Gerald A. Danzer distills the story of Illinois from these visual artefacts, exploring the state's history from its earliest peoples and their encounters with European settlers, through territorial struggles and the strife of the Civil War, ...
Illinois Wilds is a natural history of the wildlands found in Illinois. This book is a historical depiction of what Illinois was like before settlement by Europeans, and is also a showcase of the remaining natural heritage of the state. Historical accounts of Illinois described huge trees, vast grasslands, and extensive wetlands. The seemingly endless prairies possessed a great diversity of many-hued plants; a traveler could go from central Illinois to Wisconsin and encounter few trees. (...) The prairies were teeming with life - passenger pigeons by the millions, snakes basking along the dusty trail, a myriad of grasshoppers darting through the air like arrows from a medieval army. Although we no longer have the luxury of standing on a hillock or an old glacial moraine and viewing a limitless expanse of prairie or forest, we do have the opportunity to experience the essence of these places; that is what the authors have attempted to document in this work. They identify the most distinguishing feature of various Illinois habitats, whether the vegetation is predominantly trees, grasses or forbs, the soil a deep loess, sand or gravel, or the ground surface dry or covered by water. The majority of the photographs in this book are of plants and animals that can be used to determine a habitat or simply be seen by the casual visitor. It is the authors' wish that these images not only excite and emotionally involve the viewer, but that they also inspire movement towards a conservation ethic. (shrink)
In Martin v. Ortho Pharmacetrtical Corp. ), the Supreme Court of Illinois held that, although a federal regulation requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide direct warnings to consumers about the dangers associated with oral contraceptives, this regulation does not constitute an exception to the learned intermediary doctrine and the manufacture will not be held strictly liable. The court declined to recognize an exception for manufacturers of contraceptives due to important policy considerations and the legislative intent underlying the learned intermediary doctrine. (...) The doctrine is based on the assumption that prescribing physicians, not pharmaceutical manufacturers, are in the best position to provide direct warnings to patients concerning the dangers associated with prescription drugs. The decision may affect patients whose medical care providers are unable to account for drug propensities or patient susceptibilities. Additionally, patients with forgetful or inarticulate health care providers are at risk. (shrink)
Education is experiencing a case of misplaced accountability, where an exclusive reliance on high stakes tests overlooks the more subtle judgments of teachers and professional educators and, because of its simplicity, passes as democratic. This article investigates the theoretical underpinnings of current accountability initiatives and draws upon extensive teacher interviews to reveal the practical aspects of accountability pressures in schools today. We provide a discussion of local teacher knowledge that exposes teachers' commitments to a deeper sense of successful education that (...) is eclipsed by testing and that offers a richer resource for improving classrooms and educational outcomes. We provide a discussion of educational foundations and policy that rethinks democratic goals and encourages educationists to shift the current debate in order to make accountability truly democratic. This article suggests that the contemporary climate of accountability may be misplaced in its intentions. (shrink)
A panoramic collection of ninety photographs captures the spirit of people at work and play along the Illinois River, as well as the quiet beauty of the flora and fauna that make the river a natural retreat.
Watershed planning has typically been approached as a technical problem in which water quality and quantity as influenced by the hydrology, topography, soil composition, and land use of a watershed are the significant variables. However, it is the human uses of land and water as resources that stimulate governments to seek planning. For the past decade or more, many efforts have been made to create democratic planning processes, which, it is hoped, will be viewed as legitimate by those the plans (...) regulate. This article uses a case study of the Cache River watershed in southernmost Illinois to analyze the complicated historical and political economic context of a specific watershed planning process that occurred from 1993 through 1995. This article assesses the claims made about the democratic, grass-roots, deliberative nature of the planning process and casts doubt on the legitimacy of its outcomes. It also proposes an alternative form of governance that would be both democratic and capable of generating outcomes viewed as legitimate by most affected parties. (shrink)
Subtitled: Illinois as seen by the Farm Security Administration photographers, 1936-1943. 162 photos reflect the wide diversity of what has been called the nation's most representative state. Includes the work of Dorthea Lange, Esther Bubley, Edwin Rosskam and others. Cloth edition, $29.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Lying in an area bounded by the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, the Southern Illinois country is rich in history, folklore, scenery, and natural resources. At about the latitude of southern Virginia, and extending from the flat prairie farmland of central Illinois to the rugged "Illinois Ozarks,” the area is the natural terminal boundary for hundreds of plant species reaching out to all points of the compass. It is also the oldest and most sparsely populated part of (...)Illinois, a region of small towns and independent people, typical of the vast heartland of the U.S.A. Surveying the area in words and pictures the authors sensitively and appreciatively portray the region’s special qualities. An uncommon portrayal of American life in a distinctive region, the book provides a memorable journey both in time and place. (shrink)
Life on the road was anything but glamorous for Farm Security Administration photographers traveling through southern Illinois in the mid-1930s. Often their most promising subjects lived at the end of the worst roads, many of which lacked bridges, drainage ditches, or gravel. Outfitted with three government-issue cameras, flashbulbs, tripods, and film-processing chemicals, their job was to help "explain America to Americans" by seeking out and photographing the one-third of the nation FDR described as "ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished." Featured in (...) this book are more than one hundred photographs from the collection of a quarter of a million taken by FSA photographers between 1935 and 1943. These pictures capture life during the Great Depression as viewed in the coal-mining towns of Herrin, West Frankfort, and Zeigler; the river communities of Shawneetown, Cairo, and Grayville; the farming regions near McLeansboro, Newton, and Harrisburg?more than two dozen southern Illinois county seats, hamlets, and landings. Together they comprise a photographic portrait of the determination, hard work, and capacity to find ways to celebrate life exemplified by the people of southern Illinois during one of the most difficult periods of American history. FSA photographers helped to invent and popularize the "documentary style," a type of photography in which pictures and their arrangement carry much of the information in a story. Intended to document the success of a government project, these pictures survived to preserve for later generations the story of the people of southern Illinois and how they endured the difficult times of the Great Depression. (shrink)
In The State of Southern Illinois: An Illustrated History, Herbert K. Russell offers fresh interpretations of a number of important aspects of Southern Illinois history. Focusing on the area known as “Egypt,” the region south of U.S. Route 50 from Salem south to Cairo, he begins his book with the earliest geologic formations and follows Southern Illinois’s history into the twenty-first century. The volume is richly illustrated with maps and photographs, mostly in color, that highlight the informative (...) and straightforward text. Perhaps most notable is the author’s use of dozens of heretofore neglected sources to dispel the myth that Southern Illinois is merely an extension of Dixie. He corrects the popular impressions that slavery was introduced by early settlers from the South and that a majority of Southern Illinoisans wished to secede. Furthermore, he presents the first in-depth discussion of twelve pre–Civil War, free black communities located in the region. He also identifies the roles coal mining, labor violence, gangsters, and the media played in establishing the area’s image. He concludes optimistically, unveiling a twenty-first-century Southern Illinois filled with myriad attractions and opportunities for citizens and tourists alike. The State of Southern Illinois is the most accurate all-encompassing volume of history on this unique area that often regards itself as a state within a state. It offers an entirely new perspective on race relations, provides insightful information on the cultural divide between north and south in Illinois, and pays tribute to an often neglected and misunderstood region of this multidimensional state, all against a stunning visual backdrop. Superior Achievement from the Illinois State Historical Society, 2013. (shrink)
Because the confinement of [Formula: see text] in a storage reservoir depends on a stratigraphically continuous set of seals to isolate the fluid in the reservoir, the detection of structural anomalies is critical for guiding any assessment of a potential subsurface carbon storage site. Employing a suite of 3D seismic attribute analyses maximizes the chances of identifying geologic anomalies or discontinuities that may affect the integrity of a seal that will confine the stored [Formula: see text] in the reservoir. The (...)Illinois Basin, a major area for potential carbon storage, presents challenges for target assessment because geologic anomalies can be ambiguous and easily misinterpreted when using 2D seismic reflection data, or even 3D data, if only conventional display techniques are used. We procured a small 3D seismic reflection data set in the central part of the basin to experiment with different strategies for enhancing the appearance of discontinuities by integrating 3D seismic attribute analyses with conventional visualizations. Focusing on zones above and below the target interval of the Cambrian Mt. Simon Sandstone, we computed attribute traveltime slices based on discontinuity computations, crossline-directed amplitude change, azimuth of the dip, shaded relief, and fault likelihood attributes. The results provided instructive examples of how discontinuities may be almost “invisible” on conventional displays but become detectable and mappable using an appropriate integration of 3D attributes. Strong discontinuities in underlying Precambrian basement rocks do not necessarily propagate upward into the target carbon storage interval. The origin of these discontinuities is uncertain, but we explored a possible strike-slip role that also explains the localization of a structural embayment developed in Lower Paleozoic strata above the basement discontinuities. (shrink)
In this magnificent new collection, renowned photographer Larry Kanfer documents the diversity of barns throughout the Prairie State, from weathered, abandoned shelters in the countryside to proudly well-preserved landmarks featured in barn ...
It is said we live in a second Gilded Age, which makes our understanding of the first all the more relevant. Rosanne Currarino’sThe Labor Question in Americamakes the bold claim that, far from being a period of defeat for the Left, the original Gilded Age saw an expansion of democratic citizenship. A group of economists, social reformers and labour organisers transformed our understanding of political participation from the earlier, producerist to a more modern, consumerist ideal of social inclusion and collective (...) agency. However, on her own telling, Currarino’s ‘expansion’ comes across more as a ‘substitution’. Some workers gained in wages what they lost in control of the means of production. Though Currarino fairly identifies the utopian aspirations underlying the demand for higher levels of consumption, her narrative relies on an overly rigid distinction between production and consumption, missing out on the way in which consumption came to be defined in ways that assumed the workplace would be a site of submission. Finally,The Labor Questionfails to include, as parts of its narrative, the extraordinary violence that marked struggles over the labour question. In this context, the shift from ‘producerist’ emphases on worker control to ‘consumerist’ views of economic citizenship look more like an ideological displacement than they do a progressive expansion of democracy. (shrink)
Various structural factors influenceorganic farmer decision-making. Analyses that combinestructure and agency provide an opportunity forunderstanding farmers' perceptions of the political,economic, and social ``world'' in which they operate.Rich conversational interviews, conducted with twentycertified organic farmers in Illinois and analyzedwith multiple qualitative methods, show how farmersmediate structural concerns. In addition to political,economic, and social structures, a fourth structure isneeded. Indeed these organic farmers emphasize theimportance of ecological factors in theirdecision-making. Within the perceived economic,political, social, and ecological structures, numeroustopics (i.e., marketing, policy, (...) family, ecosystems)and subtopics (i.e., diversification, farm programs,traditions, soils) exist. Farmers' quotations providedetailed information of how they view and mediatestructures in their daily on-farm decision-making. (shrink)
Characterization of Precambrian basement tectonics using 3D reflection seismology is critical for fully constraining the geology of a carbon capture and storage site. Our study applied state-of-the-art visualization and attribute analysis to a 3D seismic volume of the basement complex that underlies the Illinois Basin-Decatur Project CCS site. The most successful interpretative techniques used include geobody analysis, [Formula: see text] -directed amplitude change, and corendering, integrated with gradient analysis. The 3D volume reveals a strong reflector deep within the basement (...) complex that is interpreted to be a mafic sill, disrupted by a coherent pattern of prominent structural discontinuities. The discontinuities, which have a mutually orthogonal northwest–northeast trend, could have formed as part of the intrusion process, as tectonic faults, or a combination of both processes. Our preferred interpretation is that discontinuities are small faults with varying senses of offset. The most prominent of these is a narrow, well-defined northwest-striking crest or flexure in the igneous sill reflector. Injection-induced microseismicity describes a conspicuous pattern of northeast-trending clusters of events, some of which nucleated in the uppermost part of the basement, directly over this crest. This distribution of seismic events is proposed to be controlled, in part, by fracture zones related to the crest and associated discontinuities in the mafic sill. These fractures would be oriented in directions to be critically stressed, resulting in aligned microseismicity following pore pressure increases. (shrink)
A project of the Gandhi Centennial Committee of Southern Illinois University, the book outlines the basic tenets of Gandhian philosophy as interpreted by Western thinkers, deals with problems of American education, and offers some reflections on what kinds of solutions may be posed by educators, primarily at the university level. The Foreword and Epilogue are by two distinguished Indian educators, _K. L. Shrimali_, Vice-chancellor, and _N. A. Nikam_, former Vice-chancellor, University of Mysore.
A wide literature in the sociology of agriculture has depicted the development of agricultural experiment stations at land grant colleges as part of a development project to improve agricultural productivity in particular commodities. Some experiment stations developed regional agricultural centers or stations to improve productivity and address local concerns, recognizing the importance of context in rural development. Through analysis of one such station, the Dixon Springs Agricultural Center in Southern Illinois, this paper describes how regional agricultural stations played a (...) key role in the often conflicting agricultural programs of and following the New Deal. Changes in university structure from the 1970s to present and the current national recession have led to financial crises that have put these stations in a precarious position. Still, we argue that these institutions ought to be recognized as regional resources for a new era of agricultural development, and we suggest approaching that new era by building on the existing literature of community–university partnerships. (shrink)
