November 5th - Friends of the Library Signature Showcase

Mark your calendars for our upcoming Friends of the Library Signature Showcase on Thursday November 5th, 2009.

Each semester, the Columbia College Chicago Library highlights the work of one faculty member and this fall, we are delighted to have Dominic Pacyga as our featured speaker. Dr. Pacyga is a faculty member in the Humanities, History and Social Science Department, Columbia College Chicago and a Chicago historian.

This year, the city of Chicago celebrates the Burnham Centennial, the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett’s classic, Plan of Chicago (1909). In his illustrated presentation entitled, “An Ongoing Legacy: The Burnham Plan from the City Beautiful Movement to Daley’s Post-Modernist Chicago”, Dr. Pacyga will explore the roots and impact of the Plan of Chicago from its conception to present day. The Burnham Plan remains a central document for those who would build and rebuild this great city. Most importantly it has shaped Chicago’s lakefront and guaranteed that the city will preserve it for generations to come. Yet the 1909 Plan is much more; it provides an ongoing inspiration for planners as Chicago continues to evolve as a world class city. Pacyga will explore the early roots of planning in the city especially in Baron (Georges-Eugène) Haussmann’s Paris and George Mortimer Pullman’s utopian manufacturing city and show how current Mayor Richard M. Daley is, in many ways, reclaiming Chicago’s “City Beautiful” past as first laid out by Burnham and Bennett one hundred years ago.

This presentation is free and open to the public. Faculty and their classes are encouraged to attend.

Thursday, November 5, 2009
6:00-8:00pm
Columbia College Chicago
Ferguson Theater
600 S. Michigan Ave, First Floor

A book signing featuring his latest book, Chicago: A Biography will be held immediately afterwards.



ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dominic A. Pacyga received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1981. He has authored, or co-authored, five books concerning Chicago’s history, including Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago (1991, 2001), Chicago: City of Neighborhoods with Ellen Skerrett (1986), Chicago: A Historical Guide to the Neighborhoods (1979) with Glen Holt, Chicago’s Southeast Side (1998) with Rod Sellers.

He has lectured widely on topics ranging from urban development, residential architecture, labor history, immigration, and racial and ethnic relations, and has appeared in both the local and national media. Pacyga has been a member of the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department at Columbia College/Chicago since 1984. He has worked with various museums including the Chicago Historical Society, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Field Museum in Chicago on a variety of public history projects. Pacyga has also worked with numerous neighborhood organizations as well as ethnic, labor, and fraternal groups to preserve and exhibit their histories. Pacyga acted as guest curator of a major exhibit, "The Chicago Bungalow" which ran from October 18, 2001 to January 15, 2002 at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. He and Charles Shanabruch are co-editors of The Chicago Bungalow (Arcadia Press 2001), a companion volume to the exhibit. Pacyga has won the Oscar Halecki Award from the Polish American Historical Association for his book, Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago and the Catholic Book Award for Chicago: City of Neighborhoods. In 1999 he received the Columbia College Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005 he was a Visiting Fellow at Campion Hall, Oxford University. Pacyga’s latest book is Chicago: A Biography published by the University of Chicago Press (2009).