History

ILLUSTRATION BY KURT STRAZDINS Step Afrika!Jan 30, 7pm Sat. First professional dance company dedicated to the tradition of stepping. Performance includes tap, modern, hip-hop plus other styles of dance. $15-30 adults, $5 students. stepafrika.org. Kirkland Fine Arts Center, 1184 W. Main St., Decatur, 424-6318. Candle Light Vigil Feb 1, 10:30-11:30am Mon. Candle Light Vigil honors […]

Abraham Lincoln enjoyed listening to parlor music on Ninian Edwards’s square grand piano, now in the process of being restored to playable condition by the Springfield Art Association. When he moved to Springfield and hung out his shingle as an attorney, Abraham Lincoln effectively completed his transition from a rural working-class laborer to an urban, […]

The original St. Nicholas was a third-century bishop from a small town in modern-day Turkey. With children the annual return of that mysterious personage called “Santa Claus,” with his budget of gim cracks and appropriate presents, is full of excitement and is looked forward to with absorbing interest.  Illinois State Journal, Dec. 25, 1856 In […]

Before the Civil War, days of Thanksgiving were declared by the governors of individual states. Many Southern governors declined to do so, believing Thanksgiving to be a “Yankee” holiday. DRAWING BY F. A. CHAPMAN, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE DECEMBER 9, 1871, HARPER’S WEEKLY In the beginning there were Pilgrims and Indians, more or less like […]

Exiled from their homeland, many Portuguese refugees made new lives for themselves in central Illinois between 1849 and 1852. “What are six hundred human beings worth? How much ought we expend to give so many wandering exiles a home and shelter from persecution?” The year was 1849, and the question was being asked in the […]

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 […]

Abraham Jonas of Quincy, a fellow lawyer and legislator. Probably the first Jew Lincoln knew well. PHOTO COURTESY W. Wells Family Collection A thought-provoking exhibit on Lincoln’s relationship with Jews will open at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum on Monday, Aug. 3. “With Firmness in the Right: Lincoln and the Jews” addresses how Lincoln helped […]

The only known photograph of the hearse that bore Abraham Lincoln’s body. It was built in the 1850s for $6,000. A replica of the horse-drawn hearse that carried Abraham Lincoln’s body to Oak Ridge Cemetery in 1865 is built from more than wood and metal and ostrich plume feathers reaching more than a dozen feet […]

This is your unofficial guide to the concerts, presentations, lectures, dinners and other events surrounding the 2015 Lincoln Funeral Reenactment. Please note that parking downtown will be restricted, and no parking will be allowed in Oak Ridge Cemetary or along the funeral route. Lincoln’s Assassination and the Public’s Response April 30, 7pm Thurs. Scholarly symposium […]

John H. Littlefield’s painting, “Death Bed of Lincoln,” depicting the 16th president’s passing. Historians, experts and enthusiasts gathered on April 15, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s death, to discuss his assassination, his health care and mourning a president. Wayne C. Temple, deputy director of the Illinois State Archives, spoke at length about the three men […]