The Community History Archives: This Week In History July 15th – July 21st

(2000s – Present) Better Late Than Never: Millennium Park Opens, 2004

 

One of the most famous attractions in Chicago, Illinois is Millenium Park. But how many people know the story behind this iconic location?

The idea of building a park to replace the Illinois Central Railroad Lines that occupied the area began back in 1977. Nothing came to fruition until Richard Daley became mayor in 1989, and he decided to improve upon the shoreline view of the city. After discussing ideas with the Illinois Central Railroad Company in 1997, they agreed to donate the land back to the city and the project of Millenium Park began.

One feature they knew they wanted to include from the beginning was a concert and performance venue. However, a law put in place at the beginning of the 20th century prevented any permanent structures from being built near or on the city’s shoreline. Architect Frank Gehry found a loophole in this law, and designed a venue that was a work of art rather than a structure, making it outside of the restrictions of the law. The park was under construction starting in September of 1998 and was planned to finish in the year 2000.

The project, however, took longer than expected. It wasn’t until July 16, 2004, that Millenium finally opened, four years later than planned and $340 million over budget. However, it was worth the wait because the park now holds some of the most iconic attractions in Chicago. Millennium Park has a diverse variety of attractions including rock climbing, the crown fountain, a concert pavilion, and wide stretches of gardens. The most famous though is a work of art created by Anish Kapoor named ‘Cloud Gate’, but is more commonly known as ‘The Bean’.

I found two different articles talking about the anticipated opening of Millennium Park. The first was published on page three of the Daily Gazette in Sterling-Rock Falls, Illinois, on May 22nd, 2004. It announced that the park would be opening that July, and included some subtle digs about the project’s construction delays. The second article was a feature in the Daily Gazette published on June 25th, 2002, talking about one of the planned exhibits of the park. The exhibit includes 120 aerial images of different places around the world. The exhibit would be the first of many featured in the park after its opening.

(1945 – 1980s) Giant Leap For Mankind: First Moon Landing, 1969

 

Anyone alive during 1969 can tell you where they were and how they felt when the first man stepped onto the surface of the moon. On July 20th, 1969, the human race achieved something spectacular. After years of developing space technologies, NASA successfully landed two humans on the moon for the first time in history. 

Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins were on the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon. It took four days for them to reach the moon, and from there, Collins departed to the command module Columbia to orbit the moon while the other astronauts went on the surface. Neil Armstrong took the first steps as almost every American watched a television broadcast of the landing. This was when he uttered the famous words “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” as he became the first man on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin joined him soon after, and the two bounced around the moon’s surface for a bit while recording it for Americans to see. They then collected samples of rock and dust to bring back to earth, which amounted to a total of 47 pounds. They returned back to earth having made history and created a legacy that would last forever. 

It seems that during the landing and moonwalk, the eyes of the world were focused on the television, and nerves were at an all-time high. Two days before they were expected to land, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa published a full outline of the mission plan, complete with illustrations of the three steps they categorized the plan into. Step one was to launch from Earth, and this section includes an image labeled where the ship would be in each stage of the journey through space. Step two was simply “moon landing”, in which they created a mock version of what the shuttle would look like as it landed on the surface of the moon. Step three was the moon take off, which they described as a do-it-yourself. The diagrams in hindsight were fairly accurate, and I assume eased the nerves of many Americans who kept asking themselves how the United States was going to pull this off.

(1914 – 1945) A New Age: Trinity Test, 1945

 

In July of 1945 World War II was starting to come closer and closer to an end. After the Allies won on the European front, all attention and strategy turned to winning in the Pacific. One strategy the US chose was developing nuclear weapons, and on July 16th, 1945, they caused the world’s first nuclear explosion.

Under the code name “Trinity” the United States worked to develop a plutonium device that would create a nuclear bomb. They tested the device in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and it successfully created a fireball that lit up the night sky. The day after it was tested, the air base put out a press release that there was a pyrotechnics explosion, but no loss of life or injury happened. It wasn’t until after the United States dropped bombs on Hiroshima that they released the real cause of the explosion. The success of this test led to the nuclear age. It meant that the US could build an atomic bomb for military use, and helped the Allies win World War II in the Pacific. 

Because this event was kept top secret within the country, there were obviously no reports of it happening. What I did find was an interesting description of the site in the Valley Morning Star on December 16th, 1966. This piece talks about how the site, known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb, is a popular location for tourists visiting the area. It describes the test site and its features, including the various test bunkers and the skeleton of the tower that once held the bomb. 

The Seneca Falls convention took place in upstate New York from July 19 to July 20, 1848. It was the first women’s rights convention and started the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. It was organized by famous women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, among others, and attended mostly by women (though a few men did go).

It was not just a convention for women’s suffrage but for other women’s rights such as civil rights, religious rights, and equality for all people. The convention was inspired by the constitutional convention that was held during the American Revolution. Similarly to the constitutional convention, the Seneca Falls Convention produced a document that declared a need for rights.

The Declaration of Sentiments was a document that listed grievances and called for equal rights for women in the United States. They came up with 11 resolutions to address the problems they named, and all but the 9th were adopted. The 9th resolution, which demanded women’s voting rights, was not adopted at the convention. This failure prompted the start of the suffrage movement, which ultimately led to women receiving the right to vote in 1920.

My search tip of the week is something to consider when researching marginalized groups. When it comes to topics such as women’s suffrage, which were controversial for many years, there may be a lack of coverage of events in the years they happened. Not a lot of papers would have been reporting on the Seneca Falls Convention, and if they did it would be a piece likely expressing disapproval. Many papers, especially older ones, write for the demographics of their readers, and if the demographics of the movement and the readers don’t overlap, the event likely wasn’t covered. 

I didn’t find anything from 1848 in my research. I did however find a piece from 1915, which still came before women’s suffrage. I think it provides a good perspective on how the women’s suffrage movement flourished following the Seneca Falls Convention, which gave the movement momentum. On January 15th, 1915 in The Interlaken Review, a few scattered pieces on women’s suffrage. Among them, my two favorites were the map of women’s suffrage in the US, and a small paragraph titled “Is women’s suffrage contagious?”. The map showed which states had full, partial, and no suffrage for women in 1914, and as expected more than half the country had partial or no suffrage. 

More interesting though was the small section underneath the map, which was answering the question of whether women’s suffrage was contagious or not. They replied that it must be if it has spread around the country this much. It also made the argument that the country can not be split between whether women are or are not allowed to vote. They claimed either half the population could vote, or all of the population could vote, but it would not work both ways, and backed this up with a quote sharing the same ideas from President Abraham Lincoln. I think that answer alone really speaks to the importance of the Seneca Falls Convention because it created a movement that spread like wildfire throughout the United States. 

As I reflect on this week’s stories, it makes me curious as to what the big event in this generation will be. What will we look back on and regard as the start of something new? The good news is, no matter what those events end up being, we will be able to look back on them through the archives as we continue to document them for future generations to see. Join me again next week to discover more of history’s hidden gems and timeless tales!