Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Day 5: Books, Books, Books


On my first day at the Museum, I spent some time on Loyola Libraries' website researching books on Swedish-American history. I was pleasantly surprised to find, later, that many of the books I had checked out were all ready in the museum's library. Instead of heading the Oral History project, which my co-intern was focusing on, I catalogued books within the library that dealt with Swedish Chicago. Many of these books assisted me in researching the history of the sites. Interestingly enough, the one that helped me the most was a travel guide, Touring Swedish America, by Alan H. Winquist and Jessica Rousselow-Winquist. The book provided buildings, sculptures, and names of Swedish-American architects. The most intriguing book was The Swedish Theater of Chicago, 1868 - 1950. Theater groups and glee clubs were popular among Swedish-Americans living in Chicago, and they would often perform in locations not exclusively Swedish. One such example is the German Theater, known today as the "Vic."

During my research, I found a panoramic book on America in Swedish:





With the help of Google translate, I was able to read the descriptions. For the words I didn't know, a Swedish-English dictionary was never far away. 

One of the most beautiful books in the library was a Bible in Swedish with gold inlay in the cover. Inside contained beautiful biblical scenes. When looking for the publishing date, I was surprised to learn that it was printed not too far away from me: 112 Randolph St. I had stumbled upon another location to research for my Swedish Sites project.


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