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Help us celebrate the Illinois businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and municipalities that have achieved their centennial (or more) milestones this year at the 35th Annual Centennial Business Awards Luncheon.
 

Lewis and Clark Community College, the City of Alton, and the Illinois State Historical Society cordially invite you to attend the reveal of hidden history with an official Illinois State Historical Society marker on the site in Alton, Illinois, where the first soybeans were planted in the State of Illinois in 1851.  

This issue of Illinois Heritage will fill the hours with Prairie State wonders. New contributor Mark Pohlad, an architectural historian from DePaul University, shares his thoughts on the 100th anniversary of the conveyance of New Salem to the State of Illinois. Kristan McKinsey serves up another out-standing profile in our long-running series on Illinois Women Artists. And Mark Flotow and his camera capture the Lincoln Days festival and Civil War “battle” on Lake Pittsfield, which took place over Memorial Day weekend in Pike County. But that’s not all.

ISHS Director William Shannon IV takes us to East St. Louis to remember a civil rights struggle in 1963, where African-American protestors challenged the community to level the playing field for jobs and to create equitable opportunities previously denied them. Last but never least, John Hallwas presents another “Forgotten Voices from Illinois History,” this time on a little-known publishing house that turned heads around the world toward Prairie City, Illinois.

Thank you for reading Illinois Heritage. Your membership and gifts keep this organization vital and relevant. We cannot serve Illinois history without you. 

Since 1984 the Illinois State Historical Society (ISHS) has presented Centennial Business Awards to Illinois businesses and not-for-profit organizations that have operated continuously in the state for 100 years or more. Previous ISHS Centennial honorees number more than 1,400 and include banks, businesses, corporations, cemetery associations, libraries, private utility companies, country clubs, funeral homes, newspapers, union organizations, and municipalities.

As a special feature to the annual conference of the Illinois Association of Museums in 2019, we are looking for museum media features which are used in an exhibit/gallery setting to be celebrated by museum professionals at the historic Normal Theater.  Features will be selected for screening by a jury of museum professionals from the Illinois Association of Museums and shown at the Normal Theater, 209 West North Street, Normal, IL on November 19, 2019 during the conference.