Journal

The Fall/Winter 2020 issue of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society is printed. The Journal, the scholarly publication of the ISHS, is published quarterly and is a benefit of membership in the Illinois State Historical Society. Each issue includes articles, essays, book reviews, and documents about history, literature, art technology, law, and other subjects related to Illinois and the Midwest. Visit our Membership page for membership options and information. Click on the “Read More” button for a list of articles and reviews included in this issue.

Volume 110, No. 1 of the Journal opens with three studies of post–World War II Illinois history. In “‘Names and Appearances are often Indeterminate:’ Quandaries over Identifying Jews in Chicago, 1953–1961,” Kelly King-O’Brien examines the conversations between Chicago-based Jewish agencies, President Eisenhower’s Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC), and private employers accused of discriminatory practices. 

Ann Durkin Keating treats another facet of civic life that shaped the postwar liberal order in “‘Behind the Suburban Curtain:’ The Campaign for Open Occupancy in Naperville.” In the late 1960s the Civil Rights Movement, having secured historic victories over de jure segregation in the South, set its sights on the much harder problem of de facto segregation in the North’s metropolitan areas.

In our final article, “‘The Dwindling Legacy that is Food for Mice and Flames:’ Discovery and Preservation of Illinois Historic Newspapers through the Illinois Digital Newspaper Project, 2009–2015,” Marek Sroka and Tracy Nectoux trace the history of newspaper preservation in Illinois up through our current digital age.  

 

This issue offers three articles covering diverse aspects of Illinois' history. In "Illinois Germans and the Coming of the Civil War: Reshaping Ethnic Identity," Christina Bearden-White uses German-language sources to examine the complex issue of German identity in the Prairie State during the mid-nineteenth century.

Ian Rocksborough-Smith's article, "'I had gone in there thinking I was going to be a cultural worker': Richard Durham, Oscar Brown, Jr. and the United Packinghouse Workers Association in Chicago," presents a fascinating analysis of the Cold War-era careers of Oscar Brown, Jr. and Richard Durham, two prominent Chicago-based African American political activists.

Finally, Michael Sublett's "Downstate: Illinois' Peripheral Other," presents the etymology of that well-known Prairie State term. Employing the categories of core and periphery, which rose to prominence in social science and historical writing during the 1970s, Sublett traces the evolution and application of the downstate moniker.