From our shelves to yours

Looking for the perfect summer book for yourself or your favorite armchair historian? Consider these new or newly reprinted titles on the shelves of your Illinois State Historical Society. For more titles, visit our website at vvww.historyillinois.org.

Douglas L. Wilson's Honor's Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln, first published in 1998, is perhaps the best treatment of Lincoln's life in late frontier Illinois, from his arrival in New Salem in 1831 to his marriage in 1842. "Skillfully interpreting contemporary testimony, Wilson reveals the real person behind the legend. We are made privy to the young Lincoln's frequent bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide; his ambition; his ineptitude with women; his religious skepticism; and most memorably, his troubled courtship with Mary Todd, the woman who would become his wife. Provocative, enlightening, and moving, Honor's Voice prompts us to reexamine our ideas about one of the central figures—and defining characters—of American history." Paper. 383 pages. Member price $12. Non-member price $15 (plus $1.08 tax for Illinois residents).

Letters to Mollie: From Her Mormon Past, 1860-1912, by Gary C. Vitale, tells the story of Miriam "Mollie" Works, an orphaned niece of Brigham Young. Born on the very day Mormon prophet Joseph Smith was murdered, Mollie fled from pressure to join the Mormon church in Iowa and came to Illinois during the Civil War. While her friends and family worked to establish the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints— opposing the polygamy of the Utah "Brighamites"—Mollie received dozens of letters, most from young women just like herself. More than half a century after her death, Mollies letters have been transcribed, lightly edited, and annotated, providing the perfect window into a fascinating Illinois parlor of the mid-19th century. Cloth. 303 pages. Member price $22.80. Non-member price $28.50 (plus $2.06 tax for Illinois residents).

Francois Valle and His World, by Carl. J. Ekberg, focuses on the Upper Louisiana in colonial times, long before Lewis and Clark arrived in the Mississippi River valley and before American sovereignty had reached the eastern banks of the Mississippi. Based entirely on primary source documents, Francois Valle and His World traces not only the life of Valle but the lives of his immediate family, including his slaves. In doing so, Ekberg provides a portrait of Missouri's first black families, something never before been attempted. Likewise, Valle provides a useful corrective to the fallacious notion that Missouri's history began with the arrival of Lewis and Clark at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Cloth. Member price $32. Non-member price $39.00 (plus $2.82 tax for Illinois residents).

Daniel E. Sutherland's The Expansion of Every Life 1860-1876 portrays Americans swept up in an era of social and geographical expansion. Western movement was given a boost by the completion of the first intercontinental railroad, and migration from rural occupations and crafts to industrial tasks and trades. Overall, the pursuit of middle-class status became a driving force. Through extensive quotations from diaries, letters, and the popular press, Southerland provides glimpses into an American class just beginning to grope its way into the modern world. 300 pages. Paper. Member price $13.50. Non-member price $15 (plus $1.08 tax for Illinois residents).

Karen Tintori's Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster, recounts the afternoon of November 13, 1909, the trial by fire of more than 480 miners employed by the St. Paul Mining Company in the newly established Bureau County commnity of Cherry. That more than half of the men died in the mine— leaving more than 200 widows and at least 500 children fatherless—suggests the scope of the tragedy, which is still considered the worst coal mine fire in the nations history and its third worst mining disaster. A sad, compelling read. Tintori should be credited with bringing this all-but-forgotten tragedy so clearly into focus, and for making us care about its hapless victims, whose descendants yet carry the scars deep below the surface of our collective psyche. Cloth. 273 pages. Member price $20. Non-member price $25 (plus $1.44 tax for Illinois residents).

20 I Illinois Heritage

In Lincoln's Railsplitter: Governor Richard J. Oglesby, former ISHS President Mark A. Plummer, professor emeritus at Illinois State University, serves up the first full-length biography of the state's fourteenth governor. Plummer deservedly won the Society's "Book of the Year" award for Lincoln's Rttilsplitter, a long-overdue treatment of a Civil War hero-turned statesmen whose career spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age. "Back by massive research, Mark Plummer presents a clear and accessible chronicle of Oglesby s remarkable military and political careers, the interesting parallels of his life with that of Abraham Lincoln, and his association with the likes of John A. Logan, John M. Palmer, and Shelby Cullom." Cloth. 245 pages. Member price $27.96. Non-member price $34.95 (plus $2.52 tax for Illinois residents).

Hesler prints available to public

Archive quality prints or two or the best-known photographs of Abraham Lincoln are now available to the public through the Illinois State Historical Society. Chicago photographer Alexander Hesler took tin.1 formal portraits on June 3, 1860. Because of the size of the negatives (8 x 10 inches), they are among the most eloquent and revealing photographs of our greatest president.

Hesler did not use conventional film on these portraits. Instead, he used light-sensitive glass plates. As a precaution, he made glass positive copies of the negatives around the time that Lincoln was assassinated. When Hesler died in 1866, the plates and negatives became the property of his successor, George Ayers. Ayers subsequently sold the positives to Lincoln collector King Hostick, who in turn bequeathed them to the Illinois State Historical Society. The original negatives are in the Smithsonian but are in shards. According to Christie's auction house in New York, the Society s plates are apparently the sole surviving set.

The Society has commissioned 16"x20" archive-quality prints of the Hesler portraits and has set them in handcrafted frames made from native Illinois walnut. They are now available for $250 apiece, plus tax (if applicable) and $45 shipping and handling. Please place your orders

with the Illinois State Historical Society, 210-1/2 S. 6th St., Suite 200. Springfield, IL 62701. Checks, money orders, and Visa or Mastercard credit cards may be used. If you use a credit card when ordering, you must include the card's number and expiration date. Please allow four weeks for delivery.

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