Collecting and organizing information about the 1200 + public schools in Chicago’s storied history is a rigorous task. Making it more difficult is the ever-changing nature of those schools. Over the last 150 years, schools have changed names, shared names, changed buildings, shared buildings, split into branches, and switched from elementary schools to high schools, and then back again.
Tracking one school and its many iterations often takes a researcher the better part of a day in the CPS archives. For South Division High School, we had as many as fifteen related school folders open at one time, searching for any scrap of paper that would tell the story of this single school. Quite often, it is literally the handwritten scraps of paper that holds the key to reassembling a school’s timeline.
Sometimes the research becomes philosophical. We have to ask ourselves, “What makes a school a school?” Is it a building, a name, an area of town, the teachers, the students, the subject taught, the grade levels? And the answer we keep coming back to is, "Yes." Sometimes it is all of these things. And sometimes, none of these things. The most important factor, we believe, is you. There is no file in the archives large enough to hold what resides within your collective memories.
For the launch of the site, we were able to collect most of the information we wanted about each school, however, we were not able to find everything for every school - so our work continues. Our goal is to have a complete record of every CPS school, and to that end we are asking you to share with us any historical information you may have about any CPS school.
If we have gotten something wrong, or you can fill in a missing piece of information, please email us at editor
CPSalumni.org If you have items you would like to donate to the CPS archives, email the CPS archivist Richard Seidel at: rrseidelcps.k12.il.us
Thank you.