page_title: Chicago History Museum
section_title: Activities
hierarchical_section_title: Chicago History Museum / Activities
caption_attribution_description: English: To the Homeless of the Chicago Fire, Chicago History Museum
context_page_description: Chicago History Museum was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. It is located in Lincoln Park at 1601 North Clark Street at the intersection of North Avenue in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood. The CHS adopted the name, Chicago History Museum, in September 2006 for its public presence.
context_section_description: The museum explores both Chicago and American history. Exhibitions draw primarily on the museum's own collection, which numbers approximately 22 million holdings. Chicago: Crossroads of America is a 16,000-square-foot space that explores the city's development and its relationship to and influence on American history. Nearly 600 objects document the people and events of the past 200 years. Facing Freedom focuses on eight American conflicts over freedom from the 1850s to the 1970s. The Abraham Lincoln alcoves highlight the sixteenth president's election, his leadership during the Civil War, and his assassination. The adjoining Portrait Gallery features an installation on Chicago during the time of Lincoln. The Sensing Chicago exhibition invites children to use their senses to discover the past.  The Lobby displays museum treasures, including a 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo lowrider. The newly restored dioramas are housed in the Tawani Foundation Diorama Hall. The Chicago dioramas feature Chicago's rise from a desolate frontier outpost to the bustling city that hosted the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The Chicago Room, which overlooks the plaza in Lincoln Park behind the museum building, displays a collection of stained glass.
  Temporary exhibitions feature objects and artifacts from the collection, covering everything from Chicago art to the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Chicagoans to the city's fashion history. On October 14, 2013, the Chicago History Museum announced a project asking the public to furnish ideas for a future exhibition and reducing the most-often-submitted ideas to one assignment through a series of public votes.  According to the American Alliance of Museums, this is the first crowdsourcing project allowing the public to give an exhibition assignment to an American museum.
  On January 19, 2006, the first passenger car to operate on the Chicago 'L' system in 1893 was transported to its new display location at the Chicago History Museum.  Passengers could ride the 1893 'L' from the Loop to Hyde Park station for 5 cents to attend the World's Columbian Exposition upon the line's opening.  The vehicle, known as L Car #1, was cosmetically restored to its 1893 appearance before being transported to the museum where it was lifted into an opening created through a wall on the museum's second floor.  The car's interior features include mahogany and rattan seats and etched glass windows.  The L car joins the Pioneer, the first locomotive to operate in Chicago; a redesigned exhibition space to showcase the car and locomotive opened on September 30, 2006, as part of a larger remodeling project.
  The Museum houses Chicago's most important collection of materials related to local history.  The extensive research library includes books and other published materials, manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and photos.  It is open to the public, including students working on school projects. The costume collection numbers more than 50,000 pieces and dates from the 18th century to the present.  It contains numerous couture pieces, items created by well-known Chicago manufacturers and designers, and garments worn by notable residents.
  The Museum offers a variety of programs, publications, and online resources related to Chicago and American history.  This includes print and online editions of its collaborative effort the Encyclopedia of Chicago. The Museum's Chicago Fire mobile app has content equivalent to a 400-page book with more than 350 illustrations, drawn from the museum's collection.  The app also offers of 10 distinct Chicago areas and 54 fire-related landmarks. The app uses GPS guidance that helps the user view photos of nearby sites from the era of the Great Chicago Fire.  The Museum also publishes Chicago History magazine. Written by historians and heavily illustrated, this publication focuses on Chicago's complex past and the people who have shaped it. Additionally, more than 50,000 images from its collection have been digitized as part of Explore Chicago Collections.
  Every year, the Chicago
caption: A broadside from the collection that circulated after the Great Chicago Fire.
exif: {"Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 5", "Image Orientation": "Rotated 90 CW", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "7.0.4", "Image DateTime": "2013:12:15 14:48:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "204", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[41, 54, 4181/100]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[87, 37, 1067/20]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "14759/79", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[20, 48, 253/5]", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "37975/614", "Image GPSInfo": "926", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1222", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10156", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "12/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:12:15 14:48:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:12:15 14:48:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6337/1622", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4845/1918", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "1501/4571", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "103/25", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "643", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "643", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "33", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[103/25, 103/25, 12/5, 12/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 5 back camera 4.12mm f/2.4"}