Classroom

Forest Boulevard School Classroom

In the 1950s Park Forest House Museum we have included a recreation of a classroom in Forest Boulevard School. The first year residents lived in Park Forest, children were bused to Chicago Heights for school. That soon became impractical. For the second year, 1950-1951, American Community Builders took an 8-unit rental building, knocked out walls, and set up classrooms.

In our classroom we have some early Park Forest school photographs, photos of the interior of Forest Boulevard School, and of the exterior of Juniper School, the second rental unit school. You can see many children's books and some toys. There is a copy of an early Distirct 163 scrapbook, with early notices to parents, articles about the Village and with some articles on the teachers with their photos.

Since the first volunteer library was started in Forest Blvd School, we have a display for that here.

Blackboard says ABC not ACB!	Desks would have been much more crowded.
Library display.	Photos of early schools.

Bedroom of the Park Forest House Museum

Bedroom:

The bedroom has a matched set of heavy blonde furniture--possibly limed oak--with geometric drawer pulls. Bassinettes were used for babies to sleep in, and the bathinette was used as a changing table and to bathe the baby. Bathinettes often had a rubber basin under the metal changing table top to be used for bathing the baby. Our basin is made of plastic. The bathinette is on wheels to be rolled to a sink. A hose with sprayer is attached to the faucet of a sink to bathe baby. Poodles were very popular reflecting an interest in anything Parisian as Paris was reopened after World War II. In this room there are a poodle purse, and china poodles. You may have seen circle skirts with poodles, called Poodle Skirts. Gloves and hats were worn on shopping excursions. To go to Downtown Chicago on the train took two pairs of gloves--one to wear on the train, and a clean pair for the city.


Bathinette--includes the ability to bathe baby.	Baskinette--a wicker or woven basket with padding and covers--no water.

All images photographed and copyrighted by Jane Nicoll, 2008, or by Elaine Umland-Brownlee, 1999.

Bathroom of the Park Forest House Museum

Bathroom:

The medicine cabinet (not shown here) is stocked with typical pharmaceutical items of the day.

The glass shower doors are not original. The black and white tile floor is.

The museum is no longer in an original rental townhome. We will be displaying an original bathroom sink and medicine cabinet in the near future, in our new home in St. Mary's Catholic Church, 227 Monee Road. We leave up this tour so people can see what an original rentl townhome looked like. --Jane Nicoll

All images photographed and copyrighted by Elaine Umland-Brownlee, 1999, or Jane Nicoll, 2008.

Basement of the Park Forest House Museum

Basement

Outdoor clotheslines were forbidden in the rentals. Diapers and muddy clothes were washed and hug to dry in the camp basement, where they took forever to dry.

On the ironing board, we have a cartoon on the lack of dry clothes, from the early Reporter newspaper, by Margaret O'Harrow, wife of the first Village President, Dennis O'Harrow.

The basement should have a workbench made of 2 x 4's culled from the lumberyard scrap heap. Two by fours were really 2 x 4's not the thinner wood sold today. Use of true 2 x 4's is part of the reason these rentals have stood the test of time.

Basements leaked then as they do now. The hard clay subsoil is the main reason. Early rentals did not have sump pumps, as this one does. And this basement is authentic--it still leaks!

--Jane Nicoll

Note: The museum is no longer in an original rental townhome. We still display most of these artifacts in a "basement area." We leave up these photos so you can see an original setting.

All images photographed and copyrighted by Jane Nicoll, 2008.

Park Forest Public Library in the Park Forest House Museum

Park Forest's first real library was set up in a classroom of Forest Boulevard School. The school soon needed the classroom, and the library moved to the new Village Hall, first in a closet and then in a room of its own. It was an all volunteer library until a referendum passed in 1955 to build the first section of the Park Forest public Library at Lakewood and Orchard.

All images photographed and copyrighted by Jane Nicoll, 2008

Park Forest Historical Society

Museum Tour