founded in 1907 by George Spoor and Gilbert Anderson, Essanay (“S” and A”) was based in Uptown and known for its comedies and westerns. Its stars included Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson, and cofounder Anderson also played a part in his company’s success—he starred as “Bronco Billy” in short westerns and produced one a week for 376 straight weeks.
Film set for a silent western featuring Gilbert M. Anderson as “Broncho Billy” at Essanay Studios in Chicago, c. 1910. CHM, ICHi-016886
While Chaplin was at Essanay from only 1915 to 1916, he was undoubtedly its biggest star. Best known for his iconic role as the bumbling, childlike Tramp, he was also in several shorts, such as The Champion, The Bank, Shanghaied, and His New Job, which put Essanay on the industry map. However, warmer weather and higher pay beckoned Chaplin to the Mutual Film Company in Hollywood, and his departure expedited the decline of Essanay, which is now remembered by only the most serious movie buffs. Learn more about Chicago’s film history.
Digital Chicago
Developed in partnership with Lake Forest College, Digital Chicago is a collection of digital projects about forgotten or at-risk aspects of Chicago’s history and culture. Musicologist Don Meyer sought to explore the musical practices of silent films during the Progressive Era, so he recreated the music of Essanay’s film Max Wants a Divorce (1916) as it might have been heard in theaters at the time. Listen now.
The Chicago flag is well-known for its design with the iconic four red stars, which represent Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire, the 1893 world’s fair, and the 1933 world’s fair. Since many things have happened in Chicago since 1933, some people have championed the idea to add a fifth star to the flag.
In this activity, kids get to decide what they think a fifth star on the Chicago flag would represent. Ask them to write or draw an explanation for their choice. Share about your fifth star on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.
In this blog post, CHM curatorial intern Brigid Kennedy recounts the life of Margaret Haley as part of a series in which we share the stories of local women who made history in recognition of our online experience: Democracy Limited: Chicago Women and the Vote.
Born in 1861 in Joliet, Illinois, Margaret Haley was a suffragist and advocate for the rights of educators. Haley credited her interest in activism and reform to her idolization of Irish nationalist heroes (she took care to remind readers of her autobiography that Padraic Pearse, too, was a schoolteacher) and to her experiences of the US Civil War and its aftermath in her youth, writing, “No child upon the Illinois prairies in the twenty years that followed Appomattox could grow up without the consciousness that men lived in causes and for causes.”
Margaret Haley poses for a photograph in Chicago. 1927. DN-0083935, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society
At sixteen, Haley began teaching in a one-room school near Morris, Illinois; after twenty-four years of teaching, she became vice president of the Chicago Teachers Federation (CTF), a position she would remain in for the rest of her career. The CTF was open only to elementary school teachers, most of whom were women.
In 1902, the CTF formally allied itself with the Chicago Federation of Labor—affirming that teachers, too, were workers—seeking a coalition with a group of men who had the right to vote in support of progressive labor policies. Following this affiliation, Haley worked explicitly for women’s suffrage, and her organizing was crucial to Illinois’s 1913 expansion of voting rights for women.
Certificate of Affiliation between the Illinois State Federation of Labor and the CTF. 1915. Chicago Teachers’ Federation records (Chicago History Museum). Box 43
Haley became known for battling for the rights of women and grade school teachers: against University of Chicago President William Rainey Harper’s centralized administration plan that would remove agency from individual educators; for restructuring Chicago’s property taxes so the richest corporations’ taxes would help support public schools; and against the school board’s Loeb Rule, which instituted year-long contracts for teachers and forbade them from affiliating themselves with any labor unions or organizations led by nonactive teachers—like the CTF.
After a victory in a state tenure law that mitigated the effects of the Loeb Rule, the CTF’s luck began to run out, and the organization took hit after hit in the following years. The Great Depression had huge consequences for the city’s public schools. The Board of Education cut arts, home economics, and physical education programs and laid off half of kindergarten teachers, half of principals, and nearly all junior high teachers. In 1937, the CTF dissolved and became part of the newer Chicago Teachers Union.
Haley, in the plumed hat, in a women’s suffrage parade, c. 1911. CHM, ICHi-010601
Haley’s autobiography is as much a history of Illinois education policy as it is her own recollections. She believed many problems with the education system remained unresolved and used her autobiography to try to win readers over to her cause. “It is only in the hope that my experiences may be a field map that I have marked them down,” she wrote.
Unable to find a publisher, Haley’s autobiography went unpublished until after her death in 1939. In her last years, Haley was disappointed in the state of the issues to which she’d devoted her life—but her work led the way for national movements for the rights of both women and teachers that continue to this day. Chicago is a city in which people have, timeand time again, fought for better conditions for students and teachers—perhaps this is, in part, Haley’s legacy.
Margaret Haley (center) stands in a group, February 13, 1932. ICHi-085352
For Educators:
Student Reading and Response Guide
Vocabulary
- Suffragist: a person who believed that suffrage (the right to vote) should be extended to women
- Irish Nationalist: a person who believed that the Irish people are a nation and that there should be an independent Irish nation
- Appomattox: On April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, effectively bringing the Civil War to an end.
- Coalition: an alliance of various organizations for combined action
Text Questions
- What are three of Haley’s accomplishments?
- Why would Haley believe that suffrage was essential for improving the rights of educators?
- What do you think Haley’s legacy is?
Journal Prompt
- Who is a leader you admire? Why did you choose this person?
Chicago has played a starring role in many movies, plays, books, poems, and songs. Inspiring writers for many years, our city is the backbone of their creativity. Their works help us understand different places and times in the city’s history.
Continuing our exploration of the white stripes on the Chicago flag, which represent the North, South and West Sides of the city, kids will get to write a poem about the city or their own neighborhood or town. Share your poem on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.
Chicago is known as a city of neighborhoods. It has 77 official community areas and each one is home to multiple neighborhoods. Across the city, these neighborhoods have unique qualities that make them special places to live and work. Today’s activity continues our exploration of the white stripes on Chicago’s flag, which stand for the North, South, and West Sides of the city, with a focus on where you live!
What makes your neighborhood or town memorable? Using activity cards provided in our worksheet, kids can personalize them with the places and things that make their own neighborhood or town special. They can use the cards to create a visual storyboard or tell a story about where they live. Share your stories on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.
The white stripes on the Chicago flag stand for the places we live: the North, South, and West Sides of the city. Chicago is world-famous for its skyscrapers, beautiful parks, public art, and sports venues, but the city’s neighborhoods are also home to some distinctive architecture and special places that keep community bonds strong. Today’s activity explores wonderful landmarks found throughout the city.
What are your favorite Chicago landmarks? Discover more about some famous and not-so-famous places throughout the city as you play a fun guessing game about landmarks. Share your riddles on social media using the hashtag #CHMatHomeFamilies.