Current Projects Underway
Moline History Echoes From Riverside Cemetery
In May 2008 the Moline Foundation granted $6,000 to Heritage Documentaries, Inc. for the production of this new book.It will be an innovative community history that draws upon carefully-documented stories of the lives of about one hundred people buried at Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois, accompanied by a brief history of the cemetery itself. Included will be people from diverse classes and backgrounds who were featured at twelve annual Echoes from Riverside cemetery walk events. The book will be distributed to local schools and libraries, and also be made available to the public. A teacher’s guide will be written for the book, and throughout 2009 book authors will give illustrated presentations based on the book to schools and the general public.

For this project, Heritage Documentaries is partnering with the Moline Preservation Society, which sponsored the first two cemetery walks. We are undertaking this project because we recognize it as a timely opportunity to make a substantial contribution to the understanding of Moline as it emerged as a major manufacturing center in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. We believe that the following three features of Moline History Echoes From Riverside Cemetery will make it an outstanding contribution to community history.

First, the story of each individual featured at the cemetery walks is historically well-documented. Each actor was given background material on the person he or she portrayed.The emphasis and tone of the story scripts vary with the preferences of the actors, but they all reflect the life of the person portrayed as documented through archival research.

Second, a wide diversity of people are featured, representing various classes, ages, and occupations.Included are immigrants, Civil War veterans, factory workers, seamstresses, gardeners, farmers, and boarding house operators, in addition to well-known people such as members of the Deere family, other industrialists, and political figures.

Third, the story of Riverside Cemetery itself is compelling Its 1851 section is one of the earliest in the area. The 1872 expansion, designed William Le Baron Jenney, was part of the rural cemetery movement that was sweeping the United States at the time. It transformed the cemetery into a picturesque landscape astride the Mississippi River Bluffs, which offers spectacular vistas for visitors to the cemetery today.

The book will have two major parts. The main body will include the scripts, accompanied by background and contextual information on each featured person. Relevant archival materials have been carefully assembled over the last twelve years by Heritage board member Kathleen Seusy, who organized ten of the twelve cemetery walks. To round out the presentation on each individual, we will select and include appropriate images—of the person, her/his business or home, or a landmark or activity directly relevant to that person’s life. The idea here is to visually bring to life the featured people and the contexts in which they lived and worked.

To set the stage for the stories of the people buried there, we will include an introductory history of Riverside Cemetery, featuring the part designed by Jenney in 1872. Jenney (1832-1907) is perhaps best known for his innovative steel-framed skyscraper designs in the late nineteenth century. However, he also participated in the design of Chicago’s boulevard system and Graceland Cemetery, and worked with Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to design the planned suburb of Riverside, Illinois. Jenney may have been attracted to Moline through Chicago connections of John Deere, who was mayor of Moline at the time, or his son Charles who hired Jenney as the architect for his Moline mansion, Overlook.  Included in the book will be a reproduction of a map of the cemetery signed by Jenney.

The book will have perfect binding, about 240 black and white pages, and a four-color cover. Authors will be Kathleen Seusy, Curtis C. Roseman, and Regena Jo Schantz, of Heritage Documentaries, and Diann Moore, of the Moline Preservation Society. The authors have substantial interest and expertise in the history of Moline and the surrounding area. The layout will be completed by Chris Van Lancker, a member of the Moline Preservation Society who works in the design and printing business. The book will be printed and bound, and the cover designed and printed, by Midwest Graphics Management, an organization with considerable experience in the production of educational materials. Our goal is to have the research and writing completed by December 2008, the layout by February 2009, and the book printed by April 2009. 

When Farmers Were Heroes: The Era of National Corn Husking Contests

In May of 2008, Heritage Documentaries received its initial funding for this 22-minute video documentary.  The Riverboat Development Authority granted $10,000 for the project, which is now well underway.

Husking is the oldest method of harvesting corn.  In October1940, the national corn husking contest was held at the Keppy Farm in Scott County, Iowa. It drew between 125,000 and 150,000 contestants and spectators, making it one of the largest single-day tourism events ever held in the Midwest. Our documentary DVD, complete with original film and music, will showcase this traditional farm skill and the traditional farm values celebrated throughout the Midwest during corn husking contests…values like individualism, determination, work ethic and self-sufficiency. From the early 1920s through 1941, local, state, and national corn husking contests were prominent on the national scene. National contests were broadcast live on nation-wide network radio, providing “ear-to-ear” coverage. In 1936, Time magazine declared corn husking “…the fastest growing sporting spectacle in the world.” Contest winners became idolized heroes who were sought after by national media for interviews, paid to endorse products, and received proposals of marriage from female fans.


The rise in popularity of corn husking contests and their role in buoying spirits during the Depression are unique in American history. When Farmers Were Heroes: The Era of National Corn Husking Contests, will portray the rich and traditional farm heritage of corn husking. Farm historians in Illinois and Wisconsin have written books about this subject, but no documentary has been created to visually bring the subject to life for students and the general public. Heritage Documentaries has contracted with Avolux Media to produce the documentary. We have assembled a wealth of background material for this project, much of it as the result of research conducted by Heritage board member Ronald Deiss. Materials include books and articles, artifacts, photographs, audio broadcasts, and several original films of corn husking contests, including color film of the Davenport event. We will also conduct filmed interviews with experts, and with former contestants and broadcasters. Husking contests continue today on a small scale; we will film live footage at the national contest at Roseville, Illinois in the fall of 2008.


The documentary will be completed in 2009. We intend to promote it to 4-H groups, educators, and the general public. To accompany the documentary, we will write a teachers guide to be distributed with the video to schools in Illinois and Iowa. We will offer the documentary for showing on public television, and it will be shown at the Figge Art Museum in conjunction with exhibits on Grant Wood, John Bloom, and other agriculturally-themed painters and sculptors.




Projects We Are Considering

Charles Edward Russell, Midwestern Roots, National Influence: 
Russell, who grew up in Davenport, Iowa, was a muck-raking journalist, editor, and member of the Socialist Party who turned down the Party’s presidential nomination in 1916. He wrote several books, including one on the Mississippi River, won a Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1928, and was a co-founder of the NAACP in 1909. His father, about whom Charles wrote a biography, was a staunch abolitionist and an influential editor of the Davenport newspaper in the mid-nineteenth century.  See:  A Pioneer Editor in Early Iowa: a Sketch of the Life of Edward Russell (1941) and A Rafting on the Mississip’  (1929) both by Charles Edward Russell; and The Pen is Mightier: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell (2003) by Robert Miraldi.  

Controlling the River, Changing the River: Locks and Dams on the Upper Mississippi: 
After more than fifty years of early navigation enhancements, the current nine-foot channel system was constructed in the 1930s, and the first of the locks to be completed was at Rock Island.  A major debate today, about the future of the system, pits environmental versus commercial interests.  The 75th anniversary of Lock 15 at Rock Island is coming in 2009.

A River of Logs: 
In the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth century, vast pine forests in Minnesota and Wisconsin were cut down.  First lumber, than logs were floated down the Mississippi River.  At mid-century, Moline, Rock Island, Davenport, Clinton and other towns become major milling centers, shipping lumber by rail to build the Midwest and Great Plains.  Fortunes were made, including those of Weyerhauser, Denkman, Dimmock, and Gould.  A central character in the story is Stephen Hanks, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln.  Early nineteenth century logs were milled into lumber in Wisconsin. In 1844 Hanks, of Albany, Ill., assembled the first log raft and thereby transformed the process; thereafter logs were floated down the river.  Then in 1914, in a dramatic closing to the log raft era, Hanks rode the last of these rafts to float on the Upper Mississippi

Antoine LeClaire: 
This colorful and influential Davenport man was part French-Canadian and part Native American.  Speaking numerous languages and dialects, he played important roles in mediating between Native Americans and Europeans in the early nineteenth century.  He also helped establish the town of Davenport and provided land and a depot for the first railroad in Iowa in 1855.  

Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Explorer of the Upper Mississippi River: 
Pike’s exploration of the Mississippi, beginning in 1805, was overshadowed by the Lewis and Clark’s expedition up the Missouri.  Although the reviews of Pike’s accomplishments are mixed, he did established the location of three important American forts on the Mississippi, Fort Armstrong (Rock Island), Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien), and Fort Snelling (Minneapolis).  Pike’s name is one of the most recognizable in the United States because of the peak in Colorado that bears his name, a place that he probably never visited. See:
http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/lewisclark2/circa1804/WestwardExpansion/EarlyExplorers/ZebulonPike.htm

Midwestern Origins of the National Basketball Association:  
Early professional basketball in the United States involved barnstorming teams, teams sponsored by prominent corporations, and a variety of leagues, from the 1920s through the 1940s.  Eventually, in 1950, the two most prominent leagues of the time merged to become the NBA.  Among the teams that played in the 1940s were several located in small Midwestern markets, including Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Waterloo, Iowa,  Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Tri Cities of Iowa and Illinois (which played their games in Moline, IL).   By the mid 1950s these and most other small-market teams had either folded or moved to larger markets, making the NBA a big city league. Today, the memories of big-time basketball in these small places is indelibly etched in both their local histories and in NBA lore.   This documentary will utilize film, written works, and interviews with former players, coaches, and fans to tell this story of Midwestern towns that were in the big leagues.