This gallery contains 13 photos.
Founder Ina Law Robertson opened the Eleanor Hotel in 1898 to provide safe, affordable housing for women coming to Chicago to work. What was later known as the Eleanor Foundation grew to include locations throughout Chicago that provided housing, social … Continue reading
Artists in the WLA: Judith Roth
The Women and Leadership Archives is proud to be the home of the Judith Roth Papers. This collection includes items from 1945 until 2018, right before her passing. Roth started her life on the East Coast in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned a degree from Boston Museum School and her B.F.A from Tufts University in 1957. Eventually settling in Chicago, she continued her studies and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College. Roth worked to promote the work of women artists, including herself. Having a varied career, Roth worked with Marshall Field & Company and the Ravenswood Community Council, saw her work displayed all the way in Switzerland, worked with dancers to capture their life, and so much more.
The young environmental activist Greta Thunberg has gotten the world’s attention in the past year for her great passion and bold actions to fight climate change and persuade everyone to do their part. At 16 years old, she was the youngest to be named Time Person of the Year and was included in Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women in 2019. Wow! That’s quite an impact for one young woman to make.
Keep on reading!There was something not quite right about the working title for this folder. The first letters of the student organization’s full name, “Latins United for Our Cultural Heritage”, were not lining up with its acronym, LUCIR. This thought continued to bug me as I scanned the folder of pictures, leading me to pursue a fascinating trail through a published book, several other folders in the Women and Leadership Archives’ (WLA) collection and a yearbook.
It’s almost holiday time at Loyola, which means finals week, cold winds off the lake, and dreaming of holiday food! For someone who loves food and history, I am always looking for ways to use food to better understand the past. So when I learned that the WLA holds papers from Mundelein College’s* Home Economics department, I had a feeling there might be some gems hiding in the files.
Dr. Irene Meyer was a Mundelein College* professor from 1957 to 1992. In that time, Dr. Meyer earned her PhD, became a fervent civil rights activist, and fought for the abolition of capital punishment in Illinois. I first came across Dr. Irene Meyer earlier this year for a reference request. In her file, there were several articles, which marked her involvement with a man on death row. Reading these sparked my curiosity, and I had to see what else we had in our collections on Dr. Meyer. What I learned was that Dr. Meyer has led an amazing life, built an incredible career, and her story is one that needs to be told. Continue reading
Dance has a large impact on my life. I grew up dancing, starting at the age of three. I went through my life, even graduating with a Dance Complementary major. When I stumbled onto dance records working at the Women and Leadership Archives, I became very excited.
I began research on dance at Mundelein College*, combing through files and student newspapers. I came across several photos of co-ed dances as well as finding some photos and articles of Mundelein dance performances. Overall, I noticed three main genres of dances at Mundelein: company dance performances, students in dance, and social dances.
This blog was originally posted on September 9, 2016. As we welcome new students and share in old traditions, we hope you enjoy reading about the new school year activities at Mundelein College!
Universities around the country are now in full swing. Returning students fall into a familiar routine while incoming freshman spend their first days figuring out class schedules and getting the lay of the land. Articles and photographs in the Skyscraper give some idea as to how Mundelein College* students rang in the new school year. Freshman and upperclassmen alike participated in socials, dances, and a Big Sister program.
Students advertising Freshman Day, 1936
Much information about the new students can be found in the Skyscraper. Yearly, the front page of the newspaper featured a photo of the “First Ladies.” The women featured in the photos were students from the incoming freshman class that were the top students in their high school class. The newspaper recognizes all incoming students with articles containing demographics and statistics of the incoming freshman class. These include what schools, states, and countries the students came from as well as if there was an increase in enrollment. Staff and faculty are also recognized, including one article highlighting that the new faculty studies in seven countries. Continue reading
WLA graduate assistants and Master’s in Public History Angela and Emily, pose with fellow graduate Matt before their Commencement ceremony on May 7, 2019. Angela and Emily each earned a Master’s in Public History and Matt earned a Master’s in United States History.
It’s graduation time at Loyola University Chicago, and I’ve enjoyed looking back at commencement photographs from the collection of Mundelein College. Mundelein College, founded and operated by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), provided education to women from 1930 until 1991 when it affiliated with Loyola University Chicago.
I helped reprocess the Mundelein College Paper Records and wrote the collection finding aid alongside Project Archivist Caroline. We arranged, described, and housed archival objects for patron use. The Women and Leadership Archives, in Piper Hall on Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus, holds the many, many boxes of processed materials from the Catholic women’s college. Today, Mundelein’s skyscraper building is known as the Mundelein Center for Fine and Performing Arts. The Women and Leadership Archives preserves the college’s memory through a variety of records.
The staff at the WLA has been hard at work this year processing new collections to make them available to researchers. You can read about some of these collections that will be available soon in our previous blog post. In this post, I am going to share a sneak peek of an upcoming collection that I feel honored to be working on: The Carol Moseley Braun Papers!