Scout Report readers with a penchant for urban transportation (past and present) will find much to catch their attention while visiting the Chicago "L" site. Created by transportation history guru and expert Graham Garfield, this site provides videos, historical and contemporary photographs, essays, and other items related to Chicago's elevated transit system. Under the "What's New" banner,...

If you want to peer into Chicago's past, block-by-block, you should definitely give the Chicago Ancestors website a look. The site is a project of the Newberry Library and its goal is "to help genealogists and local historians discover and share historical information about Chicago." The funding for the project came from the Illinois State Library, which used funds provided by the Institute for...

William Randolph Hearst was a titan of the 20th century newspaper world, and he purchased and started papers in dozens of American cities. One of his morning papers was the Chicago Examiner, which began its run in 1902. The Chicago Public Library has an impressive archive of the Examiner from 1908 to 1918. Although the collection is incomplete, it remains the longest run of the paper still...

The Chicago History Museum has mounted a number of popular initiatives and exhibitions in the past several years, and their new blog is something that historians, young people, and anyone with an interest in Chicago will want to check out. While the site is organized like a traditional blog, each entry contains interesting insights into Museum's holdings, along with commentaries on the city's...

The Chicago History Museum has a "big tent" approach to their fine Flickr account where they ask visitors to offer up their own Chicago photographs to supplement their own exhibits. On the homepage, visitors can look through some of the tags to get started, such as "urban," "CTA," and "architecture." Currently, there are over 6600 photographs and visitors can search at their leisure and contribute...

Burger Billionaires and Felony Franks http://www.examiner.com/x-5940-SF-Restaurant-Business-Examiner~y2009m10d13-Burger-Billionaires-and-Felony-Franks Prison Puns Annoy Neighbors of Felony Franks http://www.wbur.org/news/npr/113742195 Vienna Beef: History of the Chicago Hot Dog http://www.viennabeef.com/culture/chgodoghistory.asp National Hot Dog & Sausage Council [Quick...

The transformation of the area east of Michigan Avenue from an industrial wasteland into the vibrant and heavily-used Millennium Park is truly a remarkable tale in Chicago's recent history. The apocryphal tale says that Mayor Richard M. Daley looked out from his dentist's office and envisioned a public park that would be comparable to other grand spaces in the city. The construction of Millennium...

Large, urban public school districts are faced with a host of problems, including budget cutbacks and student truancy and absenteeism. The Chicago Tribune launched this investigative report into the problems of truancy and absenteeism in the Chicago Public School system and it is well worth a closer look. On the site, visitors can read through four primary areas: The Crisis, Solutions, Lives in...

The National Urban League was founded in 1910, and it remains one of the oldest social service, research, and advocacy organizations in the United States. The Chicago League branch was created in 1916 to address the needs of the African American community throughout the Windy City. Over the past century, the League has worked on issues like affordable housing, racial injustice, and police...

In 1969, the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU) was founded. Recently, the CWLU created the CWLU Herstory Website Project to archive and share the history of the organization. On the site, its authors write that "by sharing our history we hope others are inspired to act today." It's a laudable goal; the site features everything from women's health videos to FAQ areas for students, teachers,...