Chicago Public Library Unveils Historic Black Newspaper Archive
The Chicago Public Library unveiled an archive May 27 that chronicles the history of the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s most important African-American newspapers.
The Abbott-Sengstacke Family Papers encompasses the extensive personal correspondence of the newspaper’s founder, Robert S. Abbott, dating from the 1880s to the1940s, and his nephew and publishing heir John Sengstacke, from the 1920s to the 1990s. It also contains rare early issues of the 104-year-old newspaper, business records, and some 4,000 photographs, including rare, unpublished shots of Abbott with such cultural icons as boxer Jack Johnson, musician Duke Ellington, and Oscar De Priest, the first African American to be elected to Congress in the 20th century.
The collection, which was donated by Sengstacke’s son, photographer Robert Sengstacke, will be housed in the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at CPL’s Carter G. Woodson Regional Library. The Chicago Sun-Times reported May 27 that the archive was sought by such national institutions as the Smithsonian; however, according to videotaped interviews posted to a University of Chicago website, Sengstacke, after consulting with black history scholars at the University of Chicago and with Woodson Senior Archivist Michael Flug, decided it should remain in the city and chose to donate it to the library in 2007.
Noting that the Abbott-Sengstacke Family Papers “speak to so many different interests in African-American studies,” Flug characterized the preservation of the materials as “a wonderful success story” because the library community is “constantly fighting a battle to be sure that things that are absolutely crucial do not go the way of the fire or the garbage can or just the neglect of time.”
The collection was processed and cataloged by a team of doctoral students from the University of Chicago’s “Mapping the Stacks” project, which is documenting the arts and cultural histories of black Chicago. The students were trained by archivists from the U of C library’s Special Collections Research Center and supervised by Harsh Collection staff. The university will create and maintain a digitized archive of the photo collection.
“The Abbott-Sengstacke papers tell the story of a remarkable family and its role as a pivotal force in the history of our city, our nation, and especially in the history of African Americans,” CPL Commissioner Mary Dempsey said in a statement. “The Chicago Public Library is honored to accept this important archive for its collections and to make it freely available to library patrons.”
—Gordon Flagg, American Libraries Online Posted on May 29, 2009; modified on May 30, 2009.