Illinois

A

Education

In 1825 the Illinois legislature levied a tax for public education. Few schools were established, however, before the tax law was repealed. A second school tax law, enacted in 1855, provided the financial basis for the present system of statewide free public schools. In the second half of the 20th century the school districts of Illinois were reorganized by consolidation to reduce costs and improve the standard of education.

School attendance in Illinois was made compulsory in 1883 and is now required for all children between the ages of 7 and 17. Some 15 percent of the students in Illinois attend private schools. An appointed state board of education is responsible for setting policies and guidelines for elementary and secondary education, as well as assisting and regulating the state's school districts. Elected superintendents in regional offices of education provide intermediate services to school districts, which are governed by elected school boards. The Chicago Public Schools, one of the nation’s largest school districts in terms of students served, is an exception in that it operates with board members appointed by the mayor of Chicago.

In the 2002–2003 school year Illinois spent $9,851 on each student’s education, compared to a national average of $9,299. There were 16.5 students for every teacher (the national average was 15.9 students). Of the adults over age 25 in the state, 85 percent had a high school diploma, compared to 84.1 percent for the nation as a whole.

B

Higher Education

Institutions of higher education in Illinois include the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago State University, DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, and the University of Chicago, all in Chicago; Bradley University, in Peoria; Illinois State University, in Normal; Knox College, in Galesburg; Northern Illinois University, in De Kalb; Wheaton College, in Wheaton; the University of Illinois, with campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield; Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and Edwardsville; and Northwestern University, in Evanston and Chicago. The first institution of higher education in the state was Illinois College (1829), in Jacksonville. In 2004–2005 Illinois had 60 public and 112 private institutions of higher education.

---

---

Facilities for higher education expanded rapidly in the last half of the 20th century. The Chicago campus of the University of Illinois and the Edwardsville campus of Southern Illinois University both opened in 1965. Sangamon State University was founded in 1969 and became the University of Illinois at Springfield in 1995. Governors State University was founded in 1969 in University Park.

With the establishment of Joliet Junior College in 1901, Illinois became the first state to have a public junior college. For a half century thereafter, growth of the junior colleges was slow, but by 1996 there were 62 public and private accredited two-year colleges.

C

Libraries and Museums

Chicago, one of the leading cultural centers in North America, is the site of many of the state’s outstanding libraries and museums. Among the notable libraries in Chicago are the John Crerar Library and the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, Chicago Public Library, Newberry Library, and the library of the Chicago Historical Society. Museums in Chicago include the Art Institute of Chicago, Field Museum, John G. Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, DuSable Museum of African-American History, Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

There are 627 public library systems in Illinois. Each year the libraries circulate an average of 7.9 books for every resident. The Illinois State Library, which was established at Springfield in 1839, serves as an advisory and reference agency for other libraries throughout the state. Also in Springfield are the Illinois State Archives, a division of the office of Secretary of State, and the Illinois State Historical Library, established in 1889.

One of the principal museums outside Chicago is the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, founded in 1877. Krannert Art Museum, located on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, houses a collection of art representing the cultures of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Railway museums attract rail fans to Monticello and Union.

D

Communications

In 2002 there were 81 daily newspapers published in Illinois. The first newspaper in Illinois was the Illinois Herald, which was established at Kaskaskia in 1814. One of the most notable early newspapers was the Alton Observer (1836), an outspoken antislavery publication edited by abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy. The oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the state is the Chicago Tribune, which was established in 1847. Today it has the largest circulation of all the state’s daily newspapers. The other leading Chicago daily is the Chicago Sun-Times. Leading dailies outside of Chicago are the Arlington Heights Daily Herald, the Peoria Journal Star, the Springfield State Journal-Register, the Rockford Register Star, and the Belleville News-Democrat.

The first radio station in Illinois was WDZ, which began broadcasting at Tuscola in 1921 and has since moved to Decatur. The first commercial television station to broadcast was a Chicago station, WBKB, in 1943. There were 95 AM and 183 FM radio stations and 45 television stations in Illinois in 2002.

E

Architecture

The French, who established the first permanent European settlements in Illinois, build crude houses of upright logs with overhanging roofs of thatch or bark. Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia had a few more substantial dwellings, some made of locally quarried limestone. Most of the Americans who migrated to Illinois after the American Revolution (1775-1783) lived in log cabins, such as those in the reconstructed village of New Salem, near Petersburg. By the early 19th century, residents who could afford greater construction costs were turning to more substantial frame and brick housing, often reflecting their southern, mid-Atlantic, or New England origins. Public building styles in the first half of the 19th century featured adornments from the popular Greek Revival, Gothic, and Italianate styles.

After a great fire in October 1871, which destroyed many of Chicago’s wood buildings, the city became a leader in the development of modern American architecture (see Chicago School). The world’s first modern skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building, was completed in 1885, under the direction of engineer and architect William Le Baron Jenney. The chief pioneer of skyscraper construction, however, was Louis Henri Sullivan. His principal draftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright, became the most famous American architect of the 20th century. Wright’s genius is still visible in the village of Oak Park, west of Chicago, at the Frederick C. Robie House on the University of Chicago campus, at the Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, and elsewhere in Illinois.

Beginning in the 1950s, the German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had a tremendous influence on the Chicago skyline, as he and other immigrant architects not only designed new structures but trained a new generation of American architects in a style that became known as European modernism. The period from the late 1950s to the mid-1990s saw a major flowering of tall buildings in the city. Representing the Mies school are glass boxes like the Inland Steel Building and the Chicago Federal Center. The twin towered Marina City complex is an example of postmodern expressionism. The pluralism, historicism, and classicism of postmodernism find form in the State of Illinois Center.

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain