Illinois in the War of 1812 by Gillum Ferguson. University of Illinois Press, 2012. 333 pages, $34.95. Thanksgiving is the time of year when some white people serve up a heapin’ dish of guilt. The season reminds us all of the circumstances of the founding of the nation, when it was the white people who […]
History
Posted inOpinion
Clio in the cornfields
Historians think nothing interesting happened here after the Civil War. PHOTO BY KERRI WESTENBERG/MCT Most towns of any size have history that is worth reading about, but surprisingly few have a good history in which they might read it. By “a good history” I mean a single-volume history for the intelligent and curious reader that […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Springfield’s first hanging
Nathanial Van Noy holds the dubious double distinction of being both the first murderer in Sangamon County as well as the first person to be hanged in Springfield. But it wasn’t the murder itself that made him infamous; it was the bizarre and gruesome spectacle of his hanging, when Van Noy tried to cheat death. […]
Posted inOpinion
Another woman’s story
I recently spent a pleasant weekend in the company of a handsome widowed lady named Christiana. She did most of the talking, which was fine with me, as what she had to say was well-observed and often wryly funny. Besides, I couldn’t have interrupted her if I tried, she being dead for the past 141 […]
Posted inOpinion
Teaching requirements
James Krohe Jr. Remember the news, announced by District 186 in March, that 68 of Springfield’s 1,329 public school teachers did not have the required paperwork in their personnel files showing them to be fit for the classroom? This except from A New Guide for Emigrants to the West, written by the American Baptist missionary […]
Posted inOpinion
Hat trick
Nothing – save perhaps a shredded writ of habeas corpus – says “Lincoln” like a stovepipe hat. Abe World relies on his hats as a graphical motif – I count four of them on the home page alone – and the innermost room of the Treasures Gallery is a sanctum sanctorum described by the museum […]
Posted inOpinion
History by the book
Springfield has seen two Lincoln movies recently – Saving Lincoln, which retells the White House years from the perspective of his close friend and bodyguard and which the Abraham Lincoln Association screened on Feb. 11 at Abe World, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. That left moviegoers asking the question, Which one is worth seeing? I’m more […]
Posted inOpinion
A new Jerusalem
My Christmas shopping being done, I curled up in front of a glowing space heater to catch up on my reading. At the top of the pile was the official 2012 visitors guide to Springfield, “your not so far away getaway.” Published by the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the 56-page guide must have left many […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lincoln’s Election Day in Springfield
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 Lincoln) set off a cannon in Springfield that morning to get supporters to the polls. It was a noisy day: wagons carrying loud bands roved through town as well, according to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
How sick was Lincoln?
The theories are plentiful: Abraham Lincoln was gay, or had Marfan’s syndrome, or syphilis or mercury poisoning; Mary Lincoln was insane, and on and on. But, are they true? It’s been 80 years since someone wrote a book addressing questions about Lincoln and his mental and physical health. A lot of new information and speculation […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Springfield’s role in preserving the dead
Before the Civil War, embalming was mainly done in America by medical men seeking to preserve corpses for anatomical study. It wasn’t until the outbreak of the Civil War, when tens of thousands of soldiers died on battlefields far from home, that embalming came into fashion as a means of preserving bodies before burial. And […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The poetry of longevity
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 municipalities bestowed with a Centennial Award this year by the Illinois State Historical Society. The award recognizes organizations that have operated continuously for at least […]
