The National Barn Dance was the nation’s most popular country music radio show during the 1930s and 1940s, predating the popularity of the Grand Ole Opry and serving as a […]
Category: Illinois / regional
Sensing Chicago awarded by the Illinois State Historical Society
Sensing Chicago: Noisemakers, Strikebreakers, and Muckrakers by Adam Mack has been given an award for Superior Achievement by the Illinois State Historical Society. The awards committee noted, “This scholarly book […]
200 Years of Illinois: U.S. as in United States
“My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.” April 27 marks the 194th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant, victor […]
Kind of Blue
With the Cubs shocking the monkey in the early going, the cry goes out: Kris Bryant for president. Or Anthony Rizzo. Or Jake Arrieta. Alas, they are all too young and, […]
200 Years of Illinois: Dark Skies
April 21, 1967, dawned cool and foggy in northern Illinois. It had been a tough winter and the cold had yet to fully retreat. In fact, it would snow again three days […]
Throwbacklist Thursday: Call of the Mild
Until climate change renders snowball fights the exclusive preserve of those able to climb K2, May will remain the most welcome of months, for have mercy, it is spring. Natural history, […]
Bumper crop
What does America need? You probably have a long list. It might even include “a good five-cent cigar.” What does America NOT need? More corn. We’re swimming in corn. South America is […]
Q&A with the editors of Women, Work, and Worship in Lincoln’s Country
Ann Dumville and her daughters Jemima, Hephzibah, and Elizabeth were not history makers in the way we traditionally think of such figures. None of these women held high political office […]
Q&A with Painting the Gospel author Kymberly Pinder
Kymberly N. Pinder is Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. Her book Painting the Gospel: Black Public Art and Religion in Chicago explores the […]
Alan Harper’s blues odyssey
Alan Harper left his home in England in 1979 on a pilgrimage to find the blues. His journey led him to Chicago where he worked at a sandwich restaurant and […]
Burn days at Prairie Crossing
Our new release Prairie Crossing looks at a suburban Chicago housing development founded as an experiment to use access to nature as a means to challenge America’s failed culture of suburban sprawl. […]
The fate of Mr. Pitner
In the new UIP release The Dumville Letters, Anne M. Heinz and John P. Heinz bring us the antebellum-era correspondence of Ann Dumville and her daughters Hepzibah, Jemima, and Elizabeth, as well as their […]