{"id":109036,"date":"2026-01-05T10:56:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T15:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/?post_type=perspectives-article&p=109036"},"modified":"2026-01-05T10:56:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T15:56:50","slug":"the-hilton-chicago","status":"publish","type":"perspectives-article","link":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/perspectives-article\/the-hilton-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hilton Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 AHA meeting is co-headquartered at the Hilton Chicago, one of the world\u2019s great convention hotels, whose storied past includes a feature role in the political tumult of the 1960s. Indeed, the Hilton has long played a vital role in American politics.<\/p>\n

\"The

Photo: Kaufmann & Fabry Co., Chicago History Museum, ICHi-076322<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In May 1927, when the Hilton\u2014then named the Stevens Hotel\u2014opened for business in downtown Chicago, it was the largest hotel in the world, with some 3,000 rooms. Among its over-the-top amenities were the rooftop Hi-Ho miniature golf course, a 1,200-seat movie theater, and a barbershop with 27 chairs. Its first guest was the nation\u2019s vice president, Charles Dawes. Yet the Great Depression made it difficult to turn a profit. The federal government purchased the hotel in 1942; the US Army used it as a barracks and training facility during World War II.<\/p>\n

After Conrad Hilton bought the hotel in 1946, it reemerged\u2014racially integrated\u2014as the place to be in Chicago for the nation\u2019s politicians and their party conventions. In 1952, the Hilton was the GOP\u2019s main delegate hotel, and in 1956, the Democrats set up shop there as well. The GOP returned in 1960; \u201cNixon girls\u201d cheered the delegates as they entered and exited the Hilton.<\/p>\n

In August 1968, when thousands of antiwar protesters massed outside the hotel during the Democratic convention, they were not there to cheer. Chicago\u2019s Mayor Richard J. Daley had assured Democratic officials that Chicago was \u201cthe city that worked,\u201d and their convention, he promised, would go off without a hitch. But he didn\u2019t account for the fast-growing anti\u2013Vietnam War protest movement and the activists who intended to target the Democratic convention to make their voices heard.<\/p>\n

On August 28, protesters held the convention\u2019s only officially permitted rally at the Grant Park bandshell, southeast of the Hilton. At the end of the rally, as many as 10,000 protesters sought to march to the convention center, more than five miles away. Daley and the Chicago Police Department refused to allow the march, leading to an hours-long standoff. Told to leave the area yet hemmed in by the police and the Illinois National Guard, thousands unintentionally ended up on Michigan Avenue, right across from the Hilton. The subsequent police crackdown on the milling, overwhelmingly peaceful protesters produced the images that made \u201cChicago \u201968\u201d infamous.<\/p>\n

The police demanded that the protesters clear Michigan Avenue, yet provided no exit point. As the police moved in, hundreds tried to escape their wrath by moving onto the sidewalk in front of the Hilton\u2019s ground-floor Haymarket Lounge. The police shoved those protesters until the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Haymarket gave out, and protesters fell into the restaurant through the shattered plate glass.<\/p>\n

Other protesters refused to move. A large group sat down in the middle of Michigan Avenue, right outside the hotel at the intersection with Balbo Drive. The police\u2014though not all of them, by any means\u2014attacked the protesters with fists, knees, and clubs. The protesters chanted, \u201cThe whole world is watching,\u201d as the cameras rolled. American democracy reeled. The only real winner emerging out of that week was Republican Richard Nixon, who would go on to defeat Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the November presidential election.<\/p>\n

Chicago \u201968 was certainly not good for Chicago\u2019s, or the Hilton\u2019s, political convention business. It was not until 1996 that Bill Clinton decided it was time for Democrats to return to Chicago, and the party convened there again in 2024. Still, they have not returned to the Hilton Chicago. The AHA, on the other hand, has met there across the hotel\u2019s history, first in 1938, when it was still the Stevens. Undeterred by Chicago \u201968, the AHA convened at the Conrad Hilton in 1974. And in 2026, the Hilton Chicago hosts the AHA for the 12th time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hilton Chicago, co-headquarters of the 2026 AHA annual meeting, has a storied past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":109046,"template":"","aha-topic":[],"month":[552],"geographic-taxonomy":[56],"perspectives-section":[602],"post-type":[],"thematic-taxonomy":[38],"year":[901],"class_list":{"0":"post-109036","1":"perspectives-article","2":"type-perspectives-article","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","5":"hentry","6":"month-january","7":"geographic-taxonomy-united-states","8":"perspectives-section-perspectives-ehah","9":"thematic-taxonomy-political","10":"year-901","15":"year-2026","16":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article\/109036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/perspectives-article"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article\/109036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109047,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-article\/109036\/revisions\/109047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"aha-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aha-topic?post=109036"},{"taxonomy":"month","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/month?post=109036"},{"taxonomy":"geographic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/geographic-taxonomy?post=109036"},{"taxonomy":"perspectives-section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/perspectives-section?post=109036"},{"taxonomy":"post-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-type?post=109036"},{"taxonomy":"thematic-taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematic-taxonomy?post=109036"},{"taxonomy":"year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/year?post=109036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}