2015 TOPICS IDEAS
Power, Authority, and Governance, Reform and Social Justice
Interest in this area involves the way that government functions, how politicians lead, laws made and impact, and how citizens
participate in government.
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Business People for the Public Interest
John V. Farwell and Welfare Reform
Lucy Flower and the First Juvenile Court in Chicago (UIC)
Jane Addams, the Women’s Peace Party and the Hague Conference
John W.E. Thomas: First African American Legislator and the Civil Rights Act
Grace Abbott and the Immigrant Protective League, or Childrens Bureau (UIC)
Who Leads the People? (Alinsky, IAH, and other Citizen’s Power groups) (UIC)
Pearl Hart: Human Rights Attorney (UIC)
The Sanctuary Movement: Chicago Leadership (WLA)
Alliance to End Repression and the Red Squad: Leading to First Amendment Rights (CHM)
Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Party (or Operation PUSH)
Paul Findley: Leadership in Middle East Diplomacy
Legacy of Dewey Defeats Truman
Clarence Darrow (capital punishment or crime or immigration, first amendment) (Newberry, CHM)
The Rosenwald Legacy: Racial Progress, Giving Away a Fortune
Harold Washington (Development and the Neighborhoods, Council Wars, Latino Coalition…)
Father Michael Pfleger
Dorothy Gautreaux, Polikoff, and the BPI, CHA (NARA, HWLC)
Michael Shakman and Civil Service Reform
The Struggle for Japanese-American Reparations (JASC)
Founding of Roosevelt University (RU)
Roosevelt, Conventions and the Third-Term Question
Quentin Young: Health Care for the People (NU)
Great Lakes Naval Station and the Integration of Troops
Civilian Conservation Corp in Chicago and Illinois
Women in the Navy (GLNM)
Rotary International’s Global Fight Against Polio (Rotary)
Margaret Haley: Professionals and Unionists (Newberry,
Independents and the Daley Machine (UIC)
Beyond the Jungle: UPWA and the Clean Meat Act of 1967 (RU)
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial: Unravelling Leadership? (NARA, CHM)
Student Activism and Leadership on particular campuses (see most University Archives)
Citizen Power! (UIC)
Women’s Leadership in Chicago’s Response to Homelessness (WLA)
Jon-Henri Damski and the Struggle for the Chicago's Human Rights Ordinance (Gerber-Hart)
Restorative Justice, Crime and the Legacy of Clarence Darrow
Justice, Not Political Expediency: The Leadership of John Peter Altgeld
Political Voice and Power in the Latino/a Community
Economy
Interest in this area involves studying labor, trade, business, advertising, consumerism
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Albert Lasker and the Foundation of Modern Advertising (CHM)
Marshall Field’s Leading Role in Merchandising
Consumerism lead to change (boycotts, Nestle [DePaul], Apartheid [Columbia], packaging and pricing...)
Carson, Pirie, Scott and the Fashion Maven
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University of Chicago Economists, Milton Friedman, and Effects on Foreign Economies (UC)
Farmers markets for the heartland. In 1970s, farmers convinced to spot growing food ad grow commodities instead
Ebony, Advertising, and African-American Consumerism (Harsh)
The IWW—Leading the Way to Industrial Unionism (Newberry, CHM)
Beyond Burnham- Leadership and Conflict in the Planning of the Modern City
Reagan and the PATCO Strike
Legacy of the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre (Roosevelt)
Legacy of the Haymarket Tragedy
Railroads and How Chicago Became the Center of the Nation (Newberry)
When Chicago was the center of the nation’s manufacturing economy
The Policy Kings of Bronzeville: Exploiters or Leaders? (Harsh)
How Pullman Strike Changed Debs Life and Leadership (NARA)
John Fitzgerald, Victor Olander, Chicago Federation of Labor and Progressive Unionism (CHM, UIC)
Elevation of the Tracks—An Engineering, and Citizen Action Feat
The Printing Industry, Candy Industry, Stockyards Industry, Musical Instruments Industry (HWLC)
Mail Order Catalog Industry: Amazon’s Great-Great Grandparents
Save Our Jobs: The Fight Against Steel Company Shutdowns (CHM)
Morton Grove: The Nation’s Greenhouse (MG Hist Archives)
Boosterism, Speculation and the Making of Chicago (CHM, Newberry)
Leadership in Working Class Housing: Saul Gross and the Bungalow
Alice Peurala: Taking on Sexism and the Bosses (NARA)
Scientific, Medical, and Technological Innovation
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The Emergence of Fermilab (UC, NARA)
Manhattan Project
Atoms for Peace
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Preston Tucker (NARA)
J.S. Hynek: Leading Our Eyes to UFO (NU)
Dr. Abt’s Children: Leading Medical Understanding of Pediatrics (NU)
Leadership in Nursing Education: Cook County School of Nurses, Illinois Training School for Nurses (UIC)
Military Medicine: The 27th Evacuation Hospital of Charles Puestow (UIC)
Women, Gender and Family History
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Betty Friedan and NOW (National Organization for Women)
Chicago NOW: Leadership Beyond the ERA
Mae Jemison: From the Peace Corps to Outer Space
Frances Willard: Temperance, Suffrage
Chicago Maternity Center , The Birth Center Law
Bertha Palmer: Chicago’s Queen of the Gilded Age?
Louise de Koven Bowen: Wealth and Progressive Reform
The Women Take the Lead: The Chicago Labor Union Women
I Got a Hammer: The Chicago Women in the Trades
Elizabeth Drier Robins, Agnes Nestor and the Women’s Trade Union League
Why the ERA Failed, or Why it Almost Succeeded (UIC, WLA)
Addie Wyatt: Leadership on Four Fronts (Harsh)
Terri Tepper and Taking a Stand: Women Keeping their Own Name
Mother Jones: The Miners Angel
The Case of Karen Francis Ulane (NARA)
Women Mobilized for Change (UIC)
Black Feminism in Chicago
Suffrage Movement in Illinois: Strategies for the 20th Century
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Elizabeth Mahoney: Leader of the Working Class
League of Women Voters (UIC)
The Integration of the YWCA
Madeline Morris Stratton and the First Black History Curriculum in CPS (Harsh)
Women Religious and Human Rights in Central America
Ron Sable and the AIDS Crisis
The Black Women’s Clubs
Marion Talbot and Women in College (UC)
Alice Peurala: Taking on Sexism and the Bosses (NARA)
Arts, Architecture, Design, and Cultural History
Art, theater, architecture, and various methods of creative expression, and how they can both reflect and shape society, fall into this
category.
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Chicago Blues Leadership and the Urban Sound
Ardis Krainik and the Lyric Opera House
Katherine Kuh brings Modernism to AIC (AIC-BR)
School of the Art Institute and African-American student artists (AIC-BR)
Mary Reynolds: Surrealist (AIC-BR)
Armory Show (AIC online)
Hairy Who
Loredo Taft
Richard Nickels
Chicago’s Leadership in Architectural Engineering and Design. Consider: Jenny, Burnham & Root, der Rohe, Sullivan,
Burnham, Wright….
Marion Mahony Griffin- Forgotten Leader of the Prairie School
Jens Jensen: Architect of the Landscape
Chicago Bauhaus [and Beyond: Institute of Design, Baldwin Kingery Co. (AIC, IIT)
Second City and the Roots of Improv
Margaret Burroughs: From the Chicago Renaissance to the DuSable Museum
Don Cornelius and Soul Train (NU)
Wall of Respect and the Mural Movement
Bob Fosse: Reimagining Broadway
Hull House and the Little Theater Movement (UIC)
Black Arts Movement: Jones-Hogu, Fuller, and Cohran (NU, UC, SSCAC)
Redefining Dance: Katherine Dunham
Herb Kent is on the Air
Leading House Music to a Nationwide Sound: Frankie Knuckles
Third World Press, Path Press – Leadership in Independent Publishing of African-American Work: Haki Madhubti, Bennett
Johnson
Chicago Broadcasting and the advent of new media—radio, tv
Judy Chicago and the Dinner Party
Maria Tallchief (Newberry)
Environmental and Geographical History
How did the land shape the lives of people, industry, and the built environment--and how did they shape the land to what
consequences? How did concerns about the environment or lack of concern cause people to act in history?
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Hazel Johnson, Altgeld Homes and Environmental Justice
Senator Paul Douglas and Saving the Indiana Dunes
Earth Day in Chicago
Mary McDowell and environmentalism
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Leading the Parks Movements (WLA, UIC)
Sports and Recreation
The daily experiences of people can often be defined by the ways that they pursue recreational opportunities. Free time and interests
help to define life for individuals and or groups be it: professional, amateur, or commercial/marketing/business.
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Golf and the Chicago Girl
The Emergence of Women’s College Sports: U of I Volleyball
A League of His Own: Hulbert and the Foundation of the National League
Hull House Women’s Athletics before WW2 (UIC)
Stagg: Leader of the Opposition to Professional Sports
Peg Grey: The Founder and Organizer of LGBT Sports in Chicago (Gerber-Hart)
Ernie Banks
Abe Foster
Civil Rights
The history of race relations and the fight for civil rights in a dominant theme and story in US History. Civil rights issues can involve
African-Americans, Latino/as, women, or people from other "minority" groups fighting for equality.
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John Evans, American Indians, and the Foundation of Evanston and Northwestern
Montrose Village and the American Indian Movement (AIM)
Sisters and Civil Rights: Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the OBM (WLA)
Peggy Roach and the Contract Buyers League: Ending a Housing Scam (WLA)
The Black and White Abolitionists of Chicago
Pullman Porters
Owen and Elijah Lovejoy
George Leighton: Simple Justice is not so Simple (Harsh)
Alternative Schools in the Days Before Privatization and Charters: Howalton, Luumba-Jackson (Harsh)
SNCC, Freedom Summer and the Chicago Support (Harsh, UIC)
SDS in Uptown-Peoples Leadership in the North
Mamie Till and T.R.M. Howard—Mourn, but Organize (Harsh)
Afro-American Patrolman’s League (Renault Robinson, Edward Palmer, Curtis Cowen) (NARA, Harsh, CHM)
Southern Leadership Council in Daley’s Chicago
Legacy of the Black Panther Party
The Richardson and the African-American Abolitionist Movement of Illinois (CHM)
Edward Cole and the Slave State Question in Illinois
CBTU, Paul King takes on the Construction Industry/Apprenticed Trades
Puerto Rican Organization for Political Action: Leadership in Voting Rights (NARA)
1919 and the Failure of Leadership
Carl and Nannie Louise Hansberry: Leaders for Integration (NARA)
Fight for a Fair Employment Practices: Marches, Acts, Commission (Harsh, NARA)
Cha-cha Jimenez and the Young Lords (DePaul)
Mujeres en Accion (DePaul)
Refugio Martinez: Labor Organizer (NARA, CHM)
Nation-Building: African Students at Chicago in 30s Duke Kwesi Kuntu, Modupe Paris (UC)
Puerto Rican Cultural Center: Autonomy in the Community