The James S. Parker Collection consists of approximately 50,000 8" x 10" black and white negatives and 850,000 35-mm negative images of Chicago from the mid-nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. The University
Library acquired this collection in 2003, with funds from the John Needles Chester Trust.
Mr. Parker owned the firm Copelin Commercial Photographers, which was in continuous operation in Chicago beginning in 1856. Mr. Parker's association with the firm began in the 1960s, first as a partner, then as sole owner.
Copelin Commerical Photographers compiled an extensive record of Chicago's built environment. As a consequence, the Parker Collection includes photographs of parks, bridges, intersections, private houses, and public buildings, including photographs of the storefronts of all downtown Michigan Avenue buildings. The collection is very strong in images of Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, with photographs of original sites and the constructions or vacant lots that succeeded them. Mr. Parker was responsible for managing the legal photography for the City: whenever there was an incident or accident involving City property, Mr. Parker's team was there to document it. Mr. Parker was the unofficial photographer for Mayor Richard J. Daley, and the collection has a very strong representation of public events -- dedications, parades, memorials, and other ceremonies -- attended by the Mayor.
The Parker Collection is a major addition to the University of Illinois at Chicago's nationally significant photographic holdings. These include the 1,500 images documenting the second world's fair held in Chicago, A Century of Progress; the Chicago Photographic Collection containing over 10,000 images of Chicago architecture containing images of Hull-House and its activities, Italians in America, and the 1950s surveys of the Metropolitan Housing Council. In addition to these collections, the Library also contains the monumental Comer Archive of Chicago in the Year (CITY2000), the one-half million-image collection recording Chicagoans going about their daily lives during the millennial year.
