Exploring Historical Scrapbooks

The Northside Neighborhood History Collection documents the daily lives of neighborhood residents from the mid-1800s to the present day. There are many ways to explore a neighborhood’s history, including through organizational records, local newspapers, maps, photograph collections, and yearbooks. However, one of the more unique ways to get a glimpse of what life was like in the past is through scrapbooks. Scrapbooks may interest researchers for the variety of material they contain and the very personal stories they tell, as well as for the care, creativity, and intent with which they were often constructed.

The NNHC's Rogers Park/West Ridge Community Collection, which opened to researchers in 2023, contains a number of scrapbooks that offer different perspectives on life in Chicago in the early to mid-twentieth century. The scrapbooks contain photographs, notes, letters, news clippings, invitations, event programs, and more.

In the scrapbooks, students Hortense Kitsch and Genevieve Sampson documented friends, parties, and school events, while Louise Viehoff recorded her travel and time with friends as a young woman. Local organizations such as the Rogers Park Woman's Club and North Town Civic Council preserved records of their work in the community, while the Touhy family documented significant family events.

Elizabeth Phillip Nolan is the most prolific scrapbook creator in the collection. She created nine volumes of meticulous clippings covering events of personal, local, and national significance. She also mixed in a small amount of other material, including cards and notes.

Scrapbooks are just one approach a person can use to tell their story, but they are fascinating to explore. To look at the scrapbooks pictured here, see other items from the Rogers Park/West Ridge Community Collection, or look at scrapbooks in other NNHC collections, reach out to the Northside Neighborhood History Collection at northsidehistory@chipublib.org or 312-742-4455.