{"id":561037,"date":"2026-02-08T12:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T12:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/561037\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T12:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T12:24:14","slug":"all-american-girls-professional-baseball-league-to-be-featured-at-history-talk-in-sterling-on-feb-8-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/561037\/","title":{"rendered":"All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to be featured at history talk in Sterling on Feb. 8 \u2013 Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Women have always played baseball, especially in the Midwest. The history of women\u2019s baseball dates back to the 1800s, when women had little opportunities to play organized baseball. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Anna Sielaff is part of Illinois Humanities 2026-27 Road Scholars Speakers Bureau and will present this program at the Sterling-Rock Falls Historical Society\u2019s February meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8. This special presentation is also sponsored by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/sterling\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.shawlocal.com\/tags\/sterling\/\">Sterling<\/a> Public Library.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Sielaff offers an exciting opportunity to explore how Illinois played a significant role in the formation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">She will trace the evolution of women\u2019s baseball from its 19th-century beginnings to the establishment of the league in 1943. Learn how the league\u2019s unique rules developed over time and the teams that made history \u2013particularly the Illinois teams: the Rockford Peaches, Springfield Sallies, Peoria Redwings and Chicago Colleens. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">The presentation will also cover topics such as the players\u2019 uniforms, \u201cCharm School\u201d and the league\u2019s innovative publicity and promotional efforts that helped bring women\u2019s baseball into the national spotlight during World War II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">Sielaff serves as the Local History Librarian for the Lincoln Library\u2019s Sangamon Valley Collection in Springfield. She holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in history from Concordia University Chicago and a master of science in library and information sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-xb1qmn-0 gBIiEi body-paragraph\">The meeting is at the Lincoln Learning Center, 611 E. Third St., Sterling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women have always played baseball, especially in the Midwest. The history of women\u2019s baseball dates back to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,193,39267,6447],"class_list":["post-561037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-history","tag-sauk-valley-front-headlines","tag-sterling"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116034998324420360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}