200 Years of Illinois: Raggedy Riches
On Christmas Eve, 1880, an Arcola painter-illustrator and his wife welcomed John Gruelle to the family. John sank roots into the professional illustration trade himself at age 25 when he […]
Author: rkcunningham
Posts by rkcunningham
Oh gnarly tree
I am fortunately immune to nostalgia about past celebrations of the yule, with one exception: the Christmas tree. Not a tree in the abstract, but the Christmas tree I grew up with, a […]
Backlist Bop: “All Around the Year,” by Jack Santino
Today we venture into the vaults to shed light on a Nineties UIP release. All Around the Year surveys the American year to delve into how and why we celebrate the […]
Christmas in Illinois: Dear Santa
From the UIP release Christmas in Illinois, edited by James Ballowe: Before sitting on Santa’s lap in department stores became the way children let Santa and their parents know what […]
Corrupt Illinois strikes again!
Chicago alderman Willie Cochran received news of his impending federal indictment on corruption charges while attending a City Council meeting. You can’t say he skips out on work. You can […]
Backlist Bop: Soy meets world
The World of Soy, edited by Christine M. Du Bois, Chee-Beng Tan, and Sidney Mintz It’s the happy season when we feast on all the high-calorie favorites we feel too […]
Release Party: Alfred Bester, by Jad Smith
Alfred Bester’s classic short stories and the canonical novel The Stars My Destination made him a science fiction legend. Fans and scholars praise him as a genre-bending pioneer and cyberpunk […]
200 Years of Illinois: The Cavaness Murders
On December 13, 1984, a remarkable murder took place outside of St. Louis. Dale Cavaness, a physician in Eldorado, Illinois, killed his ne’er-do-well son Sean with two gunshots to the […]
Journal Spotlight: History of the Present
History of the Present, launched in 2010, is devoted to history as a critical endeavor. Its aim is twofold: to create a space in which scholars can reflect on the […]
The most important race of their lives
Excerpted from Six Minutes in Berlin: Broadcast Spectacle and Rowing Gold at the Nazi Olympics, by Michael J. Socolow A few hours later, with the Germans having already compiled one […]
Cole Porter on tour, sort of
Master songsmith Cole Porter is no longer around to play command performances or record duets with pop stars. But the music lives on. Yesterday Susan Forscher Weiss, an editor of […]
Backlist Bop: Mythbusting an American institution
Forbidden Relatives challenges the belief—widely held in the United States—that legislation against marriage between first cousins is based on a biological risk to offspring. In fact, its author maintains, the […]