The DuSable Museum of African American History is the first and oldest museum dedicated to the study and conservation of African American history, culture, and art. The museum was founded in 1961 by educator and art historian Dr. Margaret Burroughs and works to preserve and interpret the experiences and achievements of people of African descent. The museum's permanent collection includes thousands of documents and artifacts, including many that are related to the history of Chicago. Visitors can also see works of art and tour special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum also sponsors workshops and lectures.
The largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry is home to 40,000 square feet of interactive exhibits and 35,000 artifacts. Based on 2009 attendance, the museum was the second largest cultural attraction in Chicago. One of the leading attractions at the museum, German submarine U-505 was produced for Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II and was captured by the US Navy on June 1944. Visitors can tour this U-boat, which provided the Allies with a multitude of classified information. Among its diverse and expansive exhibits, the Museum features a full-size replica coal mine; a German submarine (U-505) captured during World War II, which is the only German U-boat in the United States; a 3,500-square-foot model railroad; Pioneer Zephyr, the first diesel-powered streamlined stainless-steel passenger train; the Apollo 8 spacecraft that carried the first humans to the Moon; Science Storm; You! The Experience; Baby Chick Hatchery; The Great Train Story; Toy Maker 3000; Genetics: Decoding Life; Earth Revealed; Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle; Farm Tech; and Tech Flight. The museum also features an 800 seat auditorium, 2 small theaters, and a 5-story, domed Omnimax Theater. The Museum of Science and Industry encourages and inspires children and other visitors to learn and strive in the fields of science, technology, medicine, and engineering. The museum's Center for Science Education offers teacher education courses and youth programs, featuring learning labs and after-school science clubs.
From the mid 1960s until Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, a group of Chicago women provided women with referrals to reputable “abortionists.” Formally known as the Abortion Counselling Service of Women’s Liberation, the group is better known by their code name, “Jane,” or “the Jane Collective.” Jane began as a referral and counseling service, and volunteers eventually learned how to perform abortions themselves in order to better serve the women who called them for help. Jane was largely based in the Hyde Park neighborhood, operating out of the apartments and dorm rooms of volunteers. 5120 Hyde Park Blvd is the address of the first apartment the group rented, under an assumed name, in 1971. (A note: the language used in this Clio entry reflects that used by members of the Jane Collective. Non-binary and trans people with uteri can experience pregnancy along with cisgender women.)
This memorial commemorates revered African American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). A resident of Chicago’s South Side for nearly her entire life, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 'Annie Allen' (1949). Brooks was named poet laureate of Illinois in 1968 and became the first African American woman appointed consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985. Following her death in 2000, the Chicago Park District partnered with the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, the Poetry Foundation, and Brooks Permissions to create a memorial in honor of the esteemed Chicago poet. Dedicated in the city’s (Gwendolyn) Brooks Park in 2018, on what would have been her 101st birthday, the memorial features a bronze bust of Brooks, the first outdoor portrait sculpture of an African American woman in Chicago’s history. Designed by sculptor Margot McMahon, the bust depicts the poet during her later years. She gazes into the distance as if deep in thought, her left hand touching the side of her face while her right rests on her left elbow. In front of the bust is a small gravel plaza with sitting stones arranged in a circular pattern, giving visitors the sense that they are gathering to hear the bronze Brooks recite some of her poetry. Flat, rectangular stepping stones inscribed with verses from 'Annie Allen' create a meandering path that connects the plaza to a yellow wooden porch, a reconstruction of Brooks’s favorite childhood writing spot.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a civil rights advocate, journalist, and suffragist. She lived in this house from 1919 to 1929. Arguably, her most famous incident occurred in 1884 when Wells refused to sit in a segregated car on a train in Tennessee. She was forcibly removed and, after some time, was able to file a successful lawsuit in a lower court. However,the Tennessee Supreme Court saw fit to reverse this decision. Following her termination in 1891 after openly criticizing Memphis' Black schools, Wells turned to journalism full time. She became editor and co-owner of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and used it as a platform to advocate. She documented lynchings all across the country and raised awareness. Angered by her direct challenges to white "superiority", white Tennesseeans destroyed her press offices. Because of this she moved north and published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases. She wasnt quite able to get an anti-lynching legislation passed, but it is because of her that the larger scale Black movement was made possible. After settling in Chicago, she founded the Negro Fellowship League for Black men, the first kindergarten for Black children and the first suffrage club for Black women. She is credited with successfully integrating the U.S suffrage movement when she refused to walk with the other Black women in the back of the 1913 Washington parade. Instead of walking in the back with the others, she was able to infiltrate the ranks of her white Illinois peers once the march had began.
The Chinese American Museum of Chicago was the first museum to be located in Chicago’s Chinatown. The museum showcases Chinese American culture and history, with a particular focus on the communities of the Midwestern US. Exhibit topics have included Chinese immigration, the history of Chinatown, fashion, art, and archaeology. In 2008, just three years after opening, a devastating fire claimed a significant portion of its collection. In a city-wide community effort, the museum was able to gather additional artifacts for its collection and raise funds to build new displays. The renovated building reopened in 2010.
This memorial commemorates social reformer and recipient of the Noble Peace Prize, Jane Addams (1860-1935). In 1889, she along with a friend founded Hull-House, one of the first settlement houses in North America, in Chicago’s West Side. In 1931, for her efforts to promote international peace during and after the Great War, Addams became the first American woman to receive the Noble Peace Prize. Several decades after her death, the Ferguson Fund of the Art Institute of Chicago commissioned esteemed French-born sculptor Louise Bourgeois to design a memorial in honor of Addams. The result was 'Helping Hands,' a series of carved Black granite human hands atop six roughly-hewn stone pedestals. The hands are of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities, and symbolize the wide range of people whose lives Addams helped to improve. Dedicated on Women’s Equality Day (August 26) in 1996, the memorial originally stood along Chicago’s lakefront in Navy Pier Park. After suffering vandalism, it was removed and sent back to Bourgeois’s studio in New York City for repairs in 2006. The memorial then sat in storage for years before being installed in Chicago Women’s Park in 2011. It is the first major artwork in a Chicago public park to honor a woman.
Nestled on the southwest side of Chicago’s Grant Park is Agora, a sculpture composed of 106 headless torsos made of cast iron standing 9 ft tall. The torso sculptures are placed walking in groups or standing still. Agora, Greek for “meeting place,” was donated by sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz along with the Polish Ministry of Culture and private donors.
Hull House was established in Chicago's Near West Side community in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Starr when the community consisted mostly of Southern European immigrants. Mexican immigration to Chicago occurred in the early 20th century and they soon became the dominant immigrant group in the Hull-House neighborhood. Therefore, Hull House, and the immigrant rights organizations associated with it like the Immigrants Protection League, had to change the services that it offered to serve this new community. Hull House became a center of engagement for Mexican-Americans to pursue the arts, helping to inspire Mexican artists such as Jesus Torres and Miguel Juárez and helping to create a new sense of Mexicanidad in Chicago. The settlement house eventually became a symbol of the dispersal of the Latinx population during the construction of the University of Illinois at Chicago in the 1960s in a time of urban renewal. Currently, the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum serves as a dynamic memorial to social reformer Jane Addams, the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and her colleagues whose work changed the lives of their immigrant neighbors as well as national and international public policy. The museum preserves and develops the original Hull-House site for the interpretation and continuation of the historic settlement house vision, linking research, education, and social engagement. The museum is open to the public at the University of Illinois at Chicago campus and contains original settlement house buildings- the Hull Home, a National Historic Landmark, and the Residents' Dining Hall, a beautiful Arts and Crafts building that has welcomed some of the world's most important thinkers, artists and activists.
The Art Institute of Chicago, established in 1879, is a world-renowned, encyclopedic art museum housing one of the world’s most important permanent collections. The Institute offers around thirty exhibitions a year and its permanent collection of over a quarter million works represents the third largest collection of art in the United States. The Institute is also home to the largest collection of impressionist paintings outside of Paris.
The American Writers Museum is the first and only museum dedicated to the lives and the work of American writers. The museum opened in 2017 and puts a strong emphasis on modern, interactive exhibits that incorporate technology. The mission of the museum is “to engage the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our culture, and our daily lives.”
With its gentle flowy exterior, Chicago’s Aqua building is one of its newest and popular buildings. The mixed-use high rise was designed and completed by Jeanne Gang in 2009, founder of Studio Gang Architects. Gang explained that her inspiration for the irregular, undulating exterior of the building is the striated limestone outcroppings common to the Great Lakes region. The Aqua building is the first building in downtown Chicago to combine condo, apartment, hotel, and retail space. The building stands at 82-stories tall and has received numerous awards and accolades.
On this site previously stood the first Prentice Women’s Hospital, often considered one of Chicago’s greatest architectural works. Designed by Bertrand Goldberg in 1972 and completed in 1975, the hospital was revolutionary for its time. The Brutalist style building consisted of a concrete quatrefoil tower that sat atop a five-store rectangular base. Goldberg combined many separate facilities into one unit, thereby conserving space and improving the functionality of a hospital design system. The hospital was in use from 1975 to 2011 when it was finally vacated with the intent on demolition. The Chicago Landmarks Commission, preservationists, and many prominent architects all rallied to support the preservation of the hospital. But after two unsuccessful years of negotiations, the building from demolition by Northwestern University and a new one constructed in its place.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is one of the world's foremost contemporary art museums. It was established in 1967 and has grown to house a collection of 2,500 works of art that date from the 1920s to today. These include paintings, photographs, sculptures (some of which are displayed outside), videos and films. The museum also features a theater where various kinds of performances take place and offers changing exhibitions throughout the year. The museum's mission is to foster the creation of contemporary art and engage the public in this process through its exhibitions, collection, and performances that take place here.
The Chicago History Museum is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Chicago's rich and varied history, as well as American history. The museum is located at the southwestern corner of the city's famous Lincoln Park and housed in a building constructed in 1932; the modern addition was built in 1988. The museum was founded in 1856 as the Chicago Historical Society and given its current name in 2006. Its collection is very large, amounting to 20 million items. The museum features several permanent exhibits including: "Chicago: Crossroads of America," "Sensing Chicago," "Chicago Authored," and "Lincoln's Chicago," which explores President Abraham Lincoln's political rise in Chicago, his presidency, assassination, and legacy. The museum offers many temporary exhibitions as well.
This Lincoln Park fountain honors educator, social reformer, and women’s rights advocate, Frances Willard (1839-1898). A native of New York, she served as a schoolteacher and college administrator before becoming president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), a position she held from 1879 until her death in 1898. While Willard was still president of the WCTU, the organization commissioned English sculptor George Wade to design a decorative drinking fountain in honor of its long-time president. Paid for by small donations from children around the world, the fountain would be displayed near the WCTU’s booth at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. When completed, Wade’s fountain featured a bronze sculpture of a little girl in a dress. Standing barefoot with outstretched arms, she holds a bowl from which water flows into a granite basin below. Two years after the exhibition, the WCTU relocated the fountain to the Woman’s Temple at the intersection of La Salle and Monroe Streets in Chicago. In 1921, the fountain moved to the city’s Lincoln Park near Lake Shore Drive and North Avenue. In the 1930s, the Chicago Park District placed the fountain in storage in preparation for construction on Lake Shore Drive. There it remained until 1940, when the Chicago Park District reinstalled it in Lincoln Park, just south of the West LaSalle Drive underpass. In the late 1950s, the fountain’s bronze sculpture was stolen. It was never recovered. For more than half a century, the fountain’s granite basin stood alone in Lincoln Park until 2012 when a bronze reproduction of the original sculpture was installed.
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is a natural oasis in the middle of America's second largest city. This educational institution was founded in 1999 by the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, which is known as the "First Museum in the West." This museum allows the people of Chicago and other visitors to connect with, learn about, and appreciate nature and is widely known for the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven, hands-on science instruction, and nature trails.
This Tour is a Thematic Tour or Heritage Trail.
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Starting at the DuSable Museum of African American History, this trail moves north to include a variety of monuments, markers, museums, and other landmarks related to women's history. This trail is a work in progress; more entries will be added soon.
