He fought for his country at a time when Native Americans still played a major role in New York’s military conflicts. He died when film could be taken of his funeral. On […]
Category: biography
200 Years of Illinois: The Artful Pose
Today marks the birthday of famed sculptor Lorado Taft, born in 1860 in Elmwood, Illinois. A graduate of the Illinois Industrial University—forerunner of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—Taft studied in […]
Happy Birthday, Muddy Waters
Longing for that down home music? Looking for a shot of brilliance? Tryin’ to forget that you asked for water and your woman/man gave you gasoline? Then you must be celebrating the 100th […]
200 Years of Illinois: Archaea, the third kind of life on earth
Today we turn over the 200 Years of Illinois feature to Steven Lenz and Nicholas Hopkins, authors of an essay (reprinted below) in the new UIP book The University of Illinois: Engine […]
Anatomy of a Peggy Seeger classic
Excerpted from Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love, and Politics, by Jean Freedman Peggy had written some mildly feminist songs, such as “Darling Annie,” about an equal partnership between […]
Jose Angel N. on undocumented immigrants and negative growth
Today at The Point, José Ángel N. contributes an essay drawing on his experiences as an undocumented immigrant to ponder American progress, the idea of home, and today’s fraught immigration […]
Backlist Bop: Betrayal of the Spirit, by Nori J. Muster
Book Riot recently released a list of 100 must-read books on life in cults and oppressive religious sects. Author Elizabeth Allen moved across the tragic, weird, and terrible landscape of […]
Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and political words
Excerpted from Orwell: Life and Art, by Jeffrey Meyers. The chapter deals with George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The past is one of the dominant themes of the novel. The Party confidently […]
Release Party: May Irwin, by Sharon Ammen
May Irwin reigned as America’s queen of comedy and song from the 1880s through the 1920s. A genuine pop culture phenomenon, Irwin conquered the legitimate stage, composed song lyrics, and […]
Backlist Bop: Tiny Kline and the Circus of Life
When people ask me about life in a circus, all I can think is that it must be drafty in those tents. Fortunately for all of us, longtime circus performer Tiny […]
Christmas in the Land of Milk and (Uncle) Honey
Alan Guebert’s book The Land of Milk and Uncle Honey may have been inspired by a little homemade wine. Guebert, has been writing his nationally syndicated column “The Farm and Food […]
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 […]