Welcome DePaul University

This month we welcomed DePaul University into the IDHH. DePaul University has shared the Deborah Bright Photographs collection, which includes 96 black and white photographs taken by the photographer, Deborah Bright, in 1985.

The  images in the collection capture an eerily quiet side of Chicago in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, sparsely populated by people. Bright took these photographs as part of the Lincoln Park Study Group, which was a project directed by Dr. Charles Suchar, and involved many DePaul faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. As part of this, a group was formed to conduct a historical and cultural study of Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, where DePaul is located. Bright’s photographs document the neighborhood as it was at the time, in a process of gentrification.

The collection was donated to DePaul by Bright in 2015 as thirty-seven strips of negatives, with ninety-six exposures, and thirteen 8″x10″ contact sheets containing ninety-eight photos in total.

Here is a sneak peek from the collection.

Two children are walking down the sidewalk between two new buildings.
Deborah Bright, Courtyard of apartment building in Lincoln Park, Chicago, 1985. Deborah Bright Photographs, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.
An alley with a telephone pole that is surrounded by a metal garbage bin, and pieces of wood on the ground.
Deborah Bright. Alley in Lincoln Park, Chicago. 1985. Deborah Bright Photographs, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.
Three buildings side-by-side on a sunny day, one buildings has a Coca-Cola sign out front, two buildings appear to be residential buildings.
Deborah Bright. Residential and commercial buildings along W. Webster Ave., Chicago. 1985. Deborah Bright Photographs, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.
A fence separates two urban gardens. There are residential buildings in the background.
Deborah Bright. Garden in a residential lot in Lincoln Park, Chicago. 1985. Deborah Bright Photographs, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.
Newer homes are surrounded by chain-link fence. There is a boat on a trailer in the middle ground.
Deborah Bright. House exterior in Lincoln Park, Chicago. 1985. Deborah Bright Photographs, Special Collections and Archives, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.

Permission to display here is granted by DePaul University Special Collections and Archives.

To see the full collection, please visit the collection here.

There are other many great collections in Illinois that document various aspects of the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, check them out in the IDHH!

 

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