Though shunned for more than a generation by many historians, the study of state and local history has continued to enrich our understanding of history. Fortunately, pride-of-place has continued to spur interest in local history, but it is perhaps time that we reexamine the significance of the approach, as it is perhaps too easy to underestimate how the study of local history can provide support, context and insight into the study of history generally.
The Department of History at Illinois State University has regularly offered courses in the history of Chicago, the state of Illinois and Local History, but its faculty—spurred in part by an October 2003 Illinois State Board of Education mandate to insure that the state’s public university graduates in history and social education programs demonstrate their competency in Illinois state history —wondered whether the department should increase its emphasis upon the state’s history in its curriculum. With funds provided through the Illinois Professional Learners' Partnership (IPLP) program, the department explored how it could best strengthen its teaching of Illinois history. Following a survey of its own faculty, the region’s high school teachers and the departments of history at the state’s other public universities, we concluded that it would develop a project that would encourage its faculty to introduce vignettes of Illinois history into their regular courses in American in history.
The rationale was compelling. The region’s high school teachers had expressed no strong desire to expand their emphasis of Illinois history within their existing curriculum. To do so would require that emphasis be shifted from the teaching of general American history when they felt that too little time was already being spent on general history. We felt, as a result, that it would serve little purpose for the department to force its students to shift their own course work from other subjects in history to a subject that would fill no immediate need. We concluded that the department’s wisest course of action would be to develop a series of vignettes in Illinois history that could be included in the teaching of its regular courses in American history. The vignettes could demonstrate to our students how their state’s history has played a vital role in the development of our nation.
This site is the result of our two year effort to develop a series of vignettes, as well as sources and readings, and examples of lesson plans that illustrate the role that the state has played in general American history. They will—we earnestly hope—encourage university faculty and high and middle school teachers to incorporate the study of Illinois history into their existing courses.
