The Illinois Historic Preservation
Agency (IHPA) operates over 60 historic sites and
memorials from U.S. Grant's home in Galena to the
Kincaid Mounds near Unionville covering more than
10,000 years of Illinois History. These sites include
the world-famous Dana-Thomas House, a Frank Lloyd
Wright masterpiece, Cahokia Mounds, a World Heritage
Site, and Lincoln's New Salem, the highest attended
site of all the Lincoln Sites. The Agency also administers
the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
The library is the state’s chief historical
and genealogical research facility that is home to
the state’s world-renowned Abraham Lincoln collection.
The library houses the Agency's collection of more
than 12 million items of Illinois history. The museum
combines scholarship and showmanship to communicate
the amazing life and times of Abraham Lincoln. IHPA
administers all state and federal historic preservation
and incentive programs in Illinois, including the
National Register of Historic Places. Thank you for
visiting.
Use the Google search box
to search the IHPA's site:
Custom Search
For more information, please
email HPA.info@illinois.gov.
The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum
press contact: 217/558-8970.
Early African
American Cinema Series
January-March, 2012
Vachel Lindsay
Home
State Historic Site
The home of one of America’s
first film critics will host a cinema series with
showings of early African American films on January
21, February 4 and March 3. The event features
silent and sound movies from the 1920s.
The Vachel Lindsay Home State
Historic Site at 603 S. Fifth Street in Springfield
will host the “Early African American Cinema
Series: Silent and Sound” in honor of Martin
Luther King Jr.’s Birthday in January, African
American History Month in February and Women’s
History Month in March. All showings will be on
Saturdays – January 21, February 4 and March
3 – and all begin at 2 p.m. Since seating
is limited, free reservations must be made by
calling 217/524-0901.
“People from all across
the country visit the Vachel Lindsay Home specifically
due to Lindsay's writing about film, and we are
thankful for the opportunity to partner with Dr.
Angela Winand and the University of Illinois at
Springfield to present this important program,”
said the Lindsay Home’s Jennie Battles.
Saturday, January 21
Within Our Gates (1920) This silent film was writer-director
Oscar Micheaux’s second feature-length film,
which was also produced and distributed by his
company as a response to D. W. Griffith’s
Birth of a Nation (1915). Starring Evelyn Preer
as Sylvia Landry, Flo Clements as Alma Prichard,
James D. Ruffin as Conrad Drebert, and Jack Chenault
as Larry Prichard, it is the story of a young
schoolteacher’s struggle to keep a black
Southern school from closing. (78 minutes.)
Saturday, February 4
Hallelujah! (1929) This MGM musical directed by
King Vidor, starring Daniel L. Haynes, Victoria
Spivey and Nina Mae McKinney, is the story of
a sharecropper who becomes a famous preacher.
Filmed in Tennessee and Arkansas, Hallelujah!
was one of the first all-black films produced
by a major studio, intended for a general audience
and considered so risky a venture by MGM that
they required King Vidor to invest his own salary
in the production. Vidor's vision was to attempt
to present a relatively non-stereotyped view of
African American life, and he was nominated for
a Best Director Oscar for the film. In 2008, Hallelujah!
was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry by the Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant." (90 minutes.)
Saturday, March 3
The Scar of Shame (1927) This crime drama from
the Colored Players Film Corporation uses the
conventions of the genre to teach a moral lesson
as an orphaned heroine searches for love and meaning
in her life. The story by David Starkman, as directed
by Frank Perugini, is melodramatic yet effective.
The “all colored” cast is led by Harry
Henderson, Lucia Lynn Moses, Norman Johnstone
and Lawrence Chenault. (79 minutes.)
Following each screening, a discussion
will be led by Dr. Angela Winand, assistant professor
of African American Studies at the University
of Illinois at Springfield, where she teaches
courses on black women in film history, African
American women's biography and autobiography,
the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement,
and on African Americans and Afro-Creoles in New
Orleans history and culture.
Any portions of the series cancelled
due to inclement weather will be presented on
March 24.
Independent companies, both black-owned
and white-owned, competed with mainstream Hollywood
productions to serve new black movie-going audiences
in urban areas during the decade of the 1920s,
making acting careers possible for African American
entertainers. Black audiences wanted to see their
lives and experiences reflected on screen truthfully
and meaningfully, without exaggerated stereotypes
of minstrelsy and vaudeville. These films give
us a glimpse of the kinds of stories told with
the new technology of moving pictures. The Art
of the Moving Picture (1915), arguably the first
study of film as an art form, earned Vachel Lindsay
the respect of film theorists and filmmakers.
The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, which
administers the Vachel Lindsay Home, is providing
guests with the opportunity to view and discuss
these significant early films in the historic
home of one of our nation's first film critics.
The Vachel Lindsay Home State
Historic Site is the birthplace and longtime residence
of poet, author and artist Nicholas Vachel Lindsay,
1879 – 1931. It is open Tuesday through
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for free public
tours.
Events
Meet a Boy in
Blue
February 11 & 18, 2012
Old State Capitol
State Historic Site
Meet a Boy in Blue Civil War
during the Old State Capitol's Living History
Program featuring Fort Donelson.
The program, at 11 a.m., 1 &
3 p.m., will feature an authentically costumed
living history presenter who will discuss Illinois
leaders and regiments that played crucial roles
in the battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, on
February 15, 1862. During the Civil War, as the
seat of government, the statehouse was the center
of the state’s efforts at wartime mobilization.
The capitol also provided space for events aiding
the needs of local residents as well as soldier
relief efforts.
During the 1840s and 1850s, the
Old State Capitol was the scene of debate over
issues that led the nation to war in 1861. During
the Civil War, as the seat of government, the
statehouse was the center of the state’s
efforts at wartime mobilization. The capitol also
provided space for local events aiding the needs
of local residents as well as soldier relief efforts.
Visitors are also encouraged
to visit the “Boys in Blue” exhibit
at the nearby Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
The exhibit features the faces, letters, sketches
and songs of the men who fought in Illinois regiments
during the Civil War. Original materials from
the Presidential Library’s vast Civil War
collections cover select members from Illinois
units and include original albumen prints, lithographs,
tintypes, cabinet cds, and cartes-de-visite. Original
letters, sheet music, artifacts (including a cannon),
diaries and sketches created by the soldiers themselves
are also displayed. The exhibits present an individual,
human side to the conflict that forever changed
the course of United States history.
The Old State Capitol State Historic
Site, administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation
Agency, was the seat of Illinois government from
1839 to 1876. Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas,
Ulysses S. Grant and other famous Illinoisans
worked in the building. The Old State Capitol
is open for free public tours.
Abraham Lincoln
Association, IHPA and UIS
Springfield
The Abraham Lincoln Association
(ALA) is celebrating President Lincoln’s
203nd birthday with two days of programs in Springfield,
Illinois on Saturday and Sunday, February 11 and
12, with presentations centering on the theme
of Lincoln and the Civil War.
In announcing the special event,
ALA President Robert Lenz said that he is pleased
that the February 12 evening banquet speaker is
the Senior United States Senator from Illinois,
Richard Durbin. Richard Durbin has been a great
supporter of the Lincoln legacy throughout his
career. He has championed legislation to help
preserve Lincoln sites and encourage public education
regarding our Sixteenth President.
The banquet will be held at the
President Lincoln Hotel in Springfield on Sunday,
February 12 beginning with a reception at 6 p.m.
and the dinner at 7 p.m. Tickets are $85 each
and can be obtained online at www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org
or by calling (866) 865-8500.
The Annual Abraham Lincoln Symposium
will begin on Saturday, February 11 at 6:30 p.m.
at Brookens Auditorium at the University of Illinois
at Springfield with the keynote address, “The
Emancipation Proclamation: Myths and Realities,”
presented by James Oakes from the City University
of New York Graduate Center. Oakes has been teaching
and writing about slavery, antislavery and the
origins of the Civil War for nearly thirty years.
The February 11 program is free and open to the
public.
The Symposium continues on Sunday,
February 12 at the Old State Capitol State Historic
Site in Springfield with the theme, “Lincoln
Wages War, 1861-1862”. The 11 a.m. speakers
will be Ethan Rafuse from the United States Army
Command and General Staff College and Chandra
Manning from Georgetown University. A round table
featuring all of the Symposium speakers begins
at 2:30 p.m. at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library. These February 12 events are free and
open to the public.
The Symposium luncheon, which
begins at 1 p.m. February 12 at the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library, features speaker Howard
Jones, who will discuss “Lincoln’s
Forgotten Craft: The Art of Diplomacy”.
Jones is a Professor at the University of Alabama
and the author of more than a dozen books including
“Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union
and Confederate Foreign Relations”. The
luncheon is $25 per person and reservations can
be made online at www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org
or by calling (866) 865-8500.