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Mark your calendars! The Illinois State Historical Society will host its 124th Annual Meeting this year at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield on April 29, 2023. At this time, the ISHS will recognize the ISHS's "Best of Illinois History" award recipients for 2023. Twenty-nine remarkable nominees will be honored and awarded for their outstanding achievements and publications on Illinois history.

This issue of Illinois Heritage offers a snapshot of the “Best of Illinois History” ceremony, where we gave out more than 35 awards, including three Lifetime Achievements awards, the Olive Foster Teacher of the Year award, and the new Russell L. Lewis Jr. Young Museum Professional award. We also take a look at Ulysses S. Grant, the soldier from Galena who led the Union Army to victory in the Civil War and became the nation’s 18th President. In this two-part retrospective, we see Grant through the eyes of the soldiers who served under him along the way.

The Illinois State Historical Society (ISHS) revealed the 2022 “Best of Illinois History” award winners on Saturday, April 9, at 11:30 at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield. This year’s award recipients traveled across the state and the nation to accept their awards, which celebrate the best Illinois history books and authors, exhibits and exhibitors, filmmakers, playwrights, and over-achievers who make the Prairie State an outstanding place “to foster awareness, understanding, research, preservation, and recognition of history in Illinois.”

123rd Annual Meeting and 2022 "Best of Illinois History" Awards
April 9, 2022

The luncheon is scheduled for 11:30 a.m., on Saturday, April 9, 2022, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield, 420 South Sixth Street. The price to ISHS members for this luncheon buffet is $50 per person, $60 for non-members. Please make your reservations early as seating is limited. Paid parking for the event will be at the city parking ramp immediately to the north of the Hoogland Center, and free but limited on-street is available up and down Fifth and Sixth streets, as well as on some side streets. 

Reservation Form

Location:
Hoogland Center for the Arts
420 South Sixth Street
Springfield, Illinois 62701 (Map)

To our readers:

In this issue of Illinois Heritage we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Illinois State Archives, the venerable institution that houses the state’s most important government records. We also announce the winners of the 2021 “Best of Illinois History” awards.

Contributor Clark “Bucky” Halker, labor historian and former director of Illinois Humanities, explores Illinois’ rich history of songwriting and labor activism for the earliest days of coal mining through the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), focusing on the strong religious roots of the movement. In his “Forgotten Voices of Illinois History” essay, John Hallwas reintroduces us to John Hay, the poet, biographer, diplomat, and statesman who had the ear of presidents from Lincoln to Roosevelt. Candace Summers writes about the relatively unknown Bloomington artist Emily Howard, and Todd Carr of Elizabethtown takes us on a spring waterfall hike in the Shawnee National Forest.

Thanks to all of you for renewing your membership in the Illinois State Historical Society. You sustain the great work that began in 1899, to “foster awareness, understanding, research, preservation, and recognition of history in Illinois.” With your continued support, Illinois history will always have a great future.