Between Drake’s sleepy Honestly, Nevermind and Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” a lot of people have something to say about house music lately. (And while I can’t say I have thoroughly read every discourse posting, I’ve seen almost no instances of anyone mentioning the fact that several music sites reported rumors of Beyoncé working with house […]
Tag: archives
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire’s sesquicentennial
2021 marked 150 years since the Great Chicago Fire. While acknowledged by major institutions, the anniversary was muted, perhaps because it’s difficult to commemorate a massive tragedy in the midst of another overwhelming one. For me, the best marker of the anniversary is journalist, historian, and photographer (and past Reader contributor) Robert Loerzel’s @ChicagoTimeline Twitter […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Archiving the city’s past
Cities change. As Chicago is a city and most certainly not exempt from this immutable law, I can tell you that Chicago will change in some fashion by the time you finish reading this piece. By the time you finish this sentence a family might have packed up their belongings in Chatham to relocate to […]
Posted inMusic
Spelunking in the Reader of 1971
The music ads in the Reader’s very first issues add context—and curiosities—that the stories alone can’t provide.
Posted inArts & Culture
From the Bubbly Creek festival to sculptures made from straws
A roundup of art events happening this weekend
Posted inBlogs
A brief visual history of black Muslims in Chicago
A look back at the Nation of Islam’s Influence on south-side neighborhoods during the 1960s and 1970s.
Posted inBlogs
A look inside the Newberry Library protest archive
The library’s archivists are crowdsourcing posters and pussy hats.
Posted inBlogs
Help us identify these south-side neighborhoods
The latest Blvck Vrchives features photos of the south side of Chicago from the 1960s to the 1980s, with a call to action to help identify the neighborhoods depicted.
Posted inNews & Politics
A rare glimpse into a transformative time at Cook County Jail
The late 1960s was a time of change for the prison thanks to Winston Moore, the country’s first black warden.
Posted inBlogs
The legacy of Mayor Harold Washington
In many ways, Chicago’s political climate has changed little since the death of the political visionary.
Posted inBlogs
A visual history of the black vote
In this election year, we look back at the history of black voter mobilization in Chicago and in the south.
Posted inBlogs
Celebrate International Women’s Day with these stories about women kicking ass in Chicago, past and present
A look into the Reader archives for stories about bad ass women.
Posted inArts & Culture
How a mysterious box of photos sent an Evanston couple halfway around the world
For a quarter century, Jerri Zbiral and Alan Teller have been trying to figure out the identity of the photographer behind images from 1940s India.
Posted inNews & Politics
This week’s Chicagoan: Adam Selzer, ghost-tour guide
This week’s Chicagoan is Adam Selzer, ghost-tour guide.
Posted inBlogs
Ask a librarian, and then listen
A research project leads me out of the digital cocoon