NewsWednesday, August 29, 2007 11:08 PM CDT

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New home for Stevenson collection bolster’s family’s legacy

By Michele Steinbacher
msteinbacher@pantagraph.com

NORMAL — A new home for an Illinois State University collection about the Stevensons — arguably the Twin Cities’ most famous political family — was unveiled Wednesday, and former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III honored the event by bringing a family Bible.

The occasion also brought a promise from the former senator and several ISU officials to strengthen attention to the legacy and Central Illinois roots of his father, former Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson II.

The former senator’s namesake great-grandfather served as U.S. vice president, but it was the senator’s father who is remembered as one of the great statesmen of the 20th century. He served as Illinois governor, Democratic nominee for U.S. president in 1952 and 1956 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Stevenson Collection includes about 300 artifacts that focus mostly on the former governor. It has been on campus since 1969, mostly thanks to donations from Adlai Stevenson II’s sister, Elizabeth Ives.

In 2005, administrators decided to move it to from Stevenson Hall to Milner Library to improve public access. “Now everybody, and anybody, can see this,” said Gary Olson, ISU College of Arts and Sciences dean.

First, Milner conservation librarian Soline d’Haussy and her staff spent two years preserving the collection. She said on Wednesday that work continues.

Sen. Stevenson made what he called a “token contribution” — a Bible handed down from his great-grandfather, Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson I.

“That’s the Bible — Vice President Stevenson’s Bible, given to him by his mother” as a wedding gift, said the former senator.

More than 50 people gathered to look at some of the key pieces in the collection — including campaign buttons, handwritten drafts of his father’s famed acceptance speech for the 1952 Democratic presidential nomination, and a hat that belonged to the vice president.

University archivist Jo Rayfield, said the 1952 speech is considered one of the top 100 political speeches of the 20th century.

ISU President Al Bowman noted the former governor had attended the campus’s University High School.

Rayfield said upcoming plans to focus on Adlai Stevenson II’s role in America’s history and links to ISU include using his honorary degree hoods in spring commencement.

The senator, a Libertyville native who now lives in Chicago, said he was inspired by a newly announced collaboration between ISU and the McLean County of Museum History to coordinate their Stevenson collections.

“I may have some more work coming,” he said, noting he plans to donate even more Stevenson memorabilia to the ISU collection.

The former senator later visited the campus’s Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development, named in honor of his father. The program connects graduate studies and the Peace Corps.

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