Tours

Creator: Chicago Architecture Foundation
Source: Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-37967)

Memory is often attached to particular places, and a tour through a space can be a way of transmitting a series of memories associated with a number of locations in a landscape. Walking, bicycle, boat, and auto tours turn the approach of museums inside out and interpret urban public space as places of memory. The passage of a tour produces a sense of physical connection to history, and an imaginative map of historical associations. The selection of places on a tour helps to reinforce some memories while inevitably overlooking other places and other histories lost to present memory. Chicago Architecture Foundation Pamphlet, 1984.

See also: Architecture; City as Artifact; Historic Preservation

Public Ritual and Pageantry

Creator: Chicago Turngemeinde
Source: Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-37968)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries historical pageants were a means of enacting a vision of history in a memorable public ritual. Arthur Hercz, a Hungarian architect who stayed in Chicago after arriving to contribute to the World's Columbian Exposition, designed and directed a number of historical pageants, including one called "Humanitaet" (1914), another for war relief (1915), others commemorating the Indiana Dunes (1917) and the state of Illinois (1918), in honor of an All American Exposition at the end of World War I (1918), and in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Chicago Turngemeinde. "Chicago Turngemeinde 1852-1927," Harmony, 1927.

See also: Set Design; Turnvereins

Local History and Bicentennial Commemorations

Creator: Hammond American Bicentennial Committee
Source: Newberry Library (folio F539 .H18 H39)

Municipalities have observed national and local anniversaries with historical festivities. In the 1930s a few older municipalities, including Chicago and Aurora, observed their centennials. During the national bicentennial celebrations in 1976, Hammond and many other municipalities cultivated interest in their local histories by involving a wide range of local organizations in producing parades, exhibits, festivals, historical markers, and books of local history. Hammond Bicentennial Yearbook, 1976.

See also: Chambers of Commerce; Leisure