From the 1893 World’s Fair through the mid-20th century, Chicago was a center of sweeping aesthetic transformations known as the modernist movement. Carl Sandburg, Harriet Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright were among the more famous of the writers and artists engaged in the euphoric struggle to make and represent a new age. Liesl Olson, director of Chicago Studies at the Newberry Library, brings us their stories and the stories of many others. Her book, Chicago Renaissance, was awarded the 2018 Pegasus Prize from the Poetry Foundation.
Presented by Woodstock Fine Arts Association's 56th Annual Creative Living Series