WILL to air Lincoln series

WILL-TV, the University of Illinois television station, has received a $40,000 grant from the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to produce a series on Lincoln as an attorney in the 8th Circuit during the 1850s. ISBA is among underwriters of the programming.

Producer and writer Alison Davis Wood said the series would include re-enactments of events and interviews with historians. Segments will be broadcast during the 2009 season of “Prairie Fire.”

The WILL team is being assisted by Bloomington attorney Guy C. Fraker, who has done research on Lincoln as a circuit rider, and Thomas F. Schwartz, state historian since 1993.

One objective is to show that Lincoln was not merely a simple country lawyer but a smart, successful attorney who could represent either the underdog or the establishment.

Wood said depictions of Lincoln practicing in historic courtrooms by day and telling stories at night would help people understand what he was like. “It was a chapter in his life that’s often overlooked,” she added. “We want to show how it shaped him as president.”

Wood and director/editor Tim Hartin started working on the series a year ago at New Salem, Funk’s Grove and the Rock Spring Nature Center near Decatur.