Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves
Odds & ends
Illinois past and present, as seen by James Krohe Jr.
The Corn Latitudes
Springfield boy
To earn his readers’ indulgence, a writer must take care that articles about himself be of exceptional literary quality or recount exceptional experiences, preferably experiences that impart wisdom that can be shared or—better, in my opinion—anecdotes that can be appropriated as one’s own.
These sort-of reminiscences about my life in Springfield satisfy none of those criteria. Those expecting confessionals also will be disappointed; my personal column-writing maxim was to never write about anything I did not find interesting, and never, ever write about anything that really means something to me.
Piling them all up for the first time I was surprised at how many times I resorted to my Springfield youth as a topic—four dozen. Trust me, it was that interesting. But while there were always more important things for me to write about as column deadline drew nigh, I wasn't always ready to write about important things. I post them without shame because 1) they less than one half of one percent of my column out put and 2) my youth in Springfield, while anything but unusual, recommends itself as a subject because anyone who grew up in the 1950s in that town or any town like it will find things about my experience of the place that recall theirs.
See also The author for more about my working life.
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A trek across a cornfield and hundreds of years "Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 13, 2014
Life with Illinois governors around the corner
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 11, 1980
The Krohes play Johnny Appleseed and get it wrong
"Dyspepsiana," Illinois Times, July 24, 2014
I try to be sophisticated. In Atlantic City.
"Prejudices" Illinois Times November 10, 1983
Gardening lifts up the author, then lets him down
“Prejudices” Illinois Times August 25, 1983
The author ponders the problem of home
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 23, 1987
A Memorable and Happy Occasion
I pass up a chance to be 17 again
“Prejudices” Illinois Times May 23, 1991
A Springfield alderman slanders us eastside boys
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 7, 1988
I look back at public school and see myself
“Prejudices” Illinois Times March 5, 1987
Memories of a grand Springfield hotel
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times December 3, 2015
Making a small world bigger and the big one smaller
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times July 30, 2015
Leaving home does not always mean losing it
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times March 20, 2014
Comic Timing
As a drummer, I prove to be a very good writer
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 19, 2013
My Life as a Guide at the Lincoln Law Offices
I become part barker, part sheep dog, and part player piano
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times November 5, 2009
Unicorns on the Sangamon
The scarcity of Harvard grads in Springfield
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 23, 2009
Age-inappropriate Literature
The rewards of reading books before you are ready
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times January 14, 2010
Looking back on high school sports rivalries
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times March 31, 2011
Beware of Your Schools
The best education equips a child to resist schooling.
Reader April 24, 1987
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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.
