This collection consists of images produced by Chicago Sun-Times (CST) and Chicago Daily News staff photographers from roughly 1940-2000. Most of the images date from 1960-2000 and have not been published. The collection is arranged in two series, each containing approximately 2.5 million images. Both series include analog negatives (35mm and medium format, in black-and-white and color) and digital images.
The two series do not vary much in overall scope but were created as a way to manage the acquisition and processing of this large collection. With exceptions, Series 1 is made up of mostly undigitized negatives, while Series 2 is mostly digital images. To access the original negatives from either series, visit the Accessing Images page of the research guide.
In 2009, CST sold its collection of over four million photo negatives to Rogers Photo Archive, a commercial photo-sales company in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Per the agreement, Rogers promised to provide the CST with a digitized and searchable image archive and in return, he was free to sell the physical negatives once digitized.
In 2017, following a number of legal challenges, Rogers’ assets, including the CST images, were turned over to the courts and auctioned off. The CST negatives and digital files produced by Rogers were shipped to Historic Images, a photo-sales company in Memphis, and then sold to a private dealer in Dixon, Illinois. In 2018, CHM purchased the collection and worked with the CST to obtain a non-exclusive license.
CHM acquired roughly 2.5 million digital images (created by John Rogers and scanned from negatives, many of which were sold by Rogers to private collectors) and 2.5 million physical negatives. Between 2021-2023, CHM digitized approximately 100,000 of the 2.5 million negatives.
Due to the volume of the collection, CHM does not have plans to digitize all negatives. Instead, CHM will continue to digitize on request and proactively prioritize batches of negatives for digitization based on upcoming exhibitions, programs, and research interest.
Digital images are available via links in the Sun-Times Airtable Inventories. Visit our research guide at https://libguides.chicagohistory.org/sun-times to learn more.
To access original negatives which have not been digitized, visit the Accessing Images page of the research guide.
Photographer information wasn’t consistently captured by previous owners of the collection during their digitization process. If an image was published in the newspaper, it is sometimes possible to find the photographer’s name credited there. However, if John Rogers (previous owner) sold the original negatives after digitization and they were never published in the newspaper, CHM has no direct way to track that information down again.
For the physical negatives in the collection, photographer information is usually recorded on the negative sleeve. Wherever possible, CHM staff will record this information and make it available in the collection’s inventories.
In 1959, Chicago Daily News was acquired by Field Enterprises, who also owned the Sun-Times. At this point, the Daily News moved into the Sun-Times building, so there was a close relationship between the newspapers until the Sun-Times bought out the Daily News in 1978.
Because of this relationship, there are instances where images in this collection were taken for the Chicago Daily News, and we are working to identify these when possible.
No. CHM owns a large portion of historic images produced by the Chicago Sun-Times between 1940-2000. Prior owners of the collection sold off some of the negatives to private collectors. Contemporary Chicago Sun-Times images (roughly 2001-present) are owned by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The eight-digit job numbers (e.g. ST-17100057-0001) and four-digit image numbers (e.g. ST-17100057-0001) were assigned by the previous owner, John Rogers, during his digitization process. It is CHM’s understanding that the numbers were assigned based on the scanning machine number and the arbitrary order in which the negatives strips were scanned. During processing, CHM renamed a portion of the job and image numbers due to number duplication and applied a consistent file naming convention. For future digitization, CHM will continue using this naming convention.
CHM does not have information on Rogers’ selection process for digitization, nor an understanding of why there may be gaps in the job numbers. Gaps in the image numbers may exist because negative strips were occasionally found to have been filed in the wrong job envelope after digitization. The images were renamed with the correct job number, creating a gap in the image numbering for the original job.
Currently, CHM is the acting licensing agent for all Chicago Sun-Times images (historic and contemporary). Requests for licensing any CST images should be sent to rightsrepro@chicagohistory.org. Please allow 3-5 business days for a response due to the high volume of emails received.
Sometimes. CHM can create higher-resolution digital files for those images with matching negatives in CHM’s collection, but if the originals were sold by the previous owner, we are limited to the resolution of the existing file.
The Chicago Sun-Times manages its own reprints, which you can request here: https://chicago.suntimes.com/pages/contact-us . To license past articles, contact PARS International https://www.parsintl.com/publications/chicago-sun-times/ .