17th Annual Conference on Illinois History
Sept. 24-25 event examines state history, from Civil War to segregation to would-be ‘vampires’
 

[September 19, 2015]  SPRINGFIELD – The 2015 Conference on Illinois History takes participants from the state’s first road, deep in southern Illinois, to the maneuvering that established the state’s northern boundary. It introduces suburban vampires, a tenacious doughboy and a Native American “princess” who saved a settler’s life – maybe.

It also features a brand-new partnership with the Illinois Association of Museums and workshops offering new resources and techniques for history teachers.

The conference will be held Sept. 24-25 at Springfield’s Prairie Capital Convention Center and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. The price is $110 to attend both days or $60 for a single day. (The student prices are $55 and $30.)

There’s also a Thursday evening reception that includes a panel discussion with Illinois journalists, the people who write “the first draft of history.” The roundtable will feature reporters from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Illinois Times, WMAY radio and Illinois Public Radio offering light-hearted predictions about the future.

And, for an additional price of $30 each, there are special luncheons with presentations by actor Fritz Klein as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore J. Karamanski, author of “Civil War Chicago: Eyewitness to History.”

This year, the conference takes place alongside the annual Illinois Association of Museums conference. Anyone registering for the history conference gets to attend IAM sessions, which cover visitor services, temporary exhibitions, working with teachers and more.

A detailed schedule is available at http://bit.ly/2015HistoryConference. Tickets are at the “special event reservations” section of www.presidentlincoln.illinois.gov.

Topics that will be discussed include:

• Efforts to recognize and promote the Kaskaskia-Cahokia Trail, which dates back to 1718.
• The 1998 clash between Lombard and players in a fantasy vampire game who hung out in a city park.
• Michael Metagrano, who insisted on trying to serve during World War I despite suffering from epilepsy.
• Hononegah, who was supposedly a Ho-Chunk princess who saved the life of a merchant near Rockford 200 years ago.
• Wrangling over the Illinois-Wisconsin border, which ended with the future site of Chicago on the Illinois side of the line.
• Segregation in Bloomington, and Freeport’s experience with the “Great Migration” of African-Americans leaving the South.

The conference includes sessions designed specifically for teachers interested in learning new ways to explore history in the classroom.

One of those sessions will be led by Dr. Mark DePue, director of oral history at the Lincoln Presidential Library. He’ll explain the lesson plans the library has created, complete with audio and video, that let teachers bring the voices of history-makers into the classroom. The topics at www.oralhistory.illinois.gov include the battle over an Equal Rights Amendment, the use of nuclear weapons in World War II and the experiences of prisoners of war.

The conference is sponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.

[Chris Wills, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency]