chicago history museum

By -
about two weeks ago, i was in chicago for the kick-off training of my new job.  i ended up skipping the intro to excel training (smart move -- it was optional!) and headed up to lincoln park to the chicago history museum.  i had been once when i was in middle school with my mother and sister.  my wonderful friend, kelly, also had her wedding reception there last august, but unfortunately, i was unable to attend.

i got there a little after 3:00.  the entrance is pretty easy to find although my cabbie wanted an actual street address.

i really enjoyed the museum.  i first tackled the first floor including the dioramas and the very old "mystery" american flag.  the dioramas are some of the oldest part of the museum.  the story with the flag is that they really do not know the story of the flag!  it is not standard print or size, so they are trying to figure out where it is from and why it was created. 

i then headed upstairs to where the main action is.  i spent the most time in the exhibit with the history of chicago.  it took the viewer step by step through the progression of chicago from a small town on lake michigan to the "crossroads" of america.  one of my favorite signs in the museum was this one:
i found this image particularly amusing since i had just been in milwaukee and experienced their abundance of beer!  i also stumbled into the exhibit which discussed all of the contributions chicago had made to the retail and invention space including the awesome game of mouse trap. 

overall, time flew by in the museum.  i wish i had just an extra half hour to spend.  most museums seem to close at 5:00, so i thought i had the time, but unfortunately this one closed at 4:30. 

time in museum: 1.5 hrs
times visited: 1 (in recent memory)
overall: B+
Location: Chicago History Museum, Chicago, IL 60614, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cincinnati Art Museum

By -
Image
A couple of weekends ago, I dashed into the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Treasures of the Spanish World exhibit.  The exhibit was created by the Hispanic Society and very c learly, the descriptions were written by the Hispanic Society.  The exhibit spanned the typical exhibit hall and then also one of the other halls sometimes used for exhibit too.   With my annual membership, I had free admission to the exhibit. The exhibits starts much further back than expected, which if I had read the description closely, I would have known.  It focuses on the holistic Iberian peninsula.  The exhibit is set up chronologically and has a mixture of art mediums.  The exhibit had descriptions of the art in both English and Spanish.  As i mentioned earlier, the descriptions were definitely written by the Hispanic Society as a few of them were quite complimentary about their collection and its possessions.   So I did end up taking a bunch of photos during the exhibit. A miniature of a cr
Read more

lower east side tenement museum

By -
to take advantage of the beautiful day in new york city, i thought i would try to take the lower east side tenement museum walking tour. i hustled down there and got there right in the nick of time. i have been to the lower east side museum for their tenement tours, but wanted to try this 1 1/2 hr walking tour, immigrant soles: a neighborhood walking tour . i saw some areas of the lower east side which i had never seen before. the tour guide was very good; he did a great job pointing out the interesting architecture making us think about what certain architecture features might mean. for example, a building with only three windows, what does that mean? answer: that it was meant to have a single family live there as opposed to twenty, since there was no partition splitting the building in two. he also brought up some of the different political tensions running through the LES that had not been mentioned in some of the other tours. perfect for a beautiful summer day. times v
Read more

Morgan Library

By -
Image
I was in a suburb of New York City two weeks ago and had to get to the Morgan Library .  It has been a number of years since I have been able to make it there and it is probably my favorite place in New York.  This aptly was visit #10! It is peaceful and full of light in the museum.  It was busy in there, but still quiet.  I continue to love how elegantly the museum meshed contemporary with the traditional elements. Not sure if you can see it, but the grates are full of birds I focused on my visit on three major exhibits: John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal , Verdi: Creating Otello and Falstaff-Highlights from the Ricordi Archives , and the main library wing . I really like the John Singer Sargent oil painting portraits.  He is quite well known for these paintings that he completed in the early portion of the 1900s including many of the souls and their children.  He painted so many famous people of that time period.  He ended up switching to charcoal because it was f
Read more