Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

's history. The museum has been located in

Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US president Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, to near Ardmore Avenu ...

since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street at the intersection of North Avenue in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood, where the museum has been expanded several times. Long known as the CHS, the society adopted the name, ''Chicago History Museum'', in September 2006 for its public presence.

History

Much of the Chicago Historical Society's first collection was destroyed in the

Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago, Illinois during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left mor ...

in 1871, but the museum rose from the ashes like the city. Among its many documents which were lost in the fire was

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

's final draft of the

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...

. (This draft had been donated by Lincoln to nurse

Mary Livermore Mary Ashton Livermore ( Rice; December 19, 1820May 23, 1905) was an American journalist, abolitionist, and advocate of women's rights. Her printed volumes included: ''Thirty Years Too Late,'' first published in 1847 as a prize temperance tale, ...

for her to auction to raise funds to build Chicago's Civil War Soldiers' Home) After the fire, the Society began collecting new materials, which were stored in a building owned by J. Young Scammon, a prominent lawyer and member of the society. However, the building and the new collection were again destroyed by fire in 1874. The Chicago Historical Society built a fireproof building on its pre-1871 building-site at 632 North Dearborn Street. The replacement building opened in 1896 and housed the society for thirty-six years. The building was later added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Old Chicago Historical Society Building. Charles F. Gunther, was a prominent Chicago collector, after Gunther's death at his home in Chicago on February 10, 1920, the Chicago Historical Society paid $150,000 for the bulk of Gunther's collection. Shortly afterwards, the society began building a $1 million museum to display its expanded collection. The building opened in 1932 at Clark Street and North Avenue, and is currently known as the Chicago History Museum. In 1920, the society purchased the remainder of the large historical collection from his estate, with the intention of changing its focus from merely a research institution to a public museum. Many of the items in Gunther's collection, in addition to being related to Chicago, were related to Abraham Lincoln and the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. These include Lincoln's deathbed, several other pieces of furniture from the room where he died in the

Petersen House The Petersen House is a 19th-century Federal architecture, federal style row house in the United States in Washington, D.C., located at 516 10th Street NW, several blocks east of the White House. It is known for being the house where President o ...

, and clothing that he and his wife

Mary Todd Lincoln Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (Birth name, née Todd; December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) was First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, in 1865. Mary Todd was born into a large and wealthy ...

allegedly wore the evening of his assassination. The collection also contains the table on which General

Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a general officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War, who was appointed the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate ...

signed his 1865 surrender to General

Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as Commanding General of the United States Army, commanding general, Grant led the Uni ...

, an official act that ended the

, at the McLean House in Appomattox, Virginia. In 2010, the museum was inducted into the

Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame (formerly Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame) is an institution founded in 1991 to honor persons and entities who have made significant contributions to the quality of life or well-being of the LGBT community in Ch ...

Building

After 36 years in the

Henry Ives Cobb Henry Ives Cobb (August 19, 1859 – March 27, 1931) was an architect from the United States. Based in Chicago in the last decades of the 19th century, he was known for his designs in the Richardsonian Romanesque and Gothic revival, Victori ...

structure on North Dearborn Street, the museum and library moved to the current complex in Lincoln Park. The oldest part of the museum, designed by

Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnh ...

, was built in 1932 by the WPA, with the aim of creating expanded public exhibition space. The 1932 Federal-style structure has been expanded twice. The first addition, clad in limestone, opened in 1972 and was designed by Alfred Shaw and Associates. The second addition, designed by

Holabird and Root Holabird is the name of various people and places, including: People * William S. Holabird ( – May 20, 1855), American lawyer, politician, and the 17th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut. *William Holabird (September 11, 1854 – July 19, 1923) ...

, was done in 1988 and included refacing the earlier expansion in red brick to give a unified look to all three portions of the building. Both expansions occurred on the west side of the 1932 structure, leaving intact its original porticoed entrance facing Lincoln Park. The main entrance and reception hall, however, were moved to the new western addition facing Clark street. The modernist 1988 extension, in addition to expanded exhibition galleries, also contains the museum's store and public cafe.

Activities

The museum explores both Chicago and American history. Exhibitions draw primarily on the museum's own collection, which numbers approximately 22 million holdings. ''Chicago: Crossroads of America'' is a 16,000-square-foot space that explores the city's development and its relationship to and influence on American history. Nearly 600 objects document the people and events of the past 200 years. ''Facing Freedom'' focuses on eight American conflicts over freedom from the 1850s to the 1970s. The Abraham Lincoln alcoves highlight the sixteenth president's election, his leadership during the Civil War, and his assassination. The adjoining Portrait Gallery features an installation on Chicago during the time of Lincoln. The ''Sensing Chicago'' exhibition invites children to use their senses to discover the past. The lobby displays various museum treasures. The newly restored dioramas are housed in the Tawani Foundation Diorama Hall. The Chicago dioramas feature Chicago's rise from a desolate frontier outpost to the bustling city that hosted the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The Chicago Room, which overlooks the plaza in Lincoln Park behind the museum building, displays a collection of stained glass and is available to rent for corporate events, meetings or wedding receptions. Temporary exhibitions feature objects and artifacts from the collection, covering everything from Chicago art to the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Chicagoans to the city's fashion history. On October 14, 2013, the Chicago History Museum announced a project asking the public to furnish ideas for a future exhibition and reducing the most-often-submitted ideas to one assignment through a series of public votes. According to the American Alliance of Museums, this is the first

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

project allowing the public to give an exhibition assignment to an American museum. South Side Elevated Railroad car 1

On January 19, 2006, the first

passenger car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

to operate on the

Chicago 'L' Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los ...

system in 1893 was transported to its new display location at the Chicago History Museum. Passengers could ride the 1893 'L' from the Loop to Hyde Park station for 5 cents to attend the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...

upon the line's opening. The vehicle, known as L Car #1, was cosmetically restored to its 1893 appearance before being transported to the museum where it was lifted into an opening created through a wall on the museum's second floor. The car's interior features include mahogany and rattan seats and etched glass windows. The L car joined the '' Pioneer'', the first locomotive to operate in Chicago; a redesigned exhibition space to showcase the car and locomotive opened on September 30, 2006, as part of a larger remodeling project. The museum houses Chicago's most important collection of materials related to local history. The extensive research library includes books and other published materials, manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and photos. It is open to the public, including students working on school projects. The costume collection numbers more than 50,000 pieces and dates from the 18th century to the present. It contains numerous couture pieces, items created by well-known Chicago manufacturers and designers, and garments worn by notable residents. The museum offers a variety of programs, publications, and online resources related to Chicago and American history. This includes print and online editions of its collaborative effort the ''

Encyclopedia of Chicago ''The Encyclopedia of Chicago'' is a historical reference work covering Chicago and the entire Chicago metropolitan area published by the University of Chicago Press. Released in October 2004, the work is the result of a ten-year collaboration ...

''. The museum's Chicago Fire mobile app has content equivalent to a 400-page book with more than 350 illustrations, drawn from the museum's collection. The app also offers of 10 distinct Chicago areas and 54 fire-related landmarks. The app uses GPS guidance that helps the user view photos of nearby sites from the era of the Great Chicago Fire. The museum also publishes ''Chicago History'' magazine. Written by historians and heavily illustrated, this publication focuses on Chicago's complex past and the people who have shaped it. Additionally, more than 50,000 images from its collection have been digitized as part of Explore Chicago Collections. Every year, the Chicago History Museum recognizes important Chicagoans and Chicago organizations with its Making History Awards.

Publications

Publications are at

The Online Books Page The Online Books Page is an index of e-text books available on the Internet. It is edited by John Mark Ockerbloom and is hosted by the library of the University of Pennsylvania. The Online Books Page lists over 2 million books and has several fe ...

and

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

including ''Proceedings'' and ''Chicago History'', which resulted in ''Chicago Times'' magazine.

Notes

References

External links

Chicago History Museum

50,000 digital images

Interview
at the

Pritzker Military Museum & Library The Pritzker Military Museum & Library (formerly Pritzker Military Library) is a non-profit museum and research library for the study of military history located in a state-of-the art facility in Kenosha, WI. The institution was founded in 2003, ...

with Gary Johnson, president of the Chicago History Museum.
"Writings of Theodore Dreiser", broadcast from the Chicago History Museum
from

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...

's ''

American Writers The Lists of American writers include: United States By ethnicity *List of African-American writers *List of Asian American writers, List of Asian-American writers *List of Cuban American writers, List of Cuban-American writers *List of Egypti ...

''
Chicago History Museum at Google Cultural Institute
{{Authority control 1856 establishments in Illinois Museums established in 1856 Buildings and structures completed in 1932 Museums in Chicago History museums in Illinois Historical societies in Illinois Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums History of Chicago National Register of Historic Places in Chicago