Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves

Odds & ends

Illinois past and present, as seen by James Krohe Jr.

The Corn Latitudes

Springfield politics & government

Springfield had had a reputation as a political town since it was named Illinois capital in 1835, but in fact it was a political town before then. In fact, Springfield won the capital because its civic stalwarts—men ambitious for themselves and thus for their town—were adept at the political arts as then practiced.

In other Downstate cities, politics is the means by which good governments are achieved; in Springfield, government is the means by which good political organizations are achieved. The capture of city hall by successive professionals pols occasionally offended local opinion, but never enough that a majority demanded a change.

While I never covered city hall as such, I wrote about Springfield politics often; in fact one of my very first published pieces was on that topic. The articles listed below are only a selection.

Running the City Machine

The failed hopes of commission reform

“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 16, 1977

The Best Show in Town

Nelson Howarth, Springfield citizen and mayor

Focus March 27, 1971

A Springfield mayor, upon his death

"Prejudices" Illinois Times October 24, 1991

Social class and public office in Springfield

"Prejudices" Illinois Times October 1, 1987

When "justice" means a fairer distribution of spoils

“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 29, 1987

Making race the basis of citizenship

“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 30, 1987

Springfield confronts its inner xenophobe

“Prejudices” Illinois Times November 11, 1977

Bad Government Is a Cultural Defect

The sociology of the Illinois Way

"Forum" Illinois Times April 1, 1976

Springfieldians propose being herded by cats

“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 6, 1978

The Public Enterprise System

Of the developers, by the developers,

and for the developers

“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 11, 1980

A Problem of Scale

The interests of City and city often are at odds

“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 25, 1977

Nine Out of Ten

The Catholic ascendancy in capital city politics

“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 23, 1979

Form Over Function

Springfield’s “new” aldermanic government turns 30

“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times January 26, 2017

Idealistic Thoughts

Remembering Springfield’s “greatest citizen after Lincoln”

“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times December 29, 2016

Daring to Imagine the Future
Mayor Davlin seeks advice on infrastructure
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August 26, 2010

Business as Usual

Sangamon County tries to re-invent the wheel

“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times November 9, 2017

Click on the title for the full article.

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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.

Lee Sandlin Author

One of Illinois’s best, and least-known, writers of his generation. Take note in particular of The Distancers and Road to Nowhere.

Chicago Architecture Center

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 Encyclopedia of Chicago

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.

Illinois Great Places

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.

McLean County Museum

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."

Illinois Digital Archives

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 Illinois State Museum

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

“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.

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 read about

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 important 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.

WixAmericanYears

WixTheIllinoisCover

WixFordHistory

1/19

Reviews and significant mentions by James Krohe Jr. of more than 50 Illinois books, arranged in alphabetical order

by book title.

Click here

to buy the book