Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library is the premier repository for materials relating to the life of Abraham Lincoln and the history of the Prairie State. The ALPL, originally the Illinois State Historical Library, was created in 1889 by the Illinois General Assembly, which charged the new library with collecting and preserving "books, pamphlets, manuscripts, monographs, writings, and other materials of historical interest and useful to the historian, bearing upon the political, religious, or social history of the State of Illinois from the earliest known period of time."

A century later that Library continues its mission under the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. The Library is a public, non-circulating research facility that contains material on all aspects of Illinois' history. Particularly noteworthy are the Library's holdings in published resources,  manuscripts,  newspapers,  audiovisual, and Lincolniana.

New! Search issues of the Illinois State Journal and its predecessors from 1831 through 1860. The index, online for the first time, covers the first issue of the Sangamon Journal on November 10, 1831 through 1847; the Illinois Journal from 1847 – 1855; and the Illinois State Journal from 1855 – 1860. Topics are largely Illinois-related, but you can search people, places and events, alphabetically and chronologically, making this a valuable resource for all researchers! All newspapers are available on interlibrary loan.

Adobe Acrobat Reader [or other similar PDF program] is required to open the files listed below.

Journal Index #1 - 1831-1850 [125 MB PDF]

Journal Index #2 - 1851-1860 [59 MB PDF]

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