17th
Annual Conference on Illinois History
Sept. 24-25 event examines state history,
from Civil War to segregation to would-be ‘vampires’
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[September 23, 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.
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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.”
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Sep/18/images/ads/current/humanesociety_sda022411.png)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Sep/18/images/ads/current/business_directory_filler.png) 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.
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![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Sep/18/images/ads/current/2000-chevrolet-silverado.png) 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] |