Elizabeth Packard – Legal and Mental Health Reformer

Elizabeth Packard was a reformer in the 1860s and 1870s who advocated for the legal rights of married women and mental health patients. Born Elizabeth Parsons Ware in 1816 in Ware, Massachusetts, she married Theophilus Packard Jr., a Calvinist minister, in 1839. The couple moved to Kankakee, Illinois, and had six children together.

In 1860, Packard’s husband had her committed to the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane based on his personal observations that she seemed “slightly insane” to him. Reverend Packard’s decision to commit his wife stemmed from her expression of religious beliefs that conflicted with his own doctrine. In many states in the 1800s, a husband was legally able to institutionalize his wife, and Packard had no options to challenge his decision.… Read More

Catharine McCulloch: Illinois Suffragist and Lawyer

Catharine Waugh McCulloch was a lawyer, suffragist, and activist. She was born Catharine Waugh in New York in 1862, and her family later moved to Illinois, where she was raised. She graduated from the Rockford Female Seminary in 1882 where she wrote a thesis, “Woman’s Wages,” and earned both her B.A. and M.A. degrees. She went on to study at the Union College of Law in Chicago, and after she graduated, Waugh was admitted to the Illinois state bar in 1886. She searched for a position with a Chicago law firm, but she found that there were few opportunities for female lawyers, despite her skills and qualifications, so she returned to Rockford to establish a practice there.… Read More

Curating the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Illinois – An Interview with Allison Kilberg

Votes for Women is on view through June 2019 in the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, Room 324 Main Library

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Illinois ratifying the 19th amendment, the IHLC is exhibiting Votes for Women, an exhibit on the women’s suffrage movement in Illinois. Read about Graduate Assistant Allison Kilberg’s experience and insights researching and curating this exhibit.

How did the idea for this exhibit come about?

A few months ago, while doing research for another project, I stumbled upon some really cool women’s suffrage postcards from the Baker-Busey-Dunlap Family Papers (MS 830). I knew I wanted to display them at some point, so when I started brainstorming ideas for our spring exhibit they were at the front of my mind. … Read More

A Lincoln Pilgrimage: The Hal Seaberg Travelogues and Correspondence

 

Photograph of Hal Seaberg at Oakwood Cabin, June 9, 1940

The Hal Seaberg Travelogues and Correspondence, 1939-1942 (MS 1013) describe the travels of Carl Hjalmar Seaberg (who went by Hal), a Swedish immigrant and steelworker who spent his summers from 1939 to 1942 visiting sites related to Abraham Lincoln. He worked in a steel plant in Midland, Pennsylvania, and would use his vacation days to travel for two weeks over the summers.

Seaberg immigrated to the United States from Sweden around 1923. In the introduction to his first travelogue, “Twice a Pilgrim through the Lincoln Country,” he described how he set out to learn about his new country:

“After I had learned to master the new language well enough and could absorb the news and other contemporary things from papers and magazines I set out to find out all I could about America. But I worked seven days a week at the blast furnaces and the only time I had for that purpose was my yearly two weeks vacation. I used them well.”

His study of American history led Seaberg to Abraham Lincoln.… Read More