Starting from May 8th, 2017 at 10 A.M. until May 11th, 2017 5 P.M., University of Illinois Press is sponsoring a graduation book giveaway across all of our social media accounts! […]
Category: Illinois / regional
200 Years of Illinois: Dutch windmill
On May 5, 2001, the village of Fulton officially opened the majestic De Immigrant, the 100-foot tall Dutch windmill overlooking the Mississippi River. Built in the Netherlands and reconstructed piece-by-piece […]
Mushroom time begins with the puffy Morganella pyriformis
Morganella pyriformis (Schaeffer) Kreisel & D. Kruger The habitat on wood and the abundant white rhizomorphs make this puffball easy to identify. Morganella versus Lycoperdon. It’s the mycologist’s version of pepperoni or […]
200 Years of Illinois: Scott Field and the Balloon Man
On May 4, 1927, balloonist Hawthorne C. Gray, a captain in the Army Air Corps, reached new heights in human endeavor. Literally. Taking off from Scott Field near Belleville, Gray […]
Saluting the opening of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition
On May 1, 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago and soon took its place among the magnificent public entertainments of the modern age. The following is an excerpt from Chicago’s […]
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 […]
Backstreet Bop: Rhythm of the rails
On this day in 1947, the City of New Orleans made its first run between the Chicago and the Crescent City on the Illinois Central line. The City traveled the early 921-mile […]
200 Years of Illinois: John B. Anderson Versus the World
On April 25, 1980, longtime Rockford congressman and powerful House leader John B. Anderson launched his independent campaign for the presidency. Today, April 26, marks the anniversary of his first full […]
200 Years of Illinois: Disaster in Naperville
One of the state’s lesser-known catastrophes, the Naperville Train Crash on April 25, 1946 marked a turning point in the town’s history. In those days half-rural, with some of its […]
Meet the UI Press: Fundraising tips
Enjoy another in our series of posts on how university presses and other small publishing concerns can enjoy greater financial security by creating new revenue streams. The introductory post is here. A second […]
Dick Simpson on Against the Current
Dick Simpson, co-author of Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality, recently sat down with Dan Proft on the latest edition of Against the Current to talk about the history of […]
200 Years of Illinois: Sorry, Charlie
On April 19, 1928, Illinois held its last public hanging as bootlegger Charlie Birger went up the rope in Benton on a spring morning. (We’ve published a book that tells his story.) […]