Hostility towards immigrants had been building for years. By the middle of the decade, xenophobia reached its peak, leading to a widespread belief that immigrants were threatening to destroy American values and democracy. In response, a new political movement sought to curb immigration, toughen naturalization laws and limit the rights of foreign-born citizens. The decade […]
Erika Holst
Posted inArts & Culture
The ancient story told by Dickson Mounds
The Dickson Mounds Museum is about 60 miles northwest of Springfield, at Lewistown, near Havana. PHOTO Courtesy of the Illinois State Museum, Doug Carr, Museum Photographer. In the morning, the landscape is shrouded in mist, and a profound stillness permeates the air, interrupted only by the beating wings of a thousand snow geese as they […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
It’s never too early to plan for your stuff
Planning for the future of your personal possessions now will save your loved ones grief down the road. Just months after enduring the devastating loss of their husband and father, Robin Williams’ wife and children found themselves in court, clashing over the details of the late actor’s estate. Although Williams left clear instructions for the […]
Posted inOpinion
Close the Illinois State Museum, cut our collective hearts out
My little son loves the Illinois State Museum. For him, it’s a place of exploration and discovery. He routinely clamors to be taken to the Mary Ann MacLean Play Museum, located on the lower floor of the museum’s main building on Spring Street. In the span of a morning he can dig for bones, drive […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Reflections of a motherless mother
The writer’s son, Anders, “meets” his grandmother for the first time. Anders was born six years after her death. PHOTO COURTESY ERIKA HOLST My mother’s pet name for me was lillegull, a Norwegian term of endearment that translates to “little golden child.” I was her only child, born when she was 36, and she loved […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The first big Springfield funeral
Governor William H. Bissell’s funeral on March 21, 1860 was the largest and most elaborate to ever have been staged in Springfield until it was eclipsed five years later by Lincoln’s. Blasts of cannon woke the citizens of Springfield at dawn on the day of the melancholy event. They fired every half hour until 11 […]
Posted inNews
Illinois governors in trouble
Illinois was deeply in debt and its financial outlook was bleak. After a close gubernatorial race, the people of Illinois elected a wealthy Chicago-area businessman as their governor, hoping that his talent for making money would steer the state away from a looming fiscal crisis. Instead, Gov. Joel Matteson, who held office from 1853 to […]
Posted inOpinion
Why historians vaccinate their kids
The vaccine debate recently hit home to my Facebook circle (so, you know, it must be serious now…). As the arguments flew fast and furious (“The CDC is a giant conspiracy to sell vaccines!” “Science proves that vaccines are extremely effective and not dangerous!” “Basic sanitation eradicated measles, not vaccines!” “No, it didn’t!” “Vaccines cause […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lincoln’s scandalous nephew
The Sangamon County Courthouse, where Abraham Lincoln’s nephew killed the Union soldier who tried to rape his sister. If the Lincolns continued to take a Springfield newspaper even after they moved to Washington, D.C., no doubt they would have been shocked by the May 12, 1864, issue of the Illinois State Journal, which carried the […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Grandparent day care
By age 81, my father-in-law, Joe Rogers, had raised three stepchildren and worked for more than half a century. He had served in Korea and had lived in Venezuela. He had been hang gliding in Germany and had flown small aircraft in Wisconsin. But one thing Joe hadn’t done in all his 81 years was […]
Posted inArts & Culture
An art lover, devoted to family
JUHLANN DAVIS GIBBS Juhlann Davis Gibbs was a woman steeped in family history: her family had been residents of central Illinois for nearly 200 years. Yet as much as she appreciated where she came from, ultimately Juhlann’s greatest joy came in the legacy she left for the future: her three granddaughters. Juhlann’s great-great grandfather, David […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Political mudslinging in Springfield
Stephen A. Douglas (left) and John T. Stuart’s (right) fight for Congress turned physical at a debate in Springfield during the summer of 1838. After enduring the barrage of political ads spewed forth during the recently concluded election campaign, one starts to wonder if the tone of the political debate could sink any lower, and […]
