Historic Photos of Chicago by Russell Lewis

Product Details

Synopsis

Chicago's history is a testimony to the resilience of its citizens. From its rebirth after the Great Fire in 1871, the city met and overcame the social and economic challenges of the century to follow.

Many of the events of the city's history are recorded in photographs in the archives of the Chicago History Museum. This volume, Historic Photos of Chicago, captures the city's history through a selection of those photographs. The book follows life, government, education, and events spanning two centuries of Chicago's history. It captures unique and rare scenes through the original lens of hundreds of historic photographs. These images portray the evolution of Chicago from a frontier town to one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities.

Biography

Russell Lewis, Vice President and Chief Historian, is responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the museum's mission to creatively explore and showcase Chicago's history and culture, and for preserving, managing and making accessible to the public, the Chicago History Museum's collection of more than 22 million documents and objects. A member of the Chicago Historical Society and Chicago History Museum's staff since 1982, Lewis has held numerous positions prior to his current appointment, including: Assistant Editor, Associate Editor, Editor and Director of Publications, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Assistant Director for Research and Curatorial Affairs, Deputy Director for Collections and Research, and Acting President.

He has been involved in the development of numerous exhibitions, including We the People: Creating a New Nation, 1765-1820 and A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln, and he served as project director for the exhibition Chicago Goes to War,1941-45, the urban history conference Modes of Inquiry for American City History, and the community history initiative Neighborhoods: Keepers of Culture.. He has also led a number of digitization projects, including The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory, Wet with Blood: The Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln's Cloak, and Studs Terkel: Conversations with America, and the online version of The Chicago Encyclopedia. Since 2005, he has served as project director for the $27.8 million renovation of the Chicago History Museum.