Please become a member of the ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
so as to receive their bi-monthly magazine, Illinois Heritage and their scholarly publication, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Students: $30. Individual: $60. Institutional: $75. Send your payment to:
Illinois State Historical Society
University of Illinois Press – Journals Department
1325 S. Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Young Professionals: please consider joining the ILLINOIS HISTORY COLLABORATIVE, a networking group within the Illinois State Historical Society. For more information, please contact Hannah Kline at: development@historyillinois.org or telephone (217) 691-8769.

SangamonLink is the reference website of the Sangamon County Historical Society. It has a wealth of historical information. CLICK   

The poster below is on display in the Illinois History Collection room (CLICK).

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TOPICAL REFERENCES 
General
Banash, Stan. Roadside History of Illinois.(Mountain Press, 2013)
Biles, Roger. Illinois. A History of the Land and Its People. (Northern Illinois University Press, 2005)
Danzer, Gerald A. Illinois. A History in Pictures. (University of Illinois Press, 2011)
Fliege, Stu. Tales & Trails of Illinios. (University of Illinois Press, 2002)
Reps, John W. Cities of the Mississippi. Nineteenth-Century Images of Urban Development. (University of Missouri Press, 1994)
Schneider, Paul. Old Man River. The Mississippi River in North American History. (Henry Holt, 2014) (and watch Viking River Cruise interview with author)
Titus, Charles. Exploring the Land of Lincoln. The Essential Guide to Illinois Historic Sites. (Fields Books, 2021)

African American Illinois
The Illinois Freedom Project. CLICK
Bridges, Roger D. The Illinois Black Codes. CLICK
Dexter, Darrel. Bondage in Egypt. Slavery in Southern Illinois. (2011)
Early Migration of Free Black Settlements. CLICK
Enjoy Illinois Magazine. Path to Freedom on Illinois’ Underground Railroad. CLICK
Fay, Kathryn O. and Christopher C. Fennell. Paradoxes in designs for New Philadelphia National Historic Landmark. Museums & Social Issues7(2): 209-226.  2012.
Fennell, Christopher C. Surmounting adversities in the Land of Lincoln. In: Broken Chains and Subverted Plans. Ethnicity, Race and Commodities, by Christopher Fennell, pp. 233-254. (University Press of Florida, 2017)
Fennell, Christopher C. Racism’s waste and resilient entrepreneurs. In: Broken Chains and Subverted Plans. Ethnicity, Race and Commodities, by Christopher Fennell, pp. 211-232. (University Press of Florida, 2017)
Fennell, Christopher C.,  Terrance J. Martin, and Paul A. Shackel (editors), New Philadelphia: Racism, Community, and the Illinois Frontier. IN: Historical Archaeology, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jan. 2010).
Lenstra, Noah. The African American Mining Experience in Illilnois from 1800-1920.  CLICK
McWorter, Gerald A. and Kate Williams-McWorter. New Philadelphia.(Path Press, 2018)
Muelder, Owen W. The Underground Railroad in Western Illinois (McFarland, 2012)
Senechal de la Roche, Roberta. In Lincoln’s Shadow. The 1908 Race Riot in Springfield, Illinois. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1990)
Shackel, Paul A. New Philadelphia: An Archaeology of Race in the Heartland. (University of California Press, 2010)
Slavery: CLICK
Snively, Ethan A. (1901) Slavery in Illinois. Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society CLICK
Stratton, Christopher and William Flesher. Searching for the Slaves Quarters: Archaeological Investigations at the Menard Home Historic Site, Randolph County, Illinois. Fever River Research, Springfield, 1999.
Stratton, Christopher and Floyd Mansberger. Searching for the Slaves Quarters: Archaeology at the Pierre Menard House State Historic Site, Randolph County, Illinois. Illinois Antiquity 40(3): 14-19. 2005.
Sundiata, Cha-Jua (2000)  America’s First Black Town. Brooklyn, Illinois, 1830-1913. 
Walker, Juliet. Free Frank: A Black Pioneer on the Antebellum Frontier. (University of Kentucky Press, 1983)

Alton
alltownusa.org   All Town USA is the outstanding podcast series produced by Stephanie Young at Principia College, Elsah. It deals with Alton history and contemporary history.
Ellingwood, Ken. First to Fall. Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery. (Pegasus Books, 2021)

Coal in Illinois/Labor Struggles
Angle, Paul M.  Bloody Williamson. A Chapter in American Lawlessness. (University of Illinois Press, 1952)
Bailey, Greg. The Herrin Massacre of 1992. Blood and Coal in the Heart of America. (McFarland and Co., 2020)
Biggers, Jeff. Reckoning at Eagle Creek. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010)
Collinsville Historical Museum. Original union meetings notes of the Progressives in Collinsville.
Corley, Kevin. Sixteen Tons. A Novel. (Hardball, 2014)
Corley, Kevin. Throw Out the Water. A Novel. (Hardball, 2016)
Corley, Kevin and Douglas E. King. Sundown Town. A Novel. (Hardball, 2018)
Doody, Scott. Herrin Massacre. (Monee, Illinois. 2022)
Feurer, Rosemary. LAWCHA and the lesson plan. Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas 10(3): 7-9.  2013.
Feurer, Rosemary. Mother Jones: a global history of struggle and remembrance, from Cork, Ireland to Illinois. Illinois Heritage, May 2013: 28-33.
Feurer, Rosemary. “Remember Virden. The Coal Mine Wars of 1898-1900.” Online resource: CLICK 
Feurer, Rosemary (director/producer). Mother Jones – America’s Most Dangerous Woman (2007 documentary)
Gorn, Elliott J.  Mother Jones. The Most Dangerous Woman in America. (Hill and Wang, 2001)
Griswold, John. Herrin The Brief History of an Infamous American City. (The History Press, 2013)
Harrell, C. William. Southern Illinois Coal. A Portfolio. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1993 and Shawnee Books, 2017)
Hartley, Robert E. and David Kenney. Death Underground. The Centralia and West Frankfort Mine Disasters. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006)
Joyce, Richard P. Spring Valley Is A Mining Town. (Lulu.com,  2024)
Keiser, John. The Union Miners Cemetery: A Spirit-Thread of Labor History. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Autumn, 1969. Vol. 62, No. 3, pp. 229-266. Autumn, 1969.                                Kimmel, Stanley. The Kingdom of Smoke. Sketches of My People. (Brown, 1932)
Lenstra, Noah. The African American Mining Experience in Illilnois from 1800-1920.  CLICK
Mackey, Charles T. The Carterville Riot. The Independent 51(263): 2686-2687. October 5, 1899.
Markwell, David.  A Turning Point: The Lasting Impact of the Virden Mine Riot. Illinois State Historical Society (Fall 1986/Winter 1987)
Mayer, Magdalen, Mara Lou Hawse and Paula J. Maloney. Concerning Coal. An Anthology. (Coal Research Center, SIU-Carbondale, 1997)
Oblinger, Carl D. Divided Kingdom: Work, Community, and the Mining Wars in the Central Illinois Coal Fields During the Great Depression. Second Edition. (Illinois State Historical Society, 2004)
Orear, Leslie F. Mother Jones and the Union Miners Cemetery, Mount Olive, Illinois. (Illinois Labor History Society, 2002)
Rauzi, Harold R. Coal Mines on the Prairie. The Life of an American Community. (2019)
Ridings, Jim. Cardiff. Illinois’ Lost Mining Town. (Arcadia, 2023)
Sangamon Link. The Battle of Virden, 1898, published November 13, 2016, quoted and paraphrased, used with permission.  CLICK
Sangamon Link. “Coal miner union war, 1932-37”. November 26, 2013. CLICK
Stockton, Richard. Underground in Illinois. How Coal Miners Live, Work and Struggle for Unity. (National Research League, 1953 or earlier)
Verticchio, Miachel P. Let Us Live. (Vantage Press, 2004)
Wieck, David Thoreau. Woman from Spillertown. A Memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1992)
Weinberg, Carl R. Labor, Loyalty and Rebellion. Southwestern Illinois Coal Miners and World War I. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005)

French Illinois
Balesi, Charles J. Exploring the Midwest’s French roots. Illinois Heritage 2 (1-2): 4-7. 1999.
Belting, Natalia Maree. Kaskaskia Under the French Regime. Originally 1984. Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.
Brown, Margaret Kimball. History as They Lived It. A Social History of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005)
Brown, Margaret Kimball and Lawrie Cene Dean. The French Colony in the Mid-Mississippi Valley, Second Edition (Center for French Colonial Studies, William L. Potter Publication Series, Number 9, 1995)
Brown, Stuart. Old Kaskaskia days and way. Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society (1905) CLICK
Butler, W. M. 1912. Historical sites and scenes in Randolph County, Illinois. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 4 (4): 459-468.
Dewar, David P. 2009. Migration to acculturation. Ohio Valley History 9 (3): 3-24.
Ekberg, Carl J. French Roots in the Illinois Country. The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times. (University of Illinois Press, 2000)
Encyclopedia of French Cultural Heritage in North America. CLICK
Gale, Neil. “Fort de Chartres/Fort Cavendish and the Village of Nouvelle Chartres.” Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal: CLICK
Hauser, Raymond E. 1976. The Illinois tribe: from autonomy and self-sufficiency to dependency and depopulation. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 69(2): 127-138.
History Channel. “The French and Indian War Explained: CLICK
Keene, David J. War and the colonial frontier. Fort de Chartres in the Illinois Country. In: The Archaeology of French and Indian War Frontier Forts, edited by Lawrence E. Babits and Stephanie Gandulla, pp. 229-239. (University Press of Florida, 2013)
Leavelle, Tracy Neal. The Catholic Calumet: Colonial Conversions in French and Indian North America. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. AUDIO
Mazrim, Robert F.  At Home in the Illinois Country. French Colonial Domestic Site Archaeology in the Midwest 1730-1800. Studies in Archaeology No. 9 (Illinois State Archaeological Survey, 2011)
Momo Momo. Kaskaskia photographed with a drone: CLICK
Morrissey, Robert Michael. The terms of encounter: language and contested visions of French colonization in the Illinois Country, 1673-1702. In: French and Indians in the Heart of North America, 1630-1815, edited by Robert Englebert and Guillaume Teasdale, pp. 43-76. (Michigan State University Press, 2013)
Morrissey, Robert Michael. Empire by Collaboration. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
Reda, John. From subjects to citizens: two Pierres and the French influence on the transformation of the Illinois Country. In: French and Indians in the Heart of North America, 1630-1815, edited by Robert Englebert and Guillaume Teasdale, pp. 159-181. (Michigan State University Press, 2013)
Stelle, Lenville J. Inoca Ethnohistory Project. Parkland Coilege, Champaign, 2005.
Temple, Wayne. Indian Villages of the Illinois Country. Historic Tribes. Illinois State Museum, Scientific Papers, Volume II, Part 2, 1958.
Stratton, Christopher and William Flesher. Searching for the Slaves Quarters: Archaeological Investigations at the Menard Home Historic Site, Randolph County, Illinois. Fever River Research, Springfield, 1999.
Stratton, Christopher and Floyd Mansberger. Searching for the Slaves Quarters: Archaeology at the Pierre Menard House State Historic Site, Randolph County, Illinois. Illinois Antiquity40(3): 14-19. 2005.
Walthall, John A. (ed.) French Colonial Archaeology: The Illinois Country and the Western Great Lakes. University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Walthall, John A. and Elizabeth D. Benchley. The River L’Abbe Mission. A French Colonial Church on Monks Mounds. Studies in Illinois Archaeology No. 2. (Illinois History Preservation Agency, 1987)
Wilcockson, Tom. French Colonial Fort de Chartres. A Journey in Time. Les Amis du Fort de Chartres, 2018.
Website: CLICK

Lewis and Clark
The Definitive Journals of Lewis & Clark. 7-volume set.  (Bison Books, 2002)
Allen, John Logan. Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest (Dover, 2012)
Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage. The Pioneering First Mission to Explore America’s Wild Frontier (Simon and Schuster, 2016)
Foley, William E.  Wilderness Journey. The Life of William Clark (University of Missouri Press, 2004)
Gilman, Carolyn. Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide (Smithsonian, 2003)
Kastor, Peter J. William Clark’s World. Describing America in an Age of Unknowns (Yale University Press, 2011)
Morris, Larry E.  The Fate of the Corps. What Became of Lewis and Clark Explorers After the Expedition (Yale University Press, 2004)
Skarsten, M. O.  George Drouillard. Hunter and Interpreter for Lewis and Clark & Fur Trader, 1807-1810. (Bison Books, 2005)
Slaughter, Thomas P.  Exploring Lewis and Clark. Reflections on Men and Wilderness (Knopf, 2003)
Utley, Robert M.  After Lewis and Clark (Bison Books, 2004)

Mormon Illinois
Andreasen, Bryon C. Looking for Lincoln in Illinois. Lincoln and Mormon Country. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015)
Beautiful Nauvoo (2019) www.beautifulnauvoo.com
Black, Susan Easton. The Quincy Miracle. A Rescue Never to be Forgotten. (History of the Saints, 2016)
Cuerden, Glenn. Images of America. Nauvoo. (Arcadia Publishing, 2006)
Esplin, Scott C. Return to the City of Joseph. Modern Mormonism’s Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo. (University of Illinois Press, 2018)
Gabbert, Dean and Marilyn S. Candido. Nauvoo. (William Street Press, 2006)
Hallwas, John E. and Roger D. Launius. Cultures in Conflict. A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois. (Utah State University Press, 1995)
Historic Nauvoo  www.historicnauvoo.net
Leone, Mark P.  Roots of Modern Mormonism.(Harvard University Press, 1979)
Park, Benjamin E. Kingdom of Nauvoo. The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier. (Liveright, 2020)
Pykles, Benjamin C. (2006). An Early Example of Public Archaeology in the United States: Nauvoo, Illinois, 1962-1969. North American Archaeologist 27(4): 311-349.
Pykles, Benjamin C. Excavating Nauvoo. The Mormons and the Rise of Historical Archaeology in America. University of Nebraska Press, 2010.
Smith, Alex D. Untouchable: Joseph Smith’s use of the law as a catalyst for assassination. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society12(1): 8-42. 2019
Stutzman, Brian J. The History of Warsaw Illinois. Including the Mormon Period, 2nd edition (2018).

Western Illinois
Bradford, Colten. The Lost City of Camp Ellis. Illinois Country Living. November 2018.
Davis, James E. Frontier Illinois. (Indiana University Press, 1998)
Hallwas, John E. Western Illinois Heritage. (Illinois Heritage Press, 1983)
Hallwas, John E. On Community. A Crucial Issue, a Small Town, and a Writer’s Experience. (Illinois Heritage Press, 2015)
Masters, Edgar Lee. Spoon River Anthology. An Annotated Edition by John E. Hallwas. (University of Illinois Press, 1992).
VIDEO (The History Guy): Camp Ellis: Forgotten WWII City

Native American Illinois before the Europeans
Cahokia Mounds Museum Society. Cahokia. City of the Sun. (1992)
Chappell, Sally A. Kitt. Cahokia. Mirror of the Cosmos.(University of Chicago Press, 2002)
Emerson, Thomas E. Cahokia and the Archaeology and Power.(University of Alabama Press, 1997)
Illinois State Museum. A New View of the Past. Dickson Mounds Museum, Lewistown Illinois. (1995) (also published in The Living Museum, volume 57, no. 1, 1995)
Langford, Donna. “The politics of prehistory. Conflict and resolution at Dickson Mounds Museum” IN: Defining Memory. Local Museums and the Construction of History in America’s Changing Communities, edited by Amy K. Levin. (Altamira, 2007)
Mink, Claudia Gellman. Cahokia. City of the Sun. (Cahokia Mounds Museum Society, 1992)
Pauketat, Timothy R. Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians.(Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Pauketat, Timothy R. and Thomas E. Emerson, eds., Cahokia. Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World. (University of Nebraska Press, 1997)
Pauketat, Timothy R., Susan M. Alt and Jeffery D. Kruchten. City of earth and wood: new Cahokia and its material-historical implications. In: The Cambridge World History. Volume III. Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE-1200 CE, edited by Norman Yoffee, pp. 437-454. (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Pridmore, Jay. “Dickson Mounds: closing a window on the dead.” Archaeology Magazine, July-August, 1992.

Wood River Massacre
Gale, Neil. The 1814 Wood River, Illinois Massacre. CLICK
Lippincott, Thomas. The Wood River Massacre. Illinois Historical Society, 1912. CLICK
Richmond, Volney P. The Wood River Massacre. Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1901. 

Lincoln
Andreasen, Bryon C. Looking for Lincoln in Illinois. Lincoln and Mormon Country. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015)
Bruner, Edward M. (1994) Abraham Lincoln as Authentic Reproduction. American Anthropologist 96(2):397-415.
Fraker, Guy C. Looking for Lincoln in Illinois. A Guide to Lincoln’s Eighth Judicial Circuit. (Southern Illinois University Press, 2017)

Experiencing the Mississippi River
Ambrose, Stephen E. and Douglas G. Brinkley. The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation. From the Louisiana Purchase to Today. (National Geographic Society, 2002)
Lockwood, C. C. Around the Bend. A Mississippi River Adventure. (Louisiana State University Press, 1998)
Smith, Thomas Runs. Deep Water. The Mississippi River in the Age of Mark Twain.  (Louisiana State University Press, 2019)
Schneider, Paul. Old Man River. The Mississippi River in North American History. (Picador, 2014)
Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. (originally 1883)
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (originally 1884)
Zeisler-Vralsted, Dorothy. Rivers, Memory, and Nation-Building. A History of the Volga and Mississippi Rivers. (Berghahn, 2015)

Coal Mining in Popular Culture – in Illinois, in the U.S., in Britain
novel: King Coal by Upton Sinclair (1917)
novel: The Coal War by Upton Sinclair (sequel to King Coal)
novel: How Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewllyn
novel: The Stars Look Down by A. J. Cronin (1935)
investigative journalism: The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1930s) (1958)
movie version of the novel: How Green Was My Valley  (1941, John Ford, Director)
movie: Billy Elliott (2000)
movie: Pride (2014)
movie: Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
documentary: Harlan County, USA (1976)

Project Publications
Silverman, Helaine and Devin Hunter. “The Mythic Mississippi Project. Investigate, Interpret, Invest in Illinois”. Illinois Heritage, July-August 2022, pp. 34-39.
Silverman, Helaine. “Coal Mining and the University of Illinois”. Illinois Heritage, July-August 2023, pp. 16-18.
Silverman, Helaine. “Remembering Pana’s African American Miners”. Illinois Heritage, November-December 2023, pp 36-39.
Silverman, Helaine. “Always Alton. Branding History as a Tourism Attractor”. Illinois Heritage, January-February 2024, pp. 20-26.
Silverman, Helaine. “Memorializing and Commemorating the Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909.” Illinois Heritage, September-October 2024, pp. 21-27.
Silverman, Helaine. “What Would Mother Jones Have Said? The Progressive Miners of America and Their Monument.” in Combating Oppression with New Commemorations, edited by Christopher Fennell, pp. 144-162 (Routledge, 2025).
Silverman, Helaine. “Murder, Normalization and Pride: A Tale of Two Memorials in Southern Illinois’ Coal Country.”  Illinois Heritage, September-October 2025, pp. 31-40. 
Silverman, Helaine. WHITE PAPER. “Discourses of Prejudice in the Early Twentieth Century Coal Mining Industry.” CLICK HERE