Chicago and the Midwest
The Newberry's collections contain extensive research materials relating to the history of Chicago and the Midwest, including their settlement, growth, politics, and eclectic inhabitants. Use the sections below to explore. Please call the reference desk at (312) 255-3512 with questions about our holdings, or contact a librarian with research questions.
For more manageable results on the city of Chicago, search the catalog for the subject “Chicago (Ill.)”in conjunction with an additional subject term, for example:
- Chicago (Ill.) Race relations
- Immigrants Illinois Chicago
- Great Fire Chicago Ill. 1871
For the Midwest in general, use the subject term “Middle West”:
- Middle West in Literature
For a particular state, use the state name and an additional subject term, e.g:
- Minnesota Politics and government
[Photograph Album of Automobile Trips in the Midwest, Canada, and the West]. United States?: N.p., 1934. Black-and-white photographs mounted in album with handwritten captions, some dated 1933-1937. Midwest MS 197
Evening Journal--Extra. Chicago, Monday, October 9, 1871. Chicago: Evening Journal, 1871. Evening Journal--Extra: Chicago, Monday, October 9, 1871. The great calamity of the age! Chicago in ashes!! Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of property destroyed. The South, the North and a portion of the West divisions of the city in ruins. VAULT Ruggles 111
Ferrucci, Kate, Winifred Bixler, and Michael Bixler. Limestone Lives : Voices from the Indiana Stone Belt. Bloomington, Indiana: People to People Press, 2002. Artist’s book with oral history interviews conducted between 1999 and 2002 with stone cutters in Monroe, Lawrence and Owen Counties in Indiana. Wing oversize ZPP 2083 .P45
Peck, John Mason. A Guide for Emigrants: Containing Sketches of Illinois, Missouri, and the Adjacent Parts. Boston: Lincoln and Edmands, 1831. The western tourist and emigrant's guide through the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and the territories of Minesota[sic] Missouri, and Nebraska. Accompanied with a large and minute map, exhibiting the township lines of the United States' surveys, the boundaries of counties, and the position of cities, villages and settlements, etc., etc. VAULT Ruggles 275
Thompson, Era Bell. American Daughter. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1946. Thompson's autobiography, American Daughter, traces her experiences growing up in the Dakotas as one of just a few African American families. Written while on fellowship at the Newberry, Thompson later had a lengthy career with Ebony magazine as an editor. E 5 .T3723
Arts Club of Chicago. Arts Club Records, 1892-2004. Call Number: Midwest.MS.Arts Club
Corporate records of the Arts Club of Chicago, an institution incorporated in 1916 and devoted to exhibiting and showcasing innovative artists and performers. Records include extensive exhibition files, files on the Club's music, lecture, film, and drama series, and administrative and financial files.
Black Lives Matter (Chicago). Chicago Black Lives Matter Protest Collection, 2014-ongoing. Call Number: Midwest.MS.ChicagoBLM
Announcements, flyers, artwork, buttons, newsletters, photographs, posters, t-shirts, and other materials collected by various individuals at Chicago protests, 2015-2016, responding to recurring police violence and civil rights violations against black citizens. This documentation was solicited as part of a 2016 Newberry Library exhibition, From Civil War to Civil Rights, and also includes responses to events posted by visitors to the exhibition.
Chicago Reader. Chicago Reader Records, 1971-2000. Call Number: Midwest.MS.Chicago Reader R
Original copy of articles, legal files, miscellaneous administrative files, and unsolicited manuscripts of the Chicago Reader alternative weekly newspaper. See also the Chicago Reader Photographs: Performance Collection (Midwest MS Chicago Reader PP), the Chicago Reader Artwork Collection (Midwest MS Chicago Reader A), and the Chicago Reader Photographs: News Collection (Midwest MS Chicago Reader PN).
D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian. Chicago American Indian Photography Project Photographs, approximately 1950s-1987. Call Number: Ayer.Modern.MS.Photo Project
Photographs taken by Dan Battise, Ben Bearskin, Orlando Cabanban, Joe Kazumura, F. Peter Weil, and Leroy Wesaw for the Chicago American Indian Photography Project. Images document the social life and customs of the American Indian community in Chicago during the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. Many of these photographs were displayed in the Hermon Dunlap Smith Gallery at the Newberry Library as part of an exhibition entitled Seeing Indian in Chicago from July 22 to September 21, 1985 (see Ayer.Modern.MS.Seeing Indian).
Field Enterprises. Field Enterprises Records, 1858-2007. Call Number: Midwest.MS.Field Enterprises
Administrative, promotional, and legal materials, correspondence, photographs, and artifacts of Field Enterprises, the umbrella conglomerate under which the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun and Times company, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Field Communications Corporation eventually fell.
Greasley, Philip A. Dictionary of Midwestern Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Call number: Ref PS273 .D53 2001
Hine, Darlene Clark. Black women in the Middle West: the Michigan experience. Ann Arbor: Historical Society of Michigan, 1990. Call number: E185.93.M3 H5 1990
Karrow, Robert W. Checklist of Printed Maps of the Middle West to 1900. Boston, Mass: G.K. Hall, 1982. Call number: Ref Z6027.M53 C54
Sleeper-Smith, Susan. Indigenous prosperity and American conquest: Indian women of the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792. Williamsburg, Virginia : Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Call number: Ayer E78.O4 S58 2018
Ozanne, Robert W. The labor movement in Wisconsin: a history. Madison, WI: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1984. Call number: HD6517.W5 O93 1984
Databases
Most of the databases at the Newberry are subscription databases; therefore, access is available to registered readers only within the library building. Those listed below are subscription databases.
Chicago Defender: Searchable full-text archive for the years 1909-1975.
Chicago Tribune: Searchable full-text archive for the years 1849-1991.
Newspaper Source: Provides selected full-text for nearly 30 national (US) and international newspapers. Also contain full-text television and radio news transcripts, and selected full-text for more than 200 regional (US) newspapers.
For a comprehensive list of all our databases, visit our Databases webpage.
Websites
Encyclopedia of Chicago: published by the Chicago History Museum and the Newberry. Available online and in book format, Chicago Browsing F548.3 .E53 2004.
Sanborn Maps for Illinois, 1867-1970: Historic maps of Illinois towns and cities, from the collection of Sanborn maps at the Library of Congress.
World’s Fairs: A Global History of Expositions: A diverse range of digitized primary source material including Newberry collection materials on the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Other Resources
Explore Chicago Collections: Search for thousands of archival collections and digital images at member institutions all over the Chicago area.
Research Center at Chicago History Museum: The Chicago History Museum’s Research Collections encompass a broad category of documents, images, publications, and printed materials that are generally available for hands-on use by the public in the Museum’s Research Center; core strengths include neighborhood photographs and manuscript collections.
Vivian G. Harsh Collection at Woodson Regional Library (CPL): The largest African American history and literature collection in the Midwest, the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature documents the Black experience with a strong focus on Chicago.
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