Free and open to all
Jun 20–Sep 28, 2024
At the Newberry – Hanson Gallery
The late Chicago journalist Mike Royko will be the subject of a new exhibition, Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism, at the Newberry Library from June 20 through September 28. The exhibit features photographs, news clippings, selected writings, and ephemera drawing from the Mike Royko Papers at the Newberry. Royko’s career spanned five decades in an era when Chicago was a city of newsprint, long before the days of social media and the 24-hour cable news cycle.
Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism is curated by Sarah Boyd Alvarez, Director of Exhibitions, Newberry Library; Kristin Emery, Director of Governance and Strategic Initiatives, Newberry Library; and Bill Savage, Professor of Instruction, English Department, Northwestern University. Royko’s widow, Judy Royko, donated the Royko Papers to the Newberry in 2005, and she helped plan the show with some of her late husband’s former colleagues.
Best known for his daily column, Royko wrote for the Chicago Daily News from 1959 until the paper’s closure in 1978. He then joined the Chicago Sun-Times and later wrote for the Chicago Tribune until his death in 1997. Royko thought of himself as a reporter first and foremost, and his distinctive perspective on local politics and issues that mattered to fellow Chicagoans drew an audience of countless loyal readers. Eventually, national syndication gave him an audience far beyond the Chicago area. Royko’s 1971 book, Boss, about Mayor Richard J. Daley, was a best-seller that has never gone out of print.
Exhibitions at the Newberry are free and open to all. Exhibition hours are 10am-7pm Tuesday through Thursday and 10am-5pm Friday and Saturday.
