Elsah Announces Photography First-Place Purchase Prizes 2019

The Village of Elsah announces the winners of the annual Village of Elsah Museum Photography Exhibit. The purpose of the exhibit is to celebrate and foster an appreciation of the beauty and unique qualities of the Village. This year’s theme is “Joy and Discovery in Elsah.” The winner is Carolyn Schlueter of St. Charles, Missouri.  The opening reception for the exhibit is Saturday, April 6, 2019 from 1 to 4 pm at the Museum located in the Village Hall building, 26 LaSalle, Elsah, Illinois.

In order to encourage an appreciation of the beauty of the entire area within and in the immediate area of the corporate limits of the Village, there are usually two first-place purchase prizes based on location. However, there were no photographs submitted of the surrounding area in the regular exhibit and thus, this year, there was not a Greatriverroad.com Purchase Prize. This is the first year for a Youth Award for a photograph submitted by a person between the age of 12 and 18 years old. Green Tree Inn also recognizes the winner of the Village of Elsah purchase prize with an overnight stay at the Inn. 

The judge for the exhibit was Erica Popp, working artist and gallery owner. She formerly taught photography at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley. She has worked with us for several years and we appreciate her expertise and support for this project.

Village of Elsah purchase prize is awarded to Carolyn Schlueter for “Green Tree Inn.” This is a color photograph of the Green Tree Inn at dusk with a pale bluish light outside and the warm yellow light inside the building. The composition is strong with a good contrast of the light on the inside and outside of the Inn. Further interest is seen in the reflections of the trees from across the street on the upper windows of the building. The photograph was taken with an Olympus OMD EM-1, Mark II camera and Olympus Pro f/2.8 12-100 lens on February 16, 2019 around 6:45 in the evening. Camera was set on the Program Mode with an f/4.0 setting and basic editing was done using Photoshop and it was professionally printed by Diversified Labs on their Lustre Paper. 

The Youth Award is for Jonah Hosmer for “Elsah Creek Reflections.” This 8 X 10 color print shows a thin section of building reflected in the creek. The reflection is in the lower portion.  The composition is good, the print is good quality and in sharp focus and expresses the theme well.

There are four special recognition photographs: Rachel Baker for “Through the Keyhole” for the composition; Lyn Moore for “Enchanted Entry” for use of color; Joan Baker for “Read to Discover” for expression of theme; and, for the youth participant, Micha Worley for “Coming Home on the River Road” for unique use of the camera. All the special recognition photographers are awarded a 10% discount on framing of one object framed at Burton Art Services, Alton, Illinois.

The following photographers are represented in the exhibit: Joan Baker, Rachel Baker, Linda Davis Swink, Jonah Hosmer, Karen King, Marty McKay, Lynn Moore, Colleen Osborne, Carolyn Schlueter, Micha Worley.

The Museum exhibit will be open starting Saturday, April 6 and  every Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 pm until August 5, 2018.  Awards will be made around 2 pm on opening day. Visitors will find much to enjoy in the exhibit. All the photographs are for sale and all proceeds are retained by the photographer. Additional copies or sizes of the purchase prize winning photographs and other photographs in this and previous exhibits can generally be purchased from the photographer.

Thanks go to all who make this exhibit possible with their funding and time: The Village of Elsah Board of Trustees and Mayor Pitchford, Historic Elsah Foundation, Greatriverroad.com, Green Tree Inn, Burton Art Services, Office Depot of Alton, Illinois for their printing for the Youth Workshop, Karen King of Mount Olive and Mary McKay of Alton for their presentations and field coaching at the Youth Workshop, the Village of Elsah Museum Advisory Committee and Museum attendants, Mary Lu Peters and Donna DeWeese.

How a Chicago Music Store Helped Win the Civil War

Come listen to Civil War songs and learn “How a Chicago Music Store Helped Win the Civil War,” on Thursday, March 21, at 7:30 pm, at Farley Music Hall, Elsah, Illinois.

Lincoln Historian, Christian McWhirter, from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Edwardsville fiddler, Hannah Jellen, and banjo player, Ben Holbrook, will perform and explain how popular songs such as “The Battle Cry of Freedom” and “Marching through Georgia,” provided high-spirited entertainment for soldiers at the battlefront and folks on the home front during the Civil War.

These and many other popular songs about the Civil War were published by Root and Cady, a new but enormously successful music store and publishing company in Chicago. The firm’s founders, Ebenezer Towner Root and Chauncey Marvin Cady dominated Chicago’s music publishing industry until the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the firm’s all paper (nothing was digitized on the cloud) inventory, leading to bankruptcy.

But the songs survived, Dr. McWhirter, has written about them in his book, Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War. His research has shown how the popular music of the war played in effectively endorsing emancipation for African Americans and in their being recruited into the Army.

Accomplished musicians Jellen and Holbrook, who are currently graduate students in musicology at the University of Illinois, will create the audio experience of listening to this lost but vital piece of Illinois’s Civil War history.

This program is the first of this year’s Hosmer-Williams Lectures sponsored by Historic Elsah Foundation and underwritten by Liberty Bank: A United Community Bank.

The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Parking is available. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.

Historic Elsah Foundation celebrates, educates, and preserves the buildings in Village of Elsah. You may join Historic Elsah Foundation as a member at any time.

Elsah Photography Workshop for Youth

In 2019, a Youth Prize will be added to the Village of Elsah Museum’s popular annual photography exhibit. This year’s theme is “Joy and Discovery in Elsah.” The Youth Section of the exhibit is for photographers between 12 and 18 years old. The exhibit section seeks to provide an opportunity for young photographers to share and evaluate their works with their contemporaries. A $100 prize is provided for the winner of the Youth Section. The prize is chosen by an outside judge.
 
In addition to the Youth Section Prize, the Village of Elsah Museum will provide a workshop for young photographers to learn about photography and participating in an exhibit. The workshop will be conducted by Marty McKay (2018 Greatriverroad.com Purchase Prize winner) and Karen King (2013 Village of Elsah Purchase Prize winner). Both McKay and King have previously led photography workshops for young people.
 
The workshop is on Saturday, February 16, 2019 at Farley Music Hall, 37 Mill Street, Elsah, Illinois starting at 10:00am and finishing by noon. Participants are to be between 12 and 18 years old. The workshop enrollment is limited to 20. Registration is required prior to the event. Contact for details on registering: [email protected]. Photography submission rules are provided at this url: www.escapetoelsah.com/photography-contest. There is no charge for this workshop. This workshop is sponsored by Village of Elsah Museum and Historic Elsah Foundation.
 
The workshop will open with a brief review of some of the basics of photography and participating in the Village of Elsah Museum exhibit. Then, McKay and King will take the participants in two groups for an on-location photographing session in the Elsah valley. The last portion of the workshop will include a critique and will help the participants ready their images for printing. It is the goal of the workshop to help the participants have, at least, one “ready to print” image for later submission before or by the exhibit submission deadline of Monday, March 18, 2019.
 
Office Depot located at 300 E Homer Adams Parkway in Alton has graciously agreed to provide printing services for the youth workshop participants to facilitate their submissions to the Village of Elsah Museum Photography Exhibit, Youth Section. One 8 x 10 photo will be printed free of charge. This will ensure each participant in the photography workshop will have, at least, one photo to enter. The organizers of the photography workshop will help the participants pick a photo and will arrange for the printing with Office Depot.  Individuals must make their own submission. Thank you to Office Depot (and staff member, Cat) for providing this service for the workshop participants.
 
Workshop participants should bring their camera; and wear warm and appropriate clothing for on-location work, and bring their enthusiasm. All skill and knowledge levels are welcome.
 
The Village of Elsah Museum is jointly operated by the Village of Elsah and Historic Elsah Foundation.  The Museum thanks all the donors and volunteers for this workshop and the support of the annual photography exhibit. With special appreciation, we thank the following: 

  • prize donations to the Photography Exhibit by Village of Elsah municipal government, Greatriverroad.com, Green Tree Inn and a private donor; 
  • workshop printing by Office Depot at 303 E Homer Adams Parkway, Alton, IL;
  • volunteer workshop instructors, Marty McKay and Karen King; and     
  • workshop location, Farley Music Hall, along with refreshments by Historic Elsah Foundation

At Last We Are a State: Illinois Territory’s Quest to Enter the Union in 1818

Rescheduled for Sunday, January 27, 2019, 3 p.m.

Come! Be present at the creation! Listen to how Nathaniel Pope, Territorial Delegate to Congress, Ninian Edwards, Territorial Governor, and others created our great state of Illinois in 1818.

Historian Jon Parkin will lead Historic Elsah Foundation in a Bicentennial celebration of Illinois statehood with his presentation, “At Last We Are a State: Illinois Territory’s Quest to Enter the Union in 1818,” Sunday, January 27, 2019, 3 p.m., at Farley Music Hall in Elsah.

Parkin will reveal the key events leading up to Illinois becoming a territory and subsequently, a state. He will also describe the major issues that were debated in the convention that wrote and ratified the Illinois Constitution in 1818.

Perhaps the most interesting and important event Parkin will discuss is one that occurred in Washington, D.C., on April 18, 1818. On that day, President James Monroe signed legislation that made what would have been Chicago, Wisconsin, into what became Chicago, Illinois. Who knew?

Parkin has been Director of the Madison County History Museum since 2017 when he retired from a career of 25-years in teaching high school history. He and his wife Vera, who is a professional pianist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, live in Edwardsville.

This event will mark Historic Elsah Foundation’s commemoration of the birthday of Illinois, which occurred 200 years ago on December 3, 1818. It will be the fourth and final program in the 2018 edition of the Hosmer-Williams Lectures sponsored by HEF and underwritten by Liberty Bank.

The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Parking is available. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.

Attention media, print, and otherwise, for additional information, contact George Provenzano.

From History to Hollywood, The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum: Making the Movie Lincoln

See and hear how historians at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum assisted Hollywood in making the 2012 blockbuster film, Lincoln, on Thursday, September 20, at 7:30 pm, at Farley’s Music Hall, Elsah, Illinois.

Ian Patrick Hunt, Chief of Acquisitions, ALPLM, will present clips from the acclaimed movie together with explanations of how he and others at the Springfield Museum helped Academy Award winning actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, Pulitzer Prize author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Lincoln producer of Kathleen Kennedy achieve historic accuracy and authenticity in the Steven Spielberg film about the 16th President of the United States.

Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Abraham Lincoln, Goodwin and Kennedy visited Springfield and the ALPLM in 2010 in preparing to make the film. In addition to the Museum, they visited the Lincoln Home and Lincoln’s law office in order to absorb the whole environment in which Lincoln lived and walked.

Lewis, in particular, immersed himself into the physical world of Lincoln. At the museum, he examined special artifacts and read everything he could to make himself become the character of Lincoln on the screen.

The movie, which depicts the intense political fight to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ending slavery in the U.S., is based on Goodwin’s 2005 book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Ian Hunt has advised on numerous publications, television programs and movies about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln. He is also a consultant too the U.S. State Department Public Diplomacy Program.

Hunt’s presentation, “From History to Hollywood: The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and Making the Movie, Lincoln,” is the third of this year’s Hosmer-Williams Lectures sponsored by Historic Elsah Foundation and underwritten by Liberty Bank.

The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Parking is available. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.