Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves
Odds & ends
Illinois past and present, as seen by James Krohe Jr.
The Corn Latitudes
Society, etc.
Here you will find articles about marriage and sex, religion and family life, race in all its manifestations, immigration, the economy, criminal justice, poverty, and war—all as seen from an Illinois perspective. Most were published in Illinois Times and Illinois Issues.
The opinion columnist is expected to expostulate on the social issues of the moment. That this obligation encourages blow-hardism and cant doesn’t need to be underlined, and I suppose I was as guilty of both as any. The range of passing controversies over the past forty years would have baffled any one person’s attempts to master them, but my publications had gaping holes I was expected to fill, and I did my best.
Interested readers also should know that I devoted three chapters in my history of mid-Illinois—"“Well known repugnances," “Making the world a little more Christian,” and "Realizing the ideal"—to social discord, religion, and social reform efforts respectively as they affected that part of the state; see Corn Kings & One-Horse Thieves. See also "Kids today" and "Common schools" for pieces on related topics.
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Immigrants and immigration
In a dim light—and we Illinoisans these days seem to see everything in a dim light—it is hard to tell a bigot from a patriot. Illinois is a state of immigrants (to borrow a phrase). It is impossible to understand the state's past without reference to newcomers' contributions, and they remain crucial to its future; indeed, it is not clear that Illinois has a future without immigrants. Yet they are feared and resented as a threat to our prosperity rather than its source.
Immigration policy and the skilled international
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times May 6, 2010
Illinois’ difficult history with the Other
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 25, 2015
The immigration issue in 1980s Springfield
Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 28, 2016
Immigrants as the solution, not the problem
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 10, 2011
Fearful Illinoisans confront the Other
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August 18, 2016
Trumped-up Charges
The fear of immigration in Illinois belies the facts
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times September 24, 2015
Illinois anti-terrorism officials ask how safe is too safe
Illinois Issues May 2006
Illinoisans debate how to treat animals for food
"Prejudices" Illinois Times January 28, 1982
Who should do what to deserve welfare?
"Prejudices" Illinois Times September 9, 1993
Religion
An opiate for the masses, perhaps, but religion in its public manifestations is mother's milk to an opinion columnist. I addressed the private aspects of this issue here and here.
Ought religious freedom to exclude atheists?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times March 15, 2012
Religion sneaks into Illinois schools by the back door
Illinois Issues February 2008
A Supreme Court ruling misunderstands religious freedom
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times May 29, 2014
Preparing children for this world and the next is tricky
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times September 17, 2015
Bishop Paprocki stands guard against corruption
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times July 6, 2017
A small town protects itself against an atheist plot
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times January 9, 2014
Illinois legislators get their cults confused
“Prejudices” Illinois Times June 15, 1979
Taking the Christian out of Christianity
The YMCA picks up a new name but sells an old idea
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August 12, 2010
Southern Illinois, the Civil War, and civil rights
See Illinois (unpublished) 2006
What riot? Springfield still won’t talk about race
"Prejudices" Illinois Times September 20, 1990
Old Letters
The Dumvilles bring mid-Illinois in the mid-1800s to life
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 3, 2016
A Springfield alderman slanders us eastside boys
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 7, 1988
Population tectonics threaten political upheaval
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 27, 1990
“Squalid gratification” at the expense of gays
"Prejudices" Illinois Times August 26, 1982
The governor doesn’t want to pay to bury the poor
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times April 16, 2015
How might Illinois towns boost population growth?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 12, 2017
The noise from boom cars is confusing Springfield aldermen
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times May 20, 2010
What “Sentimental Journey” ought to remind us of
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times July 22, 2010
The settling of the Harris case settles nothing
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times July 10, 2014
Why Did the Children Not Cross the Road?
Kids no longer enjoy the freedom of their city
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December. 30, 2009
A House in a Day
Will the future of affordable new family housing be the 1950s?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 23, 2011
Good and True
Another juror confuses another big prosecution
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 22, 2011
Get-Out-of-Jail Cards
Prison alternatives for Illinois's public delinquents?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 29, 2011
Kirk Dillard mixes his messages about family
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times June 13, 2013
Why so little public interest in serving the public interest?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times April 4, 2013
Trial by Jury
Dragooning jurors to serve justice is unjust
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 30, 2014
Illinois ranks last in war spending. That’s bad?
“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 26, 1994
Good and True
Another juror confuses another big prosecution
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 22, 2011
A gay speaker threatens Springfield youth
“Prejudices” Illinois Times June 3, 1993
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SITES
OF
INTEREST
Essential for anyone interested in Illinois history and literature. Hallwas deservedly won the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illinois State Historical Society.
One of Illinois’s best, and least-known, writers of his generation. Take note in particular of The Distancers and Road to Nowhere.
See Home Page/Learn/
Resources for a marvelous building database, architecture dictionary, even a city planning graphic novel. Handsome, useful—every Illinois culture website should be so good.
The online version of The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Crammed with thousands of topic entries, biographical sketches, maps and images, it is a reference work unmatched in Illinois.
The Illinois chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2018 selected 200 Great Places in Illinois that illustrate our shared architectural culture across the entire period of human settlement in Illinois.
A nationally accredited, award-winning project of the McLean County Historical Society whose holdings include more than 20,000 objects, more than 15,000 books on local history and genealogy, and boxes and boxes of historical papers and images.
Mr. Lincoln, Route 66, and Other Highlights of Lincoln, Illinois
Every Illinois town ought to have a chronicler like D. Leigh Henson, Ph.D. Not only Lincoln and the Mother road—the author’s curiosity ranges from cattle baron John Dean Gillett to novelist William Maxwell. An Illinois State Historical Society "Best Web Site of the Year."
Created in 2000, the IDA is a repository for the digital collections of the Illinois State Library and other Illinois libraries and cultural institutions. The holdings include photographs, slides, and glass negatives, oral histories, newspapers, maps, and documents from manuscripts and letters to postcards, posters, and videos.
The people's museum is a treasure house of science and the arts. A research institution of national reputation, the museum maintains four facilities across the state. Their collections in anthropology, fine and decorative arts, botany, zoology, geology, and history are described here. A few museum publications can be obtained here.
“Chronicling Illinois” showcases some of the collections—mostly some 6,000 photographs—from the Illinois history holdings of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
I will leave it to the authors of this interesting site to describe it. "Chicagology is a study of Chicago history with a focus on the period prior to the Second World War. The purpose of the site is to document common and not so common stories about the City of Chicago as they are discovered."
Illinois Labor History Society
The Illinois Labor History Society seeks to encourage the preservation and study of labor history materials of the Illinois region, and to arouse public interest in the profound significance of the past to the present. Offers books reviews, podcasts, research guides, and the like.
Illinois Migration History 1850-2017
The University of Washington’s America’s Great Migrations Project has compiled migration histories (mostly from the published and unpublished work by UW Professor of History James Gregory) for several states, including Illinois. The site also includes maps and charts and essays about the Great Migration of African Americans to the north, in which Illinois figured importantly.
An interesting resource about the history of one of Illinois’s more interesting places, the Fox Valley of Kendall County. History on the Fox is the work of Roger Matile, an amateur historian of the best sort. Matile’s site is a couple of cuts above the typical buff’s blog. (An entry on the French attempt to cash in on the trade in bison pelts runs more than
2,000 words.)
BOOKS
OF INTEREST
Southern Illinois University Press 2017
A work of solid history, entertainingly told.
Michael Burlingame,
author of Abraham
Lincoln: A Life
One of the ten best books on Illinois history I have read in a decade.
Superior Achievement Award citation, ISHS Awards, 2018
A lively and engaging study . . . an enthralling narrative.
James Edstrom
The Annals of Iowa
A book that merits the attention of all Illinois historians
as well as local historians generally.
John Hoffman
Journal of Illinois HIstory
A model for the kind of detailed and honest history other states and regions could use.
Harold Henderson
Midwestern Microhistory
A fine example of a resurgence of Midwest historical scholarship.
Greg Hall
Journal of the Illinois
State Historical Society
Click here
to buy the book
Southern Illinois University Press
SIU Press is one of the four major university publishing houses in Illinois. Its catalog offers much of local interest, including biographies of Illinois political figures, the history (human and natural) and folklore of southern Illinois, the Civil War and Lincoln, and quality reprints in the Shawnee Classics series.
The U of I Press was founded in 1918. A search of the online catalog (Books/Browse by subject/Illinois) will reveal more than 150 Illinois titles, books on history mostly but also butteflies, nature , painting, poetry and fiction, and more. Of particular note are its Prairie State Books, quality new paperback editions of worthy titles about all parts of Illinois, augmented with scholarly introductions.
The U of C publishing operation is the oldest (1891) and largest university press in Illinois. Its reach is international, but it has not neglected its own neighborhood. Any good Illinois library will include dozens of titles about Chicago and Illinois from Fort Dearborn to
Vivian Maier.
Northern Illinois University Press
The newest (1965) and the smallest of the university presses with an interest in Illinois, Northern Illinois University Press gave us important titles such as the standard one-volume history of the state (Biles' Illinois:
A History of the Land and Its People) and contributions to the history of Chicago, Illinois transportation, and the Civil War. Now an imprint of Cornell University Press.
Reviews and significant mentions by James Krohe Jr. of more than 50 Illinois books, arranged in alphabetical order
by book title.
Run by the Illinois State Library, The Center promotes reading, writing and author programs meant to honor the state's rich literary heritage. An affiliate of the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book, the site offers award competitions, a directory of Illinois authors, literary landmarks, and reading programs.
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