Official UIS News
Department URL
This story was updated on Oct. 14 to reflect a change in the speaker lineup.
WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies will host the 23rd annual Beaumont Endowed Lincoln Legacy Lecture, “Lincoln and the Age of Disruption,” featuring Colleen Shogan, the 11th archivist of the United States, and author Jason Emerson. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Legacy of Resilience: Black Springfield 1900-1910
The Legacy of Resilience project explores the Black community in Springfield, Illinois, before, during, and in the wake of the August 1908 race riot. In the past, there have been attempts to interpret the violence of this race massacre, but little work has been done to understand and interpret the Black Springfield community that was impacted by this violence. This project centers the Black Springfield community—their joy, their strife, and their everyday lives—as a way to understand what was lost through violence as well as the community’s resilience.
Official UIS News
UIS Lincoln Studies director featured on HBO Max, Magnolia Network series ‘Back to the Frontier’
University of Illinois Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies Director Jacob Friefeld is featured as a historical expert on the new HBO Max and Magnolia Network series “Back to the Frontier,” which immerses three modern-day families in the rugged realities of 1880s life without modern conveniences.
Can you give me a brief timeline of how your career led you to UIS?
After receiving my Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I spent a year teaching in the university’s history department before accepting a postdoctoral fellowship at its Center for Great Plains Studies. I spent the next two years researching the Homestead Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862.
WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies, in partnership with Juneteenth Inc. and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, will host Dan Duster, the great-grandson of American civil rights activist Ida B. Wells.
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 17
WHERE: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, 212 N. Sixth St., Springfield
Making Our History: Artists Render Lincoln's Legacy
In 2021 and 2022 Graham Peck, Wepner Distinguished Pr
Jennifer Harris is the office administrator for the Center of Lincoln Studies.
What do you like about your job?
I enjoy the variety of projects I’m involved in. I love to plan and keep a running task list. There is a satisfying sense of accomplishment in seeing a project come together from start to finish and knowing I had a share in bringing it to fruition. There is so much opportunity to grow and learn, and my leaders truly support me in doing so.
Faculty Fellows Program
The Center for Lincoln Studies (CLS) is dedicated to engaging with UIS’s talented faculty. The Faculty Fellows program engages faculty to become the core of the Center’s intellectual community along with the Center’s two affiliate faculty. The faculty fellows will participate in Center programs and projects and the Center will amplify fellows’ work through its website and social media and provide travel funds to aid faculty research.
The Center for Lincoln Studies Book Series
This UIS Center for Lincoln Studies Book Series, in partnership with University of Illinois Press, publishes significant monographs and documentary editions dealing with Abraham Lincoln and his legacy. Publication of books about Lincoln remains important as scholars continue to refine their understanding of Lincoln and the public continues to be fascinated by the 16th president. We welcome projects that are grounded in history, but also those that cross disciplinary boundaries throughout the humanities and social sciences.
Series Editor: Michael Burlingame
Official UIS News
UIS Center for Lincoln Studies Director Jacob Friefeld’s book earns the Caroline Bancroft History Prize
Jacob Friefeld, director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, has received the Caroline Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library for “The First Migrants,” a book he co-authored with Richard Edwards. Published by Bison Books, the book examines the migration of Black homesteaders to the Great Plains from 1877 to 1920.