“What are The Field Museum’s Field Associates?” by S.M. O’Connor

One might guess that a Field Associate was an associate curator or some other kind of staff member, but in actuality, the Field Associates are a group of young professionals (twenty-one-to-forty-years-old) from outside The Field Museum who volunteer to raise money to support The Field Museum of Natural History. Founded in 1997, the Field Associates each pay $250 per year to help The Field Museum through a combination of fundraising, networking, and programming. Field Associates who are more ambitious to get more involved by lending talents to the Executive Board of the Field Associates or one of five other board committees that address membership, programs, communications, development, and planning the annual EVOLVE fundraiser. Board members gain leadership experience through service on committees, access to high-level networking events and additional programs, and experience in philanthropy through special fundraising efforts. Board members contribute $250 and make a commitment to use their personal networks to raise an additional $250. Executive committee members contribute $360 per year and raise $500.

Click here to learn more about the Field Associates and click here to join the Field Museum Associates. All Field Associates enjoy the benefits of Discovery Circle Membership. They also gain opportunities to connect with other young professionals and access to special programs like the annual EVOLVE fundraisers.

Ryan VanHolsbeke of JPMorgan Chase is President of the 2019 Executive Committee. Michelle Sotak of AlinIQ at Abbott Diagnostics is Vice President. Julie Webb of Locke Lorde, L.L.P. is the Secretary. Shana Quinn of Walgreen and Chris Spanel of Victory Park Capital Advisors chair the Communications Committee. Jenna Beltrano of the Julian Grace Foundation and Charlotte Guyett of LaSalle Investment Management chair the Development Committee. Ani Ajith of NGOragnize/Corecentra and Risha Kotecha of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago chair the EVOLVE Committee. Emmett Mottl of the Chicago Humanities Festival and Alin Schubert of Bridge International chair the Membership Committee. Mike Cozza of Innophos and Mariah Vichich of JPMorgan Chase chair the Programming Committee.

Figure 1 Credit: © Thomas Barrat Caption: This is the south edifice of The Field Museum, as seen on June 17, 2008.

Figure 2 Credit: © Brad Pict Caption: This is a rooftop garden at The Field Museum of Natural History, as seen on June 20, 2018. The brachiosaurus skeleton in the distance is a statue that has been on the northwest terrace since 1999.

The Field Museum is located on the Museum Campus at the northern end of the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park, due east of Grant Park in downtown Chicago. The address is 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605.

$5.00 Per Month IN THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

$50.00 Per Year IN THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.