Illinois Heritage

The November-December issue of Illinois Heritage highlights just a few of the things your Society has been up to in recent weeks. The Centennial Business Awards luncheon was held in Jacksonville on September 14, and we had a great time visiting with the new inductees, as well as previous year’s award winners from Morgan County. Last month we took our Fall Tour to the Shawnee National Forest, where our stellar guides revealed some of the hidden treasures of southern Illinois. And on December 3 at the University of Illinois Springfield we’ll celebrate the 201st anniver-sary of statehood with our annual Illinois History Symposium commemorating the 100th anniversary of women’s  suffrage. Please come spend the day with us!

As you know, membership is the glue that holds the Illinois State Historical Society together. Your personal commitment to this organization makes all the difference in what we accomplish from year to year. Thank you for all you do to make Illinois history unforgettable. And please take time this month to renew your ISHS membership. Our future depends on what you do today.

This issue of Illinois Heritage is another gift from our sterling contributors. John Hallwas’s beautiful tribute to Virginia Eifert gave us an opportunity to put her portrait as a five-year-old writer on the cover. Mark Flotow revisits Illinois’ Civil War camps and shares how the soldiers who served there remembered their wartime experiences. Kathleen Spaltro takes us to Preston Sturges’ “City of My Dreams” in a fascinating profile of a renowned filmmaker’s coming of age in Chicago, and Mike Kienzler explores hidden art in plain sight in Menard County.

On April 26, the Illinois State Historical Society invites all friends of Prairie State history to join us in Petersburg for the ISHS’s 120th annual meeting, a celebration of the BEST OF ILLINOIS HISTORY and the 100th anniversary of the re-establishing of the village of New Salem and the creation of the state historic site. This event includes the Annual Awards Banquet, as well as a guided afternoon tour of the park. Look for details in this issue of Illinois Heritage and on our webpage, http://www.historyillinois.org.

David Joens serves as guest editor of this issue of Illinois Heritage. His gifts of enthusiasm, professionalism, and passion for the history of our Prairie State––and most  especially his love of the architectural wonders of our Illinois statehouse––make him a splendid guide. To accomplish his task he has enlisted the help of John Lupton, director of the Illinois Supreme Court Historical Society; Mark Sorensen, past ISHS president and ex officio historian of the capitol; and illustrator William Crook Jr., who has shared one of his exquisite watercolor/pen and ink portraits of the statehouse for our cover. David also tells the story of a twelve-year collaboration between the ISHS and the Illinois House of Representatives to restore an amazing 19th-century montage that now hangs in the state capitol. The montage features individual photos of the entire 1879 House of Representatives.

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

The Illinois Bicentennial is now entering its fifth month. We hope you and your historical society or museum are finding significant and creative ways to celebrate and commemorate the anniversary, not just for the year, but for the future. Visit us on our website (www.historyillinois.org) and tell us what your community has planned. We’ll do our best to help you get the word out. 

In this issue of Illinois Heritage we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Illinois Vietnam Veterans Memorial, meet forgotten playwright Charles Dazey, learn how amateur historians and genealogists can change history, and sit down to lunch with Sesquicentennial Church congregations.

Share your Heritage!