• IdentificationMSGera72
  • TitleHelen Tieken Geraghty papers MSGera72
  • PublisherSpecial Collections
  • LanguageEnglish
  • RepositorySpecial Collections
  • Physical Description7.5 Linear feet
  • Date1931-1968
  • AbstractHelen Tieken Geraghty (1902-1987) was a producer of historical pageants and industrial shows as well as a theater educator in Chicago. This collection contains scripts, budgets, attendance records, photographs, theater programs, set designs, blueprints, costume drawings, clippings, reports and scrapbooks.
  • OriginationGeraghty, Helen Tieken (Molly T.)

Old Resource ID was HGeraghty

Helen Tieken Geraghty (1902-1987) was a producer of historical pageants and industrial shows as well as a theater educator in Chicago. Helen Tieken's mother, a president of the Chicago Public School Art Society, cultivated an appreciation for the arts in her daughter from an early age. Tieken received a B.S. from the University of Chicago in 1924 intending to continue on to medical school. Instead, Tieken pursued a career in the theater. She studied drama at the Sorbonne and Oxford universities in 1926 and at the Goodman School in 1927. In 1928, she received an M.A. in drama from the University of Chicago. The following year, she traveled to Germany to work with Max Reinhardt, whose methods were the subject of her master's thesis. Upon her return, she spent several years directing the Junior League's Children's Theater and touring with several productions.

Helen Tieken Geraghty's association with the Century of Progress Exposition began with her appointment as director of the Enchanted Island Children's Theater. She then staged and directed "Wings of a Century", the pageant of transportation. During the second season of the exposition, she coordinated revisions of "Wings of a Century", but did not direct the pageant because she was transferred to the Spanish Village. There, she wrote and directed a pageant based on Spanish history, which she called "Hispanana."

In 1937, Helen Tieken Geraghty became director of the Hull-House People's Theater, where she directed community theater productions. In 1943, she became director of dramatics at Francis W. Parker School, a position she held until 1957.

While at the Parker School, Geraghty resumed her career as a producer of pageants, directing "Wheels A'Rolling" at the Chicago Railroad Fair. In 1950, she produced a patriotic pageant called "Frontiers of Freedom" for the Chicago Fair. In 1952, she staged her first indoor pageant called "Adam to Atom" for Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. She also produced "The 17th Star" in Columbus Ohio for that state's sesquicentennial activities in 1953.

During this period, Geraghty also produces pageants for a number of conventions and business meetings, including "Indian Trails to Iron Rails" for the Burlington Railroad (1949); "Song of Mid-America" for the Illinois Central Railroad (1951); "Family Portrait" for Studebaker (1952); "Anniversary Album" for Rotary International (1955); and "Banner High" for the American Red Cross (1956).

In 1957, the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry sponsored the Chicagoland Fair to celebrate the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and hired Helen Tieken Geraghty as entertainment director. They decided to make the Fair an annual event, changing its name to the International Trade Fair. Geraghty served as director of cultural activities and entertainment for the period 1958-1963, a full-time job, which took her around the world in search of talent for the "Big Show".

Geraghty served as general manager of the Ravinia Festival north of Chicago in 1963-1964. In 1970 coordinated the arts programs for the Illinois Sesquicentennial.

This collection contains scripts, budgets, attendance records, photographs, theater programs, set designs, blueprints, costume drawings, clippings, reports and scrapbooks. The material documents Helen Tieken Geraghty's career as a director of pageants and theatrical productions in Chicago and elsewhere.

Helen Tieken Geraghty papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago

  • Names
    • Geraghty, Helen Tieken (Molly T.) -- Archives
    • Hull House Theatre (Organization : Chicago, Ill.).
  • SubjectChicago Design History.