Simeon, one of the 16 teachers who organized Dunbar Trade School (now Dunbar Vocational High School) in 1948, later served as acting director of Dunbar and director of Vocational Education Centers for the Chicago Board of Education. His papers consist of scrapbooks of educational clippings, correspondence, photographs and college transcripts.

Born in St. Louis in 1931, Herbert Simmons was one of the earliest black genre crime writers. His protagonists fought the restrictive nature of white society toward black men. His papers include galleys of Simmons’ novel Man Walking on Eggshells with author’s marginalia.

Kathryn M. Slack spent the first few decades of her life in Chicago's Austin neighborhood before moving to Oak Park. It is presumed the album contains images of Kathryn M. Slack’s ancestors. The portraits include children, adults and older family members, and provide a view on the typical clothing and styles of a white family with the means to purchase photographic services in the late 1800s in Chicago.

The glass photographic slides cover a broad spectrum of Chicago history including businesses, churches, clubs, organizations, municipal agencies, parks, residences, schools, street views and transportation, among other historical topics such as the Century of Progress and the World’s Columbian Exposition.

Homer Smith’s memoir, Black Man in Red Russia, was published and promoted by Johnson Publishing Company in 1964. The collection includes an unpublished manuscript by Smith highlighting his life in Ethiopia in the mid-twentieth century.

Rosella E. Smith’s papers include capital stock certificates from Binga State Bank and Supreme Liberty Life Insurance and receipts. Jesse Binga’s bank was a major Black-owned financial institution on Chicago’s South Side. It closed in 1933.

Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935) was a prolific illustrator whose work appeared in children’s books, periodicals, and advertisements. The collection includes books, periodicals, calendars, prints, exhibition catalogs and promotional items that feature illustrations by Smith.

The South Chicago Community Collection contains a range of ephemera, pamphlets, photographs and news clippings about the neighborhood’s residents, business establishments, religious institutions, clubs and organizations, hospitals, municipal agencies, residences, schools, streets, transportation, and wartime activities.

This collection is comprised of three titles published in the South Chicago neighborhood: The Calumet Record, The Daily Calumet and The South Chicago Daily Independent. While this collection contains no significant runs of any of the papers, many of the newspapers were saved because they specifically spoke to the history of the South Chicago neighborhood.

The collection contains a range of articles, brochures, historical sketches, newsletters, photographs, programs and yearbooks that focus on neighborhood events, persons and organizations in the South Lawndale community, particularly during the mid-20th century.

The South Shore Community Collection contains manuscripts, printed material and photographs on businesses, clubs and organizations, religious institutions, residents, schools and street scenes in the community area.

The collection contains documents related to the foundation and organization of the society itself, including society’s constitution, membership lists, reports, minutes and programs. A short history of the Society produced by one of its members describes the Society’s formation and sets forth its aims. Of particular interest are two notes from author and humorist Opie Read which can be found in the correspondence file.

The collection contains twelve partial runs of newspapers from the South Shore neighborhood, some of which are rare. The newspapers from the 1960s and 1970s illustrate the changing population of the South Shore neighborhood.

The Southeast Ravenswood Association was organized in 1983 to serve residents of Chicago's North Side in the area from Irving Park Road to Montrose Avenue and Ashland Avenue to Ravenswood Avenue. This collection contains their administrative records and outreach material.

Photographer Michael St. James collected early images produced by Chicago’s pioneering African American photographers. The collection includes photographs taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

St. Mark’s Camera Club was founded by Willie Griffin in 1972. Griffin was also associated with the Washington Park and South Side camera clubs. This collection contains photographs from the camera club of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church.

Founded by playwright David Mamet, Patricia Cox, William H. Macy and Steven Schachter, the St. Nicholas Theater Company produced a successful and varied lineup of productions from 1972 to 1981, including Mamet originals like The Water Engine and The Woods. The collection consists of production, administrative, artistic and development records in addition to files about the St. Nicholas School of Theater Arts.

The Steppenwolf Theatre is an ensemble theater company founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry. The ensemble's strengths include acting, directing, playwriting and textual adaptation. The collection contains audience development, artistic and management files from 1974 to 2008.

This small collection includes items Robert Sterling kept from his role as a referee for basketball games at the 3rd Pan American Games, held in Chicago in 1959. This collection includes twelve photographs of either the opening or closing ceremony at Soldier Field, official published programs, and a metal badge and certificate awarded to Sterling for his participation as referee.

In its five-season history, Stormfield produced nine world premieres and received numerous Joseph Jefferson Award citations. The collection consists of production files that include programs, promotional material, scripts and prompt scripts, reviews and clippings.

Story Press publishing company operated in Chicago in the 1980s, publishing short stories. This collection documents its history through correspondence, business files, review files and copies of published books.

The collection consists of land and legal records concerning Streeterville acreage.

Ann Stull was director of Friendship House in Chicago from 1951 to 1955. Friendship House was a Roman Catholic mission that preached and practiced racial tolerance in the pre-civil rights era. Her collection of rare serials and newspaper clippings documents racism, Catholicism’s involvement in interracial justice, labor relations, housing and educational discrimination on Chicago’s West Side.

The collection consists of ephemera, pamphlets and photographs about Chicago suburbs.

From 2007 to 2015, Linda Erf Swift photographed students from three Chicago high schools in the Hyde Park and Kenwood neighborhoods. The goal of her Chalkboard Project was to generate dialog between students and awareness about their communities, schools and lives. This collection contains six color portraits, exhibit captions and a text panel from the 2015 exhibition at Harold Washington Library Center.

Alida Szabo built a poster collection while working in program development, marketing and media services for numerous arts organizations across Chicago. The collection contains 26 posters, collected by Szabo between 1976 and 1987 through her work with theaters including St. Nicholas and Goodman, as well as with the Mayor's Office of Special Events and other cultural institutions in Chicago.

Willietta Jones Temple was a longtime member of Lilydale First Baptist Church and an activist in Lilydale community organizations. Her papers include church anniversary books, programs, correspondence, newsletters, funeral programs and photographs. Also included are materials from other churches and documentation of Lilydale community organizations’ work.

D.E. (David Edward) Terriere was a longtime resident of the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago who worked as a banker at the Englewood Bank. His 37 handwritten diary entries, although brief, offer glimpses at his family life, household financial transactions and activities in the city. One of the diaries from 1900 was kept by Terriere’s mother-in-law, Anna Elizabeth Correll of Niles, Michigan.

Edmund Teske studied art at the Huttle Art Studio in Chicago, and later worked for Paramount Pictures in the photographic still department. The Edmund Teske Photograph Collection includes 24 images of Triple-A Plowed Under, a Works Progress Administration play performed at the Great Northern Theater in 1937.

The Theater Portrait and Clipping Files collection consists of portraits and clippings relating to actors, actresses, dancers, singers and vaudeville performers who performed on Chicago stages as well as in New York, London and smaller venues across the United States and Europe. Included are portraits, in the form of either professional photographs or clippings from programs, as well as obituaries and other clippings.