Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves
Odds & ends
Illinois past and present, as seen by James Krohe Jr.
The Corn Latitudes
Springfield arts & culture
It is no accident that many of my reflections on the arts and culture of Springfield were about people—Vachel Lindsay and Susan Lawrence Dana, to name two—that the old town once regarded as half loony. The city still produces such people, of course, but they seldom show up here. (For example, I see that in more than a thousand commentaries I somehow failed to note the career of noted Springfield sculptor Michael Dunbar.)
Nor was I ever generous enough to the people who worked very hard to enrich life in what is otherwise a provincial, get-ahead kind of place that remains venal and unimaginative. My belated apologies to them, and to my readers.
Click on the title for the full article.
To leave an article and return to this page, click on your browser's back button or click on "Arts & culture" under "Springfield" on the topics menu.
Mark Harris on Springfield poet Vachel Lindsay
Reader June 25, 1993
About the furnishings of Springfield's Dana-Thomas House
Chicago Times March/April 1990
Public statuary on the Illinois statehouse grounds
"Prejudices" Illinois Times ca 1991
Springfield's house poet Vachel Lindsay
“Prejudices," Illinois Times February 13, 1981
Robert Fitzgerald, translator, teacher, Springfieldian
“Prejudices” Illinois Times June 23, 1994
Shadid's Book Mart
For a fine account of the Book Mart and the Shadids, visit "Shadid's Book Mart" at the Sangamon County Historical Society's web encyclopedia.
The story of an essential Springfield institution
Illinois Times January 21, 1977
Making Springfield a Better Place
Readers recall Shadid’s Book Mart
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times May 27, 2010
Attending Springfield's "University of Shadid" in the ‘60s
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times June 2, 2010
Woodrow J. Shadid, Jr.
A bookseller who outdid expectations
Illinois Times December 27, 2018
Springfield’s provincialism in a connected age
“Prejudices” Illinois Times October 14, 1982
The Band in the Park on a Summer Night
Springfield’s Municipal Band plays on
Illinois Times August 11, 1978
Two Springfield English teachers raise a flock
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 8, 1978
A loss to the arts—but oh, the banking convenience!
“Prejudices” Illinois Times December 16, 1977
Which Springfield writers deserve commemoration?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 16, 2010
Barnes & Noble is poorly. What mean for Springfield?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 27, 2011
Novelist Evelyn Waugh lectures the capital in 1949
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times April 26, 2012
What are the statues on the capitol lawn for?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 23, 2014
Contemplating antique glass paperweights
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times April 2, 2015
A rock star guitarist in Springfield? Really?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times February 25, 2016
Vachel Lindsay and Springfield, Illinois, U.S.A.
A first try at understanding Harris understanding Lindsay
“Prejudices” Illinois Times October 5, 1979
Springfield gets a very Springfield arts hall
“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 2, 1984
Local arts critics show courage under fire
“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 10, 1981
Springfield society celebrates itself
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 21, 1979
New York, New York
Gotham has always drawn Springfieldians to the bright lights
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times September 18, 2014
No Business Like Show Business
Springfield arts critics get panned—again
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 28, 1978
All Is Not Well Forever
Robert Fitzgerald’s youth in Springfield
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 19, 2009
Stirring Up the Arts at the PAC
Looking for an arts audience in Springfield
Illinois Times February 2, 1984
Springfield tries to have fun. It wasn’t pretty
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 10, 1981
The “lost” lintel from the old Lincoln Library
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times November 24, 2010
Click on the title for the full article.
To leave an article and return to this page, click on your browser's back button or click on "Arts & culture" under "Springfield" on the topics menu.
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.