Flappers, G-men, and Prohibition’s Legacies
What caused Prohibition and passage of the Eighteenth Amendment?
20th Century
Modernism and Chicago
Picturing the Century of Progress: The 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair
How did the creators of the Century of Progress illustrate and enact the fair's theme of progress?
Art In Chicago 1900-1935
What groups, organizations, and individuals influenced the arts in Chicago in the early twentieth century?
Indians in the Archives
What do historical images of American Indian peoples tell us about the evolving relationships between Indians and non-Indians? What valuable information about our past and ourselves can we glean from artworks that portray indigenous peoples and also the materials that artists used?
Trade, Diplomacy, and China’s Modern Transformation
How have China’s economic and diplomatic ties to the outside world shaped its modern history?
The New Deal in Chicago and the Midwest
What did the New Deal look like in Chicago and the greater Illinois region? Who were its champions and opponents? How did different types of people make sense of new welfare programs in the midst of the Great Depression?
Commodities and the Transformation of the North American Landscape
How are commodities extracted, produced, and exchanged? How have those processes shaped the physical and cultural landscape of North America? How might the way we see and study those processes alter our understanding of ourselves, the environment, or the history of North America?
Perspectives on the Mexican Revolution
What social conditions contributed to the revolution? How did the United States seek to influence events in Mexico? How did artists and writers respond to the war?
The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Urban North
What does de facto segregation in the urban North look like? How is it similar and different from de jure segregation in the South? How did African Americans respond to the segregation and racism they faced in the North? How did the civil rights movement in the urban North connect to the movement in the South?
The Jungle and the Community: Workers and Reformers in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago
What did it mean to live in the neighborhood of the Union Stock Yard around 1900? How does Upton Sinclair’s representation of this community in The Jungle compare to the accounts of sociologists and reformers?
Mapping Chicago and the Midwest, 1688–1906
How do maps tell the early history of Chicago and the Midwest? How have maps been used by different empires and nations to secure control of the region?