History in Our Everyday Lives

Notes

1. The park, Portage Park, and its namesake neighborhood became a part of the City of Chicago with the annexation of Jefferson Township in 1889. And, the earliest documented contact between European settlers and Native Americans in the Chicagoland area is between French traders and the Potawatomi in the 1600s.
2. According to 2000 census data, the population of the Portage Park neighborhood area was 65,340, 37.3% of which was foreign-born. According to the Metro Chicago Immigration Fact Book, Portage Park was-- in 2000-- the fifth-largest area of residence for foreign-born citizens. In 2000, the Filipino immigrant population of Portage Park was ranked fourth in the city, with 1,410 identified immigrants; immigrants of European origin, 12,894 of whom are Polish, make up 16,135 residents in Portage Park-- the largest European immigrant population in the city; exact numbers for Pakistani immigrants were not readily-available, but the city of Chicago’s Pakistani population increased by 122 percent from 1990 to 2000, and the Pakistani population of Portage Park is over 1,000 residents. Also, with regard to the city’s Mexican population-- the Mexican-born documented immigrant population of Chicago is large, 292,565 in 2000; but none of those numbers account for the under-reported amounts of numerous undocumented immigrants who make up the city’s population. And, 75% of Illinois’ Mexican-born population is estimated to be undocumented. A great deal of the city’s Ecuadorian and Asian/Pacific Islander population is estimated to be here through unofficial channels, as well.
3. Miller, Donald L. City Of the Century: the Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
4. Access to Chicago’s Park District pools is free for all City of Chicago residents who present proof of residency. However, the city’s homeless and some of the city’s undocumented immigrant population-- those without a state ID card-- may have a more challenging time accessing these resources. Furthermore, there are charges for some Park District programs for youth and adults, such as football and group exercise classes. But, income-based fee waivers are available for many programs.
5. This comes from the language of the seminar’s Key Concepts and Questions, a document prepared by Dr. Mary T. Y. Lui, National Seminar Leader and professor of history and American studies at Yale University.
6. Hayden, Dolores. The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995; Shopes, Linda. “The Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project: Oral History and Community Involvement,” in Presenting The Past: Essays on History and the Public. Benson, Susan Porter, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig, eds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986
7. Wilson, Mabel O. “Between Rooms 305: Spaces of Memory at the National Civil Rights Museum” in Sites Of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and Race. Barton, Craig Evan, ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001.
8. Rosenzweig, Roy, and Elizabeth Blackmar. The Park and the People: a History of Central Park. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, p4.
10. From Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago to Chicago Park Historian Julia S. Bachrach’s writing on the topic (including the 2001 text The City in a Garden: A Photographic History of Chicago’s Parks), most essays large and small begin with this concept.
11. Dina, Frank, and Jeff Huebner. Chicago Parks Rediscovered. Chicago, IL: Jannes Art Press, 2001.
12. Pogorzelski and Maloof cite local canoe maker, conservationist, and amateur historian Ralph Frese, who contends that Fr. Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet used this same portage as they traveled through the area now known as Chicago in 1673.
13. The college became a part of Augustana College in Rock Island in the late 1890s, close to the time of the annexation of Jefferson Township by the City of Chicago.
14. Pogorzelski, Daniel, and John Maloof. Portage Park. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2008, p. 73, 91.
15. Perry, Marilyn Elizabeth. "Portage Park." The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society, 2005. Web. <http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/994.html>.
16. "Circuses: CHI. EXPECTS BIG 4TH." Variety (Archive: 1905-2000) 79, no. 1 (May 20, 1925): 53. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1505670490?accountid=15172.
17. "17 HURT IN FIREWORKS BLAST." Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963), Jul 05, 1938. http://search.proquest.com/docview/181947502?accountid=15172.
18. According to 1930 census data, the neighborhood's population was 64,203 in 1930.
19. Pogorzelski, Daniel, and John Maloof. Portage Park. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2008, p. 97.
20. Census data indicates that the population of Portage Park was 64,203 in 1930. By 1960, the population increased, though only slightly. It was 65,925 at that point. Demographics of the neighborhood remained stable in terms of race, though the number of foreign-born residents decreased from 23.7 percent to 14 percent, indicative of the descendants of those residents remaining in the area and, in turn, having their own children who also stayed.
21. The Latin term “in situ” means “in place.” Performance studies scholar and New York University professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett writes, in an essay entitled “Objects of Ethnography,” about in situ installations in museums and galleries. She says that—when objects are placed in museums, no matter how “mimetic” (imitative of the original object and its surroundings) they are, they are always subjective. Similarly, the “artifacts” presented in Portage Park—pool, field house, natatorium, stone entrances—appear to tell a narrative that positions it all in a particular place and time. However, upon closer examination, one could find that these artifacts positioned as one whole are actually parts of different iterations of Portage Park. And then, it becomes apparent that the entire visual narrative is constructed. We see the version of Portage Park that the park district wants us to see. It is imitative, but it is also subjective and representational of the current moment.
22. Pogorzelski, Daniel, and John Maloof. Portage Park. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2008, p. vii.
23. A 2014 Dnainfo.com article by Adeshina Emmanuel (“Clarendon Park Security Cuts Making Gang Members ‘Bolder,’ Residents Say,” March 18, 2014) implicates the Chicago Park District in increased gang activity in the Uptown neighborhood, for example. Funding cuts caused the park’s security forces to be removed; but new parks were still being developed in the Loop-- such as Maggie Daley Park, built between 2012 and 2015.
24. Rooney, Kathleen. "Safety, Security, Self-deceit: What Maggie Daley Park Says about Chicago." Crain's Chicago Business. April 06, 2015. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150406/OPINION/150409869/what-maggie-daley-park-says-about-chicagos-false-sense-of-security.
25. Thiel, Julia. "Is the Bloomingdale Trail a Path to Displacement?" The Chicago Reader. June 04, 2015. http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/bloomingdale-trail-606-logan-square-humboldt-park-displacement/Content?oid=17899462.
26. Mars, Roman. "Holdout." Podcast. 99% Invisible (audio blog), September 2, 2014. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/holdout/.
27. Hardy, Charles, III. "Authoring in Sound." In The Oral History Reader, 393-405. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.
28. I am indebted to the teachers I have had the privilege of mentoring, without whom I would have never learned about this strategy: Kelly Hepner, Lauran Quist, and Judson Tigerman.