Chicago Public Library. Austin Branch

This scrapbook collection documents social organizations and prominent neighborhood residents from Chicago’s Austin community.

The collection contains manuscript, print and photographic documentation on demographic, economic, cultural, social, political, and religious development of the Austin neighborhood. The collection contains biographical information on Austin residents, as well as information on businesses, religious institutions clubs and organizations, hospitals, municipal agencies, parks, residences, schools, streets, transportation, and wartime activities.

This collection documents Austin High School from its earliest days in the 1870s through the federally mandated desegregation attempts of the 1960s and 1970s. The documentation includes histories, news clippings, photographs, programs, student publications and yearbooks.

The collection contains community newspapers includes The Austin Herald, The Austin News, The Austinite, The Austin Voice, The Austin Weekly News, and The Windy City Word. The issues primarily span 1970-1997.

The collection includes news clippings, yearbooks and scrapbooks that document the objectives of the Austin Women’s Club, defined as “intellectual and social culture, general philanthropic work, a united effort toward self-improvement and the elevation of humanity.”

The West Side Council of Parents and Teachers formed on April 4, 1923, as an umbrella group to support PTA units in individual elementary schools on Chicago’s West Side. This collection documents the West Side Council from its beginning in 1923 up through its division into West Side Council North and West Side Council South in 1949.