| Illinois State Museum | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1877 |
| Location | 502 South Spring Street Springfield, IL 62706 (United States) |
| Type | Art museum, History museum, Natural History/Anthropology Museum [1] |
| Director | Bonnie W. Styles[2] |
| Website | Illinois State Museum |
The Illinois State Museum is the official museum of the natural history of the U.S. state of Illinois. The headquarters museum is located on Spring and Edwards Streets, one block southwest of the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield, the state capital. There are satellite museums in Chicago, Dickson Mounds, Lockport, and Rend Lake.
In addition to natural history exhibits, the main museum in Springfield focuses on the state's cultural and artistic heritage. Exhibits include local fossils and mining, household displays from different historic periods, dioramas of Native American life, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts and a collection of glass paperweights.
As of 2008, no admission fee is charged for any of the facilities under the State Museum's jurisdiction.
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The Dickson Mounds Museum, located in Lewistown, is an archaeological museum of Illinois' Native American history. Exhibits include hands-on displays, dioramas, photos and artifacts that depict area cultures from the Ice-Age to the 19th century. The museum grounds comprise 230 acres (0.93 km2) including the Eveland Village, the excavated remains of three early Native American buildings.
The Lockport Gallery, located in Lockport, features changing exhibitions of past and contemporary Illinois artists and artisans. The gallery is located in the 1850 Norton Building, which was originally used to house grain, a supply store and a dormitory for canal crews. The building functioned as a grain-processing facility until the 1950s.
The main gallery of the Southern Illinois Art & Artisans Center is the Southern Illinois Art Gallery, which features changing exhibits of contemporary and history Illinois artists, as well as fine art, decorative art and ethnographic art from the collections of the Illinois State Museum. The center also features the Southern Illinois Artisans Shop that sells fine crafts from Illinois artisans, and which offers artisan workshops, demonstrations and special arts and crafts events. The center is located in Whittington, near Rend Lake.
The ISM Chicago Gallery, located in the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago, features changing exhibits of fine and decorative arts.
The Illinois State Museum was founded in 1877 as a showcase within the sixth Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, which was completed at that time. As the state's government grew, the museum collection was evicted from the Capitol and moved to the then-new Michael Howlett building, part of the Illinois Capitol Complex, in 1923.
With continued growth in Illinois's natural history collections, and the need to have a dedicated location in Springfield for tourists and school groups, the state constructed its first purpose-built state museum in 1961-63. This building is the current Illinois State Museum.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Illinois State Museum expanded to also open four satellite museums. The Dickson Mounds Museum, near Lewistown, Illinois, specializes in the anthropology of the Native Americans of the Illinois River valley, while the museums in Chicago, Lockport, and Rend Lake largely contain rotating exhibitions of Illinois-based fine arts and crafts.
Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, by executive order in 1995, made the State Museum part of the new Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR).
The Illinois State Museum is, as of July 2006, a division of IDNR and consists of five museum facilities, in Chicago, Dickson Mounds, Lockport, Rend Lake, and Springfield. The Museum has its own 11-member governing board, appointed by the Governor of Illinois with the advice and consent of the Illinois State Senate.
The Illinois State Museum is charged by state law with the responsibility "to collect and preserve objects of scientific and artistic value, representing past and present fauna and flora, the life and work of man, geological history, natural resources, and the manufacturing and fine arts; to interpret for and educate the public concerning the foregoing."[3]