Finding Aids about Organizations
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4-H Federation / McLean County Fair Collection
The 4-H Federation is an aggregate of 4-H members from clubs in McLean County, grouped into one representative body. The primary focus ...
Alton Railroad Community Band
The Alton Railroad Community Band was established to boost ticket sales during the Great Depression. The Band performed in and around t...
Amateur Musical Club
This collection contains programs (1897-1993), yearbooks (1893-1993), financial records, annual meeting minutes, newsletters, and newsp...
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Founded in 1926, the American Civil Liberties Union is the largest national voluntary organization committed to the protection and defe...
American Legion
This collection includes various Legion programs and publications, plus newspaper articles and research on the origins of McLean County...
Arthur Drake School Band of America Collection
The School Band of America – School Chorus of America was founded July 1, 1959 and established itself as an integral part of the Americ...
Baby Fold
Nancy and Allen Mason were pioneers in Normal–moving here just after the Civil War. Nancy Mason opened her home to be used by the a...
Barbershoppers
The Bloomington Chapter of the SPEBSQSA was originally named the Bloomington Harmony Club. The Bloomington Chapter held its first meet...
Barn Keepers
Barns are the most important structure on a farmstead. The earliest barns in Central Illinois were modest log buildings, but by the mid...
Baseball
A column in the October 20, 1857, issue of the Pantagraph suggested that it would be a good idea for some of the young men of Bloomingt...
Beyond Normal Films
The collection includes some newspaper clippings from 1996 through 2018 about the organization, and letters to the membership. The work...
Blooming Grove Ladies Aid
Founded on Jan. 17, 1916, at the Blooming Grove Christian Church, the Blooming Grove Ladies Aid Society worked to provide charitable co...
Bloomington Band Association
This collection contains correspondence, meeting minutes, membership lists, and legal documents and leases....
Bloomington Business and Professional Women’s Club Collection
During World War I, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker sent out an urgent call to make women more active in the war effort. The War Work ...
Bloomington Cemetery Association
The Bloomington Cemetery Association (BCA) was a private stock corporation that operated the Bloomington Cemetery from 1857 through 196...
Bloomington Chapter Sweet Adelines
The Bloomington Chapter of Sweet Adelines joined Sweet Adelines International in 1952 and were known as Midwest Gateway #5. They entert...
Bloomington Education Association Collection
The Bloomington Education Association was organized in June 1967 with nearly half of District 87’s 400 teachers joining at its onset. ...
Bloomington Rotary Club
The Bloomington Rotary Club was organized in 1915. From the beginning, the Rotary Club members played a large role in the community.  ...
Bloomington School District 87
Bloomington School District began on February 17, 1857, with “An Act to Establish and Regulate a System of Public Schools in the City o...
Bloomington Trades and Labor Assembly
Bloomington labor unions banded together on October 18, 1891, to establish the Bloomington Trades and Labor Assembly. Union organizatio...
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...
Bloomington-Normal Symphony
The Bloomington-Normal Symphony Orchestra collection consists of six boxes. The material dates from 1950 to 1997. The B-N Symphony ce...
Bloomington-Normal Women’s Golf Association
After a hiatus from 1968 to 1974, the Bloomington-Normal Women’s Golf Association returned to play tournaments in the twin-cities’ 5 go...
Booker T. Washington Home
The Booker T. Washington Home was founded in 1918 by Mr. and Mrs. Alex Barker. They housed six children in a small house in the 500 bl...
Brokaw Hospital Nursing Alumni Association
This collection contains alumni association directories, newsletters, meeting programs, and information about alumni service in the mil...
Brokaw Service League Follies
The Brokaw Hospital Service League was organized in 1925. It was one of the oldest Hospital organizations of its type in the country. I...
Brokaw/Mennonite/BroMenn Hospitals
This collection includes written materials concerning three interrelated Bloomington-Normal hospitals: Brokaw Hospital, Mennonite Hospi...
Brown’s Business College
Brown’s Business College (1893-1972) offered training for young men and women entering the workforce. This chain of schools, establishe...
Carlock Public Library
Opening in 1979, the Carlock Public Library, formerly known as the Carey E. Burdette Memorial Library, provides the library needs for t...
Children’s Theater Association of Bloomington-Normal
The Children’s Theatre was the brainchild of Martha Mary Vybiral to promote children’s theatre productions with child participants to e...
Clio Club Collection
In 1895, the idea for a literary club took root at the home of Nannie Orme Dyson. Nannie was the daughter of Colonel William McCulloug...
Corn Items Collectors Association Collection
Founded in 1981 as the Corn Husking Hook and Peg Collection Association, the group soon realized that corn items in general attracted b...
CornBelters
The Normal CornBelters are a professional baseball team. They began play in May 2010 as a member of the Frontier League, which is not a...
Countering Domestic Violence
In February 1977, several women in Bloomington-Normal saw the need to assist domestic abuse victims. They developed Countering Domestic...
Custer, Milo
Milo Custer was born in 1879 to Samuel and Lucinda Parker Custer. Before settling in Bloomington, Custer lived in Heyworth in southern ...
Degree of Pocahontas Collection
Degree of Pocahontas is the ladies auxiliary of the Improved Order of Red Men. The Red Men is a patriotic fraternity to “inspire a grea...
Delphi — Bloomington Chapter
Founded in 1930 as a business woman’s civic group, the Bloomington Chapter of Delphi was part of a national organization. It pursued bo...
Denman School (White Oak Township) Mother's Club
The Denman School Club began in 1921 as a means of communication among teachers, students, and parents. Through the years, the club aid...
Downtown Bloomington Historical Survey
In 1984 Greg Koos and William Walters began the work of obtaining National Historic standing for the Bloomington Downtown Area. Their w...
Early Social Services Collection
Social services in Bloomington Normal were administered by volunteers, mostly women, who organized the earliest social services: Bloomi...
Easter Seal Camp Heffernan
The East Bay Camp was formed in 1930, when its Director Reverend Breen, with the Kiwanis Club, developed Camp Limberlost.* The first se...
Emerson Street Investment Club
The Unitarian Investment Club began in 1990 as managers of a fund of loans and gifts to the Unitarian Church. The original 17 members d...
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. ...
Family and Consumer Sciences Professionals of McLean County
The organization began in 1961 as the McLean County Home Economists in Homemaking. They became an affiliate of the American Home Econom...
Farmers Grain Dealers Association of Illinois Collection
In February 1903, seventeen farmers’ cooperative grain elevator companies met to form the Farmers Grain Dealers Association of Illinois...
Finley, Ada Collection
Ada was born in Hudson, Illinois, to George and Josie Lentz on July 19, 1898. She married Stephen Eugene (Gene) Finley on September 8, ...
Gold Star Mothers
The Evergreen Chapter, National Gold Star Mothers, was incorporated on October 14, 1950, by the national organization.This colle...
Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)
The Grand Army of the Republic was founded by Benjamin Franklin Stephenson of Springfield, Illinois in 1866. The first post was in Dec...
Highland Park Women’s 18 Hole League
The Highland Park Women’s 18 Hole League was started in July of 1932 at the Highland Park Municipal Golf Course in Bloomington. Ann Don...
Home Sweet Home Mission
Billy Shelper founded the Home Sweet Home City Rescue Mission in 1917 after attending a Billy Sunday revival meeting at the McLean Coun...
Illinois Air Force Mothers
The Illinois Air Force Mothers Club began in 1970 to support Air Force personnel at bases and hospitals around the world, as well was i...
Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's School (ISSCS)
The Illinois Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s School Collection is organized into six boxes containing materials dating from 1865 to 2...
Independent order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Cornerstones (1886 & 1900)
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is a fraternal, service-based organization that had its beginning in Baltimore, Maryland in the ea...
Johnston, George W. and Alice M. Collection
George W. (1901-1988) and Alice M. (1905-1991) Johnston were both active in the American Legion, the Red Cross, and social services dur...
Knife & Fork Club
Knife and Fork Club International is a social dinner club with chapters in cities across the United States. In Bloomington, members wo...
Ladies Auxiliary of WWI Veterans
This collection includes a selection of materials preserved by Jennie Mae Taylor of Bloomington primarily from the Auxiliary and the De...
Lake Bloomington Association
The Lake Bloomington Association formed to improve the Lake Bloomington Area and the surrounding areas. The Lake Bloomington Associati...
Loyal Star—Prairie State Lodge 45
Loyal Star of America is a women’s auxiliary to the Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America. Their aim was to promote the union, provide ...
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 Association for Home and Community Education
This collection includes newspaper articles referencing the various HCE/HEA members and the projects they are involved in, letters from...
McLean County Bar Association Memorials
The tradition of the McLean County Bar Association since 1897 has been to memorialize deceased lawyers and explain their contributions ...
McLean County Emergency Squad
In 1967 with the near completion of Interstate 74 and Interstate 55, Bloomington, Illinois had concerns about increased traffic volume....
McLean County Home Bureau
The McLean County Home Bureau was first established in 1918 by Mrs. Spencer Ewing, and was called the McLean County Home Improvement As...
McLean County Homemakers Extension
The McLean Home Bureau changed its name to McLean County Homemakers Extension Association on July 1, 1962. The association is for devel...
McLean County Library Association
Responding to an invitation from Vail Deale of the Withers (Bloomington) Public Library, twenty-two librarians from local public and ac...
Minutes Books
The collection contains single volumes of minutes of various local organizations including: Washingtonian Society, Nineteenth Century C...
Normal History Club
In the late 1800s, life in a small university town did not offer many opportunities for artistic and cultural pursuits. In winter 1894,...
Normal Literary Center Collection
An adult study group, the Normal Literary Center was founded in 1896 and celebrated its 100th anniversary in fall 1996. In the ...
Normal Theater
The Normal Theater was built by Sylvan and Ruth Kupfer, who owned the 209 North Street lot where the movie house went up. The grand ope...
Old House Society
The Old House Society is a nonprofit organization in McLean County devoted to the preservation and celebration of architecture of the p...
Old North Normal Historic District Association
Old North Normal is the oldest intact area of continuous residential development north of Illinois State University and Uptown Normal. ...
Old Settlers Association of Eastern McLean County
From 1885 to 1915, self-described “old settlers” of eastern McLean County held an annual picnic celebrating the bygone pioneer era. At ...
Olde Towne Neighborhood Association
The Olde Towne Neighborhood Association was formed in 1997 as a non-profit organization. The general purpose of the association was to ...
ParkLands Foundation
ParkLands Foundation was chartered in 1967 as a private, non-profit corporation under Illinois law. The Foundation had two goals, accor...
Price School Social Club, 1946-1973 (Bloomington Township)
The Price School Social Club was a group of women associated with Price School, which was located on Old Ireland Grove Road in Blooming...
Quill Club
A local literary organization affiliated with the State and National American Pen Women’s Organization, the Quill Club met monthly with...
Red Cross
This collection holds the educational materials used by Stella Bennett, a certified Red Cross Instructor. The materials include class r...
Rock of Praisers
Michael Louanna Casey-Beich organized the Rock of Praisers in 1990 from her home at 1107 E Jefferson Street. Michael Louanna Casey-Beic...
Sister City Asahikawa
This collection contains correspondence, budgets, fundraiser information, newspaper clippings, 20th and 25th anniversary celebratory ma...
Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War
The Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) Collection consists of personal and form letters, membership lists, check recei...
Tau Epsilon Delta
In January 1931, Louise Muxfeld organized a group of Bloomington High School girls into the Gamma chapter of Tau Epsilon Delta. (The or...
The Auxiliary to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (ASUVCW)
The ASUVCW Collection consists of encampment proceedings (1933-40), constitutions and by-laws, rituals and other assorted materials (19...
Toastmasters (Smedley) Collection
Born in Waverly IL in 1878, Ralph C. Smedley graduated Illinois Wesleyan University in 1903 and a year later became educational directo...
Turners in Bloomington
William “Bill” Adams (1927-2013) grew up in a family which participated in the Turner organization in Bloomington. In the early 1980s,...
United Way of McLean County
In 1935, local community leaders founded the Community Chest of McLean County that later became United Way of McLean County. During thi...
Veterans of World War 1 Barracks
The Veterans of World War 1 organization was created in 1949, first in Ohio, and then, in 1954, in Illinois. In 1958, the 85th Congress...
Vietnam Moving Wall
Several organizations present a "Moving Wall" -- a scaled down replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. T...
Voice for Choice
Founded in mid-1989, Voice for Choice was a local organization “devoted to ensuring the right to safe and legal abortion and the contin...
Woman's Club of Bloomington-Normal
The Woman’s Club of Bloomington-Normal collection consists of two boxes. The dates of the material range from 1897 to 1997, and the cl...
YWCA
The YWCA organization was founded in England in 1855, but women were active in the organization in McLean County as early as 1889, when...