This timeline captures the extensive history the 120 years of Lafayette Elementary. There are 2 parts of this timeline: (1) History that is specific to Lafayette Elementary (2) History of the neighborhood/United States History that shaped the climate of the school over time. These 2 parts can be distinguished in the PDF below with “Lafayette-specific history” having no indentation and the “broader-Historical-Context” having an indentation.
The distinction of the 2 parts of the timeline are visually seen in the permanent installation inside the building. The upward branches with purple text boxes are Lafayette specific history while the downward branches with the salmon color text boxes are broader historical context.
The information from this timeline is a culmination of the collected histories of this project and was made possible by these key elements of the Long Live Lafayette Project: Oral Histories, Found Articles, School Blueprints/Maps, Wikipedia (for broader history) and found documents/photographs in local archives (DePaul Archives, UIC Archives, Chicago History Museum and the Chicago Public Library (specially Harold Washington Archives)). All these sources linked together allowed us to contextualize the project and ground Lafayette History is broader historical context.
Feel free to hit the “download” button above for optimal viewing. We encourage redistribution of this document as a key element of the project is making this history accessible and encouraging community to learn the rich history that is Lafayette Elementary.
Long Live Lafayette 