At the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Edwards Street is a two-story building with a "For Lease" sign in the front window of the vacant first story. Until recently, the location served as a ]]> From the bored housewife and the determined workingwoman to the philandering businessman, the television drama “Mad Men” explores a cast of 1960s archetypal characters, and displays them w]]> When Abraham Lincoln, his father, stepmother, and step-brother first came to Illinois from Indiana, they settled in a log cabin about three miles west of Decatur on the Sangamon River. Th]]> No, Lincoln didn’t sleep here. And, in the case of Edwards Place, the Springfield Art Association’s antebellum Italianate mansion, Lincoln didn’t court here. Abraham Lincoln actually]]> At the height of his career, in the 1980s, he was a headliner. He had audiences all across the country rolling in the aisles. He shared stages with Jerry Seinfeld and Huey Lewis, partied with Joe Wals]]> The 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to America will be commemorated in February 2014. The Liverpool lads, shortly after their single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” reached t]]> Untitled Document The Bush side of the presidents’ family receives nearly all of the attention from historians; the Walker side, by comparison, is almost anonymous to histo]]> It's not unusual to find a skeleton in a medical school, but you can't say the same about an intact Depression-era drugstore, antique bloodletting apparatuses, or a 19th-cent]]> When the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum opened, it was heralded as the first of its kind. However, there was an unofficial version housed in the Lincoln Home from 1884 to 1893. It wa]]> Untitled Document Some of our earliest settlers’ stories are so fantastic, they’re hard to believe. Take Mary Neely Spears, also known as Granny Spears. At 19 she was]]> One of the best theater tickets in town over the last couple of years was to Springfield actor Aasne Vigesaa’s performance of The Yellow Wallpaper at the Vachel Lindsay home, directed by Kevin P]]> Among the many collections that make up the Audio-Visual Department of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Guy Mathis photographic collection stands out for its ]]> Corporate arrogance and malfeasance seem like modern phenomena, but they’re not. Take the story of Springfield’s 1890 “streetcar wars,” for example. Shortly after the Civil War]]> On June 18, 1860, Elizabeth Packard, a mother of six and wife of a Calvinist minister in Manteno, Ill., was carried from her home and admitted to the Illinois Hospital for the Insane in Jacksonville a]]> What do Poetry Magazine, Chicago Chinatown, Madison County, Haenig Electric Company and the YMCA of McDonough County have in common? They are a few of 23 Illinois businesses, nonprofits and municipali]]> In 1915, the city of San Francisco, which had been nearly destroyed nine years earlier by a calamitous earthquake and resultant fire, threw a comeback party for itself called the Panama Pacific]]> “All the day long, Whether rain or shine, She’s a part of the assembly line. She’s making history, Working for victory, Rosie the Riveter…”%uFFFD%uFFFD%uFFFD%uFFFD -from]]> You can’t help but wonder what Abraham Lincoln would have thought if he’d witnessed the public auction here of two slave girls in July, 1827. Even though the event occurred 10 years before]]> Election Day, 1860, started with a boom for Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. According to Harold Holzer’s book, Lincoln: President-Elect, local Republicans (not including Linco]]> Today, Springfield’s downtown square is a peaceful place. Its manicured lawn and grand Old State Capitol suggest that it was a location of thoughtful debate and mannered discourse among our earl]]>