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On March 23, the Newberry accepted the 2020 Outstanding Public History Project Award for Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots. Due to the risk of hosting large events during the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Council on Public History held the 2020 awards ceremony online.
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“We wanted to bring the city together to engage in public conversations about the 1919 Chicago race riots and to connect that past with the structural racism of the present,” said Brad Hunt, the Newberry’s Vice President for Research and Academic Programs, in an acceptance video shared via Twitter. “The events of 1919 were a critical moment. After the riots, whites moved to solidify and reinforce racial divides. This was a story that had to be told.”
Throughout 2019, nearly 2,700 Chicagoans joined the Newberry and its project partners for 11 community conversations exploring the decisive role the riots played in cementing racial division and inequality in Chicago. Programs included film screenings, youth poetry slams, panel discussions, and even a bike tour visiting the key sites of violence and resistance during the riots.
“This project is a model umbrella initiative that stretched across the city and brought people together to remember one dark event and its aftermath,” noted the NCPH award committee. “The most impressive aspect of the project is the way diverse organizations such as the Chicago Urban
Above: The Newberry and Blackstone Bicycle Works lead a bike tour of the key sites of violence during the 1919 Chicago race riots. June 29, 2019. Photo by Peter Pawinski Below: Scholars Eve Ewing and Kenneth Warren discuss literary responses to racial violence in Chicago. September 24, 2019. Photo by Anne Ryan
League, Chicago Architectural Club, Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Library, and the Newberry Library worked together to make this project happen.”
Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and by additional support from Allstate Insurance Company and Edith Rasmussen Ahern and Patrick Ahern.
Chicagoans gather to discuss the interconnections between race, migration, and housing. May 4, 2019. Photo by Anne Ryan
National Endowment for the Humanities Awards the Newberry a Grant to Continue Supporting Groundbreaking Humanities Scholarship
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Newberry $382,500 — plus an additional $180,000 in matching grants—to support the library’s longstanding fellowship program over the next three years.
“For more than 60 years, the Newberry’s fellowship program has consistently resulted in ground-breaking research because it offers humanities scholars the time they need to work in a world-class collection, surrounded by a supportive community of other scholars and staff,” said Brad Hunt, Vice President for Research and Academic Programs at the Newberry. “With long-term funding from the NEH, Newberry fellows dig deep into the past to develop fresh interpretations of history that enrich our collective understanding of who we are as humans.”
New Acquisition: 1857 Plat Map of Lake Forest
This winter, the City of Lake Forest transferred an important map to the Newberry: the oldest surviving copy of the 1857 plat map laying out the then-new Chicago suburb. A welcome addition to the Newberry’s cartographic holdings related to the history of Chicago’s metropolitan region, the rare map intersects with several topics that can be researched in the collection, including the complex relationship between mapping and city planning.
“We’re grateful to the City of Lake Forest for preserving this piece of their history, and we are thrilled to be able to provide Newberry researchers with access to it,” said Jim Akerman, Curator of Maps at the Newberry.
The Newberry Earns Commendation from Sotheby’s for Upcoming Exhibition
The Newberry was one of four institutions to earn a commendation as part of the 2019 Sotheby’s Prize, which celebrates curatorial excellence and champions the work of innovative institutions that strive to break new ground by exploring overlooked or underrepresented areas of art history. The award was made in recognition of the library’s fall exhibition, Renaissance Invention: Stradanus’s “Nova Reperta.”
Opening in Fall 2020, the exhibition explores the conception of novelty and technology through a groundbreaking study of Nova Reperta, a late sixteenth-century print series that celebrated the marvels of the age, including the stirrup, the cure for syphilis, and the so-called discovery of America.
“By mounting Renaissance Invention, we’re inviting visitors to explore universal themes that reverberate across time: change, disruption, and technological advancement,” said Lia Markey, co-curator of Renaissance Invention and Director of the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies. “People living in the Renaissance expressed both excitement and anxiety about the innovations of their time—a mix of emotions we see reflected in society today.”
