Past Events and Exhibits

We are pleased to share that Dr. John Low has been elected to the Chicago History Museum (CHM) Board of Trustees for a four-year term. Dr. Low is the first American Indian to have been invited to serve on the Board since its founding in 1856. Dr. Low says he will make sure that he won't be the last. Congratulations, Dr. John Low!

Drawing from his new book Earthworks Rising: Mound Building in Native Literature and Arts, Chadwick Allen analyzes works by contemporary Native writers and artists that demonstrate Indigenous conceptions of interment within mounded earth. These provocative “earth”-works unsettle dominant narratives by reactivating Indigenous understandings of burial mounds as active sites of renewal and regeneration.

The architecture of the Octagon Earthworks encodes a sophisticated understanding of geometry and astronomy. It is a National Historical Landmark and is on track to become a World Heritage site! Portions of the Octagon Earthworks is open to the public during daylight hours 365 days a year, but much of the site is used as a private golf course for most of the year, so access is restricted.