CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — There’s a new collection at the Newberry Library, now available online, which offers a glimpse into the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to cities like Chicago.
The digital showcase highlights Newberry's set of 44 “magic lantern” glass slides, which it bought at an auction in October.
It’s thought the slides were designed to raise money for the Methodist Episcopal Church for programs to help black people who were migrating to the North as well as to show African Americans in the rural South what they could expect of life in the urban North.
“They start with images of the rural south and African Americans working in cotton fields, working in sugar mills and then move to showing the, sort of, northern industries that they were working in, automobile factories and foundries,” said Newberry Library Curator of Americana Will Hansen.
The slides were produced by the Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago in the early 1920s.
“They are extremely rare, which is not too surprising,” Hansen said. “They’re made of glass, so they’re quite fragile. They’re pretty easy to break and there probably weren’t many sets made originally to begin with.”
Hansen said the slides were originally black and white images that were hand-colored.
The curator said the images gave an accurate portrayal of what life was like for African Americans in northern cities.
“They’re not sugar-coated, I mean, there are slides that emphasize that the living conditions are sub-standard, in some cases, there’s such an explosion of the population growth that a lot of people are packed into really small spaces, and of course, segregation,” Hansen said.
All 44 slides can be viewed here. Due to how fragile the items are, researchers have been encouraged to view the slides online.
Related
Related
Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!