Public History Services
Our Public History Services emanates from our founder's research. Samantha Chmelik's historical research began in the mid-1990s with a study of post-World War I European nation building and its impact on American migration. She focuses on Czech and German immigrants who came to Chicago. Why Chicago?
"If the Midwest is the heartland, Chicago is the heart of America. Peoples, goods, and ideas converge and diverge along its roads, waterways, and railroads. I research the immigrant groups who settled in 19th century Chicago, including the Czechs who brought their native political and religious intra-ethnic conflicts to their new country and the Germans who founded nationally significant candy businesses and were shaped by World War I era anti-German sentiments. The intra-ethnic conflicts of the Czech immigrants are forever captured by symbols used on their gravemarkers. Research into the Czech symbols naturally expanded to the funerary, cultural, and artistic meanings for a broad range of symbols."
-- Samantha Chmelik, Principal, Preston Argus, LLC
Selected Interviews and Publications Available Online
"Those Tree-Shaped Tombstones Let the Dead Speak from Beyond the Grave." DNAInfo, 31 October 2016
"Frederick Rueckheim." in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, German Historical Institute, 2013.
"Gilded Age Toys and Games." Driehaus Museum Blog, 2013.
"Otto Y. Schnering." in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, German Historical Institute, 2012.
Samantha is available to speak about the following topics:
The 19th Century Czech Experience in Chicago
"If the Midwest is the heartland, Chicago is the heart of America. Peoples, goods, and ideas converge and diverge along its roads, waterways, and railroads. I research the immigrant groups who settled in 19th century Chicago, including the Czechs who brought their native political and religious intra-ethnic conflicts to their new country and the Germans who founded nationally significant candy businesses and were shaped by World War I era anti-German sentiments. The intra-ethnic conflicts of the Czech immigrants are forever captured by symbols used on their gravemarkers. Research into the Czech symbols naturally expanded to the funerary, cultural, and artistic meanings for a broad range of symbols."
-- Samantha Chmelik, Principal, Preston Argus, LLC
Selected Interviews and Publications Available Online
"Those Tree-Shaped Tombstones Let the Dead Speak from Beyond the Grave." DNAInfo, 31 October 2016
"Frederick Rueckheim." in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, German Historical Institute, 2013.
"Gilded Age Toys and Games." Driehaus Museum Blog, 2013.
"Otto Y. Schnering." in Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, German Historical Institute, 2012.
Samantha is available to speak about the following topics:
The 19th Century Czech Experience in Chicago
- The Founding of Bohemian National Cemetery: An Act of Protest
- Thomas Masaryk Visits Chicago: Building American Support for an Independent Czechoslovakia
- Otto Schnering and Curtiss Candy: Butterfingers and Baby Ruth
- Frederick Rueckheim and Crackerjack: An Empire Built on Popcorn
- From Rueckheim to Schnering: Subsuming German Cultural Identities into All-American Marketing Images
- Grave Markers as Protest Symbols: Using Cemeteries to Interpret the IntraEthnic Conflicts of Chicago's Bohemian Immigrants
- Trees That Talk: Conversing with Ancestors through Limestone Tree Grave Markers - A Genealogical Research Technique