UIC Library to offer online settlement house exhibit
By Ivette Sandoval
A $20,000
grant from the Illinois State Library is allowing the University of Illinois
at Chicago (UIC) Library’s Department of Special Collections to create a
unique online exhibit on the history of settlement houses in Chicago.
Librarians will select 100 of department’s 775 settlement house photographs
to digitize for the exhibit, which will be available to students and the
general public.
A century ago, settlement houses served as community centers, providing vital services and housing newcomers, neighborhood residents, and staff. The settlement houses helped residents become part of their communities and in the process changed various neighborhoods, explained Peggy Glowacki, archival reference and operations specialist for special collections at UIC.
“Settlement houses don’t really exist anymore,” Glowacki said. “Most of them now are cultural centers. But it’s important to do this exhibit because settlement houses were important for immigrants. They provided services and jobs, and many were involved in social reform efforts. They affected social welfare in the country by the types of programs that they became involved with.”
The UIC collection consists of photographs of seven settlement houses: Firman House, Near West Side; Henry Booth House, South Loop; Bethlehem-Howell House Children's Home (now Casa Aztlan), Pilsen; the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, Hyde Park; the Marcy-Newberry Association on Maxwell Street, Near West Side; the Off the Street Club, Garfield Park; and Hull House, which had a complex on Halsted Street on the Near West Side where UIC now is located. All are part of UIC’s Richard J. Daley Library collection.
“Hull House is probably our most important settlement house collection,” Glowacki said. “Because Hull House is so famous, people tend to focus on that settlement, but we want to show off these other settlement houses as well.”
At one time Illinois had about 40 settlement houses. With their era and essential activities long past, preserving their history with modern technology is key. “These [seven] are the ones that we have records for,” Glowacki explained. “Other libraries in the Chicago area have records for other settlement houses, but very few still exist as settlement houses.
“We’re still in the process of choosing the photographs,” Glowacki added. “We’ve made some preliminary selections, but there are a lot of great photographs and it’s hard to do because we’re trying to get a nice representative sample that shows the different types of activities, people who visited the center, and the types of people who worked there. We want to get a nice, broad overview.”
Both the original set of 775 photos and the exhibit’s smaller group of pictures will be accessible to the public online. UIC librarians will create curriculum materials for grade school and high school students through the Chicago Metro History Education Center and will conduct workshops on the settlement houses’ history.
The online settlement house exhibit should be available by fall 2007. For additional information visit www.uic.edu/depts/lib/specialcoll/ or call (312) 996-2742.
