Russell Lewis, Vice President and Chief Historian, is responsible for the day-to-day implementation of the museum's mission to creatively explore and showcase Chicago's history and culture, and for preserving, managing and making accessible to the public, the Chicago History Museum's collection of more than 22 million documents and objects. A member of the Chicago Historical Society and Chicago History Museum's staff since 1982, Lewis has held numerous positions prior to his current appointment, including: Assistant Editor, Associate Editor, Editor and Director of Publications, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Assistant Director for Research and Curatorial Affairs, Deputy Director for Collections and Research, and Acting President.
He has been involved in the development of numerous exhibitions, including We the People: Creating a New Nation, 1765-1820 and A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln, and he served as project director for the exhibition Chicago Goes to War,1941-45, the urban history conference Modes of Inquiry for American City History, and the community history initiative Neighborhoods: Keepers of Culture.. He has also led a number of digitization projects, including The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory, Wet with Blood: The Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln's Cloak, and Studs Terkel: Conversations with America, and the online version of The Chicago Encyclopedia. Since 2005, he has served as project director for the $27.8 million renovation of the Chicago History Museum.
