The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory

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The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory is an “online exhibition produced by the Chicago Historical Society and Academic Technologies of Northwestern University to mark the 125th anniversary of one of the most famous events in American history, as well as the most formative event in the history of Chicago.The exhibition is divided into two main parts. The first, represented by an image of the burning city taken from a contemporary Currier & Ives lithograph, is titled The Great Chicago Fire. Its five chronologically organized chapters focus on the conflagration and the city’s recovery. The second part is called The Web of Memory. Its governing image is a doll named Bessie, which was saved from the flames by six-year-old Harriet Peabody when her family gave up their home for lost. The six chapters in The Web of Memory examine a half dozen ways in which the fire has been remembered: eyewitness accounts, contemporary journalism and popular illustrations, imaginative forms such as fiction and poetry and painting, the legend of Mrs. O’Leary, souvenirs of various sorts, and previous commemorations by civic groups and by the Historical Society. In both The Great Chicago Fire and The Web of Memory, each chapter consists of three integrated sections: thematic Galleries filled with electronic images of a great range of artifacts, a Library of relevant texts, and an Essay that provides a context for both the Galleries and the Library. The artifacts and texts included here are only a fraction of the Historical Society’s holdings relating to the fire.”