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  • Delroy, Irene
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  • Markowitz, Judy
  • Wannemacher, Patricia "Pat"
  • Laurenti, Luellen
  • Ewing, Hazle Buck
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  • Hamm, Ruth Thelma Bitting
  • Kennedy, Beulah Jones Thornton
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Exhibits

• Online Exhibits and Interactive Content
• Current Exhibits & Displays
  • A Deadly Deception: The Asbestos Tragedy in McLean County
  • Challenges, Choices, and Change
  • Abraham Lincoln in McLean County
  • Merwin Gallery
  • Discovery Room
  • Courthouse Exhibit
• Past Exhibits
  • 9/11: McLean County Responds
  • Adlai! The Life and Times of Adlai E. Stevenson II
  • A Matter of Life and Death
  • A Passion For Detail: The Architectural Legacy of A.L. Pillsbury
  • A Turbulent Time: Perspectives of the Vietnam War
  • Beneath the Pattern
  • Come & Get It! The Way We Ate 1830-2008
  • Details of Architecture
  • Fiesta! A Celebration of Mexican Popular Art
  • Flaming Youth: The Flapper and the Roaring Twenties
  • Freewheeling Into the 20th Century
  • From Childhoods Past: 19th and 20th Century
  • Gifts to the Prairie: The Work of Pioneer Nurserymen and the Art of the Prestele Family
  • Growing Up in the Fifties
  • Headlines & Footnotes: Hats & Shoes from the collection of the McLean County Historical Society
  • Heads and Tales
  • Heartland Home Front and America's Fight for Democracy: McLean County in WWII
  • Journey Through the Great Depression
  • Just Corn: The "Amaizing" Story
  • Lincoln Slept Here? Connecting to Greatness
  • Made in McLean County: A History of Manufacturing in McLean County
  • Oddities! Or Not?
  • Prairie Thunder: 80 Years of Railroad Photography
  • Presence, Pride & Passion: A History of African Americans in McLean County
  • Promenade Through the Park
  • Rediscovery: The Art of Withers Library
  • Rituals & Passages: 75 Years of the American Passion Play
  • Route 66: Goin' Somewhere
  • The Popular Paisley Pattern
  • The McLean County Courthouse
  • To Sustain the Union: Central Illinois in the Civil War
  • Treasures from the Stevenson House
  • Unconquerable: Photos and History of the Kickapoo Indians
  • What's That Coming Down The Line... The Railroad in the American Mind
  • With the Greatest of Ease.. Bloomington's Artists of the Trapeze
  • Pedal Power

Digital Exhibits

• Digital Exhibits
  • Making a Home
    • Native Groups
    • Frontier
    • The Great Rush
    • A Cosmpolitan Place
    • Post-WWII
  • A Community in Conflict
    • View All
    • Timeline
  • Working for a Living
    • Before the Railroad
    • After the Railroad
    • Entertaining
    • Automotive Era
    • Adopting New Technologies
  • Farming in the Great Corn Belt
    • Our Rich Land
    • The Cost of Farming
    • Farming Resources
    • Nature's Forces
    • Working the Land
    • Getting Crops and Livestock to Market
  • Abraham Lincoln in McLean County

Learn

• Learn
  • School Programs
    • Self Guided Tour
    • General Gallery Tour
    • Finding McLean County
    • Growing McLean County
    • A. Lincoln Was Here
    • Challenges, Choices, and Change
    • History of Toys and Games
    • Making a Museum
    • Standing on the Corner
    • The Unconquerable: Kickapoo in McLean County
    • Zoom: Black History BINGO
  • Senior Reminiscence
    • Play It Again: The Toys and Games We Remember
    • Photo Reminiscence
    • Tools of the Trade
    • Well-Dressed Folks About Town
    • What's Cooking? Gadgets from Around the Kitchen
  • Evergreen Cemetery Walk
  • Museum Loan Kits
    • Architecture of Downtown Bloomington
    • Finding McLean County: Early Settler Life
    • The Great Depression in McLean County
    • World War II in McLean County
    • The Unconquerable: Kickapoo in McLean County
    • The Vietnam War in McLean County
  • 2025 Futures in History Camp
  • Watch our past programs
  • Speakers Bureau
  • Meet the Educators
  • Contact Us

Research

• Research
  • Stevenson-Ives Library
  • Archives
  • Object Collection
  • Articles
  • Finding Aids
  • Biographies
  • Research Guides
    • ISSCS Research Guide
    • The Older House: How to Research Your Older Bloomington-Normal Home
    • Researching African American History in McLean County
  • Publications
    • Black History
    • Cemeteries
    • Churches and Religious Organizations
    • City Directories
    • General Reference
    • Historical Society Transactions
    • Home Town in the Corn Belt
    • Miscellaneous
    • War and Jail
    • Architecture
    • Farming and Food
  • Maps
    • Schoolhouses in McLean County
  • Photos
  • Siege of the Fox (Mesquakie)
  • Oral Histories
  • Latino History Project
    • Census Documents
  • Black History Project
  • Websites
  • Vertical File Catalog
  • LGBTQ+ History Project
  • Post Amerikan

Oral Histories

• Beth Echeverria
• Caribel Washington
• Claude Hursey
• Delores Campbell and Mary Trunnell
• Elidia Miller
• Ethel Murray
• Fernando Garza
• Howard and Elaine Bell
• Irene Barnes
• Jesus Villaneuva
• John Barrientes
• Josephine Samuels & Reginald Whittaker
• Kathyrn Dean
• Lucinda Posey
• Lucy Woosley
• Lue Anna Clark
• Manny and Margot Mendoza
• Manuel Cordero
• Merlin and Beulah Kennedy
• Oscar and Ruth Waddell
• Richard and Rose Bell
• Robert and Lillian Augusta Boykin
• Robert Gaston
• Roy and Delores Shavers
• Sarita Mendiola
• Sonny Garcia
• Vincenta "Esperanza" Cornejo
• Wilbur Barton

Videos

• Bloomington-Normal Innovation Alliance: Partnering for Our Digital Future
• COVID-19 Past, Present, and Future: Lessons Learned
• Creating a Public Art Destination
• Seasonal Choral Music with the Illinois Wesleyan University Collegiate Choir
• The Pantagraph: Images to Inform and Inspire
• The Puerto Rico Town Experience in Achieving Cultural District Designation
• Volunteers at the McLean County Museum of History
• What Does Fido Know? Inside the Mind of the Dog
• 5G High Speed and Antennas Everywhere
• The Saints and the State: The Mormon Troubles in Illinois
• 'Tattooing Finds You:' How Tattooists Navigate their World
• Lincoln in Downtown Bloomington -- 360 degree video
• The Night the Stars Fell
• Pitfalls and Promise: Memorializing McLean County's Past
• McLean County Holiday Stories
• Before Rivian: The Henney Kilowatt--Bloomington's Battery-powered 'Car of Tomorrow'
• Buckle of the Corn Belt: An Illustrated Tour of McLean County & Everyone's Favorite Grain
• Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn performed by Rhys Lovell
• Dreams & Life on the Prairie- Latinos in McLean County 1880 to Today
• Artists, Advocates, Acrobats, & More! Women Who Made McLean County History
• Elections with Robert Bradley
• Opening Plenary: Leveraging Policy and Creating Cultural Districts to Drive Economic Success
• Social Justice History Walking Tour
• Conversando Entre Nosotros: What’s in a Label?
• Echoes of Purple and Gold with Jack Keefe
• "Whiskey vs Lager Beer – Bejabers:" The Irish, the bete noir of Lincoln’s Republican Party
• Family Heirloom Recipes from the Illinois State Fair
• Contested Civil Liberties in 19th Century McLean County, with Greg Koos
• Lunch & Learn: Quirky Sites in Illinois
• Crafting History: Wonders of Weaving
• Ecology Action Center Tree Corps

Websites

• 100 Years Ago in the Pantagraph
• 1930-1939
• 1940 Aerial Imagery
• 1940-1945
• 1946-1949
• 1950-1954
• 1955-1959
• 360 degree video tour -- Lincoln in Downtown Bloomington
• A History of Founders Grove in Maps
• Adlai Today
• Architecture of McLean County
• Black History Resource List
• Bloomington-Normal Black History Project
• Bloomington-Normal Black History Project Photos
• Bloomington, Illinois 1838
• Carius Menu Collection
• Digital Exhibits
• Empire Township Museum (LeRoy)
• Facebook Group: Bloomington / Normal Remember When...
• Facebook Group: Brick Back Bloomington (BBB)
• Facebook Group: Historic Stevensonville Neighborhood
• Facebook Group: You know you grew up in or around Bloomington-Normal when you remember....
• Google Cultural Institute
• HistoryPin
• IDNR Historic Preservation -- McLean County
• Instagram #AnimalsOfMcHistory
• Instagram #McBlackHistory
• Instagram #McHERstory
• Internet Archive
• Lexington Genealogical and Historical Society
• Map of McLean County, 1876
• Map Of McLean County, Ill. 1886.
• McLean County Genealogical Society
• McLean County History by Bicycle
• Mobile Tours
• Native American Collection
• Old House Society
• Online Object Database
• Pantagraph Negatives Collection Overview
• PFOP: Curriculum for Teachers
• Pieces from our Past
• Post Amerikan
• Public Life in McLean County
• QR Code Smart Phone Tour of Downtown Bloomington
• Randolph Township Maps 1856-1914
• Search our Library Catalog
• Social Justice Walking Tour
• Virtual Visit
• WGLT American Archive of Public Broadcasting
• Women Called to Action
• Work in McLean County
• YouTube