GRANT HELPS PRESERVE SETTLEMENT HOUSE HISTORY
More than 700 historic photographs from six Chicago settlement houses will be digitized and posted online under a $20,000 grant awarded to the UIC Library from the Illinois State Library.
An exhibit of 100 selected photographs, supporting documents, interpretive text, and guides to each collection will be made available on the home page of the library's Special Collections Department.
The online materials will be used in a school curriculum offered through the Chicago Metro History Education Center, an independent nonprofit supported by UIC and other educational institutions, corporations and foundations, said Ann Weller, curator of specialcollections at UIC.
"This grant is an opportunity for us to work with teachers from Chicago Public Schools to introduce students to the settlement house movement in Chicago," Weller said.
All photographs and documents will be available for public viewing within a year.
The settlement houses, most of which still operate as neighborhood cultural and social service centers, are: Firman House, Near West Side; Henry Booth House, South Loop; Howell House children's home (now Casa Aztlan), Pilsen; the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club; the Marcy-Newberry Association on Maxwell Street; and the Off the Street Club, Garfield Park.
In addition to these collections, the Daley Library holds the archives of Hull House, the renowned settlement house restored in part as the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum on the UIC campus.
The Illinois State Library is a division of the Office of the Secretary of State. This grant was awarded using funds provided by the Institute, field_56ba6f8fdb00c