Illinois State Society of Washington, DC

Illinois Hall of Fame: Scott Turow

By Mark Rhoads

Scott Turow has lived in the Chicago area most of his life.  He is currently practicing criminal law in Chicago and is also one of America's most popular novelists who specializes in intricate crime mysteries. Three of his books have been made into feature films starting with Presumed Innocent in 1990 starring Illinois-native Harrison Ford. Scott was born in Chicago on April 12, 1949 and raised in the northern suburbs. He graduated from New Trier High School in 1966.  In 1970 Scott graduated with honors with a B.A. in English from Amherst College.  He went on to study writing at Stanford University where he received an M.A. in 1974.

Scott taught at Stanford from 1972 to 1975 and attended Harvard Law School from 1975 to 1978 when he received his Juris Doctor degree. He became a trustee of Amherst in 2002.  From 1978 to 1986, Scott was an Assistant U. S. Attorney for the Northern District in Chicago. He was one of the prosecutors in the tax fraud trial of former Illinois Treasurer and Attorney General William J. Scott and was also a prosecutor of Cook County judges in the Operation Greylord cases. In addition to two non-fiction books, he is the author of seven best-selling novels including Presumed Innocent (1987), The Burden of Proof (1990), Pleading Guilty (1993), The Laws of Our Fathers (1996), Personal Injuries (1999), Reversible Errors (2002) and Ordinary Heroes (2005).

By Mark Rhoads

Scott Turow has lived in the Chicago area most of his life.  He is currently practicing criminal law in Chicago and is also one of America's most popular novelists who specializes in intricate crime mysteries. Three of his books have been made into feature films starting with Presumed Innocent in 1990 starring Illinois-native Harrison Ford. Scott was born in Chicago on April 12, 1949 and raised in the northern suburbs. He graduated from New Trier High School in 1966.  In 1970 Scott graduated with honors with a B.A. in English from Amherst College.  He went on to study writing at Stanford University where he received an M.A. in 1974.

Scott taught at Stanford from 1972 to 1975 and attended Harvard Law School from 1975 to 1978 when he received his Juris Doctor degree. He became a trustee of Amherst in 2002.  From 1978 to 1986, Scott was an Assistant U. S. Attorney for the Northern District in Chicago. He was one of the prosecutors in the tax fraud trial of former Illinois Treasurer and Attorney General William J. Scott and was also a prosecutor of Cook County judges in the Operation Greylord cases. In addition to two non-fiction books, he is the author of seven best-selling novels including Presumed Innocent (1987), The Burden of Proof (1990), Pleading Guilty (1993), The Laws of Our Fathers (1996), Personal Injuries (1999), Reversible Errors (2002) and Ordinary Heroes (2005).

Illinois Hall of Fame: John Gunther

By Mark Rhoads

John Gunther was the best selling author of 28 books including Inside Europe in 1936 and many "Inside" geo-political travel books.  John was born on the North Side of Chicago on Aug. 30, 1901. He attended Lake View High School at 4015 N. Ashland Avenue and wrote for the student magazine.  At age 16, he wrote an article on the Russian Revolution and would revisit the topic of Russia many times in his life culminating with his 1958 book Inside Russia Today. As an English major at the University of Chicago, he was 20 years old when he started writing book reviews for the campus newspaper, the Daily Maroon. John graduated from the University of Chicago in 1922 and was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa key.

In late 1922, after he bicycled across Europe, John started to work as a cub reporter for The Chicago Daily News earning a salary of $15 per week. Gunther went to Wyoming in 1924 to write about the great oil deposit scandal of the Harding Administration called Teapot Dome. He wrote: "Teapot Dome has no resemblance whatever to a teapot [or] to a dome."  His bad jokes notwithstanding, in fact his series was ranked among the best news stories of 1924.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Betty Friedan

By Mark Rhoads

Betty Friedan was a controversial author who advocated a radical brand of feminism.  She was born on Feb. 4, 1921 in Peoria, Illinois and raised in the city. Her birth name was Bettye Naomi Goldstein.  Her father Harry Goldstein was an immigrant to Peoria from Kiev, Russia who peddled buttons on the street when he first arrived and became the proprietor of a jewelry shop in Peoria that he advertised as "the finest jewelry store in the middle west." One family member called the store "the Tiffany's of Peoria" perhaps in a humorous vein and perhaps not.

Betty's mother was Miriam Horowitz Goldstein who was born in America and was a graduate of Bradley University.  Miriam was editor of the society page for a local newspaper.  Miriam's father was a Hungarian immigrant and doctor who became public health commissioner of Peoria after World War I when Betty was a small child.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Henry Regnery, Sr.

By Mark Rhoads

It is hard to imagine a more important leader in the American conservative movement in the last half of the 20th Century than Henry Regnery.  Henry and his Chicago-based publishing company were the essential elements in giving new conservative professors and authors a means to share their ideas with the reading public.  Before Henry, it was extremely difficult for conservative authors to find any publisher for their work. Those ideas eventually laid the intellectual groundwork for Sen. Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964 and the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1989.

Mr. Regnery was born on Jan. 5, 1912 in Hinsdale, Illinois. He graduated from MIT in 1933 with a B.S. in mathematics. He spent two years studying at the University of Bonn, Germany but returned to America in 1935 to study economics at Harvard University. In about 1937, Regnery was an active member of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that was then active in helping jobless victims of the Depression. Regnery helped to start, and then later ran, a knitting mill in western Pennsylvania to provide jobs for unemployed coal miners.

In 1947, he founded Henry Regnery Company book publishers in Chicago to help conservative authors. But the company published other works as well including poetry.  Among the early conservative books were God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley, Jr and The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, Witness by Whitaker Chambers, and The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry M. Goldwater.  The company also published works for the University of Chicago.

Books written by Regnery himself include Creative Chicago: From the Chap-Book to the University and Cliff Dwellers: The History of a Chicago Cultural Institution. Mr. Regnery played the cello and loved music.  He was a long-time member and benefactor of the American Conservatory of Music.

By Mark Rhoads

It is hard to imagine a more important leader in the American conservative movement in the last half of the 20th Century than Henry Regnery.  Henry and his Chicago-based publishing company were the essential elements in giving new conservative professors and authors a means to share their ideas with the reading public.  Before Henry, it was extremely difficult for conservative authors to find any publisher for their work. Those ideas eventually laid the intellectual groundwork for Sen. Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964 and the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1989.

Mr. Regnery was born on Jan. 5, 1912 in Hinsdale, Illinois. He graduated from MIT in 1933 with a B.S. in mathematics. He spent two years studying at the University of Bonn, Germany but returned to America in 1935 to study economics at Harvard University. In about 1937, Regnery was an active member of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that was then active in helping jobless victims of the Depression. Regnery helped to start, and then later ran, a knitting mill in western Pennsylvania to provide jobs for unemployed coal miners.

In 1947, he founded Henry Regnery Company book publishers in Chicago to help conservative authors. But the company published other works as well including poetry.  Among the early conservative books were God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley, Jr and The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, Witness by Whitaker Chambers, and The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry M. Goldwater.  The company also published works for the University of Chicago.

Books written by Regnery himself include Creative Chicago: From the Chap-Book to the University and Cliff Dwellers: The History of a Chicago Cultural Institution. Mr. Regnery played the cello and loved music.  He was a long-time member and benefactor of the American Conservatory of Music.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Gwendolyn Brooks

By Mark Rhoads

In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks of Chicago became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize. In 1968, the Illinois General Assembly asked her to become the Poet Laureate of Illinois after the death of Carl Sandburg who had been named to that post in 1962.

Gwendolyn was born on June 17, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas and her family moved to the South Side of Chicago shortly after her birth. During the Depression, she attended three different high schools, all with different racial dynamics. They were at that time the mostly white Hyde Park High School, the mostly black Wendell Phillips High School, and finally the integrated Englewood High School.

In 1936, Gwendolyn graduated from the then new Woodrow Wilson Junior College at 6800 S. Wentworth. The school's name was changed in 1969 to Kennedy-King College in honor of two national leaders assassinated in 1968, Sen. Robert Kennedy and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

According to Kenny Jackson Williams in Modern American Poetry Magazine, the next years were the most important of her life in shaping her writing career. Few Chicagoans today understand the international importance of Hariet Monroe and her small-circulation Poetry Magazine that was founded in Chicago early in the 20th Century. The tiny magazine was considered the most prestigious venue in the world for any poet and it gave a tremenous boost to Illinois poets such as Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and Vachel Lindsay. The magazine paradoxically transformed the rough and unrefined "city of the big shoulders" into the world capital of poetry. Williams writes about Brooks: 

"Her profound interest in poetry informed much of her early life. "Eventide," her first poem, was published in American Childhood Magazine in 1930. A few years later she met James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, who urged her to read modern poetry--especially the work of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and e. c. cummings--and who emphasized the need to write as much and as frequently as she possibly could. By 1934 Brooks had become an adjunct member of the staff of the Chicago Defender and had published almost one hundred of her poems in a weekly poetry column."

"In 1938 she married Henry Blakely and moved to a kitchenette apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Between the birth of her first child, Henry, Jr., in 1940 and the birth of Nora in 1951, she became associated with the group of writers involved in Harriet Monroe's still-extant Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. From this group she received further encouragement, and by 1943 she had won the Midwestern Writers Conference Poetry Award."

"In 1945 her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (published by Harper and Row), brought her instant critical acclaim. She was selected one of Mademoiselle magazine's "Ten Young Women of the Year," she won her first Guggenheim Fellowship, and she became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her second book of poems, Annie Allen (1949), won Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Prize. In 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. From that time to the present, she has seen the recipient of a number of awards, fellowships, and honorary degrees usually designated as Doctor of Humane Letters."

"President John Kennedy invited her to read at a Library of Congress poetry festival in 1962. In 1985 she was appointed poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. Just as receiving a Pulitzer Prize for poetry marked a milestone in her career, so also did her selection by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the 1994 Jefferson Lecturer, the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government."

"Her first teaching job was a poetry workshop at Columbia College (Chicago) in 1963. She went on to teach creative writing at a number of institutions including Northeastern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York, and the University of Wisconsin."

Gwendolyn Brooks died on Dec. 3, 2000. In 2003, the Illinois State Library in Springfield was renamed as the Gwendolyn Brooks Illinois State Library in her honor. For a sample of some poems, prose, and essays on the work of Gwendolyn Brooks, click here to see her home page on the Modern American Poetry Web Site.

By Mark Rhoads

In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks of Chicago became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize. In 1968, the Illinois General Assembly asked her to become the Poet Laureate of Illinois after the death of Carl Sandburg who had been named to that post in 1962.

Gwendolyn was born on June 17, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas and her family moved to the South Side of Chicago shortly after her birth. During the Depression, she attended three different high schools, all with different racial dynamics. They were at that time the mostly white Hyde Park High School, the mostly black Wendell Phillips High School, and finally the integrated Englewood High School.

In 1936, Gwendolyn graduated from the then new Woodrow Wilson Junior College at 6800 S. Wentworth. The school's name was changed in 1969 to Kennedy-King College in honor of two national leaders assassinated in 1968, Sen. Robert Kennedy and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

According to Kenny Jackson Williams in Modern American Poetry Magazine, the next years were the most important of her life in shaping her writing career. Few Chicagoans today understand the international importance of Hariet Monroe and her small-circulation Poetry Magazine that was founded in Chicago early in the 20th Century. The tiny magazine was considered the most prestigious venue in the world for any poet and it gave a tremenous boost to Illinois poets such as Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and Vachel Lindsay. The magazine paradoxically transformed the rough and unrefined "city of the big shoulders" into the world capital of poetry. Williams writes about Brooks: 

"Her profound interest in poetry informed much of her early life. "Eventide," her first poem, was published in American Childhood Magazine in 1930. A few years later she met James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, who urged her to read modern poetry--especially the work of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and e. c. cummings--and who emphasized the need to write as much and as frequently as she possibly could. By 1934 Brooks had become an adjunct member of the staff of the Chicago Defender and had published almost one hundred of her poems in a weekly poetry column."

"In 1938 she married Henry Blakely and moved to a kitchenette apartment on Chicago’s South Side. Between the birth of her first child, Henry, Jr., in 1940 and the birth of Nora in 1951, she became associated with the group of writers involved in Harriet Monroe's still-extant Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. From this group she received further encouragement, and by 1943 she had won the Midwestern Writers Conference Poetry Award."

"In 1945 her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (published by Harper and Row), brought her instant critical acclaim. She was selected one of Mademoiselle magazine's "Ten Young Women of the Year," she won her first Guggenheim Fellowship, and she became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her second book of poems, Annie Allen (1949), won Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Prize. In 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. From that time to the present, she has seen the recipient of a number of awards, fellowships, and honorary degrees usually designated as Doctor of Humane Letters."

"President John Kennedy invited her to read at a Library of Congress poetry festival in 1962. In 1985 she was appointed poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. Just as receiving a Pulitzer Prize for poetry marked a milestone in her career, so also did her selection by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the 1994 Jefferson Lecturer, the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government."

"Her first teaching job was a poetry workshop at Columbia College (Chicago) in 1963. She went on to teach creative writing at a number of institutions including Northeastern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York, and the University of Wisconsin."

Gwendolyn Brooks died on Dec. 3, 2000. In 2003, the Illinois State Library in Springfield was renamed as the Gwendolyn Brooks Illinois State Library in her honor. For a sample of some poems, prose, and essays on the work of Gwendolyn Brooks, click here to see her home page on the Modern American Poetry Web Site.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Edna Ferber

By Mark Rhoads

Novelist and playwright Edna Ferber was born on Aug. 15, 1885 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Her father Jacob Ferber was a Hungarian-Jewish shopkeeper and her mother Julia Neumann Ferber was from Milwaukee.  As a child, Edna grew up in Chicago and Ottumwa, Iowa and moved to Appleton, Wisconsin at age 12.  She graduated from Ryan High School in Appleton and so impressed the editor of the Apppleton Daily Crescent at age 17 old that he hired her as a reporter for a salary of $3 per week.  Women newspaper reporters were extremely rare in 1902.  Her dream was to study at Northwestern University's School of Education but her family's finances were then too limited for that goal.  When her father Jacob died in 1909, Edna and her mother and sister moved to the South Side of Chicago.  For the next thirteen years throughout World War I and until 1923, they lived in different apartments on Vincennes Avenue, in East View Park, and finally at the Windemere Hotel in Hyde Park.

Edna's years in Chicago were marked a period of prolific writing.  She said the energy of the city and the unlimited cast of characters was a source of constant inspiration to write.  Her early writing was almost always about her own experiences based on where she was living and what she knew about.  Her first short story, The Homely Heroine, was published in 1910 by Everybody's Magazine.  The story was set in Appleton.  In 1911, her first novel was published.  The novel, Dawn O'Hara, was again autobiographical in the sense that it was about a newspaper woman in Milwaukee.  Her stories about a traveling woman underskirt salesman, Emma McChesney, were very popular in magazines before World War I.  More than thirty of the stories were published.  Her first collection of stories in 1912 was called Buttered Side Down. Her first play based on the series, Our Mrs. McChesney, was produced in 1915 starring the legendary actress Ethel Barrymore. 

Her stories about the hardships of women in Chicago and Illinois were hugely popluar.  Some of her heroines were lonely from travels on the road.  One heroine in That Home Town Feeling just wants to observe life from the perspective of a newspaper stand at the corner of Clark and Randolph Streets to watch the diversity of Chicagoans pass by.  In her short story called Blue Blood, Edna wrote about the stockyards.  She often said that while a city, Chicago had the feel of a small town especially on the public beaches that were the great equalizers of the Chicago population.  She wrote a lot about her inspriation from Chicago in her first autobiography called A Peculiar Treasure in 1939.  Her second autobiography A Kind of Magic was published in 1963. 

In 1924, Edna Ferber won the Pulitzer Prize for So Big, her novel about the life of hardship for a woman raising a child on a truck farm outside Chicago.  A great many of her heroines were the working women of Chicago.  Her novel, The Girls, was about three generations of Chicago women.  Among her best known books made into plays and movies was Showboat (1926) which was produced on Broadway as a play and later a musical by Illinois-native showman Florenz Ziegfeld.  One of the stars of Showboat both on stage and in the film version was singer and actress Helen Morgan, a native of Danville, Illinois.  Other famous works by Edna Ferber were Cimarron (1929), Giant (1952), and Ice Palace (1958). In 1956, Giant was made into a movie starring Illinois-native Rock Hudson, a graduate of New Trier High School, and Elizabeth Taylor.  It was also the last film in the very brief career of James Dean.

While she maintained strong ties to Chicago, Edna Ferber began to spend much more time in New York in the late 1920s and 1930s to write stage plays and musicals.  Her Broadway successes included Show Boat (1927), Dinner at Eight (1932), Stage Door (1936), and the musical Saratoga (1959) which was also a book and movie as Saratoga Trunk.  For a list of her works on Broadway, see Edna Ferber's page on the Internet Broadway Data Base.  For a list of movies and TV shows based on the stories, novels, and plays by Edna Ferber, see here page on the Internet Movie Data Base. Edna Ferber died at the age of 82 on April 16, 1968 at her apartment on Park Avenue in New York.  Her obituary in The New York Times stated that critics in the 1920s and 1930s did not hesitate to call her "the greatest American woman novelist of her day."

By Mark Rhoads

Novelist and playwright Edna Ferber was born on Aug. 15, 1885 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Her father Jacob Ferber was a Hungarian-Jewish shopkeeper and her mother Julia Neumann Ferber was from Milwaukee.  As a child, Edna grew up in Chicago and Ottumwa, Iowa and moved to Appleton, Wisconsin at age 12.  She graduated from Ryan High School in Appleton and so impressed the editor of the Apppleton Daily Crescent at age 17 old that he hired her as a reporter for a salary of $3 per week.  Women newspaper reporters were extremely rare in 1902.  Her dream was to study at Northwestern University's School of Education but her family's finances were then too limited for that goal.  When her father Jacob died in 1909, Edna and her mother and sister moved to the South Side of Chicago.  For the next thirteen years throughout World War I and until 1923, they lived in different apartments on Vincennes Avenue, in East View Park, and finally at the Windemere Hotel in Hyde Park.

Edna's years in Chicago were marked a period of prolific writing.  She said the energy of the city and the unlimited cast of characters was a source of constant inspiration to write.  Her early writing was almost always about her own experiences based on where she was living and what she knew about.  Her first short story, The Homely Heroine, was published in 1910 by Everybody's Magazine.  The story was set in Appleton.  In 1911, her first novel was published.  The novel, Dawn O'Hara, was again autobiographical in the sense that it was about a newspaper woman in Milwaukee.  Her stories about a traveling woman underskirt salesman, Emma McChesney, were very popular in magazines before World War I.  More than thirty of the stories were published.  Her first collection of stories in 1912 was called Buttered Side Down. Her first play based on the series, Our Mrs. McChesney, was produced in 1915 starring the legendary actress Ethel Barrymore. 

Her stories about the hardships of women in Chicago and Illinois were hugely popluar.  Some of her heroines were lonely from travels on the road.  One heroine in That Home Town Feeling just wants to observe life from the perspective of a newspaper stand at the corner of Clark and Randolph Streets to watch the diversity of Chicagoans pass by.  In her short story called Blue Blood, Edna wrote about the stockyards.  She often said that while a city, Chicago had the feel of a small town especially on the public beaches that were the great equalizers of the Chicago population.  She wrote a lot about her inspriation from Chicago in her first autobiography called A Peculiar Treasure in 1939.  Her second autobiography A Kind of Magic was published in 1963. 

In 1924, Edna Ferber won the Pulitzer Prize for So Big, her novel about the life of hardship for a woman raising a child on a truck farm outside Chicago.  A great many of her heroines were the working women of Chicago.  Her novel, The Girls, was about three generations of Chicago women.  Among her best known books made into plays and movies was Showboat (1926) which was produced on Broadway as a play and later a musical by Illinois-native showman Florenz Ziegfeld.  One of the stars of Showboat both on stage and in the film version was singer and actress Helen Morgan, a native of Danville, Illinois.  Other famous works by Edna Ferber were Cimarron (1929), Giant (1952), and Ice Palace (1958). In 1956, Giant was made into a movie starring Illinois-native Rock Hudson, a graduate of New Trier High School, and Elizabeth Taylor.  It was also the last film in the very brief career of James Dean.

While she maintained strong ties to Chicago, Edna Ferber began to spend much more time in New York in the late 1920s and 1930s to write stage plays and musicals.  Her Broadway successes included Show Boat (1927), Dinner at Eight (1932), Stage Door (1936), and the musical Saratoga (1959) which was also a book and movie as Saratoga Trunk.  For a list of her works on Broadway, see Edna Ferber's page on the Internet Broadway Data Base.  For a list of movies and TV shows based on the stories, novels, and plays by Edna Ferber, see here page on the Internet Movie Data Base. Edna Ferber died at the age of 82 on April 16, 1968 at her apartment on Park Avenue in New York.  Her obituary in The New York Times stated that critics in the 1920s and 1930s did not hesitate to call her "the greatest American woman novelist of her day."

Illinois Hall of Fame: Colleen Moore

By Mark Rhoads

Almost every little girl growing up in northern Illinois since 1949 has pleaded with her parents at one time or another to see Colleen Moore's world-famous doll house at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.  Colleen came to Illinois after she had already had a career as a major star of silent films.  In the 1920s, so many young women wanted to immitate the look and fashions of Colleen Moore that millions of them cut their hair short for the rage of that decade, a hair do called "the bob."

Colleen was an icon of the Jazz Age.  F. Scott Fitgerald, another icon of the Roaring Twenties, wrote of Colleen, "I was the spark that lit up flaming youth, Colleen Moore was the torch.  What little things we are to have caused all that trouble."   Colleen's real birth name was Kathleen Morrison.  She was born in Port Huron, Michigan on Aug. 19, 1900.  Her father was an irrigation engineer.  Colleen Moore's uncle was Walter C. Howey, an editor at the Chicago Daily Tribune (the word "daily" was dropped from the mast in 1963).  Walter Howey was known for his colorful speech and mannerisms and his aggressive and sometimes shady methods of getting scoops.  Walter Howey was the inspiration for the character "Walter Burns" in the 1928 stage play and subsequent films called The Front Page.  The play was written by Chicago newspapermen Charles MacArthur (brother of philanthropist John D. MacArthur, husband of actress Helen Hayes, father of actor James MacArthur) and Ben Hecht.  To make things more confusing, there really was a good reporter named Walter Burns who worked for the Tribune in that era but the character was based on Colleen's uncle.  Howey was a friend of the controversial film producer D.W. Griffith who helped Colleen get into films while still in her teens.

Colleen's first starring role was Annie in Little Orphan Annie (silent 1918). Her breakout role was that of Patricia Fentriss, the original "flapper" in the 1923 film Flaming Youth. Of her 63 feature films, all but the last few after 1928 were silent.  Her last film was in 1934.  For a list of Colleen's films, click here.  She did adapt to sound in pictures but her trademark character of the flapper did not fit in with the Depression and she was also getting older for the types of roles she was famous for.  In her heyday in 1928, she was the top box office star making $12,500 per week when most American families were living on an income of $2,000 per year. During her success in films in the 1920s, Colleen started building her famous doll house that later became known as The Fairy Castle.  It was an extremely elaborate doll house designed by some great Hollywood artists and set makers.  Work started on The Fairy Castle in 1928 and finished about 1936.

In 1937, Colleen, now retired from the movies, moved to Chicago when she married her fourth husband, Chicago financier Homer Hargrave, a widower with two children.  Hargrave was a partner of H.M. Calvin, Co, which later became Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, & Bean (the name Bean was later replaced by Smith).  For more than 27 years from 1937 to Homer's death in 1964, Colleen had a happy married life in Chicago and raised Homer's two children.  She was active in several Chicago charities and civic affairs and served on the board of the Chicago Art Insitutute, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Women's Board of Passavant Hospital (now called Northwestern Memorial Hospital).  In 1949, she loaned The Fairy Castle to the Museum of Science and Industry for a display after it had toured the country for a few years.  In the 1970s, Colleen continued to stay involved in conservation of the doll house which was insured for almost a half million dollars in the 1930s.  In 1971 she published Colleen Moore's Doll House (Doubleday & Company).  She finally made her doll house a permanent gift to the Museum of Science and Industry in 1976.  After 34 years living in Chicago, Colleen moved back to the warmer climate of California in 1971 and passed away there in 1988.  If you have not been to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for a few years, you might want to check out what's happening at the museum here and take along a daughter or granddaughter or neice or little sister to see the doll house.  To read more about the famous doll house, click here.

By Mark Rhoads

Almost every little girl growing up in northern Illinois since 1949 has pleaded with her parents at one time or another to see Colleen Moore's world-famous doll house at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.  Colleen came to Illinois after she had already had a career as a major star of silent films.  In the 1920s, so many young women wanted to immitate the look and fashions of Colleen Moore that millions of them cut their hair short for the rage of that decade, a hair do called "the bob."

Colleen was an icon of the Jazz Age.  F. Scott Fitgerald, another icon of the Roaring Twenties, wrote of Colleen, "I was the spark that lit up flaming youth, Colleen Moore was the torch.  What little things we are to have caused all that trouble."   Colleen's real birth name was Kathleen Morrison.  She was born in Port Huron, Michigan on Aug. 19, 1900.  Her father was an irrigation engineer.  Colleen Moore's uncle was Walter C. Howey, an editor at the Chicago Daily Tribune (the word "daily" was dropped from the mast in 1963).  Walter Howey was known for his colorful speech and mannerisms and his aggressive and sometimes shady methods of getting scoops.  Walter Howey was the inspiration for the character "Walter Burns" in the 1928 stage play and subsequent films called The Front Page.  The play was written by Chicago newspapermen Charles MacArthur (brother of philanthropist John D. MacArthur, husband of actress Helen Hayes, father of actor James MacArthur) and Ben Hecht.  To make things more confusing, there really was a good reporter named Walter Burns who worked for the Tribune in that era but the character was based on Colleen's uncle.  Howey was a friend of the controversial film producer D.W. Griffith who helped Colleen get into films while still in her teens.

Colleen's first starring role was Annie in Little Orphan Annie (silent 1918). Her breakout role was that of Patricia Fentriss, the original "flapper" in the 1923 film Flaming Youth. Of her 63 feature films, all but the last few after 1928 were silent.  Her last film was in 1934.  For a list of Colleen's films, click here.  She did adapt to sound in pictures but her trademark character of the flapper did not fit in with the Depression and she was also getting older for the types of roles she was famous for.  In her heyday in 1928, she was the top box office star making $12,500 per week when most American families were living on an income of $2,000 per year. During her success in films in the 1920s, Colleen started building her famous doll house that later became known as The Fairy Castle.  It was an extremely elaborate doll house designed by some great Hollywood artists and set makers.  Work started on The Fairy Castle in 1928 and finished about 1936.

In 1937, Colleen, now retired from the movies, moved to Chicago when she married her fourth husband, Chicago financier Homer Hargrave, a widower with two children.  Hargrave was a partner of H.M. Calvin, Co, which later became Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, & Bean (the name Bean was later replaced by Smith).  For more than 27 years from 1937 to Homer's death in 1964, Colleen had a happy married life in Chicago and raised Homer's two children.  She was active in several Chicago charities and civic affairs and served on the board of the Chicago Art Insitutute, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Women's Board of Passavant Hospital (now called Northwestern Memorial Hospital).  In 1949, she loaned The Fairy Castle to the Museum of Science and Industry for a display after it had toured the country for a few years.  In the 1970s, Colleen continued to stay involved in conservation of the doll house which was insured for almost a half million dollars in the 1930s.  In 1971 she published Colleen Moore's Doll House (Doubleday & Company).  She finally made her doll house a permanent gift to the Museum of Science and Industry in 1976.  After 34 years living in Chicago, Colleen moved back to the warmer climate of California in 1971 and passed away there in 1988.  If you have not been to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for a few years, you might want to check out what's happening at the museum here and take along a daughter or granddaughter or neice or little sister to see the doll house.  To read more about the famous doll house, click here.

Illinois Hall of Fame: L. Frank Baum

By Mark Rhoads

Lyman Frank Baum was born near Syracuse, New York in 1856.  HIs father worked as a barrel maker but later became wealthy in the oil business.  In the 1870s as a young man, Baum's father put him in charge of managing some theaters and in 1881 he wrote and published a successful musical play called The Maid of Arran.  He married Maud Gage in 1882 whose mother was a major figure in the campaign for woman's suffrage and was a friend of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  He tried to be a newspaper publisher but his early ventures failed, including a newspaper in South Dakota.  Frank often struggled with poor health.  He moved to Chicago in 1891 to work as a reporter for the Chicago Evening Post.

During the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and after, Frank worked at many jobs including selling china and creating Christmas displays for store windows.  But writing was his passion, particularly history and fairy tales for children. Frank Baum's first book for children in 1897 was Mother Goose in Prose which was a modest success.  Other books for children followed including Father Goose--His Book written by Baum and illustrated by William Wallace Denslow.

In 1900 the team of Baum and Denslow took their new book to Chicago pubisher George M. Hill Company.  The book was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  It became an instant success and eventually was one of the most popular and best-selling children's books of all time.  In 1939, twenty years after Frank Baum passed away, the story of Oz found new life again as the foundation for one of the most successful children's movies of all time.  Pictured at right are the stars: Burt Lahr as The Cowardly Lion, Jack Haley as The Tin Man, Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale from Kansas, and Ray Bolger as The Scarecrow.  One actress not pictured was Billie Burke who played Glinda The Good Witch of the North.  In the 1920s, Billie Burke was married to Florenz Ziegfield, Jr. who was a native of Chicago and the producer of The Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway.  HIs father, Florenz Sr., ran a Music School in Chicago and was Director of Music at the Columbian Exposition.  His most famous student was Lillian Russell.

One key difference between Frank Baum's book and the Hollywood film is that in the book the journey to Oz is a journey to a real place whereas in the film the journey is portrayed as a dream for Dorothy who was knocked unconscious during a cyclone.  Nevertheless, the movie gains millions of new young fans every year on television.  Frank Baum wrote several more books about the characters of Oz in the early 1900s and all but the first were published by another Chicago publishing house called Reilly & Lee.  After 19 years of writing and publishing his most important books in Chicago, Frank Baum moved to Hollywood, California in 1910 and he died there in 1919.   

By Mark Rhoads

Lyman Frank Baum was born near Syracuse, New York in 1856.  HIs father worked as a barrel maker but later became wealthy in the oil business.  In the 1870s as a young man, Baum's father put him in charge of managing some theaters and in 1881 he wrote and published a successful musical play called The Maid of Arran.  He married Maud Gage in 1882 whose mother was a major figure in the campaign for woman's suffrage and was a friend of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  He tried to be a newspaper publisher but his early ventures failed, including a newspaper in South Dakota.  Frank often struggled with poor health.  He moved to Chicago in 1891 to work as a reporter for the Chicago Evening Post.

During the Columbian Exposition of 1893 and after, Frank worked at many jobs including selling china and creating Christmas displays for store windows.  But writing was his passion, particularly history and fairy tales for children. Frank Baum's first book for children in 1897 was Mother Goose in Prose which was a modest success.  Other books for children followed including Father Goose--His Book written by Baum and illustrated by William Wallace Denslow.

In 1900 the team of Baum and Denslow took their new book to Chicago pubisher George M. Hill Company.  The book was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  It became an instant success and eventually was one of the most popular and best-selling children's books of all time.  In 1939, twenty years after Frank Baum passed away, the story of Oz found new life again as the foundation for one of the most successful children's movies of all time.  Pictured at right are the stars: Burt Lahr as The Cowardly Lion, Jack Haley as The Tin Man, Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale from Kansas, and Ray Bolger as The Scarecrow.  One actress not pictured was Billie Burke who played Glinda The Good Witch of the North.  In the 1920s, Billie Burke was married to Florenz Ziegfield, Jr. who was a native of Chicago and the producer of The Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway.  HIs father, Florenz Sr., ran a Music School in Chicago and was Director of Music at the Columbian Exposition.  His most famous student was Lillian Russell.

One key difference between Frank Baum's book and the Hollywood film is that in the book the journey to Oz is a journey to a real place whereas in the film the journey is portrayed as a dream for Dorothy who was knocked unconscious during a cyclone.  Nevertheless, the movie gains millions of new young fans every year on television.  Frank Baum wrote several more books about the characters of Oz in the early 1900s and all but the first were published by another Chicago publishing house called Reilly & Lee.  After 19 years of writing and publishing his most important books in Chicago, Frank Baum moved to Hollywood, California in 1910 and he died there in 1919.   

Illinois Table at National Book Festival a Huge Success

Illinois resident and children's author Richard Peck was the star attraction at the Illinois table on Sept. 30, 2006 at the National Book Festival on the Mall sponsored by the Library of Congress with First Lady Laura Bush as honorary chair.

More than 60,000 people attended The National Book Festival on the Mall. The event was a huge success and so was the Illinois table.  Bonnie Matheis from the the state library in Springfield came with author Ray Elliott to host the Illinois table in the States Pavilion Tent.  Six members of the Illinois State Society showed up for the busy morning hours to help Bonnie greet children and authors.

Joan Neiman, Laura Baker, Jeanne Jacob, Gerry Frank, one other ISS and Junior League volunteer and Mark Rhoads had their hands full helping Bonnie put Lincoln Hat stamps on the USA maps that chldren brought to the table.  About 1,400 Illinois Heritage Maps were passed out and a few ISS membership reply envelopes.  This is the fifth year of the National Book Fair on the Mall sponsored by First Lady Laura Bush and the Library of Congress and state libraries.  Many talks by authors were taped by C-SPAN.  Illinois authors autographed magazine articles and books at the crowded Illinois table.

This is the fifth year of the festival and each year has seen larger crowds.