This guide will give you some ideas for things that you can find out using digitized collections from both CHM and other institutions. You can also search our online catalog, ARCHIE, to see what sources we have, even if you can't access it now. If you're stumped, feel free to email us at research@chicagohistory.org ; we might be able to make some suggestions.
Dennis McClendon's Chicago in Maps provides links to many helpful sources. His guide to Sanborn maps of different eras is a quick way to access the digitized Sanborns at the Library of Congress and other libraries.
If you are dealing with old addresses, you might need to check our guides to 1909 changes; 1911 changes in the Loop; and street name changes.
ChicagoAncestors.org is a site developed by the Newberry Library. It includes some city directories as well as other useful tools that are available online.
Criss-cross directories are organized by address, not by residents' names. CHM has made the criss cross for 1928 available online.
A portion of our collection of photographs has been digitized and can be viewed through our online catalog, ARCHIE. These include images from the architectural photography of Hedrich-Blessing and Chicago Daily News images from 1902-33. Some images have been selected for our photo store. Or, to see images of highlights from the 3-D collection of objects owned by the museum, check Collections Online. Our largest collection of images is in the portal for our Rights and Reproductions department, which includes the Daily News and Hedrich-Blessing images, along with digitized images from other collections, like the Sun-Times photos and the Raeburn Flerlage collection.
Discover articles you missed in the back issues of Chicago History magazine.
Professors and students at Lake Forest College collaborated with the Chicago History Museum to create Digital Chicago. Try out the games and exercises used by some of Chicago's famous theater ensembles or listen to music played at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
Look up any of thousands of different Chicago topics in the Encyclopedia of Chicago
And, of course, many other resources exist on the internet. Many older and unusual books can be found in the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, or Project Gutenberg. The Chicago Public Library (or your own local public library) can provide access to subscription databases like WorldCat or digitized newspapers. And browse for other unique and interesting sources of information like Forgotten Chicago.
Many pages in our guides will suggest that you make a search in our online catalog ARCHIE (named to honor long-time CHM archivist Archie Motley). It's a great way to find out more information about our collection before visiting or to find collections to explore when you are here. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the catalog.
MAKING YOUR SEARCH MORE ACCURATE:
The catalog now has fuzzy searching. If you ask for hats it will bring up an entry with the word hat and vice versa. If you do want to search only for an exact spelling of a word, put that word in quotations. For instance if you search for "hat" you will only get results for hat but not hats. If the spelling variation might be more than one or two letters different, try searching for multiple variations with the keyword search.
The search generally ignores punctuation, such as apostrophes, hyphens, and the like. A search for "Field's” will bring up the same hits as a search for “fields.” “Anti-war” will bring up the same records as “anti war” (and will regard it as two separate words, so be sure to use quotation marks or ask for exact phrase--see Making Your Search Narrower, below). ARCHIE will have trouble with some punctuation like colons and semicolons, though. If you have one of those in your search and are not getting results, try taking that particular punctuation out.
MAKING YOUR SEARCH BROADER:
Unlike Google and many other search engines, ARCHIE does not search a full text, but searches a specified group of subject headings, words in the title, and author names. You may need to think of a broader term. A search for “women’s liberation,” for example, brings up only 16 hits. But “feminism” brings up 85. If you find a catalog record for a good source, look at the subject headings listed for that book or document, and try searches on those subjects—often that will lead you to other useful sources.
MAKING YOUR SEARCH NARROWER:
If you are searching for the neighborhood “Lincoln Square” and want to get only records with that phrase, not ones that have both Lincoln and Square somewhere in the record, either put the phrase in quotation marks or use the drop-down menu in the advanced search to specify “exact phrase.”
Another way to limit the number of records you retrieve is to limit the type of materials. You can use the drop-down menu to request records for only prints and photographs; only manuscript items; only books and serials; etc. You can also combine different formats in Advanced Search. For example, you can search for both photographs and manuscript items.
For a word or phrase that will have many hits, try a browse search. For example, if you want the call number for Chicago History magazine, your best bet is to choose “title” from the All Fields drop-down menu, rather than doing a keyword search for "Chicago history," which will bring up more than 60,000 hits, even as an exact phrase! Once your results are listed, click on the drop-down menu just to the top right of your results that says "sort by" and choose "title," which will allow you to browse the titles in alphabetical order.
Sometimes, you may find that there are so many Daily News photographs, that they are overwhelming your search. You can take words or phrases out of your search by inserting a dash before the word or phrase without a space. Please note that if you want to take out an exact word or an entire phrase it should be in quotation marks, like this: -"Daily News".
There are other ways to narrow your search—explore the drop-down menus and advanced search for these possibilities. You can limit the search to a certain publication/creation date or to a certain genre (i.e., diaries).
MISCELLANEOUS IDEAS:
If you are looking for a particular neighborhood, it can be useful to search under both the official city Community Area Name as well as the unofficial name of the neighborhood. For example, a search for Back of the Yards will bring up several sources, but its official Community Area Name is New City, so be sure to search that as well. If you aren’t sure of the Community Area Name, check the Encyclopedia of Chicago.
FINAL WORDS:
Don't forget--the staff is here to help you. Don't hesitate to ask for assistance.