28th Annual
Illinois History Symposium
“Lincoln's Legacies"
March 13-15, 2008
Millikin University, Decatur
10 a.m.
Session I:
Historical Research Workshop
“How to Find and Use 19th
Century Documents for Illinois Historical Research,”
Elaine Evans, Illinois State Archives
Dennis Suttles, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
Martin Tuohy, National Archives & Records
Administration, Chicago
This FREE session is open to
teachers, students, professors, local historical
societies, historic preservations, genealogists, and
independent researchers
CPDU credit available for teachers
2 p.m.
Session
II: Plenary Session
Welcome and
Introductions
Michael Batinski, Chair of
History Department
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, and 2008
Illinois History Symposium Chair
Kim Bauer, Director, Decatur
Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
“On This Site: A Brief History of the Lincoln Trail
Homestead State Park”
Keynote
Speaker: Michael Burlingame
Dr.
Michael Burlingame, Sadowski Professor of History
Emeritus at Connecticut College, is the author of The
Inner World of Abraham Lincoln and the editor of ten
volumes of primary sources about Lincoln. He received
the prestigious Lincoln Prize, honorable mention, for
his five edited collections of letters, memoranda,
editorial essays, lectures and interviews by Lincoln’s
White House private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and
John Hay, all published by Southern Illinois University
Press.
5-7 p.m.
Reception for
Michael Burlingame (Invitation Only)
Milliken Homestead
125 North Pine Street
Decatur, Illinois
$50 per person
This reception is a fund-raiser
for the ISHS Pratt Award, given annually to the author
of the best article published during the previous year
in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical
Society. RSVP by March 8.
10 a.m.
Session
III: Community Legacies
“Lincoln’s German-American Legacy,”
by Raymond Lohne, Columbia College, Chicago
“A. Lincoln and the Mormons:
Another Legacy of Limited Freedom,”
by Gary Vitale, Illinois Benedictine College
Session
IV: Military Matters
“John A. McClernand and Civil
Liberties in Early Civil War Cairo, Illinois,”
Matthew Stanley, Olney Central College
“Civil War in the Governor’s
Legion,”
Pat Burnette, Illinois College, Jacksonville
“Lincoln’s Black Troops as Seen by
Lt. Austin Wiswalk,”
Jane Ann Moore, Co-Director Lovejoy Society
Session
V: Early Settlers and Settlements
“Kettlestrings of Oak Park: A
History of the First Permanent White Settlers and their
Descendants, 1833-2007,”
Lee Brooke and Marcy Kubat
“Meet Me in Heaven: Confronting
Death Along the Galena Trail Frontier, 1825-1855,”
Pat Goitein, Galena Trail Historical Society
“The Other Famous Man from
Illinois, Daniel Cook Pope, 1794-1827: New Data on Old
Information and Misinformation—and Beyond,’”
Nancy Lee Grau, Independent Researcher, Eden Prairie,
Minnesota
12:15 p.m.
Brown Bag
Luncheon Presentation
“The Kornthal Project: Oral History
in a Southern Illinois Community,”
Robert Swenson, Department of History, Southern
Illinois University-Carbondale
Brown Bag
Lunch Presentation
“Hometown History: How to Get a
Book Published with Arcadia Press,”
Roberta and Carl Volkmann, Springfield
and John Pearson, Arcadia Press
1:30 p.m.
Session
VI: Domestic Policies
“Abraham Lincoln’s First Slavery
Case: a 21st Century Review of Bailey v.
Cromwell, 1841,”
Carl Adams, Independent Researcher, North Pekin
“The Gentleman of the House:
Abraham Lincoln and Domestic Gentility,”
Erika Nunamaker, The Papers of Abraham Lincoln
Session
VII: Under the Prairie
“Recent Archaeology at the Morris
Birkbeck Homestead in Wanborough, Illinois,”
David Brady, Independent Researcher, and
Curtis Mann, Springfield City Historian, Sangamon Valley
Collection
“New Discoveries and the Latest
Research from New Philadelphia,”
Terry Martin, Anthropology Department, Illinois State
Museum
Session
VIII: New Intrepretations
“The Public History of Looking for
Lincoln,”
PANEL:
Carol Scott, Eastern Illinois University
Robyn Carswell, Eastern Illinois University
Deborah Reid, Eastern Illinois University
3:15 p.m.
Session
IX: Redlining and Racism
“Shades of Gray: William Dawson
and the Transformation of the African-American
Electorate in the 1930s,”
Christopher Manning, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale
“African-Americans and the Racial
Boundary in Rockford, Illinois, 1833-1933,”
Christopher Jaffe, Ph.D. Candidate, Northern Illinois
University
“The Legacy of Bondage: The
Springfield Race Riot and Founding of the NAACP,”
Kathryn Harris, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library
Session
X: Prairie Poetics
“Using Illinois Culture and
History: A Reading from ‘The Lincoln Poems,”
Dan Guillory, Professor Emeritus of English, Millikin
University
“Reading Experts from Books: ‘My
Brothers the Moon’ and ‘History of the Village of
Robbins,’”
Marcellus Leonard, University of Illinois at
Springfield
“ ‘In This Glad Hour’: The Poetry
of Elizabeth Caldwell Smith Duncan,”
Martha Modena Vertreace-Doody, Kennedy-King College
Session
XII: Giants, Big and Small
“On the Back of a Giant: Lincoln
Legacy Owes a Debt to Stephen A. Douglas,”
John Alexander, Books on the Square, Virden
“Awakening the Giant: Lincoln
Answers the call of the Republican Party,”
Ivan Hardt, Independent Researcher, Cedar Rapids,
Iowa
2008
Symposium Banquet
Cocktail Hour, 6-7 p.m.
Dinner, 7 p.m.
Program: “Abraham Lincoln’s Goals
and Progress in Illinois, 1929-1976”
Banquet Speaker: Robert McColley
Dr. Robert McColley studied
history in the 1950s, taking courses and seminars at
Harvard and California, Berkeley, from--among
others--Samuel Eliot Morison, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.,
Perry Miller, Carl Bridenbaugh, and Kenneth Stampp. He
was hired by the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign in 1960, retiring from full-time in
1997. During that stretch of time he taught courses and
published writings about four centuries of American
history, and directed doctoral dissertations concerning
the first three. For seventeen years he wrote reviews of
recordings of classical music for Fanfare, the
Magazine for Serious Record Collectors. A member of
the Illinois State Historical Society for more than 30
years, he has served as president (1997-1999) and editor
of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
(1997-2002).
7:30 a.m.
Breakfast
Program, Decatur Hotel
“The Madness of Mary Lincoln and
the Discovery of her Lost Insanity Letters”
Speaker: Jason Emerson
Jason
Emerson is an independent historian who lives in
Fredericksburg, Virginia. He has worked as a U.S.
National Park Service historical interpreter at the
Lincoln Home National Historic Site, the Gettysburg
National Military Park, and the Jefferson National
Expansion Memorial; and also as a professional
journalist and freelance writer. His articles have
appeared in American Heritage, American
History, and Civil War Times magazines,
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society,
Lincoln Herald, and Lincoln Forum Bulletin.
He currently is preparing a biography of Robert T.
Lincoln.
10 a.m.
Millikin University
Session
XIII: Illinois’s Abolitionists
“Yankee Radicals: The Connections
between Upstate New York Abolitionists and Western
Illinois Antislavery and Underground Railroad
Movements,”
Owen Muelder, Director, Galesburg Colony Underground
Railroad Freedom Center, Knox College
“The Politician and the Preacher:
Lincoln and Owen Lovejoy Address the Abolition Issue,”
Rev. William Moore, Co-Director Lovejoy Society
Session
XIV: Indian Displacement
“The Icy Winter of 1838-1839: The
Cherokee Trail of Tears through Southern Illinois,”
PANEL:
Rowena McClinton, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale
Sue Glasco, Illinois Chapter Trail of Tears
Cheryl Jett, Illinois Chapter Trail of Tears
Harvey Henson, SIU-C
Gary Hacker, SIU-C
Session
XV: Labor and Community
“The Rosies of Rockford: The
Importance of Working Women in Two Rockford Companies in
the Depression and World War II,”
Katie Sutrina, Graduate Student, Northern Illinois
University
“The Father Martin B. Mangan
Collection at the Illinois History and Lincoln
Collections, University of Illinois Library,”
Robert Sampson, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign
“History of the Polish Community
in East St. Louis,”
Helena Czosnyka, St. Louis University
12:15 p.m.
Brown Bag Luncheon
“Grant us Wisdom: Making Sense of
the Illinois Humanities Council Funding Programs and its
Community Benefits,”
Ryan Lewis, Program Officer, Illinois Humanities
Council
1:30 p.m.
Session
XVI: On the Level, On the Circuit
“Compass and Chain: The Surveying
Career of A. Lincoln in Central Illinois,”
Robert Church, National Museum of Surveying
“Life on the Circuit: A Look at
the Culture of Itinerant Lawyers in Lincoln’s Illinois,”
Christopher Schnell, Papers of Abraham Lincoln
“Legacy in Asphalt: Origins and
Development of the Lincoln Post Road,”
Terri Cameron, Illinois State Historical Society
Session
XVII: Politics and the West
“Mr. Lincoln and Nevada:
Unexpected Legacies,”
Michael Scott Green, Professor of History, College of
Southern Nevada
“The Republican Party, the 37th
U.S. Congress, and the American West,”
Todd Arrington, National Park Service, Homestead
National Monument, Nebraska
“The Congressional Elections of
1864 in Illinois,”
Philip Grant Jr., Independent Researcher
Registration
All conference participants and
guests must register for the Illinois History Symposium.
No exceptions. Registration is $40 for all three days
($35 for Society members), excluding the Symposium
banquet, breakfast, and other meals. Single-day
attendance is $25 ($20 for members) excluding meals. The
workshops and programs on Thursday, March 13, are free
and open to the public.
Click here to register by mail
To register by phone and
credit card call 217-525-2781.
A block of rooms for ISHS Illinois
History Symposium participants and guests is reserved at
the Decatur Conference Center and Hotel, 4191 U.S.
Highway 36 West, until February 11, 2008. Single and
double room rates are $70 per night, plus applicable
taxes. For reservations call 217-422-8800 and identify
yourself with the Illinois History Symposium to be
eligible for the group rate.
Registration
for the Symposium Banquet must be made by March 8, 2008.
No exceptions.
