Location: Chicago
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Top 10 History Museums in Chicago, Illinois (IL)
The windy city is a cornucopia of modern art, fine dining, cutting edge comedy, and die-hard sports fans. Snap a photo of your reflection in the silver Cloud Gate sculpture at Millennium Park before heading to Grant Park to get hit with the refreshing spray of Buckingham Fountain. There are dozens of museums and theater companies in Chicago, so a cultural experience is never hard to find. You’re sure to laugh your head off at the Second City Theater, the professional launch pad of many famous comedians.
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1. Ukrainian National Museum
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 22 reviews
A collection of artifacts and archives relating to 1,000 years of Ukrainian culture.
Reviewed By 866TaylorB - Chicago, United States
Founded in 1952, the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago is home to thousands of artifacts, artwork, musical instruments, weavings, agricultural tools, folk arts, embroidered folk costumes, rare books, manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, periodicals, memorabilia and exhibits that focus on the history and heritage of the Ukrainian community. Located at 2249 West Superior Street in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood, it also contains souvenir materials from the former Soviet Union, artwork by Ukrainian immigrants, Ukrainian embroidery and an exhibit dealing with Chicago's unique Ukrainian community. One of the most interesting displays highlights decorated Easter Eggs or "Pysanky," a Ukrainian staple folk art. The oldest designs are called ideograms but the painted eggs share a common theme--the sun, a rose and stars in various patterns. Also a fascinating and highly educational exhibit called "Ukrainian Genocide-Holodomor of 1932-1933," which showcases photographs, documents and newspaper articles dedicated to informing the public about the little known forced famine in Ukraine.
2. National Cambodian Heritage Museum & Killing Fields Memorial
3. Chicago History Museum
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 1,146 reviews
From Chicago's sports to politics, the Union Stockyards to the Great Chicago Fire - there's so much to explore at the Chicago History Museum. Dive right in with the Museum's exhibitions and programs or get out and explore the city through guided tours and events. Founded in 1856, the Chicago History Museum shares Chicago's stories, serving as a hub of scholarship and learning, inspiration and civic engagement. If you live in Chicago or visit here and are curious about the city's past, present and future, the museum should be your first stop.
Reviewed By ellenbR4096MW - Hortonville, United States
I just spent the afternoon at the museum. What a great collection! The exhibits are many and varied. I really enjoyed the Silver Screen to Mainstream American Fashion exhibit. The Modern by Design exhibit illustrates well how industrial design was influenced by Art Deco. It was incorporated into so many everyday products! The little dioramas of the city are very well crafted, especially the Chicago Fire exhibit. I also enjoyed viewing the many Chicago made products in the City on the Make exhibit. The American Medina exhibit opened my eyes to the prejudices faced by Muslims here. I definitely recommend this museum. If you have time, stop for a meal in the cafe. The food is delicious! I recommend the Chicago Dog & French Onion Soup.
4. Charnley-Persky House
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 25 reviews
Reviewed By ColmR47 - Chicago, United States
I really enjoyed this tour of one of the few examples of Louis Sullivan designed homes. The tour guide was super informative and great to see the interior of the house in such good condition. Nice job by the Society of Architectural Historians maintaining the building and permitting us to wander through their offices. Well worth the visit + very close to downtown.
5. Jane Addams' Hull-House Museum
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 66 reviews
This museum honors Jane Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her social work with immigrants and affecting national public policy. Explore the National Historic Landmark settlement house including the residents' dining hall and an arts and crafts building. Closed Mondays and Saturdays.
Reviewed By 866TaylorB - Chicago, United States
Chicagoans know more about Al Capone than Jane Addams. That scenario should change. Every elementary school student should be required to take a field trip to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and learn about the social reformer who became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, whose work changed the lives of immigrant neighbors and national and international public policy. She is every bit as important and as significant to the development of the United States as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The museum, located at 800 South Halsted Street on Chicago's near South Side, near the University of Illinois-Chicago campus, is housed in two of the original settlement house buildings--the Hull House, a National Historic Landmark, and the Residents' Dining Hall, a beautiful Arts and Crafts building that has welcomed some of the world's most important thinkers, artists and activists. Founded in 1889 as a social settlement, Hull-House played a vital role in redefining American democracy in the modern age. Addams helped to pass critical legislation and influenced public policy on public health and education, free speech, philanthropy, racism, women's movements, civic affairs, fair labor practices, immigrants' rights, recreation and desegregation. The museum's collection features more than 5,500 artifacts relating to the vibrant work of the Hull-House Settlement and the surrounding neighborhood, including life on Chicago's Near West Side at the turn of the 20th century. Highlights of the collection include intricate textiles woven in the Hull-House Labor Museum, portraits and drawings of neighbors and settlement life by Hull-House residents, pottery produced by artists at the Hull-House kilns, period and folkloric clothing from neighbors on the Near West Side, artifacts from the nearby Maxwell Street market, furnishings from Jane Addams' collection and oral histories from Hull-House residents and neighbors. A stroll through the museum is an exhilarating educational experience into the life of one of the most important figures in the history of our country.
6. DuSable Museum of African American History
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 93 reviews
A museum dedicated to African-American history, art and culture.
Reviewed By 866TaylorB - Chicago, United States
As a historian of the Civil War, I believe it is important for every American to learn about white, Latino and African-American history, culture and art. And I believe there is no better place to learn and explore African-American history than the DuSable Museum of African-American History. Located at 740 East 56th Place, in Washington Park, on Chicago's South Side, it was founded in 1961 by noted activists Margaret and Charles Burroughs and moved to its current location in 1973. It is the oldest and, before the founding of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington D.C., the largest caretaker of African-American culture in the United States. The museum has a collection of 13,000 artifacts, books, photographs, art objects and memorabilia, including slavery-era relics, 19th and 20th century artifacts, the works of scholar W.E.B. DuBois, author James Baldwin, poet Langston Hughes and sociologist St. Clair Drake, the artwork of Charles White, Gus Nall, Marion Perkins and Archibald Motley Jr., and prints and drawings by Henry O. Tanner, Richmond Barthe and Romare Bearden. The museum serves as Chicago's primary memorial to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the first non-Native American permanent settler in the city. The collection also includes the desk of activist Ida B. Wells, the violin of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Charles Dawson Papers. The museum is designated as a Chicago Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
7. Read/Write Library
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 2 reviews
Read/Write Library is an independent experimental library and community information lab in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood and the only project of its kind in the world. Its collection of over 6,000 local historical & contemporary books, zines, art books, chapbooks & more showcases contributions from all over the city. Get immersed in local creativity & culture you won't find anywhere else.
8. The McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 148 reviews
Celebrating the Chicago River and its world-famous movable bridges. Note: We are closed for the 2015 season. We will reopen in May 2016!
Reviewed By skenyon1995 - Hoffman Estates, United States
A friend of mine sent me a snail mail article from the Chicago Tribune about the Chicago Bridge Museum. Chicago has made an actual museum inside one of their 4 story Chicago River bridge towers. You can take a tour below ground and actually see the gears & inner workings of the DuSable(formerly Michigan) Ave double decker four lane bridge lift machinery. Lots of history in the upper levels. A tour guide came down to the lower level when the boats were passing above & the bridge was lifting to explain things & answer questions. The gigantic counterweight weighs an amazing 12,000 tons! The 100 yr old bridge is so superbly balanced that it only takes about a 150 HP motor & a LOT of BIG gears to lift & lower it in one minute. Amazing what they could design back then with slide rules instead of software. You can go through on your own self guided tour fairly quickly, access is from the Riverwalk area. I believe an adult ticket was $12 or so. Didnt know that boats have the right of way over cars, since the Chicago river is a federal waterway. Sorry, you have to wait for the Skipper & Gilligan!
9. Hamilton: The Exhibition
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 58 reviews
Alexander Hamilton’s remarkable story inspired millions of Americans. Now, you can see it through his eyes in this 360-degree immersive museum exhibition from the creators of the revolutionary musical. Featuring interactive games and displays, lifelike projections, full-scale statues, and Instagram-worthy art installations, Hamilton: The Exhibition takes visitors deeper into Alexander Hamilton’s life as it chronicles the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America. Underscored by a brand-new, 27-piece orchestral recording of the music from Hamilton, the exhibition also features an audio tour narrated by the musical’s author, Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with Phillipa Soo and Christopher Jackson, who played Eliza Schuyler and George Washington in the original Broadway production. The perfect opportunity for the entire family to experience the full story of Alexander Hamilton and the inspiring founding of our nation. See it. Live it. Walk in his shoes.
10. Pritzker Military Museum & Library
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 71 reviews
The Pritzker Military Museum & Library is located at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street on floors two through four of the historic Monroe Building in Chicago's Loop. Situated across the street from Millennium Park (home to Cloud Gate and the Crown Fountain) and the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum & Library is a unique institution – part military history and information center, part museum – open to the public with an extensive collection of books, artifacts and rotating exhibits covering many eras and branches of the military. Visitors can also participate in live television show recordings in the Museum & Library's state of the art broadcast center. The Museum & Library is a center where citizens and active duty military and veterans come together to learn from each other, about military history and the role of the Armed Forces in today’s society.
Reviewed By 866TaylorB - Chicago, United States
It has been said, by some reviewers, that the Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago is more library than museum. And that might be true. But there is such a treasure trove of rare and interesting books, including a sizable collection relating to Winston Churchill, that it is worth a trip to spend time in the Rare Book Reading Room to catch up on history that dates to the 1600s and 1700s and 1800s that you can't find anywhere else. Located at 104 South Michigan Avenue, on the second floor, it was founded in 2003 for the study of "the citizen soldier as an essential element for the preservation of democracy." The collection features over 115,000 items, including more than 67,000 books, as well as periodicals, videos, artwork, posters and rare military ephemera, over 9,000 photographs and glass negatives from the American Civil War and the Spanish-American War to the present, letters and journals from American soldiers, newspaper cartoons by Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper artist Bill Mauldin, war-related sheet music and many materials relating to Churchill. Another fascinating exhibit are two World War II diaries donated to the museum by Chicagoan Sam Gevirtz, who served on the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill during the invasion of Okinawa in 1945. If you are a historian, especially related to the Civil War and World War I and II, if you are interested in such subjects as Civil War regimental histories or military aviation or World War II unit histories, even Soviet history, the Pritzker beckons.
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