Illinois Books

I was fortunate to hear Carrie Meyer give a presentation on this book and immediately bought it. I am now buying extra copies for family members who live on farms in Illinois and Iowa. I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois (roughly 100 miles of the family farm Carrie describes) in the late 1930s. This book has the daily diary from 1900 to 1944. It also has income and expense ledgers for everything they bought and sold. It tells about living on the farm in good and difficult times. Carrie's family is still living on the farm. This is the best book I have seen about life on a farm and how technology changed how farming was done. It is a must read.

"Days On The Family Farm: From The Golden Age Through The Great Depression" by Carrie A. Meyer (who grew up on an Illinois farm and went on to teach economics at George Mason University) is a memoir based history of life on a Midwestern farm from the beginning of the twentieth century to World War II as recorded in a daily chronicle kept by farm wife May Lyford Davis. The result is an entertaining and informative 'window into time' through which is revealed an American yesteryear when May and her husband Elmo experienced life on a farm through two decades of prosperity, the bleak years of the Great Depression, and the impact of two World Wars upon their Midwestern farming community of friends and neighbors. Articulate, detailed, personable, "Days On The Family Farm" is the story of a farmer's life marked by description of what was bought and sold, the evolution of farming practices and technologies from horse drawn plows to tractors, what was planted and harvested, temperatures and rainfall, births an deaths, even the impact of wind on the work of farming. Simply stated, "Days On The Family Farm" is an engaging and articulate read and a highly recommended addition to any personal or community library collection.

James Simeone's fine history describes events, issues, and key people involved in whether to call a constitutional convention in Illinois in 1824. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery and the first Illinois Constitution (1818) did not alter the law. By 1824 the "white folks", as the poor upland southerners called themselves, wanted to make Illinois a slave state. The call for a convention was defeated by a vote of 6,640 to 4,972 on on August 2, 1824. The "big folks" saved Illinois for the Union.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Missouri to become a slave state, and "white folks" believed they could compete economically with Missouri only by importing slaves into the fertile bottomlands in the southern part of Illinois. Professor Simeone argues that the "white folks" wanted slavery at least short term. They needed slaves "to ease the present labor shortage, to protect the commonalty, to enhance the status of the poor whites and, most essentially, to do the extremely difficult work of clearing the bottomlands to make agriculture possible."

The battle was bloody. 13 persons of a total population of 55,000 were killed during the period. "As conventionist battled non-conventionist, mobs, murders, and effigy burning became common occurrences and the sense of foreboding spread. Under these crisis conditions, the state's new politics struggled to get organized."

Simeone discusses many of the people involved in the battle and also discusses the role that religion and preachers played. Milk-and-cider Arminians (salvation by works) and Cumberland, Methodist and Presbyterian clergy were opposed to the Convention. Most whole-hog Calvinists (salvation by grace) and the largest religious group, the Regular Baptists, favored the Convention. Baptists hymns "signal(ed] God's special interest in the poor white folks."

Simeone's basic theme is that "an egalitarian social revolution motivated the reorganization of Illinois politics." Settlers came to Illinois for a better life and to escape the social strictures in the East. "White folks were concerned only with the rights and status of one class, race, and gender: poor white males."

After the defeat of the Convention, Simeone traces the development of the Democrat and the Whig parties brought about by "the clash of cultural styles and the redefinition of economic interests." He argues that in Illinois "the cultural division between Democrats and Whigs [was symbolized by the] dispute between the white folks and the big folks over the Convention."

The history of this battle is complex, with many players and themes, but Professor Simeone makes the story come alive, a harbinger of the Civil War and a much bigger stage.

Robert C. Ross 2008

It was during the 1820s that Illinois experienced one of the earliest and most important battles between the slavery and anti-slavery forces that unleashed riots, arson, and mob violence across the state -- and that would eventually culminate in the American Civil War. James Simeone's supports his contention that the contest over slavery in Illinois prefigured the course of national politics that would lead to four racking years of war with meticulous and scholarly research, revealing and documenting the complexity of the slave problem in fragile American republic. In attempting to bring slavery to a free state, white migrants from southern states hoped to create a "Bottomland Republic" of free and equal white yeoman farmers who could own slaves on the basis of popular sovereignty. Abolitionists allied themselves with the governing class of "aristocrats" against the upstart, pro-slavery migrants in a struggle that would alter the state's political culture and foreshadow the Democratic-Whig cleavage in antebellum politics. Democracy And Slavery In Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic is an impressive and very welcome contribution to 19th century American history in general, and the neophyte struggles between pro- and anti-slavery forces on the Midwestern frontier in particular.

Music exists as it is being heard. Looking more closely at who is hearing the music and how they receive it along with who is delivering the music and for what reasons adds an often neglected, yet vital aspect of music performance and history. Karen Ahlquist's book is a wonderfully readable addition to literature about history and opera; she provides us with a fascinating look at music and people in a specific time and place.

If you love opera you will love this book. It is all about the early New York opera scene with fascinating stories about operas biggest stars. Scandal and intrigue abound. A must buy for all opera aficionados.

Great Book and Amazon delivered every thing that they promised. Would use them again any thing they sold some thing I wanted. Thanks.

Mr. Malone, whose long and distinguished career has secured him a place as the world's foremost country music historian, has once again hit one straight out of the park. Rich with both remarkable detail and cogent analysis, the book is a tresure for anyone who cares about country/bluegrass, roots music, or the general American experience. Truly an outstanding work.

"Down at Theresa's" puts you visually into the Chicago blues world. PoKempner captures the people who are the music, while the blues plays through their image.

A great glimpse of the blues. The pages reverberate with such a depth of feeling you can hear the music. A triumph in every way.

There is a typo on the last sentence of my review that I did last week for this book where it states I I've, please remove the I.

Thanks Nate Richey

Although Duck Calls of Illinois, 1863-1963 by Robert D. Christensen is limited to Illinois calls made prior to 1964, it encompasses all of the early documented history of the modern duck call. This is because all of the documented history happened to occur in Illinois.

This is a fascinating and very well done book that no duck call collector could possibly do without. Over 100 Illinois call makers are represented including Charlie and Haddon Perdew, Clifford, Grubbs, Martin, Trutone,Barto, Olt, Allen, Ditto, Leonard, the Glodo family, and the Roseberry family. The great photography will help in identifying many of your unknown calls.

$65 might seem like a lot of money for a book, but considering the rather limited market it is a bargain. The best $65 I I've spent since I started collecting calls.

Nate Richey

I had never heard about the Eastland disaster until one day finding a "In Memory of..." picture showing the ship in good times and didn't even know anything about the Eastland, so I went to The Eastland Historical Society's webpage and started reading through it and though there is a great deal of information on the website (highly recommend the website, as well), I wanted to know more and with this book and another book "The Sinking of The Eastland, America's Forgotten Tragedy" it gave a greater view of what happened on that fateful day in 1915. This is an extraordinary pictorial look into a day in American History that very few have even heard of and after reading it, will never forget!

I'm going to cheat. I'm going to write one review and use it on three separate books. No doubt I'll offend the review gods at Amazon, but this subject merits it. Even though I live only 4 hours away from Chicago, I had never heard of the Eastland until I was searching for something entirely different and found a Western Electric website mentioning it. This is an utterly incredible story. I promptly ordered "The Sinking of the Eastland." The book goes into a fair amount of detail about the tragedy itself, yet its primary purpose is to describe the people involved and how they were affected. The author never claims to be a technical authority and instead makes reference several times to another book "Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic." I promptly ordered that one as well and while searching for additional information I learned of a third book "The Eastland Disaster (Images of America)." That one was ordered as well. Since you have read this far, you are obviously interested in my opinions and in my opinion, all three are required reading to grasp what happened. "The Eastland Disaster" is primarily a collection of relevant photographs which augment the other two books. Many more photographs of the events surrounding the ship, the sinking and the aftermath. And finally, "Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic" is much more technically oriented including the naval architecture concepts concerning the ship itself. I found this book to be especially good as it attempts to provide as much of a balanced view as possible, including several contemporary naval experts analyzing the court testimony of a leading architect of the day. Absolutely fascinating stuff. Not only that, but it is interesting to learn our concern for American jobs being lost to China is not a new thing. Ninety years ago people were worried about the same thing as a result of new regulations coming from the Titanic sinking. All three books solidly contribute to gaining knowledge about the disaster.

Edgar Lee Masters is the author of "Spoon River Anthology", one of the most widely read and discussed volumes of American poetry ever written. Biographer Herbert Russell reveals that Masters was also a successful Chicago lawyer who detested the practice of law, married twice and constantly pursuing other women, and at the same time, one of America's most prolific authors, publishing 53 books during his lifetime. Yet only one of works afforded him lasting recognition. Russell draws from Master's diaries, correspondences, unpublished chapters of a 1936 autobiography, and information from his two wives, children, lovers, and contemporaries (including Theodore Dreiser, Carl Sandburg, Harriet Monroe, William Jennings Bryan, and Clarence Darrow) to reveal the poet's many relationships, impulsive business decisions, and artistic struggles. Edgar Lee Masters is a superbly researched and written biographical portrait of a man who changed the course of American poetry, yet was unable to achieve personal fulfillment and artistic success within his own life.

This is the best and most complete biography of one of America's great poets. Not only has Russell delivered a meticulously researched story in full, he writes in a very forthright and engaging style. This is the ESSENTIAL Edgar Lee Masters source. For those not familiar with Masters there can be no better introduction. Once I started reading it, I found the book hard to put down.

It's so rare to find an organization that is not only unafraid to let teens be teens, but puts them in charge. Croya does it and does it well. This book gives a solid look into the Croya organization: past, present and future. I'd long held the theory that if given the opportunity young people can do amazing things - Croya proves it. Well worth the read for anyone who has kids or works with them.

Empowering Teens: A Guide To Developing A Community Based Youth Organization provides insight and guidance to anyone wishing to improve the quality of life for their community adolescents, whether in an inner city setting, a suburban area, or a rural region. Elaine Slayton presents a cogent analysis of program methodology, detailing how it works. Very highly recommended and essential "how to" reading for youth workers, parents, educators, counselors, governmental policy makers, community organization leaders, parks and recreation supervisors, and concerned adolescents, Empowering Teens provides a blueprint for enacting workable and effective changes in any community of any size or demographic makeup in order to improve the lives, safety, and general well-being of American youth.

This book is arguably the most important recovery of a 19th century scholarly text by a person of African descent to be undertaken in the new millennium. Ably translated from French to English by Asselin Charles and amply contextualized by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban in her extensive introduction, this book is a lively read and its republication after nearly 120 years in obscurity and its introduction to English speaking audiences for the first time couldn't be timelier. Those who dare to pick it up will discover in Joseph Anténor Firmin not only an intellectual giant whose work was tragically sidelined by the forces of racism, colonialism, and nationalism, but also an icon of Black erudition whose intellectual power burns through strangely persistent misconceptions about shortcomings in Black intelligence or scholarly genius that have plagued the modern era.

This recovery is significant for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Firmin's work dislodges a fundamental keystone of Western civilization, namely the racial inequality thesis as articulated by such figures as Arthur de Gobineau. We must ask ourselves, why was de Gobineau canonized and Firmin buried? More importantly, what would society look like today if Firmin had been canonized and de Gobineau buried? The republication of Firmin's book gives us a second chance to consider these questions. (For social scientists, Robert V. Guthrie's classic book Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology, would be an excellent companion read.)

Second, Firmin's work provides further and much needed new evidence that notions of Black intellectual "progress" from slavery to emancipation to integration or from colonization to independence to globalization are premised upon the fundamentally faulty notion that there was ever anything wrong with the Black mind to begin with that needed "progress" to improve it. Firmin's well researched, comprehensively argued, and densely annotated text was written during a period when educational opportunities were being systematically denied to most people of African descent in the New World in an effort to keep them from participating in society and sharing power or wealth with Whites. It is no accident that Firmin was a third-generation product of Haitian schools up to the university level (none of his formal education was received outside Haiti) - schools which had been designed post-independence to prove to a disbelieving world that Blacks were capable of civilization. To wit, Firmin could read French, English, German, classical Greek and Latin, as well as Egyptian hieroglyphics and his native Creole, making him able to go head-to-head with any European intellectual, albeit with African sensibilities. How many White or Black scholars of the time (much less today) could claim the same? Firmin's multilingual facility enabled him to marshal evidence for the equality of the human races and, in particular, for the equality of the Black race, from a multitude of sources both contemporary and ancient, giving his arguments a formidable quality that few could (or did) match.

One notable quality of this book is Firmin's humor. Indeed, one senses that Firmin was so confident of his assertions and arguments that he was secretly snickering beneath his breath at having to debunk such balderdash passing for science. At the same time, one discerns that behind this humor was the rage that had by then already become the common birthright of New World Africans living with the seeming intractability of racism. Firmin's acerbic wit adds levity and interest to a text that might otherwise read more dryly to the typically impatient 21st century reader.

A third reason this book is significant is that it crosses the French-English language barrier. U.S. born speakers of English typically do not speak or read other languages and thus deprive themselves of important intellectual substance. This is particularly true when it comes to material associated with the scholarly traditions of people of African descent. By reading Firmin's book, readers are forced to recall that we cannot know all there is to know about the Black experience, particularly in the New World, by reading materials originating in English or limiting ourselves to the study of African Americans.

Indeed, a fourth reason for the significance of the translation and republication of Firmin's book is that reading it compels us to consider 200 years of Haitian history, from the time of its independence in 1804 to the present, particularly in terms of how Haitian fortunes have been shaped by racism and resentment of Black self-determination and achievement. Such a read presses us to think critically about Haiti's current difficulties, particularly how it could go from a state that produced Firmin and other similarly brilliant African scholars, to its current status as one of the U.N.'s LDCs (least developed countries), plagued by external and internal instability, life-robbing poverty, and the unrelieved ravages of natural disasters.

Finally, this book is significant because it demonstrates that an African-centered intellectual perspective is neither inconsistent with nor exclusive of a globally focused perspective that respects and values all human groups. Firmin's thesis about the equality of the human races is founded on a basic and non-hagiographic assumption, well documented, of Black greatness, past and present - yet Firmin, not unlike other African Scholars such as Cheikh Anta Diop, clearly affirms that all human groups exhibit the full range from savagery and barbarism to high civilization and refinement, not only as a group at various points in history, but also within the group at any given point in time. All "races" manifest traits glorious or vile at some point in time. Firmin rejected the biological basis of race, instead asserting that "racial" differences among humans are attributable to differences in social evolution, education, and the hospitality of climate (i.e., physical living conditions). Taking this perspective one step further, he endorsed metíssage, a/k/a mestizaje, creolization, hybridity, etc., all while unequivocally affirming the value and necessity of Africanity on the world stage.

White French theorist Michel Foucault wrote in The Order of Things that "Western man" and Western civilization, characterized by a social order fueled by the relations of domination and their supporting ideologies, are self-deconstituting under the weight of their own inherent limitations. "Scientific" racism has been one of the main girders of this faulty order. That Firmin and his compelling text have been exhumed after a first failed attempt to undermine scientific racism at its very foundations seems no accident. Having had an additional century to experience the pernicious effects of this doctrine, we are perhaps now, more than ever before, ready to receive his message and give it the hearing it deserves.

Joseph Anténor Firmin published his "positivist" tome in 1885 as a scientific rebuttal to Arthur de Gobineau's "Inequality of the Human Races." De Gobineau and other architects of "scientific" racism of the 19th century served as the targets of Firmin's address to their problematic perceptions of Africans/Blacks the world over. Recognizing that such propositions by highly regarded but equally ill-informed "men of science" held sway in the minds of many, Firmin opted to pen a work that would serve as his comment on the subject that fueled many heated debates in the Paris Anthropological Society. Inducted into the Society in 1884, Firmin came to be regarded as one of the premier scholars within the bourgeoning field of anthropology, yet many European members of the society sought to regard Firmin and the only other member of African descent, Louis-Joseph Janvier, as exceptions that did not invalidate the rule of African/Black inferiority. Firmin understood that in order to do the subject the justice it deserved, a clear and unequivocal response to such marginalizing tactics was of great import. In this vein, Firmin employed multiple strands of evidence and reasoning to address the European held perspective on the inferiority of African peoples the globe over; notions which led to the "Inequality of the Human Races" thesis as proffered by de Gobineau and supported by his many European colleagues. In contradistinction to de Gobineau's work, Firmin choose to title his work "The Equality of the Human Races."

This is a book that must be read and digested fully to comprehend the impact such a work will have on the mind of the reader. Approached openly and with regard for the social and historical context within which it was written, "The Equality of the Human Races" provides the basis for vigorous discussion among academics and non-academics alike. With that in mind, this review will briefly examine three areas believed to be of considerable significance to this reviewer: (1) Firmin's analysis of the social construct of race; (2) the ethnic/phenotypical characteristics of the inhabitants of "ancient Egypt," and (3) the role of African people in the development of civilizations across time and space (contrary to popular perceptions, the progeny of Africa have produced many great civilizations and equally notable systems of thought).

With respect to the construct of race, Firmin does an admirable job of outlining and supplanting dominant thoughts on the issue of the inferiority of African people. In several chapters with titles such as, "Monogenism and Polygenism," "Criteria for Classifying the Human Races," "Artificial Ranking of the Human Races," and "Comparison of the Human Races Based on Their Physical Constitution," Firmin uproots commonly held "truths" of the 19th Century and demonstrates their untenability. Firmin's work is so replete with supporting evidence for his claims that I will leave it to the reader to discover for themselves the weight of his arguments against de Gobineau's thesis. In so doing, he replaces such notions with arguments that seem today to be taken-for-granted assumptions.

In examining the region of Ancient Kemet (currently referred to as "Ancient Egypt" - another discussion for another time), Firmin presents incontrovertible historical evidence supporting his and earlier writers' accounts that the inhabitants of the region were black, a term that over time has acquired greater social significance than in the past. In providing copious research on the region, particularly the journal entries of early visitors, Herodotus among them, Firmin soundly situates the origins of the peoples of the region in Upper Kemet/Egypt, i.e. in the interior or black Africa. Interestingly, his argument regarding the African/Black phenotype of the ancient Kemites/Egyptians predates assertions made by Afrocentric scholars by nearly a century. Such a position by a scholar from the 19th century, from Haiti no less, allows for the removal of defaming designations applied to today's Afrocentric scholars who are often viewed as scholarly extremists and historical revisionists.

In Chapter 17, "The Role of the Black Race in the History of Civilization," Firmin documents many facts that have withstood the great procession of time and today remain intact as they relate to the significant contributions of African people to the development of math, science, architecture, literature, language, and philosophy. Given the existence of the Pyramids at the Giza Plateau, Olmec Heads in Central America, and the documents recently unearthed at the Timbuktu University in Mali, not to mention the work of independent scholars like Runoko Rashidi, Firmin's work allows readers to observe for themselves the social and historical contributions of African people the world over. This being the case, this reviewer asks that the reader peruse the multiple examples - supplied by Firmin and other great thinkers both then and now - that serve to dislodge notions of African absence within the building of historic civilizations.

As with writings from Selena Sloan Butler, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Martin R. Delany, all from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and more contemporarily, those of Drs. Cheikh Anta Diop, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and John Henrik Clarke, the resurrection of Joseph Anténor Firmin and his work "The Equality of the Human Races" is yet another horn in the clarion call for continued research, reclamation, preservation, and presentation of works by African scholars and thinkers alike. As global society makes its trek toward the next phase of human beingness, works such as "The Equality of the Human Races" serve as a striking hammer against the lynch-pin that holds together pernicious notions regarding African people both on the continent and in the Diaspora.