Open Stacks

The Chicago Cubs...part two

The documentary is, indeed, an entertaining and touching look at the history of team and its city.  We were thrilled when two of our images appeared on the big screen - those of TW Anderson playing ball and the children in the prairie grass.  Both were worked into segments depicting wonderful historical photographs from many different collections.  We were proud to contribute to the production in the way that we could.  We waited to watch the credits roll by at the end of the film and let out a cheer when we read "Covenant Archives and Historical Library" "North Park University" and the "Swedish-American Archives of Greater Chicago"!  

The Chicago Cubs and North Park University

Tonight is the premier of We Believe: the Movie, the feature film documentary celebrating Chicago and its Cubs. Researchers gathering material for the documentary visited us at F.M. Johnson Archives and Special Collections in fall 2008 in pursuit of film footage or photographs to use in the film.  They were looking for ways to capture the experience of immigrant communities in early 20th century Chicago as they wove the story of the city and its baseball team. They chose several still images from our photograph collections and I will be at the premier hoping to see if any of them made the final cut. 

Here are the images I"ll be looking for!

1908 image from his scrapbook - T.W. Anderson plays baseball near campus during his time studying at North Park Academy. He graduated in 1909, later became president of Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis, and eventually the Evangelical Covenant Church's fourth president in 1932.

This shot has already been featured in promotional material for the film.

One of the Covenant Archives and Historical Library's most requested and cherished photographs.  Children in the North Park neighborhood playing in the long prairie grass in the area that became Foster, Sawyer, and Kedzie avenues.

The young Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav parades with Mayor Daley, during a visit to Chicago in the 1970s. From the photograph collection of the Swedish-American Archives of Greater Chicago.