Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves
Odds & ends
Illinois past and present, as seen by James Krohe Jr.
The Corn Latitudes
Springfield politics & government
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. Springfield became widely known as a political town when 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 professional pols of both parties occasionally offended respectable local opinion, but never so much that a majority of citizens demanded a change.
The articles listed below are only a selection. The rest are about issues that no longer are of consequence and people whose names are not longer familiar.
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Municipal government reform
In the middle 1970s, Springfieldians unhappy with the city’s commission form of government undertook twice to change it. The dissidents acted through different organizations and they had different gripes about the status quo, but all under-estimated how attached their townspeople were to the status quo simply because it was the status quo. The dispute was familiar in its essence, pitting as it did cosmopolitan good-government types against the courthouse culture of Springfield.
Springfield did get a new form of local government, by the way, in 1987, but that was a result of a settlement of a civil rights lawsuit that found the at-large voting system used under the commission form to be inherently discriminatory. While the new council was more representative, it would achieve none of the other improvements the reformers hoped for in the 1970s, mainly because the reformers were not running it.
The failed hopes of commission reform
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 16, 1977
Springfieldians propose being herded by cats
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 6, 1978
Change of Government in Perspective
Government without politics in Springfield?
Illinois Times March 17, 1978
When "justice" means a fairer distribution of spoils
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 29, 1987
Springfield’s “new” aldermanic government turns 30
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times January 26, 2017
Should Springfield Change Its Form of Government?
Is democracy the cure for democracy’s ills?
Illinois Times October 7, 1977
Of the developers, by the developers,
and for the developers
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 11, 1980
Bad Government Is a Cultural Defect
The sociology of the Illinois Way
"Forum" Illinois Times April 1, 1976
The interests of City and city often are at odds
“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 25, 1977
The Catholic ascendancy in capital city politics
“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 23, 1979
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
Conflicts and Conundrums
To disclose or not to disclose, that is the question
“Prejudices” Illinois Times February 16, 1979
Bill Cellini, Springfield’s politics pro
"Prejudices" Illinois Times July 17, 1981
Sangamon County tries to re-invent the wheel
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times November 9, 2017
Smart Jewish kid runs in, not from, corn country
Illinois Times July 17, 1977
The real criterion for Springfield public office
“Prejudices” Illinois Times October 1, 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.
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