American Writers Museum Finds Home on Michigan Avenue in Chicago

Posted on October 27, 2015

The American Writers Museum announced today that it has signed a lease for its new home in Chicago. The first American museum to celebrate American writers will be housed in 11,500 square feet on the second floor at 180 N. Michigan Avenue, near the Chicago Art Institute. There will be 8,500 feet of exhibition space which will showcase American writers from the past and present.

The museum is the brainchild of Malcolm O'Hagan, a retired engineer from Maryland. O'Hagan is a life long book lover who was a docent at the Library of Congress. O'Hagan was inspired by the Dublin Writers Museum, which was founded 25 years ago.

The museum is an ambitious project. It will feature state of the art digital technology that will allow visitors to step into the world of various writers. For example, visitors to the Emily Dickinson room will feel they are where she wrote poetry. They can look out the window at a digital view of what she actually saw during her lifetime.

In an interview with Tin House magazine O'Hagan discussed the plans for the museum, the role of technology and how the exhibits will be organized.

The museum hopes to raise $10 million by the end of 2016. So far, it has raised more than $3.3 million so far. Publishers Weekly spoke with the museum's director, Nike Whitcomb. Ms. Whitcomb projects they will get 120,000 visitors a year and by 2021 they expect to have net revenue of $1,750,000.

You can see the full artist's rendering of the proposed layout of the museum here.