Masks required in Research Center; optional for rest of Museum MORE

Close
Search
buy tickets

Latest Posts

On the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, CHM director of curatorial affairs Joy L. Bivins reflects on his assassination.

On this date fifty years ago, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Today, around our city and throughout the nation, ceremonies of solemn remembrance will take place as we pause to reflect on the life and legacy of Dr. King, as well as what we all lost that day in 1968.

Only thirty-nine years old when he was murdered, King’s youth is often obscured by the international reputation he earned during his relatively short career. In 1955, at twenty-six and as a new father, he was asked to be a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott—a catalyzing event in the modern civil rights movement. In the next dozen years, he became the movement’s most visible leader, advocating tirelessly for the end of the nation’s violently oppressive racial caste system. His activism, rooted in an ethic of love and nonviolent action, stands in painful contrast with his violent murder.


King meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, Washington, DC, 1963. Photograph by Yoichi Okamoto, ICHi-034763

King remained a committed civil rights activist but expanded his vision in the late 1960s. In 1967, he spoke out against the Vietnam War and launched the Poor People’s Campaign, a new movement aimed at economic and political redistribution for all Americans. In March and April 1968, King traveled to Memphis to support striking black sanitation workers. The night before his assassination, he powerfully addressed an overflow crowd at the Mason Temple assuring them that “We as a people will get to the promised land.” Less than twenty-four hours later, he was pronounced dead.

Disbelief, anger, and grief at King’s assassination yielded devastating reverberations in the United States as nearly one hundred cities experienced some sort of civil unrest. In Chicago, a city King frequently visited and even called home in 1966 as he attempted to shine light on northern racism, the reaction was swift and fierce. African American communities, particularly on the city’s West Side, were overwhelmed by burning and looting that lasted from Friday through Sunday. To reclaim order, thousands of members of the Illinois National Guard were called in, along with the full force of the Chicago police. By Monday morning, at least nine Chicagoans were dead, hundreds had been arrested, and more than one hundred buildings were decimated.


National Guardsman in front of buildings burned in the wake of King’s assassination, Chicago, 1968. Photograph by Declan Haun, ICHi-068946

City officials quickly memorialized King by renaming South Parkway, the boulevard running through the heart of Black Chicago from Twenty-Fifth Street to 115th Street, after the slain leader. And over the next several years, activists pushed for a national holiday in his honor. In 1983, Dr. King’s birthday was recognized as a federal holiday—one that many of us celebrate as a day of service and reflection. It is, however, as important, maybe more important, to commemorate the death of this prophetic voice for justice and equality. His words and actions continue to illuminate just how high the cost of working for freedom can be. Today, let’s not only contemplate what he accomplished during his short life, but the brilliance, the possibility that was taken from us all on that day in April.


Patrolling officers walk past a storefront memorial to Dr. King, Chicago, April 5, 1968. Photograph by Tom Kneebone, ICHi-003624

Join us in reflecting on Dr. King’s life in the exhibition Remembering Dr. King: 1929–1968, which covers on his civil rights work and focuses on his time in Chicago.

Additional Resource

CHM curatorial assistant Brittany Hutchinson reflects on her work for our newest exhibition, Remembering Dr. King: 1929–1968.


The entrance to Remembering Dr. King. Photograph by CHM staff

At the Chicago History Museum, we are honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with an exhibition, Remembering Dr. King: 1929–1968. It includes objects and images that reflect his work nationally and locally and asks visitors to think how they are carrying his legacy today.

Dr. King often spoke of the inherent connection between all people despite the circumstances that attempt to separate us. The exhibition explores connections between Dr. King’s life and the events taking place in the world around him. Along the perimeter wall of the gallery, a timeline follows Dr. King’s historic rise to prominence, the height of his leadership in the civil rights movement, and finally his untimely death at the hands of a white supremacist. It becomes clear that at the height of his popularity, the world that once influenced Dr. King begins to change as it became influenced by him.


The large images are arranged in an intricate grid. Photograph by CHM staff

Suspended in the center of the gallery are images related to Dr. King’s activism in Chicago. Along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), he left the South in 1965 and announced the Chicago Campaign, establishing the Chicago Freedom Movement in order to continue the fight against racism. Determined to challenge Chicago’s closed-housing market, Dr. King moved his family to the North Lawndale neighborhood to draw attention to the conditions that Chicago’s black citizens faced. Along with local activists, he participated in open-housing marches in white neighborhoods around the city. In every instance, activists were met with anger and violence. At one march,  Dr. King was struck with a rock thrown by a counterprotester in the Marquette Park neighborhood.


A protester holds a sign during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington, DC, August 28, 1963. Photograph by Declan Haun, ICHi-036879

The end of the Chicago Campaign in late summer 1966 signaled a shift in Dr. King’s focus as well the public’s opinion of him. In spring 1967, he delivered an antiwar sermon, “Beyond Vietnam,” at Riverside Church in New York City. That same year, he announced the Poor People’s Campaign, a plan to unite the nation toward economic equality and justice. Activists from multiple racial backgrounds pledged to join Dr. King in the fight to uplift the American working class through securing fair wages, full employment, and economic empowerment. The combination of an antiwar and anticapitalist platform hurt Dr. King’s already waning popularity.


Following news of Dr. King’s assassination, massive riots broke out in Chicago and several other US cities, April 1968. Photograph by Declan Haun, ICHi-062889

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Response to his murder was swift and violent, and Chicago was especially impacted. The day after Dr. King’s assassination, uprisings erupted across the city. The National Guard was called in to patrol the city until order was restored on the following Monday.


Mourners gather at the funeral for Dr. King in Atlanta,  April 9, 1968. Photograph by Declan Haun, ICHi-062906

Dr. King’s influence on American society continued on after his death. One week after his assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Federal Fair Housing act of 1968 into law. In November 1983, Ronald Regan signed the King Holiday Bill establishing that, beginning in 1986, every third Monday of January should be observed as a national holiday. Dr. King’s legacy lives on as each year we celebrate his life by asking ourselves how we can help to continue his fight against inequality and toward freedom.

Additional Resources

For Women’s History Month, head into storage with CHM collection technician Jessica McPheters for a closer look at two artifacts that document twentieth-century political strife and women’s suffrage in Chicago.

In the summer of 2016, the collections team began working on an inventory of the Decorative and Industrial Arts (DIA) collection at the Chicago History Museum. The process requires the team to pull artifacts from their storage areas so that we can record a number of details, such as the accession number (a numeric code that artifacts are assigned when cataloged into the collection), artifact location, measurements, photographs, and notes about the artifact’s physical description and condition. Collections inventory is necessary to update museum records and make them more accurate. It is also rewarding for the staff and interns to learn the history behind each artifact, as it enriches our daily work.

After 150 years of collecting, and with approximately 100,000 artifacts in the DIA collection, the discovery of treasures is often a daily occurrence. We found a few that tell the story of how women fought for the right to vote—a ballot box and ballot gauging Chicagoans’ support of women’s suffrage.


Judge Catherine Waugh McCulloch when she was justice of the peace of Evanston, Illinois, c. 1910. Photograph by the National Woman Suffrage Press Bureau. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, accessed March 6, 2018.

Catherine Waugh McCulloch was a respected lawyer and the first female justice of the peace in Illinois, serving in Evanston from 1907 to 1913. She was also a prominent suffragist who cofounded the Chicago Political Equality League in 1894, chaired the Legislative Committee of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA) from 1890 to 1912, and led a whistle-stop train tour through the state in 1893 to rally support for a “statutory suffrage” bill she drafted that would allow Illinois women to vote in presidential elections.


Catherine Waugh McCulloch (below x) embraces a fellow suffragette upon her return to Chicago from a trip to Springfield, Illinois, to campaign for the right of women to vote, June 14, 1913. Photograph by the Chicago Daily News, DN-0060623

By 1912, the suffrage movement in the Chicago area was gaining momentum and attracting the attention of many residents. McCulloch lobbied for a preferential ballot that broached the topic of women’s suffrage. Judge John E. Owens approved the ballot in March for the April 1912 primaries. This vote was similar to an opinion poll and, while it initiated conversation on the topic around the city, it was not highly favored in any of the city’s wards.

Ballot box regarding women's suffrage. ICHi-032106
A wooden ballot box from Chicago’s 18th Ward for the 1912 preferential election. ICHi-032106


This paper ballot was found while inventorying the ballot box. Photograph by CHM staff

Overall, there were approximately 135,000 residents who voted against and around 71,000 residents who voted in favor of granting women the right to vote. Suffragists got to work organizing throughout the state, speaking to legislators about the movement. Illinois women enjoyed a victory on June 26, 1913, when Governor Edward Dunne signed into law the bill granting them the right to vote for presidential electors, mayor, aldermen, and most other local offices. There was still work to be done, however, because they could not vote for governor, state representatives, or members of Congress.


Mrs. George Taylor and Catherine Waugh McCulloch (front right) lead the Democratic women’s parade down LaSalle Street, Chicago, October 5, 1916. Photograph by the Chicago Daily News, DN-0067219

On June 10, 1919, Illinois became one of the first states to ratify the 19th Amendment. There were still limitations and restrictions placed against women voters until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was adopted by Congress and full suffrage was granted to women around the country.

Additional Resources

As part of Monday Night Nitrates, our weekly photograph series, the Chicago History Museum collections staff is blogging about the process of digitizing approximately 35,000 nitrate negatives, a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In this post, CHM paper conservator Carol Turchan writes about how the negatives were prepared for digitization and freezer storage. 

The 2013 conservation condition survey was an important preliminary step toward digitizing and preserving our nitrate film collection, but did not prepare staff for issues discovered once the project began. As the conservator, my task was to prepare the boxes of film for permanent freezer storage. It would not be necessary to replace the negatives’ enclosures—envelopes and boxes—because degraded storage materials would not affect the film in its frozen state.

The collection was previously in cold storage in a rooftop vault, but had been out for a number of years because of work on the roof. The years in temporary storage added to the influence of degraded, crowded packaging, and may have led to further degradation of the unstable material.

Several individual collections required some level of conservation intervention. Negatives of the World’s Columbian Exposition were brittle and tightly curled because they lacked an anticurl layer. Humidification was required to relax the film for scanning. Two conservators assisted the photographer in moving negatives one at a time from tray to copy stand before the film dried and reverted to its curled state.


We gradually relaxed tightly curled negatives from one collection by humidifying them for three hours. Each negative was then quickly slipped under glass to be scanned before it curled again. All images by CHM staff

Strips of 35mm film from another collection became brittle and twisted while constrained within channels of plastic sleeves. Forty-one negatives from yet another collection were curled together and had to be peeled apart one at a time. Other unexpected anomalies were powdery residues on surfaces, lifting of gelatin, image-bearing layers from unusually thick nitrate bases, and batches of thin, very brittle negatives stuck together. Despite the many interesting condition issues we confronted, it was reassuring that an image could be salvaged digitally in almost all cases.


There were some conservation issues among the collections. Here, powdery residues are brushed from surfaces of a negative.

After digitization and capture of metadata for each image, conservation began packaging 285 various-sized boxes of film for permanent preservation in seven freezers purchased under the IMLS grant. Each box of film requires two layers of protective plastic wrapping before moving to freezer storage.


Before wrapping boxes of film for freezing, voids must be filled with archival material to reduce air spaces.


Static-Shield™ film and 6ml polyethylene are two layers of plastic film required for freezer storage. All seams were carefully sealed with self-adhesive tape.

To avoid trapping moisture in boxes, wrapping began in winter 2017 when relative humidity (RH) was lower in the Paper Lab. Empty spaces in boxes were filled with archival, absorbent materials to eliminate trapped air. Boxes were labelled, a humidity indicator placed on the box next to the label, and the first wrapping of thin, Static Shield film applied. All seams were sealed with self-adhesive tape that will endure freezing temperatures. Another humidity indicator was placed near the first before the second wrapping of heavy, 6ml polyethylene was applied. The indicators will monitor RH in the box and between layers. After all seams were sealed with tape, the box was ready for the freezer.


Freezer #3 of 7 is filled. The temperature will be maintained at -20˚C (-4˚F). One freezer will remain empty to accommodate contents of a freezer when defrosting is required.

Shelf arrangement is determined before introducing wrapped boxes to freezers, and shelf numbers noted for future access. With freezers loaded and rarely opened, frost should be slow to form on shelves, but when necessary to defrost, contents will be moved to an empty freezer reserved for that purpose. The freezer number will move with its contents. Staff will periodically monitor for freezer temperature, excessive frost on shelves, and RH in packages. It’s estimated that freezing the film around –4˚ F will extend its life for 1,000 years.

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 catalog terminology needs updating, which is another step of the conversion process. Expect a future post on that.)

I pulled materials from four collections that were referenced. First was the papers of Sebastian Bauman Brennan, who was lieutenant of several black regiments during the Civil War, including the Chasseurs d’Afrique and the 84th Louisiana Colored Infantry. The collection includes his biography and several general orders Brennan wrote by hand.


An order Brennan received from Brigadier General D. Ullmann. All photographs by CHM staff

The Henry Bruce Scott papers consist of a single certificate from the Bureau of Colored Troops, Army of the James, composed of Union troops in Virginia and North Carolina during the final stage of the Civil War. Scott addressed the document to C. N. W. Cunningham, 1st Lieutenant of the 25th Army Corps.


The document informs Cunningham of his promotion from lieutenant to captain.

The Thomas H. De Motte papers include a letter from De Motte’s son, who was manager of the Chicago branch of the National Casket Company, and five contracts for beef for black regiments including the 55th US Colored Infantry, Batteries F and G, 2nd Regiment US Colored Light Artillery, 7th Regiment US Colored Heavy Artillery, and 61st US Colored Infantry. De Motte himself was 2nd Lieutenant, 59th US Colored Infantry.

Two examples of beef contracts between the US Army and John Aiken.

Lastly in our small manuscript search is an unpublished manuscript from John F. Kendrick, filed under “United States History. War of 1898.” His manuscript for Midsummer Picnic of ‘98 states that “This is the kind of doughboy memoir that arouses sympathetic reactions in many veterans of foreign service.” Kendrick discusses the black men with whom he served at length, in largely complimentary if simplistic terms. The whole work is filled with “spicy incidents that show that boys will be boys even in war.” It is a work begging to be published and annotated by a Spanish-American War historian, but is not a work full of African American voices.


Kendrick’s manuscript recalls an incident in which a black sergeant stands up to a bully. He remarks, “If a man was a man, why, he was a man, and that’s all there was to it.”

This was an unexpected trend throughout all these collections—even though all are about African Americans, none were actually by African Americans. There are a few reasons for this: African Americans are not always writing explicitly about being African American, so it wouldn’t necessarily get tagged in a subject; most of these documents are from commanding officers, and African Americans were often excluded from those positions; early collections acquired by the Museum (c. 1920 or earlier) make up the bulk of these small manuscripts and those collectors were not focused on African Americans or other voices of color.

Does this mean there is no representation of Black voices by Black voices in the small manuscripts collections? Of course not, but it does mean that more research is needed. There is an imbalance in the voices that were historically collected, but our current collection policies aim to emphasize those voices both in new acquisitions and emphasizing marginalized voices when we find them in the archives. And do not be dismayed—just because this initial search for black military service turned up less than I had hoped in the small manuscripts, materials might still be waiting there to be discovered by researchers like you.

We also have many collections with strong African American voices in other areas of the Museum, including our larger manuscript collections, prints and photographs, and published materials. Collections like the Claude Barnett papers and visual materials, Irene McCoy Gaines papers, Paul King papers, African American Police League records, Congress of Racial Equality records, and many more. I encourage you to explore our African American subject headings to see what you can find.

Additional Resource

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 and folk clubs. The thousands of images that he took are an incredible record of two outstanding and influential genres of American music: the urban blues and the folk revival. At clubs on the South and West Sides such as Theresa’s and Pepper’s, Flerlage captured legendary electric blues musicians including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Buddy Guy. In these intimate settings, audience response was an integral part of the performance, and it shows in his photographs.


James Cotton (left) and Muddy Waters (with guitar) perform in Jazz at the Opera House, Chicago, 1963. ICHi-137738

During that same period, the folk revival was taking off at festivals and Chicago venues such as The Gate of Horn and the Plugged Nickel. Among the artists to be heard were Pete Seeger, Bessie Jones, and Joan Baez, as well as rediscovered rural blues icons such as Son House. Flerlage photographed these musicians and dozens of others.


Folk singer Joan Baez performs in Chicago, c. 1962. ICHi-118329

In the late 1950s, Flerlage became interested in photography, taking courses at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Institute of Design. In 1959 he got his first professional assignment: Moe Asch of Folkways Records commissioned him to photograph one of the label’s artists, bluesman Memphis Slim. Before long Flerlage’s photographs were appearing widely on album covers, in books and magazines, eventually even on T-shirts. Flerlage also didn’t confine his photography to musicians; he documented community events such as Chicago’s annual Bud Billiken Day Parade.


A drum corps performs in the Bud Billiken Parade, Chicago, c. 1960. ICHi-112491

While Flerlage is better known for his photography, he was involved in many aspects of the music business. He began in his twenties in Ohio, selling records and writing reviews. At the end of World War II, Flerlage moved to Chicago, continuing to write and also lecture on music. Soon he was organizing concerts and producing and hosting radio programs. These varied activities didn’t pay the rent, so in 1955 he became the Midwest sales representative for a number of independent record labels, including Folkways, Prestige, and Chicago’s Delmark. And later, with fewer opportunities to make money through photography, he went into record distribution on his own, forming Kinnara Inc. in 1971.


The cover image for Junior Wells’s Blues Hit Big Town (1977) is a slightly altered photograph of him performing at Theresa’s, Chicago, October 1965. ICHi-133642

Raeburn Flerlage passed away in 2002 at the age of eighty-seven. Some 45,000 photographic images form the core of the Flerlage collection, which is now available to researchers thanks to a processing grant from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. Also available are extensive business and personal records that reveal his progress through the music business in the twentieth century. Moreover, the holdings of the Museum’s Research Center have been greatly enhanced by Flerlage’s personal collection of blues and jazz reference books as well as publications from the late 1950s through the 1960s featuring his music reviews or photographs, such as Sing Out!, DownBeat, and the rare Chicago FM Guide.

A selection of Flerlage’s photographs will be featured in an upcoming exhibition, Amplified: Chicago Blues, which opens on Saturday, April 7. The exhibition will provide the perfect opportunity to view some of his work, as well as one of the city’s greatest legacies: the electric blues.

Additional Resources

Hector Gonzalez is the gallery engagement lead for Race: Are We So Different? from November 2017 until July 2018. In this blog post, he reflects on his experience thus far.

My time in the Race: Are We So Different? exhibition brings up mixed emotions. Yes, it is a very powerful experience and has confirmed that we still have a very long way to go as a society in terms of race relations and need to continue to have in-depth conversations on race, especially with the current political climate. The creation of race as we know it has done more harm than good and its integration into the fabric of society unfortunately continues to be refashioned in many ways that are reminiscent of the eugenics movement and/or remixed into new forms of divisive race-based hate, i.e. institutional racism, microaggressions, and the alt-right.


Hector meets a school group at the entrance of Race.

In conversations with some of our visitors, it has shocked me how many still believe that a person’s race can be determined through science. Their strong belief in race-based science was even more surprising knowing that they are teaching our young ones the same beliefs. Ironically, these individuals have also commented on how “nice” this exhibition is and that “Unfortunately, the people who need to see it are not coming.” While I would agree with that statement, my challenge to them is to bring the friends and neighbors who think differently about race to have honest and loving conversations.

The Museum is now offering drop-in gallery activities for Race, and I recently had the privilege of working with an ethnically diverse group of juniors and seniors from Ogden International School of Chicago. As we talked about the US census, the students had many questions about identity politics. The majority of the group never saw themselves as just one race and was frustrated by having to choose one or the other when they were advised to do by adults. One Mexican student noted that when he checks off boxes on college applications, he chooses “Latino” as his ethnicity, but then still has to choose a “race” with which he doesn’t identify. His frustration with this experience was infuriating and many of his classmates also felt the same, having gone through similar experiences. As the group continued to talk more about these everyday encounters with racial categories, they started to piece together how race as a social construct isn’t effective in defining who they are and that the census and the categories provided are just arbitrary.


Students draw self-portraits as part of a gallery activity.

The Race exhibition has spurred many conversations, and I challenge our members, readers, and staff to invite a family member or friend who would benefit from having these courageous talks to visit the exhibition. The gallery engagement associates will welcome them with open hearts and have those important dialogues with patience and helpful activities to further understand race as a social construct.

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 archival collections prior to this project, but the McDermott papers, at about twenty-three linear feet (twenty-three boxes), is the largest collection I have encountered. Although it already had a strong existing organization scheme (what archivists call “original order”), one of the biggest challenges was trying to describe and represent everything McDermott was a part of during his life. He held such active and wide-ranging roles in so many different areas of improving race relations in Chicago that it was difficult to accurately and thoroughly capture this without making the finding aid too lengthy and thus hard to use for researchers. In addition to documenting McDermott’s career in urban affairs from 1970 to 1996, the papers also document many of the local organizations and individuals working on the same issues that are not otherwise well-represented in archival collections.


A Chicago Daily News clipping shows Albert Raby, McDermott, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Reverend Andrew Young clasping hands and singing, July 1965. All images by CHM staff

John A. McDermott was a leader in race relations and urban affairs in Chicago from 1960 into the 1990s. He moved to Chicago from Philadelphia in 1960 to serve as director of the Catholic Interracial Council of Chicago. As an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., McDermott was active in the civil rights movement in Chicago as an organizer and as part of the Chicago Freedom Movement and Dr. King’s meeting with city leaders, including Mayor Richard J. Daley. He was also one of the founders of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, a Chicago-based fair housing group, and organizer of the Chicago Conference on Religion and Race in 1963.


The memo McDermott released to the Catholic Interracial Council following Dr. King’s death.

McDermott not only continued to be an advocate for race relations in Chicago after the 1960s, but also became an advocate on other issues including education reform, poverty alleviation, public policy, Catholic-Jewish relations, and fairness and transparency in politics and campaigning. He also served as editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter from 1972–84, a monthly publication and investigation on race relations and urban affairs in the city. In 1985, he became director of urban affairs for Illinois Bell Telephone Company, where he advised on company policies and programs in public policy, philanthropy, and community relations. During this time McDermott also served as chairman of CONDUCT (Committee on Decent Unbiased Campaign Tactics), a nonpartisan group of Chicago civic leaders that became an election watchdog group, calling out racial and religious bias and hate in Chicago politics. In 1991, he retired from Illinois Bell and launched his own consulting company, John A. McDermott and Associates, in 1992, which focused on corporate public policy and programs.


A copy of the Code of Fair Campaign Practice by CONDUCT that election candidates were encouraged to sign.


A letter from Richard M. Daley discussing his support of CONDUCT and addressing a criticism reported by the group.

This collection documents not only the significant advocacy work that John McDermott achieved in his lifetime, but the challenges and progress of Chicago civil rights and other social and urban affairs in the late twentieth century and provides perspective on how these issues continue today. The John A. McDermott papers can be accessed through the Chicago History Museum’s Abakanowicz Research Center.

As part of Monday Night Nitrates, our new weekly photograph series, the Chicago History Museum collections staff is blogging about the process of digitizing approximately 35,000 nitrate negatives. In this post, former CHM photographer Joseph Aaron Campbell writes about the painstaking task of converting analog negatives to digital images.

The task of digitizing this nitrate collection came with a unique set of challenges. To start, the time limit of the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant that funded this project allowed for nine months of photography, and the negatives came in a multitude of formats, shapes, sizes, and conditions. Thus, to work efficiently as possible, we used a common photography method known as “rapid capture,” which prioritizes efficiency and speed over other photographic concerns.

The most important pieces of any rapid capture system are the camera system, light source, and software, as those components will ensure that specific imaging standards will be met. Pictured below is the full setup with (1) a laptop running Capture One Pro 9 software, which is tethered to (2) a high-resolution DSLR camera via USB cable. The camera is mounted on a motorized camera stand looking down at the (3) calibrated LED light box. Additionally, behind the camera is a large fume hood that removed any noxious fumes released by decaying nitrate negatives.


The rapid capture system setup in CHM’s Photography Lab. An improvised reel mount can be seen in the lower right corner. All images by CHM staff

To begin, I would first place a negative between two pieces of anti-Newton ring glass, which kept curled negatives flat and prevented Newton rings from forming in the digital image. Next, I positioned it on the LED lightbox, raised or lowered the camera using the motorized camera stand to match the negative size, focused the camera, and produced a digital image using the laptop. For each image, the software would generate an appropriate image ID that would match rights and reproductions data if done properly. Repeat this process 35,000 times and you will have completed digitization!

One major hurdle was when negatives were extremely curled or brittle, such as some 35mm rolled negatives that were uncut and had been tightly wound for years. There was no existing handling or mount solution, so I used K’NEX to build custom reel mounts to hold the negatives rolls during photography. This was approved by conservation staff and worked incredibly well.


A mount made of K’NEX holds a spool of film.

Once a batch of negatives was digitized, each digital image would be prepared to be archived but also used as a source for a production-ready derivative used for web and print. Examples of what archived images (left) and production copies (right) look like is below:



Top: A horse-drawn wagon for Standard Brewery, c. 1900, ICHi-72592, Chicago neighborhoods glass negative collection. Bottom: Ernie King, December 1932, ICHi-151106, Raymond W. Trowbridge negatives collection.

Another challenge was that there just wasn’t enough time to produce photography and edit each individual image. I turned to my limited coding background and created an automated tonal adjustment script. This part of the workflow is what makes this rapid capture system unique.

As the code runs, it reads a source image to analyze that image’s unique histogram and various attributes, then uses the additional logic I created to apply adjustments specific to that image before outputting a final production copy and moving on to the next image.

The simultaneous coordination of myself and this code allowed me to photograph a new image batch while finalizing the previous one. Without this, I would not have completed the photography for this project.

Once my role was complete, the digital images would be archived to a server and the physical negatives would be returned to rights and reproductions.

Additional Resources

 

Within the first twenty years of the Chicago History Museum’s establishment in 1856 (then the Chicago Historical Society), the building burned down twice. Since then, it has relocated, expanded, and experienced other minor emergencies, as can happen with any building over time. As an institution that actively collects and preserves Chicago history, however, it’s in our best interest to plan for potential disasters—both small and large—and be able to respond in a manner that does our best to ensure that our cultural heritage can be shared with future generations. Disasters can happen at any moment and affect museums all over the world. We see this happening today with greater frequency and impact as communities continually brace themselves for hurricanes, earthquakes, and other calamities, whether natural or man-made.


All twenty-five HEART program participants (in yellow vests) and instructors. Photograph by Michael R. Barnes, Smithsonian Institution

While CHM collections staff have participated in emergency training in the past, I have been eager for a more intensive program to put my existing knowledge to practice. Recently, I was selected as one of twenty-five museum collections care and emergency management professionals from across the nation to participate in the inaugural Heritage Emergency and Response Training (HEART) program. The training was hosted by the Smithsonian Institution and developed by the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF), a partnership of federal agencies and service organizations co-chaired by the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative and FEMA. After completing a pretraining webinar, the twenty-five of us representing twenty-one states and the territory of Puerto Rico met in Washington, DC, for a full week of museum emergency preparedness and response training.


Britta (right) and another attendee practice the proper way to pack and evacuate artifacts. Photograph by a HEART program participant

Each day was filled with a combination of presentations and hands-on workshops that addressed damage assessment, emergency evacuation and salvage of museum objects, crisis communication, leadership, and team building. We put our new knowledge to the test by role-playing a realistic scenario that involved the emergency assessment and evacuation of artifacts from the fictional museum “Smithsonia.” We were divided into teams of five and assigned specific tasks in order to safely complete the drill. I found myself responsible for setting up a temporary storage facility to process the evacuated artifacts and was then reassigned to assist with the physical packing and evacuating of artifacts. One takeaway from this drill was that while having an institutional emergency plan is essential, acting out the physical motions for that plan is the most practical way to learn how prepared an institution is for an actual emergency situation.


Britta (left) heads into “Smithsonia” to assess the damage. Photograph by a HEART program participant

By the time I returned to Chicago, I was inspired by everything I had learned and motivated to implement the training I received to improve our existing emergency plan. I also intend to reach out to other local cultural institutions to expand our response network. While we can’t always predict impending disasters, the Chicago History Museum staff is doing all we can to be prepared and to preserve the city’s heritage for the next generation.

Translate »