Dictionary:
Il·li·nois2 (ĭl'ə-noi')  (Abbr. IL
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The fertile plains of Illinois have served as a center for commerce and transportation since prehistoric times. Located in the center of the North American continent, Illinois has boundaries that are largely defined by three great rivers—the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash—and by the southern shore of Lake Michigan. A Paleo-Indian culture existed in Illinois at least as early as 8000 B.C.E. About 1000 C.E. a great Woodland (or Mississippian) Indian culture established its capital at Cahokia, near present-day East St. Louis. Here at least twenty thousand inhabitants built huge earthen mounds, fortified their city with an elaborate log stockade, conducted trade with peoples on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and dominated the economic and political life of the Mississippi River valley. Cahokia had been abandoned for two hundred years or more when the first Europeans arrived. In 1673 Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit priest, and Louis Jolliet (Joliet) explored the Fox and Illinois rivers by canoe and met with peaceful Illini and Kaskaskia Indians. With their Indian guides the two French explorers reached the Mississippi River. Jolliet observed that a canal dug at the strategic portage where the Chicago River disappeared into the sandy marshes along the shore of Lake Michigan would link the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. On a return voyage in 1675, Marquette established his first mission, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, on the north bank of the Illinois River. By 1680 the location of Marquette's mission was occupied by the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia (or Grand Village of the Illinois) and had grown to nearly seven thousand residents under the leadership of the French adventurer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who also built Fort Crevecoeur, near the present site of Peoria, and Fort St. Louis, at Starved Rock near La Salle, in 1680 and 1682, respectively.
For nearly a century French priests and soldiers slowly established outposts along the rivers of the Illinois country, including the Holy Family mission at Cahokia (near the ancient mound city) in 1699 and Kaskaskia, on the banks of the Mississippi, in 1703. Fort de Chartres developed from a rude wooden stockade to a formidable stone fortress between 1720 and 1753, and was intended to serve as the headquarters of an anticipated French colonial empire stretching across most of the central part of North America. Unable to transplant great numbers of settlers, the French colonial administration monitored trade with the Indians and governed with only a modest military presence. Overextended and outnumbered by the expansion of British colonization into the Ohio River valley, the French ultimately lost a war for empire in North America. In 1763, following the French and Indian War, the British gained control of all French lands in North America under the terms of the Treaty of Paris and, after delays caused by Pontiac's War, the British military peacefully took possession of the great Fort de Chartres. With the arrival of the British, many of the French abandoned Illinois and relocated across the Mississippi in the area around St. Louis, Missouri. In 1774 the British Parliament, anxious to assure their French subjects in the Mississippi valley that they would be well and effectively governed, passed the Quebec Act, placing all of the area that would become the Old Northwest, including Illinois, under the control of British authorities in Canada. This action nullified claims to this area by colonies such as Virginia, and was viewed as one of the "Intolerable Acts" by the Americans on the eve of the Revolutionary War.
During the American Revolution, George Rogers Clark led a Virginia militia unit across southern Illinois on foot to attack a surprised British garrison at Kaskaskia on 4 July 1778. Clark claimed all of Illinois for his native state. Virginia relinquished its claim on 1 March 1784, and Illinois (along with Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and all of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River) became part of the Northwest Territory governed under the Ordinances of 1785 and 1787. Conflicts between Indians and land-hungry white settlers defined the territorial period, and in 1811 the ineffective territorial governor, Ninian Edwards, sadly informed native chiefs: "My Children, I have found it almost impossible to prevent white people from rushing to your towns, to destroy your corn, burn your property, take your women and children prisoners, and murder your warriors." Still, Indian resistance led by Tecumseh's federation slowed white settlement, and the massacre of the garrison at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) in 1812 spread terror throughout the frontier.
Following the War of 1812, Indian resistance to white settlement was largely eliminated, and settlers streamed into southern Illinois, via the Ohio River, from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Meanwhile, pioneers from New England and the Middle Atlantic states arrived in northern Illinois, often through the Great Lakes. The distinct political and cultural differences still evident in Illinois can be traced to this early settlement pattern. On 3 December 1818 the Illinois Territory became the nation's twenty-first state, with a northern boundary set at 42§30' to provide a generous shoreline on Lake Michigan and land for fourteen northern counties. At the time of its admission to the Union, Illinois probably had only about thirty-five thousand white inhabitants and several thousand slaves, most of them scattered on hardscrabble farms alongcrude trails in the southernmost part of the state between Shawneetown, on the Ohio River, and Kaskaskia. Much of the land along the Mississippi, known as the "American Bottom," was swampy, prone to flooding, and notorious for its disease-carrying mosquitoes. With the exception of the lead mining district around Galena in the state's northwest corner, the population in the first decades of statehood remained in the southernmost parts of the state. This rough, hilly region was called "Little Egypt" by the early pioneers, because they felt the land between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers resembled the Nile River delta; as a result of this perceived resemblance, residents in this region named one of their most important towns Cairo. State government was housed at Kaskasia in a small, rented cabin that eventually was carried away by flood waters, and the state's first governor, the semiliterate Shadrach Bond, favored the introduction of slavery as a means of providing a much-needed work force. By 1820 Illinois had fifty-five thousand inhabitants and the capital was moved to Vandalia, the terminus of the new National Road (today U.S. Route 40).
During its formative years the state government grappled with myriad problems resulting from the state's rapid and diverse development. An effort to amend the state's constitution to allow slavery was defeated in an 1824 referendum by a vote of 6,640 to 4,972. However, sympathy for slavery remained strong in southern Illinois, which bordered on the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri. In 1837 Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist newspaper publisher, was murdered in Alton and his press destroyed. In 1832, following the brief but bloody Black Hawk War, the Sauk and Fox Indians were forced to relinquish all claims to lands in Illinois. The Illinois governor proved powerless in his feeble attempts to quell anti-Mormon sentiment in western Illinois; in 1844 a vigilante-militia in Carthage murdered the charismatic leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons),
Joseph Smith, and his brother, Hyrum. Several thousand of Smith's followers, under the leadership of Brigham Young, soon abandoned their settlement at Nauvoo and began their journey to Utah. In 1837 the legislature once again moved the capital, this time to Spring field—in the very center of the state and closer to the most fertile and rapidly developing regions. The first decades of statehood witnessed an extraordinary growth in the state's population; it reached nearly half a million people by 1840, almost a tenfold increase since statehood just two decades earlier. Key to this amazing growth, as settlers filled the rich prairie lands of central and northern Illinois, was an excellent transportation system. Steamboats navigated the Mississippi, Ohio, Wabash, and Illinois rivers, facilitating the movement of settlers and goods. The legislature approved "an Act to establish and maintain a general system of internal improvements" in 1837, and this led to the construction of the one-hundred-mile Illinois and Michigan Canal. Opened in 1848, it linked the rising metropolis of Chicago with the Illinois River at La Salle, from which river traffic could proceed from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. The canal was not commercially successful because it soon faced competition from railroads. Chartered in 1851, the Illinois Central Railroad (for which Abraham Lincoln served as an attorney) used federal and state subsidies, along with $25 million of private capital, to construct more than seven hundred miles of track connecting Chicago with Cairo and Galena to form a Y across the fertile prairie. By the mid-1850s Illinois had the nation's most modern network of railroads and Chicago had become the Midwest's railroad center.
In 1860, the year an Illinois Republican, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president, following his loss to Stephen A. Douglas in the nationally significant election for the U.S. Senate just two years earlier, the state's population had swelled to 1,715,000; over a quarter of a million of them served in the Civil War, and thirty-four thousand died fighting for the Union. Although pro-slavery, Confederate sympathizers (Copperheads) in Illinois organized themselves as the Sons of Liberty or Knights of the Golden Circle and opposed the Union cause, sometimes with violence, there was otherwise little opposition to the war in the state. Meanwhile, Chicago prospered as the Union's central warehouse for military operations in the West.
Between the Civil War and the turn of the century, farmers transformed vast stretches of prairie grassland into neat, square fields of corn and other grains, and pasture for cattle and hogs. However, farm foreclosures caused by high taxes, overproduction, low prices, and exploitation by railroads led to unrest in rural areas. Meanwhile, in Chicago and other industrial centers, and in coal mining towns, expansion brought overcrowding, poor working conditions, and a new flood of immigrant labor. When the major political parties ignored their plight, farmers responded by supporting third-party movements, such as the Grangers and the Populist party. In a victory for rural agitators, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Munn v. Illinois (1877) established the principle that state legislatures could regulate railroads. Workers sought to join unions, and violent labor clashes and strikes occurred throughout the state. In 1873 a rail strike virtually shut down the state, as did another strike in 1877. At the Hay-market Riot in 1886, a bomb killed seven Chicago policemen and led to the execution of four alleged anarchists the following year. The Pullman strike of 1894 ended with President Grover Cleveland ordering federal troops into Chicago to restore order. Illinois advanced as an agricultural and industrial giant, becoming the nation's third most populace state in 1890, with Chicago (devastated by fire in 1871 but quickly rebuilt) emerging as the nation's "Second City." The state was the national leader in wheat and corn production and second in livestock; it was also a leader in the mining of bituminous (soft) coal. At the same time that steel, farm equipment, and industrial machinery manufacturing grew in the northern cities of Joliet, Rock Island-Moline, Peoria, and Rockford, Chicago, with its port and railroad facilities, steel mills, manufacturing plants, Union Stockyards, and Meatpacking businesses served as the hub of commerce in the north central United States. By the early twentieth century the Illinois poet Carl Sandberg could rightly proclaim Chicago the "Hog Butcher of the World" and the "City of Big Shoulders."
Political power in Illinois has traditionally rested in county courthouses and city halls, where local party organizations choose candidates, make key decisions on issues, and dole out favors and patronage. The Democrats and Republicans have generally shared power on a fairly equal basis throughout the state's history. In pre-Civil War Illinois the slavery issue gave Democrats an edge over Whigs and, later, Republicans. However, between the Civil War and the Great Depression, Republicans maintained the upper hand, largely due to the party's strength in the prosperous and rapidly growing northern and central regions of the state, and to its successful efforts to defeat reapportionment of the state legislature. Viewing with alarm the rise of Chicago with its huge and largely ethnic population (mainly Irish and eastern European), "downstate" Republican politicians successfully fought off all reapportionment schemes that would have appropriately recognized Chicago's rapidly growing population, which was 12 percent of the state's total in 1870, 35 percent in 1900, and 44 percent in 1930. Illinois's outmoded constitution of 1848 was replaced in 1870 by a poorly crafted document that neglected to provide home rule for cities, left the office of governor relatively weak, and set up an unorthodox system of cumulative voting that allowed voters to cast a ballot for one, two, or three candidates for the state House of Representatives, thus assuring at least one Republican or Democrat from every district.
Political rivalries in Illinois have traditionally been bitter and complex. Despite the efforts of reform-minded leaders such as Democratic governor John Peter Altgeld (1893–1897) and of a number of Progressives during the early twentieth century, political reform came slowly, and corruption and party patronage have characterized the state's political history. When congressional districts were redrawn, following the 1940 census, Chicago still had less than its correct share of districts. The courts had to force the state legislature's reapportionment in the 1960s; and when no agreement could be hammered out by 1964, all 177 members of the Illinois General Assembly were elected at large. A new state constitution in 1970 finally provided home rule to municipalities, established more equitable tax policies, and strengthened the governor and the state supreme court; but the unorthodox system of cumulative voting was not abandoned until 1981. Political patronage remained a scandal throughout most of the twentieth century in both Chicago and Springfield; and a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1990 (Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois) only altered rather than eliminated the practice. Illinois has more than thirty-six thousand elected officials, and some observers believe politics is so pervasive because so many political units comprise the complex fabric of Illinois government. There are 102 counties in Illinois, 1,300 cities and villages, 1,400 townships, and over 2,500 special governmental districts responsible for such diverse matters as libraries, airports, community colleges, water and sanitation, parks, and mosquito abatement. Illinois also has 960 elected school boards.
Throughout the twentieth century Illinois occupied a place among the nation's agricultural, commercial, and industrial leaders. It was home to such corporate giants as Sears, Montgomery Ward, International Harvester, Kraft Foods, Archer Daniels Midland, John Deere, and Caterpillar Tractor. The Great Depression hit Illinois even harder than other states, and in the early 1930s the state received more federal relief money than New York and Pennsylvania combined. Governor Henry Horner (1933–1941) used a suspension of the property tax to aid farmers and persuaded the legislature to enact taxes on gasoline and liquor (legal after the repeal of Prohibition) to fund relief efforts, but the economy did not fully re-cover until the nation began building up for war in 1940. Following World War II, Illinois enjoyed several decades of prosperity and growth. The completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 transformed Chicago into an international port by linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, and by 1970 Chicago's O'Hare Airport was the nation's busiest. Illinois led the nation in corn and soybean production in 1971. The nation's first commercial nuclear power plant was built near Morris, Illinois, in the late 1940s, and Illinois, with its internationally renowned universities—the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois—provided an ideal location for research centers such as AT&T's Bell Laboratories, DeKalb Genetics, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the Argonne National Laboratory.
In 1970 the state had a population of more than 11 million, a 10 percent increase over 1960. Illinois retained the twenty-four seats that it had held in the U.S. House of Representatives since the redistricting following the 1910 census. (It would lose four of these seats by the end of the century.) More than half the state's population lived in the Chicago metropolitan area. Although Chicago was then the nation's second most populous city, only two other cities in Illinois, Peoria and Rockford, had populations exceeding one hundred thousand. The completion of the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1974 (then the world's tallest building) called attention to Illinois as an economic powerhouse. However, in the late 1970s Illinois, like other Midwestern states in the nation's "Rust Belt," appeared to be in economic decline. Manufacturing plants relocated abroad in search of cheap, nonunionized labor, and farm prices declined due to overproduction (although the number of farms dwindled from 255,700 in the late nineteenth century to 80,000 in the late twentieth century). Illinois's coal production, once second only to Pennsylvania, dropped to sixth nationally by 1991, and production was only 30 percent of that of the nation's leader, Wyoming. Illinois lost manufacturing jobs, and its unemployment climbed from 7.1 percent in 1978 to a staggering 8.6 percent in 1986.
However, by the early 1990s Illinois had recovered, and a new economic base featuring banking, research, and new technologies emerged. The lands west and north of Chicago became the "silicon prairie," the fastest-growing high-technology corridor in the nation. Foreign capital poured into Chicago's revitalized banks. The accounting firm of Arthur Andersen provided financial services to corporate giants throughout the world, and though Chicago no longer housed stockyards, slaughterhouses, or giant grain elevators, the Chicago Board of Trade employed thirty-three thousand people and helped set prices for agricultural commodities throughout the world.
Because of its central location and extensive economic infrastructure, Illinois will likely continue to serve as a vital center of trade, transportation, and commerce in North America. With its large and ethnically diverse population, the "Prairie State" continues to be viewed as a political bellwether and a microcosm of the nation. Those wanting to gauge the mood of folks in the heartland continue to ask, "Will it play in Peoria?"
By 2000 Illinois's population had grown to 12,419,293, an expansion of 8.64 percent over 1990, but an increase that lagged the national growth rate of 13.1 percent. The state's Hispanic population grew by nearly 70 percent in the 1990s and comprised 12.3 percent of the population in 2000; African Americans comprised 15.1 percent of the total. All the population growth occurred in the northern part of the state. In 2000, 17.5 percent of the state's children lived in poverty despite Illinois's renewed prosperity. Political power in Illinois, still balanced between Republicans and Democrats, was located in three district geographic segments: Chicago, "downstate," and the "collar counties," comprised of sprawling suburbs and expanding cities surrounding the great metropolis. From 1977 and into the opening years of the twenty-first century, the Republicans held the governor's office, including during the four terms (1977–1991) of James "Big Jim" Thompson, a popular moderate Republican who managed to forge compromises with a legislature usually controlled by Democrats. His Republican successors, lacking his charisma, found dealing with the Democrats problematic, and because of declining state revenues in 2000, the funding of education and basic government services remained a chronically contentious issue.
Although the Illinois legislature failed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982, thereby killing all chances of its becoming part of the U.S. Constitution, women in Illinois made significant gains in attaining state office. While the 1971–1972 General Assembly had only four female members, legislatures in the 1990s had more than forty. Reflecting the state's ethnic diversity, minority representation in the state legislature increased, from five African Americans in 1950 to more than twenty in the 1990s. In 1978 Roland Burris became the first African American to win statewide office when he was elected comptroller (he was subsequently elected attorney general); and in 1992 Carol Moseley Braun became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate by any state. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Hispanics held seats in both the Illinois Senate and the House.
Bibliography
Bridges, Roger D., and Rodney O. Davis. Illinois: Its History and Legacy. St. Louis, Mo.: River City, 1984.
Davis, G. Cullom. "Illinois: Crossroads and Cross Section." In Heartland: Comparative Histories of Midwestern States. Edited by James H. Madison. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Howard, Robert P. Illinois: A History of the Prairie State. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdman's, 1972.
Nardulli, Peter F., ed. Diversity, Conflict, and State Politics: Regionalism in Illinois. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Illinois |
Facts and Figures
Area, 56,400 sq mi (146,076 sq km). Pop. (2000) 12,419,293, an 8.6% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Springfield. Largest city, Chicago. Statehood, Dec. 3, 1818 (21st state). Highest pt., Charles Mound, 1,235 ft (377 m); lowest pt., Mississippi River, 279 ft (85 m). Nicknames, Inland Empire; Prairie State. Motto, State Sovereignty-National Union. State bird, cardinal. State flower, native violet. State tree, white oak. Abbr., Ill.; IL
Geography
The broad level lands that gave Illinois the nickname Prairie State were fashioned by late Cenozoic glaciation, which leveled rugged ridges and filled valleys over the northern and central parts of the state. The fertile prairies are drained by more than 275 rivers, most of which flow to the Mississippi-Ohio system; the Illinois is the largest river in the state.
These rivers provided early explorers a way SW from Lake Michigan into the interior of the continent and later, in the days of canal building, played a big part in hastening settlement of the prairies. The completion of the Erie Canal linked Illinois, through the Great Lakes, to the eastern seaboard of the United States. The Illinois Waterway links Chicago to the Mississippi basin as the old Chicago and Illinois and Michigan canals once did, and the St. Lawrence Seaway provides access for oceangoing vessels. The waterways are but a part of a transportation complex that includes railroads, airlines (Chicago's O'Hare airport is one of the busiest in the world), and an extensive modern highway system.
The state's climate is continental, with extreme seasonal variations of temperature in parts of the state. Among Illinois's many tourist attractions are Shawnee National Forest, with recreational facilities; the Cahokia Mounds; and many state parks and historical sites, including New Salem and Lincoln's home and burial place in Springfield. An additional summer attraction is the Illinois State Fair.
Economy
Rich land, adequate rainfall (32-36 in./81-91 cm annually), and a long growing season make Illinois an important agricultural state. It consistently ranks among the top states in the production of corn and soybeans. Hogs and cattle are also principal sources of farm income. Other major crops include hay, wheat, and sorghum. Beneath the fertile topsoil lies mineral wealth, including fluorspar, bituminous coal, and oil; Illinois ranks high among the states in the production of coal, and its reserves are greater than any other state east of the Rocky Mts. Its agricultural and mineral resources, along with its excellent lines of communication and transportation, made Illinois industrial; by 1880 income from industry was almost double that from agriculture.
Leading Illinois manufactures include electrical and nonelectrical machinery, food products, fabricated and primary metal products, and chemicals; printed and published materials are also important. Metropolitan Chicago, the country's leading rail center, is also a major industrial, as well as a commercial and financial, center. Suburbs of Chicago such as Schaumburg and Oak Brook have become important business centers. Scattered across the northern half of the state are cities with specialized industries-Elgin, Peoria, Rock Island, Moline, and Rockford. Industrially important cities in central Illinois include Springfield and
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
The governor of Illinois is elected for a term of four years. Jim Edgar, a Republican elected governor in 1990 and 1994, was succeeded by another Republican, George H. Ryan, elected in 1998. In 2002 a Democrat, Rod Blagojevich, was elected to the office; he was reelected in 2006. In 2009, however, he was impeached and removed from office because of accusations that he had sought to gain from his appointment of the U.S. senator who would succeed Barack Obama; Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn, also a Democrat, replaced Blagojevich. The state legislature, called the general assembly, consists of a senate with 59 members and a house of representatives with 118 members. Illinois elects 19 representatives and 2 senators to the U.S. Congress and has 21 electoral votes.
Institutions of higher learning in Illinois include the Univ. of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign and Chicago; DePaul Univ., the Univ. of Chicago, and the Illinois Institute of Technology, at Chicago; Northwestern Univ., at Evanston; Illinois State Univ., at Normal; and Southern Illinois Univ., at Carbondale and Edwardsville.
History
Early Inhabitants and European Exploration
At the end of the 18th cent. the Illinois, Sac, Fox, and other Native American groups were living in the river forests, where many centuries before them the prehistoric Mound Builders had dwelt. French explorers and missionaries came to the region early. Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet, on their return from a trip down the Mississippi, paddled up the Illinois River in 1673, and two years later Marquette returned to establish a mission in the Illinois country.
In 1679 the French explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, went from Lake Michigan to the Illinois, where he founded (1680) Fort Creve Coeur and with his lieutenant, Henri de Tonti, completed (1682-83) Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock cliff. French occupation of the area was sparse, but the settlements of Cahokia and Kaskaskia achieved a minor importance in the 18th cent., and the area was valued for fur trading.
By the Treaty of Paris of 1763, ending the French and Indian Wars, France ceded all of the Illinois country to Great Britain. However, the British did not take possession until resistance, led by the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, was quelled (1766). In the American Revolution, George Rogers Clark and his expedition captured (1778) the British posts of Cahokia and Kaskaskia before going on to take Vincennes. The Illinois region was an integral part of the Old Northwest that came within U.S. boundaries by the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution. Under the Ordinance of 1787 the area became the Northwest Territory. Made part of Indiana Territory in 1800, Illinois became a separate territory in 1809.
Statehood and Settlement
The fur trade was still flourishing throughout most of Illinois when it became a state in 1818, but already settlers were pouring down the Ohio River by flatboat and barge and across the Genesee wagon road. In 1820 the capital was moved from Kaskaskia to Vandalia. The Black Hawk War (1832) practically ended the tenure of the Native Americans in Illinois and drove them W of the Mississippi. In the 1830s there was heavy and uncontrolled land speculation. Mob fury broke out with the murder (1837) of the abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton and in the lynching (1844) of the Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum at Carthage.
Industrialization and Abraham Lincoln
Industrial development came with the opening of an agricultural implements factory by Cyrus H. McCormick at Chicago in 1847 and the building of the railroads in the 1850s. During this period the career of Abraham Lincoln began. In the state legislature, Lincoln and his colleagues from Sangamon co. had worked hard and successfully to bring the capital to Springfield in 1839. As Illinois moved toward a wider role in the country's affairs, Lincoln and another Illinois lawyer, Stephen A. Douglas, won national attention with their debates on the slavery issue in the senatorial race of 1858. In 1861, Lincoln became president and fought to preserve the Union in the face of the South's secession. During the Civil War, Illinois supported the Union, but there was much proslavery sentiment in the southern part of the state.
By the 1860s industry was well established, and many immigrants from Europe had already settled in the state, foreshadowing the influx still to come. Immediately after the Civil War, industry expanded to tremendous proportions, and the Illinois legislature, by setting aside acreage for stockyards, prepared the way for the development of the meatpacking industry. Economic development had outrun the construction of facilities, and Chicago was a mass of flimsy wooden structures when the fire of 1871 destroyed most of the city.
Discontent and the Rise of the Labor Movement
In the latter part of the 19th cent. farmers in the state revolted against exorbitant freight rates, tariff discrimination, and the high price of manufactured goods. Illinois farmers enthusiastically joined the Granger movement. Laborers in factories, railroads, and mines also became restive, and from 1870 to 1900 Illinois was the scene of such violent labor incidents as the Haymarket Square riot of 1886 and the Pullman strike of 1894.
In the 20th cent. labor conditions improved, but violent labor disputes persisted, notably the massacre at Herrin in 1922 during a coal-miners' strike and the bloody riot during a steel strike at Chicago in 1937. State politics became divided by the conflicting forces of farmers, laborers, and corporations, and opposing political machines came into being downstate and upstate.
Diversification and Change
In 1937 new oil fields were discovered in southern Illinois, further enhancing the state's industrial development. During World War II the nation's first controlled nuclear reaction was accomplished at the Univ. of Chicago, paving the way for development of nuclear weapons during the war. The war also spurred the further growth of the Chicago metropolitan area, and in the postwar period thousands of African Americans from the rural south came seeking industrial work.
Adlai E. Stevenson, governor of Illinois from 1949 to 1953, achieved national prominence in winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956. Also during the 1950s the "gateway amendment" to the Illinois constitution simplified the state's constitutional amendment process. In 1970, Illinois adopted a new state constitution that, among other reforms, banned discrimination in employment and housing.
Southern Illinois experienced population declines in the 1950s and 60s as farms in the south became more mechanized, providing fewer jobs in the area. The area was hard hit again in the 1980s as farm prices fell and farm machinery, the major industrial product of southern Illinois, was no longer in high demand. The northern portion of the state saw a major decline in manufacturing in the 1970s and 80s, which was partially offset by an increase in the service and trade industry and Chicago's continued strength as a financial center.
Bibliography
See W. L. Burton, The Trembling Land: Illinois in the Age of Exploration (1966); V. Hicken, Illinois in the Civil War (1966); R. J. Jensen, Illinois: A History (1978); R. E. Nelson, ed., Illinois (1978); C. W. Horrell et al., Land Between the Rivers (1982); A. D. Horsley, Illinois: A Geography (1986); P. F. Nardulli, Diversity, Conflict, and State Politics (1989).
| Geography: Illinois |
State in the north-central United States bordered on the north by Wisconsin, the east by Indiana, the south by Kentucky, and the west by Missouri and Iowa. Its capital is Springfield, and its largest city is Chicago.
| Local Time: Illinois |
| Stats: Illinois |
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| Parks: Illinois |
| Wikipedia: Illinois |
| State of Illinois | |||||||||||||
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| Official language(s) | English[1] | ||||||||||||
| Spoken language(s) | English (80.8%) Spanish (10.9%) Polish (1.6%) Other (6.7%)[2] |
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| Demonym | Illinoisan | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Springfield | ||||||||||||
| Largest city | Chicago | ||||||||||||
| Largest metro area | Chicagoland | ||||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 25th in the US | ||||||||||||
| - Total | 57,918 sq mi (140,998 km2) |
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| - Width | 210 miles (340 km) | ||||||||||||
| - Length | 395 miles (629 km) | ||||||||||||
| - % water | 4.0/ Negligible | ||||||||||||
| - Latitude | 36° 58′ N to 42° 30′ N | ||||||||||||
| - Longitude | 87° 30′ W to 91° 31′ W | ||||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 5th in the US | ||||||||||||
| - Total | 12,901,563 (2008 est.)[3] | ||||||||||||
| - Density | 223.4/sq mi (86.27/km2) Ranked 12th in the US |
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| - Median income | $54,124[4] (17) | ||||||||||||
| Elevation | |||||||||||||
| - Highest point | Charles Mound[5] 1,235 ft (377 m) |
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| - Mean | 600 ft (182 m) | ||||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Mississippi River[5] 279 ft (85 m) |
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| Admission to Union | December 3, 1818 (21st) | ||||||||||||
| Governor | Pat Quinn (D) | ||||||||||||
| Lieutenant Governor | vacant | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Dick Durbin (D) Roland Burris (D) |
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| U.S. House delegation | 12 Democrats, 7 Republicans (list) | ||||||||||||
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 | ||||||||||||
| Abbreviations | IL, Ill., US-IL | ||||||||||||
| Website | www.illinois.gov | ||||||||||||
Illinois (pronounced /ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ (
listen) IL-i-NOY), the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation.[6] With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and western Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is an important transportation hub; the Port of Chicago connects the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. Illinois is often viewed as a microcosm of the United States; an Associated Press analysis of 21 demographic factors found Illinois the "most average state", while Peoria has long been a proverbial social and cultural bellwether.[6]
With a population near 40,000 between 1300 and 1400 AD, the Mississippian city of Cahokia, in what is now southern Illinois, was the largest city within the future United States, until it was surpassed by New York City between 1790 and 1800. About 2,000 Native American hunters and a small number of French villagers inhabited the Illinois area at the time of the American Revolution.[7] American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s; Illinois achieved statehood in 1818. The future metropolis of Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan.[8] Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow made central Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industry in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Its manufacturing made the state a major arsenal in both World wars. The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural south to Chicago formed a large and important community that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.
Approximately 66% of the population of Illinois resides in the northeastern corner of the state, primarily within the city of Chicago and the surrounding area. Three U.S. Presidents have been elected while they were living in Illinois — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama. Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico and grew up in Dixon. Lincoln is interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.
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"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French missionary/explorers' name for the Illinois people, a name that was spelled endless ways in the early records, such as Ilinioues, "Iliniouetz," "Irini," or "Irinions." Illiniwek is the modern version of the variations of early spellings for the Illinois people's name for themselves, such as "Liniouek," "Aliniouek," "Alimiwec," and "irini8ak." An 1864 history states that "Erinouai," "Erinouek," "Alimouek," "Ilinimouek," "Liniouek," and "Illinoets" are all synonyms of "Illinois," all mean the men.[9]
The earliest mention of what has come to be "Illinois" was Paul LeJeune's 1640 account that the Eriniouaj were neighbors of the Winnebago.[10] The first European face-to-face meeting with the Illinois on their territory came in 1674 when Marquette followed a beaten prairie path to a village and asked the people who they were. "They replied that they were Ilinois."[11] Marquette made this oft-quoted observation about that name
WHEN one speaks the word “Ilinois,” it is as if one said in their language, “the men,“ — As if the other Savages were looked upon by them merely as animals.[12]
In 1697 Hennepin offered this observation:
The etymology of this word Illinois comes, as we have said, from the term Illini, which in the language of that Nation signifies a man finished or complete,[13]
and later in the same volume he began the chapter about "the lake named by the Savages Illinoüack & by us Illinois" with these words
The Lake of the Illinois signifies in the language of these Barbarians, the Lake of the Men. The word Illinois signifies a grown man, who is in the prime of his age and vigor.[14]
An 1871 study described the Illinois people's name for themselves as evidence that the "conviction of personal and tribal excellence stamps itself on every savage language."[15]
This entire body of historical contemporary documentation is dismissed by at least one Miami-language theoretical linguist. David Costa maintains that theoretical analysis of modernized, Anglicized spellings reveals that the Illinois component of the Miami-Illinois language is merely folklore and urban legend "which has even crept into anthropological and historical usage," that "neither ‘Ilinioüek’, ‘Illiniwek’, nor, least of all, ‘Illini’ are legitimate names for the Illinois," that the Illinois were not among the people who considered speaking the Illinois language speaking "in the regular way," and that, in short, “virtually all analyses of the name ‘Illinois’ offered over the past 300 years are in fact wrong.”[16]
In 2000 Costa formulated a "reconstructed or hypothetical phonemicized form," Inoka.[17] He came to treat this hypothetical construct as a standard vernacular expression, and developed the point of view that it was this expression that the Illinois people used to refer to themselves rather than any of the "unworkable" urban legend variations of "Illinois" or "Illiniwek." However, a search of the early missionary/explorer records before 1800 for "Inoka" or "*Inoka" does not produce any hits because, of course, the expression first appeared in print in 2000.[18] A search for "Illinois," on the other hand, documents that the name was used by the Illinois people to refer to themselves and by others to refer to the Illinois in hundreds of pages in dozens of volumes published before 1800.[19] [20]
The state is named for the French adaptation of an Algonquian language (perhaps Miami) word apparently meaning "s/he speaks normally" (Miami ilenweewa,[21][22] Proto-Algonquian *elen-, "ordinary" and -we·, "to speak").[23] Alternately, the name is often associated with the indigenous Illiniwek people, a consortium of Algonquian-language tribes that once thrived in the area. The name Illiniwek is frequently (incorrectly) said to mean "tribe of superior men";[24] or "men". Both etymologies are unworkable.
Indigenous peoples lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years. The Koster site has been excavated and demonstrated 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and urban center of the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. At its peak, the city had 30,000 to 40,000 people, a population not reached again north of Mexico until between 1790 and 1800 in New York. They built more than 100 mounds and a Woodhenge in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources.
The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance among several tribes. There were about 25,000 Illinois Indians in 1700, but systematic attacks and warfare by the Iroquois reduced their numbers by 90%.[25] Gradually, members of the Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes came in from the east and north.[26] In the American Revolution, the Illinois and Potawatomi supported the American colonists' cause.
French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. In 1680, other French explorers constructed a fort at the site of present day Peoria, in 1682 a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. As a result of this French exploration, Illinois was part of the French empire until 1763, when it passed to the British. The small French settlements continued; a few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but there were no British or American settlers. In 1778 George Rogers Clark claimed the Illinois Country for Virginia. The area was ceded by Virginia to the new United States in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory.[27]
| Historical populations | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Census | Pop. | %± | |
| 1800 | 2,458 |
|
|
| 1810 | 12,282 | 399.7% | |
| 1820 | 55,211 | 349.5% | |
| 1830 | 157,445 | 185.2% | |
| 1840 | 476,183 | 202.4% | |
| 1850 | 851,470 | 78.8% | |
| 1860 | 1,711,951 | 101.1% | |
| 1870 | 2,539,891 | 48.4% | |
| 1880 | 3,077,871 | 21.2% | |
| 1890 | 3,826,352 | 24.3% | |
| 1900 | 4,821,550 | 26.0% | |
| 1910 | 5,638,591 | 16.9% | |
| 1920 | 6,485,280 | 15.0% | |
| 1930 | 7,630,654 | 17.7% | |
| 1940 | 7,897,241 | 3.5% | |
| 1950 | 8,712,176 | 10.3% | |
| 1960 | 10,081,158 | 15.7% | |
| 1970 | 11,113,976 | 10.2% | |
| 1980 | 11,426,518 | 2.8% | |
| 1990 | 11,430,602 | 0% | |
| 2000 | 12,419,293 | 8.6% | |
| Est. 2008[3] | 12,901,563 | 3.9% | |
The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia. In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The new state debated slavery, finally rejecting it, as settlers poured into southern Illinois from Kentucky.
Due to the efforts of Nathaniel Pope, the delegate from Illinois, Congress shifted the northern border 41 miles (66 km) north to 42° 30' north, which added 8,500 square miles (22,000 km2) to the state, including Chicago, Galena and the lead mining region. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, but in 1819 was moved to Vandalia. In 1832 the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and current day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox and Kickapoo Indian tribes. The Indians withdrew to Iowa; when they attempted to return, they were defeated by U.S. militia and forced back to Iowa.
The winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow"; a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north and this may have contributed to its name: "Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.[28]
By 1839, the Mormon utopian city of Nauvoo, located on the Mississippi River, was created, settled, and flourished. In 1844 the Mormon leader Joseph Smith was murdered in the Carthage jail. After close to six years of rapid development, the Mormon city of Nauvoo, which rivaled Chicago as Illinois' largest city, saw a rapid decline after the Mormons left Illinois in 1846 for the West in a mass exodus.
The state has a varied history in relation to slavery and the treatment of African Americans in general. Some slave labor was used before it became a territory, but slavery was banned by the time Illinois became a state in 1818. As the southern part of the state, known as "Little Egypt", was largely settled by migrants from the South, the section was sympathetic to the South and slave labor. For a while the section continued to allow settlers to bring slaves with them for labor, but citizens were opposed to allowing blacks as permanent residents. The Illinois Constitution of 1848 was written with a provision for exclusionary laws to be passed. In 1853 John A. Logan, later a Union general in the American Civil War, introduced such bills. Laws were passed to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in the state.[29]
Chicago gained prominence as a Great Lakes port and then as an Illinois and Michigan Canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois' largest city.[27] With the tremendous growth of mines and factories in Illinois in the 19th century, Illinois played an important role in the formation of labor unions in the United States. The Pullman Strike and Haymarket Riot in particular greatly influenced the development of the American labor movement. From Sunday, October 8 until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned in downtown Chicago, destroying 4 square miles (10 km2)[30].
In 1847, after lobbying by Dorothea L. Dix, Illinois became one of the first states to establish a system of state-supported treatment of mental illness and disabilities, replacing local almshouses.
During the American Civil War, over 250,000 Illinois men served in the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments, which were numbered from the 7th to the 156th regiments. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also gathered, as well as two light artillery regiments.[31]
In the 20th century, Illinois emerged as one of the most important states in the union, with a population of nearly 5 million bolstered by continued immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and by African-Americans from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. By the end of the century, the population would reach 12.4 million. The Century of Progress World's Fair was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in Marion County and Crawford County lead to a boom in 1937, and, by 1939, Illinois ranked fourth in U.S. oil production.
Following World War II, Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, activated the first experimental nuclear power generating system in the United States in 1957. By 1960, the first privately financed nuclear plant in United States, Dresden 1, was dedicated near Morris. Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The seaway and the Illinois Waterway connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1960, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines (which still exists today as a museum, with a working McDonald's across the street).
In 1970, the state's sixth constitutional convention authored a new constitution to replace the 1870 version, which was ratified in December. The first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign to benefit American farmers, in 1985. The worst upper Mississippi River flood of the century, the Great Flood of 1993, inundated many towns and thousands of acres of farmland. It also flooded many homes and streets slowing transportational services.[27]
The Northeastern border of Illinois is Lake Michigan. Its eastern border with Indiana is the Wabash River and a north-south line above Post Vincennes, 87° 31′ 30″ west longitude. Its northern border with Wisconsin is fixed at 42° 30' north latitude. Its western border with Missouri and Iowa is the Mississippi River. Its southern border with Kentucky is the Ohio River.[32] Illinois also borders Michigan, but only via a water boundary in Lake Michigan.[26]
Though Illinois lies entirely in the Interior Plains, it has three major geographical divisions. The first is Northern Illinois, dominated by the Chicago metropolitan area, including the city of Chicago, its suburbs, and the adjoining exurban area into which the metropolis is expanding. As defined by the federal government, the Chicago metro area includes a few counties in Indiana and Wisconsin and stretches across much of northeastern Illinois. It is a cosmopolitan city, densely populated, industrialized, and settled by a wide variety of ethnic groups. The city of Rockford, the second largest metropolitan area and the state's third largest city sits along Interstates 39 and 90 some 75 miles (121 km) northwest of Chicago.
Southward and westward, the second major division is Central Illinois, an area of mostly prairie. Known as the Heart of Illinois, it is characterized by small towns and mid-sized cities. The western section (west of the Illinois River) was originally part of the Military Tract of 1812 and forms the distinctive western bulge of the state. Agriculture, particularly corn and soybeans, as well as educational institutions and manufacturing centers, figure prominently. Cities include Peoria, the third largest metropolitan area in Illinois at 370,000; Springfield, the state capital; Quincy; Decatur; Bloomington-Normal; and Champaign-Urbana.[26] Though the Illinois Quad Cities are geographically almost at the same latitude as Chicago, they are often grouped in Central Illinois due to economic, political, and cultural ties to this region.
The third division is Southern Illinois, comprising the area south of U.S. Route 50, and including Little Egypt, near the juncture of the Mississippi River and Ohio River. This region can be distinguished from the other two by its warmer climate, different variety of crops (including some cotton farming in the past), more rugged topography (the southern tip is unglaciated with the remainder glaciated during the Illinoian Stage and earlier ages), as well as small-scale oil deposits and coal mining. The area is a little more populated than the central part of the state with the population centered in two areas. First, the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis comprise the second most populous metropolitan area in Illinois with nearly 600,000 inhabitants, and are known collectively as the Metro-East. The second area is Williamson County, Jackson County, Franklin County, Saline County and Perry County. It is home to around 210,000 residents.[26]
The region outside of the Chicago Metropolitan area is often described as "downstate Illinois". However, residents of central and southern Illinois view their regions as geographically and culturally distinct, and do not necessarily use this term.
In extreme northwestern Illinois, the Driftless Area, a region of unglaciated and therefore higher and more rugged topography, occupies a small part of the state. Charles Mound, located in this region, has the state's highest elevation above sea level at 1,235 feet (376 m). The highest structure in Illinois is Willis Tower with a roof elevation of approximately 2,034 feet (620 m) above sea level. [Chicago elevation (580 ft) + tower height (1454 ft) = 2034.]
The floodplain on the Mississippi River from Alton to the Kaskaskia River is the American Bottom, and is the site of the ancient city of Cahokia. It was a region of early German settlement, as well as the site of the first state capital, at Kaskaskia which is separated from the rest of the state by the Mississippi River.[26][33]
A portion of southeastern Illinois is part of the extended Evansville, Indiana Metro Area, commonly referred to as the Tri-State with Indiana and Kentucky. Seven Illinois counties are in the area.
Because of its nearly 400 miles (644 km) length and mid-continental situation, Illinois has a widely varying climate. Most of Illinois has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfa), with hot, humid summers and cool to cold winters. The southernmost part of the state, from about Carbondale southward, borders on a humid subtropical climate (Koppen Cfa), with more moderate winters. Average yearly precipitation for Illinois varies from just over 48 inches (1,219 mm) at the southern tip to around 35 inches (889 mm) in the northern portion of the state. Normal annual snowfall exceeds 38 inches (965 mm) in the Chicago area, while the southern portion of the state normally receives less than 14 inches (356 mm).[34] The all time high temperature was 117 °F (47 °C), recorded on 14 July 1954, at East St. Louis, Illinois, while the all time low temperature was −36 °F (−38 °C), recorded on 5 January 1999, at Congerville, Illinois.[35]
Illinois averages around 51 days of thunderstorm activity a year, which ranks somewhat above average in the number of thunderstorm days for the United States. Illinois is vulnerable to tornadoes with an average of 35 occurring annually, which puts much of the state at around five tornadoes per 10,000 square miles (30,000 km2) annually.[36] The deadliest tornadoes on record in the nation have occurred largely in Illinois. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 killed 695 people in three states, 613 of whom lived in Illinois.[37] Though this figure can be attributed to the historically higher population of Illinois compared to neighboring states (past to present) as well as modern developments in storm tracking, death tolls due to tornadoes have dramatically declined.
| City | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cairo[38] | 41/25 | 47/29 | 57/39 | 69/50 | 77/58 | 86/67 | 90/71 | 88/69 | 81/61 | 71/49 | 57/39 | 46/30 |
| Chicago[39] | 30/16 | 36/21 | 47/30 | 59/40 | 71/51 | 81/61 | 85/65 | 83/65 | 75/57 | 64/45 | 48/34 | 36/22 |
| Edwardsville[40] | 36/19 | 42/24 | 52/34 | 64/45 | 75/55 | 84/64 | 89/69 | 86/66 | 79/58 | 68/46 | 53/35 | 41/25 |
| Moline[41] | 30/12 | 36/18 | 48/29 | 62/39 | 73/50 | 83/60 | 86/64 | 84/62 | 76/53 | 64/42 | 48/30 | 34/18 |
| Peoria[42] | 31/14 | 37/20 | 49/30 | 62/40 | 73/51 | 82/60 | 86/65 | 84/63 | 77/54 | 64/42 | 49/31 | 36/20 |
| Rockford[43] | 27/11 | 33/16 | 46/27 | 59/37 | 71/48 | 80/58 | 83/63 | 81/61 | 74/52 | 62/40 | 46/29 | 32/17 |
| Springfield[44] | 33/17 | 39/22 | 51/32 | 63/42 | 74/53 | 83/62 | 86/66 | 84/64 | 78/55 | 67/44 | 51/34 | 38/23 |
As of 2008, Illinois has an estimated population of 12,901,563, which is an increase of 75,754 from the prior year and an increase of 481,903 or 3.9%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 644,967 people; that is, 1,505,709 births minus 860,742 deaths and a decrease due to the net migration of 159,182 people out of the state. International immigration to the state resulted in an increase of 425,893 people and domestic migration produced a loss of 585,075 people.[45]
As of the 2007 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 1,768,518 foreign-born inhabitants of the state or 13.8% of the population, with 48.4% from Latin America, 24.6% from Asia, 22.8% from Europe, 2.9% from Africa, 1.2% from Northern America and 0.2% from Oceania. Of the foreign-born population, 43.7% were naturalized U.S. citizens and 56.3% were not U.S. citizens.[46] Additionally, the racial distributions were as follows: 65.0% White American, 15.0% African American, 14.9% Latino American, 4.3% Asian American, 0.3% American Indian and Alaska Natives, and 0.1% Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander American.[47] In 2007, 6.9% of Illinois' population was reported as being under age 5, 24.9% under age 18 and 12.1% were age 65 and over. Females made up approximately 50.7% of the population.[47]
According to the 2007 estimates, 21.1% of the population had German ancestry, 13.3% had Irish ancestry, 7.9% had Polish ancestry, 6.7% had English ancestry, 6.4% had Italian ancestry, 4.6% listed themselves as American, 2.4% had Swedish ancestry, 2.2% had French ancestry, other than Basque, 1.6% had Dutch ancestry, 1.4% had Norwegian ancestry and 1.3% had Scottish ancestry.[46] Also, 21.8% of the population age 5 years and over reported speaking a language other than English, with 12.8% of the population speaking Spanish, 5.6% speaking other Indo-European languages, 2.5% speaking Asian and Austronesian languages, and 0.8% speaking other languages.[46]
At the northern edge of the state on Lake Michigan lies Chicago, the nation's third largest city. In 2000, 23.3% of the population lived in the city of Chicago, 43.3% in Cook County and 65.6% in the counties of the Chicago metropolitan area: Will, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties, as well as Cook County. The remaining population lives in the smaller cities and rural areas that dot the state's plains. As of 2000, the state's center of population was at 41°16′42″N 88°22′49″W / 41.278216°N 88.380238°W, located in Grundy County, northeast of the village of Mazon.[26][27][33][48]
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Catholics and Protestants are the largest religious groups in Illinois. Roman Catholics, who are heavily concentrated in and around Chicago, account for around 30% of the population.[50] Chicago and its suburbs are also home to a large and growing population of Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. The largest denominations by number of adherents in 2000 were the Roman Catholic Church with 3,874,933; the United Methodist Church with 365,182; and the Southern Baptist Convention with 305,838.[51]
| Demographics of Illinois (csv) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| By race | White | Black | AIAN* | Asian | NHPI* |
| 2000 (total population) | 80.71% | 15.73% | 0.62% | 3.84% | 0.11% |
| 2000 (Hispanic only) | 11.78% | 0.35% | 0.19% | 0.08% | 0.04% |
| 2005 (total population) | 80.34% | 15.63% | 0.62% | 4.45% | 0.11% |
| 2005 (Hispanic only) | 13.72% | 0.39% | 0.20% | 0.09% | 0.04% |
| Growth 2000–05 (total population) | 2.30% | 2.07% | 3.74% | 19.16% | 10.13% |
| Growth 2000–05 (non-Hispanic only) | -0.68% | 1.81% | 0.91% | 19.36% | 10.18% |
| Growth 2000–05 (Hispanic only) | 19.75% | 13.28% | 10.14% | 9.96% | 10.06% |
| * AIAN is American Indian or Alaskan Native; NHPI is Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander | |||||
The 2007 total gross state product for Illinois was approximately $609 billion USD.[52] The states per capita personal income in 2007 was $41,012 USD.[53]
Illinois's state income tax is calculated by multiplying net income by a flat rate, currently 3%.[54] There are two rates for state sales tax: 6.25% for general merchandise and 1% for qualifying food, drugs and medical appliances.[55] The property tax is the largest single tax in Illinois, and is the major source of tax revenue for local government taxing districts. The property tax is a local — not state — tax, imposed by local government taxing districts, which include counties, townships, municipalities, school districts and special taxation districts. The property tax in Illinois is imposed only on real property.[26][27][33]
Illinois's agricultural outputs are corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, dairy products, and wheat. In most years Illinois is the leading state for the production of soybeans,[56] with a harvest of 500 million bushels (14 million metric tons) in 2004. Illinois is ranked second in total corn production.[57] Illinois' universities are actively researching alternative agricultural products as alternative crops.
As of 2003, the leading manufacturing industries in Illinois, based upon value-added, were chemical manufacturing ($16.6 billion), food manufacturing ($14.4 billion), machinery manufacturing ($13.6 billion), fabricated metal products ($10.5 billion), plastics and rubber products ($6.8 billion), transportation equipment ($6.7 billion), and computer and electronic products ($6.4 billion).[58]
By the early 2000s, Illinois's economy had moved toward a dependence on high-value-added services, such as financial trading, higher education, logistics, and medicine. In some cases, these services clustered around institutions that hearkened back to Illinois's earlier economies. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a trading exchange for global derivatives, had begun its life as an agricultural futures market. Other important non-manufacturing industries include publishing, petroleum and coal.
Illinois is a net importer of fuels for energy, despite large coal resources and some minor oil production. Illinois exports electricity, ranking fifth among states in electricity production and seventh in electricity consumption.[59]
About 68% of Illinois has coal-bearing strata of the Pennsylvanian geologic period. According to the Illinois State Geological Survey, 211 billion tons of bituminous coal are estimated to lie under the surface, having a total heating value greater than the estimated oil deposits in the Arabian Peninsula.[60] However, this coal has a high sulfur content, which causes acid rain unless special equipment is used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.[26][27][33] Many Illinois power plants are not equipped to burn high-sulfur coal. In 1999, Illinois produced 40.4 million tons of coal, but only 17 million tons (42%) of Illinois coal was consumed in Illinois. Most of the coal produced in Illinois is exported to other states, while much of the coal burned for power in Illinois (21 million tons in 1998) is mined in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.[59]
Mattoon was recently chosen as the site for the Department of Energy's FutureGen project, a 275 megawatt experimental zero emission coal-burning power plant which just received a second round of funding from the DOE.
Illinois is a leading refiner of petroleum in the American Midwest, with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly 900,000 barrels per day (143,000 m3/d). However, Illinois has very limited crude oil proved reserves that account for less than 1% of U.S. crude oil proved reserves. Residential heating is 81% natural gas compared to less than 1% heating oil. Illinois is ranked 14th in oil production among states, with a daily output of approximately 28,000 barrels (4,500 m3) in 2005.[61]
Nuclear power arguably began in Illinois with the Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the world's first nuclear reactor, built on the University of Chicago campus. With six major nuclear power plants (Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, LaSalle, and Quad Cities) housing eleven reactors, Illinois is ranked first among the 50 states of the US in nuclear generating capacity.[62] In 2005, 48% of Illinois' electricity was generated using nuclear power.[62]
Illinois has seen growing interest in the use of wind power for electrical generation.[63] Most of Illinois was rated in 2001 as "fair" for wind energy production by the Department of Energy, with some western sections rated "good" and parts of the south rated "poor".[64] These ratings are for wind turbines with 50m hub heights; newer wind turbines are taller, able to reach stronger winds farther from the ground. As a result, more areas of Illinois have become prospective wind farm sites. As of June 2009, Illinois had 915.06 MW of installed wind power nameplate capacity with another 702.9 MW under construction.[65] Illinois ranked tenth among U.S. states in installed wind power capacity, and was on pace to become the tenth state to surpass 1 GW.[65] Large wind farms in Illinois include Mendota Hills, Rail Splitter, and Twin Groves.
As of 2006, wind energy represented only a negligible part of Illinois' energy production, and it was estimated that wind power could provide 5-10% of the state's energy needs.[66] In 2007, the Illinois General Assembly mandated that by 2025, 25% of all electricity generated in Illinois is to come from renewable resources.[67]
Illinois is ranked second in corn production among U.S. states, and Illinois corn is used to produce 40% of the ethanol consumed in the United States.[68] The Archer Daniels Midland corporation in Decatur, Illinois is the world's leading producer of ethanol from corn.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the partners in the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), a $500 million biofuels research project funded by petroleum giant BP.[69][70]
Illinois has numerous museums. The state of the art Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is the largest presidential library in the country; numerous museums in the city of Chicago are considered some of the best in the world. These include the John G. Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry. The Museum of Science and Industry is the only building remaining from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the new world.
Because of its large population, Chicago is the focus of most professional sports in Illinois, though St. Louis sports teams and Indianapolis sports teams are also supported in areas of the state closer to those cities.
The state houses two Major League Baseball teams. The Chicago Cubs of the National League play in the second-oldest major league stadium (Wrigley Field) and are widely known for not winning the World Series, since 1908. The Chicago White Sox of the American League won the World Series in 2005, their first since 1917. The Chicago Bears football team has won nine total NFL Championships, the last occurring in Super Bowl XX in 1986. Coincidentally, the city's Arena Football League team, the Chicago Rush, won ArenaBowl XX in 2006. The Chicago Bulls of the NBA is one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world, due largely to the efforts of Michael Jordan, who led the team to six NBA championships in eight seasons in the 1990s. The Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL began playing in 1926, as a member of the Original Six and have won three Stanley Cups, most recently in 1961 (currently the longest Stanley Cup drought of any NHL team). The Chicago Fire soccer club is a member of MLS and is one of the league's most successful and best-supported, since its founding in 1997, winning one league and four Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cups in that timespan. The Chicago Wolves is an AHL minor league team that is also very popular and has been a winning team since its first season. The Chicago Blaze is another minor league hockey team, playing in the All American Hockey League. In 2006, Chicago became home of the first indoor lacrosse team, called the Chicago Shamrox, who are part of the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The Chicago Sky of the WNBA and the Chicago Bandits of the NPF, who won their first title in 2008, are also located in the city.
The city was formerly home to several other teams, such as the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL, the Chicago Cougars of the WHA, the Chicago Rockers of the CBA, the Chicago Skyliners of the IBL, the Chicago Bruisers of Arena Football, the Chicago Blitz of the USFL, the Chicago Sting of the MISL, the Chicago Power of the NPSL and the Chicago Blaze of the NWBL.
Chicago is not the only place in Illinois where sports are played professionally, however. The Rockford Lightning is one of the oldest CBA teams in the league, the Peoria Chiefs and Kane County Cougars are minor league baseball teams, affiliated with MLB and the Schaumburg Flyers and Joliet JackHammers are prominent independent league baseball teams. In addition to the Chicago Wolves, the AHL has two teams in Illinois outside of Chicago: the Rockford IceHogs serves as the top minor league affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Peoria Rivermen is the main farm club of the St. Louis Blues.
The Illinois state parks' system began in 1908 with what is now Fort Massac State Park, becoming the first park in a system encompassing over 60 parks and about the same number of recreational and wildlife areas.
Areas under the protection and control of the National Park Service include: the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor near Lockport;[71] the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail; the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield; the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail; the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail; and the American Discovery Trail.[72]
| Illinois Government | |
| Governor of Illinois | Pat Quinn (D) |
| Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: | vacant |
| Attorney General of Illinois: | Lisa Madigan (D) |
| Illinois Secretary of State: | Jesse White (D) |
| Illinois Comptroller: | Daniel Hynes (D) |
| Illinois Treasurer: | Alexi Giannoulias (D) |
| Senior United States Senator: | Dick Durbin (D) |
| Junior United States Senator: | Roland Burris (D) |
Under its constitution, Illinois has three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. Legislative functions are granted to the Illinois General Assembly, composed of the 118-member Illinois House of Representatives and the 59-member Illinois Senate. The executive branch is led by the Governor of Illinois, but four other executive officials are separately elected by the people. The judiciary is composed of the Supreme Court of Illinois and the lower appellate and circuit courts.[32]
Historically, Illinois was a major battleground state between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. In recent elections, it has gradually shifted more Democratic at the national and state level and has become a solid Democratic state in the Midwest. Chicago and most of Cook County votes strongly Democratic. In addition, Democratic voters have moved to the traditionally Republican "collar counties" (the suburbs surrounding Chicago's Cook County, Illinois), which are becoming increasingly diverse.[73][74] Republicans continue to prevail in rural northern and central Illinois; Democrats usually win in southern Illinois and in the Quad Cities and East St. Louis metropolitan areas. Illinois has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the last five elections. Barack Obama easily won the state's 21 electoral votes in 2008, by a margin of 25 percentage points with 61.9% of the vote.
Politics in the state, particularly those of the Chicago machine, have been famous for highly visible corruption cases, as well as for crusading reformers, such as governors Adlai Stevenson (D) and James R. Thompson (R). In 2006, former Governor George Ryan (R) was convicted of racketeering and bribery. In 2008, the former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) was served a criminal complaint on corruption charges, stemming from allegations that he conspired to sell the vacated Senate seat left by President Barack Obama (D) to the highest bidder. In the late 20th century, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (D) was imprisoned for mail fraud; former governor and federal judge Otto Kerner, Jr. (D) was imprisoned for bribery; and State Auditor of Public Accounts (Comptroller) Orville Hodge (R) was imprisoned for embezzlement. In 1912, William Lorimer, the GOP boss of Chicago, was expelled from the U.S. Senate for bribery and in 1921, Governor Len Small (R) was found to have defrauded the state of a million dollars.[27][33][75]
Illinois has the unique distinction of having popularly elected two of the six African Americans, who have served in the U.S. Senate: Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack Obama.[76] Roland Burris was appointed to the Senate to replace Barack Obama, who resigned to become president. Illinois has sent more African-Americans to the Senate than any other state, with three in total.
The first Governor was Shadrach Bond, who served from 1818 to 1822.
Two presidents have claimed Illinois as their political base: former Representative of Illinois's 7th congressional district Abraham Lincoln (born in Kentucky) and the current President of the United States, former Illinois U.S. Senator Barack Obama (born in Honolulu, Hawaii). President Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, but ran from his political home state of California, where he served as Governor. Former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956.
In 2000, Illinois was ranked 4th in the U.S. in the number of full-time sworn officers with 321 per 100,000 persons, behind Louisiana (415), New York (384), and New Jersey (345).[77] In this ranking, only New York had a higher total population than Illinois. Illinois is also near the top of most law enforcement numbers lists, such as number of agencies per state, number of agencies with special jurisdictions, and number of local police agencies.[77] Even taking into account that Illinois is the fifth most populous state, many of the ratios are higher than more populated states. There is much overlap in jurisdiction amongst the different law enforcement agencies.
At the state level, there are at least eleven law enforcement agencies. At the county level, there are county sheriffs, forest preserve police and many specialized police forces. At the local level, most cities and many villages have municipal police forces, park district police forces, and even local specialized police forces. Many colleges also have their own police or public safety forces that have full police power on campus.
The Illinois State Board of Education or ISBE, autonomous of the governor and the state legislature, administers public education in the state. Local municipalities and their respective school districts operate individual public schools but the ISBE audits performance of public schools with the Illinois School Report Card. The ISBE also makes recommendations to state leaders concerning education spending and policies.
Education is compulsory from kindergarten through the twelfth grade in Illinois, commonly but not exclusively divided into three tiers of primary and secondary education: elementary school, middle school or junior high school and high school. District territories are often complex in structure. In some cases, elementary, middle and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district.
Using the criterion established by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, there are eleven "National Universities" in the state. Three of these rank among the top 100 National Universities in the United States, as determined by the U.S. News & World Report rankings: the University of Chicago (8), Northwestern University (12) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (40).[78] The other eight National Universities, including two more that rank in the top 120 are: Illinois Institute of Technology (102), Loyola University Chicago (116), DePaul University, Illinois State University, Southern Illinois University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northern Illinois University and Trinity International University.[78]
Besides the "National Universities", Illinois has several other major universities and colleges, both public and private, including: Eastern Illinois University, Northeastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University, Columbia College Chicago, Bradley University, Roosevelt University, Chicago State University and Robert Morris University. There are also dozens of small liberal arts colleges across the state. Additionally, Illinois supports 49 public community colleges in the Illinois Community College System.
Because of its central location and its proximity to the Rust Belt and Grain Belt, Illinois is a national crossroads for air, auto, rail and truck traffic.
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport (ORD) is one of the busiest airports in the world, with 59.3 million domestic passengers annually, along with 11.4 million international passengers in 2008.[79] It is a major hub for United Airlines and American Airlines, and a major airport expansion project is currently underway. Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) is the secondary airport in the Chicago metropolitan area, serving 17.3 million domestic and international passengers in 2008.[80]
Illinois has an extensive passenger and freight rail transportation network. Chicago is a national Amtrak hub and in-state passengers are served by Amtrak's Illinois Service, featuring the Chicago to Carbondale Illini and Saluki, the Chicago to Quincy Carl Sandburg and Illinois Zephyr, and the Chicago to St. Louis Lincoln Service. Currently there is trackwork on the Chicago-St. Louis line to bring the maximum speed up to 110 mph (180 km/h) which would reduce the trip time by an hour and a half. Nearly every North American railway meets at Chicago, making it one of the largest and most active rail hubs in the world. Extensive commuter rail is provided in the city proper and immediate northern suburbs by the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system. The largest suburban commuter rail system in the United States, operated by Metra, uses existing rail lines to provide direct commuter rail access for hundreds of suburbs to the city and beyond.
Major U.S. Interstate highways crossing the state include: I-24, I-39, I-55, I-57, I-64, I-70, I-72, I-74, I-80, I-88, I-90, and I-94. Illinois carries the distinction of having the most primary (2-digit) Interstates pass through it among the 50 states. In 2007, there were 1,248 traffic fatalities on Illinois roadways, the fewest since 1924.[26][27][33][81]
In addition to the state's rail lines, the Mississippi River and Illinois River provide major transportation routes for the state's agricultural interests. Lake Michigan connects Illinois to all waterways east.
| Rank | City | Population (2008 est.)[82] | Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chicago | 2,853,114 |  |
| 2 | Aurora | 171,782 |  |
| 3 | Rockford | 157,272 |  |
| 4 | Joliet | 146,125 |  |
| 5 | Naperville | 143,117 |  |
| 6 | Springfield | 117,352 |  |
| 7 | Peoria | 114,114 |  |
| 8 | Elgin | 106,330 | _01.JPG) |
Chicago is the largest city in the state and the third most populous city in the United States, with its 2008 estimated population of 2,853,114. The U.S. Census Bureau currently lists seven other cities with populations of over 100,000 within Illinois. Based upon the Census Bureau's official 2008 population estimates,[82] they are: Aurora, a Chicago outlier which at 171,782, eclipsed Rockford for the title of "Second City" of Illinois in 2006. However, at 157,272, Rockford is not only the number three city, it also remains the largest city in the state not located within the Chicago metropolitan area. Joliet, located southwest of Chicago, is the fourth largest city in the state, with a population of 146,125. It is also one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, is fifth with 143,117, it shares its western border with the state's second largest city, Aurora, along Illinois Route 59. Springfield, the state capital of Illinois, comes in sixth with 117,352. Peoria, which decades ago was the second largest city in the state, comes in seventh with 114,114. The eighth largest and final city in the 100,000 club is Elgin, an outlying northwest suburb of Chicago with a 2008 estimated population of 106,330.
Other major urban areas include the Illinois portion of Greater St. Louis (often called the Metro-East area), which has a population of over 691,000 people, the Illinois portion of the Quad Cities area, which has a population of 215,000, the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area, which has a combined population of 210,000 and the Bloomington-Normal area with a combined population of over 125,000.
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Learning resources from Wikiversity| Preceded by Mississippi |
List of U.S. states by date of statehood Admitted on December 3, 1818 (21st) |
Succeeded by Alabama |
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Iowa | Wisconsin | Lake Michigan | |
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| Missouri | Kentucky |
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Coordinates: 40°N 89°W / 40°N 89°W
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| Translations: Illinois |
Français (French)
n. - Illinois
Deutsch (German)
n. - Illinois
Português (Portuguese)
n. - Illinois
Español (Spanish)
n. - Illinois
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
伊利诺斯州
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 伊利諾州
한국어 (Korean)
일리노이 (미국 중서부의 주; 주도 Springfield; (약) Ill., IL; 속칭 Praine State, Com State)
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