On December 19, 1820, Mary Livermore was born in Boston, where she spent her early years working in a secondary school. She, her husband Daniel, and their family planned to move to Kansas in 1857 with other abolitionists, intending to secure it as a free state, but their daughter became sick and the family decided More
The Marshall Field & Co. department store (now Macy’s) has always gone big for the holidays, and in 2020, things will continue with the 113th annual Great Tree, the fifty-third annual animated holiday windows, and the forty-two trumpets along State Street. Along with the decor, a visit to their Walnut Room is normally part of More
In December 1869, the Territory of Wyoming passed the first women’s suffrage law in the US, forty-four years before Illinois women would be granted limited suffrage in June 1913 to vote for local offices and in presidential elections—the first steps on the path to a national amendment. Suffragists faced serious opposition, but without the vote, More
Chicago’s Gerri Oliver was as much a legend as the famed South Side institution that bore her name. She passed away on December 7 in Palos Verdes, California, at the age of 101. From 1956 to 2001, “Mama Gerri” owned the now-demolished Gerri’s Palm Tavern, one of the last Chicago Black Renaissance establishments in the More
A common museum practice is to loan artifacts to other institutions. This past spring, CHM conservator Holly Lundberg and her team prepared an Ann Lowe cotillion gown (1956) to go on loan to the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts. Ann Cole Lowe (1898–1981) was an African American fashion designer whose exquisite formal and More