CHM curator Petra Slinkard takes you through the process of a gallery rotation, which helps us preserve artifacts and refresh exhibitions. The Chicago History Museum’s permanent exhibition Chicago: Crossroads of America is a 15,000-square-foot installation dedicated to our city’s rich and complex past. The installation opened in September 2006 and contains hundreds of artifacts and More
Inside the Collection is a video series that invites you into the Chicago History Museum’s storage spaces to explore unusual, interesting artifacts from our vast collection. In the inaugural installment of Inside the Collection, Britta Keller Arendt, CHM’s senior collection manager, and intern Catrien Egbert highlight a meal bin, a storage container for various grains (think More
Just as it’s impossible to keep insects out of our homes, it’s impossible to keep them from entering museums as well. While insects in general are not harmful to humans, many of them can severely damage the very collections that museums seek to preserve. In order to prevent this, many museums, including CHM, have instituted More
When you work at a museum, you wear specific gloves when handling certain artifacts, most of the time. Researchers and visitors often ask us why, so here’s a bit more about why we love our gloves. Just a portion of the glove supply in the Collections office. All images by Esther Wang At the Chicago More
Senior collection manager Britta Keller Arendt explains how the collections staff keeps track of our artifacts. One question that Museum staff are frequently asked is “How many artifacts do you have in there?”, which is quickly followed by “How do you keep track of them all?” Senior collection manager Britta Keller Arendt and collections technician More