Cook County

Dr. Isabella (Garnett) Butler’s medical bag and instruments

Image of Dr. Isabella (Garnett) Butler’s medical bag and instruments.
Isabella Garnett was born in Evanston in 1872 and received a nursing degree from Provident Hospital and Nurses Training School in 1895. She later graduated with a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons (now the University of Illinois College of Medicine) in 1901, making her one of the first female African American physicians in Illinois.

Evanston enrollment form for the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association

Image of Evanston enrollment form for the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association.
The Illinois Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA) was founded in 1869 and in the early 20th century changed its name to Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA). After more than 40 years of active campaigning, Illinois women gained the right to vote in many statewide races in 1913.

Kroehler and DuPont Miniature Room

Image of Kroeler Manufacturing Company furnature room model.
Illinois-based Kroehler Manufacturing Company was one of the largest upholstered furniture manufacturers in the world for 80 years. It had major influence on the buying habits of the American public. The Naperville company sponsored a traveling exhibit of twelve miniature rooms, “Four Generations of Furniture Fashion.” Commissioned by Kroehler and E.I. DuPont de Nemours in the mid 1960s, the exhibit traveled widely through the late 1970s to stores and shopping centers that carried Kroehler furniture.

Illinois Art Glass

Image of Illinois Art Glass.

Birds ashtray
The Dearborn Glass Company
c. 1957-1965
Fused glass
Gift of Michael Mueller. 2012.151.2

Blot square bowl
The Higgins Studio
c. 1951-1957
Fused glass
Gift of Michael Mueller. 2012.151.9

Arabesque bowl
The Dearborn Glass Company
c. 1957-1964
Fused glass
Gift of Michael Mueller. 2012.6.6

Glass artists Frances and Michael Higgins met at the Chicago Institute for Design and married in 1948. Together, they founded The Higgins Studio in their Chicago apartment, using kilns positioned behind their sofa to create decorative and everyday items using their signature fused glass technique. They quickly attracted orders from major retailers such as Marshall Field’s and Georg Jensen.

World's Columbian Exposition, 1893

Image of Anna Pottery pig flask, cotton handkerchief, fair ticket, and souvenir box from 1893 Worlds Fair.

Handkerchief
Maker unknown
1893
cotton
Gift of Nancy Batchelder Fryxell. 2013.77.12
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Souvenir box
Maker unknown
1893
glass, metal, satin
Gift of Shelley Stewart, 2008.83
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
World’s Columbian Exposition ticket
Maker unknown
1893
paper
Found in Collection, x-885
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Pig flask
Anna Pottery
1893
stoneware
Gift of Margaret Kirkpatrick, 1965.14.745591
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM

Between May 1 and October 31, 1893, more than 12 million people visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. More than 65,000 exhibits covered 600 acres on the city’s South Side, illuminated at night by hundreds of thousands of light bulbs. Visitors looked at new inventions, listened to lectures, saw art exhibits and sporting events, watched movies, rode the original Ferris Wheel, and tasted new foods such as shredded wheat and Juicy Fruit gum.

A Century of Progress International Exposition, 1933-1934

Image of woman's bracelet, brass tray, and compact from 1933 Worlds Fair.

Tray
Maker unknown
1933
brass
Gift of Sue Price, 2004.25.38
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Compact
Girey
1934
metal, plastic, glass
Gift of Sue Price, 2004.25.187
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM
Bracelet
Maker unknown
1934
metal, plastic
Gift of Sue Price, 2004.25.187
ILLINOIS LEGACY COLLECTION – ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM

During the depths of the Great Depression in 1933-34, Chicago staged its second world fair, A Century of Progress International Exposition, to celebrate its centennial anniversary. Its purpose was to celebrate the amazing advances in technology during the period 1833-1933 and to inspire fairgoers with the promise of the happier future that scientific innovation promised.

Hand-Painted Bowl

Image of Pickard China bowl painted by Ingeborg Klein.
This bowl was painted with a bird of paradise design by Swedish immigrant Ingeborg Klein for the Pickard China Company. Klein worked for Pickard from 1920 until about 1925, when she returned to Sweden.

Frank Woodruff's Bird Watching Class Outdoors in Lincoln Park

Image of Chicago Academy of Sciences bird watching class.
The Chicago Academy of Sciences (now housed at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum) offers many outdoor opportunities, including classes like those conducted by Frank Woodruff (1867-1926). This image depicts Woodruff's bird identification class in Lincoln Park, possibly near the Chicago Academy of Sciences’ Laflin Building at Armitage and Clark.

Academy Staff Developing a Photographic Enlargement for a Diorama, c. 1915

Image of developoing a photographic enlargement for a diorama.
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, animal specimens were traditionally preserved as study skins or as crudely stuffed mounts. Then, in the early 1910s, a man named Carl Akeley pioneered new specimen preparation techniques that enabled him to create more realistic displays. The Chicago Academy of Sciences also began to experiment with these ideas and devised large, meticulously-detailed dioramas as a new way to represent local species and natural areas.

Passenger Pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius)

Image of Passenger Pigeon study skins.
The Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum’s scientific collections include several study skins of extinct Passenger Pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius). These four Passenger Pigeon specimens were collected between 1880-1890 in northern Illinois (Evanston and Waukegan).

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