Illinois
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State flag
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ILLINOIS,
one of the East North Central states of the U.S., bordered
on the N by Wisconsin, on the NE by Lake Michigan, on the E by Indiana,
on the S by Kentucky, and on the W by Missouri and Iowa. The Wabash
R. forms part of the E boundary, the Ohio R. forms the S boundary,
and the Mississippi R. forms the W boundary.
Illinois entered the Union on Dec. 3, 1818, as the 21st state.
It is known for its associations with Abraham Lincoln, who served in the state legislature and represented Illinois in Congress before winning election as the nation’s 16th president. The state was transformed into a leading manufacturing region in the late 19th century; it also ranks as a major producer of farm commodities. Chicago, a great metropolis on Lake Michigan, is Illinois’s principal center for commerce, finance, transportation, and culture. The name of the state is taken from that of the Illinois, or Illini, Indian Confederation.
Illinois is called the Prairie State.
| ILLINOIS STATE FACTS |
| DATE OF STATEHOOD: |
December 3, 1818; 21st state |
| CAPITAL: |
Springfield |
| MOTTO: |
State sovereignty, national union |
| NICKNAME: |
Prairie State |
| STATE SONG: |
“Illinois” (words by
Charles H. Chamberlin; music by Archibald Johnston) |
| STATE TREE: |
White oak |
| STATE FLOWER: |
Violet |
| STATE BIRD: |
Cardinal |
| POPULATION (2000 census): |
12,419,293; 5th among the states |
| AREA: |
150,007 sq km (57,918 sq mi);
25th largest state; includes 6021 sq km (2325 sq mi) of inland water |
| HIGHEST POINT: |
Charles Mound, 376 m (1235 ft) |
| LOWEST POINT: |
85 m (279 ft), along the Mississippi River in the south |
| ELECTORAL VOTES: |
21 |
| U.S. CONGRESS: |
2 senators; 219 representatives |
| GOVERNOR: |
Rod Blagojevich (Dem.) Took office January 2003 |
Illinois, with an area of 150,007 sq km (57,918 sq mi), is
the 25th largest state in the U.S.; 1.4% of its land area
is owned by the federal government. The state is roughly rectangular
in shape, and its extreme dimensions are about 610 km (about 380
mi) from N to S and about 340 km (about 210 mi) from E to W. Elevations
range from 85 m (279 ft), near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers in the extreme S, to 376 m (1235 ft), atop Charles Mound,
in the NW part of the state. The approximate mean elevation is 183 m
(600 ft). About 3950 sq km (about 1525 sq mi) of Lake Michigan is
in Illinois.
Illinois can be divided into five major geographic regions.
The NW corner of the state, part of the Driftless Region, is made
up of a hilly landscape that was not smoothed over by glaciers.
The brown prairie soil of the area has mild acidity and moderate
fertility. In the NE section of the state is a region of the Eastern
Great Lakes Lowland. It is an area of rather flat land, once covered
by Lake Michigan. Parts of this region are not well drained and
contain lakes and marshes. The soil generally is fertile. Illinois’s
third major region, the Till Plains, encompasses most of the state.
It has a flat to gently rolling landscape, formed mainly by the
great Illinoisan ice sheet, which covered the area some 150,000
years ago. The soil is mainly of the brown prairie variety, which
in the S has a higher clay content. Much excellent farmland is in
this region. The Till Plains are bordered on the S by a section
of the Interior Low Plateaus. This region also was not glaciated,
and consequently the landscape includes steep-sided valleys and
ridges. Clay soils predominate in the region. The fifth region of
Illinois, in the extreme S, is the northernmost part of the Gulf
Coastal Plain. The region, sometimes called Little Egypt because
of its resemblance to the Nile delta of Egypt, is made up mainly
of flat river bottomlands and prominent bluffs that mark the edge
of the river floodplain. The poorly drained land is covered principally
with red and yellow soils, which contain much sand and clay.
Drainage in Illinois is S and W, except near Lake Michigan. Tributaries
of the Mississippi R., which forms the W boundary of the state,
drain more than two-thirds of Illinois. The principal tributaries
are the Illinois, Rock, Kaskaskia, Big Muddy, and Wabash rivers.
The Wabash R. forms part of the E border before joining the Ohio
R., which forms Illinois’s S boundary until it enters the Mississippi.
The Illinois Waterway connects Lake Michigan and the Mississippi;
it is made up of the Chicago, Des Plaines, and Illinois rivers and
some artificial arteries such as the Sanitary and Ship Canal.
Aside from Lake Michigan, Illinois has few significant natural
lakes, but it contains several big bodies of water formed by dams.
Among them are Carlyle and Crab Orchard lakes and Lake Shelbyville.
Chain o’ Lakes, a group of small natural lakes in the NE,
is popular with summer vacationers.
The weather in Illinois varies considerably from season to
season, and marked changes often occur from day to day mainly because
the state does not have high mountains to block air masses. Most
of the state has a humid continental climate with long summers and
cold winters. The frost-free growing season lasts from 120 to 180
days. The extreme S portion of the state is part of the humid subtropical
climate area and has a frost-free season of 180 to 240 days. Precipitation
in Illinois ranges from about 815 mm (about 32 in) per year in the
NW to some 1220 mm (some 48 in) annually in the S. A yearly average
of about 760 mm (about 30 in) of snow falls in the extreme N, but
the S usually receives no more than about 255 mm (about 10 in) of
snow. Chicago, in the NE, has an average annual temperature of about
9.4° C (about 49° F); Springfield, in the center,
has a mean yearly temperature of about 11.5° C (about 52.7° F);
and Cairo, in the S, has an average annual temperature of about
15° C (about 59° F). The recorded temperature
in the state has ranged from –37.2° C (–35° F),
in 1930 at Mt. Carroll in the NW, to 47.2° C (117° F),
in 1954 at East Saint Louis in the SW. Illinois is in the central
tornado belt, with the greatest likelihood of occurrence from March
through June. A devastating tornado on March 19, 1925, killed 606
Illinoisans.
| ILLINOIS AVERAGE CLIMATE |
| |
Chicago |
Cairo |
| Average January temperature range |
–9.4° to –6° C |
15° to 31° F |
–1.7° to 6.7° C |
29° to 44° F |
| Average July temperature range |
16.1° to 28.3° C |
61° to 83° F |
22.2° to 32.2° C |
72° to 90° F |
| Average annual temperature |
9.4° C |
49° F |
15° C |
59° F |
| Average annual precipitation |
813 mm |
32 in |
1194 mm |
47 in |
| Average annual snowfall |
965 mm |
38 in |
229 mm |
9 in |
| Mean number of days per year with appreciable precipitation |
126 |
113 |
| Average daily relative humidity |
70% |
71% |
| Mean number of clear days per year |
87 |
114 |
About 45% of present-day Illinois was covered with
forest when the first explorers passed through the region in the
1670s. The woodland was found on both uplands and bottomlands in
the S one-third of the state and in stream valleys in the central
prairie region. Some of the best hardwood stands were on the floodplains
of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. Much of the forest was subsequently
cut, partly in order to create farmland, and in the late 1980s less
than 10% of Illinois was forested; most of the woodland
was in the NW and S portions of the state. The principal trees are
hardwoods such as oak, hickory, maple, and sycamore. Among the many
wild flowers are spring lilies, golden bellwort, bluebells, hyacinth,
and marsh marigolds.
Common mammals in Illinois include rabbit, squirrel, skunk,
muskrat, mink, fox, raccoon, and white-tailed deer. Large numbers
of Canada geese winter on lakes in the S part of the state, and
bald eagles live along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in winter.
The state provides a habitat for many ducks, quail, ruffed grouse,
and pheasants, as well as for freshwater fish such as trout, carp,
catfish, pike, and bass.
Deposits of several important minerals are found in Illinois. Extensive
bituminous coal beds are located in many parts of the state, especially
in the S, which also contains reserves of fluorite, petroleum, and
natural gas. Lead and zinc, the state’s principal metallic
minerals, are found in the NW. Peat deposits are in the NE. Limestone,
sand and gravel, and clay occur in numerous locations in the state.
According to the 2000 census, Illinois had 12,419,293 inhabitants,
an increase of 8.6% over 1990. The average population density
in 2000 was 223.4 people per sq mi of land area. Whites made up
73.5%of the population (down from 78.3% in 1990),
while blacks accounted for 15.1% (up from 14.8% in
1990). The number of American Indians and Alaska Natives was 31,006
(0.2%), of Asians 423,603 (3.4%), and of Native Hawaiian
and other Pacific Islanders, 4610. (These figures do not include
the 1.9% of the population who reported more than one race.)
A total of 1,530,262 residents, about 12.3%, claimed Hispanic
ancestry. Polish Americans made up a significant minority in the
Chicago area. The state’s largest cities were Chicago,
the nation’s third largest city; Rockford; Aurora; Naperville;
Peoria; and Springfield, the capital.
According to a 2000 survey, Roman Catholics formed the largest single religious group, accounting for 31.2% of the population and 56.4% of all religious adherents in the state. Other leading groups included United Methodists (2.9% of the population), Southern Baptists (2.5%), adherents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (2.3%) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (2.2%), and Jews (2.2%). In 2000 about 88 of the people lived in areas defined as urban,and the rest lived in rural areas.
| POPULATION OF ILLINOIS SINCE 1810 |
| Year of Census |
Population |
Classified As Urban |
| 1810 |
12,000 |
0% |
| 1830 |
157,000 |
0% |
| 1850 |
851,000 |
8% |
| 1870 |
2,540,000 |
23% |
| 1900 |
4,822,000 |
54% |
| 1920 |
6,485,000 |
68% |
| 1940 |
7,897,000 |
74% |
| 1960 |
10,081,000 |
81% |
| 1980 |
11,427,000 |
83% |
| 1990 |
11,430,602 |
85% |
| 2000 |
12,419,293 |
88% |
| POPULATION OF TEN LARGEST CITIES IN ILLINOIS |
| |
2000 Census |
1990 Census |
| Chicago |
2,896,016 |
2,783,726 |
| Rockford |
150,115 |
139,426 |
| Aurora |
142,990 |
99,581 |
| Naperville |
128,358 |
85,351 |
| Peoria |
112,936 |
113,504 |
| Springfield |
111,454 |
105,227 |
| Joliet |
106,221 |
76,836 |
| Elgin |
94,487 |
77,010 |
| Waukegan |
87,901 |
69,481 |
| Cicero |
85,616 |
67,436 |
Illinois has a comprehensive educational system, which includes
a network of colleges and universities that extends from one end
of the state to the other. In addition, the state contains many
noted cultural institutions and a number of interesting historical
sites. Chicago is one of the leading educational and cultural centers
of the U.S.
Although the first school in Illinois was founded in
Monroe Co. in 1783, it was not until 1825 that the state legislature
established a public school system. In 2002 Illinois had about 1,488,000 pupils in public elementary schools and 597,000 in public secondary schools.
The first institution of higher education in the state
was Illinois College (1829) in Jacksonville. In 2002 Illinois colleges and universities had a total enrollment of about 777,000 students. Besides Illinois College, notable
schools included Chicago State University (1867), Loyola University of
Chicago (1870), the American Conservatory of Music (1886), the
University of Chicago (1890), and DePaul University (1898), all in
Chicago; Bradley University (1897), in Peoria; Illinois State
University (1857), in Normal; Knox College (1837), in Galesburg;
Northern Illinois University (1895), in De Kalb; Wheaton College
(1860), in Wheaton; the University of Illinois (1867), headquartered in
Urbana-Champaign; Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1869);
and Northwestern University (1851), in Evanston.
Illinois contains a number of outstanding cultural institutions, many
of which are located in Chicago. Institutions in Chicago include
Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens (1868); the Art Institute of Chicago
(1879), noted for its impressionist collection; the Field Museum
(1893), a museum of natural history; the Oriental Institute Museum
(1894); Garfield Park Conservatory (1907), with displays on botany;
the Shedd Aquarium (1924); the Museum of Science and Industry (1926);
the Adler Planetarium (1930), the first planetarium in the western
hemisphere; and the Museum of Contemporary Art (1967). Among other
noted cultural establishments in the state are the Illinois State
Museum (1877), in Springfield; the Time Museum (1970), in Rockford,
featuring a collection of timepieces; the Krannert Art Museum (1961),
in Champaign; the First Division Museum at Cantigny (1960), in Wheaton,
with displays on military history; the Morton Arboretum (1922),
in Lisle; and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation
(1974), in Oak Park, commemorating the influential 20th-century
architect.
Chicago is also the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
(1891) and the Chicago Lyric Opera (1954). The Joffrey Ballet of
Chicago (which moved here from New York City in 1995), Ballet Chicago,
and the Ballet Theater of Chicago are among the many dance companies
in the city.
Illinois’s first public library was founded in Albion
in 1818. In the early 2000s the Chicago Public Library system, established in 1873, housed about 11 million volumes; its central library, the Harold Washington Library Center (1991), is the largest municipal library building in the U.S. Other major libraries in Chicago include the Newberry Library (1887), noted for its collections on history, music,
and American Indians, and the John Crerar Library of the University
of Chicago (1892), devoted to science. The American Library Association
(1876) has its headquarters in Chicago.
Many of Illinois’s historical sites commemorate American
Civil War battles and personalities. In the Springfield area are
a number of places honoring Abraham Lincoln; these include the Lincoln
Home National Historic Site (encompassing the only home Lincoln
owned), Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site (including
a reproduction of the village where Lincoln lived from 1831 to 1837),
the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site, and the Lincoln-Herndon Law
Offices State Historic Site. Among other sites in Illinois associated
with Lincoln are Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, near Charleston, containing
a reconstruction, on the original stone foundation, of a cabin built
by Lincoln’s father, and Lincoln Trail Homestead State
Memorial, near Decatur.
Additional places of historical interest in Illinois include
Fort Creve Coeur State Park, near Peoria, the site of a fort (no
longer standing) built by the French explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur
de La Salle, in 1680; the Joseph Smith Properties, in Nauvoo, headquarters
of the Mormons before they migrated farther west in the mid-1840s;
the Ulysses S. Grant Home State Historic Site, in Galena, a residence
of the U.S. military officer and president; Fort Defiance State
Park, in Cairo, containing the site of a Civil War camp used by
Gen. Grant; and the Old Water Tower (1869), one of the few major
center-city structures that survived the fire that ravaged Chicago
in 1871. The Chicago area also contains a number of noted buildings
that were designed by such innovative U.S. architects of the late
19th and early 20th centuries as Henry H. Richardson, Louis H. Sullivan, and
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Illinois’s lakes, rivers, and parks offer varied
opportunities for hiking, swimming, boating, fishing, hunting, and
winter sports. Chicago is the home of such major professional sports
teams as the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs (baseball),
the Chicago Bulls (basketball), the Chicago Bears (football), and
the Chicago Blackhawks (ice hockey).
Illinois has a comprehensive communications system that, in
the early 1990s, included 132 AM and 229 FM radiobroadcasting stations
and 46 television stations. The first radiobroadcasting station
in the state, WDZ, started broadcasting from Tuscola in 1921 and
now is located in Decatur. The first commercial television station
was WBBM-TV, in Chicago, which went into operation in 1940.
The Illinois Herald, the state’s
first newspaper, began publication in Kaskaskia in 1814. In the
2000s, Illinois had 67 daily newspapers with a total daily circulation of about 2.3 million. Influential newspapers include the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune,
the Journal Star of Peoria, and the State
Journal-Register of Springfield. Chicago is a leading book
and magazine publishing center. The state also has several big printing
establishments.
Illinois is governed under a constitution adopted in 1970
and put into effect in 1971, as amended. Three earlier constitutions
had been adopted in 1818, 1848, and 1870. Amendments to the constitution
may be proposed by the legislature, by a constitutional convention,
or (in certain cases) by initiative petition. To become effective,
an amendment must be approved in a general election either by an
overall majority of persons voting or by three-fifths of those voting
on the issue.
The chief executive of Illinois is a governor, who is popularly
elected to a term of four years. The state constitution does not
limit the number of terms a governor or lieutenant governor may
serve. The latter succeeds the governor should he or she resign,
die, or be removed from office. Other elected state executive officers
include the secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, and
comptroller.
The bicameral Illinois General Assembly consists of a senate
and a house of representatives. The 59 members of the senate are
elected to serve either 2-year or 4-year terms, with the sequence arranged so that following each decennial census the whole of the redistricted senate comes up for reelection. The 118 members of the house are all elected to 2-year terms.
Illinois’s highest court, the supreme court, is made
up of a chief justice and 6 associate justices. The intermediate
appellate courts have 42 judges. Judges of both courts run in partisan elections for 10-year terms. The major trial courts, called circuit courts, have 509 circuit judges elected on a partisan basis to 6-year terms; another 391 associate judges are appointed by the circuit judges to 4-year terms.
Illinois has more units of local government, such as counties, municipalities,
townships, school districts, and special districts, than any other
state in the U.S.; governmental units of all types numbered 3,145 in 2002. The state has 102 counties; those that encompass townships are governed by an elected board of supervisors, while other counties are governed by an elected board of commissioners. The majority of the cities of Illinois have the mayor-council form of government.
Illinois elects 2 senators and 19 representatives to the U.S. Congress.
It has 21 electoral votes in presidential elections.
Traditionally, Democrats and Republicans have been fairly evenly matched, with a majority of Chicago voters being Democrats and the rest of the state being predominantly Republican. In presidential elections, the state has usually followed the national pattern, although a Democratic trend has been evident in recent years. Republicans held the governorship throughout the 1980s and '90s ; after the 2002 and 2006 elections, however, Democrats controlled the governor’s office along with both houses of the state legislature.
Prominent congressional Republicans from Illinois have included J. Dennis Hastert (1942– ), a House member since 1987 and Speaker of the House (1999–2007) while the GOP held a majority in that chamber; and Henry J. Hyde (1924– ), who served 16 terms in the House (1975–2007) and as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (1995–-2001) played a central role in impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. Illinois is represented in the U.S. Senate by two well-known Democrats: Richard (Dick) Durbin (1944– -), a senator since 1997, who became majority whip in 2007; and Barack Obama, the lone African-American senator and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. A former White House aide in the Clinton administration, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (1959– ) is a high-ranking member of the House Democratic leadership.
In the 1870s Illinois was the leading agricultural state in
the U.S. Soon thereafter manufacturing became the principal economic
activity, but the state retained an important farming sector. Chicago
has long been one of the principal U.S. economic centers, noted
for its many factories, busy transportation facilities, important financial
institutions, and tall office buildings.
| ILLINOIS STATE ECONOMY |
| STATE BUDGET (in thousands) |
| General revenue |
$61,255,138 |
| General expenditure |
$53,429,176 |
| Accumulated debt |
$46,726,054 |
 |
| STATE TAXES PER CAPITA |
$2,006 |
|
| PERSONAL INCOME, PER CAPITA |
$36,120 |
|
| POPULATION BELOW POVERTY LEVEL |
11.3% |
|
| EMPLOYMENT DISTRIBUTION |
| Management, business, finance |
849,000 |
| Professional and related |
1,180,000 |
| Services |
904,000 |
| Sales and related |
653,000 |
| Office and administrative support |
863,000 |
| Farming, fishing, forestry |
na |
| Construction and extraction |
349,000 |
| Installation, maintenance, repair |
220,00 |
| Production |
457,000 |
| Transportation and moving |
406,000 |
|
| GROSS STATE PRODUCT |
$560.2 billion |
|
| NET FARM INCOME |
$1,637 |
| Principal products |
corn, soybeans, hogs |
The combination of soil and climate is ideal for farming in
Illinois, which ranks high among U.S. states in terms of yearly farm income. More than three-fourths of marketing revenues derive from crop sales; livestock and livestock products account for the remainder. Illinois in 2004 had about 73,000 farms, with an average size of 153 ha (377 acres). Rather than specializing in one commodity, the typical farm
in Illinois produces two or more kinds of crops as well as at least
one type of livestock, usually hogs. Productivity is considerably
higher than the U.S. average. Illinois typically leads the U.S.
in soybean production and is second to Iowa in corn output; other
important crops include wheat, hay, oats, sorghum grain, barley,
rye, apples, and tomatoes. The state also produces large quantities
of commercial flowers, notably carnations, roses, and gladioli.
Illinois is a leading U.S. producer of hogs, and large numbers of
beef cattle and sheep are also raised. In addition, substantial
amounts of dairy goods and poultry are produced.
Forestry is only of minor importance to the Illinois economy. More
than 90% of the trees cut are hardwoods, which are mostly
sawn into lumber. Commercial fishing likewise is of little importance
to the state, and the annual catch is usually worth less than $1
million. Most of the fish are taken from the Mississippi and Illinois
rivers; the main species caught include carp, buffalofish, and catfish.
Illinois has a relatively substantial mining industry, the
principal products of which are bituminous coal, petroleum, stone,
and sand and gravel. Most of the large coal output comes from the
W central and S parts of the state; major oil fields are in the
S central and SE. The state usually leads the nation in mining fluorite
and also is a notable producer of cement, peat, clay, lead, zinc,
natural gas, copper, gemstones, and tripoli (a type of diatomaceous
earth).
Illinois is located in the great industrial heartland of the
U.S., and its largest city, Chicago, is in the front rank of the world’s industrial centers. In early 2007 about 950,000 persons were employed in manufacturing in Illinois, down 13% since 2001. Illinois still ranked 4th among the states in industrial employment. The principal manufactures included industrial machinery (especially
farm and construction equipment), fabricated metal products (principally
items made of steel), printed materials, electronic goods, processed
foods, chemicals, and primary metals. Other goods include transport
equipment, rubber and plastics products, precision instruments,
paper and paper products, and building supplies. The Chicago area
is by far the leading manufacturing region in Illinois, but important
concentrations are centered at East St. Louis, Peoria-Pekin, and
Rock Island-Moline.
In 2005 Illinois attracted more than 92 million visitors, contributing more than $26 billion to the state economy and directly providing an estimated 300,000 jobs. Principal attractions include the cultural institutions of
Chicago, the several sites in the state associated with Abraham
Lincoln, and the varied opportunities for outdoor recreation. Among
more than 320 parks, conservation areas, fish and wildlife areas,
and historic sites administered by the state are Cahokia Mounds
State Historic Site, near East St. Louis, with large Indian mounds;
Black Hawk State Historic Site, near Rock Island, containing a museum
of Indian artifacts; Starved Rock State Park, on the Illinois R.
near La Salle, encompassing the site where a group of Illinois Indians
are said to have starved to death in 1769 while attempting to flee
Ottawa Indians; and Illinois Beach State Park, which includes duneland
along Lake Michigan N of Chicago. Numerous visitors also attend
conventions in Chicago.
Illinois is located at a major transportation crossroads of
the U.S. and is served by a superb transport system. In spite of
its relatively small land area, Illinois is second in railroad trackage
and third in road length among the U.S. states. Both its rail system and road network have a primary focus at Chicago and a secondary focal
point at East St. Louis. Chicago is connected to suburban areas
by limited-access roads, and the state is crossed by several heavily
used interstate highways. Chicago is the site of Chicago-O’Hare
International Airport, the busiest in the U.S. (after the Hartsfield Atlanta Airport). Chicago also is an important port, handling ships using the Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Seaway system
as well as the Illinois Waterway, which links the city with the
Mississippi R. and is a major component of a water route between
the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. A number of big pipelines
carry petroleum and natural gas from the southwestern U.S. and Canada
to Illinois.
The state’s electricity generating plants in the early 2000s had an installed capacity of about 46 million kw. They produced some 190 billion kwh of electricity annually, ranking Illinois fifth in output among the U.S. states. Nuclear
power plants, located at Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, La Salle, Zion, and in the Rock Island-Moline area generate about 50% of the electricity. Nearly all the rest is produced from coal at conventional steam-powered generator.
The first Europeans to traverse the Illinois region were probably
the French explorer Louis Jolliet and the French Jesuit missionary
Jacques Marquette. In 1673 they ascended the river subsequently
called Illinois (after the Indian confederacy inhabiting the region).
Marquette established a mission on the site of present-day Kaskaskia
in 1675. Five years later the French explorer Robert Cavelier, sieur
de La Salle, built Fort Crèvecoeur (now Creve Coeur) at
the foot of Peoria Lake. The first permanent French settlement was established
about 1720 at Kaskaskia, which was then an Indian town. Several
years before (1712) the entire region south of the Illinois River
had been included in the French province of Louisiana. The French maintained
friendly relations with the Illinois Indians but made no serious
attempts to colonize the territory.
The region was ceded to the British in 1763 under the terms
of the Treaty of Paris, concluding the French and Indian War, but
because of a rebellion led by the Indian chief Pontiac, two years
elapsed before the British assumed effective control. In general,
conditions remained unaltered after the British occupation, but
a number of prominent French settlers fled to Saint Louis, Natchez,
and other Mississippi Valley towns. Virginians began to move into
the Illinois region about 1769. In 1774 the British attached the
region to the province of Québec.
In 1778, during the American Revolution, a force of Virginians
under the frontier leader George Rogers Clark invaded the region,
captured the British garrisons at Cahokia and Kaskaskia, and annexed
all the territory north of the Ohio River. By the terms of the peace
treaty ending the Revolution, jurisdiction over the Illinois and
adjacent regions passed to the government of the U.S. Virginia ceded
its claims to the region in 1784. Massachusetts and Connecticut,
which had colonial charters authorizing unlimited expansion to the west,
gave up their rights in 1785, and in 1787 the region became a part
of the Northwest Territory. In 1800 the U.S. government partitioned
the Northwest Territory and constituted a large area, including
the Illinois region, as Indiana Territory. Illinois Territory, consisting
of almost the entire area occupied by the present-day state, most
of the region now included in Wisconsin, and part of present-day
Minnesota, was organized on Feb. 3, 1809.
The present boundaries of Illinois were established on Dec.
3, 1818, when it became the 21st state of the Union; the remainder
of the Illinois Territory was attached to that of Michigan. Many
Illinois settlers had emigrated from the South, and as a result
considerable proslavery sentiment existed in the new state. In 1823
the proslavery majority in the legislature adopted a proposal providing
for a convention to amend the constitution. Legalization of slavery
was the implicit (but not the expressed) intent of the proposal.
Referred to the electorate, it was defeated (1824) by a decisive
vote. The murder of the abolitionist leader Elijah P. Lovejoy in
1837, however, showed the persistence of strong proslavery sentiment.
In 1832 about 500 Indians, led by the Sac chief Black Hawk, had
conducted a bitter war against the whites in northern Illinois;
defeated, the Indians were expelled. Large numbers of emigrants from
New England and the Middle Atlantic states arrived in northern Illinois
in the ensuing period, and economic development was accelerated.
The Illinois and Michigan Canal was begun in 1836; other public improvements
were instituted, but the heavy expenditures nearly forced the state
into bankruptcy.
In 1840 the Mormons, who had migrated from Missouri and had
founded Nauvoo, began to figure in the politics of Illinois. Acting
as a unit, they succeeded in obtaining exclusive privileges from
the legislature. This, as well as their religious practices, aroused
hostility. In June 1844 Joseph Smith, founder of the religion, was imprisoned
at Carthage on charges of treason. Soon after his arrest Smith was
removed from jail by a mob and lynched. The Mormons left the state
two years later.
With the influx of settlers from the northern states, the
antislavery movement became increasingly powerful in Illinois during
the decade preceding the American Civil War. The Democratic party
was defeated by an antislavery coalition in the elections of 1854,
and in 1856 the coalition merged, forming the Illinois branch of
the Republican party. In the historic contest (1858) for a U.S.
Senate seat between the Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas and
the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, the Democrats retained
control of the General Assembly, which at that time selected senators.
Lincoln won the state’s electoral votes in the election
of 1860. Beginning in 1862, the Democratic party opposed the Civil War,
and the pro-Confederate Knights of the Golden Circle subsequently
won widespread support in the state.
The war and postwar periods were marked by steady expansion
of the state economy. In October 1871 a fire devastated a large
part of Chicago, leaving 100,000 people homeless. The loss to the
city was estimated at nearly $300 million. Relations between
labor and management were often stormy. Bitter strikes,
such as the one that precipitated Chicago’s Haymarket Square riot, occurred
in 1885–86. In 1894 a strike of the employees of the Pullman
Car Co. developed into a general strike of railwaymen. Traffic in
Illinois was almost suspended, and in June lawlessness broke out.
Interference with the U.S. mail led to federal intervention. Chicago
was occupied by federal troops; the leaders of the strike were imprisoned
for contempt of court.
Industry expanded rapidly during the first half of the 20th century, accompanied by a massive worker migration to Illinois cities. The state had long had a
remarkable transportation system, central to which was the Illinois
Waterway, a network of rivers and canals linking Lake Michigan and the
Mississippi River. With Chicago as the hub of industrial activity,
Illinois experienced the most spectacular expansion of manufacturing in
U.S. history. By the mid-1950s the iron and steel industry ranked first
in the nation and represented half the state’s total manufactures. By
the 1960s Illinois was adding automobile and tire plants and expanding
production of equipment for the U.S. space program.
Overall, the state’s economy expanded in the 1980s, but
population remained static. The population of Chicago declined by more
than 220,000 persons, and the economy of East St. Louis collapsed. In
the 1990s the state sought to attract new industries and expand its
foreign markets. Illinois has retained its position as one of the
leading agricultural states, although this aspect of the economy was
dealt a serious blow by the flooding of the Mississippi and other
rivers of the Midwest in 1993.
In 2000, Gov. George H. Ryan (1934– ), a longtime supporter of capital
punishment, imposed a moratorium on executions after investigations
revealed that a number of death-row inmates had been
wrongfully convicted. The ensuing controversy and a series of
corruption scandals persuaded the unpopular Ryan not to run for a
second term, and in November 2002 a Democrat, Rod Blagojevich (1956– ), broke a 26-year-long Republican hold on the state governorship. Shortly before leaving office, in January 2003, Ryan vacated all of the state’s death sentences; four convicts were pardoned, three had their sentences reduced to 40 years in prison, and 164 had their sentences commuted to life in prison without parole. Ryan was convicted in April 2006 of racketeering, fraud, and making false statements to federal investigators; he was sentenced to 6½ years in prison. With Republicans in disarray, Blagojevich won a second term in November, and Democrats swept the other contests for statewide constitutional office.