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This issue of Illinois Heritage is full of fascinating stories about Illinoisans who have made a difference in Illinois and Midwestern history, starting with Robert Preston Taylor, a lawyer and scientist who worked at the Illinois State Museum; William Edgar Brotherton, WWI aviator who flew with famed pilot Eddie Rickenbacker; and the unveiling of a new ISHS public history initiative, “The Land and the People Hold Memories,” an opportunity for post WWII citizens to write about their experiences between 1946-1975.

The Heritage is published six times per year and is available as a benefit of membership in the Illinois State Historical Society. Individual editions can also be purchased by contacting our office directly. Visit our Membership section for membership options and information.

Click on the “Read More” button to see this issue’s Editor's Comments, Table of Contents, and sample articles.

Join us for a new ISHS History Happy Hour - January 2021 Edition with Tina Beaird and her lecture 'Pandemic 1918! Battling Influenza During the Great War.'

100 years ago the bells tolled across the nation announcing the end of World War I. But if history has told us anything, the wounds from that cataclysm persist to the present day and the reverberations echo on and on. It is fitting that we commemorate the anniversary of the end of “The War to End All Wars” by revisiting what Illinoisans who survived it remembered. Great appreciation is offered to guest editor Bill Kemp, who put the bones and flesh on this issue of Illinois Heritage, and to the guest authors who gave it life.

In this issue we also congratulate the 2018 Centennial Award recipients, businesses and not-for-profit organizations that have served Illinoisans for 100 or more years. At a time when we hear so much about companies leaving the state, it is a delight to recognize those corporations whose roots remain deep in the Prairie soil.

Thanks to all of you who have taken time to renew your 2019 membership in the Illinois State Historical Society. Our organization thrives because of your  commitment to our mission of “fostering awareness, understanding, research,  preservation, and recognition of history in Illinois.” 

Wishing you the very best of holiday seasons, and a happy and brilliant New Year. 

We launch Volume 109 of the Journal with three stimulating contributions to Illinois history in the twentieth century. Peter Ellertsen’s “‘How Newness Enters the World’: Cultural Creolization in Swedish American Hymnals Published at Augustana College, 1901–1925” offers a fresh and innovative way of interpreting hymn culture and evolution in a denomination undergoing dramatic social change.

In “Sacrificing for a “Just Cause”: The World War I Memoir of Edward F. Paule, U.S. Engineers,” editor Jeffrey L. Patrick reproduces a valuable resource for scholars interested in the soldiers’ experience during World War I. Paule, from Belleville, served in the 114th Engineer Regiment. The regiment’s chief responsibility was to build and maintain roads during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 1918. What makes the Paule memoir compelling is that unlike the many letters written by American troops during the war, Paule’s writings were not subject to censorship by authorities.

In “Moral Imperatives and Political Realities: Edward Marciniak and the Fight to End Chicago’s Dual Housing Market,” Charles Shanabruch offers a sympathetic analysis of the important and often overlooked career of Edward Marciniak. Marciniak was a pivotal figure in a group of Catholic activists who made Chicago a center of Catholic civil rights activism in the mid twentieth century.