December Midday Program

Presented by the Caxton Club and Chicago Collections Consortium

August 24, 1949: Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks is published. It is her second volume of poetry, and readers admire and struggle with its technical forms, its atomizations, and critiques of racial life in Black America. At the book’s center is a forty-three-stanza poem called “The Anniad” in which Brooks’s titular heroine comes of age in epic verse, followed immediately by an “Appendix” of “leaves from a loose-leaf war diary.”

May 1, 1950: Annie Allen wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The book has never been reprinted. Until now.

Join us as Caxtonian Cait Coker explores Gwendolyn Brooks’s literary legacy and her place in American letters – and the exhibition currently on display at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign – on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Annie Allen.

Cait Coker is Associate Professor and Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A scholar who focuses on the intersections of gender, genre, and publishing history, she is also Co-Editor of the Women in Book History Bibliography at womensbookhistory.org.

Register today.

Book purchase Registering for the program will allow you the opportunity to purchase copies of the seventy-fifth anniversary edition of Annie Allen for $32, including tax and shipping.

Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.

December Midday Program

A recent Caxton Club program unfolded like an English country house mystery: The Case of the Poison Pigments, in which the Winterthur Library played a vital detecting role. New to Inspector Winterthur?

Well, imagine a 175-room house nestled into a remarkable thousand-acre estate. It was brought to life by H.F. du Pont, whose vision was for “a bastion of decorative arts connoisseurship in America.”

The formal garden encompasses sixty acres. Ninety thousand objects populate the museum. And the library? It features a stunning collection of more than a million items relating to American decorative art. The library offers a premier assortment of materials relating to American decorative art in a global and social context. It illuminates the lives of everyday Americans through a range of materials, including ephemera, pattern books, trade catalogs, and so much more.

No private plane waiting to jet you to Delaware? No worries. Allie Alvis, Curator of Special Collections at the Winterthur will come to us, with a fast paced, lavishly illuminated talk that reveals the history, highlights, and wonderfully weird treasures of the Winterthur Library.

A Smithsonian Library veteran, Alvis has earned degrees in book history and information management at two different universities in Scotland … where they quickly realized that they weren’t in Kansas anymore.

You can enjoy this program from the comfort of your very own Zoom Room. Or … you can gather with other Caxtonians at the Union League Club for a showing on a big screen with a plenty loud sound system. Then you can adjourn to a great big room with a really high ceiling and pillars and a working (but not really) fireplace for a lavish holiday buffet. As you navigate the tables groaning with delectable delights, you can engage your luncheon companions about the proper pronunciation of Winterthur and maybe hear from carolers (whose wide Dickensian skirts do not conceal those startling children from the end of … well, you know.)

Either way, register today!

Live attendance and Carolers Luncheon

View Zoom program on eighth floor, Steel Room, Union League Club. Presentation begins at 12:00 PM CT. Optional lavish holiday buffet complete with carving station, desserts, strolling carolers, and a toast. A chance to dine and linger with fellow Caxtonians. Price $68. Reservations and pre-payment required by 12:00 p.m. 12/10/24.

Zoom presentation is free and open to all.

Zoom begins at 12:00PM CT/1:00 PM ET. Preregistration required via website.

Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Transportation to the Union League Club at 65 West Jackson Blvd., Chicago.

The Union League Club is easily accessible through many public transportation methods. Additionally, the following options are available for those who wish to travel by cab or car.

The Union League Club front desk offers a connection to cab service through Curb. The desk will call cabs for members and all guests while allowing riders to remain inside until the cab arrives. No curb side wait. Cabs will accept all payment forms, following the payment procedures you experience with a street-hailed cab.

If you are traveling by car, the Union League Club offers valet parking for Caxton events at $35.00. You must register and prepay in advance through the Caxton Club. Valet parking options will now be included as an option with all event registrations.

Spot Hero is an independent parking option, generally offering spots at the 318 S. Federal Street garage adjacent to the Union League Club. You may reserve and pay for a guaranteed parking spot through the Spot Hero app or website (spothero.com).

This calendar event serves as a placeholder for our upcoming 2025 Annual Caxton Club Meeting to be held on Thursday, 22 May 2025 at 6:30 PM CST.

Registration for this event will be via the Caxton Club website. Please check the website in the weeks ahead of this event to register. The event will be held via Zoom.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact secretary@caxtonclub.org.