| I | INTRODUCTION |
Illinois, state in the north central United States, in
the heart of the Midwest. Illinois was little more than a vast wilderness 200
years ago. Since entering the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, the
economy of Illinois has expanded until today Illinois is one of the most
productive agricultural and industrial states in the Union, and its economic
influence now extends far beyond the Midwest.
Flanked by the Mississippi River on the west
and by a short stretch of Lake Michigan on the northeast, the state is largely
an area of flat or gently rolling plains that were once covered by tall
luxuriant prairie grasses. The grasslands have long since been cleared for
raising crops, but the state still retains its nickname, the Prairie State. Much
of the land is tidily laid out in the checkerboard pattern so typical of the
Midwest. Large prosperous farms specialize in raising grain and livestock on the
rich prairie soils. Tall grain elevators, church spires, and an occasional grove
of trees are the most conspicuous landmarks; and machine sheds, fields of corn
and soybeans, and hogs in feedlots are the most common sights across the
farmlands.
Rural Illinois does not lack physical and
agricultural diversity. It has hill lands and a national forest in the south,
cotton fields on the fertile alluvial lands in the extreme south, scenic bluffs
along the Mississippi, and hillside dairy farms in the northwest.
In addition, rural Illinois is far from being
isolated from urban Illinois. The state is covered by a dense network of
railroads, highways, waterways, and air routes, most of which converge on the
great metropolis of Chicago. The third largest city in the United States,
Chicago dominates the industrial, financial, and social life of the state. In
some ways, Chicago stands apart from the rest of the state. To many Chicagoans,
Illinois consists of two sections: Chicago and “downstate.” Other Illinois
cities, such as Peoria, Rockford, and Decatur, tend to be overshadowed by
Chicago. Nevertheless, these smaller communities manage to retain their
distinctive characteristics. Perhaps the most famous is the state capital,
Springfield, which President Abraham Lincoln often referred to as his home. The
national fame of Springfield, New Salem, and other places in Illinois that are
associated with Lincoln are reflected in the official state slogan, Land of
Lincoln.
The state is named for the Illinois, or
Illini, a confederation of Native Americans of various tribes who inhabited
Illinois and other sections of the Midwest at the time the first French
explorers entered the region. The name Illinois is said to have been a
French version of the Illini word for themselves, “Illiniwek.”
| II | PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY |
Illinois ranks 25th in size among the states
of the Union, with an area of 149,997 sq km (57,914 sq mi). That includes 1,958
sq km (756 sq mi) of inland water and 4,079 sq km (1,575 sq mi) of Lake Michigan
over which the state has jurisdiction. The greatest north-to-south dimension of
the state is 610 km (379 mi), and the greatest east-to-west distance is 343 km
(213 mi). The mean elevation is about 180 m (600 ft).
| A | Natural Regions |
Illinois includes parts of four major
natural regions, or physiographic provinces, of the United States: the Central
Lowland, the Interior Low Plateaus, the Ozark Plateaus, and the Gulf Coastal
Plain. The extensive flatlands of the Central Lowland occupy nearly all of
Illinois, whereas the other three regions cover only small areas of the state.
The Interior Low Plateaus and the Ozark Plateaus form a strip of hilly land
across the southern part of the state. The flat alluvial lands of the Gulf
Coastal Plain cover a small section of extreme southern Illinois.
The Central Lowland and the Interior Low
Plateaus are subdivisions of a broader region known as the Interior Plains. The
Ozark Plateaus form a section of the larger Interior Highlands region, and the
Gulf Coastal Plain is part of the Coastal Plain.
The Central Lowland covers all but a
small area of Illinois. Most of the Central Lowland is a level or slightly
undulating plain, crossed here and there by broad, low ridges. The flatness of
the land is a result of glacial action that occurred during the last Ice Age,
which ended about 10,000 years ago, when great ice sheets advanced and retreated
across the region. After the ice eventually retreated northeastward, the old
preglacial landscape was left buried under a thick cover of glacial deposits,
called drift, or glacial drift. Much of the drift is made up of clay and
boulders, which together are called till, and form moraines. The so-called Till
Plains form the typical flat farmlands of Illinois. The fertile Till Plains area
of east central Illinois is known as the Grand Prairie. The low ridges found in
some areas are terminal moraines that were piled up during the periods of
glaciation by stagnant ice sheets.
In some areas, especially in the Grand
Prairie and in south central Illinois, the land is so flat that the taller
buildings of cities on the plain can be seen for great distances across country.
Partly because of the flatness, rainwater does not readily drain away, and
before ditches and drains were dug, much of the land was swampy for at least
part of the year. There are still large tracts of such wetland along the Wabash,
Kaskaskia, and Big Muddy rivers today. Farther west, between the Illinois and
Mississippi rivers, lie the Quincy hills, which are broken by deeply cut stream
valleys. The extreme northwest is also an area of hills. Together with
neighboring sections of Wisconsin and Iowa it forms the Driftless section, or
Wisconsin Driftless section. Only the earliest of the ice sheets covered this
section, and nearly all of the drift deposited has long since been eroded.
Charles Mound, which is 376 m (1,235 ft) above sea level and the highest point
in Illinois, lies on a long hilly ridge in the Driftless section. However, this
is only 180 to 210 m (600 to 700 ft) above the general level of the Grand
Prairie and much of the rest of the state.
The Interior Low Plateaus portion of
southern Illinois was not covered by the ice sheets, and its high ridges and
bluffs afford magnificent panoramic views across the lowlands. Much of the
region is now part of Shawnee National Forest.
The Ozark Plateaus cover a small section
of southwestern Illinois. Much of the land is forested and is too rugged and
rocky for farming. Limestone, which is soluble in water, underlies much of the
region, and small depressions, known as sinkholes, are found where the limestone
has been dissolved.
The Gulf Coastal Plain, at the southern
tip of Illinois, is an extremely flat area where the land has been built of
alluvial deposits from the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Much of the region is
cultivated and is very productive. Because of the fertile soils and the great
river there, early settlers in this section of Illinois gave the region the
nickname Little Egypt.
| B | Rivers and Lakes |
Except for a few short streams flowing
into Lake Michigan, nearly all the streams and rivers of Illinois drain westward
or southward to the Mississippi River or to the Ohio River, which joins the
Mississippi near Cairo in the extreme south. The Mississippi forms the western
boundary of the state. Its tributaries in Illinois include the Illinois, Rock,
Kaskaskia, and Big Muddy rivers. The Ohio River’s chief tributary in Illinois is
the Wabash River. The Embarras and Little Wabash rivers are tributaries of the
Wabash.
The largest river entirely within the
state is the Illinois River, which is formed by the junction of the Kankakee and
Des Plaines rivers. It flows for 680 km (420 mi) across the state before joining
the Mississippi River at Grafton. The Illinois has been deepened and
straightened and forms part of the Illinois Waterway.
The watershed between rivers that flow
into the Mississippi river system and rivers that flow into the Great Lakes is
low and in many places is not easily discernible. In what is now the Chicago
area, explorers had little difficulty portaging, or carrying, their canoes over
the low watershed between the Des Plaines River, which flows into the Illinois,
and the Chicago River, which then flowed into Lake Michigan. In 1900 the Chicago
River’s flow was reversed to make it carry and dilute the city’s sewage and
industrial wastes into the Illinois River, instead of into Lake Michigan, the
source of the city’s drinking water.
Except for Lake Michigan, which borders
the state on the northeast, there are no large natural lakes in Illinois. Small
natural lakes, all in the northern part of the state, include Clear, Crane, Fox,
Goose, Grass, Peoria, Pistakee, and Ringwood lakes. The largest artificially
created bodies of water within Illinois include Rend Lake, which is held back by
a dam on the Big Muddy River, and Carlyle Lake, on the Kaskaskia River near
Carlyle.
| C | Climate |
The climate of Illinois is characterized
by warm to hot summers and cool to cold winters. In winter polar air masses move
south or southeast across the state from Canada, bringing cold and crisp
weather. In summer warm air masses move up from the Gulf of Mexico, and the
weather is often hot and muggy. Lake Michigan tempers the summer heat somewhat
for Chicago and other cities along its shores and also delays the date of the
first fall frosts nearby.
| C1 | Temperatures |
Average July temperatures increase from
about 24°C (about 75° F) in northeastern Illinois to more than 26° C (79° F) in
the south, which is the hottest part of the state. During July, daytime highs
average 29° C (84° F) at Chicago and about 32° C (about 90° F) at East Saint
Louis, where a temperature of 47° C (117° F) has been recorded. Summer nights
are usually warm throughout the state, ranging from about 19° C (about 66° F) in
the north to about 21° C (about 69° F) in the south.
January averages range from less than
-4° C (24° F) in the northwest to more than 1° C (34° F) in the south. Chicago
has January low temperatures averaging -11° C (13° F) and highs -2° C (29° F).
In the north freezing temperatures occur 140 to 145 days a year.
| C2 | Precipitation |
Precipitation (rainfall and snowfall)
generally increases from north to south. Average precipitation for the state as
a whole is about 940 mm (about 37 in) a year. The south is the wettest part of
the state, with about 1,220 mm (about 48 in) of precipitation a year in places.
The driest sections are in the north, where a few places average about 810 mm
(about 32 in). Most precipitation falls in the form of rain, especially
thundershowers, in late spring and summer, when it is most needed for crops.
Damaging hailstorms sometimes occur in summer, and violent windstorms
occasionally sweep across the state during the early spring months. Tornadoes
may occur in any time of the year. Snowfall is often heavy in the north but is
usually light in the south.
| C3 | Growing Season |
The growing season, or period between
the last killing frost in the spring and the first killing frost in the fall,
increases from less than 155 days in extreme northern Illinois to more than 205
days in the extreme south. Over much of the state the growing season is 190
days. The last killing spring frost occurs in early April in the far south and a
month later in the north. The first fall frosts usually occur in early October
in the north and in late October in the south.
| D | Soils |
Black prairie soils cover the northern
sections of the formerly glaciated sections of Illinois. The deep, fertile
prairie soils, enriched over thousands of years by humus derived from grasses
and other organic matter that once covered them, are today among the most
productive soils in the world. However, many miles of underground drains and
open ditches must be maintained in the flatter sections in order to drain the
land. Farther south, lighter-colored and less fertile soils, called planosols,
predominate. They are characterized by a hardpan, or impervious layer, just
below the surface, which prevents proper drainage of the cropland. The yield per
acre of crops grown on the planosols is generally lower than on the prairie
soils. Gray-brown alfisols cover the hilly areas in the western sections of the
state. In most cases they are highly acidic and unsuited for crops. The hilly
and unglaciated southern tip of Illinois is covered with thin, gray alfisols,
which are lacking in the organic matter and mineral elements necessary for
producing good crops. Fertile mollisols are found along the valleys of the Ohio,
Mississippi, and Illinois rivers. Fine silts, which are extremely productive
when properly drained, occur along the margin of Lake Michigan.
| E | Plant Life |
Little more than 200 years ago, when
nearly all of Illinois was still unsettled, forests covered the southern third
of the area and tall grasses and prairie flowers covered most of the northern
and central sections. These great stretches of prairie included prairie
cordgrass, big bluestem, little bluestem, and switch grass. In many damp areas
the grasses grew profusely, sometimes higher than a person on horseback. In
early summer wildflowers on the prairie formed a sea of color that stretched
away into the distance farther than the eye could see. These great grassland
areas were broken only by tongues of woodland along the rivers and scattered
upland groves.
Today most of the original vegetation of
Illinois has been cleared for farming or otherwise modified by human activity.
However, the term prairie, originally a French word meaning “meadow,” has
been retained to describe the former grassland regions of Illinois and other
Midwestern states. Forests and woodlands now cover only 12 percent of Illinois.
The chief deciduous trees found in the southern part of the state include white
oak, which is the state tree, shingle oak, post oak, sweet gum, river birch, and
maple. Other trees common to Illinois include black walnut, honey locust, black
cherry, basswood, cottonwood, Kentucky coffee, hackberry, hickory, ash, and
sycamore. Illinois has few conifers, but there is a notable stand of white pine
in White Pines Forest State Park, near Rockford. Other coniferous species, found
mostly in northern Illinois, include red cedar and juniper.
The violet, which is the state flower of
Illinois, grows wild throughout the state. Other wildflowers that still grow in
profusion in undisturbed woodlands and roadside areas include
Dutchman’s-breeches, blue phlox, black-eyed Susans, goldenrods, dogtooth
violets, bluebells, trilliums, buttercups, bloodroots, prairie docks,
toothworts, blazing stars, and asters.
| F | Animal Life |
Bison, elk, black bear, and gray wolves
once inhabited Illinois but had largely disappeared by the beginning of the 19th
century. Furbearing animals such as muskrat, mink, and weasel have declined in
number but are still common. A variety of small animals, including squirrel,
woodchuck (groundhog), raccoon, opossum, and skunk, are still thriving.
White-tailed deer, once extinct in Illinois, have through human intervention and
migration from adjacent states returned in considerable number. Although never
extinct, the beaver and coyote also declined in number but have since rebounded
to become fairly common.
Illinois lies in the Mississippi Flyway, a
route followed by millions of birds during spring and fall migrations. Species
of waterfowl commonly seen in the state during the migrations include the Canada
goose, common merganser, pintail, lesser scaup, shoveler, blue-wing teal,
green-wing teal, ruddy duck, and mallard. Some migrant waterfowl, such as the
mallard, breed and nest in Illinois if conditions permit. Upland game birds
include the ring-necked pheasant, woodcock, northern bobwhite, and wild turkey.
Among other birds found in the state are the meadowlark, robin, flicker, herring
gull, American crow, blue jay, white-breasted nuthatch, starling, ruby-throated
hummingbird, and cardinal (the state bird). There are also several species of
warblers, sparrows, hawks, owls, thrushes, woodpeckers, wrens, flycatchers, and
swallows. American bald eagles winter on the bluffs along the Mississippi River
near Nauvoo.
Among the most abundant fish in Illinois
waters are carp and catfish. Other fish include largemouth and smallmouth
(black) bass, freshwater drum, bowfin, gizzard shad, suckers, gars, and sunfish.
Pollution and siltation of the state’s streams and lakes in the 20th century
have negatively affected the fish.
| G | Conservation |
The principal agencies responsible for
protecting Illinois’ forests, soils, water, and fisheries are the Natural
Resources Conservation Service, the United States Forest Service, and the
Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Soil erosion, poor drainage, and
floods are major, and sometimes inter-related, problems in southern Illinois.
Reforestation and other conservation techniques are practiced in both western
and southern Illinois, where land too steep for farming was cleared in early
times and is now seriously eroded. Much of the topsoil there has been lost
through erosion, and only the underlying and impervious clay pan remains. In wet
weather, rain cannot sink into the ground because of the clay pan and it runs
off the surface in sheets, thus contributing to further erosion and to floods
along the state’s major rivers. Many dams and flood-control projects have been
built in the state. Fish and game resources, greatly depleted because of water
pollution and destruction of the natural habitat, are being increased by the
Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Two state agencies have responsibilities
for air, land, and water quality. The Pollution Control Board institutes
policies and regulations, hears pollution cases, and sets penalties. The
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency administers the emissions permit
system, prosecutes pollution cases before the Pollution Control Board, and
investigates environmental problems such as unlawful dumping.
In 2006 the state had 41 hazardous waste
sites on a national priority list for cleanup due to their severity or proximity
to people. Progress was being made in efforts to reduce pollution; in the period
1995–2000 the amount of toxic chemicals discharged into the environment was
reduced by 14 percent.
| III | ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES |
During the 18th century the Illinois
country was primarily a pioneer land where fur trapping was carried on, where
some lead was mined in the Galena area, and where farming was generally limited
to the fertile bottomlands along the Mississippi and Wabash rivers. With the
influx of settlers in the first half of the 19th century, much of the rest of
Illinois, including the prairie lands of central Illinois, came under
cultivation. Economic activities in the state were centered on farming and on
the manufacture of tools and farm and household equipment for the pioneer
farmers. Railroad construction in the 1850s and demands for food and materials
during the American Civil War (1861-1865) spurred the development of the young
state’s economy. During the second half of the 19th century, agriculture became
highly mechanized, and industry expanded rapidly, especially in the Chicago
area. By the beginning of the 20th century, Illinois had emerged as a leading
agricultural and industrial state. In the following decades, commerce, finance,
insurance, and other areas of economic activity became increasingly important in
Illinois.
Services, manufacturing, and finance are
the leading economic activities in Illinois, each contributing 15 times as much
to the total income generated in the state as does agriculture. Nevertheless,
agriculture is still a major economic activity, and Illinois usually ranks as
one of the five most productive farming states in the nation. Illinois had a
work force of 6,613,000 people in 2006. Of those the largest share, 36 percent,
were employed in the diverse service industry, doing such jobs as data
processing or working in restaurants. Another 19 percent worked in wholesale or
retail trade; 11 percent in manufacturing; 14 percent in federal, state, or
local government, including those in the military; 21 percent in finance,
insurance, or real estate; 20 percent in transportation or public utilities; 5
percent in construction; 2 percent in farming (including agricultural services),
forestry, or fishing; and just 0.2 percent in mining. In 2005, 17 percent of
Illinois’ workers were unionized.
| A | Agriculture |
In 2005 there were 72,500 farms in
Illinois, 64 percent of which had annual sales of more than $10,000. Farmland
occupied 11 million hectares (27.3 million acres), of which 89 percent was
cropland. The rest was mostly pastureland. The sale of crops accounts for 80
percent of the total income from the sale of farm products. Livestock and
livestock products account for the remainder.
| A1 | Crops |
The two leading crops raised in the
state, in terms of quantity and value, are corn and soybeans. In 1997 Illinois
ranked as the second leading state in the production of both corn and soybeans,
behind only Iowa. Corn is grown throughout the state and occupies two-fifths of
all cropland. Land planted in soybeans accounts for another two-fifths, but
soybeans generated 20 percent less income for farmers than corn in 1997. Wheat,
greenhouse and nursery products, and a variety of vegetables are also
raised.
| A2 | Livestock |
Illinois ranks fourth in raising hogs,
behind Iowa, North Carolina, and Minnesota. A large number of beef and dairy
cattle are also raised in Illinois. Most of the hogs are born and raised in the
state, but many of the cattle are shipped to Illinois for fattening from ranches
in Western states. Illinois also produces significant quantities of milk and
cream and of eggs, mostly for the state’s large urban markets.
| A3 | Patterns of Farming |
The most prosperous farms are located
in northern and central Illinois. The northern two-thirds of the state lies in
the Corn Belt. Typical Corn Belt farming, with its emphasis on fattening cattle
and hogs on corn and other crops, is most highly developed in the rolling lands
of west central Illinois. Farmers of the flatter lands of the Grand Prairie, in
east central Illinois, concentrate more on the large-scale production for sales
of field crops, especially corn and soybeans. Farms on the prairie are usually
larger than the average for the state. In northwestern Illinois, where the hilly
land is more suited to cattle grazing than to crop growing, dairying is a major
source of income, with an emphasis on the production of butter, cheese, and
condensed milk.
Farm yields are generally lower in the
southern part of the state, especially in the hill country of the Ozark and
Interior Low plateaus, where poor soils and severe soil erosion hamper
agricultural productivity. In contrast with the specialized farming in northern
Illinois, general farming is widespread in the southern part of the state. Corn,
soybeans, and wheat are the leading crops. In general, soybeans and corn are the
major cash crops. Farm incomes throughout southern Illinois are generally lower
than those in other areas. Some farmers supplement their meager income from cash
crops by producing milk, eggs, and poultry for nearby urban areas. Others work
part-time in the coal-mining industry or engage in other off-the-farm
activities. Fruit crops, especially peaches, apples, and strawberries, are
raised in the southern hill lands.
| B | Mining |
Bituminous coal, crushed stone, and oil
are the most valuable mineral products in Illinois. Together they accounted for
three-fourths of the state’s mineral output by value in 1997.
In 1997 Illinois produced 4 percent of
the nation’s coal. The coal occurs in a huge, basin-like structure that
underlies about two-thirds of the state, mainly in southern and central
Illinois. The principal coal producing counties are Perry, Franklin, and Saline.
Illinois has more extensive bituminous coal reserves than any other state in the
nation. Despite the large reserves, however, coal production remains below the
levels of output reached during the first half of the 20th century, partly
because the coal is high in sulfur content, which contributes to air pollution
when burned. In the middle of the basin, mining is carried on by the traditional
method of deepshaft mining. Approximately two-thirds of the coal now produced
annually in the state is from these mines. The remainder comes from strip
mining, which is carried on around the edge of the basin, where the coal beds
lie close to the surface. Strip mining has declined because of environmental
protection regulations, enacted in the 1970s, requiring that strip-mined land be
restored to its original condition.
Oil, first discovered in Clark County in
1865, is now produced from a number of small oil fields scattered over the
southeastern part of the state. In 1997 Illinois’ production of crude oil ranked
third among the states east of the Mississippi River, behind Mississippi and
Alabama. Production, however, is decreasing, and Illinois contributed just one
percent of the nation’s total crude oil in 1997. A small amount of natural gas
is also produced in Illinois.
Among the other minerals produced in
Illinois are stone, sand and gravel, cement, clays, peat, tripoli, and zinc.
Until the mid-1990s much of the nation’s fluorspar, which is widely used in
small quantities in the ceramic, chemical, and steel industries, came from
Hardin and Pope counties in southeastern Illinois. Fluorspar mining has since
ceased in the state. Lead, important in the Galena area in the first half of the
19th century, is no longer significant, mainly because the best deposits have
been exhausted.
| C | Manufacturing |
Illinois ranked fourth in the nation
(after California, Texas, and Ohio) as an industrial state in 1996, measured by
industry’s contribution to the national income. In 1996 the production of
industrial machinery, including construction and metalworking equipment, was the
primary manufacture in Illinois, accounting for one-sixth of income from
industry. Representative of the diversity in the state’s industrial activity,
many manufacturing sectors contribute significantly to the income from industry.
Leading industrial sectors in terms of value of production and employment are
food products, especially grain, bakery items, and candy; chemicals, including
pharmaceuticals and cleansers; fabricated metals, including products from
stamping mills and a variety of metal fasteners such as screws and bolts;
electronics, especially communication devices; printed materials, chiefly
advertising for businesses and the publication of newspapers, periodicals, and
books; and transportation equipment, particularly automobiles and automobile
parts, aircraft parts, and motorcycles. Other important activities include the
manufacture of rubber and plastic products, the refining of petroleum, and the
production of paper and associated products.
Most manufacturing in Illinois is carried
on in the Chicago area. In the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburban and
satellite communities are produced huge quantities of electrical equipment, food
products, machinery, and fabricated metals. Among the many other goods produced
there are printed materials, chemicals, steel and other primary metals,
transportation equipment, and instruments. Many manufacturing plants are located
in the city proper or in such surrounding communities as Cicero, Aurora, Blue
Island, Calumet City, Chicago Heights, Harvey, Joliet, and Melrose Park. The
Chicago area forms a continuous industrial and urban district with the adjoining
Calumet region of Indiana. East Saint Louis, across the Mississippi River from
St. Louis, Missouri, is another large industrial center in Illinois. Iron and
steel, paints, and chemicals are the major products of the city. Nearby Alton
produces explosives and other munitions, and Granite City is a center of iron
and steel production.
Most other cities outside the Chicago and
East Saint Louis areas manufacture one or more industrial products. Peoria
manufactures construction machinery, wire and nails, metal buildings, and
sprinklers. Rockford produces machinery, transportation equipment, and metal
products. Agricultural machinery is manufactured at Moline and at Rock Island.
Decatur, known as the nation’s soybean capital, specializes in soybean
processing, grain milling, and other food-processing industries.
| D | Electricity |
The industrial and urban areas of
Illinois require enormous amounts of electricity, and there is also a great
demand for electricity on the state’s highly mechanized farms. Of the
electricity generated in Illinois in 2005, 51 percent was produced in
steam-driven power plants fueled almost entirely by coal. Another 48 percent of
the electricity was produced in nuclear power plants. Most of the coal used as
fuel is produced within the state. However, additional supplies of low sulfur
coal have to be brought in from other states. In 1998 there were six nuclear
power plants in Illinois, of which one was located at Clinton and another at
Dresden, and two each were located at Braidwood and Byron. Illinois produces
more electricity from nuclear energy than does any other state except
Pennsylvania.
| E | Transportation |
Chicago is the focal point of the complex
system of railroads, highways, waterways, airlines, and gas and oil pipelines
that serve Illinois and adjoining states. East Saint Louis, located at a
strategic bridging point of the Mississippi, serves as a secondary focus of
transportation facilities, particularly railroads. Much of the state’s bulky
freight, such as coal, oil, grain, iron ore, limestone, industrial chemicals,
and gasoline and other oil products, is transported by lake vessels and barges.
The railroads carry bulk freight, especially where rapid delivery is required,
and they are also important in the shipment of finished and semifinished
products. Trucking companies serve all of Illinois. Chicago is the chief center
of trucking activities in the United States.
| E1 | Waterways |
Illinois is served by two of the
nation’s busiest waterways, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system and the
Great Lakes-to-Gulf Waterway. The extensive Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway
system, the major inland waterway in North America, permits lake freighters and
oceangoing vessels to reach Chicago, a leading American port. The Great
Lakes-to-Gulf Waterway provides Illinois with direct water transportation to the
Gulf of Mexico by way of the Mississippi. The Illinois Waterway, which lies
wholly within Illinois, forms part of the Great Lakes-to-Gulf Waterway.
| E2 | Railroads |
Eleven of the country’s largest
railroads and many regional carriers serve Illinois. Many of the lines converge
on Chicago and East Saint Louis. Railroad mileage in the state totals 11,809 km
(7,338 mi) and exceeds that of any other state except Texas, while far more
railroad cars are handled in Illinois than any other state.
| E3 | Highways |
With 223,430 km (138,833 mi) of public
highways and roads, Illinois outranks all other states except Texas and
California. An extensive system of federal and state highways links all major
cities. There were 3,491 km (2,169 mi) of national interstate highways in
Illinois in 2005.
| E4 | Airports |
Illinois has 16 airports and airfields,
of which most are private facilities. The largest commercial airport by far is
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, on the outskirts of the city. One of the
busiest airports in the world, O’Hare is a major transfer point for domestic
flights and a port of entry for foreign travelers. It ranks as the nation’s
busiest in terms of both landings and passengers handled.
| F | Trade |
Domestic and foreign trade are both very
important to the state’s economy. Chicago is by far the leading trade center in
the state and also is a leading center of trade for the United States. In
addition, there are many smaller trade centers scattered throughout the state,
which serve as distribution points for agricultural, consumer, and other
products.
Most of the state’s foreign trade is
handled by facilities in Chicago. Canada and the countries of Latin America are
the chief overseas markets. However, trade with European countries increased
after the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959.
| IV | THE PEOPLE OF ILLINOIS |
| A | Population Patterns |
According to the 2000 national census,
Illinois ranked fifth among the states, with a total population of 12,419,293.
This represented an increase of 8.6 percent over the 1990 census figure of
11,430,602. In 2000 some 88 percent of the total population lived in urban
areas. Chicago alone accounts for one-fourth of the state’s total population,
and the Chicago metropolitan area accounts for two-thirds. The average
population density for the entire state was 89 persons per sq km (231 per sq
mi).
Whites constituted 73.5 percent of the
population in 2000. Blacks were 15.1 of the people in the state. In the late
19th century blacks accounted for only 2 percent of the state’s people. In the
1940s, blacks in large numbers began moving to Illinois, many from Southern
states. In 1940 they numbered nearly 400,000, and by 2000 the number had more
than quadrupled.
Asians comprised 3.4 percent of the
population in 2000. Their numbers rose substantially during the 1980s and 1990s.
Native Americans are 0.2 percent of the people and those of mixed heritage or
not reporting race were 7.7 percent. Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders
numbered 4,610. Hispanics, who may be of any race, were 12.3 percent of the
population.
| B | Principal Cities |
Chicago is the principal city of inland
North America. The city is one of the leading commercial centers in the United
States, and it is also one of the principal centers for industry and
transportation. In 2006 there were 2,833,321 people living in the city proper
and a total of 9.2 million people living in the metropolitan region centered on
the city, including adjacent communities in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Rockford, in northern Illinois, is the
second largest city, with a population of 155,138. The Rockford metropolitan
area had a total population of 348,252 in 2006. The city of Rockford is
primarily an industrial center that is noted for the manufacture of machine
tools. Unlike many of the larger of the state’s cities, Aurora, a residential
and industrial satellite of Chicago, gained population during the 1980s and
1990s. In 2006 it had 170,617 inhabitants.
Springfield, also in central Illinois, is
noted for its associations with Abraham Lincoln. It had a population in 2006 of
116,482. Peoria, with a population of 113,107, is a manufacturing center on the
Illinois River in the central part of the state. Naperville, a Chicago suburb,
experienced a boom during the 1980s and 1990s and reached 142,901 inhabitants in
2006. Joliet, with 142,702 residents, and Elgin, with 101,903, are both
satellite cities of Chicago.
Decatur (2006 population 77,047) lies in
an agricultural area of central Illinois. It is a trade center and industrial
city. Evanston (75,543) is a residential suburb of Chicago and the seat of
Northwestern University. East Saint Louis (29,448), on the east bank of the
Mississippi River opposite St. Louis, Missouri, once was the principal city of
southwestern Illinois, but its population dwindled during the 1980s. Belleville
(41,095) is now the largest city in what geographers call the Metro East area of
Illinois.
| C | Religion |
Roman Catholic priests from France were
the first Europeans to enter the Illinois country, and most of the early
settlers were of the same faith. Protestant congregations were first organized
after the American Revolution. The first Methodist church in Illinois was
founded in 1793 and the first Baptist church in 1796. Other early Protestant
groups were the Presbyterians and Congregationalists. A number of religious
communities were also established in the state by the Quakers, Mennonites, and
others. One religious group active briefly in Illinois in the 19th century was
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are popularly
known as Mormons. They lived in Nauvoo from 1839 until 1846. Zion, a city in
northeastern Illinois, was founded in 1901 by John Alexander Dowie of the
Christian Catholic Church, and it retained a theocratic form of government until
1935.
The Roman Catholic Church now accounts
for about one-third of all church members in Illinois. Of the various Protestant
denominations in the state, the most numerous are the Baptists, Methodists, and
Lutherans. There are also large Jewish congregations in Illinois, particularly
in Chicago. Saint Sava’s Serbian Monastery, in Libertyville, is the North
American headquarters of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church. The Baha’i Faith,
a religion founded in Persia in the 19th century, maintains its American
national center in Wilmette, a suburban community that lies just north of
Chicago.
| V | EDUCATION AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS |
| A | Education |
In 1825 the Illinois legislature levied a
tax for public education. Few schools were established, however, before the tax
law was repealed. A second school tax law, enacted in 1855, provided the
financial basis for the present system of statewide free public schools. In the
second half of the 20th century the school districts of Illinois were
reorganized by consolidation to reduce costs and improve the standard of
education.
School attendance in Illinois was made
compulsory in 1883 and is now required for all children between the ages of 7
and 17. Some 15 percent of the students in Illinois attend private schools. An
appointed state board of education is responsible for setting policies and
guidelines for elementary and secondary education, as well as assisting and
regulating the state's school districts. Elected superintendents in regional
offices of education provide intermediate services to school districts, which
are governed by elected school boards. The Chicago Public Schools, one of the
nation’s largest school districts in terms of students served, is an exception
in that it operates with board members appointed by the mayor of Chicago.
In the 2002–2003 school year Illinois
spent $9,851 on each student’s education, compared to a national average of
$9,299. There were 16.5 students for every teacher (the national average was
15.9 students). Of the adults over age 25 in the state, 85 percent had a high
school diploma, compared to 84.1 percent for the nation as a whole.
| B | Higher Education |
Institutions of higher education in
Illinois include the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago State University,
DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, and the University of Chicago, all
in Chicago; Bradley University, in Peoria; Illinois State University, in Normal;
Knox College, in Galesburg; Northern Illinois University, in De Kalb; Wheaton
College, in Wheaton; the University of Illinois, with campuses in
Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield; Southern Illinois University in
Carbondale and Edwardsville; and Northwestern University, in Evanston and
Chicago. The first institution of higher education in the state was Illinois
College (1829), in Jacksonville. In 2004–2005 Illinois had 60 public and 112
private institutions of higher education.
Facilities for higher education expanded
rapidly in the last half of the 20th century. The Chicago campus of the
University of Illinois and the Edwardsville campus of Southern Illinois
University both opened in 1965. Sangamon State University was founded in 1969
and became the University of Illinois at Springfield in 1995. Governors State
University was founded in 1969 in University Park.
With the establishment of Joliet Junior
College in 1901, Illinois became the first state to have a public junior
college. For a half century thereafter, growth of the junior colleges was slow,
but by 1996 there were 62 public and private accredited two-year colleges.
| C | Libraries and Museums |
Chicago, one of the leading cultural
centers in North America, is the site of many of the state’s outstanding
libraries and museums. Among the notable libraries in Chicago are the John
Crerar Library and the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago,
Chicago Public Library, Newberry Library, and the library of the Chicago
Historical Society. Museums in Chicago include the Art Institute of Chicago,
Field Museum, John G. Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum,
Museum of Science and Industry, DuSable Museum of African-American History,
Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago, and the Museum of
Broadcast Communications.
There are 627 public library systems in
Illinois. Each year the libraries circulate an average of 7.9 books for every
resident. The Illinois State Library, which was established at Springfield in
1839, serves as an advisory and reference agency for other libraries throughout
the state. Also in Springfield are the Illinois State Archives, a division of
the office of Secretary of State, and the Illinois State Historical Library,
established in 1889.
One of the principal museums outside
Chicago is the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, founded in 1877. Krannert
Art Museum, located on the campus of the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, houses a collection of art representing the cultures of
Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Railway museums attract rail fans to
Monticello and Union.
| D | Communications |
In 2002 there were 81 daily newspapers
published in Illinois. The first newspaper in Illinois was the Illinois
Herald, which was established at Kaskaskia in 1814. One of the most notable
early newspapers was the Alton Observer (1836), an outspoken antislavery
publication edited by abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy. The oldest continuously
published daily newspaper in the state is the Chicago Tribune,
which was established in 1847. Today it has the largest circulation of all the
state’s daily newspapers. The other leading Chicago daily is the Chicago
Sun-Times. Leading dailies outside of Chicago are the Arlington Heights
Daily Herald, the Peoria Journal Star, the Springfield State
Journal-Register, the Rockford Register Star, and the
Belleville News-Democrat.
The first radio station in Illinois was
WDZ, which began broadcasting at Tuscola in 1921 and has since moved to Decatur.
The first commercial television station to broadcast was a Chicago station,
WBKB, in 1943. There were 95 AM and 183 FM radio stations and 45 television
stations in Illinois in 2002.
| E | Architecture |
The French, who established the first
permanent European settlements in Illinois, build crude houses of upright logs
with overhanging roofs of thatch or bark. Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and
Cahokia had a few more substantial dwellings, some made of locally quarried
limestone. Most of the Americans who migrated to Illinois after the American
Revolution (1775-1783) lived in log cabins, such as those in the reconstructed
village of New Salem, near Petersburg. By the early 19th century, residents who
could afford greater construction costs were turning to more substantial frame
and brick housing, often reflecting their southern, mid-Atlantic, or New England
origins. Public building styles in the first half of the 19th century featured
adornments from the popular Greek Revival, Gothic, and Italianate styles.
After a great fire in October 1871, which
destroyed many of Chicago’s wood buildings, the city became a leader in the
development of modern American architecture (see Chicago School). The
world’s first modern skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building, was
completed in 1885, under the direction of engineer and architect William Le
Baron Jenney. The chief pioneer of skyscraper construction, however, was Louis
Henri Sullivan. His principal draftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright, became the most
famous American architect of the 20th century. Wright’s genius is still visible
in the village of Oak Park, west of Chicago, at the Frederick C. Robie House on
the University of Chicago campus, at the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, and
elsewhere in Illinois.
Beginning in the 1950s, the German-born
architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had a tremendous influence on the Chicago
skyline, as he and other immigrant architects not only designed new structures
but trained a new generation of American architects in a style that became known
as European modernism. The period from the late 1950s to the mid-1990s saw a
major flowering of tall buildings in the city. Representing the Mies school are
glass boxes like the Inland Steel Building and the Chicago Federal Center. The
twin towered Marina City complex is an example of postmodern expressionism. The
pluralism, historicism, and classicism of postmodernism find form in the State
of Illinois Center.
| F | Music |
Chicago has long been the focus of musical
activity in Illinois and the Midwest. Monthly concerts occurred in Chicago in
the 1830s, and choral music and opera were popular in the city as early as the
1850s. In the second half of the 19th century appreciative Chicago audiences
attracted many touring orchestras from the East. One visiting conductor,
Theodore Thomas, so impressed a group of wealthy Chicagoans that they organized
the Chicago Orchestra, now the famous Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for him in
1891. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra produces a summer concert series, featuring
guest conductors, at the Ravinia Festival on the North Shore in suburban
Highland Park.
The Chicago Grand Opera Company, which
included the famous soprano Mary Garden among its first members, came into
existence in 1910. Successors were the Chicago Opera Association and later the
Chicago Civic Opera Company. The Great Depression of the 1930s forced the Civic
Opera to disband, but grand opera returned to the city in 1954 when the Lyric
Opera of Chicago made its debut. Today the Lyric thrives with fall, winter, and
spring series at the Civic Opera House in downtown Chicago.
Music clubs and societies in many parts of
Illinois sponsor community orchestras and choirs. The Illinois Symphony
Orchestra, for instance, was formed in the mid-1980s to produce classical music
in central Illinois. Many universities and colleges have extensive musical
programs.
Chicago gained a considerable reputation
for fostering jazz, blues, and folk music in the 20th century. The city is most
notably a mecca for the blues, producing some of its most well known musicians
as well as influencing its sound. The blues originated in the early 1800s with
Southern plantation slave workers. By the early 1920s Mississippi Delta blues
musicians were migrating north to Chicago, which was burgeoning with music clubs
and recording studios. Chicago became a testing ground for the blues sound. Each
year the Chicago Blues Festival draws musicians and music lovers for a four-day
event celebrating Chicago as the Blues Capital of the World. Meanwhile, the
city’s blues clubs draw performers year around.
| VI | RECREATION AND PLACES OF INTEREST |
Illinois’s parks and forests offer varied
opportunities for outdoor recreation. Many miles of abandoned railroad
right-of-way, both urban and rural, have become improved hiking and biking
trails. Sandy beaches along Lake Michigan provide attractions for swimming and
other water-oriented sports. The state’s long, cold winters and abundant snow in
its northern sections make winter sports such as ice skating and skiing
popular.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th United States
president, is honored throughout Illinois with parks, memorials, and other
sites. The state’s automobile license plates even proclaim Illinois as the Land
of Lincoln. The Lincoln Heritage Trail, established in 1963, joins many of these
sites. Stretching 1,598 km (993 mi), the trail traces the path followed by the
Lincoln family from Kentucky, through Indiana, and into Illinois. Included among
the Lincoln sites is the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, the
only home America’s Civil War president ever owned. His residence for 17 years,
the home contains many period pieces owned at one time by the Lincoln
family.
Lincoln’s Springfield home is the sole
Illinois site under the administration of the National Park Service. The service
does, however, have an oversight interest in both the Illinois and Michigan
National Heritage Corridor, which encompasses the former canal route between
Chicago and LaSalle-Peru, and in the Chicago Portage National Historic Site,
which marks (in suburban Lyons) the approximate place where early travelers
portaged their light watercraft between the Great Lakes and Mississippi drainage
basins.
| A | National and State Forests |
Shawnee National Forest, the only
national forest in the state, covers 109,000 hectares (270,000 acres) of wooded
hill country in southernmost Illinois. Within the forest are facilities for
picnicking, camping, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, fishing, boating, and
swimming. The five state forests all offer hiking opportunities, and four
provide camping facilities.
| B | State Parks |
The State of Illinois administers 73
state parks and two state marinas. The largest park is Pere Marquette State
Park, which covers 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) of wooded country near the
junction of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Part of the palisades, or
cliffs, that rise above the Mississippi River lie within Mississippi Palisades
State Park. Starved Rock State Park is the site of Starved Rock, a high, rugged
rock mass along the Illinois River. The summit of the huge rock is the site of
the former Fort Saint Louis, which was built by the French explorer René-Robert
Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, in 1682 and 1683. The state’s last remaining stand
of virgin white pine is preserved farther north, in White Pines Forest State
Park. Giant City State Park, in southern Illinois, has been so named because of
the presence of huge blocks of eroded sandstone that resemble city buildings.
Between them, deeply eroded fissures appear as avenues.
Monks Mound, the largest aboriginal
earthen structure in the United States, is preserved in Cahokia Mounds State
Historical Site in southwestern Illinois. Located at the site of the largest
Native American city north of Mexico, Monks Mound covers 6 hectares (14 acres)
and rises about 30 m (about 100 ft) in four terraces (see Mound
Builders). The Cave-in-Rock State Park, on the Ohio River, is also the site of
Native American mounds. Other picturesque parks are Ferne Clyffe State Park,
Apple River Canyon State Park, Matthiessen State Park, and Illinois Beach State
Park, which borders Lake Michigan.
In Fort de Chartres State Historic Site,
on the Mississippi River in southwestern Illinois, is a restoration of the chief
18th-century fortress in the Illinois country. Fort Kaskaskia State Historic
Site, in the southwestern part of the state, was once the site of Fort
Kaskaskia, a historic fort that served the French during the middle part of the
18th century. All that remains of the original fort built on a bluff overlooking
the Mississippi River are the earthworks around the perimeter. Black Hawk State
Historic Site, adjoining the city of Rock Island, includes a museum of Native
American artifacts. The park is named for the chief who led the Sac and Fox in
the Black Hawk War in 1832. In Lowden State Park, in northern Illinois, is the
famous Black Hawk Monument, a concrete statue 15 m (50 ft) high of the Native
American leader designed by the noted sculptor Lorado Taft.
A number of state sites preserve places
associated with the life of Abraham Lincoln. One of the most picturesque
monuments is in Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site, which lies northwest of
Springfield. Within the park is a reconstruction of the pioneer village of New
Salem, where Lincoln lived between 1831 and 1837. The village includes rustic
log cabins, rail fences, a store, mills, and a reproduction of Rutledge Tavern,
where Lincoln boarded. One original building remains on the site, the Onstot
Cooper Shop, where Lincoln often studied in the evenings. In Lincoln Log Cabin
State Historic Site, in eastern Illinois, is a reconstruction of the cabin of
Lincoln’s father and stepmother.
There are also a number of state
memorials in Illinois dedicated to Lincoln. The Lincoln Trail State Memorial
marks the place where, in 1830, the Lincoln family crossed the Wabash River from
Indiana into Illinois. Vandalia Statehouse, the former state capitol, where
Lincoln served as a legislator, is also preserved as a state historic site.
Lincoln is buried in the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site in Springfield.
Several courthouses where Lincoln practiced law have been preserved or
reconstructed as state historic sites, including the original brick-and-timber
Metamora Courthouse just northeast of Peoria, the restored Mount Pulaski
Courthouse, and a replica of the Postville Courthouse at Lincoln.
Among other state memorials is Cahokia
Courthouse State Historic Site, which preserves the oldest public building in
the state. The building dates from 1737. The frame structure that once housed
the first bank in the Illinois Territory stands within Shawneetown State
Historic Site. The home of Ulysses S. Grant at Galena is now a state historic
site as well. The Douglas Tomb State Historic Site in Chicago contains the tomb
of the famous American statesman Stephen A. Douglas.
| C | Other Places to Visit |
Many of the state’s outstanding places to
visit are in the Chicago area. Among the interesting places to visit elsewhere
in Illinois is the famous Brookfield Zoo, which lies west of Chicago. At Lisle,
also near Chicago, is the Morton Arboretum, which includes an extensive
collection of plant life that covers 600 hectares (1,500 acres).
Places to visit in the city of
Springfield include the State Capitol, the Old State Capitol, the Illinois State
Museum, and the home of poet Vachel Lindsay. At Galesburg is the Carl Sandburg
Birthplace, the restored cottage where the famous poet was born. Other
restorations include the Mormon town of Nauvoo and the home and shops of the
inventor John Deere at Grant Detour.
| D | Annual Events |
Many annual events in Illinois focus on
Chicago during the summer. Taste of Chicago, a June food and entertainment
extravaganza, became a Chicago fixture in the early 1980s. Also in the early
part of the summer are the Chicago Blues Festival, the Viva Chicago Latin Music
Festival, and the Gospel Music Festival. Later events include the Venetian Night
(lighted boats parading on the Chicago River) in July, the Chicago Air and Water
Show along the shore of Lake Michigan in August, and the Chicago Jazz Fest
around the Labor Day weekend.
Springfield, the state capital, hosts the
Carillon Festival each June. In July the Capital City Celebration includes a
variety of festivities for children. The annual state fair, one of the largest
in the country, occurs at the fairgrounds on the north side of Springfield in
August.
Many other Illinois communities host
annual events to celebrate some aspect of their heritage or a special regional
attraction. Rantoul holds The Gathering of Eagles Airshow in June, even though
its Chanute Air Force Base closed several years ago. Nauvoo sponsors the Grape
Festival in September to commemorate the vineyards that supply the local winery
and the settlers who first brought the grape to this Mississippi River
community. Fulton County welcomes thousands in October to the events and sights
associated with its Spoon River Drive. County fairs, typically preceding the
state fair, occur in most Illinois counties.
| E | Sports |
Chicago is the home of several
professional sports teams: the White Sox and Cubs (baseball), the Bulls
(basketball), the Bears (football), the Fire (soccer), and the Black Hawks (ice
hockey). Minor league baseball franchises allow fans to see future stars in
Peoria, Springfield, the Quad Cities, and Kane County (just west of
Chicago).
| VII | GOVERNMENT |
Illinois’ first constitution was adopted
in 1818, at the time of statehood. There were new constitutions in 1848 and
1870. Although the constitution of 1870 was designed for an agrarian society, it
remained in effect throughout Illinois’ period of industrialization. A fourth
constitution was adopted in 1970 and came into effect in 1971. The latest
constitution reflects the concerns of a late-20th-century industrialized state.
It includes an expanded bill of rights, which prohibits discrimination in
housing and hiring, and guarantees the citizen’s right to a healthful
environment. It also establishes the state’s responsibility for financing public
education.
Amendments to the constitution may be
proposed by three-fifths of the total membership of each house or by a
constitutional convention called by the legislature and approved by the voters.
Amendments to the section of the constitution dealing with the legislature may
be proposed by initiative. A proposed amendment must be placed on the ballot in
the next general election. An amendment introduced by the state legislature or
by initiative must be approved by three-fifths of those voting on it or a
majority of those voting in the election. An amendment introduced by a
constitutional convention needs approval only by a majority of those voting on
the question.
| A | Executive |
The governor, the state’s chief
executive, is elected for a four-year term. With the approval of the state
senate, the governor appoints most of the key officials of state administrative
departments and agencies. The governor may veto bills passed by the legislature,
but the legislature can override such a veto by a three-fifths majority vote of
the members in each house. Other elected executive officials are the lieutenant
governor who runs on the same ticket as the governor, secretary of state,
treasurer, comptroller, and attorney general, all of whom are elected for
four-year terms.
| B | Legislative |
The state legislature, called the
General Assembly, consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives. There are
59 senators and 118 representatives. Senators are elected to either a two- or
four-year term so that there is never a complete turnover of senators in any
single general election. Representatives are all elected to two-year terms. The
assembly meets annually on the second Wednesday in January. The governor or the
presiding officers of both houses may call special sessions.
| C | Judicial |
Illinois has three basic types of
courts: the supreme court, appellate court, and circuit courts.
The supreme court, the state’s highest
court, is made up of seven judges who are elected for ten-year terms. Three
judges are elected from Cook County, which includes Chicago, and one judge from
each of four other districts. The judges elect one of their number as chief
justice, who serves for three years, unless the person’s term as judge expires
sooner. The judges of the state’s appellate court, which is a lower appeals
court, are also elected for ten-year terms.
In most cases original jurisdiction
rests with the state’s circuit courts. Circuit court judges are elected for
six-year terms; they, in turn, appoint associate judges for terms of four
years.
| D | Local Government |
An elected county board is the primary
policy making body of each of 102 counties in Illinois. In 17 lightly populated
counties in the central or southern parts of the state, the county board
consists of three commissioners elected at large for staggered three-year terms.
These counties do not have political townships. Another 84 counties are governed
by a board whose members typically represent a specific portion of their county.
These counties all have political townships that share certain governance
responsibilities with the county. Cook County, which contains Chicago, operates
under a special set of circumstances. The Chicago portion has no political
townships, while the suburban section does, and the Cook County Board differs in
various ways from other Illinois county boards. A county may elect a chief
executive as well as a number of other officers, such as coroner, recorder,
assessor, and auditor. More counties have chosen the option of appointing a
county administrator than have elected a chief executive. All counties elect a
sheriff, county clerk, and treasurer.
Every county with an elective executive
and each municipality with a population of more than 25,000 is a so-called
home-rule unit. This home-rule status provides the local government with a high
degree of authority and power in its own affairs. Municipalities with fewer than
25,000 people may elect to become home-rule units. Counties and municipalities
that are not home-rule units possess only those powers specifically granted to
them by the constitution or by law. Chicago and most other cities have the mayor
and council form of government. Many of the medium-size cities have appointed a
professional city manager, thus reducing the role of the mayor. Boards of
trustees and a board president, all elected, govern most villages.
| E | National Representation |
Illinois elects two U.S. senators and 19
representatives. The state casts 21 electoral votes.
| VIII | HISTORY |
| A | Early Inhabitants |
The earliest-known inhabitants of the
Illinois region were prehistoric peoples who built huge burial and ceremonial
mounds of rubble and earth. Scattered throughout the state today are the remains
of about 10,000 mounds, including the largest in the United States, Monks Mound
in Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. The city of Cahokia, covering 5.54 sq km
(6 sq mi), may have been inhabited by as many as 10,000 to 20,000 people of the
Mississippian culture between 1100 and 1200 (see Native Americans of
North America: Southeast). To support cities this large and permanent,
these peoples developed a complex agricultural system and traded with other
native peoples a great distance away, perhaps as far away as Mexico. These
peoples also moved more than 1.4 million cu m (50 million cu ft) of earth to
create their ceremonial mounds. The site of the principal temple in Cahokia
covers 6 hectares (14 acres) and rises in four terraces to an elevation of 30 m
(100 ft). The area was abandoned by the Mississippian culture by 1400.
In the 17th century European explorers
encountered the Illinois, or Illiniwek, a confederation of Algonquian-speaking
peoples that included the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Moingwena, Peoria, and
Tamaroa peoples. In the middle of that century, Iroquois peoples began entering
Illinois to search for more furs to trade with Europeans. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, disease and intertribal warfare reduced the strength of the Illinois;
they were easily driven from their villages by invading Iroquois, Fox, and Sioux
peoples. Their lands eventually fell into the possession of other peoples,
including the Sac (Sauk), Fox, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi, the last closely
related to both the Ojibwa and the Ottawa peoples.
| B | European Exploration and Early Settlement |
The first Europeans known to enter the
Illinois country, as the area of the present-day state was called in the 17th
and 18th centuries, were two Frenchmen, Louis Joliet, a fur trader, and Jacques
Marquette, a Roman Catholic missionary. In 1673 the two men journeyed down the
Mississippi River along the western boundary of the present state. On their
return journey north they traveled up the Illinois River. They easily carried,
or portaged, their small boats between the Des Plaines River, a tributary of the
Illinois River, and the Chicago River, which then flowed into Lake Michigan. The
Chicago portage, as it was later called, became an important link in the trade
route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Late in 1674 Marquette
returned to Illinois and started a mission among the Kaskaskia, near the site of
present-day North Utica.
In 1680 another French explorer,
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, built Fort Crèvecoeur (now Creve Coeur)
on the Illinois River, opposite the present site of Peoria. In 1682 La Salle,
with his lieutenant Henri de Tonty, completed Fort Saint Louis farther up the
river. Located on a high, rocky bluff known as Starved Rock, Fort Saint Louis
was a major fur-trading center for several years.
The town of Cahokia, on the Mississippi
River, was founded as a French mission in 1699. It was the first permanent
settlement in the Illinois country. About four years later, Kaskaskia was
founded by French missionaries on the Mississippi River at the mouth of the
Kaskaskia River. The native peoples were friendly toward the newcomers, and the
fur trade flourished.
John Law, a Scottish banker living in
France, organized a company, Compagnie de la Louisiane ou d’Occident, in France
in 1717 to colonize and develop the Mississippi River valley, all of which lay
in the vast French territory known as Louisiana (Louisiane, in French). Law’s
company controlled large grants of land around the Mississippi River and had
exclusive rights of trade in the territory for 25 years. In 1719 the company
absorbed the rival East India and China Company; at the same time, a bank that
Law owned became the state bank of France. When the public was invited to invest
in the Mississippi venture, which became known as the Mississippi Scheme, or
Mississippi Bubble, speculation drove the price of the shares to great heights.
In 1720 the whole scheme collapsed after a French royal decree halved the value
of Law’s banknotes; shares of Law’s company sank in price as rapidly as they had
risen, and the bank suspended payments. Although the project was a financial
fiasco, it did bring several hundred colonists to Illinois.
To protect their settlements and
investments in Illinois, the French constructed Fort de Chartres, on the east
bank of the Mississippi between Kaskaskia and Cahokia. Completed in 1720, the
fort was one of the strongest links in the chain of French fortifications in
North America, and it was the seat of the French civil and military government
in the Illinois region. The fertile lands along the east bank of the Mississippi
in Illinois were well suited for farming. There the habitants, as the
French settlers were called, raised livestock, grapes and other fruits, tobacco,
corn, and wheat. They raised enough wheat to help supply New Orleans and French
posts on the Great Lakes. In exchange, the habitants received goods to trade for
furs with the native peoples. Agricultural output increased after black slaves
were imported in the 1720s.
| C | British Rule and Warfare |
Between 1689 and 1763 the British and
the French, with their respective Native American and colonial allies, fought a
series of four North American wars for domination on the continent. The wars
began after a three-way balance of power broke down. This balance involved the
French, the British, and the Iroquois Confederacy—an alliance of the Mohawk,
Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples, and after 1722, the Tuscarora. The
Iroquois Confederacy occupied the middle ground between French and British
colonies and had successfully excluded both from the strategic Ohio Valley. The
Iroquois nations had rendered all previous conflicts indecisive by playing off
French against British interests to maintain their own freedom of action.
In 1763 the Treaty of Paris ended the
last of these wars, the French and Indian War. Under the treaty, France ceded
the Louisiana territory east of the Mississippi to Great Britain. British
attempts to take over control of the Illinois country from the French were
temporarily thwarted by an anti-British uprising by hostile Native Americans
under the leadership of the Ottawa chief Pontiac.
To drive the British from their
frontier possessions and reestablish Native American autonomy, Pontiac organized
a confederacy that embraced most of the native peoples from the head of Lake
Superior almost to the Gulf of Mexico. According to the arrangement, the
warriors of each tribe were to attack the garrison in their immediate
neighborhood early in May 1763. Pontiac himself was to lead the assault at
Detroit.
Fourteen British posts stretched from
the Pennsylvania frontier to Lake Superior. The most important were Forts Pitt,
Detroit, and Mackinaw. The Native Americans captured all but four of the posts,
Niagara, Pitt, Ligonier, and Detroit. The entire British garrison was killed at
Mackinaw. A plot to capture Detroit failed (it may have been betrayed by a
Native American woman), but Pontiac immediately began a siege that lasted for
five months.
After British reinforcements finally
reached Detroit, Pontiac’s men began to desert him, and news of a peace treaty
between France and Great Britain removed all hopes of French aid. As a result
Pontiac ended the siege and on August 17, 1765, entered into a formal peace
treaty, which he confirmed in 1766. The British made little effort to develop
the Illinois region during their brief rule but they did antagonize the French
settlers, many of whom moved to St. Louis or New Orleans.
In 1774 the British Parliament passed
the Québec Act. One of the articles of the act designated the land north of the
Ohio River, including Illinois, as part of the province of Québec. The act was
seen by British colonists as one of the so-called Intolerable Acts, laws
punishing the 13 British colonies in North America for hostile acts, including
the dumping of British tea into Boston Harbor. The acts greatly angered the
settlers and contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolution
(1775-1783).
| D | The American Revolution |
During the Revolution, George Rogers
Clark of Virginia planned to establish several Illinois settlements to take
control of the Old Northwest (the area north of the Ohio River now called the
Midwest) from the British. Clark and a small band of men took the British
military post at Kaskaskia by surprise on July 4, 1778, and then went on to
capture Cahokia and other British garrisons. On the basis of Clark’s daring
exploits, Virginia claimed jurisdiction over the lands north of the Ohio River
and organized the area as the county of Illinois.
| E | Territorial Period |
Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris
of 1783, which ended the revolution, Great Britain surrendered the Old Northwest
to the United States. In the years following the treaty, Virginia and other
states ceded their claims to the Old Northwest to the federal government. In
1787 the Old Northwest, including Illinois, was organized as the Northwest
Territory. In 1800 Illinois was included in the Indiana Territory, and in 1809
it was organized as a separate territory.
The Illinois Territory included
present-day Illinois, most of Wisconsin, and large parts of Michigan and
Minnesota. Ninian Edwards of Kentucky was appointed territorial governor, and
Kaskaskia became the territorial capital.
White settlement proceeded slowly in
Illinois during the early 19th century and was concentrated in the southern
regions of the territory. The first settlement in northern Illinois developed
around Fort Dearborn, which the United States built in 1803 on the site of
present-day Chicago. Earlier the territorial governments had begun obtaining the
land of native inhabitants in a series of treaties. The treaties exchanged land
for yearly grants of money and presents. The native peoples in the Illinois
Territory, including the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and the Sac and Fox, quickly
became dissatisfied with their land agreements, and took advantage of the War of
1812 (1812-1815) to side with the British.
The war had begun largely as a result
of violations of U.S. maritime rights in fighting between France and Great
Britain from 1793 to 1812. To preserve Britain’s naval strength, Royal Navy
officers often forcibly removed, or impressed, thousands of sailors from
U.S. vessels, including U.S. citizens. Although the United States tried various
diplomatic solutions to avoid war, the provocations continued until the United
States declared war on June 18, 1812.
In the early part of the war, the
United States evacuated the 67-person garrison at Fort Dearborn as the British
and their Native American allies tried to gain control of the surrounding area.
Accompanied by resident settlers, the garrison started for Detroit with a body
of supposedly friendly Potawatomi. On the way, the escort party joined with
another large force and attacked the group. Two-thirds of the Americans were
killed and the rest were captured; the fort was destroyed on the following day
by the Native Americans who later freed several captives after ransoms had been
paid at Detroit. Fighting between several native peoples and the United States
continued until the end of the war.
The war ended in 1815, and the
following year Fort Dearborn was rebuilt on a larger scale and was strongly
garrisoned. After the war, the number of white settlers increased. Flatboats and
barges carried thousands of emigrants from Virginia, Kentucky, and other
Southern states down the Ohio River to Illinois. Other pioneers traveled by
wagon across the Allegheny Mountains. Most of the newcomers settled in the
wooded areas of southern Illinois, which were similar to the Eastern and
Southern states from which they had emigrated. The vast, sparsely wooded
prairies of central and northern Illinois remained largely uninhabited by
whites.
| F | Statehood |
On December 3, 1818, Illinois became
the 21st state of the Union, and in 1820 had a population of 55,000. Kaskaskia
became the state capital, and Shadrach Bond was inaugurated as the first
governor of the state. Nathaniel Pope, earlier the delegate to the Congress of
the United States from the Illinois Territory, had persuaded Congress to set the
northern boundary of the new state about 100 km (60 mi) north of the boundary
specified in the ordinance that had established the Northwest Territory. As a
result Chicago and the Chicago portage became part of the state of Illinois,
rather than of Wisconsin.
| G | Growth and Conflict |
In 1820 the Illinois legislature
declared Vandalia the temporary state capital for a period of up to 20 years to
promote the sale of land and to encourage the development of the state’s
uninhabited interior. In 1839 the capital was moved permanently to Springfield.
In 1825 the Erie Canal opened and provided a route through the Appalachian
Mountains. The Erie Canal, an artificial inland waterway, extends from Lake
Erie, at Buffalo, New York, to the Hudson River, near Albany, New York.
Subsequently, many settlers from the Northeastern states ventured to central and
northern Illinois. Other settlers, primarily from the South, continued to
migrate to southern Illinois. Between 1820 and 1830 the total population of the
state rose from 55,211 to 157,445.
| G1 | Black Hawk War |
By 1830 most native peoples in
Illinois had been forced to move west across the Mississippi. In 1804 the Sac
and Fox had agreed, for an annuity of $1,000, to cede to the United States their
lands east of the Mississippi River. One Sac chief, Black Hawk, had promptly
repudiated this agreement, arguing that the whites had persuaded the Native
Americans to sign it after getting the Sac and Fox drunk. Treaties signed in
1815 and 1816 ceded more disputed territory, and in 1823 most of the Sac and Fox
settled west of the Mississippi. Black Hawk, however, once more refused to
recognize the agreements after white settlers began occupying the vacated lands.
The Native Americans were, moreover, suffering from hunger in their new, less
fertile lands, and so in April 1832 they returned to the disputed territory to
plant crops.
The war began after white settlers
shot a peaceful emissary sent by Black Hawk, who had come to realize that he
could not defeat the whites. Black Hawk led the Sac to an early victory, but
they were defeated near the Wisconsin River on July 21, 1832, and were almost
completely annihilated in the Bad Axe Massacre on August 3. Black Hawk escaped
the massacre, but then surrendered on August 27. Following Black Hawk’s defeat,
the remaining members of the group were settled in Iowa. In 1833 the last treaty
relating to the native inhabitants of Illinois was negotiated, and the
Potawatomis and two other remaining tribes relinquished all claims to disputed
territory in northeastern Illinois.
| G2 | Mormons |
The end of warfare and the removal of
the native peoples encouraged white settlement. In 1837 Chicago incorporated as
a city of 4,853 residents. However, in the early 1840s the largest city was
Nauvoo, founded in 1839 by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, called Mormons, on the Mississippi River north of the mouth of the Des
Moines River. By 1845 Nauvoo’s population was more than 12,000, many of whom
were Mormons. The non-Mormon population of the area did not approve of Mormon
religious practices, especially polygyny, the practice of having more
than one wife. As Mormon political power grew and Mormon leader Joseph Smith
announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency, in February 1844, the hostility
of non-Mormons also increased. When a group of dissenting Mormons began
publishing a newspaper attacking polygyny and Smith’s leadership, Smith ordered
the press destroyed. Smith was arrested and charged with treason and conspiracy
in Carthage, Illinois. Despite a promise of safety from the Illinois governor, a
mob killed Smith and his brother Hyrum after storming the jail on the night of
June 27, 1844. In 1846, after additional conflict with their neighbors, the
Mormons abandoned Nauvoo. Led by Brigham Young, they headed west and eventually
settled in Utah.
| G3 | Agriculture and Industry |
During the 1830s and 1840s increasing
numbers of settlers moved onto the prairies. At first they laboriously tilled
the heavy, sunbaked prairie sod with cast-iron plows. Then, in 1837, John Deere,
a blacksmith in Grand Detour, Illinois, developed a new all-steel plow that
turned the prairie soil much more effectively. By 1850 farmers were using the
so-called Grand Detour plow across the prairie lands of central and northern
Illinois. With the invention and improvement of reapers, threshers, seed drills,
corn planters, and multibladed plows, farmers began to cultivate much of the
former grasslands, especially in the better-drained west central part of the
state. Corn and wheat were the principal cash crops grown, and by 1860, Illinois
led the nation in the annual production of both crops. Only after large-scale
drainage systems were built late in the 19th century did farmers cultivate the
prairie in east central Illinois.
The state’s agricultural development
encouraged and then was itself aided by improved transportation. The Illinois
and Michigan Canal was completed in 1848, a dozen years after work on it had
begun. The canal, which linked the Mississippi River system with Lake Michigan,
gave many Illinois farmers a direct water route to Chicago. In the 1850s
railroads, such as the Illinois Central (completed in 1856), connected many
sections of the state with Chicago. The Illinois Central and other railroads
also hastened the sale of land, especially to Easterners, and many of the
state’s small towns developed around railroad depots. In the 1850s Illinois grew
more rapidly than any other state in the Union. By 1860 Chicago, with a
population of about 109,000, had become the leading industrial and commercial
center in the Midwest, processing farm produce from the prairies for shipment to
the East.
Mining became an important economic
activity in the 1840s and 1850s. Lead mining, which had long been carried on in
the Galena area, reached its peak in 1848, when northwestern Illinois was the
principal source of lead in the United States. After that year lead production
declined, but in the following decade coal mining in southern Illinois began to
supply the state’s railroads and to provide fuel for domestic and industrial
use.
| H | Slavery and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates |
On the eve of the Civil War (1861-1865)
the extension of slavery to new territories and states was the major issue
confronting Illinoisans. Many settlers in southern Illinois had migrated from
the South and strongly sympathized with the proslavery cause. Northern Illinois,
however, was inhabited mainly by antislavery settlers who had migrated there
from Northeastern states.
Newspaper editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, a
supporter of the elimination, or abolition, of slavery, had earned the
hatred of proslavery supporters in St. Louis, Missouri, by writing antislavery
editorials, and in 1836 he was forced to move his presses to Alton, Illinois,
where he published the Alton Observer. Although his presses were
destroyed three times by proslavery mobs, Lovejoy continued to attack slavery
and urged the formation of a state abolition society. When his presses were
again attacked on November 7, 1837, Lovejoy was shot and killed while trying to
defend them. His death stimulated the growth of the abolitionist movement
throughout the country.
In 1858 nationwide attention again
focused on Illinois when the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Abraham
Lincoln, and his Democratic opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, debated the extension
of slavery into free territories in a series of seven debates across the state.
Douglas, infuriating Southern voters, argued in Freeport, Illinois, that slavery
could be prohibited in a territory by the voters of that territory. Lincoln
countered, arguing that the Dred Scott case of 1857, in which Chief
Justice Roger Brooke Taney had asserted that slaves had always been property,
opened the possibility that the federal government could force slavery upon
nonslaveholding states.
Douglas won the senatorial election,
but Lincoln gained a large following across the North, leading to his nomination
for president in 1860. With the support of all the nonslaveholding states except
New Jersey, Lincoln won the election. Soon afterward the slave states seceded
from the Union to form the Confederacy, beginning the Civil War.
| I | The Civil War |
An overwhelming majority of
Illinoisans supported the Lincoln Administration in the Civil War. The fighting
never reached Illinois, but more than 250,000 men from the state served in the
Union Army, including the famous general (and later president) Ulysses S. Grant,
who had moved from St. Louis, Missouri, to Galena, Illinois, in 1860. In the
southern part of the state, some Illinoisans who sympathized with the South
created a short-lived movement to found a separate state allied with the
Confederacy later in the war, and secret societies opposed to continuing the war
also flourished in Illinois. In the presidential election of 1864 Illinois again
voted for Lincoln, and the Republicans also gained control of the state
legislature. On February 1, 1865, near the end of the war, Illinois became the
first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which abolished slavery.
| J | Postwar Development |
Illinois agriculture expanded and
industry developed even more rapidly in the post-Civil War years. The rapid
growth of Chicago played an important part in this economic development. The
city’s meatpacking industry became the nation’s largest, surpassing that of
Cincinnati. Chicago’s manufactures included metal goods, farm machinery, and
railroad cars, especially sleeping cars made by the Pullman Palace Car Company.
In October 1871 a fire devastated a large part of Chicago, leaving 100,000
people homeless and slowing the city’s rapid growth. The loss to the city was
estimated at nearly $300 million. Elsewhere in the state small towns appeared as
new settlers continued to arrive. Railroad expansion continued, although the
Illinois and Michigan Canal still handled a great amount of traffic. In the
downstate area, the area outside of Chicago, coal-mining production increased to
meet the demands of industrialization.
During the 1870s many farmers in
Illinois and in other states in the upper Mississippi River valley joined the
National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, commonly called the Grange, which
had been founded in 1867 to advance the social, economic, and political
interests of farmers in the United States. In Illinois the Grangers protested
the high shipping and storage rates that the railroads and grain-elevator owners
charged on farm produce. In 1871 the Grangers helped persuade the Illinois
legislature to establish limits on prices railroads charged for freight and also
to create a state railroad and warehouse commission to supervise freight
handling. The constitutionality of these so-called Granger laws was challenged
by railroad and grain-elevator owners, but in 1877, in the case of Munn
v. Illinois, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the right
of the state to regulate private utilities when regulation was in the public
interest. Toward the end of the 1870s, however, the Granger movement lost its
political momentum.
Following the Civil War, waves of
immigrants, including Poles, Jews from many countries, Serbs, Russians, Czechs,
Lithuanians, Italians, and Greeks, arrived in Chicago. To address the needs of
these immigrants and to lobby for laws to protect the disadvantaged, in 1889
social reformers Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House, which
helped needy families and tried to combat juvenile delinquency by providing
recreational facilities for children living in slums.
| K | Labor Unrest |
The late 19th century was also marked
by widespread unrest among factory workers, miners, and railroad workers in
Illinois. Labor and management had increasingly bitter disputes over wages,
hours, and working conditions, and Illinois became known for two major labor
disputes, the Haymarket Riot in 1886 and the Pullman Strike in 1894.
| K1 | Haymarket Riot |
The Haymarket Riot was a
confrontation between police and protesters that took place on May 4, 1886, in
Haymarket Square in Chicago. A strike had been in progress at the McCormick
reaper works in Chicago, and on May 3 several men had been shot by the police
during a riot at the plant. A meeting was called at Haymarket Square the next
day as a protest against police violence. The meeting was organized mainly by
German-born workers, many of whom were anarchists, people who believe in
abolishing government.
The police attempted to disperse the
meeting, and in the ensuing riot a bomb was thrown, which triggered another gun
battle. Seven policemen were killed and many injured; so were many civilians.
Eight anarchists were arrested and charged with being accessories to the crime
because they had publicly and frequently advocated such violence. They were
tried and found guilty on a variety of charges (the identity of the bomb thrower
was never discovered); seven were sentenced to death and one to imprisonment.
Eventually four were hanged, one committed suicide, the sentences of two were
commuted to life imprisonment, and one received a 15-year term. In 1893 the
three in prison were pardoned by the governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld,
who argued that no evidence had been presented connecting the defendants with
the bomb.
| K2 | Pullman Strike |
In May 1894 employees of the Pullman
Palace Car Company in Pullman (now part of Chicago) reacted to wage cuts by
going on strike. Shortly thereafter, members of the American Railway Union, led
by Eugene Victor Debs, refused to handle Pullman cars to support striking
Pullman workers. The union disrupted railroad service in the Midwest until
President Grover Cleveland broke the strike in July by sending in federal troops
over the protest of Governor Altgeld. For his actions Altgeld won renown as a
champion of underprivileged workers. During his administration (the only period
between 1857 and 1913 that a Democrat was governor of Illinois) legislation was
enacted that provided for state factory inspections to look for violators of
child-labor laws.
| L | The Early 20th Century |
The state began to improve relations
between labor and management in the early years of the 20th century. Support for
better working conditions grew after 1906 when Upton Sinclair published The
Jungle, a novel that exposed the poor working and living conditions of
immigrants in Chicago. In 1903 Illinois became the first state to establish an
eight-hour workday and to limit working children to 48 hours of work each week.
Six years later the workday for women was limited to ten hours. Following a mine
disaster at Cherry in 1909, legislation was passed requiring firefighting and
rescue stations in all coal mines, and in 1911 a state workers’ compensation act
was passed.
In 1900 the population of Illinois
totaled more than 4,800,000, double that of 1865. Chicago alone had about
1,700,000 inhabitants, and for the first time in the history of the state the
urban population exceeded the rural population. By the turn of the century,
industrialization had increased at a pace sufficient to make Illinois one of the
three leading manufacturing states in the country. The years of World War I
(1914-1918) also marked the beginning of the great migration north of Southern
blacks seeking better opportunities.
Prosperity prevailed in most sectors
of the state’s economy through the first three decades of the century. The
primary exception to the general prosperity was farming. The market price of
farm products declined sharply after World War I and in the 1920s. As a result,
many Illinois farmers lost their farms.
| M | Between World Wars |
Violence marred the interwar period.
Race riots erupted across the United States in the summer of 1919, the worst
occurring in Chicago on July 27. When a black youth swimming in Lake Michigan
drifted into an area reserved for whites, he was stoned and drowned. Police
refused to arrest the white man whom black observers considered responsible, and
angry crowds gathered on the beach. Violence erupted and continued throughout
the city for 13 days, resulting in 38 dead, 537 injured, and 1,000 black
families left homeless. The riots shocked the nation and prompted many volunteer
organizations to work for equality.
In 1919 the U.S. Congress passed the
National Prohibition Act, also called the Volstead Act, which enforced the
prohibition of alcoholic beverages under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States. While the Volstead Act was in effect (1919-1933), Chicago
was notorious for its illegal alcohol smuggling, called bootlegging, and
for ruthless gang warfare. Gangsters like “Bugs” Moran and Al Capone fought turf
wars to control the huge profits from illegal alcohol sales and gambling. The
violence was epitomized by the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929, in which
Capone won control of Chicago’s underworld when his henchmen, dressed as police
officers, killed six of Moran’s gangsters and a visitor.
During the 1920s the state expanded
its transportation infrastructure to meet the increased demands of industry and
commerce. The government built a statewide highway system of hard-surfaced roads
and began work on the Illinois Waterway, which eventually connected Lake
Michigan to the Mississippi River.
The decade-long Great Depression that
followed the stock-market crash of October 1929 threw thousands of Illinoisans
out of work. The state’s farmers suffered from the drastic decline in farm
prices and, especially in western Illinois, a long drought resulted in soil
erosion and lost crops. Four special sessions of the state legislature were
called in 1932 to set up emergency relief programs.
Under the administration of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt federal funds helped create huge public works
projects. Farm areas that had suffered soil erosion employed soil conservation
measures and the state’s agricultural base was diversified: Soybean cultivation
began at that time. In 1933, in the midst of the depression, Chicago celebrated
the 100th anniversary of its incorporation as a town by holding a Century of
Progress Exposition. The financially successful exposition helped keep many
businesses in the Chicago area from going bankrupt. In 1937 the discovery of new
oil fields near Patoka set off a boom in oil production in the southern part of
the state.
| N | World War II |
The outbreak of World War II in 1939
marked the end of the economic depression in Illinois. Many industrial plants in
the state were rapidly converted to produce goods for the war effort and
military camps and air bases in the state trained thousands in the armed
forces.
Before 1950 any proposed amendment to
the state constitution had to be approved by a majority of those who voted in a
general election. Many people who voted for candidates, however, failed to vote
for or against amendments, and between 1908 and 1950, none of the nine
amendments submitted were able to pass. The “gateway amendment,” adopted in
1950, provided that amendments could be adopted either by a majority of those
voting in the election or by two-thirds of those voting on the amendment. Five
amendments were adopted in the 1950s. Despite the gateway amendment, many called
for changes to the Illinois Constitution, and in 1970 the state adopted a new
constitution, which was more suited to the needs of an urban industrial state.
Among the new features were provisions requiring the General Assembly to meet
annually instead of every other year and introducing a state income tax. The
constitution went into effect in 1971.
| O | Recent Developments |
From 1950 to 1980 the population
continued to grow, but at a declining rate. During the 1950s the farming
counties of the far south noticeably lost population; some areas lost 20 to 30
percent of their inhabitants. Chicago also lost some of its population, but the
number of its suburban inhabitants nearly doubled. The population loss in
Chicago accelerated in the 1960s and again in the 1970s. Metropolitan population
growth continued in the 1960s but ended in the 1970s when people moved to
Southern and Western states.
The population losses were linked to
an economic decline in the state that began in the 1960s and worsened in the
1970s. The state’s industries, based largely on old, inefficient plants and
faced with rising energy and labor costs, were less able to compete with either
foreign producers or new producers in the Southern and Southwestern states.
Illinois coal producers, for example, employed just over 10,000 people in 1990
but only about 5,700 in 1995, after federal clean-air legislation placed
high-sulfur Illinois coal at a competitive disadvantage to low-sulfur coal from
Western states. To halt the industrial decline in Illinois, the state offered
economic incentives to domestic and foreign manufacturers to remain in or
relocate to Illinois. In 1981 the state loaned $20 million to the Chrysler
Corporation, and several years later persuaded the Mitsubishi Corporation to
build a Diamond Star Motor plant in Normal, near Bloomington. A high-tech
corridor was created along Interstate 88 southwest of Chicago to encourage the
development of new computer and electronic technology. By the 1990s the Illinois
economy had substantially recovered; the unemployment rate in early 1996 of just
over 5 percent was the lowest rate since 1974.
Politics in postwar Illinois continued
to be marked by a division between Democratic Chicago and Republican downstate
Illinois. Adlai Ewing Stevenson, who served as Illinois governor from 1949 to
1953, became a spokesman for liberal Democrats who supported more government
action on behalf of individual needs, and he was the Democratic presidential
candidate in 1952 and 1956. Each time he lost both the nationwide election and
the votes of Illinois. Republicans continued to carry Illinois in most
presidential elections, though in 1960 and 1964 Illinois supported the
Democratic candidates.
In Chicago a Democratic Party
political machine, which used political rewards to ensure votes, wielded
considerable power under Mayor Richard J. Daley despite the declining urban
population. After Daley’s death in 1976, however, dissension erupted in the
party. In 1979 Jane Byrne won the Democratic primary and the general election,
but she lost the Democratic primary in 1983 to U.S. Congressman Harold
Washington, who went on to become Chicago’s first black mayor. Washington was
reelected in 1987, but after he died later that year the city council chose
Eugene Sawyer, a relatively unpopular alderman, to be acting mayor. He was then
defeated in a special election for mayor in 1989 by Richard M. Daley, son of
Richard J. Daley.
The Illinois delegation to the U.S.
Congress has lost strength due to the loss of seats in the U.S. House of
Representatives as well as the retirement, resignation, and election upsets of
many senior legislators. Influential Democratic Senator Alan Dixon lost in a
primary bid in 1992 to Carol Moseley-Braun, who became the first black woman
elected to the United States Senate. Representative Dan Rostenkowski, chairman
of the House Ways and Means Committee, pled guilty to two counts of mail fraud
after losing his 1994 reelection bid. Robert Michel, Republican minority leader
from 1981 to 1994, retired just before the Republican Party gained control of
Congress later that year. Finally, Democratic Senator Paul Simon announced he
would not seek reelection in 1996.
In 1995 U.S. Representative Mel
Reynolds was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker and
resigned. He was convicted of sexual misconduct and obstruction of justice and
began serving a five-year prison term later that year.
The history section of this article
was contributed by Thomas F. Schwartz. The remainder of the article was
contributed by Michael D. Sublett.
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