By Matthew Deihl
Eighty years ago, a photographer took a picture of a man holding a turkey at a central Illinois hatchery. Through a series of twists and turns, the photo wound up in the collection of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. We could tell you all about the picture – where it was taken, when it was taken, the name of the photographer and more. But what we could not tell you was the name of the man in the photo. That bit of information was lost.
Then, in December of 2024, a patron contacted the ALPLM to tell us they recognized the man in the photograph on our Chronicling Illinois website. The patron said her niece had found the photograph while researching their family’s turkey farm in Havana, Ill., and recognized it as her great-grandfather Gerald F. Bonnett. Now, it’s not exactly a surprise to learn the photo shows Gerald F. Bonnett. After all, the photograph is titled “Bonnett's Turkey Hatchery Turkeys,” so it’s not a stretch to guess that he was a Bonnett. But guessing and knowing are two different things.
Now, thanks to family speaking up, we were able to review their personal photos and newspaper clippings about their relative and know for certain that our photo depicts Mr. Bonnett himself. The Chronicling Illinois description has officially been changed from “Man holds a turkey while surrounded by several turkeys in a pen at Bonnett's Turkey Hatchery” to “Gerald F. Bonnett, owner of Bonnett's Turkey Hatchery, holds a turkey while surrounded by several turkeys in a pen at his hatchery.”
We were able to make a similar change to another photo of a man sitting at a desk at the hatchery, who had been simply labeled an employee. Its description now reads: “Gerald Bonnett, owner of Bonnett's Turkey Hatchery, works at his desk in his company's office in Havana, Illinois.”
Both photos were taken in 1944 by Springfield photographer Herbert Georg and are part of the Herbert Georg Collection on Chronicling Illinois. The physical copies are stored in the ALPLM Audiovisual Department’s photograph collection. Georg was a highly sought-after commercial and portrait photographer local to Springfield, Ill., who came from a family of professional photographers, including his father Victor Georg, whose collection we also maintain. Hundreds of thousands of Herbert Georg’s negatives were lost in a fire in 1980, but the ALPLM’s predecessor, the Illinois State Historical Library, was able to salvage about 9,000 usable negatives. You can read more about Georg and the fire here. The Georg Collection includes photos of a governor, a puppeteer, the world’s tallest man, traffic accidents, the state fair, and just about anything else you could find in central Illinois in the first half of the 20th century.
Herbert Georg photos of Illinois Governor Henry Horner and Robert Wadlow, an Illinois resident and world’s tallest man, at Lake Springfield Speedway.
We are always eager to solve mysteries large and small when it comes to the items in our collection, so we are incredibly grateful to Mr. Bonnett’s family for contacting us. This interaction demonstrates how ALPLM’s online collections engage the public and make the study of history more dynamic. We encourage the public to help us identify people, places, events, and artifacts in the images that we publish. We just ask that you please provide sufficient evidence to support your claims.
As a research library, we get excited when our patrons share our enthusiasm for academic excellence as we pull back the veil on Illinois, Lincoln, and Civil War history.
Matthew Deihl is one of the ALPLM’s audiovisual librarians.