[19th c. Women Education] Handwritten letter to 2 women teachers from former instructor. December 22, 1893. 2 pages with original mailing envelope. 9.5 x 5.75 inches. On Western Theological Seminary letterhead, with fine engraving of the school building on both sheets. To “Miss Ellsworth and Miss Gore” from L.M......
[19th c. Women Education] Handwritten letter from the superintendent of the Young Ladies’ Athenaeum in Jacksonville, IL. June 24, 1879. On official letterhead for the school with a large engraving of campus buildings. 2 pages. 10 x 8 inches. Superintendent of the school William Sander, writes to recommend a graduate.....
The Realist. New York, September 1968. 16 pages. 10.75" x 8.25". In article titled The Yippies Are Going To Chicago" Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman pen separate retrospectives on the Yippie movement, its confrontations with police, and issue a call to arms to supporters to join them at the Democratic.....
Lincoln, Abraham. The Lincoln and Douglas Debates, 1860, printed record of the seven public debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during the 1858 Illinois Senate campaign, a pivotal series of political confrontations over slavery and the future of the United States. The debates addressed the expansion of slavery.....
Unidentified police photographers, mugshot photograph archive, Chicago, Illinois and Miami, Florida, 1960s to 1970s, documenting law enforcement identification practices applied to African American men in urban contexts during the postwar period. The material documents criminal identification systems through standardized booking photography, revealing how individuals were processed and recorded by police.....
[African American] [Music] [Photography] Demlinger, Sandor and various press photographers. Photographs of African American musicians, 1930s to 1978 document performance, publicity, and recording culture across multiple generations of Black musical innovation in the United States. The archive brings together images of artists associated with jazz, blues, and soul, including Nat.....
Archive of three Roll of Honor posters commemorating African American servicemen during World War II, 1942–1945, constitutes a visually powerful record of Black military service within a formally segregated armed forces. Produced during the war years, these personalized memorial-style broadsides document individual participation in the United States Army, United States.....
African American nightlife and community social life during the Jim Crow era documented in a group of silver gelatin prints centered on a crowded barroom and dance hall, likely late 1940s to early 1950s. The group preserves Black urban leisure within the commercial social spaces that took shape in Bronzeville.....
Industrial Extraction and Scientific Farming in the Interwar Midwest: Ruhm’s Phosphate & Chemical Company (Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee). Photograph album documenting phosphate mining, processing, fertilizer application, and Illinois farm yield demonstrations. Circa 1928. Oblong black album (11 x 7½ inches) containing 77 silver gelatin photographs (majority captioned in typed slips, several.....
Newspaper. St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota, Thursday, May 10, 1934. Front page article heading: "AL CAPONE NAMED IN GLECKMAN TRIAL/ Government Seeks to Show St. Paulite Sold Chicago Rum Baron Alcohol." Left edge hole punches, otherwise in excellent condition.
Anti-Vietnam War press photographs recording violent police response, campus protest, social justice organizing, and police confrontation, circa 1969 to 1972, include recruitment protests, street mobilization, coalition messaging, and state response through photographs tied to the Vietnam Moratorium, University of Chicago protest activity, and University of Michigan demonstration culture. Between Chicago.....
Archive of three black and white silver gelatin photographs of black models dating from the 1950s-70s. Photographs measure approx. 8" x 10". This archive includes a press photo from 1974, showing model Beverly Bradshaw posed in front of a museum display of elephants wearing a traditional Nigerian Ibo wrapped dress.....
African American military band musicians photographed during the World War II era document the musical units that formed an important part of Black participation in the U.S. armed forces during the mid twentieth century. 17 photographs dating approximately from the 1940s depict African American soldiers performing in brass bands as.....
Buffalo Soldier regiments depicted in stereoview photographs from the World War I era document African American cavalrymen and infantry units serving in segregated formations of the United States Army during the early twentieth century. These images record soldiers from several historically significant Black military units including the 9th U.S. Cavalry.....
U.S. Astronaut. Member of the Historic Apollo 11 Mission and Second Man to Walk on the Moon. Signed complete edition of the the "Chicago Today American" Newspaper, dated July 25, 1969, signed boldly "Buzz Aldrin." The headline reads: "Moonmen the salt of the earth." Historic Item of Space Memorabilia signed.....
[Engineering][Invention and Business] Felt, Dorr Eugene. British Patents for Improvements in Calculating Machines (1900–1904) document the development of one of the earliest commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculators, reflecting the rapid mechanization of clerical labor at the turn of the twentieth century. These patents relate to the Comptometer, first introduced in.....
Chicago antiwar protest press archive documenting the city’s most volatile Vietnam-era demonstrations, centered on the 1968 Democratic National Convention and its aftermath. Protesters gathered in Grant Park, outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel, and near convention sites to oppose the Vietnam War and challenge the Democratic Party’s handling of the conflict.....
Chicago-area commercial truck drivers, freight tractors, and motor express equipment photo archive, circa 1940s-1950s. These photographs record the working culture of mid-century trucking after the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 brought interstate truck firms under federal regulation and before the 1956 Interstate Highway Act reshaped long-haul freight. Archive of 17.....
Chicago Loop press photographs documenting the March 2, 1947 explosion and fire at 203 West Van Buren Street. The photographs record the aftermath of the blast zone from street level and from above, showing firefighters working through smoke, rubble, twisted trackside debris, shattered buildings, and waterlogged streets beneath the elevated.....
Interwar industrial machinery archive documenting Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co. compressors, pneumatic power apparatus, and shop-floor testing equipment during the 1920s and 1930s, when compressed air drove riveting, drilling, mining, road building, automotive work, and heavy manufacturing. Chicago Pneumatic was incorporated in 1901 and built its reputation around pneumatic hammers, air.....
Illinois National Guard press photograph archive, 1936–1984, documenting the Guard’s role as both military reserve force and instrument of state authority across mid twentieth century American conflicts and civil crises. The images place the Guard within major domestic flashpoints in Illinois, including deployment during the 1966 Chicago disturbances, the 1968.....
[Civil Rights] [Counterculture] Original silver gelatin print press photograph of Education-related Civil Rights demonstration in Chicago 1965. The protesters block the street in the heart of the city to protest for better public education for African-American students, who faced overcrowding and segregated schools. 8 x 10 in. Iconic Chicago hotspots.....
Mills, Clark. Abraham Lincoln life mask, originally taken in February 1865, two months before the president's death. Mills' was the second and last life mask taken of Lincoln, preserving his features directly from life rather than through later artistic interpretation. The cast is often compared to Leonard Volk's cast, taken.....
[Cross-dressing] Archive of six 19th century photographs of cross-dressing performers, Springfield, Illinois, capturing early American drag performance during a period when public cross-dressing outside performance contexts could provoke not only social but legal backlash. These cross dressing portrait photographs created in Springfield, Illinois during the late nineteenth century document early.....
Lesbian pulp fiction paperbacks published between 1959 and 1964 document the commercial circulation of queer female desire within mid twentieth century American print culture under conditions shaped by obscenity law, postal regulation, and Cold War sexual conservatism. Produced primarily by presses such as Midwood, Beacon Signal, and Gaslight Books, these.....
