Lincoln’s Illinois
An exhibition at the Illinois State Museum
to celebrate
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial
The Illinois State Museum (ISM) is planning to present a premier interdisciplinary and interactive exhibition to be launched in February 2009 in honor of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The ISM will mount a 3,000 sq. ft. exhibition entitled Lincoln’s Illinois, which will invite visitors to explore the State of Illinois in the years that Lincoln lived here. The exhibit will engage visitors by telling stories of real Illinois people and its use of varied objects such as furniture, quilts, tools, art and historic photographs, as well as Native American ethnographic collections and archaeological artifacts excavated from the African American families at the New Philadelphia site and from the Springfield neighborhood where the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library now stand. Together this object-rich exhibition will explore the social, cultural, historical and environmental contexts of Illinois during the Lincoln era (1830-1861). The exhibition will premiere in Springfield and will travel to the ISM’s galleries in Chicago, Lockport, Rend Lake and Dickson Mounds Museum.
The Illinois State Museum is uniquely qualified to examine the state of Illinois during Abraham Lincoln’s time here. Unlike historic organizations that interpret a particular topic or place, ISM’s mandate is to tell the story of Illinois. Lincoln’s Illinois presents a unique opportunity to explore the entire state during this highly transformative time when the state evolved from a frontier to the fourth largest state in the nation. Using the ISM’s vast historical, anthropological, and art collections and through the stories of Illinoisans, the exhibit will examine the larger humanities themes of culture and innovation with an eye to exploring shifting South-North sensibilities in this turbulent time.
Lincoln’s Illinois will explore the people of Illinois through the lens of culture as seen in individuals’ material lives and social attitudes. When Lincoln arrived in 1830, the Asakiwaki (Sauk), Meshkwahkihaki (Fox), Winnebago, Potawatomi, and Kickapoo held vast tracts of land in northern Illinois. The lower portion of the state was largely populated by French Creoles and Upland Southerners. Over the next thirty years, changes in transportation (steamboats, canals, and railroads) added a flood of Northerners, African Americans, and European immigrants to the state creating a dynamic population with sometimes divergent interests.
Ethnicity, religious affiliation, and other cultural indicators are reflected in choices of lifestyle and material culture made by Illinois families. Although families may have arrived with cultural distinctions, some elements of their lives blended together over time. Drawing from the ISM’s collections, Lincoln’s Illinois will demonstrate the rich culture of settlers, by displaying material life (household goods), architectural preferences, settlement patterns (urban vs. rural, prairie vs. woodland), foodways and cultural activities such as music and folklore. This evidence will be translated into an object-rich interpretation of the influences of socioeconomic factors on the lives of Illinoisans.
One of the stories to be featured in Lincoln’s Illinois will be of New Philadelphia, the first town in the United States planned and legally registered by an African American. In 1830, Frank McWorter acquired 160 acres of land in sparsely populated Pike County. McWorter had been born into slavery, but over time purchased freedom for himself, his wife, and 14 other family members. In 1836, he planned and legally registered a town of 42 acres, subdivided that property, and sold lots. McWorter used this revenue to purchase the freedom of family members. He encouraged other African Americans as well as those of European descent to move to the town resulting in a demographically integrated community. New Philadelphia is a rare and important example of an early, interracial farming community on the Midwestern frontier.
Since 2002, Dr. Terrance Martin, Chair of ISM’s Anthropology Section has supervised archaeological excavations at New Philadelphia and analyses of artifacts and biological materials from the site. Objects from New Philadelphia will provide a basis for interpreting settlement patterns in Illinois, and the particular hardships that African Americans faced in a state tightly constricted with so-called “Black Codes” circumscribing black citizens’ activities. New Philadelphia also serves as a point of comparison to other settlements in Illinois in terms of prosperity, growth and consumerism, and the ways in which opportunities differed between cultural groups.
The Black Codes are an example of cultural manifestations as seen in social attitudes and laws. Lincoln’s Illinois will present both abolitionist activities as well as anti-abolitionist sentiments. The story of Elijah Lovejoy’s death in Alton in 1837 will reveal some specific sentiments held by individuals in both sides of the issue. Personal and newspaper accounts of the event, advertisements for runaway slaves, and a smattering of period and reconstructed objects will help tell the story. Stories of individuals helping slaves on the Underground Railroad and controversies around enforcing those laws will underscore the tensions of the time.
Social attitudes can also be ascertained in Methodist circuit rider, Peter Cartwright’s many stories about his efforts to convert non-Christians and Yankees. The Museum holds Cartwright’s traveling desk which will be instrumental in revealing the challenges a frontier preacher faced to reach the people of the state. His autobiography and later academic biographies provide insight to the cultural struggles between upland southerners and “Yankees” who arrived in great numbers after 1840. Cartwright’s story will also highlight the influx of Catholic immigrants from Europe, who challenged Protestant hegemony, but also brought much needed skills to the quickly industrializing state.
Innovations in agriculture, industry and transportation helped transform Illinois into a powerful state by 1861. The ways in which innovation impacted Illinoisans’ work, prosperity, and the natural environment will be another exhibit theme. At various points, Illinois was called a wilderness, but it may surprise exhibit visitors to see the variety of commercial products made in the East and abroad that was available at country stores. Evidence of this can be seen in period account books, archaeological artifacts, and objects passed down through families and now in the Museum. These collections will communicate the richness and remarkable diversity of material life in Illinois from 1830 to 1861.
Innovations in transportation in the form of steamboats, canals, and railroads greatly impacted the state’s economy. Goods became less expensive, and Illinois’ agricultural products could reach larger eastern and international markets at a much greater profit to farmers. Industries, such as grain elevators, arose to facilitate the movement of products on the improved transportation systems. Transportation also influenced where families settled in Illinois. Eastern parts of the state were settled last. The arrival of the railroads in the 1850s made the land more accessible to the settlers and improved their ability to get their crops to market. Lincoln’s Illinois will examine the ways that these advancements impacted the state’s natural environment.
Agriculture changed dramatically between 1830 and 1860 thanks to innovations that expedited agricultural expansion. Frontier farmers faced a host of challenges. It was difficult and expensive to break the prairie sod; it was hard to produce a marketable surplus with the labor-intensive implements available at the time, and some land defied cultivation because it was too wet to sustain crops. Many of these problems were solved during the Lincoln era by technological innovations where industry supported agricultural growth, greatly increasing productivity. Subsistence farmers became commercial farmers, and their products began to feed a growing nation.
John Deere invented the self-scouring steel plow in Grand Detour, Illinois, in 1837. Deere’s plow was lighter and more efficient than the cast-iron plows of the time. Cast-iron plows were so heavy that they required several yoke of oxen to pull. Farmers also had to make frequent stops to sharpen the plow blade and clean off the sticky prairie soil that adhered to its pitted surface. The steel plow could be pulled by a single yoke of horses, it was self-cleaning, and it operated smoothly in virgin prairie sod. Deere started manufacturing steel plows at Grand Detour, Illinois, in 1838. He established a factory in Moline, Illinois in 1848, and by 1860 Deere and Company was the world’s largest plow manufacturer.
Cyrus McCormick moved to Illinois from Virginia and built a reaper factory in Chicago in 1847. With the reaper, farmers harvested crops up to seven times faster with fewer men. Other key inventions during the Lincoln era that allowed settlers to spread across the state included hand-operated corn planters, horse-drawn cultivators and seed drills. In concert, the innovative machines developed by McCormick, Deere, and others helped Illinois farmers redefine themselves as efficient commercial producers of agricultural products.
Lincoln’s Illinois will give its visitors an opportunity to think historically about the state and give them a “sense of place.” The foundations for modern Illinois were laid between 1830 and 1861. This period’s flood of culturally diverse settlers bringing new ideas and expectations coupled with innovative technologies that heightened production and prosperity changed the face of Illinois forever.
