Dancing on Maxwell Street—CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

From Steve Balkin Photographs of Maxwell Street, Chicago (Chicago State University) in CARLI Digital Collections

I didn’t know about Maxwell Street before encountering this digital collection. The home page for the collection succinctly introduces the site visitor to Maxwell Street as a historic, diverse, culturally rich neighborhood now lost to the forces of gentrification. It explains that Steve Balkin Maxwell from CSU created a documentary history of the ambiance of Maxwell Street through the photos in this collection.

The images are helpfully grouped by themed links on the home page. You can appreciate specific aspects of Maxwell Street like the weekend open-air market, the blues music, the protestors who were ultimately unsuccessful in saving the neighborhood, and various street scenes of iconic locations and activities.

The featured image shows a couple dancing to the music of a blues band. I chose this photograph because it captures what I think Maxwell Street was from exploring this collection: a place where people with different ethnic and cultural identities created and actively sustained an alternate communal identity tied to a place.

Written by Mary Rose, Metadata Librarian at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

For more information about this and other CARLI Digital Collections.

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