We're digging deeper to preserve Chicago's past for a digital future.
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In December 2018, Lake Forest College's Digital Chicago: Unearthing History and Culture project came to its formal conclusion, and the Digital Chicago project website was transferred to an institutional home with the Chicago History Museum.
The relationship between Lake Forest College and the Chicago History Museum, along with other Chicago cultural and humanitarian organizations, continues with the Humanities 2020 initiative, a $1.1 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, to enhance and advance humanities education through deep engagement with issues of race in Chicago.
Exhibits from Lake Forest College students that share these Chicago stories will continue to be added to the site.
Between 2015-2018, twenty Lake Forest College faculty, working with undergraduate student research assistants, delved into Chicago's forgotten or at-risk history to produce digital projects for the public interest.
Their work was supported by an $800,000, four-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Lake Forest College to involve students and faculty in exploring specific sites in Chicago’s history, through urban archaeological digs, innovative digital humanities projects, and complementary coursework in a wide array of disciplines (including English, History, Art, Music, and others).
The Digital Chicago website brings this historical research to light, based on faculty-undergraduate student collaborations that are the highlight of the small liberal arts college experience.
These exhibits reveal stories about Chicago via maps, timelines, 360° tours, recreated musical history, theatrical history, and others.
Grant Team
Davis Schneiderman, Digital Chicago Project Director
Krebs Provost and Dean of the Faculty; Professor of English
Emily Mace, Chicago Digital Humanities Coordinator
Coordinator and project manager for the Digital Chicago grant
Anne Thomason, Digital Archivist for Digital Chicago
Librarian for Archives and Special Collections
Jennifer Larsen, Director of Chicago Programs
Chicago Fellows
Digital Chicago centers on the work of Lake Forest College faculty who served as Chicago Fellows during the four calendar years of the grant, 2015-2018. The Chicago Fellows met regularly and collaborated to develop specific project goals. During their tenure as Fellows, they taught a course oriented toward their research project. All Fellows worked with the assistance of one or more undergraduate student Chicago Fellows Research Assistants. Over the course of their Chicago Fellows year, each Fellow produced a digital project that has become part of this repository of projects. Fellows also presented their work to the Lake Forest College campus community in the fall semester of the year with the Digital Chicago Seminar, and often presented their work with the Chicago area public more broadly.
2015 Chicago Fellows
- Miguel de Baca, Associate Professor of Art History, "The Art World in Downtown Chicago, Then and Now"
- Benjamin Goluboff, Associate Professor of English, "Two Short Plays by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman"
- Donald Meyer, Professor of Music, "Max Wants a Divorce"
- Holly Swyers, Associate Professor of Anthropology, "Death in Chicago"
2016 Chicago Fellows
- Linda Horwitz, Associate Professor of Communication, "Autopsy of the Pledge"
- Chloe Johnston, Assistant Professor of Theater, "Ensemble-Made Chicago"
- James Marquardt, Associate Professor of Politics, "Jane Addams: Chicago's Pacifist"
- Donald Meyer, Professor of Music, "Souvenir Music from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893"
- Desmond Odugu, Assistant Professor of Education, "Restricted Chicago" (continued in 2017)
- Benjamin Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion, "Sacred Spaces in 360°"
2017 Chicago Fellows
- Joshua Corey, Associate Professor of English, "Lightweight: On Barney Ross, A Jewish Boxer in Chicago"
- Brian McCammack, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, "Mapping the Blues"
- Siobhan Moroney, Associate Professor of Politics, "Chicagoland Prize Homes"
- Desmond Odugu, Assistant Professor of Education, "Restricted Chicago" (continued from 2016)
- Richard Pettengill, Associate Professor of Theater, "Shakespeare in Chicago"
- Benjamin Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion, "Chicago's Shifting Synagogue Landscape"
2018 Chicago Fellows
- Annie Barry, Assistant Professor of Music, "Preserving Irish Traditional Music in Chicago: Francis O'Neill"
- Rudi Batzell, Assistant Professor of History, "Power, Distinction, Display: Excavating Elites"
- Liz Benacka, Assistant Professor of Communication, "Drag in the Windy City"
- Courtney Pierre Joseph, Assistant Professor of History, "Spaces and Stories: Haitian Churches and Oral Histories in Chicago"
- W. Rand Smith, Professor of Politics, Emeritus, "Chicago and the Folk Music Revival, 1957-1970: A Tale of Two Key Figures – Ray Flerlage and Win Stracke"
Chicago Archaeological Fellow, 2015-2018
Rebecca Graff, Assistant Professor of Anthropology serves throughout 2015-2018 as Chicago Archaeological Fellow. Visit her work on the Charnley-Persky House Archaeological Project.
Permissions
Digital Chicago complies with The Mellon Foundation's Intellectual Property Policy.
All items on the Digital Chicago website are used with the permission of their original sources; rights and permissions to use and distribute those items are held with the original copyright owners, unless otherwise specified.
Contact
For more information, contact us via email.