The Negro in Illinois


Book Description

A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration programs. The Federal Writers' Project helped to sustain "New Negro" artists during the 1930s and gave them a newfound social consciousness that is reflected in their writing. Headed by Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps and white proletarian writer Jack Conroy, The Negro in Illinois employed major black writers living in Chicago during the 1930s, including Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, Fenton Johnson, Frank Yerby, and Richard Durham. The authors chronicled the African American experience in Illinois from the beginnings of slavery to Lincoln's emancipation and the Great Migration, with individual chapters discussing various aspects of public and domestic life, recreation, politics, religion, literature, and performing arts. After the project was canceled in 1942, most of the writings went unpublished for more than half a century--until now. Working closely with archivist Michael Flug to select and organize the book, editor Brian Dolinar compiled The Negro in Illinois from papers at the Vivian G. Harsh Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at the Carter G. Woodson Library in Chicago. Dolinar provides an informative introduction and epilogue which explain the origins of the project and place it in the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. Making available an invaluable perspective on African American life, this volume represents a publication of immense historical and literary importance.




Illinois Census Returns, 1810 and 1818


Book Description

The 1810 census of the Illinois Territory does not exist in its entirety, but what has survived is given here in full. It lists 1,310 heads of families, and, by age groups, the number of free white males and females in each household as well as the number of other free inhabitants and slaves owned. The total represented is over 7,000 persons. The 1818 census, which is arranged by counties, makes up the bulk of this work. It lists over 4,000 heads of families and, for each household, shows the number of free white males over twenty-one, all other white inhabitants, free persons of color, and servants or slaves. This represents an estimated 20,000 persons. In addition, there are notations indicating which heads of households can be found in the federal and state censuses of Illinois for 1820.




The American Census Handbook


Book Description

Offers a guide to census indexes, including federal, state, county, and town records, available in print and online; arranged by year, geographically, and by topic.







Traces in the Dust


Book Description

(From the Preface) Traces in the Dust focuses upon the African American families and residents of Carbondale since the founding of the Carbondale Township (1852). It is meant to provide a glimpse of the growth, progress, and development of the Black American community in the city through the exploration of recorded data and oral history.




Dear Brother


Book Description

This collection of William Clark's letters to his brother Jonathan - many published for the first time - reveals important new details about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis's mysterious death, the status of Clark's slave, York, and life in Jeffersonian America.




Illinois Libraries


Book Description

Includes proceedings of the Illinois Library Association.




History as They Lived It


Book Description

“History as They Lived It deserves to be placed within the rich context of Illinois Country historiography going back more than a century. . . . It brings together the fully ripened thoughts of a mature scholar at the very moment that students of the Illinois Country need such a book.”—from the foreword by Carl J. Ekberg Settled in 1722, Prairie du Rocher was at the geographic center of a French colony in the Mississippi Valley, which also included other villages in what is now Illinois and Missouri: Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Fort de Chartres, St. Philippe, Ste. Genevieve, and St. Louis. Located in an alluvial valley near towering limestone bluffs, which inspired the village’s name—French for “prairie of the rock”— Prairie du Rocher is the only one of the seven French colonial villages that still exists today as a small compact community. The village of Prairie du Rocher endured governance by France, Great Britain, Virginia, and the Illinois territory before Illinois became a state in 1818. Despite these changes, the villagers persisted in maintaining the community and its values. Margaret Kimball Brown looks at one of the oldest towns in the region through the lenses of history and anthropology, utilizing extensive research in archives and public records to give historians, anthropologists, and general readers a lively depiction of this small community and its people.




Avenues of Transformation


Book Description

Avenues of Transformation tells the tale of Illinois's admission to the Union in 1818--the campaign for statehood, the passage by Congress of an act enabling statehood, and the state's first constitutional convention--through the leadership of three early leaders: Daniel Pope Cook, Nathaniel Pope, and Elias Kent Kane.