Finding Aids about Art
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A Touch of Glass
Terry Garbe established “A Touch of Glass” in 1974 in Bloomington. He moved the business to Normal in 1984 and continued in Normal unti...
Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts (BCPA)
The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts (BCPA) occupies a site built in 1921 to house The American Passion Plan and other arts a...
Bloomington-Normal Black History Project
In 1970 Marge Smith and others began to organize local African Americans to discuss their history. This group (Margaret Esposito, Joe M...
Blotters Collection
Before the age of the ballpoint pen, Americans wrote with fountain pens dipped in ink. In the first half of the 20th century, clerks an...
Brown, James Proctor
James Proctor Brown was born in 1911 in Morristown, Hamblen County, TN, and died in Bloomington, IL in 1989. He married Lucinda Zelia ...
Calendar Collection
This collection includes calendars from 1888 to present, most with connections to McLean County. Most calendars are promotional from l...
Central Illinois Art Exposition, Scottish Rite Temple, March 19 – April 8, 1939
The Central Illinois Art Exposition was possibly the most successful diversion in McLean County during the Great Depression. The drive ...
Century of Progress Collection
A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as The Chicago World's Fair, was a held in the Chicago from 1933 to 193...
Circus
Circuses had been visiting the area for many years when around 1875 a small wagon circus came to Bloomington and inspired two local bro...
Corn on the Curb 2000
Corn-on-the-Curb, inspired by Chicago’s “Cows on Parade” in 1999, was conceived by Mayor Judy Markowitz to showcase Bloomington’s upcom...
Cumpston, Robert
Robert D. “Bob” Cumpston (1930-2018) was born, lived and died on his family’s farm near Colfax, the son of Virgil and Doris Weeks Cumps...
Ensign, Preston Poster
Preston Ensign, 1912 - 2006, graduated from University High School and Illinois State Normal University. He began his career in 1935 ma...
Euleo Puppets
Sisters Eunice Speer and Leona S. Pitzer organized a puppet theatre in the late 1960s and named it “Euleo” from their own first names. ...
Folsom, Elizabeth Irons
Elizabeth Irons Folsom was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1876. She moved to Bloomington as a young girl and graduated from Bloomington ...
Frink, Dwight E.
Dwight E. Frink was born in Bloomington February 16, 1874. He was educated in the ward schools of Bloomington and Illinois Wesleyan Un...
Goudy, Frederic W.
Frederic W. Goudy was born in Bloomington in 1865. Goudy spent his early years in Bloomington where he became interested in the arts, e...
Greeting Card
The collection includes greeting cards and postcards from 1893 to the present, social calling cards, wedding invitations, and invitatio...
Gregor, Harold Collection
The son of Scottish immigrants, Harold Gregor was born in Detroit, MI, and earned his PhD from Ohio State University. He served as prof...
Hart, James
Born in Lawndale, Illinois, in 1882, James “Jimmie” Michael Hart was initially reared in Atlanta, Illinois. His Irish-born father work...
Helen Littleton Burns Postcard Collection
This remarkable collection is comprised of postcards sent to and collected by Helen Littleton Burns, or members of her family, mostly b...
Higgins-Jung-Kleinau Co
Hamer J. Higgins (1840-1902) began apprenticing as a marble cutter at Haldeman’s Marble Works on East Front Street in downtown Blooming...
Hubbard Roycrofters Book
Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illino...
Illinois Shakespeare Festival
In 1978 the Illinois Shakespeare Festival was established. The Festival is held each summer on the grounds of Ewing Manor by the Illino...
Jones, Ethel Pearle Smith
This collection contains the prose, poetry and plays written by Ethel Pearle Smith Jones, and some biographical information. The prose ...
KodaRoamers Camera Club
The KodaRoamers was formed organized in September 1944. The aim of this photography group, according to Mike Lux’s Highlights, was “to ...
Lincoln Statue Bicentennial Project (1975-1978)
V.L. (“Budd”) Fairfield (1926-2009). Bloomington High School American history teacher, served as a member of the 1976 Bloomington Bicen...
McLean County Arts Center
This collection includes exhibition catalogs and promotional materials, a coloring and activity booklet for children, event brochures, ...
McLean County Arts Council
The McLean County Arts Council was incorporated in 1972 and served as a funding organization to local arts organizations through 1984. ...
McLean County Arts Council Bicentennial
The collection contains documents pertaining to the McLean County Bicentennial Arts Festival and Committee planning. There is a multitu...
McLean County Ethnographies
Illinois State University anthropology professor Dr. Rob Dirks collected essays from his students on an array of ethnographic topics....
Montgomery, Alfred
Alfred Montgomery (1858-1922) was born in Logan County, Illinois, and moved to Bloomington in 1893 from Mason City, Iowa. He was known ...
Morgan, Charles
Charles Morgan, a carpenter by trade, started his diaries in 1896. In his earliest days he was an itinerant farm worker and wanderer. ...
Myers, John F.
Born in 1834 in Kentucky, John Frances Myers came to McLean County as an infant and grew up on a farm. He attended Illinois Wesleyan U...
Normal Summer Theatre
The High School Summer Theatre Program—now sponsored by the Town of Normal’s Department of Cultural Arts—dates to 1972. That year, the ...
Pantagraph Comics
The Pantagraph added a locally developed "Wilson and Phyllis" cartoon to their Sunday comics section in 1984. These child-ori...
Phoenix Family and Nursery
Materials in the Phoenix collection cover the history of the Phoenix family and its nurseries in Bloomington-Normal. The collection co...
Smith, Sidney
Robert Sidney "Sid" Smith (1873-1935) was born in Bloomington, Illinois, on February 13, 1873. His father Thomas H. Smith was...
Walker, Frank Albert
In the mid-1850s, the Joseph Walker family established a farm on the northern edge of Normal. Frank Albert Walker (d. 1939) was about s...
Wood, Lois Postcard
This is a collection of over 250 postcards collected by Lois Wood over the years to show life in Bloomington-Normal and surrounding com...
Wyckoff, Martin
Martin Anders Wyckoff was born in Normal, Illinois April 20, 1950, to Delmar and Elizabeth Anders Wyckoff. He is a graduate of Normal C...