Changing Neighborhoods Exhibit Explores Chicago Settlements
The UIC Library’s Special Collections department has launched an online interpretive exhibit about how the residents of seven Chicago settlement houses worked to improve the lives of people living in poor neighborhoods during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The exhibit includes 100 photographs and documents from Henry Booth House, Bethlehem-Howell Neighborhood Center, Off-The-Street Club, Marcy Newberry Center, Firman House, Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, and Chicago’s world-renowned Hull-House. The interpretive text, intended primarily for students in grades six through twelve and elementary as well as secondary schoolteachers, places the photographs and documents in the historical context of the Progressive Era, women's history, and urban history.
The photographs and documents in the exhibit are part of a group of more than 800 images digitized with funding from a grant awarded by the Illinois State Library (ISL), a division of the Office of Secretary of State, using funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). The entire database of settlement house images also is available online., field_56ba6f8fdb00c