Illinois Heritage

Summer in Illinois. Cicadas, hummingbirds, mosquitos, daylilies, day trips, watermelon, sweetcorn, and the Illinois State Fair. Whatever makes your Prairie State summer special, I hope the season is full of wonders and surprises.

This issue is packed with articles guaranteed to expand your Illinois horizon. I am forever delighted with what our contributors deliver in variety and diversity, and how generous they are with their research. My hope is that you share your Illinois Heritage with family and friends, and with anyone interested in our state’s marvelous history. Our contributors deserve the broadest possible audience we can deliver. It’s small compensation for such tremendous effort.

If you are looking for an opportunity to support and sustain our publications, this is a good time to make a contribution to the Illinois Heritage Fund, or to the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Please send your donations to:

Illinois Heritage Fund
Illinois State Historical Society
P.O. Box 1800
Springfield, IL 62705-1800

As always, thanks for sharing your history and heritage. The Illinois prairie blossoms in the summer, and more so when we tell our stories.

William Furry
Executive Director

To our readers:

In this issue of Illinois Heritage we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Illinois State Archives, the venerable institution that houses the state’s most important government records. We also announce the winners of the 2021 “Best of Illinois History” awards.

Contributor Clark “Bucky” Halker, labor historian and former director of Illinois Humanities, explores Illinois’ rich history of songwriting and labor activism for the earliest days of coal mining through the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), focusing on the strong religious roots of the movement. In his “Forgotten Voices of Illinois History” essay, John Hallwas reintroduces us to John Hay, the poet, biographer, diplomat, and statesman who had the ear of presidents from Lincoln to Roosevelt. Candace Summers writes about the relatively unknown Bloomington artist Emily Howard, and Todd Carr of Elizabethtown takes us on a spring waterfall hike in the Shawnee National Forest.

Thanks to all of you for renewing your membership in the Illinois State Historical Society. You sustain the great work that began in 1899, to “foster awareness, understanding, research, preservation, and recognition of history in Illinois.” With your continued support, Illinois history will always have a great future.

This issue of Illinois Heritage is delighted to share Prairie State history by some of our favorite contributors—John Hallwas, James Cornelius, Kristan McKinsey, Mark Sorensen, Beth Young and Bill Kemp—as well as a few new ones, including Dean Karau, whose original piece on Richard Carroll is a fascinating portrait of an African American man’s journey up from slavery to post-Civil War Illinois.

We also meet Christina M. Shutt, the new executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM), explore several central Illinois cemeteries, and contemplate the possibilities of the nation’s 250th birthday, which John Dichtl, CEO and President of the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), shares with us in his “Guestwork” piece. Also included in this issue is the Illinois Humanities (IH) Executive Summary, “On Wisdom and Vision: humanities organizations in Illinois during COVID-19,” which reflects on this past pandemic year and how more than 177 Illinois humanities-focused organizations weathered the storm.

Enjoy Illinois. Read Illinois history. Share your Heritage. Better yet, buy a membership for a friend. Some gifts never stop giving.

The Illinois State Historical Society has, for 121 winters, celebrated each new year with the promise of greater perspective, greater diversity, and the very best scholarship about our Prairie State’s past. We could not dream of a future without you, our members, making this journey with us. If you have not renewed your membership, please do so today. We need you.

This issue celebrates many fascinating aspects of our history, and our writers, board, and staff would love to know what you think of our efforts. Please send your email comments to executivedirector@historyillinois.org, and, with your permission, we will publish them in Illinois Heritage.

Thank you for your support, your perseverance during the late pandemic, and for your fortitude in these challenging times. Spring is coming, bringing the promise of unimaginable joy. Share your joy. Share your Heritage.

The presence of humans in the Illinois Country goes back at least 12,000 years, and some archaeologists would push that envelope even further into the past. We find footprints of prehistoric peoples all over the landscape of the Prairie State, and we have ample evidence of their physical presence in cultural artifacts found in museums and historical society collections from Galena to Golconda, Chicago to Cairo. In this issue of Illinois Heritage, our goal is to shine a spotlight on the people who called Illinois home before Europeans arrived on America’s shores.

We also profile southern Illinois historian John Allen and visit the sites of three new historical markers around the state.

Be safe, share your Heritage, and, if you are able, make a donation to the Society in support of our annual appeal. As always, thanks for your membership in the ISHS. With your help, we do great deeds.