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Tuesday 10am - 4pm Wednesday 10am - 4pm Thursday 10am - 4pm Friday 10am - 4pm Saturday 10am - 4pm

Newberry Library

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Newberry Library

The Newberry curates curiosity for all through its collection that spans millennia of human history. Visit our website for exhibition and bookstore hours.
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Founded in 1887, the Newberry Library is one of Chicago's most iconic cultural institutions. Our collections, programs, and exhibitions are a portal to more than six centuries of human history, from the Middle Ages to the present. This history lives on at the Newberry, where you can access some 1.6 million books, 600,000 maps, and 5 million manuscript pages documenting life in Europe and the Americas. A small fraction of these treasures appear in the Newberry's exhibition galleries. We can help you discover the rest in our reading rooms.

**No tickets or reservations are required to visit the galleries or reading rooms.

**Hours listed are reading room hours.

10/28/2026

"Black Designers in Chicago" is now available in the Newberry Bookshop for $37.50! Pick it up in person or online here: https://bookshop.newberry.org/black-designers-chicago-culture-and-community-twentieth-century

10/28/2026

Designer and letterpress printer, Ben Blount, whose piece "Antiracism" (Wing oversize ZPP 2083 .P6288) is featured in our current exhibition, "Collecting Stories: New Acquisitions at the Newberry," stopped by the library last week to see his work on display. Ben created "Antiracism" in response to student protests over incidents of campus racism at Colorado College, where he was teaching in 2019.

"Collecting Stories" pairs new acquisitions with older items from our collection to create a dialogue between objects across time and space. "Antiracism" sits beside the "Specimens of modern printing types" (Case Wing Z 40583 .109). This catalog, shown above, was created by the Boston Type and Stereotype Company in 1841. The Boston Stereotype Company is a notable example of a foundry that was collectively owned by both white and black workers. This catalog of type samples includes text from the Declaration of Independence to highlight the beauty and clarity of its product.

Visit "Collecting Stories," open until December 30, to see how the exhibition opens up dialogues between collection items that explore themes like LGBTQ relationships, Indigenous sovereignty, diversity in experimental performance, and more.

10/27/2026

Sherwood Anderson's modernist masterpiece Winesburg, Ohio or Vaynsburg, Ohayo (Hebrew) or Pikkukaupunki (Finnish) has been translated many times over since its 1919 publication. The Newberry, home to Anderson's papers, has many of the translations thanks to Mrs. Sherwood Anderson (Eleanor Gladys Copenhaver), who gave them to the library. The 1947 donation was the result of a four-year courtship of Anderson's widow by then-Newberry librarian Stanley Pargellis. This year is the 150th anniversary of Anderson's birth.

10/24/2026

Zayd Ayers Dohrn is an award-winning playwright, documentary podcaster, and the son of Weather Underground radicals. In our free program on November 19, Dohrn will discuss the enduring intersections of faith, identity, political activism, and family memory with religious scholar Sarah Hammerschlag. The event is part of our Beyond Belief public history project, which explores religion and social change in the 1960s, forces that continue to shape the political questions of today. Register for the program via the Linktree in our profile or go our website and click on Calendar.

10/23/2026

In its five-year history, The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award has amassed quite a list of winning books and authors!

📚 2026 - Dominic A. Pacyga, Clout City: The Rise and Fall of the Chicago Political Machine

📚 2025 - Scott W. Berg, The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul

📚 2024 - Thomas Leslie, Chicago Skyscrapers 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, & Race Reshaped the City

📚 2023 - Toya Wolfe, Last Summer on State Street

📚 2022 - Dawn Turner, Three Girls from Bronzeville

The nomination window for the 2027 award is now open (through January 17, 2027). Books must bear a copyright of 2025 or 2026 to be eligible for the 2027 prize. Click on the link in the comments to learn more.

10/23/2026

How do the religious, moral, and political questions of the 1960s continue to shape the lives of people today? Playwright and memoirist Zayd Ayers Dohrn, son of Weather Underground radicals Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, along with religious scholar Sarah Hammerschlag will explore enduring intersections of faith, identity, political activism, and family memory. At the Newberry and livestreamed.

Register here: https://www.newberry.org/calendar/beyond-belief-radical-resistance

10/21/2026

Join us on Thursday, October 22, for our popular Writers on Writing series in partnership with StoryStudio Chicago. Award-winning American author, Justin Torres ("We the Animals," "Blackouts") will join Rebecca Makkai ("I Have Some Questions for You," "The Great Believers") for this free public program. Perfect for readers and writers alike, these talks celebrate one author's work—a glimpse behind the creative curtain, a chance to ask questions, and an opportunity to celebrate the art of the written word. Recent books by both authors will be available to purchase in the Newberry Bookshop, and the authors will sign copies after the talk. Register for this event, available in-person and online, through the Newberry's website. Rebecca Makkai - Author StoryStudio Chicago

10/20/2026

Looking to expand your Chicago literary history curriculum?

This essay and source set by Dr. Matthew Kilbane introduces the Dil Pickle Club to teachers through poems, posters, and photographs. Founded by labor organizer Jack Jones, the club hosted everyone from Sherwood Anderson to Emma Goldman—and anyone else who had an opinion. Click the link to learn more: https://dcc.newberry.org/?p=25360

10/16/2026

On this day in history in 1834, the British Parliament burned down after officials tried to dispose of their archive of tally sticks through a controlled burn.

In this video, Jill Gage, Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing and Bibliographer for British Literature and History, explains that tally sticks are pieces of wood used to document bilateral exchanges and debts, and that people have used them worldwide since antiquity. Britain adopted tally sticks in the 12th century to record tax payments, debts, and royal finances because they prevented fraud. The tally system was so reliable that people used it until the 19th century.

Address

60 W Walton Street
Chicago, IL
60610

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Wednesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm
Saturday	10am - 4pm

Telephone

+13129439090

Website

http://www.linktr.ee/newberrylibrary

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