The epic struggle between traditional, agrarian society and modern industrial capitalism was played out on the national stage as the War between the States. The same struggle between traditional and modern values split Illinois between "Egypt"--the southern region populated by yeoman farmers who came to Illinois from Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, and other southern states--and the Yankee-dominated, urban north. Richard J. Jensen treats Illinois as a microcosm of the nation, arguing that its history exhibits basic conflicts that had much to do with shaping American society in general. Northern reformers in Illinois were intent on remaking the state in their image: middle-class, egalitarian, urban, and progressive. These values clashed with the patriarchal supremacy and intense loyalty to kin and ken by which the people of southern Illinois, and the South, organized their lives. When the Civil War broke out, sympathy for the Confederacy ran high in southern Illinois. Although the region officially supported the Union, guerrilla bands terrorized Unionists, and in Charleston a full-scale riot against Federal troops erupted in 1864. The Union victory decisively shifted both the nation and Illinois toward faster modernization. Violence became more bureaucratized, and localism eroded with the onslaught of chain franchises, consolidated schools, and homogenized suburbs. Jensen extends his discussion to the emergence of newer, postmodern conflicts that continue to occupy the people of Illinois. Without neglecting the high-profile individuals and events that put the Prairie State on the map, Jensen offers an innovative, wide-angle view that expands our perspective on Illinois history.

While devoting attention to the touchstones of history, Illinois illuminates also the achievements of ordinary people, including the women, the African Americans, and the other minorities who - along with the politicians, the captains of industry, and the military heroes - contributed to the state's growth and prosperity. National events shaped the state as well, and Biles explores the impact of such crises as the Civil War and World War II on the people of Illinois.

A young person's guide to the story of the State of Illinois from its birth to the present day.

Christiana and John Tillson moved from Massachusetts to central Illinois in 1822. Upon arriving in Montgomery County near what would soon be Hillsboro, they set up a general store and real estate business and began to raise a family. A half century later, in 1870, Christiana Tillson wrote about her early days in Illinois in a memoir published by R. R. Donnelley in 1919. The Tillsons lived quite ordinary lives in extraordinary times, notes Kay J. Carr, introducing this edition. They moved west and prospered in the land business at a time when America was being transformed from a rural, agricultural country into an urban, industrial nation. Their views and sensibilities, Carr says, might seem strange to us, but they were entirely normal to people in the early nineteenth century. Thus Tillson's memoir provides fascinating but believable snapshots of ordinary nineteenth-century American life.

New Philadelphia chronicles the history of a town founded in 1836 in Central Illinois by a freed slave. The book covers the history of the town, the inhabitants, their descendants, and the archeological digs.

Winner, ISHS Annual Award for a Scholarly Publication, 2018 In Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves, James Krohe Jr. presents an engaging history of an often overlooked region, filled with fascinating stories and surprising facts about Illinois’s midsection. Krohe describes in lively prose the history of mid-Illinois from the Woodland period of prehistory until roughly 1960, covering the settlement of the region by peoples of disparate races and religions; the exploitation by Euro-Americans of forest, fish, and waterfowl; the transformation of farming into a high-tech industry; and the founding and deaths of towns. The economic, cultural, and racial factors that led to antagonism and accommodation between various people of different backgrounds are explored, as are the roles of education and religion in this part of the state. The book examines remarkable utopian experiments, social and moral reform movements, and innovations in transportation and food processing. It also offers fresh accounts of labor union warfare and social violence directed against Native Americans, immigrants, and African Americans and profiles three generations of political and government leaders, sometimes extraordinary and sometimes corrupt (the “one-horse thieves” of the title). A concluding chapter examines history’s roles as product, recreation, and civic bond in today’s mid-Illinois. Accessible and entertaining yet well-researched and informative, Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves draws on a wide range of sources to explore a surprisingly diverse section of Illinois whose history is America in microcosm.

You can find the answers to these questions and more in All Around Illinois: Regions and Resources. This book contains many fascinating facts and figures about the diverse regions of Illinois, as well as each of their natural and artificial resources. You will also learn how these valuable resources directly affect the state's economy. Book jacket.