Illinois Books

When one thinks of orphanages, Oliver Twist asking "Can I have some more, please?" comes to mind. So does the image of the orphanage as a giant warehouse packed to the rafters with filthy children cowering under the harsh glare of psychotic social workers. Kenneth Cmiel's "A Home of Another Kind: One Chicago Orphanage and the Tangle of Child Welfare" does much to refute this view. Certainly, some orphanages were cesspools that mistreated their charges, but most genuinely tried to assist the children under their care. Cmiel's book, through the use of a plethora of source materials--including orphanage records, government documents, and personal interviews-- successfully charts the changing course of child welfare by looking at the Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum from its founding in 1860 to its reorganization as a research center in 1984. Most importantly, he uses his findings to trace the changing attitudes regarding the care of dependent and delinquent children in the country at large.

The author discovers that the early years of the Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum, from 1860 to roughly 1900, were a time of private, religion based assistance. The people that ran the institution on a daily basis were Protestant, wealthy, and female. They lived near the asylum, which meant that they took a personal interest in the condition of the institution and the children living there. The women running the orphanage also helped raise the funds necessary to operate the building on a yearly basis. Children chosen to live in the asylum came from working class families undergoing some sort of catastrophic upheaval, disasters that left one or both of the parents needing someone to watch their offspring while they put their family back together again. As a result, children in the orphanage during the early years of its existence rarely lived there very long. Progressive ideas about childcare, which began in earnest after 1900, sought to change the practices of the asylum by creating a unified network of facilities dependent upon citywide umbrella organizations that disbursed both funds and the latest social service theories. While successful in some areas, these Progressive ideas failed to gain power over Chicago area orphanages and asylums because privately owned facilities refused to give up control.

The Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war period saw public funding increase from a trickle to a flood. With the boost in public funding came rules and regulations that severely curtailed the traditional authority of the private managing boards. The Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum, now known as Chapin Hall as a result of a new facility built with donated funds, gradually turned over control of the organization to the professionally trained staff. The institution also went on the public dole, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). With public money came new responsibilities, primarily rejecting dependent kids in favor of delinquent children with a host of emotional and physical problems. Chapin Hall became a "residential treatment facility" staffed with dozens of highly trained professionals working intensively with the youths. When the state government began a policy of "deinstitutionalization" in the 1970s, a policy that sought to remove as many children from public orphanages and asylums as possible, Chapin Hall failed to respond to the new reality and closed after running deep deficits for several years. The institution reopened as a children's research center under the ownership of the University of Chicago.

Cmiel's book is a wonderful work because it succeeds in personalizing the history of the Chicago orphanage. The author consistently brings to the foreground the personal elements of social history that are often lost in lengthy descriptions of changing policies, power struggles, and theories on childcare. The reader gains a very real sense of what it was like to live in an asylum. For instance, Cmiel describes how the children living in the orphanage in the late nineteenth century, both male and female, had their heads shaved in order to prevent lice. And the descriptions of youths with serious mental and emotional problems in the later years of the orphanage, children abandoned by their parents and left to languish at Chapin Hall for years, brought tears to the eyes of this reader. It is rare for a history book to elicit this sort of reaction. Arguably the most surprising element in the book concerns the process of deinstitutionalization, and who started that process. Conservatives usually shoulder the blame for closing down hospitals, mental asylums, and other shelters. But Cmiel's research points the finger at liberals coming into power in the 1970s. They supported reducing the number of children in institutions with programs designed to keep kids at home or in small group houses scattered throughout the city. It was only later that Republicans signed on to the policies when they too discovered the amount of money the state would save in the process. It seems there is enough guilt to go around for both parties.

It is difficult to find problems with Cmiel's study due to the excellent research and strict parameters of the study. Yet there are a few areas that could use additional explanation or elaboration. For example, at several points in the narrative the author contends that Catholic facilities eluded Progressive efforts to exert financial and operational control far longer than most of the city's other institutions. Not until the DCFS pumped massive amounts of money into privately controlled facilities did the Catholics turn over control. Why were Catholic operations impervious to the earlier Progressive attempts to unite Chicago's childcare institutions under a broad operational umbrella when others were not? Was Catholic unity the reason these asylums resisted change for so long? Or was it something else? If it was the latter, could the Protestant organizations like Chapin Hall have done something similar and thus explored other options to keep control of their institution, if even for awhile longer?

Child Abuse by the State

by Patrick Quinn

Child welfare work consists of one party taking over some or all of the process of rearing children when another party, usually in the nuclear family, has failed in some egregious way. Since the nuclear family is one of the most important components of any civil society, this is extremely important work.

Children whose families fail them in some catastrophic way -- either through abuse, neglect or abandonment -- eventually become adults, and often prove to be formidable social nuisances. And the ability of any society to deal with such children is all the more crucial given that such problems seem to be pretty durable over time. Concern with exceedingly poor child rearing dates at least as far back as ancient Sumeria, and probably farther.

America's approach to child welfare work has undergone a dramatic shift over the past 100 years, but the nature of the work done has remained fundamentally the same. When families are unwilling or unable to raise their children -- for whatever reason -- the rearing process must be assumed by someone else. What has changed in American child welfare work over the course of the 20th century is who that someone is. In the past, child welfare work was almost entirely private. Today, the assumption of the rearing process is handled almost entirely by government.

It is time to consider the likelihood that this transition was a tragic mistake.

Does gross ineffectiveness bother you? In 1995, a Chicago Tribune report revealed that the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the state child welfare bureaucracy, did not know the whereabouts of more than 20,000 of its wards. Think about that for a moment: The physical location of roughly half of the children under the direct responsibility of the state was unknown to the state's bureaucrats.

Does fiscal insanity bother you more? In Illinois, DCFS has been under fire almost constantly since its creation via legislative fiat in 1964. A steady stream of exposes has uncovered blunder after blunder: children sleeping on the floors of DCFS offices, a group of children housed without supervision in a local motel with regular access to adult movies, children actually dying while in the state's care. The state finally gave in to the immense political pressure that comes with such tragic and chronic embarrassments and went on a knee-jerk spending spree, with the help of some changes in state Medicaid laws. In the early 1990s, the DCFS budget soared more than 300 percent. Today, that budget is well over $1 billion. The clearest result of all of that spending is that children in the system now have a lot more people to "care" for them.

Imagine a troubled child trying to adjust to a new group home. Now, after all that spending, that same child of limited coping abilities is expected to adjust to a new set of "parents" every 8 hours, along with numerous ancillary workers. And since all of those bloated budgets need to be justified, those who work in the system have been turned into paper jockeys. As a therapist coworker once told me, "I got into this field to try to help children, but 60-70 percent of my job is paperwork."

Or perhaps you are particularly bothered by arbitrary power. Now, imagine combining arbitrary and largely unstoppable power with the pseudo-sciences of psychiatry and social work. That mix is what exists in much of child welfare work. I have had the utterly enervating experience of witnessing this combination of forces used to dismantle children psychologically and spiritually.

One of the group homes where I worked was set in a quiet residential neighborhood on Chicago's northwest side. One of the boys, Shannon, was a model child, not just in our institution, but among all of the neighborhood children as well. Shannon was utterly reliable. We allowed him free reign in the neighborhood, gave him an allowance, let him join the local YMCA, and even sent him shopping when essentials ran out.

One day, some psychiatric social workers from the state visited the home, a "private" contractor with the state. Their putative function was to act as a kind of meta-authority within the system, looking into special cases, or performing investigations of problems, and so on. They were interested in Shannon because of his unique situation. Altogether, he had nine family members in the custody of the state, including two younger brothers who lived with him at our home, and his oldest brother, who had just been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in Arizona. Shannon didn't know his oldest brother, but the social workers thought it appropriate to probe his thoughts on the sentencing, and in the process to review his situation to see if any changes were warranted.

For reasons known only to themselves, the workers began suggesting to Shannon that they would separate him from his two younger brothers at the home by placing him elsewhere. Most likely, they were simply under pressure to change his "treatment plan," which is the name given to the state's plan for dealing with individual wards. Treatment plans represent an effort to quantify the services given to wards (e.g., length of stay in the system), as well as to specify the nature of the services rendered (e.g., foster care vs. institutional settings, medication vs. behavior modification). Since treatment plans are tied to state budgets, there is constant pressure to tinker with them, a process that often does not consider a child's best interests. From the vantage-point of those actually raising Shannon -- me and my co-worker -- there was absolutely no reason to move him.

Not surprisingly, Shannon was bothered greatly by the suggestion. As I've said, he was a sweet, good little kid. But every human has a touchy spot, and the thought of separation from his brothers, understandably, was his. Loving and watching over his two little brothers -- was a responsibility Shannon had understandably (and proudly) bestowed upon himself, given the condition of his family.

So he became combative with the workers. Not violent, mind you; just angry enough to raise his voice to the complete strangers who were proposing to shatter what was left of his life. In response, they had him summarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Shannon, the good kid, was no more.

As justification for their move, the social workers engaged in a bit of revisionist history. As it turned out, Shannon had the swimming ability of a rock, and about a week earlier had nearly drowned at the YMCA. He was revived on the pool deck, and was fine after a short observation. The social workers decided to call this a suicide attempt. Suddenly, Shannon was a depressed youth suffering from suicidal ideation.

And of course, on the psychiatric ward, he was medicated for the first time in his life. When he began having nightmares (presumably from the drugs, as is so often the case) he was tagged as suffering from a psychotic episode. And, his (perfectly sensible) refusal to cooperate at all at the hospital was taken by the social workers as "evidence" of their having made a keen diagnosis, and as justification for their intervention.

Such is the circular, arbitrary reasoning of psychiatric social work.

Monolithic Welfare

One of the most troubling aspects of all this is that child welfare work in America is a monolith. The problems I've been describing are systemic and nationwide. Just as public education has withered the private school sector, so too has the government's role in caring for delinquent and dependent children reduced the options for such children. Sure, there are a few largely private organizations that have endured the state's takeover of child welfare work. Boys Town, one of the largest and most famous, accepts only about ten percent of its income from the state. But these institutions are the exception. The rule for children whose families don't function for them is the labyrinth of public and quasi-public homes and agencies that the government has created, including the perennially troubled juvenile court system.

Even the "private" homes like I worked at are funded and controlled by the state. One group home that I worked for called itself a private organization, but it received nearly 80% of its operating income directly from the state and was thoroughly controlled by the state, right down to the minute detail of what the children could have on the tops of their dressers. Even the option for children that is furthest removed from the state -- foster homes, private homes where children are placed by the state -- is tightly regulated by government bureaucrats.

And the results are what one might expect of government bureaucracy. Child welfare bureaucrats constantly claim that resources are too scarce. But in reality, inefficiencies and politics are squandering resources that desperately need to be utilized. In Illinois in 1991, for example, DCFS admitted that of the 14,000 foster homes it had licensed, only 6,000 were in use at any time.

Given all of this, it is more than worthwhile to

I loved this story of hardship and struggle. It made me realize if you have a dream go after it. I liked the reality of life portrayed in this book.I think that William and Aurthur and their families were perfect for this documentary. HOOP DREAMS HOOP DREAMS HOOP DREAMS

...Spinning, around the back swooping in for the lay-up. The kids swarmed around the b-ball court as Arthur plays ball with the other boys. He shoots lights out, drives past the defense.... Growing up, Arthur was always a top competitor. As he gets to high school he learns some hard lessons about life. As does William Gates, the other star basketball player. The book is filled with great details about the games, the dazzling life experiences, the realistic settings the book describes. The story of two boys: great basketball players growing up, living their lives through basketball, in and out of school. This book was really great; it taught me about how it is to live in bad conditions and to fight against odds to get what you want. I think everybody with a goal who is willing to work towards goals they set, should read this book.

Even though I'm not from the Urbana area, I found this book to be very enjoyable. I liked the idea of 150 different stories that were told. Many of them were very interesting. I would definitely recommend this book and hope that the author, Tom Kacich, will write future books. I thought his insight into the stories was very informative.

I consider myself to be an avid reader and I like the books I read to be interesting and easy to read. I found that Hot Type by Tom Kacich is the best of both worlds for me - the stories come from Champaign and Urbana in Illinois but they could easily be from any town in this country. The stories in the book are compelling and the format of the book allows the reader to read a few stories at a time or the entire book at once. Mr. Kacich has done a fine job researching the stories and the photos are interesting, too. Hot Type is not just a book for people from Illinois but a must for all avid readers!

One doesn't need an entire day to appreciate the arts and life of the great city of Chicago. "Hour Chicago: Twenty Five Self-Guided Sixty Minute Tours of Chicago's Great Architecture and Art" is a guide for tourists and residents who looking to savor full appreciation of the city's culture in conveniently bite-sized doses. Presented in a compact and portable form, Hour Chicago is the perfect guide to carry along for any trip through the city. Highly recommended for community library travel collections.

Other guidebooks can tell you where to eat, where to stay, what to wear or what plays to go to. But if you love cities because of their art and architecture, if you want to get off the tour bus, THIS is the guidebook you want.

The author is the perfect guide. After a few pages, you feel like you've gotten to know her, and you're eager to get her opinions on whatever she shows you on the next page. She's not afraid to say when she thinks a building is dull, which is a nice change from the hype of most tourist guides. But when she likes something, it's obvious. Somehow she can explain what makes a painting, sculpture or building great, in just a few choice words. You get the feeling she knows way more than she has space to share. But "share" is the word. She doesn't talk down to the reader, but she also knows that not everyone has a masters in fine art and architecture. There's a great glossary and good maps, which you'll need, because this guide doesn't stop at the Art Institute and the Loop. It takes you into the neighborhoods for galleries, architecture and smaller museums with collections that are world-class, but are overshadowed by the Art Institute.

The book is the perfect size for a backpack or fanny pack -- you can tell it's meant to be USED. The prose is clean and direct, and should not be a problem for tourists whose 1st language is not English.

It's organized into short tours that you really can take if you only have an hour, but you can also string them together if you're lucky enough to have a weekend or a lifetime. (This book is not just for tourists. It's must for people who live here, especially if you already think you know the city.)

What I like most about this book is that it seems to have a special place in its heart for the person who is by himself or herself. Anyone who's travelled to a great city alone has felt at times the lack of a companion to share the experience with. You find yourself wanting to turn to someone and see your excitement reflected back. In "Hour Chicago,"that person is the author. You feel like, whether she's physically there or not, she wrote this book for you and is hoping to see her excitement reflected back in you.

We have been collecting Haeger for years. This book gives us a better understanding and history of our collection.

This wonderful book explores more than just Haeger's early years. It contains a wealth of information about Martin Stangl and his connections to the Fulper pottery and of course Fulper's later incarnation as Stangl pottery. I recommend this book without reservation to anyone seeking more information about Haeger, Fulper or Stangl. I have collected Fulper for a long time but still found useful insights. The photos are grand!

As someone with no experience in launching a business, this book has been very useful in explaining the different options (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, etc.) and the distinct advantages for each. The author admits a bias in favor of forming a corporation over the other business structures, as is alluded to in the title. He does justice to each business type, and follows with how-tos in everything from choosing a name, issuing stock, raising capital, dealing with lawyers, preparing contracts, leases, hiring and employment laws, insurance, trademarks and taxes. Although I've heard some discontent with the detail covering sole proprietorship, I found the book an overall excellent introduction into starting a business, and an eye-opener on all the details involved. The Illinois-specific information is very helpful as well. For anyone with limited business experience thinking about striking out on his or her own, I recommend this as a good tool to start with.

This is a well organized book that covers just about everything you need to know to get started. You'll still have to do a lot of work on your own, but it tells you what to expect, how to find the info, and what to do to make sure you're covered legally. Sample documents and forms are also shown to help you in preparing your own or to be ready for filling out government forms. Given the price of the book, I feel the value of information in the book is a steal. It rates a 9 only because I didn't find the chapter on taxes to be as complete as I had hoped. There is a lot of good info on taxes but it's a little weak on some of the details.

This story tells the story of the Polks (which was not the original name), who were a family that came to the USA from Europe with big dreams and hopes. These dreams were fulfilled when Polk Bros., the first retailer of its kind became successfull. Polk Bros. set the tone for all future retailers with its new ideas. My favorite part of the book, was reading about the many big and weird promotions Polk Bros. had, including renting out the Chicago Stadium for a humungous b-day celebration. Read this book (of course) to find out more.

This wonderful book captures the memories and spirit of the Polk Brothers retail establishment. Long before Circuit City and Best Buy, Polk Brothers sold hard goods (TV's, Radios, etc) to the families of Chicagoland. It was quite the event for my father to pile the family into the stationwagon to go to Polk City and purchase a counsole Zenith television for several hundred dollars. As a child I remember receiving a toy premium after a purchase. We received inflatable airplanes, 7-UP, and Ann Landers books. Our family home was furnished by Polk City. Polk City was a warm, chaotic, intoxicating place to make a purchase. The book reflects this and brings Polk Brothers alive. The author paints a warm, interesting story of a Chicago institution and captures the family event of what it was to go to Polk Brothers. A real connection to Chicago and its families. A nice read even if you are not from Chicago.

This book was really helpful. I passed my content area test on the first try and I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a great way to study for it. The book has circulated through my circle of friends nad they have all been successful with the test as well.ICTS Elementary-Middle Grades 110 (Teacher Certification Exam)

This study guide is well-researched and an excellent reference for aspiring teachers as they prepare for certification. The book is aligned to Illinois' outlined guidelines for elementary educators, and it provides specific information for the skills creating each competency. Written by teachers, this practical guide covers the basics of elementary subjects including Reading, Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Physical Education/Health, and the Arts. Whether used for a new teacher just entering the classroom or as a reference during your teaching career, this book is a must-have for teachers!

I embrace these spaces as I travel through Southern Illinois, thanks to Gary. How about a book on Indiana!

My husband is from Oakland Illinois, the 'gateway to corn country' We moved to Texas nearly 10 years, and at one point bought Mr. Irving's book for my father-in-law, who brokers corn from his office at the elevator in Greenview, IL. Every Christmas we return to Illinois, visiting relatives in towns like Petersburg, Arcola, and Hindsboro - the kind of towns that form the heart of Illinois, and the heart of this book. This past Christmas, flipping once again through the familiar images of Mr. Irving's book, I was struck by the elemental and easily underestimated beauty of the midwest. Sure, Illinois is flat and seamingly plain - but it does have it's own mysteries. You can see time passing by standing outside a desserted, sagging barn, where only the whirring of bird wings and the sound of a far-off combine interrupt the silence. In the corn fields, growth is something you smell rather than see or hear, and the smell is green and yellow and rustling; walk a few feet into the rows and you will learn the true meaning of solitude. You can lay on a hillock and the sky will wrap itself around your peripheral vision. The two-lane highways ('the hard road' to locals) snake between bean and corn fields, past the barn handpainted with the sign "Chewing (tobacco) serves to steady nerves!", and through towns that all have a single flashing stoplight and a town square w/ parking on the slant all around. If you've been away for awhile, you drive slowly on these roads - in part because of the deer, in part because of the Amish, in part to safely pass the combines rolling along on the shoulder, in part to wave at passing cars (you almost always know the driver, or know someone who knows the driver - in the cornfields of Illinois, everyone is either friend or family once-removed), but mostly you drive slowly because of the plain beauty of the farmhouses and elevators and the hypnotic horizon of the sky. My love of the ocean was born on the Illinois plains - the undulating cornfields, the far horizons, the renewing sunrise - the ocean is my way of staying in touch with the land I learned I actually loved only after I left it. Mr.Irving's book illustrates the poetry of life in the corn belt under the Illinois sky.

Being the grandson of a former superintendant of the Illinois Central Railroad, this book brought back some great memories and solidified some of the stories my grandfather had told me growing up about the IC. Great pitures too! If you are a rail fan, I strongly recommend this book! A tribute to a great road still running to this day via the Canadian National.

The Illinois Central was another of America's premeir railroads that helped to develop the contry and which now is no more. From its start in 1838 (with 24 miles of track) it grew to over 6,500 miles. Alas, in 1999 it passed into the hands of the Canadial National.

This is a colorful history of the Illinois Central from its early day through its acquisition. It is profusely illustrated,with a lot of color pictures. The text that accompanies the pictures gives an accurate telling of the story of the line and its operation down through the years.

The IC grew by acquiring other lines as well as by expanding its own tract into new areas. It remained, however a north-wouth line with its solid anchors in Chicago and New Orleans. It grew west to meet with the Union Pacific in Omaha. It grew to the south east, eventually connecting to Birmingham and eventually Miami.

Only in the last couple of pages in the book is the Canadian National merger. It has become a major railroad, from the original IC trackage from Chicago to New Orleans and CN all across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But alas, it's under the CN name, not the IC.