Calling all students and alumni! We Are Chicago is back!

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a web exhibition version of We Are Chicago: Student Life in the Collections of the University of Chicago Archives.  

The We Are Chicago exhibition originally opened in the Special Collections Research Center Gallery in the winter 2012. The show highlighted student experiences over a span of 120 years and drew on the historical collections of the University Archives and featured recent donations as well as rarely seen materials from the University’s past. Costumes, photographs, T-shirts, letters, posters, publications, and memorabilia combined to make this the largest and most inclusive exhibition in the ongoing Special Collections archival series, Discover Hidden Archives Treasures.

The web exhibition includes images of the original exhibition design as well as images of specific pieces that had been on display. The web exhibition also includes reproductions of cards from the interactive comment board that allowed students, alumni and visitors to post a memory about their time here on campus.

Tracking student life on campus is an archival challenge. More than 300 Registered Student Organizations exist at the University.  Understanding the history of student life is equally complex. Since the university’s founding in 1892, students have organized an amazing array of social, academic, cultural, residential, athletic, literary, and political groups.

The University Archives welcomes donations from alumni, students, and community neighbors who have historical materials on student life that can be preserved and made available to the students and researchers of the future.

View the online exhibition here: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/wearechicago/