Join Dr. Jenny Thompson, EHC Director of Education and author of “The Takeover 1968: Student Protest, Campus Politics, and Black Student Activism at Northwestern University” for a virtual presentation on Dr. Martin Luther King Day – Monday, January 18 from 12:00-1:15pm. Click “read more” to learn more.
Tour without travel! Join the Evanston History Center for a virtual historical journey, with stops in Evanston & Chicago. Click “read more” to learn more about the Evanston History Center’s Winter 2021 Under the Buffalo Lecture series and how to register online!
Shop our online store for unique books, posters, ornaments – and more! – that recall and examine Evanston’s fascinating history. Every purchase supports the EHC and we thank you for your patronage!
Click “read more” for more info, a full list of items, and prices!
Evanston History Center invites you to participate in
Capturing History: Evanston 2020
A time capsule to be housed at the Charles Gates Dawes house and opened in 2031.
The Evanston History Center announces the launch of an archive and digital record dedicated to documenting the COVID-19 pandemic in Evanston and surrounding areas. We are now seeking digital contributions, from images to documents.
Click “Read More” to see how to contribute and submission guidelines.
Your year-end gift is vitally important this year. EHC’s income was drastically reduced due to COVID-19. Generous foundations have collectively offered to match year-end gifts to help us offset losses incurred from being closed.
Click “read more” to learn more about our highlights from 2020 and how you can donate to the annual appeal!
There has never been a more exciting time to join a vibrant community that enjoys and takes pride in, Evanston’s rich history. With your membership, you also support the Evanston History Center’s mission to collect, preserve and share the history of our community for generations to come.
In April 1918, there were a lot of things to fear. The First World War, now in its fourth devastating year, was reaching a critical level for the United States. In the year since the country declared …
At EHC, we oppose racism in all its many forms. We believe that knowing our history is a powerful means to make meaningful and positive change. This year’s house walk featured the homes and stories of Evanston women and women’s organizations that had positive impacts on the community through their work in suffrage and politics. …
Thank you to all of our sponsors who are helping us make the 45th annual Mother’s Day House “Walk-By” happen this year. You can still purchase House Walk-by books and support the Evanston History Center.
Heading out for a walk? Stop by the Evanston History Center to pick up a historic walking tour to go on. Maps are located on the side porch, inside the door. You can also download a PDF to print at home or to use it on your mobile device.
Click “Read More” to see and download walking tours.
The Evanston History Center will be closed four tours until further notice starting 11/20/2020 in accordance with the Illinois Tier 3 Mitigation Requirements to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Please stay tuned for virtual holiday tours.
If you have any questions please contact Kris Hartzell at khartzell@evanstonhistorycenter.org.
The Evanston History Center research room and archive will be closing until further notice starting 11/20/2020 in accordance with the Illinois Tier 3 Mitigation Requirements to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
If you have a research question please contact Grace Lehner at glehner@evanstonhistorycenter.org.
Just 19 days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis in April 1968, a group of Black students at Northwestern University submitted a list of demands to university officials. Soon, they would undertake an act of civil disobedience: the occupation of Northwestern’s Bursar’s Office. Join us for a virtual presentation by Dr. Jenny Thompson, author of The Takeover 1968. Thompson will explore this action, its history, and its connections to the larger civil rights movement in America.
Just 19 days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis in April 1968, a group of Black students at Northwestern University submitted a list of demands to university officials. Soon, they would undertake an act of civil disobedience: the occupation of Northwestern’s Bursar’s Office. Join us for a virtual presentation by Dr. Jenny Thompson, author of The Takeover 1968. Thompson will explore this action, its history, and its connections to the larger civil rights movement in America.
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation with Dean Jobb
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation with Dean Jobb
January 26, 20216:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation Dean Jobb
A Virtual (Zoom) Presentation Tuesday, January 26, 2021 6:30-7:30 pm Click here to register. Registration is required. Admission $10. EHC members free! Admission can be paid online. Consider joining EHC and attending this and other events for free.
It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, an Evanston resident, who enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million—upward of $400 million today—in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. This rip-roaring tale of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charming con man on the town, then on the lam, is not only a rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history.
As Model Ts rumbled down Michigan Avenue, gang-war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination. As bedecked partygoers thronged to the Drake Hotel’s opulent banquet rooms, corrupt politicians held court in thriving speakeasies and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the American dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.
“Intoxicating and impressively researched, Jobb’s immorality tale provides a sobering post-Madoff reminder that those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken.” —The New York Times Book Review
Dean Jobb is an award-winning author and journalist and a professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction and Journalism programs. He specializes in true crime and his monthly column on the genre, “Stranger Than Fiction,” appears in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He is also a contributing writer for the Chicago Review of Books and reviews nonfiction for the Washington Independent Review of Books. During his 35-year career as a newspaper staff writer and freelance journalist, he has written features and commentaries on an array of subjects – history, current events, law, business, politics, media ethics, science, travel, and the craft of nonfiction. His new book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, coming in July 2021 from Algonquin Books, recreates the hunt for a Victorian Era serial killer who murdered as many as ten people in the U.S., Canada and England, including four in the Chicago area.
This presentation will take place virtually on Zoom. Click here to register. Registration is required.
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation with Dean Jobb
Starts: 6:30 pm
Ends: January 26, 2021 - 7:30 pm
Description:
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation Dean Jobb
A Virtual (Zoom) Presentation Tuesday, January 26, 2021 6:30-7:30 pm Click here to register. Registration is required. Admission $10. EHC members free! Admission can be paid online. Consider joining EHC and attending this and other events for free.
It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, an Evanston resident, who enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million—upward of $400 million today—in phantom timberland and nonexistent oil wells in Panama. This rip-roaring tale of greed, financial corruption, dirty politics, over-the-top and under-the-radar deceit, illicit sex, and a brilliant and wildly charming con man on the town, then on the lam, is not only a rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it’s a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history.
As Model Ts rumbled down Michigan Avenue, gang-war shootings announced Al Capone’s rise to underworld domination. As bedecked partygoers thronged to the Drake Hotel’s opulent banquet rooms, corrupt politicians held court in thriving speakeasies and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the American dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.
“Intoxicating and impressively researched, Jobb’s immorality tale provides a sobering post-Madoff reminder that those who think everything is theirs for the taking are destined to be taken.” —The New York Times Book Review
Dean Jobb is an award-winning author and journalist and a professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction and Journalism programs. He specializes in true crime and his monthly column on the genre, “Stranger Than Fiction,” appears in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He is also a contributing writer for the Chicago Review of Books and reviews nonfiction for the Washington Independent Review of Books. During his 35-year career as a newspaper staff writer and freelance journalist, he has written features and commentaries on an array of subjects – history, current events, law, business, politics, media ethics, science, travel, and the craft of nonfiction. His new book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, coming in July 2021 from Algonquin Books, recreates the hunt for a Victorian Era serial killer who murdered as many as ten people in the U.S., Canada and England, including four in the Chicago area.
This presentation will take place virtually on Zoom. Click here to register. Registration is required.
History is alive at the Dawes House. Each year, thousands come to explore the questions history provokes, feel the excitement of discovery, and experience the thrill of examining artifacts and reading directly from original documents.
All of us who care about preserving Evanston’s history have the opportunity to safeguard one of our most visible and important artifacts, the Dawes House. The Capital Campaign will ensure that, with your help.
