The Devon Ave(nue) Digital History Archive (DADHA)

The DADHA Project is a digital historical (and contemporary) archive of the stretch of W. Devon Avenue east-west from N. Broadway to Kedzie Ave in north Chicago.  An approximately three-mile stretch of primarily businesses, Devon Avenue has, like many parts of Chicago, experienced significant changes in the past thirty years, yet the history of Devon Avenue traces back to at least the late nineteenth and early twentieth century From an initial presence of Eastern European immigrants and Orthodox Jewish communities, there has been a dramatic shift in the composition of the Devon Ave. neighborhoods and businesses since the 1980s. The arrival of South Asians (from India and Pakistan) and Assyrians has added a new ethno-cultural and historical dimension to Devon Ave. Changes in US immigration policies and in recent years, and more recently the impact of Iraq War II (2003-2011), has seen a change in the composition of many Devon Avenue businesses. Moreover, although businesses may be owned or managed by individual of the area's diverse ethno-cultural communities, much of the labor is done by immigrants from Latin America. DADHA traces the histories of the experiences, past and present, of the individuals, families, and communities of Devon Avenue.  The paper examines issues related to oral history collection, and considers the obstacles presented by university and Federal government regulations on research of human subjects.