The Charles & Betty Mottl Archive

Charles Mottl was born in 1910 in what is now the Czech Republic. He arrived in Cicero, Illinois in 1913 — three years old. He grew up Czech-American in the suburbs of Chicago, married Rose Horak on September 1, 1935 — on film — and raised his daughter Betty in Berwyn through the postwar years that defined American suburban life.

From 1936 through the 1970s, Charles documented his family with an 8mm Revere camera he saved up to buy in Chicago: his daughter's birthdays, road trips across the country, a wartime visit to his brother-in-law at basic training, the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, the La Grange Pet Parade in color a year before WGN ever broadcast it. He continued making photographs into the 1980s.

This archive is what survived. Restored, digitized, and now licensed for documentary, editorial, and commercial use.

The Collection

• 50+ reels of 8mm film, 1936–1970s
• 500+ photographs, 1930s–1980s
• Original Revere 8 camera and projector
• WWII letters, Czech recipe cards, Kodak processing boxes