Chicago History Museum’s top leader Donald Lassere exits

The head of the Chicago History Museum is departing his post after nearly five years, the museum announced Wednesday. Donald E. Lassere served as the museum’s president and CEO since April 2021.

In a statement, the museum said the board will conduct a nationwide search for Lassere’s replacement. In the meantime, Michael Anderson, who is currently the museum’s vice president of external engagement and development, will serve as interim president and CEO.

Lassere, a Chicago native, previously led the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky. In Chicago, Lassere succeeded the history museum’s previous leader Gary T. Johnson, who retired from the post after 15 years at the helm.

The last year of Lassere’s tenure was marked by a number of staff reductions following unionization efforts at the museum. This fall, the museum opened “Aquí en Chicago”, a Latino history-focused exhibition six years in the making that was sparked by student protests.

Lassere could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a statement released by the museum, Lassere said the five-year mark felt like the “logical point for me to plan the next chapter of my career.” “I am very proud of what we have achieved here in recent years, starting with reinvigorating the museum after almost a year of shutdown because of the COVID pandemic,” the statement continued. “We have increased attendance, and by opening new major exhibits— 'Dressed in History,’ ‘Designing for Change,’ ‘Injustice: The Trial for the Murder of Emmett Till’ and the recently opened ‘Aquí en Chicago’ — it became more representative of the city’s population.”

Board chair Warren Chapman said in the statement that the museum is “well positioned to attract strong candidates for the leadership post.”

Museum employees declared their plans to unionize last February, part of a wave of cultural organizations that have formed unions in recent years. In April, the workers alleged that museum management retaliated against employees for efforts to unionize, including firing four members and threatening five others. In a letter to the museum’s board of trustees, the workers said, “Staff were intimidated, harassed, and bullied while trying to do their jobs for the benefit of our museum and community.”

In July, four more employees were laid off as part of cost-saving measures, according to Anders Lindall, a spokesperson for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME Council 31. Additionally, staff members at the museum’s Abakanowicz Research Center had their hours reduced, Lindall said.

Lindall said he hopes to see the museum work collaboratively with employees through the union, and expressed concerns about the staff cuts, which included the termination of another employee in December.

“I think they fit a disturbing pattern of top management at the museum wasting resources and creating a hostile environment, failing to uphold the values that [the museum] professes to stand for, and harming the staff who actually do the work that makes the museum run,” he said.

Ellen Keith, the museum’s chief librarian and former director of research and access, resigned following the reductions. She said she asked to stay through Dec. 31, but was escorted out of the building on Dec. 10.

“The cuts did incredible damage to everyone who’s interested in Chicago history, and that’s graduate students, undergraduate students and faculty, who are entitled to come in for free and see the unique resources that the research collections have,” said Keith, who will start a new role as executive director of the Chicago Collections Consortium next year.

Of Lassere’s resignation, Keith said, “I think it’s in the best interest of the museum.”

When Lassere was hired, he told the Chicago Sun-Times he planned to focus on diversifying the museum’s exhibitions and appeal to a broader and younger audience.

“Chicago history is world history because we have so many ethnic groups that migrated here. Let’s talk about the reasons for that. Why do you have a large Latinx community? Why do you have a large African American community? Why do you have a large Polish community, Greek community? Talk about those migratory patterns. Why did that happen? That would be so interesting to so many people,” he said.

“Aquí en Chicago,” on view until November, focuses on Latino history in the city. The work is the result of a social media protest staged by local students, pushing for more Latino representation at the museum.

With an annual revenue of $13.4 million, the Chicago History Museum is one of the city’s oldest cultural institutions and maintains a collection spanning more than 23 million objects, images and documents. Among the museum’s well-known artifacts is The Pioneer, the first locomotive to operate in the city and dioramas that chronicle Chicago’s growth from settler trading outpost to host of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.