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Overview
7/26/2025, 11/6/2025
Learn about fascinating topics in history and hear museum staff and occasional guest historians debate challenging questions. 2025 Your Friendly Neighborhood Historian dates and themes:
Your Friendly Neighborhood Historian: Kroehler Manufacturing Company (March 4 at 11:30 AM-12:30 PM): Explore the history and legacy of Kroehler Manufacturing Company in anticipation of the opening of Naper Settlement's new Selling Kroehler exhibit in May.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Historian: Hidden Messages in Negro Spirituals on the Underground Railroad (March 13 at 7-8 PM): Connie Martin, Illinois Road Scholar, teaches the connections of plantation songs, or Negro Spirituals, with meanings and interpretations of lyrics of some songs used in regions of the South that signaled a multiple of signs and tips that aided freedom seekers as they headed to Canada.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Historian: Naperville Riverwalk (May 27 at 11:30 AM-12:30 PM): Created for Naperville's 150th anniversary, the Naperville Riverwalk has become a core part of downtown. Learn about the history and growth of the Riverwalk and enjoy a brief tour of the original footprint. The program will start with a historical presentation at Naper Settlement.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Historian: Down in the Mine: American Coal Miners and Their Songs, 1890-1960 (July 26 at 1-2 PM): The presentation features songs and poems by coal miners, including Illinois miners. The commentary places this important folk tradition in a broader historical context and offers details on coal mining, coal-miner bards and songwriters, early country music, and individual songs.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Historian: Singing Bird and the Importance of Native American Women in Illinois History (November 6 at 7-8 PM): Dressed in her native regalia, Kim Sigafus, an award-winning Ojibwa author, will give a history of Natives in Illinois with a focus on Native women, or what was considered “The Hidden Half.”
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Map
