Hawthorne Works Museum – Cicero IL

The Hawthorne Works Museum is located in Morton College at 3801 S. Central Ave. in Cicero Illinois. The museum tells the story of the Hawthorne Works factory. It showcases the Western Electric telephones and other communications products manufactured there over the years. It also delves into local history and the immigrant workforce that was so important to this plant

The Hawthorne Works was a large factory complex of the Western Electric Company. It was named after the original name of the town, Hawthorne. It operated from 1905 through 1983. At its’ height it employed as many as 45,000 people.

The facility is also know for the industrial studies held there in the 1920s; the most famous of which was called The Hawthorne effect. Unfortunately, the Hawthorne Works faced tragedy when 220 employees were killed in the Eastland Disaster in 1915. They were mostly Czech immigrants and were going to a company picnic event.