Nov. 9, 2024
1:30pm - 3:30pm
Bloomington Public Library, 205 East Olive Street, Bloomington, IL 61701
Join Dr. Marcia Young at the 2024 Local Author Fair at the Bloomington Public Library!
Her book, The Davis Mansion, 1872-2022: 150 Years at Clover Lawn, will be available for purchase.
Come meet the author, have all your questions answered about this beautiful book, and have your copy signed.
You will also have an opportunity to meet up to 50 other local authors and explore their books.
Would you like to purchase your book in advance and bring it to the fair to be signed? Please click HERE to buy your copy online.
About the Book:
The year 2022 marked the 150th anniversary of the construction of the David Davis Mansion. To commemorate this special milestone, the site’s foundation board published this new, limited-edition book.
Written by Dr. Marcia Young, the book narrates a wealth of stories about the mansion, using hundreds of artifacts, archival documents, and vintage photographs, many of which have not been shown before. The author is a published historian, former site manager of the David Davis Mansion, and recipient of the Illinois State Historical Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Known as Clover Lawn, the mansion was originally the home of Supreme Court Justice David Davis, who was Abraham Lincoln’s friend and presidential campaign manager. It was also the cherished residence of Davis’s wife, Sarah, who spent her time hosting friends and family, tending her gardens, and traveling to Washington, DC, New York City, and western Massachusetts.
Using new archival sources, this commemorative book takes a fresh look at the mansion’s early years and reveals some surprising discoveries. It provides a reassessment of Sarah Davis’s role, a revealing portrait of Judge Davis after Sarah’s death, and a new appreciation for the accomplishments of George P. Davis who preserved the Davis family’s papers and the mansion during the years he lived there after his father’s death. The mansion’s history is a uniquely American story about the country’s westward expansion and its transformation after the Civil War into the most modern and economically powerful nation in the world.
