Tara McClellan McAndrew

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 against her will. Her husband, Rev. Theophilus Packard, thought she was insane and, according to state law at the time, […]

I recently learned a new reason why I’m glad I didn’t live in the 1800s — 19th century cosmetics. I became enlightened about this topic after attending an interesting 3½-hour seminar during the Old State Capitol’s Civil War Encampment weekend on June 12, which drew about 75 reenactors here, according to site manager Justin Blandford. […]

In the late 1800s reformers in Illinois became concerned about child labor in manufacturing, especially in the state’s larger cities. They had good reason to be. In some shops young children worked long hours at dangerous jobs that left them deformed or ill. Others worked at safer jobs, but the never-ending workdays (14-plus hours in […]

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 early lawmakers. But before the Old State Capitol was there, the square was the site of violent punishment for lawbreakers. Like many frontier towns, Springfield […]

Financial problems are nothing new to the Prairie State. Sadly, neither are inept responses by governmental officials. After the Panic of 1819 one of our own townsmen, an esteemed founding father, was one of several leaders investigated for wrongdoing in relation to state-sponsored recovery efforts. This fact was discovered by local historian and author David […]

It’s easy in this Land of Lincoln Obsession to think that our area’s history began with the sixteenth president or with white settlers in general. But doing so ignores the many Native Americans who lived here thousands of years before there was even an America to preside over. Dr. Michael Wiant, director of the Illinois […]

One hundred fifty years ago this year, Abraham Lincoln was elected president and the slavery question was threatening to dissolve the nation. In Illinois, Lincoln’s allegedly “free” state, black laws discouraged African-Americans from entering and especially staying. A black person could be jailed and fined if he or she came to Illinois for longer than […]

One hundred fifty years ago this year, Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery was dedicated by former mayor James Conkling as a “city of the dead.” A new book by former city historian Edward Russo and current city historian Curtis Mann outlines and illustrates the history of our famous graveyard, which is the nation’s most visited cemetery […]

A few weeks ago, as I nursed my son through swine flu, I frequently thought about my great-grandmother. She had lived in Athens, northwest of Springfield, and nursed her son during another flu pandemic 91 years ago. I felt such sympathy for her. Although the challenges of caring for our sons must have been similar, […]

It’s never easy being a star, but if you believe a superstar concert pianist from that time, it was especially difficult in Springfield in the 1860s. The New Orleans-born Louis Moreau Gottschalk was a “hugely celebrated” concert pianist with a “tremendous following,” according to WUIS-FM music director and musician Karl Scroggin. “He was called ‘the […]