RIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
10621 S Seeley Avenue, Chicago, IL 60643 ridgehistoricalsociety.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: The Society collects, preserves, interprets and makes available to the public a vast Collection (artifacts, documents, photographs, costumes, newspapers, maps, audio/video recordings and more) having historic value or interest to the Chicago, Illinois neighborhoods commonly known as Washington Heights, Beverly Hills, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood, that are located along or adjacent to an ancient glacial ridge identified in the U.S. Geological Survey as the Blue Island Ridge.

Preserve history of the Morgan Park, Beverly Hills, Washington Heights, and Mt. Greenwood neighborhoods of Chicago

Public Education programs serve members of the Society and the public at large through written, visual and oral methods. In 2019 the Society continued a display of work by local artist Ethel Wirtschafter and mounted three new exhibits: vintage hats from the Society's Collection paired with local retailing history, a display of historic American Flags in recognition of Flag Day, and "Threads of Imagination", the fascinating story of Beverly resident Alla Ripley, a major figure in the American fashion industry a hundred years ago, along with four current Ridge artists, each with her own unique relationship to fashion. Along with these exhibits, the Society hosted eight additional education programs open to the public. Topics ranged from the 1919 Chicago race riots, to the area's railroad history, to the Irish Holocaust, to Chicago's first black banker, Jesse Binga, and to land development and geographical history of the Ridge. The Society served as a venue for Open House Chicago, sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and also for the Beverly Art Walk, both important events in our community outreach. A major aspect of our archive is the architectural resource collection and questions regarding house histories are the most frequent among our research requests. In 2019 the Society handled over 60 research requests and more than 750 people visited the Society to experience programs and exhibits. In addition to on-site programs, the Society publishes articles in local newspapers and on its website. There is an active and growing Facebook contingent (more than 1000 'Friends' registered and posts at times read by more than 10,000). Facebook has generated both contributions of, and requests for, important local historical information as well as artifacts for the Collection. Heavily reliant on 60+ volunteers to provide its programs and services, the Society receives limited revenue through fees ($5-$10 per person) for some programs (exhibits are free) and through sales of educational materials.

Preservation programs are the foundation upon which the public education activities are based. The Society collects, preserves, interprets and makes available to the public a vast Collection (artifacts, documents, photographs, costumes, newspapers, maps, audio/video recordings and more) having historic value or interest to the Chicago, Illinois neighborhoods commonly known as Washington Heights, Beverly Hills, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood, that are located along or adjacent to an ancient glacial ridge identified in the U.S. Geological Survey as the Blue Island Ridge. The Society provides protection to the Collection in a manner appropriate to its preservation. The facility itself, the historic Graver-Driscoll house, is a Tudor Revival home designed by noted architect John Todd Hetherington and built in 1921-1922. Preserving this architectural gem for future generations goes hand in hand with the challenge of creating a space that not only appropriately houses the Collection but also provides a focal point for the Society's educational, research and interpretive activities. We continue our attention to the costume collection by eliminating all use of mannequins and purchasing museum quality stands for costume display, as well as the use of archival storage boxes for all textiles. In addition to ongoing maintenance of the Collection, in 2019 the Society was gifted a newsletter archive from the historically important Morgan Park Baptist Church, at the heart of heavily Baptist early Morgan Park, and further playing a leading role in the Chicago Baptist community, helping to found the University of Chicago. The Society continued work to identify items from among the Morgan archive (Thomas Morgan, for whom the Village of Morgan Park was named, was a pivotal early landowner of considerable Ridge lands included in what today is Beverly Hills, Morgan Park and Washington Heights) to be digitized. In 2019, two programs were held to bring public attention and support to the restoration of the Givins Beverly Castle, an iconic historic building in extreme need of repairs. Finally, a capital improvement project was begun to replace the nearly 100-year old slate roof of the Graver-Driscoll house, keeping materials and style true to the original.

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Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202041439349300924_public.xml