Chicago Photographic collection, ca. 1890-1970

The Chicago Photographic Collection includes photographic prints and negatives documenting Chicago street scenes and architecture, Hull-House activities, and Chicago union activities and industry.

Series I: Chicago Streets includes numerous images of Chicago street scenes (3,000 unique images) and is comprised primarily of the photographic archives of the Chicago Architecture Photographing Company, though photographs and negatives from other firms are included here as well. This images offer a rich vision of Chicago architecture, including step-by-step contruction of many of Chicago's landmark buildings, as well as images depicting the last moments before and just after the demolition of now-lost examples of Chicago's architectural history. The photographs also depict renovations, refurbishments, architectural detailing of buildings interiors and exteriors and chronicle the work of Chicago's architecture pioneers. Organized by street and block, this series is strongest for the years 1930-1960.

Series II: Hull House Activities includes images photographed by Victor Gorecki depicting a variety of Hull-House activities during the 1950s. These 360 unique images document arts and crafts, sprots, nusery school programs, the work of the infant and welfare clinic, and meetings of the Women's League for International Peace and Freedom.

Series III: Union Activities and Chicago Industry includes depictions of both formal and social union activities as well as views of Chicago industry. This series is especially strong in documenting the 1920s-1950s. Images of Chicago industry include Chicago area factories, industrial concerns, and selected products.

The Chicago Photographic Collection is comprised of photographic archives of several well-known photographic firms operating in Chicago in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth centuries. Photographs and negatives in the collection are primarily from the following firms: Chicago Architectural Photographing Company, Burke and Dean, Burke and Koretke, and Kaufmann and Fabry.

The Chicago Architectural Photographing Company was organized in the 1880s to document the city's reconstruction after the Great Chicago Fire. The firm provided architects with a record of their work and other firms with architectural photographs for use in advertising, public relations, or legal records. The firm existed in its original form until the early 1970s. Burke and Dean and Burke and Koretke are the firms of Francis Burke, a news photographer who came to be closely associated with the union movement. Francis Burke did photographic work for unions throughout his career, and the firm of Burke and Dean continued following his death. The firm of Kaufmann and Fabry was another prominent architectural photography firm, known for their work as the official photographers of A Century of Progress, the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The work of Victor Gorecki, a commercial photographer and student of Moholy Nagy at the Institute of Design, is also included in this collection.

Chicago Photographic collection, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago

A selection of images from this collection can be viewed at Chicago: Photographic Images of Change

• NamesPhillips, David
• Subject
  • Chicago Neighborhoods.
  • Lost architecture.
• Geographic CoverageIllinois--Chicago.