Tara McClellan McAndrew

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the houseNot a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…The children were nestled, all snug in their bedsWhile visions of cockroaches danced in their heads… Sound like the Addams Family version of Clement C. Moore’s famous poem? It’s easy to picture macabre little Wednesday Addams licking her […]

If we could go back 100 years to Thanksgiving in 1910, we might be surprised at the similarities and differences. As usual, the president gave a Thanksgiving proclamation. President William H. Taft expressed gratitude that America continued “to be at peace with the rest of the world.” The U.S. had never known a World War […]

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 Lincoln came to Springfield, its repercussions would affect him many years later. It’s hard to imagine a slave auction being held in […]

We may be the land of Lincoln and prairies, but at one time we were the land of pottery, too. Greene County is celebrating that fact during its Greene County Days next weekend. Illinois was a major player in the country’s ceramic industry, according to archaeologist Floyd Mansberger with Springfield’s Fever River Research. (His article, […]

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 […]