News

On View: Exhibition Announcement

Akito Tsuda: Pilsen Days

Chicago Public Library

Harold Washington Library Center

June 3, 2024 through April 15, 2025      

Akito Tsuda arrived in Chicago from Japan in 1988 at the age of 21 and enrolled at Columbia College Chicago in 1990. On a class photography assignment, Tsuda encountered Pilsen, where he was accepted in the homes and lives of the residents. Despite knowing only some English and no Spanish, Tsuda developed relationships with the people he photographed and made over 500 striking and intimate images in collaboration with the community.

Digital exhibit: https://www.chipublib.org/news/exhibit-akito-tsuda-pilsen-days/

Information for Your Visit:

Chicago Public Library

Harold Washington Library Center, 9th floor, 400 S. State Street, Chicago, IL 60605

M-Th, 9:00am-8:00pm; F-Sa, 9:00am-5:00pm; Su, 1:00-5:00pm

Free and open to all

https://www.chipublib.org/

Special Event Information:

https://www.chipublib.org/news/exhibit-akito-tsuda-pilsen-days/

For more information, contact: Johanna Russ, jruss@chipublib.org

Are you launching a new exhibit?

On View: Exhibition Announcement

Indigenous Chicago

Newberry Library

September 12, 2024 through January 4, 2025

Home to the Potawatomi, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Myaamia, Wea, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Ho-Chunk peoples, the place we now call Chicago has long been a historic crossroads for many Indigenous people and remains home to an extensive urban Native community. Yet most Chicagoans are unaware of the city’s history as a home to diverse Indigenous peoples and the vibrant Indigenous communities present today. Part of a multifaceted initiative developed in partnership between the Newberry, advisors from the Chicago Native community, and representatives from tribal nations with historic connections to Chicago, this exhibition reflects the dynamic and complex aspects of Native life in Chicago from the seventeenth century to the present. The exhibition draws largely on the Newberry's collection while also showcasing new work by contemporary Native artists, including Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi), Camille Billie (Oneida), and Jim Terry (Ho-Chunk).

Digital exhibit: https://indigenous-chicago.org/

Information for Your Visit:

Newberry Library

60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610

Tuesday – Thursday: 10am – 7pm; Friday and Saturday: 10am – 5pm

Free and open to all

https://www.newberry.org/calendar/indigenous-chicago

For more information, contact: info@newberry.org  

Are you launching a new exhibit?

CAA members are welcomed to share news of exhibits on view at their institutions. Please tell us more and share details on this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSesaDrz5BstR9CMUtLNlVVl-uiwUSr_sbE6L1TK7BY2ehbV1w/viewform

We Are America

Swedish American Museum

Opened on 6/1/2024

We Are America, the Swedish American Museum's new core exhibit, explores Swedish immigration to Chicago. Through a range of documents, photographs, artifacts, and interactives, visitors will learn about the lives Swedish immigrants built in the U.S. Personal stories are highlighted to help tell this immigration story. You will meet Elin and Birgitta Hedman, a mother and daughter who stayed overnight at Ellis Island waiting for Elin’s husband. You'll also learn about Thor Rydholm, a Swedish-American from Lee Country, Illinois who served in the U.S. military during World War I, and Anna Elisabet Martinsson, who traveled to America by herself in 1925. There are a variety of interactives in the exhibit, aimed at engaging all ages and audiences. We Are America also invites visitors to compare this story with others from Chicago.

Digital exhibit: https://swedishamericanmus.wixsite.com/my-site-4

Information for Your Visit:

Swedish American Museum

5211 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60640

Tuesday - Friday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Saturday & Sunday 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Adults $6, Children/students/seniors $4, Families $15 (2 adults and 3 children under 18). Free for members.               

https://swedishamericanmuseum.org/

Special Event:

Free (with admission) guided tour of the Museum's new core exhibit, We Are America, on Saturday, Oct. 12, 11 a.m.

Register here: https://www.swedishamericanmuseum.org/product/33672

For more information, contact: Lisa Lindstrom, Collection Manager, llindstrom@samac.org

Are you launching a new exhibit?

CAA members are welcomed to share news of exhibits on view at their institutions. Please tell us more and share details on this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSesaDrz5BstR9CMUtLNlVVl-uiwUSr_sbE6L1TK7BY2ehbV1w/viewform

Join CAMA for a HYBRID experience this fall on Thursday, November 7! 

Register HERE!

For the first time since 2019, the CAMA Medical History Symposium will return with an in-person option hosted at Rosalind Franklin University in North Chicago, IL. After four years of a virtual symposium we have garnered interest from individuals and institutions outside of the Chicago area. We are able to again include individuals to both attend and present via Zoom in a hybrid format, if you can't be here in person. 

CAA Members Nathalie Wheaton, Hilarie Pozesky and Claire Mokrauer-Madden will be presenting.

The RFU campus has free parking available, as well as access via the Metra UP-North line with shuttle service to/from the Lake Bluff station.

Questions? Contact: kelly.reiss@rosalindfranklin.edu or 847-578-8417

It was great to have so many people join us at the CAA meetup @ SAA on August 15, 2024. Over thirty CAA members and friends gathered at 720 South Bar & Grill in the Hilton Chicago conference hotel for conversation and refreshments. Thanks to everyone who also signed up to learn more about getting involved with CAA. We will be in touch with you soon!

Kheir Fakhreldin, University Archivist at Chicago State University and chair of CAA's Archives and Archivists of Color (AAC) interest group, gave a talk to Brookfield Library's Genealogy Club on August 13, 2024 about F. D. Cossitt, the founder of La Grange, who owned 127 slaves in Tennessee before he came north during the Civil War. Kheir discussed the complicated history of Tennessee Unionism and Cossitt's Southern Claims Commission file which details his assistance to the Union Army and includes testimony on his behalf from a former Union general, an overseer on his plantations, and one of his former slaves.

If you would like to be added to the AAC mailing list, email info@chicagoarchivists.org.

On August 1, 2024, the Curation & Exhibitions Interest Group visited the Poetry Foundation for a guided tour of their current exhibit A Bigger Table: 50 Years of the Chicago Poetry Center. The exhibition celebrates the Chicago Poetry Center’s 50th anniversary as a community-driven organization dedicated to enabling poets and using poetry to allow for critical conversations.

Poetry Foundation Creative Director and Curator Fred Sasaki and Chicago Poetry Center Executive Director B. Sampson gave the group an overview of the exhibition’s development process and a tour of items displayed in the main gallery, the library, and the building exterior. The curators recapped the long, intertwined history of their two organizations and screened a 40-minute documentary by Media Associate Moyo Abiona about the exhibit and the Chicago Poetry Center.

Curation & Exhibitions Interest Group moderator Patti Gibbons and twelve attendees participated in the event.

The exhibit runs through September 14. Learn more about it and the Poetry Foundation here.

Image: curator Fred Sasaki (far left) shows the group facsimile posters from Chicago Poetry Center events on the building exterior.

On June 26 at 2 pm, eight CAA members joined Alison Hinderliter, Lloyd Lewis Curator of Modern Manuscripts and Selector for Modern Music as she gave us a tour of the Newberry's exhibit A Night at Mister Kelly's. She provided insight as to how the exhibit came together, recommendations about how to address certain aspects of exhibit design, and demonstrated how guest's appearing at Mister Kelly's are relevant across generations.

The exhibit is open until July 20th and you can find more information about it here.

On May 7, 2024, the Chicago Collections Consortium and Chicago Area Archivists co-sponsored a virtual presentation by Kaetrena Davis Kendrick on links between low-morale and burnout in library and archives workplaces.  Over forty attendees learned about self-care strategies, as well as ways to support their professional colleagues and communities. 

Attendees said that in addition to learning new strategies, they also had their feelings of stress and burnout validated.  You can learn more about Kaetrena and her work on her website, https://renewalslis.com/.

Thank you to everyone who attended the virtual event and showed great interest in the talk with their comments and questions. A special thanks to Kaetrena for taking the time to speak to CCC/CAA members!

Ayah Elkossei, the 2024 recipient of the CAA Archives and Archivists of Color (AAC) Travel Fund Award, shares her experience attending the Midwest Archives Conference Annual Meeting in Des Moines, Iowa.

Attending my first Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) was an immensely rewarding experience that enriched my understanding of archival practices and community collaboration. Although I could not sit in every session, the sessions I’ve attended provided invaluable knowledge and practical skills that will be instrumental in my journey to become an archivist, with the ultimate goal of opening my own archive for Middle Eastern collections.

The workshop "CLI for GLAM: A Command Line Workshop for Absolute Beginners" was particularly enlightening. As a newcomer to the command line interface, I gained essential skills using the GitBash terminal application, which will enhance my archival processes and allow me to manage digital archives more effectively.

Sessions like "Cultivating Collaborative Partnerships Between a Campus and Its Community" and "Community Outreach, Community Input: The Milwaukee Women's Art Library Ambassador Experiment" highlighted the importance of building strong relationships between archives and their surrounding communities. The successful case studies from Bowling Green State University, Indiana University Northwest, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee showcased how collaborative efforts and community involvement can lead to impactful exhibits and enhanced representation of underrepresented communities. These examples inspired me to pursue similar partnerships and outreach efforts in my future work, fostering inclusivity and representation in Middle Eastern collections.

Aside from the informative sessions, my favorite part of MAC was engaging with fellow archivists and future archivists. I relished the opportunity to share experiences, exchange insights, and learn from their diverse backgrounds.

Overall, my first MAC experience emphasized collaboration, preservation, and community engagement, reinforcing my commitment to expanding archival collections to reflect diverse communities. This conference significantly enriched my professional development, equipping me with the tools and inspiration to make meaningful contributions to the field of archives, particularly in preserving and promoting Middle Eastern cultural heritage.