Illinois Education

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.

Education
Although the first school in Illinois was founded in Monroe County in 1783, it was not until 1825 that the state legislature established a public school system. In the late 1980s, Illinois had 4225 public elementary and secondary schools with a combined annual enrollment of about 1,280,000 elementary pupils and 517,300 secondary students. In addition, the state had a large number of private schools, attended yearly by some 269,300 students.

The first institution of higher education in the state was Illinois College (1829) in Jacksonville. In the late 1980s, Illinois had 166 institutions of higher education with a combined enrollment of about 709,900 students. Besides Illinois College, notable schools included the American Conservatory of Music (1886), Chicago State University (1867), DePaul University (1898), Loyola University, Chicago, and the University of Chicago, 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, headquartered in Urbana-Champaign; Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1869); and Northwestern University, in Evanston.

Illinois, one of the East North Central states of the United States, bordered on the north by Wisconsin, on the northeast by Lake Michigan, on the east by Indiana, on the south by Kentucky, and on the west by Missouri and Iowa. The Wabash River forms part of the eastern boundary, the Ohio River forms the southern boundary, and the Mississippi River forms the western boundary.
Illinois entered the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state. It is known for its associations with Abraham Lincoln. The state was transformed into a leading manufacturing region in the late 19th century but continued as a major producer of farm commodities. Chicago, a great metropolis on Lake Michigan, is Illinois's principal economic and cultural center. The name of the state is taken from that of the Illinois, or Illini, Native American Confederation. Illinois is called the Prairie State.

Land and Resources
Illinois, with an area of 150,007 sq km (57,918 sq mi), is the 25th largest state in the U.S.; 1.4 percent 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 north to south and about 340 km (about 210 mi) from east to west. Elevations range from 85 m (279 ft), near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in the extreme south, to 376 m (1235 ft), atop Charles Mound, in the northwestern 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.

Physical Geography
Illinois can be divided into five major geographic regions. The northwestern 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 northeastern 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 south has a higher clay content. Much excellent farmland is in this region. The Till Plains are bordered on the south 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 south, 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.

Rivers and Lakes
Drainage in Illinois is southern and western, except near Lake Michigan. Tributaries of the Mississippi River, which forms the western 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 River forms part of the eastern border before joining the Ohio River, which forms Illinois's southern 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 northeast, is popular with summer vacationers.

Climate
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 southern 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 northwest to some 1220 mm (some 48 in) annually in the south. A yearly average of about 760 mm (about 30 in) of snow falls in the extreme north, but the south usually receives no more than about 255 mm (about 10 in) of snow. Chicago, in the northeast, 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 south, 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 Mount Carroll in the northwest, to 47.2° C (117° F), in 1954 at East Saint Louis in the southwest. 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.

Plants and Animals
About 45 percent 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 southern 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 percent of Illinois was forested; most of the woodland was in the northwestern and southern 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 southern 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.

Mineral Resources
Deposits of several important minerals are found in Illinois. Extensive bituminous coal beds are located in many parts of the state, especially in the south, which also contains reserves of fluorite, petroleum, and natural gas. Lead and zinc, the state's principal metallic minerals, are found in the northwest. Peat deposits are in the northeast. Limestone, sand and gravel, and clay occur in numerous locations in the state.

Population
According to the 1990 census, Illinois had 11,430,602 inhabitants, only 4084 people more than in 1980. The average population density in 1990 was 76 people per sq km (197 per sq mi). Whites made up 78.3 percent of the population (down from 80.8 percent in 1980), while blacks accounted for 14.8 percent. The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders rose by nearly 79 percent in the 1980s; in 1990 they included 64,224 persons of Filipino descent, 64,200 Asian Indians, 49,936 persons of Chinese background, and 41,506 persons of Korean descent. More than 900,000 residents claimed Hispanic ancestry, and there were 20,970 Native Americans. Polish Americans made up a significant minority in the Chicago area. Roman Catholics formed the largest single religious group in the state (33.1 percent), followed by Baptists (14.8 percent), Methodists (7.8 percent), and Lutherans (7.6 percent). In 1990 about 85 percent of the people of Illinois lived in areas defined as urban, and the rest lived in rural areas. The state's largest cities were Chicago, the nation's third largest city; Rockford; Peoria; Springfield, the capital; and Aurora.


Cultural Institutions
Illinois contains a number of outstanding cultural institutions, many of which are located in Chicago. Institutions in Chicago include the Museum of Contemporary Art; the Adler Planetarium (1930), the first planetarium in the western hemisphere; Garfield Park Conservatory, with displays on botany; the Museum of Science and Industry; the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago; the Art Institute of Chicago, noted for its impressionist collection; Lincoln Park Zoo; the Field Museum of Natural History (1893); and the John G. Shedd Aquarium. Chicago is also the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Ballet Company, and the Chicago Lyric Opera Company. Among other noted cultural establishments in the state are the Illinois State Museum, in Springfield; the Time Museum, in Rockford, featuring a collection of timepieces; the Krannert Art Museum, in Champaign; the Cantigny museum, in Wheaton, with displays on military history; the Morton Arboretum, in Lisle; and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, in Oak Park, commemorating the influential 20th-century architect.
Illinois's first public library was founded in Albion in 1818. By the early 1990s the state's public library systems had about 625 branches, with the Chicago Public Library, established in 1873, housing more than 4.7 million volumes. Other major libraries in Chicago include the Newberry Library, noted for its collections on history, music, and Native Americans, and the John Crerar Library of the University of Chicago, devoted to science. The American Library Association has its headquarters in Chicago.

Historical Sites
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 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), Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site, and the Lincoln law offices and federal court. 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 Park, 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 General 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 H. H. Richardson, Louis H. Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Sports and Recreation
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 White Sox and the Cubs, in baseball; the Bulls, in basketball; the Bears, in football; and the Blackhawks, in ice hockey.

Communications
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 early 1990s, Illinois had 69 daily newspapers with a total daily circulation of approximately 2,597,000. Influential newspapers included 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.

Government and Politics
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.

Executive
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.

Legislature
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, and the 118 members of the house are all elected to 2-year terms.

Judiciary
Illinois's highest court, the supreme court, is made up of a chief justice and 6 associate justices. The intermediate appellate courts have 38 regular judges. Judges of both these courts are popularly elected to serve 10-year terms. The major trial courts, called circuit courts, have a total of 810 judges. Circuit judges are elected to serve 6-year terms.

Local Government
Illinois has the distinction of having more units of local government, such as counties, municipalities, townships, school districts, and special districts, than any other state in the U.S. In the early 1990s Illinois had 102 counties. Counties that encompassed townships were governed by an elected board of supervisors; other counties were governed by an elected board of commissioners. The majority of the cities of Illinois had the mayor-council form of government.

National Representation
Illinois elects 2 senators and 20 representatives to the U.S. Congress. It has 22 electoral votes in presidential elections.

Politics
In Illinois, Democrats and Republicans are fairly evenly matched, with a majority of Chicago voters being Democrats and the rest of the state being predominantly Republican. In always closely contested presidential elections, the state backed the Democratic candidates during the 1930s and '40s but has usually supported the Republican nominees since that time.

Economy
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.

Agriculture
The combination of soil and climate is ideal for farming in Illinois, which ranks fifth among U.S. states in terms of yearly farm income. More than two-thirds of the income derives from crop sales, and livestock and livestock products account for the remainder. Illinois has about 82,000 farms, which have an average size of 141 hectares (348 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 the second 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 and Fishing
Forestry is only of minor importance to the Illinois economy. More than 90 percent 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.

Mining
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 west central and southern parts of the state. Major oil fields are located in the south central and southeastern regions of Illinois. 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).

Manufacturing
Illinois is located in the great industrial heartland of the U.S. and ranks among the leading states in manufacturing. Its largest city, Chicago, is in the front rank of the world's industrial centers. In the late 1980s about 982,000 persons were employed in manufacturing in Illinois, and the state's annual value added by manufacture exceeded $63 billion. Manufacturing accounted for about 20 percent of the yearly gross state product. The principal manufactures were 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. The state's industries also turned out a great variety of other goods, such as 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 secondary concentrations are centered at East St. Louis, Peoria-Pekin, and Rock Island-Moline.

Tourism
Illinois annually attracts more than 36 million travelers, who together spend more than $15 billion in the state each year. 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 Native American mounds; Black Hawk State Historic Site, near Rock Island, containing a museum of Native American artifacts; Starved Rock State Park, on the Illinois River near La Salle, encompassing the site where a group of Illinois people are said to have starved to death in 1769 while attempting to flee Ottawa people; and Illinois Beach State Park, which includes duneland along Lake Michigan north of Chicago. Numerous visitors also attend conventions in Chicago.

Transportation
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 11,582-km (7197-mi) operated Class I rail system and its 218,781-km (135,944-mi) 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 United States; in all, Illinois has 697 airports and 225 heliports. 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 River 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 United States and Canada to Illinois.

Energy
The state's electricity generating plants have an installed capacity of about 32.6 million kw. They produce some 127 billion kwh of electricity annually, ranking Illinois fourth in output among the U.S. states. About 43 percent of the electricity is produced in conventional steam-powered generators; coal is the principal fuel, followed by refined petroleum and natural gas. Nuclear power plants, located at Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, La Salle, Zion, and in the Rock Island-Moline area generate the remaining 57 percent.

History
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 Native American 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, an expansion of the Illinois River. The first permanent French settlement was established about 1720 at Kaskaskia, which was then a Native American village. 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 people but made no serious attempts to colonize the territory.

British Rule
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 Native American 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 government 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 and captured the British garrisons at Cahokia and Kaskaskia. All the territory north of the Ohio River was annexed by Virginia the same year. 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 the following year, 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 the region forming present-day Minnesota, was organized on February 3, 1809.

Statehood
The present boundaries of Illinois were established on December 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 Native Americans, led by the Sac chief Black Hawk, had conducted a bitter but futile war against the whites in northern Illinois. The Native Americans were expelled from the state after their defeat. Large numbers of emigrants from the New England and 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.

Civil War
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 the 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 have often been stormy in Illinois. Bitter strikes, such as the one that precipitated the Haymarket Square riot, occurred in 1885-86. In 1894 a strike of the employees of the Pullman Car Company developed into a general strike of railwaymen. Traffic in Illinois was almost suspended, and in June lawlessness broke out. Interference with the U.S. mails led to federal intervention. Chicago was occupied by federal troops; the leaders of the strike were imprisoned for contempt of court.

20th Century
Industry expanded rapidly, 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 manufacture 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 into the 1990s, 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.