Videos of our on-line programs and our Oak Ridge Cemetery Walk

2023 Echoes of Yesteryear Oak Ridge Cemetery Walk. Snippets of the Society's Oak Ridge Cemetery walk. 

2022 Echoes of Yesteryear Oak Ridge Cemetery Walk. Snippets of the Society's Oak Ridge Cemetery walk. 

February 2022 Black Experiences in Education. Program on Gertrude Wright Morgan the first black graduate of Springfield High School, Mae Hammons, the first black teacher in Springfield District 186, and the Ambidexter Institute, a school in Springfield modeled after the Tuskegee Institute.
 

May 2021 A Pictorial History of the Construction of the Vachel Lindsay Bridge. Kansas City-based Lance Warren, Research Librarian/Archivist with Burns McDonnell, provides a pictorial and in-depth look at this iconic Springfield landmark and the story and people behind its creation and Lake Springfield.

April 2021: Virginia Eifert: Springfield Native, Prolific Naturalist. Learn about the life and legacy of Virginia Eifert (1911-1966) from researcher John Hallwas and Tracy Pierceall from the Illinois State Museum. Eifert, a naturalist, author, and artist, worked at the Illinois State Museum where she created, wrote and edited The Living Museum magazine and publications on flowers, birds, animals, rivers, people, and history. In 2019, Hallwas who writes about "forgotten voices from Illinois history," wrote the cover story about Eifert for the Illinois State Historical Society's Illinois History Magazine, based on archives at the Western Illinois University Library.

March 2021: Lake Springfield In Illinois: Public Works and Community Design in the Mid-Twentieth Century. The perfect primer for the Society's May meeting, historians Curtis Mann and Robert Mazrim provide details from their new book and the story-behind-the story that motivated the writers to take a closer look at a public project that helped shape Springfield's growth.

February 2021: Shine A Light Project: Historic Preservation and Interpretation on Springfield's East Side. Preservationists Sue Massie and Kathryn Harris take a look at efforts to preserve the John Taylor House, the Lincoln Colored Home and Fire House No. 5 and how each site contributed to the lives of African-Americans here. Massie, a community planning and design expert, is a member of the Society's board of directors. Prior to her retirement, Harris was director of library services at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and the Illinois State Library before that. She is a past president of the Society.

January 2021: In The Beginning: A Look at Sangamon County 200 Years Ago. Using maps, illustrations and a knowledgeable voice-over, Curtis Mann, head of the City of Springfield Lincoln Library's Sangamon Valley Collection, provides an illustrated look at both the people and geography that played into the development of Springfield.

November 2020: "I Think That We Will Soon Be In Springfield: Illinois Civil War Soldier's Quotations About Sangamon County from their Personal Letters. Author Mark Flotow brings the Civil War to its grass roots, in a program that illustrates both the letters home with audio readings of some of these moving stories provided by Society members.