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Exhibition Review
"Chicago: Crossroads of America." Chicago History Museum. Chicago, Ill. http://www.chicagohistory.org.
Permanent exhibition, opened Sept. 2006. 16,000 sq. ft. Olivia Mahoney, curator; Gallagher and Associates, designer; Rosemary Adams, editor; Russell Lewis, project director.
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| "Chicago: Crossroads of America" anchors the new institutional focus of the Chicago History Museum (CHM). Formerly, as the Chicago Historical Society, the museum mounted exhibits on a variety of topics in American history, but the exhibit on the city of Chicago was relatively small. The renamed institution is "devoted to collecting, interpreting, and presenting the rich multicultural history of Chicago and Illinois" and will focus on that history through this large permanent exhibit and other temporary exhibits. "Chicago: Crossroads of America" is both the fruit of and foundation for this new endeavor. It provides an engaging introduction to major events in the city's history and its role as incubator of new ideas, industries, and amusements; it is less successful at conveying how Chicagoans lived and the multicultural society they created. |
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In the nineteenth century, Chicago was the capital of the West. Historians describe it as America's foremost shock city, one whose rapid development both delighted and terrified commentators. Histories of Chicago's first century generally foreground the city's dramatic economic and population growth. Yet there is no such easy characterization of twentieth-century Chicago. |
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The city was variously known as the most racially segregated city in America; the second city; the home of America's last political machine; and the turf of the country's most famous gangsters. A challenge for this exhibit is to bring together coherently the narrative of nineteenth-century progress and the fractured images of twentieth-century Chicago. The exhibit accomplishes this by approaching Chicago in three ways: as a city of dreams—often expressed in technological terms; as a city of hope—for both immigrants and businessmen; and as a city of neighborhoods—with an emphasis on the divisions (often racial) among Chicagoans. The exhibit's six galleries surround a central area that provides an orientation to the themes. Each gallery looks at a different aspect of Chicago's history, and although the exhibit as a whole is not laid out chronologically, each gallery gives attention to chronological development. Visitors can choose what to view and in what order. So while they may learn much about many aspects of Chicago's history, they do not necessarily come away with a coherent interpretation of the changing nature of the city or of its role in the region or the nation. |
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A train platform and "L" car no. 1, the city's first elevated train car, dominate the central orientation space and reflect the importance of transportation to the development of the city. Audio on the "L" platform allows visitors to hear the perspectives of three Chicagoans during the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition, arguably the city's peak moment on the world stage: Ida B. Wells introduces the issue of racial discrimination in the city; an immigrant ironworker discusses labor rights and struggles; and a Wisconsin tourist highlights the contrast between urban fun and urban squalor. This central area highlights the themes that thread through the exhibit, but because visitors must walk around the large "L" car to find the audio display, they are likely to begin in the galleries and experience this orientation after they are well into the exhibit. |
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Visitors who enter the exhibit by turning right find the first gallery, "City on the Make," which presents the transportation and economic history of the city from its wilderness past to its current position as a global trading center. The gallery relates the narrative of progress from the nineteenth century and continues it into the twentieth century. The major focus is on the railroad age, when the city achieved its greatest growth and was an industrial dynamo. The exhibit highlights major industries, especially meat packing, iron and steel production, furniture making, brewing, electronics manufacturing, and global trading. Each section attends not just to the founders of important companies but also to the workers who struggled, through unionization, for a better life. |
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