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Exhibitions at CHM

See what the Museum has to offer, both in-person and online!

Featured exhibition

Dressed in History: A Costume Collection Retrospective

Temporary Exhibition - 2nd Floor - Now Open - Closing July 27, 2025

NOW OPEN – Featuring 70 rarely seen objects, from glamorous gowns and sharp suits to housedresses and sneakers, Dressed in History explores how clothing captures the material, social, and changing cultural values throughout history. The exhibition celebrates 100 years of an incredible collection and the donors, curators, and staff who have shaped it.

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featured exhibition

Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s–70s

NOW OPEN – Chicago activists in the 1960s and ’70s used design to create powerful imagery to amplify their visions for social change. See more than 100 posters, fliers, signs, and more from the era, expressing often radical ideas about race, war, gender equality, and sexuality that challenged mainstream culture of the time.

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City on Fire entrance wall

featured exhibition

City on Fire: Chicago 1871

CLOSING JAN. 26, 2025 - Designed for families to learn, explore, and discover the impact the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had on the city and the people who lived here.

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Drawing by Franklin McMahon of Moses Wright testifiying at Emmett Till trial.
In-Person Exhibition

Injustice: The Trial for the Murder of Emmett Till

NOW OPEN - In 1955, the murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, and the subsequent criminal trial in Mississippi attracted international attention and sparked the Civil Rights Movement. 
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IN-PERSON EXHIBITION

Dressed in History: A Costume Collection Retrospective

NOW OPEN – Featuring 70 rarely seen objects, from glamorous gowns and sharp suits to housedresses and sneakers, Dressed in History explores how clothing captures the material, social, and changing cultural values throughout history. The exhibition celebrates 100 years of an incredible collection and the donors, curators, and staff who have shaped it.

designing-for-change_web-banner
IN-PERSON EXHIBITION

Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s–70s

NOW OPEN – Chicago activists in the 1960s and ’70s used design to create powerful imagery to amplify their visions for social change. See more than 100 posters, fliers, signs, and more from the era, expressing often radical ideas about race, war, gender equality, and sexuality that challenged mainstream culture of the time.
City on Fire entrance wall
In-Person Exhibition

City on Fire: Chicago 1871

CLOSING JAN. 26, 2025 - Designed for families to learn, explore, and discover the impact the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had on the city and the people who lived here.
Exhibition-Jaffee-History-Trail-banner
In-Person Exhibition

The Richard M. and Shirley H. Jaffee History Trail

The Jaffee History Trail is an interpretive path through the park space around the Museum.
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In-Person Exhibition

The Great Chicago Adventure Film

This dynamic film transports visitors through major events and locations in Chicago’s history.
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In-Person Exhibition

The Fifth Star Challenge

If Chicago’s flag had a fifth star, what would it represent?
Abraham Lincoln
In-Person Exhibition

Abraham Lincoln

This installation highlights Lincoln’s election in 1860, his leadership during the Civil war, and his tragic assassination.
Jevne and Almini Lithograph: Tremont House, 1866.
In-Person Exhibition

Lincoln’s Chicago

Abraham Lincoln may have lived in Springfield, but Chicago was his second home and political headquarters during his rise to the White House. This gallery provides a glimpse of the city that Lincoln knew.
Facing Freedom 1
In-Person Exhibition

Facing Freedom in America

From women’s suffrage and the formation of labor unions to a local school boycott, this exhibition highlights some of the ways Americans have struggled to gain rights.
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In-Person Exhibition

Chicago: Crossroads of America

Explore the city's history through a series of galleries that illustrate Chicago’s crossroads nature and highlight artifacts from the Museum’s remarkable collection.
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In-Person Exhibition

Sensing Chicago

Use your five senses to explore Chicago, uncover the past, and discover that history is all around you.
Diorama close up
In-Person Exhibition

Imagining Chicago: The Dioramas

At the perfect height for young visitors, our dioramas were constructed by artisans in the 1930s and depict how Chicago changed during the 1800s.
Soldier Field at night-hb16680a
Online Exhibition

A Century at Soldier Field

From the Special Olympics to ski jumping to Springsteen, Chicago’s Soldier Field has been the city’s playground on the lake for 100 years.
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Online Exhibition

Religion, Civil Rights, and the Ongoing American Transformation

The Chicago Theological Seminary conducted the Jackson Oral History Project in 2022 to preserve stories of Chicago's Civil Rights Movement that represented the potential power and social impact of faith in action.
Exhibition-Democracy Limited-Silent Sentinnels
Online Exhibition

Democracy Limited: Chicago Women & the Vote

A century after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Chicago History Museum invites visitors to explore women’s activism in Chicago to secure the right to vote—and beyond.
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Online Exhibition

Harold Washington and the 1983 Chicago Mayoral Election

On April 29, 1983, Harold Washington was inaugurated as the 51st Mayor of Chicago, becoming the first African American to hold the city’s highest office.
Puerto Ricans march around City Hall
Online Exhibition

It Was a Rebellion: Chicago’s Puerto Rican Community in 1966

The Division Street Rebellion, which began on June 12, 1966, deeply affected how Puerto Ricans came to understand themselves and their place in the city of Chicago.
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Online Exhibition

Cataloging Indigenous-related Pamphlets at the Chicago History Museum

Putting the principles of critical librarianship into practice by cataloging a collection of 13 folders containing 80 miscellaneous pamphlets relating to Indigenous peoples.
People protest racist behavior outside police headquarters
Online Exhibition

Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH

Founded in Chicago by the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr., Operation PUSH has been one of the most important social justice organizations in the United States since 1971.
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Online Exhibition

Drag in the Windy City

This collection of photographs of drag performers and events was donated to the Chicago History Museum by James C. Darby, a former Navy cryptographer and radioman who served during the Korean War and started the first Chicago chapter of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America (GLBVA) in 1991.

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Online Exhibition

Vivian Maier: Her Chicago

Vivian Maier was an amateur photographer whose perceptive eye revealed her profound understanding of the human condition, and her artistry captured the hearts of aficionados and casual viewers alike.
Reid Family Portrait
Online Exhibition

“Concert is Power”

This two-part story series recounts the history of Chicago’s first Black generation, highlighting the struggles that free African American men and women confronted in Illinois and the resilience they showed as they fought for their vision of equality.
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Online Exhibition

The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s World Premiere of Amistad

In 1997, the renowned Lyric Opera of Chicago company debuted the very first opera of its kind—a work especially commissioned to retell the 1839 story of the slave ship, La Amistad, whose captives revolted and changed the course of history.

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Online Exhibition

Reverend Joseph H. Jackson

Reverend Joseph H. Jackson was a renowned African American pastor and civil rights leader of the twentieth century, whose activism focused on education, housing, and economic and political equality.
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Online Exhibition

Thing: She Knows Who She Is

Thing magazine was founded as a platform for Black LGBTQ+ life. Its issues are full of art, poetry, interviews and commentary centering Black culture, LGBTQ+ culture, HIV/AIDS activism, drag, camp, and more.
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Online Exhibition

Sweet Home Chicago

Chicago was a prime destination for Southern migrants between 1940 and 1970, and one major result was the Chicago Electric Blues.
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Online Exhibition

Making Mainbocher

Born in Chicago in 1890, Main Rousseau Bocher was an unlikely man to become a couturier. By 1931 his designs were presented in the fashion press alongside those by Vionnet, Molyneux, and Chanel.
Digital Chicago-for web
Online Exhibition

Digital Chicago

Stories from Chicago's forgotten or at-risk history presented in digital projects by Lake Forest College scholars and students.
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Online Exhibition

Chicago and the Great War

World War I, or the "Great War," claimed more than 17 million lives, including more than 4,000 men and women from Cook County.
Exhibition-GAC-Charles James-tree inside
Online Exhibition

Charles James: Genius Deconstructed

To get inside couturier Charles James’s mind, Museum staff sought to uncover the secrets held by some of his most iconic pieces. We studied them. Turned them inside out. Sketched, photographed, X-rayed, and recreated them.
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Online Exhibition

A Wheel With A View

Celebrated as a technological marvel, Chicago's Ferris wheel has stood as an enduring symbol of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
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Online Exhibition

Touring Chicago’s Culinary History

Come with us back in time through Chicago’s restaurant history with a tour of the Chicago History Museum's historical menu collection.
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Online Exhibition

Ride Around Chicago: A City in Transition

Elmer Whiting, a Chicago streetcar conductor, kept a detailed diary throughout 1894, providing a window into the city's complex history in the decades after the Great Fire.
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Online Exhibition

Chicago 1968: Law and Disorder

At the Democratic National Convention in August 1968, delegates came to the city to select their presidential candidate, while activists gathered to protest US policies at home and abroad.
Exhibition-Online-SE Chicago Storytelling
Online Exhibition

Southeast Chicago Archive & Storytelling Project

The Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project highlights a remarkable collection of objects, gathered and preserved by residents of a steel mill community as its industrial base was collapsing.
Chicago-00-Riverwalk
Online Exhibition

Chicago ØØ

The Chicago 00 Project is a series of site-specific, interactive, immersive multimedia experiences designed to showcase the Museum's film, photo, and sound archive and share Chicago stories in new and unique ways.
Wet With Blood
Online Exhibition

Wet with Blood: The Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln’s Cloak

Join a collaborative team of historians and scientists exploring the mysteries of the cloak allegedly worn by Mary Todd Lincoln on the evening her husband Abraham was assassinated.
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Online Exhibition

The Dramas of Haymarket

The Dramas of Haymarket examines selected materials from the Museum's Haymarket Affair digital collection and places them in historical context.
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Online Exhibition

A House Divided

A House Divided explores the institution of slavery, the fierce sectionalism of free and slave economies in the rapidly expanding country, and the destructive power of the Civil War.
Fire-Web-of-Memory
Online Exhibition

The Great Chicago Fire & the Web of Memory

This project presents a history of the Great Chicago Fire and examines the many ways the Fire was remembered, featuring image galleries, texts, and interpretation.
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