Ghost Trackers Newsletter cover, vol. 10, no. 1, February 1991
Very few Chicago History Museum (CHM) staff members haven’t encountered a variation of the question, “Is the Museum haunted?” While we can’t confirm or deny any allegations, we can instead focus on the importance of folklore in CHM’s mission.
As an international city, Chicago residents bring with them their beliefs and superstitions. Similarly, their memories sometimes become a part of the city’s cultural fabric through stories that serve as cautionary tales, urban legends, and timeless ghost stories. For some, the question of what lies beyond the mortal plane transcends sheer curiosity, becoming a lifelong interest involving experimental research, debate, and community. Institutions like CHM sometimes collect the records produced by these efforts because they provide unique historical perspectives on memory, belief systems, and local traditions.
In 1982, Chicago-area author and paranormal researcher Dale Kaczmarek began publishing the Ghost Trackers Newsletter (GTN) as the official publication of the Ghost Research Society (GRS), an organization interested in investigating all aspects of the supernatural. The newsletter was available to members of the GRS and the general public for a nominal fee, and it came with membership perks like invitations to events and a network of other individuals with shared interests.
GTN, Volume 4, No. 4, October 1985. This newsletter issue told the famous story of the supposed hauntings at Hull-House, the settlement home operated by Jane Addams on Chicago’s West Side. Today, after waves of urban renewal, Hull-House is now a museum operated by the University of Illinois Chicago.
The Ghost Trackers Newsletter had a homemade feel akin to a modern-day zine, where readers could expect consistent offerings. Most issues open with an editor’s page and an update on GRS activities. The lengthiest piece of writing in the publication was usually an article devoted to an individual location or haunting. While in its early days, the publication focused primarily on Chicago-area hauntings, as its audience grew, it wasn’t uncommon to find features devoted to paranormal hauntings and investigations in other Midwestern states like Michigan and distant locations like Southern California. Other publication offerings included opinion polls (letters to the editor), book reviews (and, in later issues, movie critiques) on materials covering the paranormal, and classified ads. Readers could find advertisements promoting lectures of interest to those in the field, invitations to local gatherings and conventions, and pitches for unique products and publications catering to those with otherworldly interests.
Ghost Trackers Newsletter, Volume 8, No. 3, October 1989. This advertisement is representative of what could be found in GTN issues. The Book of Azrael: An Intimate Encounter with the Angel of Death is one of several publications by author Leilah Wendell documenting supposed communications with an otherworldly entity with intimate knowledge of the afterlife. Due to its subject matter and limited printing, copies of this book have become increasingly desirable among collectors and researchers.
While the subject matter covered by the newsletter appears questionable to skeptics when analyzed through a historical lens, GTN provides a unique look into local and far-reaching stories. For example, a 1983 issue of the newsletter took up Chicagoland’s most famous ghost, Resurrection Mary, at length, recounting supposed sightings and other events related to the story. As those familiar with the story know, one of the most enduring parts of the legend is the supposed metal bars of the cemetery gate where Mary’s ghost left her ghostly handprints, warping the structure in the process. The 1983 article in the newsletter, simply titled “Resurrection Mary,” goes into extensive detail about this story, providing specific dates, names, and even an image, all of which can serve as potential leads for those interested in exploring the legend further.
Pages from Ghost Trackers Newsletter, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1983
Similarly, many of the adverts peppered throughout the newsletter give historians a concise record of when and where gatherings took place, thereby allowing us to map the trajectory of specific organizations, movements, and individuals that may otherwise have left scarce records. While seemingly trivial, these records can be of value to a diverse group of researchers interested in tracking a story.
Ghost Trackers Newsletter, vol. 2, no. 8, June 1989
All said and done, Ghost Trackers Newsletter had an impressive run. Its final issue was published in October 2001, meaning it was around for roughly two decades, and as is made apparent by several of its issues, it had an international readership. One of its most significant accomplishments was how seriously it took its work, time and time again, featuring pieces focused on the importance of research and objectivity as anchors for those with this area of interest.
Ghost Trackers Newsletter, Volume 5, No. 8, October 1986. This half-page list written by GTN editor Dan Kaczmarek is one of the many regularly published pieces dedicated to the craft of paranormal research. Other pieces were more substantial and covered topics as diverse as the difference between a spirit and a ghost and advice on taking experimental spirit photographs using emerging technologies.
It also provides extensive records on how the growing access to technology revolutionized the ways communities with niche interests communicated and developed. What initially began as a largely handmade publication eventually transitioned into a publication that served as a revenue stream for this organization, a mission further achieved by the newsletter’s adoption of word processing software in the late 1980s, which facilitated the editorial process, made for a more uniform newsletter, and enabled the more regular inclusion of images and written content from guest authors beyond the Chicago metro. As Ghost Trackers Newsletter makes clear, the digital revolution at the end of the 20th century brought new tools to old haunts.
The Museum’s copies of Ghost Trackers Newsletter are available for interested researchers at the Abakanowicz Research Center, which is free to visit.
