A years-long project to celebrate accomplished Chicago women as part of the Chicago Women's Park & Gardens in the South Loop was finally unveiled for the public Sept. 14.
The Women's Park & Gardens, with a field house on the corner of 18th and Indiana, and a manicured park out back, was created in the 1990s by the late Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg, and she is among the 65 women who are recognized in the exhibit. Not all of the women have large-scale photo displays, but they are all included in a booklet available at the field house and online here: www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/assets/1/7/CWP_Brochure_FINAL_reader_082917.pdf .
Among the lesbians featured in the display are playwright Lorraine Hansberry, social justice pioneer Jane Addams and attorney Pearl M. Harteach of those women are in the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. Florence Kelley, another social reformer, who moved into Jane Addams' Hull House to help in Addams' work, is also among those featured. Ellen Gates Starr, who co-founded Hull House with Addams, and who was in a relationship with Addams, is also included.
The booklet also points out those women who have been honored through the naming of a public space or building in Chicago. Others in the exhibit include Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Jane Byrne, Willye B. White, Koko Taylor, Willie T, Barrow and Gwendolyn Brooks.
The brochure states: "Chicago Women's Park & Gardens honors the many local women throughout history who have made important contributions to the city, nation, and the world. This booklet contains brief introductions to 65 great Chicago womenonly a fraction of the many female Chicagoans who could be added to this list. In our selection, we strived for diversity in geography, chronology, accomplishments, and ethnicity. Only women with substantial ties to the City of Chicago were considered. Many other remarkable women who are still living or who lived just outside the City are not included here but are still equally noteworthy."
The list of those include is as follows:
LEADERS & ACTIVISTS
Grace Abbott
Jane Addams
Helen Alvarado
Joan Fujisawa Arai
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Willie T. Barrow
Mary Bartelme
Myra Colby Bradwell
Sophonisba Breckinridge
Carrie E. Bullock
Jane Byrne
Karen DeCrow
Helen Doria
Fannie Hagen Emanuel
Lillian Herstein
Nancy Jefferson
Mary Jane Richardson Jones
Florence Kelley
Julia Lathrop
Eppie Friedman Lederer
Maria T. Mangual
Ruth Hanna McCormick
Angela Perez Miller
Dawn Clark Netsch
Bertha Honoré Palmer
Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons
Tobey Prinz
Guadalupe Reyes
Maria del Jesus Saucedo
Ellen Gates Starr
Mamie Till-Mobley
Hattie Kay Williams
Addie Wyatt
VISIONARIES & ARTISTS
Etta Moten Barnett
Gwendolyn Brooks
Margaret T. Burroughs
Claudia Cassidy
Maggie Daley
Katherine Dunham
Lorraine Hansberry
Mahalia Jackson
Ardis Krainik
Evelyn Beatrice Longman
Harriet Monroe
Maria Tallchief Paschen
Lucy Fitch Perkins
Viola Spolin
Koko Taylor
Lois Weisberg
TRAILBLAZERS & INNOVATORS
Bessie Coleman
Margaret Donahue
Ella Flagg Young
Frances Glessner Lee
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Vivian Gordon Harsh
Pearl M. Hart
Harriet Gerber Lewis
Margaret Hie Ding Lin
Marion Mahony Griffin
Archange [Marie] Chevalier Ouilmette
Esther Rothstein
Jacqueline Vaughn
Chi Che Wang
Kate Warne
Willye B. White