New Philadelphia and the Freedom Corridor Available to Purchase

Catharine O'Connell is provost and dean at Illinois College with a background as a scholar and teacher in American studies at Mary Baldwin College and Defiance College, where she built new programs and improved student success.

Philip E. Bradshaw grew up on a farm in Pike County where he still lives and farms with his son and grandson. He helped to found the New Philadelphia Association, serving as its president from the start in 1996 until fall 2024.

Terrance J. Martin is curator emeritus of anthropology at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. He codirected the New Philadelphia archaeological project and was the principal investigator for archaeology on the Jameson Jenkins Lot at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.

Mike Ward recently retired as one of three deputy regional directors serving the Midwest region of the National Park Service. His NPS career started in the Youth Conservation Corps and then historical preservation/maintenance at the Lincoln Home Site in his hometown of Springfield.

Brian K. Mitchell is the former director of research and interpretation for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. A noted scholar of “difficult history,” Mitchell taught African American and public history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for fifteen years.