November 30, 2012

Abraham Lincoln, Oscar-Hunter?

Posted by joe
in american history, Lincoln | Comments Off

The much-anticipated film Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, recently opened in theaters nationwide.  Here in the Land of Lincoln, we’ve always had a strong history of publishing works on our 16th president, and here a few recent books that extend Lincoln’s legacy beyond the big screen.

Lincoln the Lawyer by Brian DirckLincoln the Lawyer
Brian Dirck
Lincoln lived most of his adult life as a practicing lawyer, and this book explores the origins of the “Prairie Lawyer” and his legal education, his partnerships with John Stuart, Stephen Logan, and William Herndon, and how his legal work influenced his political career.

Lincoln's Political Generals by David WorkLincoln’s Political Generals
David Work
The film Lincoln focuses on the legislative maneuvering to pass the 13th Amendment, but Lincoln also made strategic military appointments. In this book, David Work examines Lincoln’s policy of appointing political generals to build a national coalition to fight and win the Civil War.

Mary Lincoln's Insanity Case by Jason EmersonMary Lincoln’s Insanity Case: A Documentary History
Jason Emerson
Sally Field will probably snag awards for her portrayal of the unstable Mary Todd Lincoln, but was the President’s wife and widow truly insane? Emerson provides a documentary history of Mary Lincoln’s mental illness and insanity case, evenhandedly presenting every relevant primary source on the subject to enable a clearer view of the facts.

The Lincoln-Douglas DebatesThe Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition
Edited by Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L. Wilson
The most complete record ever assembled of the landmark Lincoln-Douglas debates, this edition brings readers as close as possible to the original words of these two remarkable men. Meticulously edited and annotated, it provides numerous aids to help the modern reader understand the debates, including extensive introductory material, commentary, and a glossary.

Herndon's LincolnHerndon’s Lincoln
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik
Edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis
William H. Herndon was Lincoln’s law partner, a personal friend, and his first biographer. His portrait of Lincoln established itself as a classic, and this recent edition restores the original text and is updated with extensive notes.

Lincoln's Humor and Other Essays by Benjamin P. Thomas“Lincoln’s Humor” and Other Essays
Benjamin P. Thomas
Edited by Michael Burlingame
From colorful tall tales to clever barbs aimed at political opponents, Lincoln used humor to defuse tension, illuminate a point, put others at ease–and sometimes for sheer fun. This collection of essays explores Lincoln’s qualities as a humorist, lawyer, and politician.

Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
Bryon Andreasen, Editor
The only journal dedicated exclusively to Lincoln scholarship and the official journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association.

Other UIP titles in Lincoln studies

November 30, 2012

“What I Want for Christmas,” an excerpt from Christmas in Illinois

Posted by denise
in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Christmas in IllinoisWith hopes for peaceful holiday celebrations everywhere, here is “What I Want for Christmas,” by Robert Green Ingersoll, from Christmas in Illinois, along with the introduction by editor James Ballowe:

“Adults have also used the holiday to make known to others their desires for the future. Robert Green Ingersoll, the son of a Presbyterian abolitionist minister, taught in Mount Vernon and Metropolis and practiced law in Shawneetown and Peoria. He was a colonel in the Union army and after the war became Illinois attorney general before becoming prominent on the national stage. In his ‘Christmas Sermon,’ written in 1892, he said, ‘I believe in Christmas and in every day that has been set aside for joy.’ The following requests for Christmas, written in 1897, express his humanism.

If I had the power to produce exactly what I want for next Christmas, I would have all the kings and emperors resign and allow the people to govern themselves.

I would have all the nobility crop their titles and give their lands back to the people. I would have the pope throw away his tiara, take off his sacred vestments, and admit that he is not acting for God—is not infallible—but is just an ordinary Italian. I would have all the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and clergymen admit that they know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or angels. I would have them tell all their “flocks” to think for themselves, to be manly men and womanly women, and to do all in their power to increase the sum of human happiness.

I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths.

I would like to see all the politicians changed to statesmen—to men who long to make their country great and free; to men who care more for public good than private gain—men who long to be of use.

I would like to see all the editors of papers and magazines agree to print the truth and nothing but the truth, to avoid all slander and misrepresentation, and to let the private affairs of the people alone.

I would like to see drunkenness and prohibition both abolished.

I would like to see corporal punishment done away with in every home, in every school, in every asylum, reformatory, and prison. Cruelty hardens and degrades; kindness reforms and ennobles.

I would like to see the millionaires unite and form a trust for the public good.

I would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and labor, so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little June with the December of his life.

I would like to see an international court established in which to settle disputes between nations, so that armies could be disbanded and the great navies allowed to rust and rot in perfect peace.

I would like to see the whole world free—free from injustice—free from superstition.

This will do for next Christmas. The following Christmas, I may want more.”

 

 

November 27, 2012

Advertising at War

Posted by michael
in communication | 1 Comment

The UIUC News Bureau profiles Inger Stole’s new University of Illinois Press book Advertising at War: Business, Consumers, and Government in the 1940s.

Cover for stole: Advertising at War: Business, Consumers, and Government in the 1940s. Click for larger image“While it might be hard to imagine in the midst of the ad-soaked holiday season, there was a time – in the 1930s – when advertising faced fierce opposition from the public.

Then came World War II, and everything changed, says Inger Stole.

Advertisers and the advertising industry helped the federal government sell war bonds and the need for wartime security (‘loose lips sink ships’). It promoted ‘victory gardens’ and scrap metal drives. It helped recruit men into the military and women into the workforce (‘Rosie the Riveter’).”

 

November 21, 2012

Music Tomes interview with Fred Bartenstein

Posted by michael
in american history, author commentary, interviews, music | Comments Off

Fred Bartenstein, editor of the recent Josh Graves memoir Bluegrass Bluesman, is featured in a recent Music Tomes interview.

MT: What are you currently working on?

FB: I wrote a number of the biographies of Bluegrass Hall of Fame members for the International Bluegrass Music Museum website. I think it would be good to compile the 50-some profiles into a book with great photographs, and the Museum and I are working on putting that project together.

November 14, 2012

Stephen Wade on WHYY’s Radio Times

Posted by michael
in american history, music | Comments Off

Earlier today, November 14, Stephen Wade appeared on WHYY’s Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane to discuss his new book The Beautiful Music All Around Us and his new CD Banjo Diary.

 

November 14, 2012

“Denise Levertov” author on PBS

Posted by michael
in author commentary, poetry, religion | Comments Off

Watch Dana Greene on Denise Levertov on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Denise Levertov: A Poet’s Life by Dana Greene

November 14, 2012

Write for the World by Stephen Wade

Posted by michael
in author commentary | 1 Comment

University of Illinois Press author Stephen Wade contributed this piece for the University Press Week blog tour. The tour continues today at University of Nebraska Press. A complete blog tour schedule is also available here.

*****

Back when big city newspapers still had heft, sidewalk onlookers eager for the latest edition could watch a paper make its run: an endless spool of pulp throttling past the plate glass windows. Under giant rollers and gears unleashing locomotive power, the ribbon of type sped by with clatter and clang–streaming, turning, and stacking.

As befitted that era of gunmetal and grease, industrial folktales surrounding the printer’s trade circulated on the shop floor. These included the type louse, a self-satisfied creature that fed on shavings cast from the linotype machine. After gorging himself on one such repast, the satiated critter toppled down on the keys for his lunchtime snooze. To the editor’s consternation and the operator’s despair, despite his intention to type “the congregants prayed” the metal slug now read “the congregants brayed.” And so that report went out to the world. Even though, the worker explained to his boss’s dubiety, the type louse had been the cause of it all.

Nowadays other bugs bedevil publishers and authors alike. As a writer and
musician humbled by the sight of his quarter-million carefully selected words
reduced to a red plastic thumb drive, I find it consoling to know that at Illinois—from editorial to production to marketing—the Press stands united to combat literary lice, whether born of cybernetic strain or, more likely, byproducts of this author’s postprandial fatigue. Continue reading →

November 13, 2012

Postcard of the Day, Part 12

Posted by michael
in Illinois / regional, Postcard of the Day | Comments Off


Keith Sculle, co-author of Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo (University of Illinois Press, October 2012), concludes our Postcard of the Day feature with his favorite from the book.

Postcards stimulate reference to the past in ways more powerful than words.  This idyllic view of a shaded residential street in Danville’s upscale past is true to the scene but it also evokes an idealized home place, one of quiet, one blending nature with stately architecture.  This particular view also references—for those wishing to delve further—the neighborhood where Illinois’ once powerful Speaker of the House lived, Uncle Joe Cannon. Fact, memory, and feeling are all embedded in my favorite postcard from Picturing Illinois.  

Figure 142, North Vermilion Street, Danville, ca. 1910. C. T. [Curt Teich] American Art (#R-20740).

Taken from Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo (University of Illinois Press, October 2012).  Previous postcards here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, and here.

November 12, 2012

It is University Press Week!

Posted by denise
in press events, publishing, University Press Week | Comments Off

As a founding member, we are proud to celebrate 75 years of the American Association of University Presses and the contributions University Presses make to culture, academia, and an informed society with the first annual University Press Week (November 11-17, 2012).

Events this year include:

  • An online exhibit called Fine Print* (*and Digital!). A gallery of books, journals, digital collections, and reference works exemplifying the work of AAUP members.
  • A blog tour, featuring writings from the perspectives of 26 member presses and their authors.
  • Influence maps highlighting the geographical spread of University Presses, both in their physical locations and in their subjects.

Check back with us Wednesday when we take our turn hosting the blog tour with a post by  folklorist Stephen Wade on the value of “humane scholarship” through the work of University Presses.

 

November 12, 2012

Postcard of the Day, Part 11

Posted by michael
in Illinois / regional, Postcard of the Day | Comments Off


John Jakle, co-author of Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo (University of Illinois Press, October 2012), reveals his favorite from the book.

Figure 131 on page 133 of Picturing Illinois shows Memorial Stadium on the University of Illinois campus.  But, like so many cards, the image has been altered to improve its customer appeal.  In the background mountains have been added.  In the middle ground a lake appears.  And the card’s caption reads: “Memorial Stadium, University of Illinois, Chicago, Ill.”  It is not merely a mistake.  As we speculate in the text it appears to be symptomatic of the often smug Chicago attitude toward the larger State of Illinois—the emotion that everything worthwhile in Illinois must be in the big city.  And yet the big city wouldn’t be big if it weren’t for the farms, small towns, and lesser cities “downstate” and elsewhere throughout Chicago’s Midwest hinterland.  Even postcard images deserve critical thought.

Credit: Memorial Stadium, University of Illinois, Champaign, Gerson Brothers (#14779), Chicago.

Taken from Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo (University of Illinois Press, October 2012).  Previous postcards here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.