Cynthia Holmberg Collection
The Cynthia Holmberg Collection consists of 16mm home movies shot primarily by Henry Brooks, Cynthia’s father, and 8mm home movies shot by Cynthia’s husband Ron Holmberg.
The 16mm films document Cynthia’s childhood in Chicago and feature various apartments the family lived in on Chicago’s South Side. Ranging from the late 1930s to the mid 1960s, these films capture the life of a middle class family living in Chicago in the mid-century. Brooks’s home movies feature family celebrations and holidays, birthday parties, festivals, fashion and automobiles from the 1940s-60s, children playing in the neighborhood, snowstorms, key moments in Cynthia’s childhood and young adult life (graduation, life at college with her sorority sisters), and various locations in and around Chicago (including Soldier Field and Grant Park), Kentucky and New York. Henry Brooks was an avid gardener, and his films document various gardens, including his own. Brooks’s family lived in Kentucky and some of the films feature homes and family in the Kentucky countryside, as well as horses.
The 8mm home movies document Ron and Cynthia Holmberg’s family and life in the suburbs of Chicago (La Grange, Park Ridge and Wilmette) in the 1970s and early 80s. They include various locations around Chicago as well as family trips to Minocqua, Wisconsin, U.S. National Parks (including Yellowstone, Teton, and Zion), and Florida.
Henry Brooks’s 16mm home movies feature the following locations:
- The Brooks apartment at 84th and Ingleside, Chicago (pre-1938)
- The Brooks apartment at 8047 S. Rhodes, Chicago (about 1938-1957)
- The Brooks apartment at 10700 S. Vernon, Chicago (about 1958-1965)
- Various Chicago locations
- The Holmberg apartment at 40 N. Madison, LaGrange, IL (about 1957-1959)
- The Holmberg apartment at 847 S. Seventh, LaGrange, IL (about 1959-1965)
- Relatives’ homes in Kentucky and New York
- Various vacation destinations
The Holmberg 8mm home movies feature the following locations:
- 847 S. Seventh Avenue, La Grange, IL
- 824 Austin Avenue, Park Ridge, IL
- 2960 Iroquois Road, Wilmette, IL
- Minocqua, Wisconsin
- Various Chicago locations
- Various U.S. National Parks
- Florida
Collection Items
- 1939-1941
- 1939 (circa)
- 1940
- 1940s: WW2
- 1948
- 1952-1955
- 1955-1956?
- 1956, 1957, 1958
- 1958
- 1958-1959: Florida
- 1959 October
- 1960, 1961, 1962
- 1960? Fall
- 1960 October
- 1962-1963
- 1962 Xmas Pictures
- 1964-1966: Winter 1964-1965 - Spring 1966
- 1965
- 1966-1968: Spring 1966 - Spring 1968
- 1968-1969: Spring 1968 - Spring 1969
- 1969: Summer
- 1970: Yellowstone & Tetons
- 1971-1973: Summer 1971 - Summer 1973
- 1972: California Trip June-July 1972
- 1973 Vacation: Grand Canyon, Arches - Mesa Verde, Bryce - Zion
- 1977-1979: Blue Lake 1977 - Florida 1978 - Blue Lake 1978 - Blue Lake 1979
- 1978-1979: Barney 7 Weeks - Winter 1978-1979